I asked members of Upod, the group I run for professional writers and editors, to send links to their blogs and websites and send they did. If you take a look here, you’ll see how talented and productive a community it is. Among the many, many (which represents only about a tenth of the total Upod community), there are writing vodka makers, vodka-drinking taste makers, thrillists, banterists and someone who ambushes the unfashionable in Central Park. As we say in the group, In Pod We Trust.

My cousin Leah’s boyfriend’s mom has an interesting take on Obama’s Berlin speech in today’s NYT. You may recall Leah’s photo from a few days ago — the one that made Obama look like the guy from Jack-in-the-Box.

Change Germans Can’t Believe In

I have an essay in the August issue of Reader’s Digest on learning to play the mandolin as an adult. It’s one of my favorite stories. Doing the photoshoot at McCabe’s Music Shop in Santa Monica with Lori Stoll made up for the humiliation of having to play in front of actual human beings (including my family) as described in the story. Click here to read it.

My cousin Leah, who recently moved to Berlin, sends this shot she took at the Obama rally yesterday. The teleprompter was in the way of The One’s head but there’s something cool about it, like one of those old doctored Kremlin photos. Click on photo for a better view.

BoingBoing posted thoughts on this cool recording device:

Olympus TP-7 telephone recording device

“A friend of mine, a journalist, recently emailed to tell me he likes the Olympus WS-110 digital voice recorder I recently recommended.

He said:I just wanted to thank you for guiding me to try the Olympus WS-110 digital voice recorder for interviews, using ffmpegx to convert the audio to MP3, and then Listen & Type to transcribe.
I’ve been using all three for a couple of weeks now, and have been very happy with the results. The recorder in particular has been great: tiny in size, it holds more hours of audio than I could ever need, and has been able to clearly record both sides of an interview.

Being able to store interviews on my computer as MP3 files is also a great benefit.

A few days ago, I bought a very useful accessory for the WS-110: The Olympus TP-7 Telephone Recording Device. You simply stick it in your ear, and make the phone call. It does a great job of recording both ends of a conversation. It will work with any recorder, not just the WS-110. It also comes with various jack adaptors.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m really set to record interviews.

Olympus TP-7 Telephone Recording Device ($16.99 at Amazon.com)”

Having interviewed many famous people over the years, much of my knowledge about life comes from them. For example, I recently interviewed Alanis Morrisette, a woman as thoughtful as she is talented. She also knows something about automobiles. At the height of the mania on her Jagged Little Pill tour, she realized certain dashboard instruments do not work as well when you are a major celebrity. Says Alanis (in an interview for Angeleno):

“I remember being on tour and people throwing their bodies on the windshield of the car as we were driving. All I could think was, ‘What do you do? Windshield wipers don’t work for that.”

This is amusing, though a colostomy bag would have been a nice touch. Vanity Fair “Cover”

See my powerhouse move into blogging? So many ideas! So much to report on the awesomeness of my daily life! Yes, let’s go!

Or not.

I know how this works, having seen so many of my brethren and sistren in the blogging trade blast off only to fizzle out. Just as you’re getting into reading about their mission to visit every strip mall in LA or sell everything they own on eBay or see what happens now that they’ve started taking steroids…the entries stop. What? Last updated May 23? But it’s December.

Anyway, so I make no promises.

But I will update you to say I’ve gotten many nice responses about the site itself, and I give all credit to Ava Savitsky, my web designer. She’s patient and smart and can be reached at Ava[.]Savitsky@Gmail[.]com.

My writing week this week is filled with brains and Scots and premature grandpas, among other things.

Writing a column for Women’s Health on the latest brain research on male and female brains and how it all translates at the breakfast table.

Spent a few hours at home (his, not mine) with Ewan McGregor for a Best Life cover. He showed me a car that cost more than every car I’ve ever bought combined.

Writing about a very amusing ailment for Details in which otherwise healthy young guys start kvetching about how loud everything is and that they can’t figure out “The Facebook.” Can’t say more than that.

Rosario Dawson cover for Angeleno. She rocks.

Met Christian Slater yesterday. I couldn’t figure out how he looks exactly like he did ten years ago. He told me he doesn’t like tofu.

Had a good conversation with Upod‘s own Chrys Wu yesterday for her blog, Ricochet, where she’s doing some interesting work. Among other things, she’s compiling a list of post-print journalism gigs people are finding. That’s at Ricochet

Project X continues to gain momentum.

Now that you’re here, I thought I’d give a quick update on the latest news. Continue to watch this space for projects in progress, book updates, readings, classes and general thoughts about the writing life.

This week, our children’s book, The Potty Train, sold its Israeli rights and soon children from Eilat to Haifa will be shouting “Chugga Chugga Poo Poo” or however that translates in Hebrew.

This Sunday, Ruth and I are finishing our month of no spending for a Reader’s Digest essay I’m writing and it’s been an astonishing month. All told we’ve spent $92.23 on essentials and made it through without buying gas, toilet paper, lattes, presents or anything from Amazon. So far, we’ve saved about $3,500. I’ll be blogging about it on RD.com.

Our tree planting (for another Reader’s Digest essay) began in earnest this week. Sebastian and I blanketed the neighborhood with leaflets announcing our plan to line Bonaparte Avenue with trees this October. So far the responses have been good — better than I expected on a treeless street that hasn’t seen much change in 50 years.

We volunteered yesterday at an amazing place in Venice called Bread & Roses cafe, which serves three meals a morning to homeless clients in a cafe setting. Ruth and I worked with chef Derrick Walker, a former chef at Bastide in LA, to turn out 150 servings of pasta bolognese. An amazing, moving experience.

In the afternoon, I was on the other end of the spectrum, writing about a fancy, funky “maid cafe” in Culver City for The New York Times. Also, my Forbes editor is having me pick 10 places in Los Angeles ‘dialed-in’ Angelenos should know about. You don’t realize how big a city this is until you write a story like that.

In terms of almosts, I almost went to Survivor in West Africa this week and then to 24 in South Africa. And I almost had to go to London next week and still might, to interview Ricky Gervais. We’ll see what happens.

The proposal for Project X is almost done and it’s a doozy. Stay tuned.