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It’s 1906 in Cold Sassy, Georgia. Will’s grandmother has just passed away and life will never be the same. Filled with unforgettable characters, Olive Ann Burns weaves a wonderful coming-of-age story filled with humor and tenderness. Cold Sassy is like most turn-of-the-century small southern towns. In this setting, where family relationships are strong, Will learns about the smallness of some minds, and the real meaning of love and reverence. Burns is a masterful storyteller which makes this a truly enjoyable read.

I am not stupid.  Honors degree in engineering.  MBA from a top school.  PhD in managment.  Fluent in French (English too, some say).  But when I try to operate the cable remote I feel pretty much like the bumbling idiot who teenagers roll their eyes at and sitcoms hold out as the typical clueless dad.

Fortunately John Palfrey and Urs Gasser have me figured out.  I’m an immigrant in this world.  Not a native.  The world I was born into no longer exists and, like an alien, I’ve found myself plunked down in foreign territory.  So of course I can’t be expected to feel perfectly at home here, regardless of whatever smarts I might possess.  In Born Digital:  Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, they explain the brave new world inhabited by those under 30 — the first generation born and raised completely wired.  Here we see a sociological portrait of this exotic tribe of young people and find they are both extraordinarily sophisticated and strangely narrow.  Good reading for those who would like to have some clue about the current generation of texters, tweeters, and bluetoothed bloggers.

In the true spirit of Christmas, Signs of Life friend Sam Billen is giving a Christmas present to the entire community.  Before recording his new Christmas project, he asked friends and family to contribute $5 each to the cost of production.  They responded enthusiastically by donating $1600.  So, he’s giving away the resulting CD.

Included on the project are 12 tracks of Christmas favorites as well as original work featuring Sam’s acoustic virtuosity and unique voice.

We don’t know how long this will last, so stop by Signs of Life soon to pick up your free copy!

Don’t you just love this time of year when the local growers present their goods at the Farmer’s Market? Still it can be a hassle to plan your week around the Market schedule and buy gas for an extra outing.

Well, what if the Farmer’s Market came to you? What if, for a subscription fee, luscious, tasty organic veggies showed up on your doorstep once a week? What if this went on for the whole growing season? Would that be a deal, or what? Some friends of our, Tim and Diane Rebman, have come up with just such a fantastic deal! To top it all off, they’ll send you weekly e-mail updates about what’s happening in the garden interspersed with interesting facts about the vegetables you’ll be eating that week, and about gardening, organics, and life in general, all in Tim’s inimitable style.

To sign up for veggie delivery, or their newsletter, or just to find out more, drop them a line: timothyrebman at earthlink dot net (you’ll have to use the standard @ and period when you format the address - writing it like that is supposed to make it a trifle harder for evil spam robots to snatch the address from this post).

Have you joined the growing club of coffee connoisseurs? Joe Farthing, local owner and roaster of J&S Coffee, discussed “The New Connoisseurship: Specialty Coffee and Tea Industries in the 21st Century” in our Public House lecture series recently (what is it?). You can watch a video of his talk here.

Caleb Stegall, editor of The New Pantagruel, gave a talk in our Culinary Culture series on “Culinary Politics: Prairie Uprisings and Agricultural Revolts in Kansas History”. This fascinating presentation centered around the farm economy of the 1890s in Kansas and might challenge us to rethink our modern political labels of “conservative” and “liberal”. The talk was videotaped and is available now to view online.

On Monday, October 2, the weekly Public House “Culinary Culture Lecture Series” featured Tom Wheat, director, farmer, importer, and roaster for Nueva Mission, Inc. in a talk entitled Thinking Locally in a Supranational Industry: Venezuela Biointesive Coffee Farm Communities and the American Consumer. Nueva Mission is a non-for-profit organization which links the people of the Caripe region in Venezuela with the community of Lawrence, KS, by growing, producing, importing, and roasting Venezuela coffee for the Lawrence market while using organic, sustainable, and community-focused methods. Wheat’s talk focused on the sharp distinctions between “conventional” farming techniques and “sustainable” farming techniques, and the impact each technique has on rural coffee-growing communities.

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This fall, Signs of Life in downtown Lawrence is offering a new series in its free Public House weekly community forum entitled, Culinary Culture: Pursuing Excellence and Sustainability from Farm to Plate. Each Monday night at 7:30 pm starting September 11, the series will feature one of our community’s foremost authorities on issues surrounding our pursuit and appreciation for local culinary culture and agriculture. Below is a description of the series:

“Excellence is a God-given virtue of a mature, sustainable, and fruitful culture, and should be pursued in all areas of life. This especially includes humankind’s relationship to the earth and its fruit. The pursuit of excellence has implications for the way we prepare our food and the way we eat, especially in relation to the intimate connection between sustainable, local agriculture and healthy, quality culinary culture. In order to explore these ideas in the context of our community, this fall, Signs of Life is offering a free, weekly lecture series that showcases some of our community’s foremost authorities on excellence in culinary culture.”

Speakers and topics will include:

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