A small place, yes, as wide as the world, layered with histories and stories, where you can walk wherever you want to go. My vision of that place is Yellow Springs 2.0. Read more.
I walk through my blindness the way I saunter down streets in Paris: unfettered and alive, enchanted and engaged by the raw material of the senses. I am a blind flaneur. Come along with me. Just don’t try to take my arm, unless I ask.
Yellow Springs 2.0 is published by Mark Willis. He offers editorial and consulting services via Willis Creative New Media. Please contact him with ideas, creative projects, and inquiries about speaking and consulting.
As I’ve followed the growth of hyperlocal journalism on the web, I’ve been dismayed by parallel growth in lawsuits intended to intimidate bloggers’ freedom of the press. At the hyperlocal level such suits usually involve landlords and real estate developers, two categories of humanity with which I don’t have the best of track records. So I took note when On the Media broadcast this story about SL APP lawsuits and what bloggers can do to protect themselves:
A SLAPP, or “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” is a little known but widespread threat to the First Amendment. SLAPPs are meritless suits brought by companies, individuals and sometimes the government, not to win, but to silence critics. Congress is now considering federal anti-SLAPP legislation. OTM producer Nazanin Rafsanjani investigates.
My daughter Chenoa and granddaughter Teagan came to visit for Easter. I was so pleased when Chenoa reminisced about her Grandmother Willis, who shared my conviction that her granddaughter looked like the model for Renoir’s Girl With a Watering Can. Chenoa said to Teagan, “Your Great-Grandmother Willis was a fine lady.” I was so touched to think of my mother in this light, as a chrished great-grandmother.
I asked Chenoa to do some Yellow Springs photography for this site. Hopefully she will do the first shoot in May when everything is greener than it is now. And, of course, I’ll amuse the baby while she works.
This photo was taken by Miranda Lloyd, Chenoa’s childhood friend who is now an artist in Brooklyn.
Chefs from five Yellow Springs restaurants created a signature “Yellow Springs” pasta dish for last year’s “Spring Into The Arts” fête. In these recipes, saffron or cheddar cheese equal “Yellow” and rotini equals “Springs.” I can’t say this a culinary tradition here, but maybe it should become one. Don’t watch this video on an empty stomach! [thanks to beanyhead1]
The village made it onto another of those lists touting quaint but distinctive travel destinations. According to cheapukholidays.com:
Yellow Springs, Ohio – The small town only has a total of 3675 people and the nearest city from here is Dayton which is only 21 miles. Since 1852 when Antioch College had built at here, yellow spa town has become the guiding light of the artists, activists and thinkers. People can freely display their knitting work in the town to show the unique public art, tourists can come here to feel the freedom and self-released smoothly.
This sounds like something was lost in translation. Maybe it was written and edited by algorithm. Here’s the rubric for making the list:
In the United States, there are some small towns, which are so cool. The populations of these small towns are less than 10000, but their cuisine, culture and quality of life are so sufficient and even can compare with big cities. At the same time, the tranquility and comfort environment they provided can’t be found in big cities. Their simplicity and mystery have attracted thousands of foreign tourists. Here are four famous small towns you can choose to visit.
Last summer, Outside magazine called Yellow Springs one of America’s best small towns.
The flaneur in me is pleased to hear cycling advocates at the National Bike Summit talk about walking, too. Safe streets need multi-mode travel. [Video source: Streetfilms.org]
![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](http://williscreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki-300x229.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
