A great reader be:
When you’re feeling sad and lonely there’s a service I can render.

Read the book which knows you only, words can be so warm and tender.
Read me, don’t be afraid you can read me, maybe it’s late but just read me.
Read something and you’ll be found.
When its seems your friends desert you, there’s a book thinking of you.
It’s the one who’ll never hurt you, maybe it’s because words love you.
Read me, don’t be afraid you can read me, maybe it’s late but just read me.
Read me and you’ll be found.
Now don’t forget me, `cause if you let me, I will always stay by you.
You got to trust me, that’s how it must be, there’s so much a book can do.
If you read, I’ll be right with you. You and I should be together.
Take these words I long to give you. I’ll write by your side forever, read me, read me.

Ivan Kramskoi: Unknown Woman (detail)

Ivan Kramskoi: Unknown Woman (detail) (Photo credit: deflam)

It takes some gall to re-write a song made famous by Sinatra and Petula Clark…but I’ve got gall. When Art Rat Cafe (John Clinock) nominated me for the Wonderful Team Member Readership Award, that song popped into my head. Maybe because the song (in its true form) is telling you that your lover will always be there for you…and we all know that isn’t necessarily true! Ah, but a BOOK, a poem, a painting, a song…will ALWAYS BE THERE FOR YOU.

Feeling alone and misunderstood? Theres a book (blog) for that. Feeling pain in your heart that can not be healed? Theres a song for that. Need to be reminded you are not alone in this crazy, completely screwed up but beautiful world, go to a museum. Are you getting the idea? Trust me, if you’ve felt it, someone else has too. Okay so Oscar Wilde has been dead a while and where is F. Scott Fitzgerald when you need a gin and tonic? Did Kramskoi have to live so far away from me and so long ago? Thomas Merton? G.K. Chesterton? Franz Kline? Does it matter? No. Because their work is still here for us so that we do not feel alone.

Before I began “blogging” (lame word: blog) I thought (like everyone else) that it was just a world of egotistical fruitcakes blathering on about how they “feel”. Actually, that’s Facebook. The world of bloggers is a world of creative people who have found a way to express themselves and reach a larger audience. To find like-minded individuals…and not feel so “sad and lonely”. Or to just learn how to make beer in their cellars.

I can’t say I have 14 team members on Word Press. I know people are reading but the most supportive? It seems to me the most supportive (consistent) people are the ones who comment: good or bad. And for me, that would have to be Art Rat Cafe. Those too shy or uninterested to comment but still “like” are VERY appreciated. Hopefully it means they are reading.

I do have other supporters out there (not blogging) on other planets like Chicago, California, Maryland, and maybe, sometimes, Shelter Island. But they don’t say much on here. They just harass me with text messages or emails. Thank you, I do appreciate it.

So heres to John Clinock from Art Rat Cafe! Thank you for being supportive, thank you for being able to express what I feel in my heart but am unable to say, and thank you for painting, photographing and just documenting what you see and what you feel. It is beautiful.

As for 13 others? Please take the time to look to the right and click on my blog roll. I support those who support me. For the most part, each of those blogs, in some way do. Or take a gander below and check out others who have been nominated for this award. There just might be a wood worker out there that has the same obsession with old tools…

Addendum: I didn’t exactly follow the rules…never been good at that anyway. I gather that the point of all this is to get us reading and sharing. So here they be:

1. The Nominee of the Wonderful Team member Readership Award shall display the logo on his/her post/page and/or sidebar

2. The Nominee shall nominate 14 readers they appreciate over a period of 7 days (1 week) – this can be done at any rate during the week. It can be ALL on one day or a few on one day and a few on another day, etc.

3. The Nominee shall name his or her Wonderful Team Member Readership Award nominees on a post or on posts during the 7-day (1 week) period.

4. The Nominee shall make these rules, or amended rules, known to each reader s/he nominates.

5. The Nominee must finish this sentence and post: ”A Great reader is…”

PLEASE NOTE RULES CAN BE ADDED TO/AMENDED if deemed appropriate.

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