Accolades: Arte y Pico Awards

I humbly "pass the peas" on to five bloggers with the understanding that we're all busy living in the modern world. No hard feelings if you choose not to accept at this juncture but three extra cheers if you do!

The rules:

1. You have to pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.

[Johnny Yen generously gave "Erik's Choice" an Arte y Pico Award: "The breadth and depth of Erik's blogging is amazing. Whether it's Iggy Pop, Diane Arbus, the White Stripes or Albert Camus, his posts are illuminating, interesting and entertaining." Shucks. Thanks, Johnny!]: Here Comes Johnny Yen Again at http://johnnyyen.blogspot.com/.

2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.

3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award (done at the end of Paragraph 1).

4. Please include a link to the “Arte Y Pico” blog so that everyone will know where the award came from: http://arteypico.blogspot.com/ (Arte y pico: El arte es maravilloso, mas aun cuando se puede compartir con otros).

5. Show these rules.

And now (drum roll), my choices for the Arte y Pico Award! What they all share is consistency over time, depth, and seriousness of purpose, with a sometimes funny twist:

Lana Gramlich, The Dreaming Tree http://lucidflora.blogspot.com/

I thoroughly enjoy Lana's focus on photography and artwork, dreams and cultural advocacy. Beautiful, dreamy, but also sobering about our global prospects.

Charles Gramlich, Razored Zen http://charlesgramlich.blogspot.com/

Charles writes a lot about writing, family, place, teaching, and just about anything under the sun, and he does so with exceptionally measured fairness and experientially-derived wisdom.

James R. Tomlinson, JR's Thumbprints http://jrthumbprints.blogspot.com/

Jim's writing draws mostly on his experiences as a prison educator, a dramatic niche with all sorts of possibilities, but let's not forget his colorful posts on fishing, neighbors and family, dogs, landscaping, and some real cool photographs of yesteryear.

Sidney Williams, Sid Is Alive http://www.sidisalive.com/

Sid's eclectic posts embrace cats, writing, technology, culture, and a rich variety of life experiences. He also writes about family and friends and always seems to be able to maintain a very positive disposition.

Mark Durfee aka The Walking Man
http://www.themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com

Mark regularly exhibits great strength and intensity whether he's articulating thoughts about Detroit, politics, culture, memory or life in general, laying down poetry, or rendering philosophy in action.

It's always a great pleasure to read these blogs and to participate in this freewheeling, virtual -- and vital -- community. Thank you, all.

Today's Rune: Partnership.