Mousetrap - 37

Thank you, but..
Rejection Collection
The wide arms of the web embrace all kinds. This site’s claim to your browsing attention is rejection. Nay, not the romantic type, I hasten to add. Just the average rejection letter so much the feature of most creative people’s lives. You get to read rejection letters sorted by source (magazine, newspaper, small press, galleries, agents, etc.) and even reactions to rejection by the rejected, some, frankly, seem to only prove that that person deserved to be canned. You also have celeb interviews by the site’s founder, a set of positive stories and views ‘from the other side.’ And guess what? You can submit your own sob-stories too. Caveat: they may not be published. So what? Another letter for your collection! (Link courtesy John Mathew)

Spiced
Naughty Curry
Found this while I was searching for sites for a planned Food edition of this column (by the way, if you have suggestions, mail them in). This site stands out from the usual ‘exotic Indian food for the West’ or NRI/Indians-writing-for-NRI/Indians varieties when you go searching for Indian food-related stuff. There are no identifiably Indian faces behind the site, for one. And the focus is not so much Indian food but “about applying the spice techniques of Indian-related cuisines to enhance anything from last night's leftovers from a garden-variety chain restaurant to those instant mashed potatoes from your otherwise-empty pantry.” So it is an interesting perspective. The added bonus: entertaining writing, and loads of attitude. Go taste. It’s free.

Agony aunt
Dear Aunt Nettie
Aunt Nettie claims to be an internet pioneer of the 19th Century. She has answers dating back to the mid-90s, at any rate, and still answers her readers regularly, with a combination of self-deprecating wit and charm. Her archives are well worth the effort, as are the other sections of her site, most notably The Museum of Depressionist Art, and The Gallery of the Unidentifiable, which feature her art work as well. Which, I just realised, I could have strung out into two more entries for this column. Never mind. I shall raid her Links section for next time. Oops. Did I just say that aloud?

A quick stop
Urinalnet
Need a pitstop on your travels? Check this out. Large photo galleries, mainly US-centric, but also an international section.

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This week’s blog

Remote control
War for News
A newish blog that seeks to follow the battle for the English TV news viewers’ eyeballs. Unlike many other media-watcher blogs, this one isn’t about bile-spilling. The blog has substance and style, is well-written, and worth a place on your feed reader if you’re a news-as-news follower. Reservations: the writer has chosen to focus on just two of the English news channels. But s/he has hinted that the scope of the site may widen when a certain TV channel not too unrelated to this page makes its debut.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 22nd January, 2006.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap