Here’s the makeup of a great blogroll: 50 Best Western Literature Blogs. To leave you with no doubt, these are lit-blogs written by 50 people staying in Best Western hotels throughout the U.S. Essential reading, friends. Next up, 40 Super 8 Films Blogs. (via Books, Inq.)

In other fun press corp news, Craig Silverman has an article on how frequently reporters and announcers around the world said “Obama” when they meant “Osama.” He has a painful video of a Canadian anchor reading the news, saying “Obama” every time she meant “Osama.” Naturally, if it needs to be said, this is all Ted Kennedy’s fault.

Today was a vacation day. I spent it with the Vikings, participating in the annual Festival of Nations at the River Centre in St. Paul (I’ll be there every day through Sunday, in case you’re in the neighborhood and in the mood for a rainbow of multiculturality). I went in a little worried, because it had been announced that our usual parking ramp is closed this year, and we’d have to park somewhere else. I discovered that this “elsewhere” ramp was in fact that one I’ve always used. Sometimes I need a fresh reminder of just how out of step I am, in general.

Today was the Student Day at the Festival, a day reserved for school classes. So we spent the day watching students schooling, fish-like, past our tables. A few stopped to ask questions. (The strangest was from a young man who wanted to know how a Viking sword was swung. If anything in this world is self-evident, it seems to me, it’s how a slashing sword works, but when I made a small demonstrative sweep, he said I had made it clear for him. Well, God bless you, son. Say hello to your Amish parents.) I sold exactly zero books, but you don’t expect much from school kids.

I was waiting for an important call on my cell phone, which was handy in my pouch at my hip, but when it came I somehow missed it. I can only assume that the ambient noise (pretty fortissimo when the kids are in high spirits) drowned it out. I saw the “missed call” note, called back and left a message, but got no response.

The event closed at 3:00 p.m. today, so I rushed home to pick up my lawnmower from the shop, where it’s been for a day or so, and do the mowing that’s so desperately needed on my lawn. But wait! Can’t do anything loud until after 5:00, the time when the window for my return call closes. So I waited, and in the interval it rained on the grass. Ah well. Let it be written in the Great Book—I tried.

Probably no blogging from me tomorrow, as the Festival runs to 10:00 p.m.

Mary T. Lewis writes, “At its most profound, and especially in [German painter Caspar David] Friedrich’s work, the motif of a view through an open window celebrated the utter subjectivity of the painter’s vision at the very threshold that divided his world and the realm of art from nature.” There’s an exhibit of Friedrich and his contemporaries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The articles has some nice pictures for those of us who aren’t planning to make it over to New York this year.