Fred Johnson links to my blog in his new blog “Stemwinder” (love the name). I’m gratified; I go to the blog; I read it; I look for the profile, of course; and like Alice confronted by her comestibles, I obey the implicit command in the “my web page” link and, well, click. Now I find a cabinet of wonders: a fascinating website full of interesting images that are just clever enough (not too clever by half), and a link to a blogroll featuring Fred’s students this term. They’re all blogging. I click on one. The writing is interesting, the prompts are clever, and the mental link to the “Phantom Professor on Voice” blog I just read (by following another of Fred’s links) starts to spark up interesting connections, like the one between a tortilla chip and the perfect strawberry cobbler cookie, as detailed by Malcolm Gladwell in the recent food edition of the New Yorker (blogged about in another context by Jon Udell).

I do not have time to read everything right now. I do have time to put Stemwinder and Phantom Professor on my Bloglines blogroll. All that said, here’s the heart of it, right now, for me: these links (traces of human attention and creativity that they are) encourage me and keep me pressing forward. Always time well spent when I get a bit of that good advice.

NB: don’t miss Fred’s Tell-A-Vision.