TOP DRAWER INK NEWSLETTER

 

Here's the latest issue of Top Drawer Ink, the newsletter written by author HL Carpenter that's chock full of humor and common sense information.

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February 7, 2004
Volume 2, Number 3
ISSN 1554-6330

In this issue:

1. Carpenter Country Essay

2. Top Drawer Article

3. Top Drawer Tips

4. Top Drawer Book Review

5. Top Drawer Satire

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CARPENTER COUNTRY

What's Happening in Our Neck of the Human Experience

February plays host to American Heart Month, Valentine’s Day, and in Carpenter Country, spring, despite the pessimism of a northern groundhog named Phil.

The first two occasions offer quite a conflict of interest. Do we eat healthy and protect our hearts - or scarf down candy and toast Cupid with champagne?

We guess we can do both and be glad we have a choice. It wasn’t always so.

Some say that once upon a time Valentine’s Day was a festival called Lupercalia. This ancient ceremony, which was thought to have originated when the Romans were still shepherds, was a fertility rite with sacrifices and feasting - and not on candy or heart healthy food.

After lots of wine, rambunctious youths, clad in goatskin, ran around touching and slapping everyone they saw with leather thongs. This ritual was thought to make people fertile. If you were in their path you were slapped, like it or not.

There are other versions about how Valentine’s Day got started, but whatever the truth, here in Carpenter Country we’re just happy we live in the 21st century. We’re also happy that, besides Heart Month and Valentine’s, modern-day February heralds the beginning of spring.

We know, because a red-breasted robin (and several hundred followers) landed in our backyard the other day. For a time, standing room only prevailed at the birdbath. Then clouds moved in, showers watered the garden and the wild plum tree burst into an array of purple blossoms. Next we’ll see white dogwoods, nesting bluebirds - but not a trace of Phil the groundhog.

We hope your plans for February are as enjoyable as ours: celebrating Valentine’s with a sweetheart, eating heart-healthy meals and singing about spring.

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TOP DRAWER ARTICLE

Home: Where the Love Is

by
HL Carpenter

Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but Cupid’s aim was true. You found your heart-mate and set a wedding date. Among the many decisions you have to make: where will the two of you live?

Read the entire article here

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TOP DRAWER TIPS
Topics and Tidbits

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TOP DRAWER BOOK REVIEW

by
HL Carpenter

BANG! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World
By Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
244 pages; hardcover; $24.95
Doubleday, New York, 2003

If you have more than five million dollars to spend and an advertising agency working for you, there’s a possibility your message will be heard. Otherwise it’s likely to remain buried in the blather that turns each day into one long ad blitz.

Read the entire review here

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TOP DRAWER SATIRE

The Cupid Caper

by
HL Carpenter

With the Tyco and Stewart trials getting underway, 2004 has already been a busy year for New York federal courts. And the pace is about to get even more hectic: jury selection started yesterday for yet another corporate executive. In what may set new legal precedent, Archer ‘Little Bow’ Cupid, founder and CEO of Valentine, Inc., stands accused of love in the first degree.

Read the rest here