So. Millions of people use Apple’s Mail.app. Someone must have a solution to the problem of households … but I somehow have been left in the dark.

Stated more precisely:
I have numerous friends for whom I have multiple contacts. For example, Alice Code and Bob Crypto are what we now call pairbonded partners. They share a common home address, but separate cell phones, email, work addresses, work email, etc. So I end up keeping three records for the two of them: one for Alice, one for Bob, and one for Bob and Alice.

Now, three records for two people isn’t so onerous, particularly when there’s not a lot of redundant information. But then, if they happen to have a land-line, and change the number, I have to update three records (unless I only put home number for the common record, in which case I’d have to remember this protocol). And the fact is that there are a lot of redundant notes I try to keep, such as anniversaries, favorite charities, etc. This makes the system unwieldy, especially since my whole goal is to reduce the amount of stuff I have to remember and maintain.

So how do people in the real world manage this? Bonus points for solutions that will still work when I sync to my Palm-OS based phone!

Having mailed off the charitable/political/ donations for 2008, I thought it might be worth listing some of the recipients here:

• Social Action
  • American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
  • Amnesty International
  • Bet Tzedek
  • Doctors without Borders
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation
  • FINCA International
  • Five Acres
  • Food on Foot
  • Free Arts For Abused Children
  • Frontline Foundation
  • GLAAD
  • Habitat For Humanity
  • Hillel
  • La Casa De Las Madres
  • Liberty Hill Foundation
  • Los Angeles Regional Food Bank
  • National Immigration Law Center
  • Native American Rights Fund
  • National Jewish Medical & Research Center
  • Para Los Ninos
  • Project Angel Food
  • SOVA Food Pantries
  • Women for Women International
  • Women’s American ORT
  • Women’s Center of Cambridge
• Environment
  • Heal the Bay
  • The Nature Conservancy
  • Surfrider Foundation
• Arts
  • City Garage Theatre
• Animals
  • Pasado’s Safe Haven

Harry Houdini, 1920, read as an etext published at manybooks.net

Houdini reveals to us his encyclopedic knowledge of the history of certain magic tricks, who performed them, where they did it, and what variations they used. He also tells us how they actually did it. You’d think it would make more compelling reading than it does, but it’s actually fairly dry.

Still, it was interesting to learn the secrets behind some of the tricks I’ve seen, such as firewalking.

by H. G. Wells, 1909, read as an ebook from manybooks.net

This is an interesting piece, that captures the changing social structures of London at the turn of the last century. Wells’ protagonist, the eponymous Ann Veronica, is bright, ambitious, naive, and, in many ways, a typical rebellious teenager.

Through Ann Veronica’s experiences, we’re exposed to enthusiastic utopianists of several flavors, including Socialists, Feminists, and advocates of Free Love (not coincidentally, also interests of Wells). But Wells happily points out that many of these radicals are painfully human. They have petty egos, their personal agendas drive their idealism, and many are simply using their causes as an excuse for distraction from a tedious or unpleasant situation. In fact, the depiction of the idealists (and the more cynical traditionalists) is more interesting than the plot, which falls back on a traditional happy ending of sorts.

By M. John Harrison, Ace Books, 1984

As Peter documents, this has a certain amount of overlap with the short stories included in 2005’s Viriconium, but there are some interesting differences; for example, Viriconium Nights’ story “The Lamia and Lord Cromis” and Viriconium‘s “The Lamia & Lord Cromis” are related yet different stories. It’s an interesting exercise reading both of them and seeing how the vision changed — or contemplating that perhaps the vision didn’t change at all. With so much in Viriconium, similar places or events may really be parallels in place or the cycles of history, or contrariwise, the differences may be entirely illusory.

What else can I say except that this is more Viriconium, which is a weak, pathetic summation of something very complex and subtle!

(Just catching up here… It’s been nine months since I read this).