There’s something like a new blog created every second, according to our friends at the blog tracking site Technorati. So, you know, it’s kind of tough to keep up. No surprise that when I get a note in my in-box from a pal who’s just launched a blog it means a little something more than the usual way most of us find out about blogs (even though, typically, that friend is not a professional blogger). I woke up this morning to the news that my friend Anders—a man who I continue to call the funniest man in America even though he’s lived in Sweden for years—has unleashed How to Get Good Duck upon the world. The delightful birth story of the site involves some damn good Peking duck in London, and how that duck
changed this blogger’s life. As a bonus, you can also enjoy links to Anders’ writings on pornography.

We’re still in our own birth/beta/figuring out how this is going to work exactly stage at SMITH, and we’re growing slowly but surely. SMITH remains small enough that the system is set up such that every time someone posts to SMITH, I get a little alert in my in-box. On busier traffic days this can be overwhelming, but mostly each ping causes my whole being to fill with joy: it’s as if this family’s baby is getter older, wiser, and more muscular story by story, post by post, comment by comment.

We created a community that’s a combo of group blog and interactive magazine because we believe we’re stronger, livelier, goofier, and—on our good days—smarter together. We love StoryCorps, an ambitious project with the simple mission of helping anyone tell and record their story in person at a recording booth, but hope that the stories you’ll be telling on SMITH won’t be confined to a soundproof box and a CD-recording. We want you to let your story out to the online echo chamber—and listen in for the sounds that bounce on back to you. As Anders reminds us on How to Get Good Duck, “life’s little episodes are sometimes unforgettable.” Don’t keep your own little episodes to yourself.