stuff stuff stuff...

“While most people would find it impossible to meet a mortgage payment selling $8 crocheted mug cozies, some top-sellers on Etsy have moved beyond the stage of earning pocket money and are building careers — in some cases, earning six-figure incomes.

But even the successes add a note of “seller beware.” To build a profitable business on the site, they say — well, it’s a business. You need to build a brand identity, which often means courting design blogs or the news media. You need to manage distribution, which might mean standing in post office lines with a baby on your hip and a garbage bag filled with 30 self-packed boxes to ship. And as with any start-up, you need to maintain the morale of the labor force, which can be particularly challenging when you are the labor force, and the workday runs from “Good Morning America” to “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”(…)

Still, the challenge is to find balance. “What’s the point of doing something you love,” she asked, “if you are too exhausted to do what you love?”

“Many friends have told me of similar personal, powerful emotions in response to this film, emotions that were also joyously pleasurable. Yet, I have listened to many post-screening Q-and-As and heard the confused questions of those who are puzzled, distanced by the film because it is “fantasy.” It strikes me that what these questions fail to take into account is that there are two kinds of facts: historical facts and emotional ones. Emotional facts, or feelings, are a condensed, animal form of personal history; expanding them tells the story of one’s life. Feelings are just as much a reality as facts. Art, similarly, functions as a condensed statement about life. When art resonates with an audience, those emotions are real — they cannot be dismissed because the story is “historically inaccurate.” Quentin Tarantino understood it was more important to be emotionally accurate than to follow a story previously written by history. Art must resonate with a truthful emotion inside the viewer in order for it to survive, and, if not, it falls by the wayside, disregarded and dies a forgotten work.”