the spark

John Grantner's Art - My visual art site. I'll update from time to time.
Joe Sorren's Art - Cool paintings and sculpture, and he's a musician too.
Gvozdariki's Art - Great paintings and sculpture. The site's not in English.
Toy Camera - Some of the very best photography I've ever seen, and all of it done with extremely low-end cameras.
Scanner Photography - Home made digital cameras. Cool!
Bad at Sports - An interesting, entertaining art blog.
Painting the weather - Really fun

Asia Times Online - News, analysis and commentary
Articles by George Monbiot - International current affairs commentary and analysis.
The Euston Manifesto - There's a movement afoot in England to make the Left relevant again. Maybe it can be done here too?
The National Secular Society - Protecting your freedom from religion
The August Review - Exposing the truth about Globalism.
The Whitehouse - The view from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Coudal Partners - One of my very favorites. It's a labor of love done by a Chicago design and advertising studio. Tons of interesting links and articles, fresh daily.
Get Human - VERY useful. How to get past automated answering devices and talk to actual human beings!
Lemon - LEMON is twice-yearly publication that stakes its claim at the intersection of 60s/70s Pop and 21st century hyper-culture.

a universal metaphor for inspiration and instigation, "The Spark" was also the title of a prerevolutionary Russian socialist periodical (Iskra) as well as my paternal grandma's maiden name (Iskirka in Slovak). So the title seemed a natural.