Home Depot reinvented the corner hardware store and Walmart wants to be Main Street, so why wouldn’t tech giants Google and AOL want a big bite of local?

Jeff Jarvis interviewed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and Google VP Marissa Mayer at the opening of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY last night. Everybody who was anybody in new media was there.

Both “About” pictures, by the way, come from Amsterdam. Serious me at the Van Gogh Museum. Happy me on a canal boat ride.

Or the way ahead Baristanet.com?

The Distant Hours started as a single idea about a set of sisters in a castle on a hill.

I love that. That a novel comes from a single idea — even though I know it as well as anyone. “Rattled” started as a column I wrote for The New York Times. “Cars from a Marriage” sprung from a remark in couples’ therapy. My next idea, and I am working on it, could be something equally simple. Maybe I have even stumbled on it already.

My two New Year’s Resolutions — write more and do more yoga — were in conflict today. There was a 10 am yoga class that I love, but I also expected the day to get away from me and so I decided to go downstairs, light a fire and pull out the laptop. I am not in the middle of writing anything, but just trying to flex my writerly muscles again, which meant doing a writing prompt, and I think that’s what reminded me of At the Beach 1966, a fragrance by CB I Hate Perfume.

The next thing, I had a bee in my bonnet to go to Williamsburg and see the I Hate Perfume gallery, something I’ve wanted to do ever since Pam Satran gave me a small vial of In the Library for my birthday a few years back. I talked Warren into going with me, even though Julia Cameron says that artist dates should be solitary, and we had a wonderful day in the city, first going to Sebastian Junger’s The Half King, where I had a Sloppy Joe and then to CB I Hate Perfume, where I smelled every “perfume” and settled on Memory of Kindness, and then just as it was starting to flurry, took an impulsive detour to Rice to Riches in Soho, where we both had rice pudding. It was a perfect outing. I had my Hipstamatic iPhone app for photographing hipsta Williamsburg (though I couldn’t whip it out fast enough to get the sign, on a restaurant, which said, “Brunch is for assholes.”)

CB I Hate Perfume’s gallery is a surprisingly spare and modern store where Christopher Brosius displays vials of his perfume blends and accords with names like At the Beach 1966, Burning Leaves and In the Summer Kitchen, all of which seem to have been conjured almost as much as writer’s aids as actual fragrances. It was Warren who pointed out that Brosius is selling words as much as he is selling fragrance. Each “perfume” comes with a story, and the one I picked, Memory of Kindness, I picked as much for its name and its story as for the strong undertones of tomato vines.

What does a child remember?

I recall a moment long ago crawling alone in a vast jungle of vines. I felt the warm sun on my skin and the damp earth under my knees and I remember the fuzzy touch of brilliant green leaves on my face. These made my skin prickle as I ventured deeper into this wild and mysterious place.

Long years later, I clearly recall the smell of those leaves – it shimmered all around me, beating like a cloud of butterflies. And I remember the moment when I discovered that by touching them, their odor became stronger and I was enraptured by it. Time passed but I was unaware. Deep in that shining green jungle, I first discovered the pleasure of Scent.

My aunt called out to me from the edge of the vegetable garden where she stood peering among the tomato vines to see where I’d gotten myself to. Reluctantly I disentangled myself from that brilliant scent and slowly crawled out from my hiding place under the vines to meet her.

I know now that very small children absorb the world around them in the purest way. Their senses are unfiltered by judgment, preference or manner – these we learn later. As ink soaks into paper, the smallest incident will color a child indelibly and can be remembered forever as I remember the smell of those vines and all that went with it…

I remember then I got to my feet and, reaching high, took my aunts hand. I looked up into her face still clouded by concern. I realize only now, I must have frightened her with my disappearance into the wilds. Just for a second I was afraid she was mad at me and I braced myself for a scolding. But there was no anger in the look she gave me, no irritation as there so easily might have been with another grownup. Instead with a slow smile, as warm as the sun had been on my back that distant summer day, she said to me, Come. Lets go have a cookie. I smiled back at her and, hand in hand, we walked back to the house.

What does a child truly remember? A child remembers kindness.

I almost forgot another small detour which we took the Pace Gallery on W. 25th Street, where there was a show called “52 Variables” by the British artist Keith Tyson. The 52 variables to which Tyson refers are each member of a standard set of playing cards. His 52 paintings, however, were of 52 playing card backs, some as familiar as the blue Bicycle deck (or some variation thereof) and exotic and unlikely variations: an early iteration of the Twitter logo, NASA playing cards, and one featuring a woman with sexual ball gag. These recreations were really quite stunning and reminded me a bit of Tarot cards, and as if the theme of the day was writing prompts, the gallery sold a $15 deck of cards featuring each image from the show and some quotation on the back. On the back of a “Player’s Navy Cut” card (featuring a drawing of a sailor) is this quote from Marshall McLuhan: “Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century.”

Of course we were mindful of the tragedy in Tucson that was unfolding, checking our mobile devices between adventures. And as it turns out, Warren has to fly there early tomorrow to cover it. But the strong scent of Memory of Kindness still clings to me, and colors my day.

It is a day of new beginnings, of resolutions and honest sweat. I made it to 10 am yoga and the class was full. Passed dozens of joggers on Ridgewood Ave. Figured I’d do an online tarot reading and see what the new year had in store. Not the best cards: four of pentacles (cheap), three of swords (heartbreak), five of cups (regret). Only the High Priestess in the advice position (spiritual practice) augured something pleasant. But the Devil card, drawn in the Daily Lesson position, intrigued me:

The Devil card in this position requires that you give up all attachment to what others think of you. You know that as you succeed in the mission that makes you burn with desire and forces you to break precedent, you will encounter naysayers and come up against what looks like enemies.

Don’t be dismayed. It means you are making progress enough to discomfit those who are attached to the past. That’s a sure sign of your success. Moreover, you are no longer inhibited by your conditioning and the taboos of the past. Be confident that you are being effective, that you are in the process of making a difference. This is not a popularity contest, but transformation for the sake of the greater good.

I like this. The idea that I might be moving on to a self that doesn’t give a shit what people think. That I could find my stride, walk with true conviction, not looking left, right or in the mirror. Today in yoga, especially at the beginning, I spent less time looking at the others to make sure I was doing my positions correctly. When it was time to hang, I really dropped my head. And when I stumbled, when I lost my balance or couldn’t hold a pose, I didn’t feel an ounce of embarrassment.

What could the Devil be telling me about my writing life?

I’m sure my mother had an opinion about the eyebrows, but she kept it to herself. The woman with the shaved eyebrows was Jewish too,  I think, so it must have been doubly disturbing that this person, this responsible female adult, in charge of young children, and a co-religionist, could come to her door every day looking only slightly less freakish than Marcel Marceau.

I had nothing to really be afraid of in my young life, but that didn’t stop me from being afraid of everything. My neighbors on the other side were Irish Catholic and their house was darker their ours and had unfamiliar smells. But what really creeped me out were the crucifixes. My friend Maura had one in her room, right over her bed. When I played there, I must have felt like a character in the DiVinci Code going deep underground with the Priory of Sion.

My mother tells me that when I was very little, before Maura’s family moved in, there was a family living in that house that raised Dalmations, and further (the story goes) I adored the Dalmations, of which there were many. But this can’t possibly be true. Because for as long as I remember, I was terrified of dogs.

I wasn’t on such friendly terms with Roman Numerals either. Or public bathrooms. And nothing terrified me more than a slumber party invitation. Losing consciousness around other children simply invited humiliation.

There really was only one dangerous thing in our neighborhood and that was the railroad track that ran through the woods behind the houses that faced the bottom of our cul-de-sac. Now that I live in a neighborhood with commuter trains, with train tracks everywhere, it doesn’t seem like the grave danger that my mother painted it to be. But it was the one inviolable law of my childhood. You didn’t go anywhere near them.

Then one blizzard, when the whole world of northern Virginia had turned white and all children were chomping at the bit to go outside and play, my father walked the railroad tracks. Some kid in the neighborhood had gotten sick and needed medicine and my dad, with another dad or maybe two, walked down the tracks to big chain drug store about a mile away. Walked the railroad tracks.. This journey took on the burnished glow of Legend, as if to get to the drugstore my father had had to slay fire-breathing dragons.

To the rescue (maybe) is writing coach Lisa Romeo, who apparently could use a drill sergeant herself. But I like this (quoting Lisa):

Self, I say, you simply don’t have enough time to write that. Pathetic little self, you don’t yet have the credibility you need to get that project sold. Little nobody self, what makes you think you can get access to those interview subjects? Insignificant little writer self, how do you plan to execute such a vast project, the likes of which you’ve never even tried?

Well at least she knows how to talk to me.

Lisa seemed a little perplexed at first that I, Debbie Galant, “queen of hyperlocal bloggers” and author of three published novels, would sign up for her boot camp. But the last time I put together a subject and predicate in service of fiction was December 2008. No, that’s not true. That’s when I turned in “Cars from a Marriage.” I did write about 50 pages toward a new novel in October 2009, the last time I was at VCCA. But I lost faith, or interest, in it as soon as I got home.

Truth be told, I’m tired of writing about upper-middle class suburbia. I’m bored of it, bored of New Jersey, bored of myself. I admired Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom” but it was way too familiar. I want writing to take me to strange, exotic places, with the smell of unfamiliar spices and frightening sprites. I want to be from India. But northern Virginia during the Cuban Missile Crisis might just have to do.

You may go into the movie thinking Joan Rivers is an over-the-hill has-been, a stereotypical old Jewish lady and a Michael Jackson-variety plastic-surgery freak.

But you come out seeing a woman who refuses to give up. And who is still very, very funny.

I found myself doing little Joan River schticks from the film all weekend for friends, all of the bits quite dirty, and I have to say it is hilarious to see a woman of 75 (her age when the movie was filmed) with the temerity to act like a 20-something bad boy of comedy. And why not? Where is it written that only skinny guys with black t-shirts and shaved heads get to be funny? I would repeat some of the bits here, but the bad words would attract all kinds of spam comments I don’t need. Go see it for yourself.

The movie also spoke to me on another level. It’s all about having something to sell in an insanely competitive entertainment market, where new and novel is always in favor. I felt very bitter this year when “Cars from a Marriage” failed to get any attention, except from my friends. “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” explores this theme in painful close-up. She’s jealous of Kathy Griffin. She’s furious at the critics. She can’t believe she has to take a “nightclub” gig at 4 o’clock in the afternoon in the Bronx. She has to endure endless old age and plastic surgery jokes at her Comedy Central roast. And then there’s her exquisitely painful rejection by Johnny Carson after she got her own show on Fox. (He never talked to her again and NBC blacklisted her for years). Very early in the movie, you see her walking down the stairs of a real dive, a place you can never imagine your own mother going. But Joan picks herself up, dusts herself off and reinvents herself over and over again. And you should hear her give it to a heckler who calls her on a politically-incorrect joke.

And the plastic surgery? It is a little Dorian Gray to see her cheeks plumped up and her hair styled like 80′s-era Melanie Griffith. (Melanie Griffith doesn’t even look like that anymore.) But Rivers explains: it’s just show business. Nobody wants to see an old lady and she’s still working.

Still working. Still foul-mouthed and able to shock you into laughing. And you’ll love the scenes of her as a comic ingenue in the 1960′s.

Watch the trailer here.

Sitting yesterday afternoon in the back yard of Pat Kenschaft, I felt like I’d entered a a magical world, in which garden gnomes come alive and then shar the secrets of life. When I asked Pat if I could interview her for Baristanet’s new “Coffee with…” series, she said she would squeeze me before 2:30 pm — when a friend was coming to pick up some arugula plants — but she couldn’t see me after 4 because that would cut into her meditation time.

Sitting in the back of her yard, under the shade, the idea of a daily afternoon meditation practice seemed amazingly sane and accessible. Like, instead of booking a weekend a Kripalu, you could just pull a plastic lawn chair to the way back of your yard and rest your brain for free.

Read the rest of my interview with this extraordinary woman here.

Dottie, whose books always make the best-seller list, is an old hand at this. She’s got a lot of well-honed stories about her in-laws and some nice self-deprecating bits about life on the road during book tour. She’s got a great story about how and why she started writing. Listening to her speak is like being at a dinner party. She didn’t even bother reading.

Josh Braff is a bit shyer. (Well who isn’t shyer than Dottie Frank?) He’s cute and charming, and his style is a mixture of pretend hubris and self-deprecation. But he’s had some good breaks lately, and you can tell he’s starting to enjoy the ride. He was funniest when reading from his first book, “The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green” and he has a very practiced wind-up to reading from that book. Talking about how November is Jewish Book Month and how he goes to JCC’s all over the place, reads Jacob Green’s bar mitzvah thank-you notes and magic happens … people just open up their wallets and buy his books.

I have to admit to some — ok a lot — of professional jealousy of anybody whose book career is doing well these days. Anybody who’s getting attention. When Josh said he’s feeling good because his reviews are good, I just wanted to scream. How? How do you get reviews?

Is it a charm game? Are Dottie and Josh more likable than me? Better writers? Luckier?

I don’t know. I almost feel like Cars from a Marriage has already reached its expiration date. I’m torn. I feel like I should fight for it like I’d fight for either of my children, that it’s a good book that deserves better. But I want to move on. I really want to stop selling and start creating again.

Photo: Margot Sage-El of Watchung Booksellers, me and Dottie Frank at the Montclair College Women’s Luncheon May 22, 2010.