cygnoir.net is a personal website that has existed in some form or another since May 1998. It is written and produced by me, Halsted, a/k/a Cygnoir, and it is where I write about:
Recently I added a now page to document my current projects and passions. If you have your own website, you should make one, too.
Email me at halsted@cygnoir.net or send me a Keybase chat. I love hearing from people!
I used to have a long list of description here, but it no longer suits me. My current bio blurb is: “A black swan with digital wings. Reader, writer, library director, fighter for a better tomorrow for everyone. She/her.” I live in Portland, OR, with my husband and our two cats, Crivens and Criminy. Read on for more.
I am the director of the Tigard Public Library, where we serve our community by providing resources to educate, entertain, and enrich everyone’s lives. I believe in public libraries as vital third places and community hubs.
As a member of the City of Tigard’s leadership team, I help to develop our anti-racism action plan with the goal of improving racial equity in all aspects of our city service.
I am also the Vice Chair / Chair Elect of the Oregon Library Association’s Public Library Division executive board.
Since January of 2020, I have served on the board of directors for Good Neighbor Center, which provides safe emergency housing with supportive, empowering services to families.
I believe wholeheartedly in random acts of kindness! If you do too, check out Butterfly Coins and BookCrossing.
cygnoir.net is hosted on Micro.blog, which is non-coincidentally my community on the Web. If you’re curious about what Micro.blog is, here’s a great starting point. I talk about what Micro.blog means to me on Episode 29 of the Micro Monday podcast.
I believe in the indieweb practice of POSSE, which stands for Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. All of my posts here are crossposted to Mastodon, Twitter, and Tumblr.
Why the funny name? Cygnoir is a word I made up many years ago. It is a portmanteau of cygne and noir, the French words for “swan” and “black”, respectively. (It is pronounced /siɲ-nwaʀ’/ while apologizing profusely to la langue française.) The pseudonym and site predate Taleb’s book and Aronofsky’s film, and I have never been a goth or a member of the SCA. I simply love wordplay and Cygnus atratus.
This is a personal website. The opinions and views expressed therein are solely the author’s and not of any organization or employer. They are also subject to change, because the author is human, fallible, and always learning. Caveat lector.