Doing extremely custom magazine layouts has a similar itch-scratchy quality to what I imagine draws people to quilting. Like solving a jigsaw puzzle, except that when you’re done you really have something.

West Hollywood, December 2023

You know you’re in your thirties when you’re more likely to put on an album you loved when you were 13 then an album you loved when you were 19.

CEASE. FIRE. NOW.

7,500 children dead in Gaza.

Six dead children for every Israeli killed in the Hamas attack.

Collective punishment of civilians is genocide.

I’ve been obsessed with the Bulgarian song “Sandansko horo” for half my life now; I used to say I wanted it played at my funeral. But in a switch between music streamers, I lost the recording I love.

So how blessed I felt to find this blog post! Such good information—and my favorite recording!

Same honestly

How about a nice clicky T-9 keyboard that you strap to the front of your iPhone?

We could even make it so the most prolific texters are forced to use them, to try to Harrison Bergeron them back to baseline 2007 levels of texting.

(Though tbh we SMS-ed like absolute banshees in 2007.)

Whole wheat sourdough pancakes, fermented overnight, with a teaspoon of baking soda.

I love the guy in the little cockpit on the back of the extra-long firetruck, with his second steering wheel, steering the back wheels around corners. There’s something so sweet about that job.

Not to be missed: How to Build a Car That Kills People: Cybertruck Edition.

I tend to look at cars from a pedestrian’s POV—that’s how I spend most of my time on the streets. This tank seems designed to crush toddlers, decapitate elders, and probably be plowed into protesters. It should be illegal.

Just passed another of these cute little delivery robots while out for a run. It was taking up 3/4 of the sidewalk and didn’t move to yield way at all as I came upon it. WTF? You can’t ride a bicycle on the sidewalk here. These things are a clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Nothing but respect for MY PRESIDENT, the naked writhing modern dance orcs that take over your room in the Getty’s funky AR app “United Visions." This is what William Blake wanted.

Yesterday I wanted to make bread, so I mixed up some leaven. But it got cold, rose too slowly, and I ran out of time. So… pivot to pancakes? I found the recipe from Wild Fermentation, mixed the batter up before bed, and cooked them this morning: whole wheat sourdough pancakes! Kid loved ‘em!

The worst and best part of editing articles is the need to dissolve yourself into the subject, into the research, into the structure of the piece. It’s always more laborious than I expect.

The cheerfully awestruck tone of the hosts of the corporation-deep-dive podcast Acquired sometimes strikes me as identical to paleontologists reverently describing the jaw structure of a T-Rex. Except the T-Rex is still here! It’s still eating people!

“Using AI to write is like taking a moped for your morning run. It’s stupid… What AI does is it makes us stop thinking, and it takes over that part.”

This talk, from Oliver Reichenstein, (the founder of iA Writer, which I use constantly), is great.

We’re way too conservative around small, good ideas. (See wild success of NBA’s in-season tournament.) Here are some more:

• The dollar should reverse split. $10 to $1, $1 to 10¢, etc
• Kill the time change
• Election day = holiday
• CPS but for guns
• Annual citizen’s assemblies

Make change normal!

Ten thousand is the original a hundred billion.

This immortal faith some have that computers will eventually become advanced enough that we’ll “upload” our intelligence into them and live immortally inside the machine—is it not bleedingly obvious to everybody that body and mind are basically synonyms?

Read my lips: I. Am. Not. A. Google. Doc.

Putting a pin in Relax, Electric Vehicles Really Are the Best Choice for the Climate to send to those relatives (you know who you are) who keep talking about going electric, keep turning towards internal combustion.

HondaLink over here giving strong “graphic design is my passion”

Boomer climate doomerism comes down to this, I think: fear of the unknowable. Now, yes, it’s true, none of us know for sure what the unfolding climate crisis will hold. But for younger folks, we can expect to find out. We’re in it. Contrast the dull dread of foreseeing an apocalypse one won’t meet.

Went to a “holiday lights botanical garden” this eve. It was, as advertised, dreamlike. But after almost two hours wandering through the LED wonderland, I started to remember that nightmares are a type of dream, too.

A neighbor left a pile of old Gourmet magazines out on their stoop. After a few days walking by them, I took this issue home. And I keep studying that cherry pie cover. What is it that makes it so incredibly great? A platonic ideal of image and text coming together.

2007, baby. The good old days.

High school me: There was once a genocide, a terrible aberration that must never be forgotten.

College me: Another genocide came before the famous one + inspired it. More should know.

30s me: Genocide happens all the time, there was one in my hometown, my country is supporting one this very minute. Fuck.