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“A honey bee flew into the house. My dad let it roam the halls, following along, watching as it flitted through sunlit rooms and played among the curtains, before finally slipping out through the front door. He insisted that it was you, visiting, telling us you were okay, that you had moved on. Hello and goodbye.” From “the saturdays we have left,” by e.
Every post we make about the bad thing is one less post about the good thing. For every post about how bad Spotify is, that’s one less post about a tiny indepednet musician. For every post I make about Gmail, that’s one less post about Fastmail. There’s a time and a place for calling out the bad things, but we could really make some more time to promote the things we love.
From “This Floating Store on Lake Ontario Challenges How We Think About Convenience” via My Modern Met (via SEMI RAD) “In most cities, convenience stores are never too far away, but have you ever seen one floating on water? Moored in the Harbour Square Park Basin on Toronto’s Lake Ontario, a fully stocked shop called Global Convenience is turning the familiar bodega into something far less accessible, and that’s exactly the point. It invites visitors to think about daily rituals, accessibility,…
Since May 26, 2026 I’ve been walking at least 10 miles per day. I started this because I’m 50 now and it’s never going to get any easier to “lose weight.” But also because I hate that it’s so easy for my phone SCREEN TIME to creep up to three hours per day, so I thought – maybe I can just walk three hours a day. It’s not all at once, and some days it takes me till 8pm to get all my miles in, but I love it. Up and out of bed for a three mile walk to start the day, and any time I’m grumpy sitting…
When it’d get “too quiet” during the week I used to default to “oh no, what’d I miss? What’d I forget?! WHEN IS THE OTHER SHOE GONNA DROP!?” Then a wise friend suggested, “maybe it’s so quite because you remembered everything.”
From Bear Blog Discover → a blog post titled “More Than Email” → Tuta (Secure Email: Private, Green & Ad-free) → CryptPad (CryptPad is a collaborative office suite that is end-to-end encrypted and open-source.) “BuT How will i FIND nEw CoOL sTUFF WiThOUt SoCiAL MediA?!?” By clicking around Bear Blog’s Discover and Bubbles you can find some interesting blog posts, which lead you down rabbit holes to other interesting blogs or products or services. It’s not served to you on a silver platter like…
Today I read two posts from people who understand the whole “social media is rigged” thing. The unwritten rules of “don’t include links,” or “post often,” or “make videos.” These two posts buttered up the situation (“haha social media is horrible!”), but then they saw results – it’s a miracle! No, friends. This is exactly how social media operates. It’s the giant teddy bear at the carnival gambit. At every county fair, you’ll always spot some poor jerk carrying around a giant teddy-bear they…
“What decision are you about to make on Claude’s advice that would change if you picked up the phone and asked someone who knows you?” A great point from David Sparks, on letting robotic AI thinking make any sort of choice for us. I talk with a lot of creatives about having a team, a bunch of fellow people in the same boat navigating the same waters. Bounce ideas off of them, vent with them, share with them. Then with or without AI, you’ve got more perspective to work with when you’re building,…
This is from Tom Bedor, about programming and code, but like most solid nuggets of wisdom, this is universal: If you are requesting human attention, demonstrate human effort. You want people to buy your album? Sign up for your class? come to your event? If you are requestion human attention, demonstrate human effort. WOW.
As a young punk rock kids we made zines and stared music blogs (instead of complaining that the major music outlets wouldn’t cover our bands), booked our own shows (when “real” venues wouldn’t book us), and released our own music (when labels wouldn’t give us the time of day).
What’s better “marketing” than this? Screaming fans, tender moments, so many smiles – who wouldn’t want to be on that train ride, you know? And the fun part is this; you don’t need to be as big as Hayley Williams to live this. To be this. Today, make your magic, put it into the world. Big, small, doesn’t matter, it all counts.
When Casey Neistat started to say that he made all the music in this video, my heart stopped. I thought we were going to hear “I don’t even know how to make music,” and then launch into how great SUNO is, or whatever the fuck that thing is. But no – he bought an Orchid! He looked up YouTube videos to learn the notes, then chord progressions. As a third generation musician this makes me so happy. Also, this:
Great line from artist fnnch: “I don’t know. You don’t know. Don’t try to know. Just make art that excites you, and make enough of it that you eventually make work that resonates with people.” Read the rest of “How to Make a Living as an Artist” for even more gems. Link via Kottke.
I turn 50 tomorrow and my tolerance for nonsense is at an all time low. Like, I know I’ve been unemployable for awhile now, but I think in the next year I’m going to reach a feral level of unemployability.
That’s a cello.
Hard to believe this sticker is 16 years old, and references a MySpace page.
Doing my best to get back to walking 10 miles a day. Time on the road, looking at the clouds, it helps me deal with the loss of my cat. For seven years I revolved my life around being home at 4pm to feed that little bugger, and usually it was around 2pm that the screaming and yelling would begin, when Blue would awake and start demanding to be fed. Tonight it’s chilly. A rainy, cold night. The college kids are notably absent, too, so it’s quieter than normal. We would have settled in nicely…
From Raj Kaur, “Blue is immortalised in my sketchbook, from a session with wonderful Beth Spencer.” I submitted a photograph as source material for Beth’s online drawing session, and this is from Raj’s sketchbook. I took the file and sent it to a local printer, and they made me a nice print. I miss my buddy.
Blue returned to the cosmos today. I miss you so much, buddy.
Via Ted Gioia: Deezer says 44% of songs uploaded to its platform daily are AI-generated When there’s no curation, no “taste makers,” no editorial discernment, this is what ya get! Most of us handed the aux jack to the computers, and now we’re here.
Tonight, a friend walked me around their space, showing me the works of art left to her. A precious, sweet remembrance of a dear friend. Tomorrow, I drive to upstate New York to visit an aunt in the hospital. She’s not an artist by definition, but she made people laugh and smile. What else is … Continue reading "REMEMBER THE MAGIC"
Just got off a call with Deanna Seymour, talking about my work with Social Media Escape Club. When talking about “how I find new people” since I’m not on social media, I just said I meet new people all the time and do cool stuff with good people, like the podcast we were recording! I … Continue reading "GROWING WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA"
The work we create doesn’t has an expiration date. The photo books we make, or the poetry chapbook, the music video, the demo tape, the essay, the course, the piece of art. Most of our work is timeless yet we let it expire, starving it of attention as we move onto the next thing. “Well, … Continue reading "HONOR YOUR OLDER WORK"
Absolutely loving the new Maul – Shadow Lord series. Freaking Two Boots, man.
From Nick Heer: “I will need to dedicate real, significant time to minimizing my iCloud dependence.” A tale of photo management, paying Apple $324/year for iCloud storage, date loss, and other dreadful tales of dealing with Apple’s photo app. I broke up with Apple Photos back in 2024. Wasn’t easy, but I’m glad I did … Continue reading "BREAKING UP WITH ICLOUD"
Love these two still images from Noah Kalina’s ‘Out in the Field – Comparing the Phase One IQ360 with the IQ4150’ video on YouTube, on his new Kalina channel. I sure don’t know much about Phase One cameras, or medium format, but I love following his work, and the epic scenery he captures.
People want proof because they don’t want risk. When I dare suggest that maybe we can exist without social media, or musicians can take their music off streaming platforms, I basically hear this: “give me 25 examples of people doing it that are successful.” As in, prove that other people have done it and maybe … Continue reading "GOING FIRST IS A RISK"
We’re definitely in between seasons here in PA. Yesterday it was 75F, then on my morning walk it’s in the low 40s. I don’t know if it’s just getting older, or being more in tune with my feelings, but it’s taken me for a ride this year. I haven’t written as much. I eased up … Continue reading "SEASONS"
I haven’t been running as much.I haven’t been making music as much.I haven’t been writing here as much.I haven’t been walking as much. We are humans, living through seasons, under the weight of the ambient doom that most of us have been feeling for years. But today I got out for a run.Today I streamed … Continue reading "IT HAPPENS WHEN IT HAPPENS"
