#434: Noctalgia
Or: Welcome to the butt spa.
A (mostly) weekly email letter on creative work, technology, and my kaleidoscopic interests.
Or peruse the archives ↓
Or: Welcome to the butt spa.
Writing reintroductions, obscure computing laws, and the Sagan-Muppet connection.
Innate and associative beauty; fall links and recs (including a fun new web browser)
Ten years in Detroit, and on work you take or don’t take home with you.
Favorite apps, luddite clubs, and a metaphor for new vocations.
Favorite things from the last two months.
Learning to accept flux, waxing book energy, and a Bebop podcast interview.
On becoming a father.
Quieting the critic; virtual book tours and virtual ship tours.
Idea pitches, CALA news, other reading and listening.
Residency days, research archives, and poking bears.
On infrastructure and collective visions.
Bebop in The Verge, Thoughts on Prototyping with AI
Three short but exciting bits of news.
Photo books, vlogger brain, and a good rec from the algorithm.
Time cleaving and the impending After
Project extraversion, the writer as film editor.
A milestone, and (yet) more on routines.
Two consciousnesses and a hallmark of a maker.
Thoughts about the AI coding meta.
Caring for self and others, a unified theory of f—ks, making time for beauty.
The shape of my days, post-pandemic edition.
Henson, Miyazaki, and some behind-the-scenes recs.
Reflections from a recent poetry salon.
On reorganizing my workshop.
On continuing education.
My part-two writeup of my final Building Beauty project.
Summer media and infrastructural anxiety.
Snapshots from the Slovenian captial.
My part-one writeup, and a virtual open house for the new school year.
Membership updates; energy making time.
Exhalations and the space for new projects.
School and office contexts, and an ADHD tip for working from home.
Bike repair class, the best of our blenders, and Threads.
Arnold movies and keeping house while drowning.
Highlights from my book launch event (and week).
A day out from publication; a slightly mischievous gratitude.
Early hardcovers, debut illustrations, recent interviews, and Gene Luen Yang.
A collection of links and quotes on care and maintenance.
Get your copy of The Many Masks of Andy Zhou.
On learning from trees to redirect energy.
The second half of my dream house design project.
The first half of my project writeup, and getting back on the conference horse.
Maurice Sendak and cultural/personal punch bowls.
On structure-preserving/destroying transformations and the Alexandrian process.
On tools, machines, and materiality.
Ruminations about last month’s survey.
Week 12 of Building Beauty.
Weeks 10 and 11 of Building Beauty.
Weeks 8 and 9 of Building Beauty.
Weeks 6 and 7 of Building Beauty.
Week 5 of Building Beauty.
Weeks 3 & 4 of Building Beauty.
Week 2 of Building Beauty.
Week 1 of Building Beauty.
On becoming a student again.
Or: the Mega Man approach to creative projects, however small.
On my ADHD diagnosis.
Summer weekends, different takes on Home.
Robert Irwin, Taoist butchers, and near-final drafts.
Cybernetic hero journeys and “artists” vs “creators”.
Finishing another draft, and thinking about the time scales.
I got covid.
Summer snapshots and another deadline.
The origins of my new short story.
New fiction in the Detroit Metro Times.
Min Jin Lee and Greek antonyms.
Reading Katherine May’s meditation on rest and retreat.
Continued edits and a George Saunders memory.
A manuscript update and Alice Gregory on virtuosity.
On moral heroes and personal Overton windows.
Defining, discerning between the two.
Podcast updates and Drive My Car.
Ukraine, Ilya Kaminsky, and a memory of 2003.
Or: the difficulty of website bios.
On discovering my hidden extrovert.
On film scanners and backwards compatibility.
The revolution will not be another inbox.
Following a year of joy.
On wintry Camelots.
A short observation for 2021.
On challenges and obstacles.
And a few manga titles I've been enjoying.
On understanding and making comics.
Brief travels to New Orleans and Austin.
And other lessons from the course.
On rediscovering golf.
Reframing writer's block.
An update from revisionland.
On Ted Lasso and Bo Burnham.
A different approach toward balance.
Slow approaches and new unions.
Work, Gamification, and Samuel R. Delany's Nova.
That time I was a Lyft driver.
A short, interstitial update.
A few post-pandemic questions.
Or maybe just pandemic-fatigued reminders.
Revisiting Vincent Chin; an interview with Paula Yoo.
Bike maintenance and fond writing memories.
Is consistency overrated?
Presence, and old drafts and puzzles.
My recent post for Imagination Soup.
An update on my new year's un-resolutions.
Or when not to strive for mastery.
Three things I've enjoyed in the first months of 2021.
Or, what I learned about creative routines from my dog.
The simple joy of seeing friends again.
On reading The Annotated Wizard of Oz.
A new podcast for a new (lunar) year.
On strife and joy in stories.
Distance-running, creative types, and a DNA test.
Being a steward for creative projects.
The first of several member-backed projects in the new year.
On letting go of pain-oriented attitudes toward work.
On the systems around resolutions.
On rules for adopting new technology.
Notes from working the polls.
Notes from working the polls.
Thoughts on developing film.
Late-summer book progress.
Time in West Michgan; Michael Pollan in the woods.
Weekend perspectives; diversity dialogues.
On the discomfort of watching outdated representations.
Writing relevant stories when the world around you keeps changing.
Words accompanying a photo series in The Detroit Free Press.
On eternal vigilance, and my debt to Black Americans.
Hara's knives, Steinbeck's pencils, and more thoughts on exactness.
On balancing structure and spontaneity in my work schedule.
Finding camaraderie in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden journal.
Garden work, technological toolkits, and revisiting story charts.
Building raised garden beds as I start a new manuscript draft.
The rediscovery of a favorite poem.
Positive compounding in everyday life.
Who gets to define your art?
Thoughts on obsession and art.
What I tell students at the schools I'm visiting.
Lessons from fermentation.
Building the (fictional) house.
Learning the virtues of yard work.
Downsides to a hyper-optimized life.
On working with what you have.
Late-night musings on an Apple ad.
On tour buses, from Melbourne.
A new essay; travel plans.
A vague feeling; a holiday ghost story.
On writing fiction as if it were memoir.
To myself on my thirtieth birthday.
Dispatch from a round dwelling in the Catskill Mountains.
What Twin Peaks and Girls have in common.
Competitiveness, abundance, and being a Human in New York.
Interest sonar, Leonard Cohen, and the next thing.
What we see when we read.
Two weddings and an epiphany.
Morning push-ups and a new essay.
Sharing out of love versus the desire to be loved.
Cycles of collection and purge.
On research, or doing it later.
On new updates, annotations, and serendipity.