I have a complicated relationship with capital g “Growth” per this. But if there’s any Charizard-style, linear growth happening, it looks like the Then and Now of my pies journey. 5 years ago I would’ve told you I can’t bake a pie. Under the tutelage of Petra Paradez’s sage wisdom in her book, Pie for Everyone, and with the vast Inside-ness of the pandemic, I’ve come a long way. More to go.
The fries have spoken.
Cookie Advent has evolved for virtual times. It’s gone well.
Still embroidering socks, only this time, 4X and Holiday.
Celebrating us a bit on the nose, or so I thought. Ryan claims he didn’t realize what it was because “the production value was so high, I couldn’t believe that you made it.” Which of course is to say that I am using that flattery to bandage the deep wound left behind by brushing past the expertly applied NATO Phonetic Alphabet reference, but...
…I think the true way to heal my bleeding heart would be if Hinge added my game to their merch store. “Romeo ❤︎ Juliet: The Dating Game for Happy Hinge Couples” has a nice ring to it, eh? Hinge: if you’re reading this, shoot me an email. Playtest approved. Creative property rights negotiable.
With unexpected downtime between projects in June, Joey asked me to “maybe help out” with Steven’s idea for a new Sylvain Labs thought-leadership experiment (if you read nothing further, it’s now live). The plan was to help come up with a series of white-papers that don’t just regurgitate business platitudes, but actually conjure up ideas and tools to start changing things up at work. Cheekily, they called these “Off-White Papers”.
Days turned into weeks and me “maybe helping out” turned into me assisting with first paper drafts, dreaming up some of those tools, shifting from writer-mode to producer-mode, outlining all the content we’d need for a website and a newsletter, and then building out that website wireframe on Shopify (woof), and designing every campaign template, form, and page we’d need in MailChimp for a companion newsletter (S/O to my SO for several a coding assist).
From strategy, to writing, to design, to production: I can proudly say I more than “maybe helped out” with a little bit of everything. It all became this deeply magical moonlit mess of Joey, Steven, Trevor, Katie, myself, David, Les, and a few more folks all in a collaboration of love. And as always, thankful I’ve been able to trick Joey into consistently inviting me along for the ride on all his crazy ideas. (Shhh. Don’t tell him, though.)
Check out:
I usually post about things made 100% by me but re: collaboration-of-love, credit here is 1000% shared. Still, see here a little sneak peek of what I helped build.
🍋 is doing some self-reflection so I recommended she do what I’d call a Personal Word Vomit and I transcribed. I love it so much.
charming spunky personable enthusiasm pineapple sh*t gumption! soopa fly calm chill lax laid back also organized loves a good plan loves a good sandwich food good eating yum yum scared but brave maybe that's what brave is? silly sometimes quiet angry when people say I'm quiet timid? sometimes happygolucky lazy short bursts of energy sleepyyyyy not really a morning bird or a night owl kind of midday outgoing when I need to be leader when I need to be also good follower wearer of Ralph Lauren that's not true ha empathetic kind gives good hugs loves to dance no matter who's watching any time of day any location whether appropriate or not doesn't really matter where I'm at likes nature good views connecting with people likes hearing stories less great at telling stories BIG listener SUPER BIG listener I absorb so much people think I'm quiet because I get so lost in listening I only contribute only when I think it’s of good value I don't just say anything to say anything I like making other people feel better I don't like it when people get really stressed out or any bad reaction no anger no blaming people a homebody who goes out sometimes.
I’ve been making a bunch in this style, changing up the color scheme. Couldn’t get the white balance right, but I love the pop-warhollian effect of the scanner on the pictures so much that I don’t even mind that you can hardly see the white beads. Hardly is still a strange word.
self-portrait
self portrait
Bottled 11.11.19. Ben acted as virtual scribe for qualitative observations. Approximately 40g-43g of 80% alc. corn vodka to 1g-9g of beans, depending on varietal and single versus double bottling. The FDA standard for “pure vanilla extract” says you need 35% alc. and approximately a 10% ratio of beans to alcohol (“one unit per one gallon” which is such a foolish metric but…) I’m hoping since I’m using such high proof liquor, the extraction will produce a more than “pure” enough infusion for most of the bottles—and passable enough ones that are in the single-bean, lowest bean-to-alc ratio bottles. Time will tell: this is why we experiment.
Scripts and topics and slides and special-guest hunting and suggestion hat signage and crib sheet cards and secret envelopes stuffed with glow sticks and hot take workshops and wax-sealed special thank you gifts and invitations (see cloudful collab below w/ NoraM) and RSVP sheets and ukulele practice and so much more that was the madness of preparing for the Critical Nonsense live show was totally worth it. Feeling gratitude for Sylvain Labs and all the people who pitched in to turn our silly weekly diversion into an event last night. See the video here.
🇲🇽 Papantla (Mexico) | v. planifolia
🇲🇬 Madagascar | v. planifolia
🇰🇲 Comoros | v. planifolia
🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea | v. tahitensis
🇮🇩 Indonesia | v. planifolia
🇵🇫 Tahiti | v. tahitensis
Pods c/o Épices de Cru; alcohol c/o Astor
Contingent on finding the perfect 2-3oz. bottles, the plan is to assemble this week.
poor windy quality snippet
but imperfection,
welcome
As Let’s Save the Date approaches its second birthday, I FINALLY figured out the proper code to lock the typewriter effect on the landing page!! James would be proud. Of course, only a week later, they retired the domain.
Still, I realized I never shared this work. Background: I and fellow Sylvain Labs intern, Eliza, devoted our summers to researching the engagement process, out of which I built a micro-site (http://letssavethedate.com), hand-drew the illustrations, and hand-wrote the workbook. It’s a satire of the overabundant “wedding planning survival checklist:” instead, an emotional survival guide—something Brides, Martha, and other ‘Big Wedding’ oracles don’t provide (despite painfully obvious need). Since participating in a few weddings and witnessing the stressors firsthand, I’m proud to say the guide still holds up. Kicking myself about the missed opportunity to refer to the stressors as “uninvited wedding guests.” Good thing I’m truly the only one who would care about this anyway.
Okay, so I kept the kategrey set.
At Ninja School 2019, I spent my 5 minute bio time to present an amateur brow practicum. Here is the companion flipchart.
Alison, whose taste in music I trust blindly and without exception, introduced me to Bruno Major the other week: incidentally, also to Eloise. She (Eloise) did this incredible Vulfpeck cover that I can’t get out of my head; my clumsy, lullaby version strumming can’t even begin to compare, so don’t listen to them back to back :)