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August 12, 2022

I got six tomato plants at the beginning of the season, and did what I normally do, which is plant three of them in the raised bed and three of them in...

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A root vegetable for every season

August 10, 2022

I live in Chicago, land of too many root vegetables. A turnip the size of a softball landed on my doorstep the other day, thanks to my farm. It joined,...

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Baseball day

August 8, 2022

The most off-brand thing about me is that I am extremely into baseball. I promise to not talk about baseball a whole lot here, unless the Cubs win the World...

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Light form

August 5, 2022

We’ve talked about flashlight people, and now we will talk about the flashlight. There is truly a flashlight for every season, but in another, more accurate...

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The trial & grim error of our zero waste rumspringa

August 3, 2022

There is a genre of objects that falls under the genre of zero waste. It is made without plastic, reusable, reused, compostable. There are bamboo...

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Pete

August 1, 2022

“I really have no idea what it is I sell,” a Chartreuse Diffusion president told The New Yorker in 1984. “I am very scared always. Only three of the brothers...

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Want to not want

July 29, 2022

One of the nicer lessons of the Bad Times® is that I don’t really need anything. I lived in Portugal for a month with two bags; I lived in Mexico & Costa...

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Notes on the third worst date that I have ever had in my life

July 27, 2022

In 2012, I threw my 30th birthday party, and over 250 people showed up. I say over, of course, because I lost count sometime around when the police first...

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Show right

July 25, 2022

I went to a fancy college where, between bits of studying, integenerational wealth likes to show off its materialism and reify structures of power. If you...

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Second city chance

July 22, 2022

I like second cities. I grew up in one. I live in one. Second cities try to punch above their weight. Second cities have something to prove. There is a...

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Fewer, better hoodies

July 20, 2022

Here are the fashion rules:

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The zine as trial balloon

July 18, 2022

The slow roll is important. There is risk. Printers don’t have undo buttons. You can’t take years of your life back. This is why zines exist. The premise At...

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Earth's only remaining holiday

July 15, 2022

There is your perception of Basil Day, there is my perception of Basil Day, and then there is Basil’s perception of Basil Day, which is the only holiday...

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How to museum

July 13, 2022

The first thing you have to do is go to a lot of museums. If you go to a lot of museums, you learn how to skip stuff, and skipping stuff is how to museum....

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Night to day

Premium post · July 11, 2022

I was chatting with a friend the other day, and she told me that I do the best job with creative work when I oscillate between periods of public exposure and...

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Anarchy roar

July 8, 2022

In 2008, on the fourth of July at sundown, I posted up with a few friends on the seawall facing Lake Michigan, and watched some fireworks. The city would...

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Community work is repair work

Premium post · July 6, 2022

In my recent text about community matters, a couple of people remarked on our code of conduct, asking: how do you deal with bad actors? This is not a short...

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Community-supported marathon

July 4, 2022

For the past 11 years, I have participated in one form or another of community-supported agriculture, where every week I either go to a farm and pick up a...

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How we relate

Premium post · July 1, 2022

In order to see more text you like, you need to reply to it. And a lot of you replied to the text I wrote a few weeks back about the barbeque. I think people...

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New pour, old practice

June 29, 2022

The pour is a habit; the pour is a practice. For about a decade, the pour went like this: Grind to the consistency of sand, approximately. Boil your water to...

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