Before wandering into the world of pop up cards, here are five last 5WP’s…until we get back into poetry again!
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3/24 Inktober 52 (2024), week 13
battling samurai with a spork
I tried a few lineweights with this Spork. The simple clean version one felt most spork-y.
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3/28 Inktober 52 (2024), week 11
japanese racoons shapeshift with nuts
A reference to the brilliant Studio Ghibli movie Pom Poko, a fun commentary on fighting our inevitable exploitation of nature. An early scene showing the development of the rural land around Tokyo is one of the sharpest satires I’ve seen on film.
I can’t remember for sure, but with the spacing so perfect, I suspect it was tweaked in the box. Nothing crazy, just a nudge here or there.
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4/3 Inktober 52 (2024), week 8
astronaut riding a space donkey
An early experiment with inverting the background and playing with colors (using the Hue-Saturation filter). One day I should start experimenting in IRL with gauche on colored paper.
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4/4 Inktober 52 (2024), week 9
always add a red balloon
The version on blank sheets was fine, but ruled binder paper felt like a relevant background for something that references a red-balloon (and as always a little extra noise can make a huge difference).
This was a reference to the architectural rendering trope adding a child with a red balloon. It gives a pop of color in the sky and a sense of playfulness to an otherwise staid image.
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3/29 Inktober 52 (2025), week 13
a flock of folded rams
With this I detoured heavily into the world of pop-up cards. We bought Paul Jackson’sCut and Fold Techniques for Pop-Up Designs for the boy’s birthday, but I stole it as soon as I saw it. There would be a few more 5WP’s, but dealing with the third dimension and the constraints of the paper sucked all my creative energy for a while.
After summer, I returned to flat paper with the ruling pen but focused on a single word at a time. I’d like to return to poetry and pop-ups (and maybe both at the same time!), but struggling with a word itself is challenge enough for now.
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As we head into this season of year end summaries, it’s interesting to think that this post covers the first half of 2025 with my “standard” 5WP format, practicing with a brushpen on ruled binder paper, and folded pop-up cards.
The second half of the year (assuming no surprises after I draft this in late October) was dominated by the ruling pen, a month off due to illness, embracing a focus on just one word at a time, and finally pushing out some old blog drafts.
I wonder what the new year will bring? All I know is that I don’t.
It’s gentle, but dang if your arms don’t get tired! And it’s easy to crank it up if you’re feeling it.
For me, it is cultural tourism, exer-dancing with a group from the exotic orient. I guess it’s not totally foreign since I’m of Chinese descent. The music is familiar, even though I don’t understand the words to the songs. While the megalopolis Asian urban setting is strange, the faces are not.
I would prefer to hang out at the local Kung Fu gym for my exercise. But that time that has passed. I don’t have time to slip out to practice with kids who are a just a few years older than my children.
Unfortunately, Tai Chi by myself gets old after a while, but partaking in the kitschy music and oddly familiar foreign group movement with the family is a nice change of pace for a day’s exercise.
—May 2021
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PPS—Rubber Balloons
My daughter wanted helium balloons for her birthday, but we ordered a bag of regular balloons from Target.
She quickly got over her disappointment after my wife inflated a couple of them. Human air doesn’t float, but gravity makes for play. They spent a couple of hours batting them around the house. Up and down the stairs, over the dividing walls, in the bedrooms.
I hadn’t heard the boy laugh like this in a while. All over fifty cents of rubber.
It pained me to think of all the kids who can’t afford such a fleeting luxury. And I was reminded of a fellow father riding in the Vegas heat with a foil balloon for each of his kids.
—October 2021, soon after, they discovered the manual mattress pump. We had hours of fun inflating the balloons and letting them fly through the house.
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PPPS—Pac-Man
Our daughter is growing up fast. She was reading a book with snippets from American History and asked about “Pac-Man”.
We watched YouTube videos and played Scratch versions of this classic. I also explained the concept of “arcades” where people had to pay coins to play computer games, and how the value of a quarter has been debased over forty years.
This weekend I pulled out a “Pac-Man Connect and Play” that plugs into the TV. Even though they didn’t enjoy Pac-Man, the boy loved a driving game where you left oil spills to spin out the pursuer. She preferred a flying game shooting coins out of the air.
After TV time was up, we played Pac-Man in person, using deflated balloons for the smaller buttons and inflated balloons for the ones that made Pac-Man eat the ghosts.
Then we took another YouTube break for the The Go! Team’s Ms. Pac-Man music video. That led to watching more music videos, TV advertising, and discussed how TV used to be appointment viewing.
Basically, we covered the last half century of American culture in a weekend through a yellow lens.
Oh, I don’t want to watch Pokemon. Cleaning up takes energy and I only have 1 energy left.
8/28/2023
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3/11 Inktober 52 (2024), week 17
history comes in funny caps
That’s a funny looking cap.
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3/13 Inktober 52 (2024), week 16
red ball chasing this parabola
I pulled the background way down for the final composition. Just enough for some visual interest, but not enough to compete with the 5WP.
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3/14 Inktober 52 (2024), week 15
reading by clear river light
I studied abroad in Paris in the Spring of 2007. It was a glorious semester. I traveled a little, had a nice project, and spent a lot of time in the city of lights. One of my favorite moments was reading Raymond Chandler along the banks of the Siene on a glorious Sunday afternoon.
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3/15 Inktober 52 (2024), week 14
Steve Jobs is my sidekick
It’s crazy how addicted we are to these rectangles in our pockets.
Growing up in the 80’s, it’s crazy to think the guy behind the Apple IIe’s would take over the world with pocket computers, with unimaginable power and connectivity.
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3/23 Inktober 52 (2024), week 10
this moment frozen in flight
Once I have a good rhythm going, it’s really hard to go off script. So that last “t” was surprisingly hard, even though I had the cursive down pat.
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I’m writing this a bit in advance, but I’ll have basically run through my second Inktober.
I’m sharing my pieces on Substack Notes and on Bluesky, but I won’t be using Instagram, where the whole exercise sprouted. I despise Zuck’s algorithms, so I’m not giving him any more “content”, especially since all I get in return are a few hearts on IG and no comments of substance.
There are very few clean transactions in this world—one day I’ll have to reconsider my usage of Substack and Bluesky, but I’ll enjoy the party for now.
Cya next time!
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PS—Pokémon TV
It’s a kids show, boring for adults.
I was just old enough to miss the phenomena when it first hit America, but after winning a Pikachu stuffy at the claw in the Primm Outlet Mall, the kids wanted to see what the fuss was about.
Good lord, Nintendo created one heck of a merchandizing machine.
Gotta catch them all!
Toys, collectable card games, video games, books, plenty of gear, and endless TV shows!
A brilliant case study for late stage capitalism via a little yellow electric squirrel!
Pika pika!
—September 2023
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PPS-Pokémon Go
A slight nudge to walk more Kilometers (to hatch eggs)
Kids love collecting! I had to set a screen time password on this game.
Eventually stopped using it, I don’t need more nudges to use a phone.
PPPS-Pokémon Sleep
I never tried a sleep tracker before. Interesting to see how badly I slumber.
The kids spent too much time playing with the game parts.
I stopped using it. It’s weird to have a phone on the bed next listening to me all night.
PPPPS-Pokémon Smile
Great timer for brushing teeth. Works for 44-year-olds too.
The kids spent a bunch of time with stickers until Mama put her foot down.
I brush my teeth in horse stance so my head is low enough for the iPad camera. 2-for-1 exercise!
—January 2024
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PPPPPS—Pokémon Zeddemore (v0.1)
Years ago, I came across a single-deck format for Magic the Gathering by Seth Brown and Tom (no last name given).
After a fellow architect gave me a pile of Pokémon commons for my kids, I dusted off the ruleset to make a game out of these cards (since the little ones aren’t ready to construct their own decks).
We played it a couple of times this weekend and this format translates well to Pokémon.
Plagiarism alert: everything below is a copy of Tom’s original tumblr post with only minor revisions to adapt it to Pokémon—why rewrite rules that already work?
Winston is a draft format designed for two players by Richard Garfield. Here’s how it works:
A big shuffled deck of cards is put, face-down, in the center of the table. The top three cards are placed in a line next to the deck. I will refer to these cards as ‘piles’, because that’s what they may soon become.
The first player to draft looks at the first pile (currently just a single card) and decides whether or not they want to add it to their pool. Let’s say they don’t. They add a new card from the big deck to that pile and move on to the second pile, where they repeat this process. Let’s say they want this card. They take it and replace the now empty pile with a new card from the deck.
The second player looks at the first pile (which now contains two cards). If he wants them, he takes the entire pile – in this case, two cards. He replaces the empty pile with a new card.
If a player passes on all three piles, they take a random card off the top of the deck.
Continue until all cards are taken.
And that’s it. Simple.
What Zeddemore does is take the already fun Winston Draft, and spreads it throughout the game. You draft as you play. Your initial draws at the start of each turn become drafts.
Hopefully that gives you a sense for how Zeddemore plays, so let’s talk about how it works.
The Opening Hands
The original MtG Zeddemore starts with three rounds of drafting to construct your opening hand, which makes sense for sophisticated players. On the other hand, I’m just playing with my kids.
So I just deal seven to the hand (and six as prize cards).
And then start the first draft as the first draw phase of the game.
Changes to Pokémon
Before we start playing, I borrowed up two key rule changes dug up from the internet.
Any Pokémon can evolve into any other Pokémon of the same type, as long as the stage matches. Hoppip—Gloom—Venusaur, but not Hoppip—Vileplume—Venusaur.
You can use any Pokémon as an energy (turn it upside down to attach). The energy type is determined by the Pokémon type.
The Turns
Aside from the draw being replaced by a draft, turns work as they usually would. Drafting does, however, have one important rule. Only your first draw during your turn is replaced by a draft. Any other card drawing is handled in the usual fashion – straight off the top of the deck. You may only draft during your turn, and only once per turn.
The Deck
Much like with Cube, a bunch of cards will be needed. A great deal of creativity is possible in the construction of a Zeddemore Deck. Generally though, it follows these guidelines.
Energy – Since I use Pokémon cards as energy, there is no need for energy cards. However, this rule change came about because I wasn’t gifted energy cards. Maybe this will change at some point. (The original MtG Zeddemore recommends 25 to 30% of the cards in a Zeddemore deck should be lands, a bit less than normal, but they also start with a couple lands in their hand).
Milling – Cards that put cards from the top of a player’s deck into their graveyard are generally avoided. Players can’t lose by decking, so most of these cards simply don’t do much.
Singleton – Generally, Zeddemore decks are singleton, although this is by no means a requirement (I don’t have enough cards to go singleton, but it is a goal if I buy a bulk pack of a thousand).
Card Quality – One aspect of Zeddemore that Seth and I both hold dear to our hearts is the inclusion of both good and bad cards. I will explain the thought behind this in depth in the future, but suffice it to say that it serves an important mechanical need in Zeddemore, and an experiential one. If you have any cards that would cause you to recoil in horror if they should somehow appear in your opening hand, you should probably include them in your Zeddemore deck. Worry not – strong cards are welcome too. An equal number of good, okay, and bad works well.
Recovery – (I have no idea what is good or bad in Pokémon, but I’m keeping this here for future reference), Zeddemore has an aspect to it that can allow a player who’s ahead on the board to easily build upon their advantage, leaving their opponent in a situation that rapidly falls out of their control. For this reason, I like to include some cards that are not at their best in the hands of a player that’s winning. There shouldn’t be too many of the good ones, of course. Occasionally, players do have to lose.
Deck Search – For reasons I will explain below, cards that let you search your library, while allowed, should be approached with caution. (Unfortunately I don’t think this is suggestion avoidable in Pokémon).
Deck Size – The bigger the better. How small can a deck be? Well, you don’t want to run out of cards (though it’s not a big deal to just shuffle the discard pile and keep playing).
Random – Some of these guidelines can be ignored if players are willing to utilize the deck construction technique that is most in the spirit of Zeddemore – completely random. With this approach, not even the deck’s builder may look at the cards until the drafting begins.
Sundry – There is all sorts of other bits of advice and rules, often relating to specific mechanics, that I will share in the future.
The Graveyard
Traditionally, there is a shared graveyard in Zeddemore. This is not a requirement. If the builder of the Zeddemore deck feels that their deck would work best with individual graveyards, then that is their prerogative. Playing with a shared graveyard can make some cards better. Generally, this is fine. Zeddemore likes strong cards.
The Annoying Rules
Zeddemore alters some basic things in the game, and as such, some annoying rules are required. (Some of these rules might not be applicable to Pokemon, but I’m hesitant to delete them until I feel more comfortable with the Pokemon TCG universe)
Searching the library – If a card tells you to search your library for a type of card, you may only look at the top eleven cards of library. When done, cards that weren’t taken are shuffled and placed at the bottom of the deck. The overall deck is not shuffled. Zeddemore decks are often very large, with the number of cards currently on the table possibly only representing a small portion of the deck’s total size. Allowing players to search even 50 cards, which they may not be all that familiar with, for the one card that would be optimal for them, is simply too slow. Searching 500 is a nightmare. It would also run headlong into one of Zeddemore’s greatest strengths – an exploration of the unknown. This rule makes many cards worse than they would otherwise be. Generally, this is fine. Zeddemore likes bad cards. However, cards that will often not do what they say they’ll do can piss off almost any player. Tread lightly.
Card drawing – As already explained, additional card drawing never gives you additional drafts.
Card ownership – A card’s owner is the player who most recently drafted the card. This rule can be especially important with shared graveyards.
Tucking – Cards that are put on the bottom of the library or are shuffled into the library, should be put on the true bottom of the library. As already stated, the portion of the deck currently on the table may not be the full deck. In my case, it never is. Most of the library sits in a box, waiting to replenish the cards on the table. Rather than turn the timing of this replenishment into something that can be ‘gamed’ (a short library might advantage one player), never consider a portion of the library to be the full library. Cards that are put on top of the library, or in the top portion of the library, work like normal.
Drafting – The game essentially pauses while a player is drafting. Abilities can not be used. Cards that continuously reveal the top card of the library don’t work until the drafting is finished.
More on drafting – A single draft counts as a card draw, even if that player drafted five cards.
The Play
(a benediction from Tom)
And now it’s time to play Zeddemore. Zeddemore is fun. Seth, myself, and the dozens of friends that have tried it can attest to that. Something else Seth and I can attest to, however, is that not every game is fun. Sometimes a player won’t get the lands they need. Sometimes a bomb can’t be answered. What Seth and I found, in our marathon sessions of Zeddemore, was that these games ended quickly. The great games, though, the ones with shifting board states, barely-answered bombs, and the skillful deployment of some truly sub-par cards, can last quite a long time, especially in our memory. I hope you have as much fun with Zeddemore as we do.
Revisions
If we play this game more (which hasn’t happened in the past eighteen months), I’ll make a freestanding posts with updated revisions. However, I suspect, this moment will be a relic of a moment, as I continue (unsuccessfully) my quest to be a boardgamer dad.
I cheated a little in this one, moving some of the words in the box to fine tune the composition. I never feel great about digital manipulation, but as time passes, I feel less guilty about it.
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3/6
dirt our home to be
I love how the colors came out on this one, especially the inversion of the colors with the words.
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3/8 Inktober 52 (2025), week 10
a chain of black daisies
This 5WP was banked on inverting colors in the computer, but the image of a black daisy won out.
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3/9 Inktober 52 (2024), week 12
spring forward lose an hour
It’s interesting to revisit the layering of colored words months after graphing the pieces.. Clearly the top example was the best, but it took a few shots to explore the possibilities. I often compare calligraphy to hitting the slots.
The greatest thing about the constant practice is that once I land on a good composition, I am supremely confident than I can get it right. Unlike the previous Inktober, I don’t worry about whether I can replicate a good turn of hand from a practice sheet onto the final sheet.
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3/10 Poetry Haul #9
try please love turn vulnerable
unraveled sweater we broken burden
alive date new fresh chapter
More play with italics.
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I am constantly in awe of the Monkey King. I never thought I had any affinity to superheroes until I saw my kids watch old Sun Wukong videos and read the books myself.
Then I realized I did have a favorite superhero all along, planted when my mom would read stories from old Chinese picture books to me and my sister when we were little kids.
Cya next time!
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PS—Monkey King, Wu Cheng’en, trans. Julia Lovell, 2021
I’m typically too snobbish to read abridged versions, and now I’ve gone through two of them with the Walden audiobook and this Lovell translation.
In some ways it hearkens to the proscribed system in How to Read a Book where one takes multiple passes at varying levels of detail. I’m pretty good at skimming books, but it certainly helps when someone has done that work for you.
As for this book itself, it’s one heck of a story. The introduction warns you that this is satire, and it follows through on the promise. The Taoists are venal, the heavenly bureaucracy is minimally competent, the Buddhists aren’t much better, and I don’t think there is a single happy marriage in the book. Our gang of pilgrims are least dysfunctional bunch of the lot, which isn’t saying much.
As an abridged book, some of the stories are cut as was most of the poetry, which seems to be a distinctive aspect of the original novel. But that’s all good, it’s a fun read and it enticed me to read an unabridged version. Hard to give it higher praise than that.
After reading an unabridged translation by Anthony C. Yu, I must admit that cutting out the poetry quite impoverishes the experience. As much as I appreciate that this abridged version introduced me to the original, without the poetry it’s like reading a screenplay and ignoring the movie.
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PPS—A Field Guide to Roadside Wildflowers at Full Speed
Any excuse to bring up this gem makes it a good day.
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PPPS—New Tales of the Monkey King
I guess this TV show was a fun romp.
I don’t particularly mind the cultural appropriation because it’s way different than the original book and it’s Australian. I got enough problems in my own continent, I can’t get bothered over what they do on the other side of the globe.
But the first season was just OK. It certainly wasn’t anything that I would have watched without its nominal relationship to the 西遊記.
Yeah there’s a monk and his/her three disciples. The disciples are all gods in exile, and there are demons in this world, but then it goes off into its own universe.
Unlike the clear heavenly imperium of the original, the screen writers went for a good versus evil mega-battle—the bane of all superhero comic book movies. It’s a complete change from the original book. Instead of four folks on a long journey, they’ve been dumped into a Manichean struggle.
Even so, I enjoyed watching how they took an old story and modernize it to a contemporary popular medium. I can’t fault them for taking inspiration from the source and blazing their own trail.
But I must quibble with their depictions of Monkey and Tripitaka.
Monkey is depicted as a vain illiterate creature in this show. He’s certainly vain, but he’s a fucking badass. He’s quite literate, he should always be depicted as a Superman.
I’m fine that they recast Tripitaka a woman. One of the problems in the original story is that it’s a sausage fest. However, the screenwriters are much too kind to Tripitaka whose defining feature should be his helplessness. I dislike that she even learned kung fu in this show. I get that they are trying to avoid the damsel in distress, but if so, they should have chosen a different character to gender shift.
My the ultimate judgement?
I never watched Season 2.
I don’t regret the time spent on the first ten episodes, but if I want to know what happened on this TV show, I’ll just read the Wikipedia synopsis.
The Portland trip took a lot out of us. The trip was great, but planning and then recovering took a bunch of extra time before and after the actual time off. And then we followed it with a jaunt to San Diego right before school started. Travel is fun, but it eats into “free” time for sure.
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2/25 Inktober 52 (2024), week 21
quack quack sexy selfie sandwich
How did duckface became a social media phenomenon? I guess every era needs its thing.
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2/28 Inktober 52 (2024), week 20
we don’t see our mythology
I went light for a white on white vibe. Then reversed it.
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3/1 Poetry Haul #8
somewhere we assemble wonder moon meet rich star light award fall and honor sun girl
I had some fun with extended italics as I wrapped up February.
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3/2 Inktober 52 (2025), week 9
lamp with a fresh genie
The flat brush runs fine, but I’ve continued to have trouble with cursive with a pointed brush. The Pentel brush pen works great, but I’ve never gotten the hang of normal pointed brushes.
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3/3
touching hands through a loupe
I had purchased a collage by Duane Toops and zoomed in with a jeweler’s loupe. Collage is a tactile art, I could see his hand in the cuts and ridges of paper on paper.
The cursive looks like it has regressed, it might be time to add it back on the list as a monthly focus.
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Again, it feels like I’m trying to just get something in before another month disappears. Things have been super busy at work. But it’s a good busy. I’m doing good work on great projects.
I just need to slow down the pace. As much as I hate to admit it, things at the airport can wait, especially as time with the wife and kids continues to drip away.
I didn’t get this posted in time for August, and then my body revolted to put September on hold for three weeks.
Even worse, after returning from the hospital with my liver abscess, another family member went to the ER after dropping a bunch of weight and experiencing serious discomfort in the gut.
The family is going through a bout of organ revolts. We’ve had a good run, so I guess we were due.
Health shouldn’t be taken for granted, and yet, that is exactly what we do during the good times. One can’t live on permanent high alert, but I need to cultivate a practice of gratitude to savor the quiets between the storms.
Cya next time!
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PS—The Mentor Leader, Tony Dungy, 2010
In 2021, I stopped reading self-help books—I got what I needed out of them.
After starting a work-related newsletter, I tried to restart the habit to grab some professional ideas to go with my artistic interests.
Naww, I’m past peak Self-help.
There’s nothing wrong with this book. This book matches Tony Dungy’s public persona—a quiet dude who makes everyone around him successful.
I blasted through the book at 2x speed. His main point is that a mentor leader should be humble. Being humble means receding into the background; success is found in elevating those around you.
I dig it! I bet I’m less humble than I’d like to believe, but I appreciate the appeal of his message.
Tony goes heavy on Christianity, but given my recent forays into ancient wisdom literature, that’s fine, even as an atheist.
Worth a quick listen if you’re in the mood for a generic leadership book, though you might remember nothing from it four years hence.
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PPS—The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson, 2016
It’s kind of amazing to listen to a self help book and have nothing to say about it, even after trying to come up with an interesting take for a few days.
Just standard tough love, self-help fare, with a lot of F-bombs. The title is perfect for this book. If you pick it up, you’ll most likely dig it.
I didn’t disagree with Manson’s main points. There are only so many ways to approach life and his recommendations match how I see things, in spite of his crass delivery.
Pick your priorities (chose your f’s).
Control your reactions.
Owning your world is better constantly being the victim of your own psychodrama.
Avoid highs—chemical, relational, any type. They’re temporary and the crash only gets worse the longer you delay.
Commitment is freedom. It creates depth versus breadth.
Don’t pursue the results, pursue the process. Or if you don’t enjoy the process, give up on the results and chase what you enjoy doing.
The unconvinced will not be persuaded, but the book is fine if you want another take on such riffs. Another listen for 2x speed.
It’s a pain to track which goes with what…so I’m mixing up the Inktober 52 prompts with my own 5WP’s. Bon Appetit!
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2/10 Inktober 52 (2022), week 51
flickering victorians pacing gaslit verandas
This was the last 5WP for an informal series on magic using Inktober prompts. I had a rough time composing this piece. When I was younger I would be disappointed the deflation that comes with the end of a project. Now I’m just used to it. On to the next!
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2/11 Poetry Haul #3
shoulders cry pleading seeking peace
hibernation silo free body struggle
frequently understatement ever vigilant rights
You really can’t cross the same river twice. In early February, I had just come off of a month of pointed brush work. I don’t think I could do this right now. Even though I’m still practicing daily, I’ve lost the edge that comes with focusing on it solely every morning.
To do this again, I’d have to relive January, like the Borges story where Pierre Menard creates a life to spontaneously re-create Don Quixote.
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2/13 Inktober 52 (2024), week 28
ratty rebels raided royal realms
I save of all my scrap sheets. This was graphed on a test page for my team holiday cards. Of course, many attempts to work on such sheets also don’t turn out, so they just get blacker over time!
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2/16 Inktober 52 (2025), week 7
4 triangles make a pyramid
I love calligraphy due to its handcraft. But the final deliverable is always on a screen. So am I a digital artist?
Maybe. Two months after the initial publication, I can’t remember the original ink color (turned out it was pink). The background was obviously an addition after the fact. And actually, this is version 2 because I had originally uploaded one where the script color opacity came out differently between the sky and sand backgrounds.
So yes, this is absolutely a piece of digital art. But in this digital age, is everything digital art? Maybe that’s a meaningless distinction? Everything flits across a universe of flickering rectangles, while the “real” work sits inside an old cardboard Sun Chips box.
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2/15 Poetry Haul #6
vision notified no cold hope
dismiss despair supply prove dream
remarkably somewhere slam hot truth
Like clockwork, I start publicly running the script of the month after two weeks of practice. After fourteen days, I’m comfortable with the muscle memory even if it hasn’t hit full smoothness.
On the third week, it gets locks in, edging towards boredom. By week four I’m playing with variations on the script.
By week six or seven I feel like I’ve already lost the script, or that it’s merged with the new script of that next month.
It’s a slightly depressing cycle, but no skill is permanent.
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If even knowledge is impermeant, I guess a cardboard box of papers ain’t a bad parting gift.
Cya next time!
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PS—Bissell Vacuum Cleaner
We’ve tried a few vacuum cleaners over the years. We have a $400 Miele in the closet, and we’ve also spent similar sums on a couple of cordless Dysons.
But our workhorse is an $18 Bissell. We’ve bought four of them. The first one died. The second for my mother-in-law and then we accidentally bought two more online when we were moving into our place. No matter, just keep one up and downstairs.
It’s just a little handheld vacuum with a handle extension and a flat insert to let you push it along the floor.
That’s the magic. So cheap you’re never scared to use it. Dirty kitchen. Suck it up. Laminate floors? Without brushes, this vacuum can’t ruin anything. No bags to track. Just dump it out and wash the filter.
And no batteries! This thing runs forever. Light and nimble, well worth the hassle of occasionally swapping plugs when vacuuming a large area.
The cheapest product came out to be the best one. At least the most regularly used everywhere, and is there a better definition of “best” for a household appliance?
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PPS—Stainless Steel Baking Pans
We bought an 8″x10″ baking pan, a few years ago. Small enough to fit a toaster oven. Works great. Flat plate of stainless steel with a slight rolled rim. Nice and shiny.
And a second one last year, so we could swap back and forth, but we gave one to our in-laws.
But I got cute with the third one. Intsead of reordering the exact same item, I got one that came with a little grill rack.
It was so small!
I double checked. The dimensions were super close, just off one inch in each direction: 7×9 versus 8×10.
Do the math.
63 square inches to 80 square inches. I bought something that was almost a quarter smaller than the original!
What an embarrassing display of innumeracy. My mental math is great…if I use my brain.
But the rack is nice. We’ve gotten good use out of it. No complaints.
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PPPS—Practice
2/12
Around mid-February I realized that I would totally lose the straight brush if I didn’t practice it regularly. So I started filling the empty lines between the main scripts with cursive.
I’m procrastinating on taxes by compiling this post. Taxes are a cost of society and a lovely spring buzzkill. On the bright side, we’re about to head out to an airshow at Nellis, so I’m getting our fair share of entertainment (and propaganda) for these taxes.
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1/29
daddy, you look more chinese! (without glasses)
The boy is still earnestly drops lines of joy. I wonder how much longer it will last; it’s all so fleeting.
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1/30
fried onion topping my cereal
I do love fried onions.
For a week in January, I played with funky Uncials, and it’s on the list to revisit for a full month. I wonder if I will ever stumble into a particular script that “is it“. Likely not—I’m a too into variety and impatient for perfection.
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1/31
unruly mindless fake constitutional scholars
unforgettable kerfuffle eggheads evaporate around
senior space gang, andromeda chapter
These poetry hauls can be challenging! But it’s always fun to make them work. I love the mental picture of an alien biker gang who faux-studied our founding fathers.
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2/5
… and the pursuit of Leisure
This was inspired when Thomas J Bevan announced a Symposium on Leisure. I’m super happy with both of these. A couple months later, I’m not confident if I could do this today. The downside of picking up new scripts is losing old ones along the way.
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2/9
trauma rejection surpass interior style
diversity through self illusion recognition
analyze capital ammunition beyond currency
I made a mistake on “interior” so I rewrote the poem on a single page—which I immediately recognized was the right format for these poetry haul exercises.Sometimes you gotta keep doing something until the right format arrives. Repetition is the heart of process.
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Between commenting on two-month old 5WP’s and editing four-year old blog drafts, these newsletters have become an exercise in archeology.
I do appreciate each of y’all who read and comment on them. Thanks for joining my delve into the past!
Cya next time!
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PS—Word by Word, Ann Lamott, 1996
Bird by Bird is such a classic that the library has a long wait for the audiobook. So I started with this recorded seminar that she gave in Austin.
I dig it—I’ll be reading Bird by Bird.
Three key takeaways.
If you’re gonna be a writer, then write. Getting published is only a result of writing.
Find a writing group to work through this all together.
Draw deeply from reality.
I appreciate her suggestion for writer’s block. Give yourself permission to think. If you can’t write, then maybe force yourself to not write for a while. Sometimes your brain needs space to recharge.
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Here are a few other exercises that sounded fun (though I haven’t tried them in the four years since I listened to that workshop).
List 10 favorite words.
Spend 300 words on someone you truly hate.
Describe yourself in detail five and ten years from now.
Where you would want to live, do it in exquisite detail.
Why you are here, why do you insist?
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PPS—Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, 1995
Vulnerable, crass, funny. Brilliant! I see why it’s a classic writing workshop in a book. Anne explores the difficulty of the process, and exhorts the reader to do the work.
She doesn’t shy from the benefits of the writing life, but reminds us that outside success isn’t all that special. Our personal problems don’t disappear after our shell gets polished.
So, it’s about sitting down and writing. Work and make it happen. Taking things one “small assignment” at a time. Finding a cohort to work with.
Don’t be disappointed when a project always ends with a whimper. (They all do.) Life keeps moving. The process stays going.
TLDR: Sit down every day, jump in, flail around, do a bit at a time, gut yourself to examine the innards, deliver, and do it again tomorrow. It’ll add up to a good life.
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Speaking of Process, a friend and I started a journal of student work at Berkeley that lasted for two issues. It darn near killed me both years. For the longest time I thought it was a waste (aside from meeting one of my best friends). As a middle-aged man, I’ve learned that friends are rare. A buddy is one helluva a haul for a project.
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This book is nominally about writing, but her subtitle is perfect: “Some Instructions on Writing and Life”. Her notes on completing a book mirror too closely to the work I’ve done as an architect. Writing might be her profession, but this book transcends her medium.
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It is refreshing to read a self-help book by a great writer. The book shines; you don’t have to trust claims of her excellence in some other field—the proof is right here, page by page. Her display of craft makes her advice all the more visceral as she bares her soul and wrestles with the difficulty of life.
I’m now distant enough from these pieces they’ve become surprises to revisit. I should to accelerate the release of these five-packs, but things are about to crazy at work. If I fall further behind, that will let them age longer as old surprises to uncover.
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2/6 Inktober 52 (2024), week 19
world floating in a jar
I had a rough time with the composition, and I need to take a month to practice the sign painting script to hit right.Even so, I’m happy with this final version, even if it took a little computer magic to make it work.
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2/7 Inktober 52 (2022), week 9
uhoh them mops gots buckets
In retrospect, I the sign painted UH-OH would have worked better, but in the moment I pushed the cursive in the finished versions. I’m looking for a good pointed brush outside of my Pentel pens, but it will take a few tries to get right. That’s gonna be an expensive exercise since it requires buying individual brushes.
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1/25 Inktober 52 (2025), week 4
aquarius poor ganymede mixing nectar
I’ve been starting my mornings by practicing the my script of the month. Pushing the finished piece with the hue function gave it a nice watery feel, by changing the colors. My main practice inks are yellow and pink because they are quite dry (so they don’t heavily on cheap paper).
BTW the original Aquarius myth is sad, if not traumatic. Them Greeks told things real. Same for the Bible, even if we normally gloss over those parts.
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2/1 Inktober 52 (2025), week 5
we’re all in this zoo
As always, there are so many little decisions that must be made after the overall concept. Again, the practice sheet came to the rescue, adding a little extra noise to give the composition presence.
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2/8 Inktober 52 (2025), week 6
a light in the swamp
The top two versions are tweaks of the same scan. All versions were done as black/grey ink on white paper and then inverted in GIMP. After that, it’s about how hard to push the dials.
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As much as I’d prefer to do it all perfectly on the page, the computer is an integral part of my process. These discussions about process are my penance for relying so much on the box.
Similar to the writing seminar in undergrad, I suspect my most influential class in grad school was the digital photography course with Frank White. As an architectural photographer, he unapologetically embraced the computer as part of the process.
Of course, the process is a lot harder if you don’t start with good inputs, but the final piece is the final piece. Excuses about what happened along the way don’t matter for the deliverable.
That’s how I do it here. I’m not above the occasional process photo to flashthat I can do most of it in real life. I’m not hiding anything, whether it came from the pen or was pushed in the computer.
It just is.
Cya next time!
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PS—10 Bits For a Creative Practice
I wrote this as a response to someone’s post in early 2024, but the records have been drowned in the endless feed of content. I liked this enough to save it as a draft and it’s finally time to reshare it.
Show up every day.
Jump in! FFS just start.
Study the greats.
Celebrate your peers.
Don’t freak out about bad work.
Tension is the trigger to breathe. Relax.
If you can’t do it slow you can’t do it fast. No rush.
Pivot freely.
If the crop feels wrong, the crop IS wrong. (Trust your gut)—an aphorism I learned in that photography class.The concept of trusting default triggers has served me well over the decades for many things beyond images.
Do it again tomorrow!
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PPS—Self Help Junky
Another response to someone else (exactly who lost in the endless feed).
As a former self-help junky, I’m a big fan of the anti-self-help movement. Of course, a moderate approach is generally best in life, but if you could only pick path I’d recommend skipping self-help.
But I’m moderating this reactionary stance after reading Kenny Werner’s Effortless Mastery.
I wonder if the question for judging a book is “how” versus “what”. Don’t invest in books that tell you what to do (or avoid). But there might be value in books that explore how to get somewhere that you already want to reach.
In that spirit, here is a quartet of self help books that might be of use:
Fail-Safe Investing, Harry Browne (great life-finance advice, though do your own research on portfolio composition because the specifics are dated)
So Great they Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport (good compilation of career advice for someone entering the workforce)
Several Short Sentences about Writing, Veryln Klinkenborg (this book goes beyond writing to life, even if a bastardized version of his advice has infected LinkedIn with punchy shallow drivel.)
Effortless Mastery, Kenny Werner (a slow approach to practice, nominally about music but it applies to anything. It’s a distant second best to Tai Chi training at a good school.)
All that said, the Bhagavad Gita would trump all of these books, even if it’s profane to place this text next to self-help fare. May the gods forgive me.
But always be ready to ignore anything that you read in these books. Never confuse the author’s confidence in their advice for it’s applicability to your wild and wooly reality.
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PPPS—Black to Yellow
For giggles I took a brush pen with black in and put in a cartridge with Lamy Mango Yellow. The first sheet shows the transition from pure black (marked with the cyan slash on the second line) to yellow.
1/24
Interestingly, when I went back for more practice, there was still some more black that came out of the brush.
1/24
The next morning I made the “aquarius” 5WP (above), which had more black sneaking out (every other line was made with that black-mango ink, the other lines were made with the former mango pen, now filled with a pinkish ink).
Funny how these things play. The joy of the real world!
Before end of the year, I pushed out a few 5WP’s there were trapped in my phone. And starting with the new year, I’ve jumped into the “Poetry Haul” challenge by ARTSTACK.
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1/7
dawn flickers through stucco tracts
Morning sun is always inspiring, even through banal suburban neighborhoods on the way to work.
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1/8
divine subconscious confirmation bias machine
Using the I Ching and Tarot, I occasionally indulge in randomness for self insight, even though I don’t subscribe to new age woo. I treat these practices as public-domain versions of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s “Oblique Strategies“.
Even without the woo, divination must be treated with the proper respect. Consulting the unpredictable is a powerful way to recontextualize the moment. It’s also the perfect way to tell yourself whatever you subconsciously wanted to hear, a dangerous game.
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1/9
gently ready to explode anytime
As far as I know, I’m well liked as a Project Manager. If that is true, it’s because I try to be gentle and kind with my consultants. On the other hand, I also make it clear that we have standards which need to be met.
It’s a weird dichotomy, partly from my own personality. I’m really nice until I suddenly flip out. That second part ain’t great, but I’ve been getting better at avoiding rabid foaming mouth moments as I continue to grow up.
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1/10
parenting is slowly letting go, first yourself, then the child
I’m certain older parents have a more perceptive opinion of this wild aspect of being human. But this is what I got as a dad of two kiddos.
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1/11
acrimony broken phones shattered hearts
lingering silence chill moonlight pearl
greatest time lost through memory
Artstack started posting a poetry challenge sharing ten words for a week. Add five extra words and we got a triptych of 5WPs!
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With my recent focus on dip pen copperplate and straight brush calligraphy, the Pilot Parallels have been neglected.
I could feel the rust in my fingers while running these Foundational Hand letters. But I’m super happy with how the brush has progressed, so I guess it was a worthy tradeoff.
I’ve kept my interest in calligraphy so far by keeping things fresh. Normally, I don’t have a ton of patience for refinement. Maybe one day I’ll hyper-focus on greatness at one detail. In the meantime, I’m happy with getting pretty good at something before tackling another challenge.
Cya next time!
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PS—Scratch 3.0, MIT Lifelong Kindergarten Lab, 2019
My friend’s boy was taking a class in Scratch. I thought, this might be interesting. And a weekend in 2021 disappeared.
Scratch is a magnificent simple block programming system designed for kids. It was easy to jump into and my daughter and I were having fun drawing and programming a sprawling game with multiple minigames.
That might not be the right way to create a long term habit, but it got our feet wet.
With our (still incomplete game) I took over the reins of the programming, letting her do the drawings. The next step was to unleash her on the computer, so I borrowed a couple of books for a more structured training that lasted a month before we lost interest.
Inadvertently I had stumbled into “paired programming”, where two programmers share a computer. This novel technique is said to increase collaboration and concentration. For a few weeks, it turned out to be surprisingly effective. We collaborated and learned together, pushing ideas back and forth and a live example of by stumbling through the modern instruction manual—YouTube.
The part that really makes Scratch tick is its social aspect. Given the dark side of Facebook and Twitter (now “X”), it is not something I compliment lightly. Every Scratch program allows you to “see inside” giving you a resource to cut through frustration.
But like many moments in childhood, the early interest faded quickly. We pushed out a couple small games and that was that. The boy is now old enough to play with Scratch, but the little rascal prefers sneaking off to play games.
Still, it’s a great resource, kudos to MIT, even if we haven’t used it to its full potential. Yet.
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PPS—ODDADA, Sven Ahlgrimm, Mathilde Hoffmann, Bastian Clausdorff, 2024
I found out about this game on Friday with this excellent review on Good Game Lobby. Slept on it overnight, and bought it on Saturday. They played it all afternoon. He also played it most of Sunday until we dragged away from the computer to read books.
Obviously, this is “composing” on “easy” mode, but twenty songs in and we’re still having fun with more variety to explore.
The sweet spot for a computer game “enjoyable but not addictive”. I’ve spent too many hours on Civilization which is why I’ve avoided that narcotic after the first version. Hopefully sandbox games like this will find a proper balance.
Six months later, I have to admit that we rarely play this game. There is only so many things to do, and composing music isn’t their thing. That said, he saw me looking up ODDADA on the computer and asked to play it after dinner. So he still likes it.
Still highly recommend.
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PPPS-Practice
1/16
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PPPPS-Happy Trails
In January, the IT pro at SPWD left for an awesome opportunity. She happened to be in town so I ran a card over to her. While graphing it out, I ended up with a second card, which I just gave to the guy who instituted the GIS system at our airport, apparently one of the most sophisticated airport systems in the nation.
Catching up with old Inktober52 challenges from 2024.
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1/20 Inktober 52 (2024), week 22
duck paddling into murky secrets
ducks paddle over dark secrets
I uploaded the one on top, but was not happy with how it looked. I messed around a little in GIMP, adding a duo-tone background and then changing the opacity to multiply. Now I’m really happy with both versions!
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1/23 Inktober 52 (2024), week 27
free to pluck the stars
This was inspired by Ann Collin’s post with collage artist Duane Toops, a beautiful pairing of poetry and collage. Check it out!
Their collaboration was bouncing in my head as I tried to fall back asleep while also mentally imaging the Inktober52 prompt “free”. This line slid into my half asleep mind and I snapped awake.
The original graph was black ink on white paper. In the computer, I inverted the color, pulled “stars” way up into the sky, and added a little brown to emphasize the earthiness of the starting line.
Even though I don’t prefer relying upon the computer, I do it when it makes sense. At the very least, rightsizing the white space around conventional pieces. And sometimes it’s nice to envision a piece and hit it out of the box.
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1/28 Inktober 52 (2023), week 42
plump witches prefer organic children
This one turned out to be wicked hard. Even though I envisioned both of these concepts fairly easily, they both took multiple attempts and I’m not happy with any of them.
Sometimes you just throw your hands up and say “this is all I got with today’s skillz!” And move on.
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1/29 Inktober 52 (2023), week 51
the elf sang soft slow
I’m still figuring out how to use that music nib. This was inspired by a glorious piece by totemspoems on Instagram.
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2/3 Inktober 52 (2021), week 30
ink more black than bile
A lot of times I’m using greys, washes, or watercolor. It was fun to just use a pure black india ink.
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At the start of February, I showed my wife some awesome calligraphraphers on Instagram. She was reasonably nice about my work too =).
But we agreed that the borders was limiting the punch on the 5WPs.
So they’re gone.
As an architect, there are some perks to being married to another architect.
Cya next time!
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PS-Bhagavad Gita
I spent the month of April 2021 reading and listening to all the books in the library about the Bhagavad Gita. I thought about doing a series of separate posts, but I’m not sure I have that much to say, so listicle time!
Let’s start with a free copy, translated by Sir Edwin Arnold. As with all public domain books, the language is dated, but nothing beyond the King James Version of the Bible. It doesn’t come with commentaries, which are essential for understanding what’s going on—especially for us from the West where Hinduism is an exotic oriental religion, but the price is right for a decent introduction to the Gita.
I listened to Jack Hawley’s Bhagavad Gita, A Walkthrough for Westerners which is a translation where the commentary is mixed into the writing, resulting in a version that is three times as long as the original poem. It’s an interesting concept that reminds me of the Living Bible paraphrase of the Bible published in the 1970’s. But I was reading the original at the same time as listening to this book, so it felt strange to have Hawley’s parentheticals inserted into the flow of the text. And it was unsettling to never be sure what was textual and what was explanatory. I don’t think it’s a horrible idea, but I prefer the streamlined punch of the original.
I also listened to Ram Dass’s book Paths to God which takes the opposite tack from Jack Hawley. This is a series of lectures nominally around the Gita, but really about Hinduism and spirituality in general. I first came across Ram Dass in the documentary Fierce Grace (as part of a double header with Winged Migration in a movie theater that was about to be demolished). I’ve always been skeptical about white dudes who are into eastern spirituality, but I could sense a good spirit in the film. One interesting aspect of this book is that Ram Dass effortlessly utilizes the language of the 60’s (freak, trip, etc) in a way that makes one understand how that vocabulary came about. Of course it has become a caricature through the intervening decades, but the body of language met a need that was lacking in standard English. In all, I really liked this book.
The library has a straight audiobook reading of the Gita translated by Barbara Stoler-Miller. The reader, Jacob Needleman, has a copy of the audio posted on his own website. The free version online is of inferior audio quality to the version on Overdrive, but it is free.
Eknath Easwaran has a popular translation, but he relies a bit too much on sanskrit terms which makes it hard to follow at times.
When Love Comes to Light, by Richard Freeman & Mary Taylor is a two part book, with an extended ten chapter commentary of the Gita followed by a translation of the book in the second part. Having read and listened to a few books about the Gita, I’m at that point where I’m no longer a complete stranger to the work, but I am still such a novice I can’t really judge the quality of the commentary. Nothing seems out of line with what other people say about the Gita. One nice feature about this commentary is that it generally follows the flow of the Gita. While the essays don’t shy from pulling quotes from the entire book, the flow of the ten chapters covers the themes in the order that they were presented in the original. As such, it may be a good introduction to the Gita.
The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling, by Stephen Cope is a self help book based around the Gita. Like any self help book it is digested in to four digestible “pillars”:
Look to your Dharma
Do it Full Out!
Let Go of the Fruits
Turn it Over to God.
I enjoyed being introduced to the biographies of the great individuals who were discussed in the book, but the criticism on Amazon that the author never dealt with the the conundrum of familial obligations is absolutely on point. The Gita is all about following your duty, which is an easy concept if one has only one single overarching dharma. But what if you have multiple obligations? This book falls short for us normies. I understand why Cope streamlined the biographies to focus on their pursuits of their dharma, but this reduced applicability of these stories for our messy lives. I get that the greats are great because they are different, but if the author doesn’t draw a connection between their lives and our reality, then their biographies become irrelevant. As such, the book is simultaneously too long and too short.
I read the Stephen Mitchell translation, which is in Modern English. Unfortunately I can’t remember anything about this translation. Stephen Mitchell has translated so many different texts, I’m always a little worried about whether he has the expertise to do it right whenever it comes to a specific book.
I’ve ultimately settled on Laurie Patton’s translation. I enjoy her tight structure, capturing a poetic pithiness of the original that the other translations don’t. I read this after my initial explorations, so having some of the concepts telegraphed is not a problem.
Given that I’ve read more about this text than any other text from the last twenty years you could say I dig the book. Its appeal to duty resonates with the cultural Confucianism of my upbringing and my intellect is tickled by the exotic foreign spirituality in the rest of the book.
Naturally, the Gita has ended up in the top tier of wisdom literature that I would like to revisit for the rest of my life, along with the Daodejing, Analects, Havamal, Zhuangzi, and the book of Ecclesiastes.
Here are the last couple of Inktober 52’s from 2024 and the first three for the new year.
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12/23 Inktober 52, week 51
realities wrapped in the enigma
I tried going with a square for this is play on “enigma wrapped in a riddle”. The corners felt awkward so I went to the old standby—a big circle.
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12/30 Inktober 52, week 52
zombies cross the finish line
Always a little scary to give up control, letting gravity have a say.
I’m not sure if outlining was better or worse. It makes it a bit cartoonish, less bloody.
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1/4 Inktober 52, week 1
quiet sunrise quells murky shades
The pointed brush and copperplate cursive came together in “sunrise”. I’m unhappy with my dip pen copperplate—it needs a ton more practice to look good for these 5WP’s. But all that December work set me up for pretty good cursive with the pointed brush.
So it worked out after all. Shouldn’t plan too much for these these creative meanderings. Just peek far enough to keep doing.
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1/12 Inktober 52, week 2
perky shrimp pound pearly xylophones
After finding the big concept, one must still wrestle with a bunch of little decisions. It turned out the last slant was best.
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1/18 Inktober 52, week 3
tick tock yesterday transforms tomorrow
I finally learned how to properly spell “tomorrow”.
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I can’t believe we’re 8% through the year!
Cya next time!
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PS—Books that Matter: The Analects of Confucius, Robert Andre LaFleur, Great Courses, 2018
This excellent audio course covered the Analects and its outgrowth in Chinese history. It provides a conceptual framework for reading the text as a series of conversations between the teacher and his students. LaFleur then covers key themes, such as filial piety and remonstrance, and finally closes with a discussion of Confucius’s long legacy in China and East Asia.
After four years, it might be time to revisit this course. Like most Westerners, I have an affinity with quirky individualism of Daoism as a reaction against fundamentalist Christianity. However the ideas centering social relationships and mutual bonds as discussed in this lecture series are attractive, especially as our nation continues to rattle itself apart with irresponsible leaders and citizens.
Beyond these lectures, just finding this course is a reminder of how much info is just out there. Here’s a free 12 hour lecture series! what else is hiding on Overdrive? And the library’s physical stacks? Add Kanopy.com and the publisher’s own streaming service? Finally podcasts and YouTube!
I wonder what Confucius would say about drowning ourselves with information.
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PPS-Confucius: And the World He Created, Dan Schulman, 2015
This book was a good rejoinder to the Great Courses lecture series, which had taken a positive spin on the philosophy. This book focused on the real-world history of Confucianism, which was quite detrimental by the end of China’s imperial age.
Such is the fate of any philosophy that becomes calcified. American Christianity’s obsession with being right has created an political religion that has forsaken Jesus’ true core of love. The ineffable concept of the dao became a collection of wild superstitions in religious Taoism. And the vision of a well ordered society metastasized into a harsh top-down hierarchy that perpetuated stagnation and cruelty.
These loose philosophies started out kindly enough but lost their heart as they became systematized. Certainty killed the animating force that gave them life.
An organized religion builds a magnificent intellectual edifice by losing the point. One must always be free to pick what works today and ignores that which is irrelevant to the moment.
For that reason, I suspect Confucianism is making a comeback. With the destruction of the formal, governing, imperial ideology, the writings of Confucius and Mencius are available for a fresh rereading. It took two centuries of chaos in Asia to exorcise the old ghost of Confucianism. Master Kong is free to ascend again.
Schulman notes in his epilogue that we are at a crossroads where Confucius can be used to help form an orderly rich society. Or maybe it becomes the bedrock for a new authoritarianism. Let’s just hope we don’t screw it up as badly as last time.
