A painting of me
  • Martin Greenfield dies at 95. 

    He dressed six presidents, coached designers and made thousands of suits for TV shows and movies. But his beginnings were dismal: He learned to sew at Auschwitz.

    A very incredible life.

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  • The untold story of Kickstarter’s crypto Hail Mary—and the secret $100 million a16z-led investment to save its fading brand. 

    This article really explains some of the bizarre moves Kickstarter has made in recent years. My friend Mark feels the article misses the mark when it comes to articulating Kickstarter’s current woes. They haven’t made things easier for creators on their platform. Meanwhile, Gamefound and Backerkit entered the market and hoovered up creators. The perfect example, that’s even mentioned in the article: Sanderson’s latest crowdfunding effort is taking place on Backerkit. I can’t imagine he’s there because of Kickstarter’s lack of web3 nonsense. 17 million and counting, on someone else’s platform.

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Feist

   5 March 2024, mid-morning

It was an emotional performance from Leslie Feist at Massey Hall last night. My cousin Mahi had an extra ticket to her show, and so I found myself listening to her perform songs from the start of her career through to this very moment. The show was beautiful. No opening act, just Feist. But really, Feist was her own opening act. Alone on a stage with an acoustic guitar. Chatting with the crowd, about her time during the pandemic, about the show. It all seemed very low-key, until it wasn’t. I don’t think I’ve been to a show where I want to say so little, because the act of talking about it may spoil the experience for someone else. There were moments of genuine surprise at this show. Plot twists! What a performer!

They were filming it all, so hopefully you’ll be able to watch it at home one day. Until then you can enjoy her encore, Love Who We Are Meant To. I was happy to have experienced it all in person.

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  • Canada Modern. 

    This is amazing: “a physical and digital archive of Canadian graphic design, with modernism central to its glowing heart.”

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  • Textpattern turns twenty / Textpattern CMS. 

    Wordpress and Textpattern felt like peers when I was trying to pick what to replace MovableType. Nowadays it’s quiet clear Wordpress was maybe the horse to bet on. But, I really love Textpattern. The platform has served me well for over 19 years! I used to run my own fork of this software, so I could hack in clean URLs and some other features missing from the earliest versions of the product. Nowadays I run a few plugins I wrote and use a stock install. This is much easier to manage and maintain. Dean Allen, the creator of Textpattern, died many years ago now. Tragically. Prior to his death he was already a distant figure when it came to this software. It’s a real testament to the power of open source software that it continues to live on till this day, a small community keeping it going.

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Paris 2024

   27 February 2024, late morning

Paris Day 4

It’s been a full week since we returned from a trip to Paris. I managed to go through all my photos and share them on Flickr, and then edited that group of photos down to a smaller set I’ve shared on my Format portfolio. Paris is an incredible city. Beautiful and dense. Even in the grey of February it’s pretty and lively. This trip was all about doing the most touristy things our niece and daughter wanted to do. Next time we can get back to wandering the city looking for the best croissants.

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  • How’s It Going Today? 

    A lovely post from Kottke on the 19th anniversary of running his blog as a full time job. One of the greats.

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  • Five Years of Memberships. 

    Craig Mod writes about running his Special Projects membership program for the last five years. I became a member myself this past year. My original reason for becoming a member felt very transactional: I wanted to get one of his books, and it seemed like I may as well also support him while doing so. Having been a member this past year, that feels like the entirely wrong way to approach what he’s doing. It’s honestly not really that great a “deal” if you just want to buy some books or prints. You kind of have to want more for it to make any sense. Almost a year on, I do feel like i’m contributing a very small part to helping make something good.

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