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Prelude to a fugue
“Woo” was the sound a 1984 Yamaha electric keyboard makes when a young girl procrastinates practicing piano. Our baby grand with all its keys lived in the living room on display, its repertoire...
View ArticleThe sound of making
Click, silence, clack, silence, silence… is the sound the keyboard makes when a ten-year-old is learning how to code her own game for the first time. My Dad showed how ASCII, typed line by line,...
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It is a sentence already
It is a sentence already. That’s advice from The Education of a Design Writer, a new book edited by Molly Heintz and Steven Heller, designers, writers, and longtime co-conspirators at SVA. Steve has...
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Foreword motion with The Design Loft
Designers don’t respond to culture; they anticipate it, question it, and are responsible for shaping its direction. And at this moment, that role feels more urgent than ever. In his new book, The...
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Onward to the future
Pre-iPhone, pre-Twitter, pre-Instagram, pre-Slack. Pre-rideshare, pre-blockchain, pre-crypto, pre-Zoom. Pre-Hurricane Sandy, Pre-Women’s Marches, Pre-Covid, Pre-X. It was before any of these...
View ArticleThe grammar of home
I returned home to visit with my Mom last weekend. “Home” is how I’d referred to the place for years. Yet slowly there becomes a tension between the place you lived and the place you live, the “were”...
View ArticleCity book club
On stage at Radio City Music Hall, I hid The Power Broker. All 1,200+ pages of it. I clutched the paperback close, under my academic regalia. On stage, helping deliver diplomas to eager graduating...
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Expanding home
Empathy is traveling. Traveling from yourself to expand and meet another in their place and context. Travel I did this past week along with nine others to walk alongside Craig Mod, Kevin Kelly, and...
View ArticleCrayon collisions
We used to make these crayon mashups as kids. They were combinations of all of our favorite crayons in the box. Choose a couple of most-loved Crayolas, bake them together in a cupcake tin, let them...
View ArticleThe city as something else
“Are you alright?” It was Hanna calling my mobile phone in the middle of July. I had left my Brooklyn neighborhood for upstate New York that summer month “to write” and Hanna, my neighborhood dry...
View ArticleMonth One
January has been Month One of something unknown. “All human beings are invited to have a friendship with the unknown,” shared poet and author David Whyte. This is my formal acceptance of that...
View ArticleGarden graces
I escaped yardwork. Weeding, raking, planting, raking, sweeping — no matter the job, I could worm out of it. When all four kids and two parents spread out into each corner of the yard on a Saturday...
View ArticleArticle 6
Knowing when to stop is not exactly the same as knowing what to start. Determining what’s worthy is harder than simply finding something interesting.That’s John, long-time supporter of my ideas, who...
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If you think about what you’re here to do in life, the answer is probably not ‘get really good at time management’.That’s Jocelyn K. Glei after interviewing Oliver Burkeman on this unmissable podcast...
View ArticleOde to weather
Cold weather is always a giant surprise. “I can’t believe how much it snowed!” or “Can you believe how cold it is!” This utter disbelief extends to all seasons: “I can’t get over how hot it is.” And so...
View ArticleArticle 9
I have decided that the digital watch is the perfect symbol of an imbalance in outlook in our day. It tells us only what time it is now, at this instant, as if that were all anyone would wish or need...
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