Goodbye 2025
If you are reading this, you have officially made it through the entirety of 2025. Good going, you. You are a badass. Until we talk again, I remain, Your pal, Jamie
(a wee giftie for your stocking)
Cowboy Santa When Santa brings presents on each Christmas night He likes to surprise the last stop in his flight He asks that last person what they want the best And one year his route Ended out In the West Now out on the prairie, fixing his shed Was a
I only trust what can be haunted
First of all, I highly recommend this article from the New York Times about a local typewriter shop I visited (a couple of times) just this last summer. Go ahead and click the link below to read it now. But please come back when you’re done. I want to
“I wanted this to be easy”
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to [write a newsletter post] - William Shakespeare[ish] When you get a new (required field) Productions post, it has usually been created using a simple 9-step process: 1. idea! 2. outline 3. drafts 4. final review by Mari
Where is my werewolf?
When I was kid, we had a werewolf problem in our backyard. Okay, I had a werewolf problem. Then I moved and the problem went away. Or did it? I had a whole other topic planned for this week, then I looked at a calendar and realized: it’s October.
The Big Machine Theory
I made a decision — and a promise — to only talk here about things I had directly experienced. And now I’m going to break that rule. Kind of? I’ve been thinking a lot about the current state of creative endeavor, and what I call The Big Machine Theory. We’
How Microsoft turned me into a horror fan
You’ve probably already figured out I'm a horror fan. I mean, I wrote a 1,000-word essay around my Alien head canon. And described my Predator growth theory in the Lightning Round. And heck, it’s right there in this newsletter's banner: “Occasionally monsters.” To
What I Learned (again) at Jazz Camp
So I said I’d post, what, every other week? Ha! The only excuse I have is that I was busy — at Jazz Camp! It was an amazing experience. I learned many new things. And I relearned some important stuff that I kind of forgot and had to relearn because
Life as an iceberg
I’ve been thinking about icebergs this week. It’s not a climate warming kind of thing, although boy howdy, we’ve had to set up an umbrella to protect a prize hosta in our backyard from the very un-Seattle heat. You know how the What’s Going On section
BDSM for your phone
Your phone is not the boss of you. Your apps are not free-range chickens, allowed to constantly peck at you. It’s time to make them earn your attention. Soon after I concluded my “constantly iPad” experiment, I started a new one: taming my iPhone. I wanted a quietly helpful
It’s time for the Lightning Round!
Get ready for a roundup of items that are too short to be a main essay, but meatier than your typical Fun Fact. It’s a jambalaya of thoughts, quotes, news, and yes, even poems – it’s the Lightning Round! I have to warn you, there’s going to be
Update to “Fortnightly"
About the link appropriately titled “Doom" Folks, I noticed that for some reason the Fun Facts link to a New York Times article on the history and ubiquity of the video game “Doom” showed up blank on the email. So here’s a link that should work: Management regrets