This week’s weird idea I distinctly remember watching famed film composer Hans Zimmer live on the Oscars, flushed with excitement, clutching his new statue onstage. It wasn’t his first Oscar, but his expression told you that the thrill doesn’t fade. He looked down the little gold dude,
This week’s weird idea Any ad, for any product or any service, on any screen or any app, is designed to to do one universal thing: make us unhappy. We can’t be sold things (eyeliner, accounting software, political parties) if we're in a state of satisfaction.
But first: I ❤️ Minneapolis I want this newsletter to be a place of rest, renewal, and hopefully a call to optimistic creation. So I try not to lean into news & politics. But as I write this, some of our fellow citizens are out braving Arctic conditions, and so very
Happy New Year to you. So glad you made it. I could comment on the vast frying pan of 2025 that we have all just trekked across, but you know what happened. You know what you endured. Instead, let’s just step back from the latest fastball being launched at
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
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
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
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
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.
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’
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
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