Our sense of time is ever-changing. Shouldn’t our calendars be, too?

Breaking the Grid

https://magazine.frontier.is/p/breaking-the-grid

Pond Party, by Will Hofbauer

https://thirdplacerecords.bandcamp.com/track/pond-party-2

SHINBANGUMI, by Ginger Root

https://gingerroot.bandcamp.com/album/shinbangumi

On creative autonomy, acknowledging labor and laborers, and building relationships that will last decades.

The Frontier Interview—Terremoto

https://magazine.frontier.is/the-frontier-interview-terremoto/

https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n16/anne-carson/gloves-on

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/learning-to-wait/

Welsh practice Benjamin Hale Architects has added two modern extensions – one made from pale brick, the other from black zinc – to a Victorian-era home in south London.

Benjamin Hale Architects extends light-starved Victorian home upwards and outwards

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/08/07/benjamin-hale-architects-crystal-palace-road-house/

Perhaps you’re just out of school and about to have your first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery, or you’re a little more seasoned and beginning a relationship with a new dealer. Here are a few things that, in our experience, are good to discuss transparently to ensure the process is as smooth as possible.

Some things to consider before your first show · Valise

https://valise.works/blog/before-your-first-show

https://www.are.na/brian-sholis/lists-2024-my-favorite-music

Conference about the past, present, and future of building our own network infrastructures.

Our Networks

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n17/john-lanchester/for-every-winner-a-loser

Kansas City, Missouri band Shy Boys perform ‘Take The Doggie’ in TV Studio A at KCPT in Kansas City, Missouri.  90.9 FM The Bridge | bridge909.org | kcpt.org | eightonesixty.com  @909TheBridge | @KCPT  Live in studios and interviews from local and national music artists: The Bridge, 90.9 FM KTBG, listener supported public music radio in Kansas City, Missouri.

Shy Boys - 'Take The Doggie' | The Bridge 909 in Studio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6WTePS4CBY

Screenshot of Apple Maps with two "guides: "I want to try this place" and "I like this place"

https://magazine.frontier.is/if-you-build-it-they-will-come-2/

Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises  Harlem River After Hours Dub (Peaking Lights Remix) · Kevin Morby · Peaking Lights  Harlem River After Hours Dub (Peaking Lights Remix)  ℗ 2018 Woodsist / Mare  Released on: 2018-11-30  Auto-generated by YouTube.

Harlem River After Hours Dub (Peaking Lights Remix)

https://youtu.be/9MwXBnbxF-o?feature=shared

Simple and beautiful inventory management for artists and collectors.

Valise · Artwork inventory made easy

A turquoise book with several orange abstract shapes on its cover rests on a seamless black background. The words "Set Pieces" in a sans-serif font run across the top-right corner.

https://magazine.frontier.is/the-frontier-interview-andrew-linn-bldus/

A new book offers ideas for how we can survive the “long emergency”

Shelter in Place

https://magazine.frontier.is/shelter-in-place/

Dinaw Mengestu on American Writers Who Have Astounded, Moved, Haunted, and Influenced Him

James Baldwin - Library of America

https://www.loa.org/writers/233-james-baldwin/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/09/02/turning-to-stone-discovering-the-subtle-wisdom-of-rocks-marcia-bjornerud-book-review

Photograph of my hand holding up a pan of flourless zucchini brownies. Half of the batch is covered in frosting and sprinkles.

Image of text that reads: "When we turn to an LLM to write for us, we are also inviting it to undertake the more fundamental task of articulation, and this is no small thing. Indeed, given the centrality of language to the human condition, we should wonder about the degree to which the outsourcing of the labor of articulation is the outsourcing of a fundamentally human activity."

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/re-sourcing-the-mind

The new album captures the late Japanese artist’s final concert performance

New Ryuichi Sakamoto Album Opus Announced: Listen to New Version of “Tong Poo”

https://pitchfork.com/news/new-ryuichi-sakamoto-album-opus-announced-listen-to-new-version-of-tong-poo/

https://blog.ayjay.org/anarchism-as-a-spiritual-discipline/

Teiger Foundation supports contemporary visual art with a primary focus on curators.

Teiger Foundation

https://teigerfoundation.org/climate-action-for-curators

From Throb, shiver, arrow of time Directed by Hannah Perry  Listen / Buy: https://lnk.to/rvngnl116  Follow Oliver Coates INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/ollycoates/  Follow Hannah Perry  INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/hannahperryhannahperry/  Follow RVNG Intl. INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/rvngintl/ TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@rvngintl X / TWITTER: https://twitter.com/rvngintl YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/user/RVNGintl  ©2024 RVNG Intl. // https://www.rvng.com

Oliver Coates - Ultra valid [Official Video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5o-q4I8-34

Close-up view of a plane flying very low over a brick building

R.I.P. The epic life of a world-class artist, jammed into six minutes.  Narrated by Tom Waits. Commissioned by LACMA for their first annual "Art + Film Gala"…

A Brief History of John Baldessari

Do you work at a company that needs help telling the story of what you do or executing the editorial plan you have? Or are you at a museum or other nonprofit that doesn’t have in-house editors and could use an experienced outsider? Be in touch; my email address is below.

No Going Back, by Matt Karmil

https://studiobarnhus.bandcamp.com/album/no-going-back

Displays a personal busy message. Built-in Pomodoro timer and Apps. Fully customizable, open-source, and hacker-friendly

Busy Status Bar — Productivity Multi-tool Device with an LED pixel screen

https://djr.com/notes/daily-special-font-of-the-month

Find it. Write it. Cite it. The Chicago Manual of Style Online is the venerable, time-tested guide to style, usage, and grammar in an accessible online format. ¶ It is the indispensable reference for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers, informing the editorial canon with sound, definitive advice. ¶ Over 1.5 million copies sold!

The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

Long-term planning gives architects an opportunity to rethink ownership models

Succession or Finale?

https://magazine.frontier.is/succession-or-finale/

Meat creates meaningful brands. From strategy to reality. We have an innate drive to make outstanding work. Pure. Simple. Powerful.

Read and Rest Hotel

https://meat.studio/work/read-and-rest-hotel

Across genre, whether in novels depicting the sweep of history in small-town Kentucky or nonfiction perorating on behalf of a renewed human relationship with the earth, Wendell Berry remains one of America’s most profound interpreters of place and people. A farmer-writer of uncommon moral clarity, he mixes a contrarian independence of mind with a rare […]

“Your Friend, Wendell”: A 90th Birthday Tribute to Wendell Berry - Library of America

https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/your-friend-wendell-a-90th-birthday-tribute-to-wendell-berry/

The AI researcher on identity, sexuality, language, and paying close attention to the data

The Frontier Interview: Blaise Agüera y Arcas, “Who Are We Now?”

https://magazine.frontier.is/the-frontier-interview-blaise-aguera-y-arcas-who-are-we-now/

What is the link between architecture and pastry? What design strategies are applied in the interiors of gastronomic architecture?

Interiors of Pastry Shops and Bakeries: Design Strategies that Integrate Functions, Users, and Materials

https://www.archdaily.com/1020692/interiors-of-pastry-shops-and-bakeries-design-strategies-that-integrate-functions-users-and-materials

3 days in NYC after ~5 years away.

– Can’t believe there‘s an Economy Candy & a Pearl River Mart inside Chelsea Market
– Love that galleries are clustered in Tribeca: very walkable, prefer wood floors to concrete
– 20 years on, the A and C trains still run on the F on weekends

In this week's newsletter, I wrote about new calendar apps and coordination & context problems. Plus a new UI paradigm—dynamic views—that might help us find time and find ourselves:

https://magazine.frontier.is/p/breaking-the-grid

My kids like it because it has frog croaks and cats meowing. I like it because it’s … kind of a banger?

https://thirdplacerecords.bandcamp.com/track/pond-party-2

Really enjoying Ginger Root’s “Shinbangumi.” It’s like the soundtrack to a sunny 1970s-era TV show that never existed. Pop in the right ways, sugary without rotting your teeth.

https://gingerroot.bandcamp.com/album/shinbangumi

“We want new ways of understanding beauty, and we’re increasingly rooting them in our ethics. We want to encourage the beauty found in the aliveness or the gentleness of what we do.” 

https://magazine.frontier.is/the-frontier-interview-terremoto/

Happy tenth anniversary to Graydon Hoare’s “Always Bet On Text”: https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html

Anne Carson on what Parkinson’s is doing to her handwriting, her ability to brush her teeth, her mind and body—and how she’s coping with it:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n16/anne-carson/gloves-on

Re-reading Rachel Kushner’s beautiful short essay on time, attention, and art-making …

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/learning-to-wait/

Dezeen makes it seem every residence in London is a renovated townhouse w/ a modern one-story addition poking out into the back garden. I’ve seen hundreds! Anyway, this one’s among the better: https://www.dezeen.com/2024/08/07/benjamin-hale-architects-crystal-palace-road-house/

Nothing makes me feel more powerful than looking at book websites’ season previews then preordering titles from the library. Feel like a boss seeing the new Sally Rooney & Tony Tulathamitte books are en route to my local branch & knowing hundreds are in line behind me.

New on the Valise blog: distilling 23 years of art-world experience into ~800 words: 

https://valise.works/blog/before-your-first-show

Reminded myself today what an absolute banger Andy Stott’s 2014 record “Faith in Strangers” is. Jeez, so good. And a Herbert Matter photograph on the cover? 🤌🏻

Does anyone have recommendations of new/recently released ambient or experimental electronic music? I prefer “dark ambient,” “power ambient,” etc. My ongoing list of 2024 releases: https://www.are.na/brian-sholis/lists-2024-my-favorite-music

This year’s Our Networks! “Does not (cloud) compute”— think, local first, permacomputing, solar servers, and exploring collectively what collaborations and online presence looks like when a network is optional.

https://ournetworks.ca/

Does anyone on here in Toronto have a ZSA Moonlander or Voyager keyboard? So curious but would love to see one in person before committing to buying one …

Screw around on Midjourney, send it to your wife as a joke. Three weeks later your software startup has a black-metal band shirt.

Everyone loves Matt Levine’s writing on finance, and he’s great. But I also drop everything & read John Lanchester on the topic in the LRB and he’s just published a new banger: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n17/john-lanchester/for-every-winner-a-loser

Shuffling my "songs archive" and got this ca. 2018 banger. Perfect 1½-minute jangly pop song with good harmonies. It’s about wanting to care for an unloved puppy. I think the band has 3 brothers in it. (Of course.) Such good vibes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6WTePS4CBY

I am posting this by typing cmd-enter on my keyboard and not clicking Post

After years of fussing with long lists of maps, I just became a new type of guy. (Am using PamPam for when I want to share maps.)

Julian Rose conducted thoughtful long-form interviews with 16 architects known for designing art museums. It makes for a great anthology. I wrote about it here: https://magazine.frontier.is/if-you-build-it-they-will-come-2/

Friday morning mood music: 

https://youtu.be/9MwXBnbxF-o?feature=shared

For nearly a year, @ross and I have been building Valise (valise.works), a fast, simple artwork-inventory system that gives artists peace of mind. We’re now in open beta and adding new users as quickly as we can onboard them. Please share the news!

I have a simple criteria for judging new “mood board” platforms: do more than half the saved images depicting women feature nudity/sultry looks? If so, it’s not for me. That’s why I choose Arena over Cosmos, Savee, etc. I want whole people & ideas, not boys’ fantasies.

Just out: a 292-page book for architecture firm Diamond Schmitt that uses its portfolio of performing-arts halls to argue that, even after the pandemic and with so much streaming, live performance still matters. More on my profile or here: https://www.sholis.com/work/set-pieces

Published an interview w/ a DC architecture firm committed to its underserved (but National Historic District!) neighborhood and to healthy materials: https://magazine.frontier.is/the-frontier-interview-andrew-linn-bldus/

Read a good book this week: Adam Greenfield’s “Lifehouse,” about mutual care in the “long emergency” of the climate crisis. Inspiring but also practically minded. Wrote about it here: https://magazine.frontier.is/shelter-in-place/

James Baldwin, one of the twentieth century’s most important writers, was born one hundred years ago today. If you aren’t familiar with his work, browse around this Library of America page dedicated to him: https://www.loa.org/writers/233-james-baldwin/

Found a choice title in the neighborhood Little Free Library. Perfect to share with a platform of people doing the freelance grind …

I have a thing for geology and deep time. I enjoyed this review of geologist Marcia Bjornerud’s new book in The New Yorker this week:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/09/02/turning-to-stone-discovering-the-subtle-wisdom-of-rocks-marcia-bjornerud-book-review

Coming for @cindywu ’s Posts Foodfluencer champions’ belt …

Do people here read L.M. Sacasas? One of my favorite writers on technology, life, and ethics. (My note dedicated to his writing has 11k words of highlights & related thoughts!)

Here’s his latest: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/re-sourcing-the-mind

🎹🚨 FYI: The album version of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final concert, presented last year as the film “Opus,” is out today. It’s on all the streaming services.

https://pitchfork.com/news/new-ryuichi-sakamoto-album-opus-announced-listen-to-new-version-of-tong-poo/

Hey 🇨🇦 tech people: What is the Stripe Atlas of Canada? (Ideally registration AND credits.) About to register a company for a SaaS project in development and not sure where to turn. Will also take Toronto lawyer/accountant recs … 🙏🏻

I’m a fan of Alan Jacobs, a literary critic, deep-thinking Christian, and humanities professor. A subject he returns to often is anarchism, and he seems to be circling back around to it now. Second paragraph is key: https://blog.ayjay.org/anarchism-as-a-spiritual-discipline/

Forgot to mention a project that launched this week: did some editing/writing for the Teiger Foundation’s new “Climate Action for Curators” program/grants. Good people doing good work: https://teigerfoundation.org/climate-action-for-curators

I love music with a frayed beauty, where you can sense the wholeness despite not hearing it. Oliver Coates is new to me, despite releasing music & film scores for a decade. But the lead single of his new album is just right for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5o-q4I8-34

Sunday-afternoon plane spotting with the kids. Here’s a Boeing 777 that came in from Tokyo.

Thought about this old video about artist John Baldessari that I hadn't watched in a few years. Narrated by Tom Waits in a funny, deadpan style and with rapid cuts, it totally holds up. Six minutes of pure entertainment:

https://vimeo.com/50493471

After finishing a bunch of projects, I’m now seeking work: freelance projects, or even PT/FT in Toronto or remote. If any of you need a design-savvy writer/editor for an existing project or one you're bidding on, here’s some of what I've done this year: https://www.sholis.com/now

More big news in my world: super-talented house producer Matt Karmil is releasing his first album since March 2020. The lead single is good; if you want more of an intro, try the 2018 album “Will.” https://studiobarnhus.bandcamp.com/album/no-going-back

In 2001, I put a Post-It Note on the back of my monitor: green for I can be interrupted, yellow for trying to work, pink for "heads down, don't bother me." In 2024, there's a $189 version with built-in app support: https://busy.bar

David Jonathan Ross is a treasure—love his creativity and his generosity. The newest entry in his Font of the Month club is fun:

https://djr.com/notes/daily-special-font-of-the-month

Big news: the Chicago Manual of Style has updated from the 17th to the 18th edition: “More specific changes include updated advice on the generic singular they (which will now be considered acceptable even in formal writing—gasp!)” https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

I wrote about how succession planning at architecture firms is a chance to think broadly about ownership & management.

But it’s secretly for anyone at a creative business. These issues are so important to keep top of mind 

https://magazine.frontier.is/succession-or-finale/

A boutique hotel in Beijing for readers? Yes, please.

https://meat.studio/work/read-and-rest-hotel

Wendell Berry is an important writer to me. Last week he turned 90. This is a great celebration featuring pastors, editors, and chef Alice Waters: https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/your-friend-wendell-a-90th-birthday-tribute-to-wendell-berry/

I interviewed an AI researcher at Google who spent his own $ anonymously surveying 1000s of people about gender, identity, & sexuality and then made a humane & thought-provoking book: https://magazine.frontier.is/the-frontier-interview-blaise-aguera-y-arcas-who-are-we-now/

This is so aligned with my interests that it feels like algorithm targeting has hit a new level (though I got it via RSS): https://www.archdaily.com/1020692/interiors-of-pastry-shops-and-bakeries-design-strategies-that-integrate-functions-users-and-materials

Each year I make a point of going through the finalists for the Best Awards honoring New Zealand designers. For those of you in other parts of the world, so many good studios & projects to learn about: https://bestawards.co.nz/