today's menu / two options
take it / leave it
I never do this, in fact only crazies do this, but today that is I, I am she.
CMS stands for content management system and in marketing parlance refers to the platform that you publish your content in. For example, Wordpress is a CMS.
Any growth marketer I work with knows well that we write and edit in! our! knowledge! database!, e.g. Google Docs, never! directly in the publishing platform, e.g. Wordpress or Hubspot.
Early drafts are sloppy; later ones are tight. But if you make edits on the fly in between previews, if you neglect to document the path from early > tight, you end up with sloppy docs. You’re building an info archive for colleagues to reference for future use, for future millions making, and that stuff should be accurate, should be sharp. Narratively, structurally, grammatically.
As maybe a librarian would say to their partner, don’t be a slob babe.
I do the same for my newsletters.
But today the brain is a child playing outside the garden walls so we’re writing in the Substack not the Obsidian. Letting child run free for a few hours to tire her out.
Sit at the bar, take out the notebook, turn away from the local peanut gallery, look helplessly at construction workers drilling outside the window.
I think there are still misconceptions about writers, oh how lucky we are to sit and think, someone else must be taking care of the dependents or mortgage, how charming it must be to receive revelations while microdosing and sitting cross legged in the woods upstate—
that or how nice to open the perfectly articulated brain tap until your pomodoro timer goes up and you run to a board meeting, clapping for your own achievements—but really.
Writing more often feels like listening to Kendrick while getting brain surgery next to Radio Raheem's boombox, but with no rhythm.
Is that not what your mind sounds like?
Where is the off button on this thing?
What I read yesterday
“Waiting for Badu” (D Magazine) - I saw this Erykah Badu feature a year before I actually read it. That D Magazine issue was displayed next to the cashier at a Central Market (think Whole Foods but retained their hippieness) when I was back home in the suburbs of Dallas. The cover was a striking image of Erykah. The woman in line in front of me remarked, what kind of editor would choose *that* kind of picture for a cover? And I suppose I don’t need to mention the race of the remarking woman; you already know.
“San Antonio Is Booming. Why Is It Still So Poor?” (Texas Monthly)
$250 Micro Grants for Political Zines from Secret Riso Club
The Heather Garden Guide in Manhattan’s Fort Tyron Park
Chris Wu and Prem Krishnamurthy on design as an ongoing conversation (The Creative Independent) - Highly recommend this for anyone in client-facing biz
What I’m jealous of
Shigeto’s Cherry Blossom Baby - New beat-driven-elec-R&B-jazz album after 7 years and full of adoration for its contributors
Clothing company BODE’s tight vibe - I stumbled on their website and with one look at the fits immediately recognized it as the store I stumbled into on the Lower East Side. (I’m behind on all these famous-only-to-bicoastal-elites brands ok)
Leon Bridges in Mexico City - A more youthful André 3000 spirit here
Double Acts in Pop by Commercial Type - My dream types of collaborations
Coming soon…
My 2024 Field Notes... following the form of an album though sadly not actually an album. (one day?) Some pics, mostly words on things like career velocity, my favorite job in the world (editing), and the soft skills beneath the soft skills. Broken up into excerpts because nobody's reading a 5k article these days.
Veeeery excited to publish thinks from Anna Wilhelm, Eugene Kan, Charis Poon. Thanks Hayden for the cover image on film.
If you’re new here, my yearly recaps are some of my most popular pieces. Here’s my 2022-2023 Field Notes.
Paid supporters / Secret Granola Club members, read on for what’s going on in my brain when it’s practical and strategic and hoping against hope. The indie life continues ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡