The Now Chili

January 13, 2024 A cylindrical jar of Penzey’s Chili 3000, cool glass in the palm of my hand: “The Now Chili,” it reads the numbers of 3000 spaced more than need be, with a 3 and three bowed zeroes a different typeface than the tighter-fisted Chili above it. The black ridged, cool matte plastic of… Continue reading The Now Chili

99% Invisible!

So exciting: 99% Invisible interviewed me about pneumatic tubes for the first episode of their new season! [soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/roman-mars/61-a-series-of-tubes[/soundcloud] If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a wonderful podcast by Roman Mars, with help from Sam Greenspan on architecture and design. It became the most funded journalism Kickstarter project ever a few months ago (2nd in publishing).… Continue reading 99% Invisible!

40 things

A list I started before I turned 40 on November 26: 40 things that have made me who I am that I did before turning 40 1. Becoming fluent in German 2. Becoming fluent in other languages (French, Dutch, Italian), though I don’t maintain them 3. Living many places that weren’t home, not at first,… Continue reading 40 things

Sweden!

Hello again, Girlwonder! This missive reaches you from Sweden, where I’m on my way to Umeå. I’ll be spending a month here doing a fellowship with the HUMLab at the University of Umeå. Tomorrow, I’ll be speaking at the Umeå Institute of Design fall conference organized by Matt Cottam, along with Russell Davies, Dave Vondle… Continue reading Sweden!

A little op-ed in Domus

My friend Fred Scharmen and I wrote a piece for Domus titled “Architecture Needs to Interact,” about better crossovers between architecture and interaction design — or for that matter, all of the design disciplines. It gave us a chance to reflect upon some of what he learned as an master’s in architecture student at Yale,… Continue reading A little op-ed in Domus

Designing Geopolitics: presenting today

A quick note that I’m presenting today at UC-San Diego at Designing Geopolitics. I’m giving a talk called “Intelligence in Search of A Body” on Nicholas Negroponte and the Architecture Machine Group as a part of the session titled, “Data as World, World-Image, World-Making,” with along with two people I admire greatly: Lev Manovich and… Continue reading Designing Geopolitics: presenting today

All-Nite Grocery! Walt Mink!

Walt Mink was a terrific band from St. Paul in the early 90s. They were named after a psychology professor at Macalester did a great cover of Pink Moon, they did a great couple albums, they were great live… Thanks to Willfully Obscure, I heard something I’ve not heard since 1992, hanging out with my… Continue reading All-Nite Grocery! Walt Mink!