Not far from our house.

Tues/Wed is my weekend and I come back to Waltham. One of the best parts about being home is going for walks by the river. Last night was stunning.

Yeah, I had to read it a few times to make sure it was real too...

"Days later, all the tracks were at Infrasonic Sound, an excellent studio in Nashville, Tennessee for mastering under the careful watch of engineer Pete Lyman. I sat for hours and listened as Pete coaxed the frequencies to be at their best. The results were two six song sides of the Cramps, extracted from a 1977 amber block, de-fossilized and ready to be inflicted upon the ears of those who would rather Stay Sick and Turn Blue than hope for sunny weather."

#OHBOY

source: https://archive.is/w1tT1#se...

First Far Side I ever saw in print, SF Chronical

Pixel 8, edited in Lightroom

source https://bsky.app/profile...

re localstain's news about the Cramps: https://mltshp.com/p/1RQJB

^ Pictured above: Billionaire Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel went to Coachella with his supermodel wife, and then two days later laid off over 1,000 employees. I was one of them. So was my entire team of about 40 people.

We were the Bitmoji team at Snapchat, and except for a few people in LA, our team was completely eliminated. Acquired by Snapchat, Bitmoji remained, at least in spirit, a somewhat semi-autonomous republic within the larger company. But eventually the Bitmoji founders departed or were ousted, along with some long-time artists, and the corporate tech tentacles slowly creeped in to smother what was once a quirky creative team. I joined part way through the process, so I got to taste that fun/creative culture, but also witness its decline.

Honestly, we were all there by accident - artists, animators, and illustrators hiding in the corner of a Tech Company, quietly shocked at the generous salaries and benefits (and free lunches) we received, a contrast to the poor-paying studios and freelance illustration gigs that had come before.

The 5 years I spent there were amazing and horrible. Amazing because (1) Big Tech Salary, and (2) I got to work with some of the most fun, creative and intelligent people. No dead wood on this team. It was also horrible, because ultimately I was just making digital crap to keep users' eyes glued to an app and its advertisers. The pressure to perform and scale production was really high. I lost sleep and gained weight, and got to suffer from anxiety for the first time.

And now suddenly it's done. We're all out. Ostensibly "because AI", despite the fact that we barely used any AI in our creative pipelines, and only for non-creative tasks. I didn't lose my job because of AI, I lost it because of the *idea* that AI could do it all. And of course because Snap's stagnating stock price needed a boost.

It's honestly a relief. I've spent the last month relaxing and decompressing; I had accumulated a month's worth of unused vacation anyway. I'll eventually try to figure out what's next, but for now I have a generous severance to give me some breathing room. I'm free now, as are my fellow artists. I'm happy they can go use their creative gifts for things that are hopefully more meaningful to our society and culture.

thanks for reading my brain dump mltshp friends. That concludes my ted talk.

An odd tradition in Knaresborough is to compete in pushing a 'bed' around the town. This is number 37, and seems to involve painted concrete blocks

Went to SOAK over Memorial Day weekend, had a good time hanging out with friends new and old. Great art.

I know how this movie turns out.

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/roguetel...

“Hori Ngakapa Te Whanaunga, Maori chief of the Ngatiwhanaunga tribe, active 1851-1885” according to source: https://www.tumblr.com/nemfrog...

I've never lived in a place where composting wasn't just "hucking stuff into the wild backyard" but this place has a compost bin and I've tried to get good at using it. Vermont says you're not supposed to toss out food waste anyhow. This bin was full when I toured the house and I specifically mentioned to the realtor that I'd need it emptied before I moved in since an empty compost bin was worth a lot more to me than a bin of compost (I am not much of a gardener). We had what I hope is our last frost this past week and the forget-me-nots are out in earnest and I just thought it looked so nice. The skunks have burrowed in to the back of it occasionally and I pretend not to notice.

"We were so alive back then... it was something."

I went and saw Purity Ring perform last night and, holy shittttt, such amazing visuals. Photos don’t really do it justice

More than two years ago, one of my neighbors suggested to me that I should paint a mural on an ugly wall at a square down my street.

It took me forever to scrape enough courage together to get funding from various kinds of places. But I managed. I got the money. I got the permits. I got the scissor lift. I got the wall renovated and plastered. I got the paint and a colleague that is going to help me. And it should be ready by June 13, because then it’s going to be officially opened.

I found the whole process rather nerve-racking because all in all it’s about €18,000. But my goodness, will I be happy and relieved once it’s done.

I had a big plan to ride 180 miles in SW Montana this weekend, starting and ending at Virginia City. A burgeoning lung infection had other ideas and I scrapped the ride about 8 miles in. So lemons, lemonade, etc, I decided to camp out at my initial destination (Red Rock Lakes NWR), then promptly got a flat tire. I had a fun problem of driving 110 mi on an interstate at 50 mph on a donut spare to get to the only open tire shop open on a Sunday, or get stuck until today when tire shops opened back up from the long weekend. Anyhow, the spare held, and I made it to Vigilante Cabin, my destination for night 2. Lots of lemons this weekend, but of all worked out pretty ok ultimately.

Related to my last post, this is the visual style we are going for. Sort of a 40’s/50’s workshop manual photography direction.

If you look back through my shake you’ll see posts about Hamill Industries. They do wild shit with video. This is their workshop. Pablo, one of the partners, has a lot of amazing machinery. Some of it works and some doesn’t. This is an old, massive drill press that isn’t working yet. I chucked in a bit and Chris held up a length of steel bar from the lathe station to fake a handle.

Same gear specs as the last image. I think the flash power was set to 1/4 +0.7.

By Qin Yang
https://www.tumblr.com/pmamtrav...

Rollins was the longest-surviving musician in the Great Day in Harlem photo shot in 1958. Actual end of an era.

Full list of musicians (jaw-dropping!) plus additional people who missed the photo session:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...

I sometimes wonder about the kids in the photo. What kinds of lives had they managed to have?

Melanie, my sister who has lived in Japan for 30+ years, received the "Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon" the other day. It's the highest honour that can be given to a civilian (non-politician). She received it for "Contributions to the Australia Japan relationship and economic development". As part of the ceremony she had an audience with the Emperor, who she said "was very short".

Melanie is the little urban overachiever of our family. She's on the boards of Asahi, Mitsubishi Estate and Kawasaki Heavy Manufacturing, in addition to knowing just about everyone in the world. She regularly sends photos when she's out with various Heads of State.

I just happened to have a trip to Japan planned when the award was announced, so I got to represent the family. Unfortunately not allowed to be part of the official events, but we had plenty of drinks with friends afterwards.