Hey friends,

Whew, Hurricane Helene brought a whole lot of wet our way. We fared better than a whole lot of other areas did... Hope y'all are safe and mostly dry!

Thinking Too Hard

A few weeks ago, I wrote about freak energy, a type of self-produced, weird, joyful, creative energy. I've since stumbled into an area that literally oozes freak energy from every pore: the world of self-published zines.

They range from absolutely delightful to terrifying but they all share a common intensity:

• A marine biologist made a lovely scrapbook-style zine about the ocean
• A survey result synopsis to determine if you're from the future.
• "Wholesome Quests for Neighborhood Walks".
• A poignant and heart-heavy look into someone's discourse on grief and sorrow.
• "The Collected Courtroom Doodles of the Honorable Judge Jerome F. Twoombs"
• "Guerrilla Gardening: Beneath the Concrete"
• The Weird World of D&D Zines

And this is barely scratching the surface.

The other commonality is that is uses low-cost printing methods and approachable creation techniques (collage, doodles, lino prints) that make it possible for a single person to create this encapsulated idea of something into a distributable and physical object.

This is the type of freak energy I love to see!

Interesting Web Bits

• Man, things between WordPress and WPEngine are really heating up, along with several reaction pieces and lots of discussion that do a much better job summarizing than I would. 🔥🌶️
• When you need to write canadian stylesheets...
• Jim Nielsen manages to capture the essence of those final UI stages...
• The values of blogging from someone who's been doing it for 15 years.
• And as a counterpoint, why not to write a book. (Spoiler: We're often more enamoured with the idea of HAVING DONE a thing than the ACTUAL DOING).
• Haystack Editor is a combo of an infinite canvas + a text editor. I love diagrams, but I don't love AI code bots... 🤷
• Fun drawn musical instrument with physics.