Volume 1, Issue 43 | Suit Crimes

This

                April 6, 2025

            Volume 1, Issue 43 | Suit Crimes

            I say this a lot, but I’m feeling grateful for it again: the kind of people whose idea of a fun Saturday night is watching other people give presentations about the things they’re interested in—those are my kind of people. And it’s wild to me that there are so many of us! PowerPoint Parties started in Livvy and my too-small apartment, and they’re how we got to meet so many of the people we now love most. In many ways, they (the parties and the people) are what led to this place.
I know The Company isn’t for everyone, but for everyone who it is for: I’m so glad we found each other. Thanks for being here, and for coming back. We’re having so much fun, and it feels like some kind of made-up crime-type that we’re getting to live this well.
—Ivan
Happenings
This week:
Weekly Wednesday Worknight, Wednesday, April 9
The Company is about combining creative work with good friendships. Make an appointment with your side project this (or any) Wednesday at a Worknight, where we oscillate between enforced, focused, quiet time and optional chatty social time.
$5, or free for Company and Moonlight members.
Work together →
Future Weeks:
Offsite: April Block Party, Sunday, April 13
Friend of The Company Max Lotstein is hosting an EDM dance party and it’s open to everyone. Some of us are going and so should you!
Glint: Fool, Tuesday, April 15
True, personal stories, told live, without notes. Pretty much exactly like The Moth except without the competition, on Tuesdays instead of Fridays, and everyone knows each other (or is about to). Our next theme is “Fool“, and we’ve got a few storyteller slots left.
Do you have a story of being foolish? A time when you lacked good judgement? Of interacting with a foolish person? Of playing the fool? Fooling around? Tricking someone? Falling for something? Whatever your interpretation, we want to hear it.
$10, or free for tellers and members.
Fool us twelve times →
Prom, Saturday, April 19
In the fall we had a Homecoming dance. Now it’s spring, so we’re having a Prom! Come and enjoy our second school formal for grownups, again organized by Halie and Lizzie. The theme is Garden Party.
This is in a little under two weeks, so if you want to find your on-theme outfits or on-theme dates, consider this your heads up.
$20, or $10 for members.
Would you like to go to Prom with all of us? →
—
Also coming up: Mary Ann’s Book Club: The Dispossessed (April 21), In the Making (April 23)
Nostalgia
Do you remember how Mike arrived and changed our bathroom lives forever?
Or the day when Dan was on a long phone call? How the couch got delivered, and there was a Moonlight Report? That right after that, you all met for Mary Ann’s book club, and it made you feel unequipped and jealous?
The sneaky return of Norton?
How Troy came by and they talked about TouchDesigner? How Lizzie came by and wrote a card to her 92–year-old grandpa? How Mike came by and talked about becoming a member? How Jessica came by and talked about work?
That he saw the clock? That he understood it?
Do you remember Survival Scouts that night? How it came together as the night went on, and plans were made, and secure channels of communication were set up?
That I finally got back, and we happened to all meet outside?
Mary Ann’s first worknight? How Jacob made so many clever comments during the goal setting? That Lexi appeared? How during the break we all sat in a big circle and so deliberately socialized? That we later reached our collective goal, and celebrated with the standard star ceremony—Trevr’s first?
How we puzzled over the theoretical possibility of a fully connected six-person star, and Trevr drew a surprising diagram on the board? How everyone was annoyed when I tried to document our attempt?
Do you remember the quiet day with just the two of us? How we got lunch, and talked about histories and relationships and futures?
How eventually Livvy came in and Mark and Hayley popped by, and we talked about jobs and schedules, and that thing Justin says about how every month only has eight days in it? How Mark did that math in his head so fast, and then I tried and took so long and got it very wrong?
The slow morning? The return of Chris and Brynn? The First Friday Feast at bartaco—Brynn’s first? How we talked about family and gratitude?
Do you remember the good frenzy of that first Clothing Swap? How many great things we found? That later at PowerPoint Party, we showed up wearing each other’s clothes?
The full house of regulars and first-timers and long-agoers? How we heard about metal, reality, figure skating, wheel wells, past future lives, a history of play, travels, media, anti-consumerism, Hoyas, and the tragedy of the emergency department? That we understood physics, and people, and ideas better? That we cheered for nostalgic things, and raised our hands, and laughed, and comprehended?
Bureaucratic Minutiae
An oversight in last week’s credits meant that my (Ivan’s) contributions to last week’s issue of Paperwork were greatly overstated, and Dan and Michelle’s were greatly understated. Aside from Happenings and some of Nostalgia, I did not write last week’s issue. I still don’t even know what gams are. Thanks to Dan for writing almost all of it and to Michelle for selecting and editing the photos.
The conclusion to the months-long weather-related bathroom door sticking saga is that Mike (longtime regular and one of our newest members) sanded it down! It no longer sticks! You can no longer get trapped in there.
We have acquired a new (used) couch!
At Worknight: Lizzie started designing her ⟡ dream jeans ⟡, Mary Ann B. bagged and boxed Ridwell items, Trevr deployed a server, Ivan started culling Indonesia photos, Jacob planned a video production timeline, Alex made two meal-prepping shopping lists, and Lexi prepped for a meeting.
At PowerPoint Party No. 25: Elijah taught us how metal works, Jessica explained Big Brother, Lauren helped us appreciate figure skating jumps, Zack informatively ranted about low-profile tires, Sam Ar. shared her many lives, Michelle took us through her play history, Ivan presented a travelogue, Joe asked us to reflect on why we like the media that we do, Micah summarized a podcast, José prompted us to think about anti-consumerist responses to economic realities, Sam Ad. dazzled us with beautiful Hoyas, and Jim talked about his job cleaning up after capitalism.
Thanks to Sabrina, Brynn, Jessica, and Lizzie for their help setting up for PowerPoint Party; to Lizzie for taking tickets and Alex for keeping time; and to Ben and Drew for helping us reset the room.
Cuppa was closed Sunday (today!) and will be closed Friday (the 11th).
We have a time clock. Partially because, hey, we’re a Company! And mostly because we love having a physical record of (almost) everyone who’s been in the space. People punch in and out when they visit. At the end of each month, we stack up all the cards by visit count in the Fibonacci sequence. Here’s the data for March:
1 visit: 86 people
2 visits: 9 people
3–4 visits: 8 people
5–7 visits: 7 people
8–12 visits: 9 people
13–20 visits: 2 people
21+ visits: 3 people
Total people: 124
People who came more than once: 38
Other notes:
Notable moves:
Sam Ar. in ambiguous 1+ limbo. (Don’t forget to punch in and out! Love you)
Sam Ad. and Jessica P. moved to 5+
Ashley and Jessica S. moved to 8+
Alex and Beth moved to 13+
This is the month with the highest number of unique visitors to the space so far. 124 people, 23 people higher than last month (and the last highest month) at 101.
This is the month with the highest number of unique visitors in the 1 column. 86 people, 30 people higher than last month (and the last highest month) at 56. Note: this does not reflect how many of the people in the 1 column are return visitors from another month.
This is the month with the highest number of members in the 8+ column so far. 9 people, with the last highest month at 8.
This is the first month ever where not a single member of Management™️ is in the 21+ column. Norton does not have a time card for the month of March.
Note: We don’t generally record visitors to Cuppa if they are only stopping in for Cuppa. Many people came through the space that are not represented here!
Inevitably: incomplete and messy data.
Finally, a reminder that The Company is a member-supported gathering place, and if you know any of us, you’re welcome to pop in any time for free (outside of events). If you know that one of us is here and you’d like to come by, reach out and we can let you in.
Do you know anyone in the Denver area who might be looking for creative community? Feel free to forward this email along to them. Everyone loves Paperwork.
😘
—
This issue of Paperwork was made by Ivan with help from Livvy. It was made possible by the support of our members, Halie, Drew, Justin, Mason, Lexi, José, Mary Ann B., Trevr, Allyson, Madison, Melissa, Elijah, Dan, Michelle, Jim, Jacob, Mark, Sabrina, Beth, Dani, Chris, Brynn, Will, Marcia, Rebeca, Sarah, Mary Ann T., Alex, Jessica P., Jessica S., Ashley, and our newest members, Mike, Ben T., and Ben L..

Captions
Mike surprise showed up and sanded the top of the bathroom door so it no longer sticks. Dan was here when it happened, and told Mike that he has been awarded a bubble for doing this. To which Mike responded “What’s that?”

Unbeknownst to Mike, there’s been a weeks-long internecine tension brewing over a new merit-based bubble currency, of which Dan is the sole minter.

Photo by Dan.
Mary Ann’s Book club— Photo by Dan.
—read The Other Significant Others. I like this book so much and nominated it, before realizing I was going to be away on a work trip. So I missed this. I’m going to host a second discussion once all the other people who also missed this are back. Photo by Dan.
Norton is back! Which he announced to everyone with a simple two-letter message in Discord, as is his style. Here he is meeting with Troy, of a meetup related to his meetup. Photo by Lizzie.
Survival Scouts with Lexi. I keep hearing good things about this and she keeps scheduling them while I’m away. Photo by Livvy.
Jacob was on a roll with clever comments at this week’s worknight. Here he is looking incredibly smug for having said another funny thing that we all laughed at.
At worknights, when we’re not laughing at Jacob’s jokes, we’re focusing on our work. Or on our sandwich.
Mary Ann’s task for the evening was organizing our Ridwell items for pickup.
Sometimes, when enough of us complete our goals at a worknight, we have a star-ceremony. We’ve learned a few things from star ceremonies over the months, and one of them is that the unraveling and reraveling only works with an odd number of people. Or so we thought. At this one, Trevr’s first, he questioned our reasoning and drew a diagram we’d never seen before, and we all got really excited about it. At this precise moment, eager to try a fully-connected six-pointed star shape, everyone is annoyed with me for trying to take a photo when I should be holding hands. You’ll never learn if it worked because I had to put the camera down.
Lizzie’s goal for the night was to make her ⟡ dream jeans ⟡ which we clarified are the jeans of her dreams and not jeans to dream in.
Sometimes (rarely) people drop in just to chat and show off how fast they can do math in their heads.
Beth (on the left) and Ashley (in the middle) ran the first ever Cuppa Clothing Swap. While not everyone burst into laughter while looking at clothes, everyone did seem to have a really good time.
As you can see here.
And here. But the reason Beth and co were laughing so much in that earlier photo is because of a sweater that said “I got that dog in me”, with a photo of a Costco hot dog on it. Which, from my research, appears to be a humorous twist on a thing all of the youths are saying these days.
The crowd at PowerPoint Party No. 25.
Elijah told us some sad material science news about the Titanic.
Jessica showed us just how much entertainment can be had with a very repeatable format.
Lauren had us on the outside right edges of our seats with her presentation.
Sam talked about all the paths she almost took, and how they led her here. I’m so glad they led her here.
Zack polled people on how many inches different the rim diameters are between these two cars (or something like that), and somehow most people got it right.
A delightful retrospective followup to Michelle’s previously delightful presentation on play. 
Intermission.
I showed some images and read some notes about a recent trip. Photo by Livvy.
Joe gave a really beautiful reflection on the importance of media in helping us imagine and then create a better world.
Which included a very silly clip. Some great emotional range and depth in this one.
Micah told us so many fun facts from a podcast. I think “suit crimes” is a paraphrase, and I think it’s the best.
José with another great presentation on perspectives toward finances.
Sam loves Hoyas so much that she’s wearing a shirt that says HOYA!
A wonderfully chipper approach to a very bleak presentation.
Everyone who ever came to The Company in March, broken out by number of visits. Details in Bureaucratic Minutiae.

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