Special note! Get a copy of Sofa Stories, fund mutual aid in Minnesota!

Proceeds from sales of Sofa Stories, the little PG-13 picture book that Mike Monteiro and I made, are going toward mutual aid in Minnesota, specifically Food, Rent, and Pet aid by way of Stand With Minnesota, which is a terrific and vetted list. So if you’d like a copy, get one here, and if you’d like to just donate, Stand With Minnesota is a great place to go!

Okay, onward:

Sloth and Manatee

Gosh I love this video, in which artist Shirazeh Houshiary says, “Every human being is an artist. I think every human being creates a world for themselves.”

We make our own worlds piece by piece, out of things that we learn and encounter and out of whatever we feel that we need or want. It’s kind of amazing that we’re able to meet up with each other at all, really. Walking around with our own unique version of everything within us. But we can meet up, because we go to a lot of trouble to agree on some things, like stoplights and verbs.

We should certainly not assume that creating worlds is only the realm of artists and “creatives.” Sure, artists spend a lot of time making sh*t up. But like everyone, they make this sh*t out of what they learn and encounter, and out of what they feel and what they need. What they search for.

Wherever we go, there are people all around us piecing together whatever they think is going on. Walking down the street with their own little cloud of stuff. It’s like a never-ending symphony, sometimes things harmonize, sometimes things seem like they are not even from the same planet.

When I was a kid one of my chores was to vacuum, and we had one of those canister vacuums with a long hose attached. I pretended it was my pet elephant. I think I called it something really original like “Elephant-y.” My life was populated by characters with names. Come to think of it, that never changed.

Recently a friend got some of us together and we bought out a trans kid’s entire stock of Girl Scout cookies out of nowhere. It’s so fun to think about this kid watching her cookies sell out all at once, for no apparent reason. Putting a piece into someone else’s world. We can do that.

It can be very very hard today to feel like we really are able to create anything, let alone a world. To feel like we have the power to change things, and that we can meet up with each other differently, and that we can envision better sh*t than whatever is in front of us. But I often find myself considering that this is in fact what we are all doing, all day every day, all the time, and that this power is ours and that it never ever goes away, and our task is to never, ever lose touch with that, and never stop doing that.

Sloth and Manatee Page

Brainwaves

Best of Brainwaves Volume One: The Fountain of Stuff

Best of Brainwaves Volume Two: Mom, Dad, I'm a Cat

License Cartoons from CartoonStock

Art!

Print Shop

BunnyFrogCatSnake

Things Of The Week

This is a still from “The Man Who Planted Trees,” which won Best Animated Short at the Oscars in 1988. The whole film, about 30 minutes, is here.

Winners of Nikon’s 2025 Comedy Wildlife photo contest - definitely scroll down to the bear, you’ll know

OK I love this so much. Somehow the fact that it’s in French makes it even funnier. Much-needed hilarity.

Okay! That's enough nonsense for now.

May you totally make something up, may you plant a tree either literally or metaphorically, won't you be my neighbor? - Betsy