I'm proud to say that I've now sent out this personal email newsletter every single weekend for an entire year. Going forward, I will be stopping the weekly cadence, maybe as a break or maybe permanently. But I'll still send it when the spirit (or something else) moves me.

This experiment has been a wild success. The past year has been a true awakening for me. As small and casual as it is, this personal email newsletter is probably the most important step I've taken in my creative life.

As I've discussed previously, I got to a place with writing/filmmaking/photography/product-design/all-my-interests where I just wasn't enjoying them anymore. They had all become something I should be doing, and the shouldness came to overpower any real desire I had. When you spend so much time telling yourself what you should want, it can be hard to tell what you actually want.

I sought courses/advice/coaching/reading/therapy about what to do. Should I just give up on creative dreams? Was I actually just influenced by a culture that says I should be great at something hard? Do I just have the basic-as-hell American obsession with fame and fortune? Did I put myself on this path at 15 years old and never stop to question it? There were a lot of questions.

When I talked to people about it, they would notice these huge shifts in my energy when I'd start talking about something that excited me. I'd instantly break out of this inwardly-focused dissatisfaction/strained tenseness and go on rants about the things I wanted to make and the stories I wanted to tell, and they'd say "Hmmm... seems like you do care about that stuff."

To a person, pretty much every author and teacher and person I spoke with had the same advice: "Just make something, anything, the smallest thing, and share it."

That was the one thing I'd never done. I'd never just made/written some small little thing of no consequence at all and shared it. For no reason. Just to do it. That's what this personal email newsletter is. And I did it. And it helped. A lot.

Thanks for hanging with me this year. Thanks for the replies, the encouragement, and just for playing along with this thing that has helped me so much.

Retreat/Refuge

This coming week I go on a silent retreat for the first time since right before COVID, and it's a very important moment as I'm taking my Refuge Vow. I'm not expert enough to make a comparison, but you might think of it a little bit like getting confirmed as a Catholic. This is my decision after directly experiencing a lot in the past many years of practicing meditation with instruction from lamas and teachers in the Tibetan tradition.

I'm going to do the deal. I've come a long way from the very anti-religious views I used to have.

Light Meters

I got asked by my friends at Negative Supply to do the voiceover for their new light meter. The project has already raised $167,000 (well over their $50,000 goal). It's, without a doubt, the greatest light meter ever created, and I'm super honored they wanted my voice on the video.

Mechanical Keyboards

I did my first full build of a keyboard. Check out these nostalgic 90s-Mac-inspired keycaps.

It sounds even better than it looks. It's delicious. And yes, that's the layout I use. So if you ever wonder what I mean by "Dvorak layout," that's it, with the vowels on the lefthand home row and the most common consonants on the righthand home row. As they obviously should be.

Kiddos

In Allison's religious tradition, Wendell will be baptized tomorrow. The church became skittish with all the new COVID news and we sadly had to cancel the in-person event again (ugh, when will this shit end?).

It'll just be us and my cousins (Wendell's godparents) Anthony and Jillian in the church.

Here are the kiddos playing with some other keyboards.

You'll hear from me soon, PENpals,

Zach

My friend and colleague Newton and I recorded our very first intro videos to the product that is Markee. So much work has gone into this thing over the past year and a half and it's hard to believe that we're finally and the same time already and at the same time just getting started.

Markee is a set of tools that let you easily spin up fully-branded places on the internet where you can meet people and put whatever you want. Here's a mashup of our screencasts. You'll get the gist in the first minute:

Rather than generate a Zoom link that looks like zoom.us/jpz09709gobbledywobbledy8759 you can invite people to something like https://janicelovestea.com/tea-room. And in that room you can have anything you like. And when you want to meet again, you can go back to that same room and everything will be just as you left it.

If you have an online course, your students can ask each other questions through chat and direct messages. They can collaborate on homework and documents.

If you have a team that works on multiple projects you can have a room for each project with everything associated (files/meeting agendas/task lists) nicely organized.

You can fully brand the space from logos/fonts/colors/CSS (web styling language) all the way to the domain you use. The word "Markee" will never show up anywhere for anyone who meets you. Markee is a tool centered on the people using it, not on itself. Slack is all about Slack. Zoom is all about Zoom. When you use Markee, people come to your place. Markee just provides the tool for you to build it.

I'm hoping to get lots of friends and family using Markee. As a longtime early adopter of software, I can tell you that there's something special about being part of an app as it's being built, providing feedback to the people making it, and advocating for a group of users that you represent.

A demo would be a great opportunity to catch up with some of you, and if you'd be open to it, I'd like to record some of them the way Newton and I recorded the video above. I could then send it to others.

Holler at me.

Much love, PENpals,

Zach

P. S. Just found out that Biz Markie has died way too young at 57. One of my favorite memories of him was years ago when he was the musical guest on a late night show and played a cover of Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets.” But here’s the thing: He just played a faithful cover of the song. So unexpected. So real. So fun. Absolutely delightful artist. Related to Biz: Naturally, our Markee internal team place is at biz.markee.io. I also need to credit Biz for some portion of why everyone seems to know how we intend them to pronounce Markee.

I’m considering making a podcast about the 1968 National Guard occupation of the city of Wilmington, Delaware, which lasted 9 months. Most people do not know about it. It would be a followup to the thing I’ve made that I’m most proud of.

For any PENpals who never heard my first (and only) podcast, here’s a link: https://pods.link/i/1112035445

There are four episodes, ~20 minutes each, highly produced (more This American Life than “two guys talking”). It’s about a guy who grew up in the juvenile justice system in Delaware. I made it for Ashley Biden’s nonprofit, The Delaware Center for Justice.

I got in trouble for making it. Still proud of it.

I think someone needs to parse out the experiences and meaning of the longest ever occupation of an American city after the assassination of Dr. King. And it happens to be our current president’s hometown.

Considering it.

Much love, PENpals,

Zach

Smoke from the fireworks outside drifted into our building last night and set off the very loud fire alarm, waking up the kids. On the plus side, while we waited outside we got to see some pretty big fireworks through bleary eyes.

On Saturday we took the kids to the Franklin Institute, a pretty cool museum here in Philadelphia. It’s right across from the very massive European-looking fountain in Logan Circle. The edges of the fountain are sloped inward toward the pool of water and Louisa naturally insisted on positioning herself for optimal precarity and maximum nervousness for me and Allison.

She also insisted on wearing her Elsa dress because she values originality.

Rest

I've allowed myself to get a little rest for the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure I've fully appreciated the toll that the past 18 months has taken on me. I made a few attempts to clear my schedule. Not for rest (because what's rest?), but to get some real work done.

The truth is, I've been so disconnected from the part of me that intuitively knows what it needs, and I've allowed all the other parts of me, the thinky parts, to drown out any noise that might be coming from the "Hey, I think I'm tired?" part.

This has been a recurring tactic/strategy/conversation I've had with myself over the past decade or so. Keep in mind, I only actually hear the one side of the conversation. Picture it like a sales guy pacing around on the phone. I'm only hearing the bold words.

ME
(muffled, unintelligible)
Okay, time for a little break?

ALSO ME
(eyes wide)
Oh, yeah, then we could get to all that work we can't do because we're always doing all this work...

ME
...well, I think—

ALSO ME
This is awesome. Let's do this! We should do this.

ME
I think I'm going to go watch YouTube videos of people building mechanical keyboards.

ALSO ME
Why would you waste this valuable time?! Come on. It's time for all that stuff we haven't had a chance to get to.

ME
Maybe I'll eat some crackers and cheese, too.

For most of my life, I have mistaken who in this conversation is the problem.

Today, I'm declaring my independence from that guy.

Related Podcast Recommendation

I was introduced to a really interesting podcast by Lauren Valdez. I'm normally pretty skeptical of people who market themselves this way, and skeptical of anything that smells of Silicon Valley Tech Bro Enlightened Investor, but I consumed this whole podcast in a couple days, and it hit all the right chords for me at this moment in my life.

Pay no attention to the name.

https://pods.link/us/i/1537416353

Short Order Newsletter

At Short Order, we sent out our first monthly newsletter. The goal of that newsletter is to help people start with better thinking and strategy around storytelling for business, branding, marketing, etc.. We've had a good response so far but would love any feedback from my PENpals.

If you want to subscribe to that one (monthly), you can do so here.

Seeya next week, PENpals,

Zach

You are probably familiar with the phrase "Writing is thinking."

This has proven true for me over and over throughout my life, yet I still don't automatically go to writing at those critical moments when careful thinking is needed.

I'm really struggling with something in my life. I'm having trouble making sense of something. I need to make a big decision. I want to integrate what I've learned. I simply have an idea, something resonates, sparking something, but I'm not sure exactly what it is.

All of these are moments to put pen to paper, because as soon as the hand starts moving (or the cursor), thoughts begin to show up that could never have emerged within the mind.

There are many reasons for this phenomenon, some of them computer-science-y, some of them woo-woo, but all you need to do is begin to journal during any one of these moments and you will experience it in a way that is undeniable.

With respect to the Zettelkasten process that is blowing my mind, this concept of Fleeting Notes is what's currently most interesting, and at the risk of hyperbole, I think it could have massive implications for the world.

I've written about this before, but there used to be a space where everyone was thinking on paper: Writing letters. The more I write, the more it's clear just how immeasurable the loss is that we don't do this anymore. The loss is accentuated by the fact that most people don't even have a moment to headthink quietly anymore.

I've begun to address this for myself by writing this PEN, then by publishing something every day, and the experience has been amazing, but I hadn't considered that I can apply this principle to everything that inspires me, and that's what Zettelkasten Fleeting Notes are about.

I used to highlight things, "save" them, "organize" them in a folder somewhere. But I realize now that these activities did not accomplish what they appeared to. They did little more than make me feel as though I had kept something, not to be lost, when in fact, what was important was lost instantly. Not because I had organized wrong, but because I was organizing the wrong thing entirely.

Here's the amazing discovery: The desire to highlight this, keep that, throw the other in a folder, isn't about the piece of text/media itself, but about what it has evoked in me. And that can only be revealed by writing it out.

You can try this: The next time you want to highlight something in a book or save an article to your notes or put something in a folder, pause, and ask yourself "Why is this resonating with me right now? What is it about? What else in my life is it connected to?" Jot something down quickly and come back to it later, or just immediately start writing stream-of-consciousness what is coming up. I reckon you'll be surprised what's there.

This describes one step in the Zettelkasten process that I'm obsessed with at the moment. If this were all that I got from it, it would already be worth it.

Much love, PENpals,

Zach

Yesterday we attended the wedding of our good friends Sean and Luke. Sean was the Associate Rector at Allison's church before he went on to be the Rector at St. Mary's in Ardmore. Like so many others, Sean and Luke had to reschedule/replan their wedding multiple times.

We continue to learn about just how not shy our Louisa is. At the reception, she made rounds for three hours, jumping from stranger's lap into stranger's lap, asking questions ranging from "Can I hold your baby?" to "Can I have your cake and your sweater?" to "Why do some people have two families?" Allison and I took turns walking up to each person whose conversation and personal space Louisa had annexed to ask if this was okay.

Everyone insisted they were fine with it.

Related: Thursday, Louisa's preschool class (The Koalas) held their annual Koala Awards, and Louisa won the Headed to Hollywood award. I promise this is not my fault.

As has been promised for many weeks, I finally developed some film. The rest of this PEN will be photography heavy.

Photography

All of these photos were taken with the Fujifilm TX-1, also known as the Hasselblad XPAN (same camera, built by Fuji, but sold also with Hasselblad branding, the Fuji one is cooler). The TX-1 is a unique camera because it takes photos almost twice the width of a normal 35mm frame, so you get 21-22 shots per roll rather than 36. It’s an incredibly fun rangefinder camera and I love it.

And just two more… You can also create really tall pictures with a panoramic camera. This usually doesn’t make sense, but here’s one of the kiddos in front of Allison’s church, Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square.

And even though I don’t love this last photo, I’m throwing it in here because it was the first time I approached someone I saw on the street and asked “Do you mind if I take a picture of you guys?” That was a big step for me in terms of courage.

Writing Update

To be more specific with what's going on with my writing at the moment, I'm holding off publishing (unless there's something I really can't not publish) until I have 125 Permanent Notes in my Zettelkasten, at which point, I believe there may be an explosion of publishing. This will take a while, but I believe it’s the right use of my writing energy at the moment.

Much love, PENpals,

Zach

Yesterday, my buddy Cameron flew into Philly from Nashville bearing tickets to a show of one of my favorite musicians, a keyboard (particularly Hammond B3) player I’ve seen live several times, John Medeski, this time as a member of DJ Logic’s Project Logic.

My favorite thing about going to “Medeski shows” is that I often get introduced to other musicians I didn’t know but who invariably are best in class.

Last night I was introduced to my favorite drummer I’ve ever seen live, Daru Jones, and an absurd-in-more-ways-than-one bassist, MonoNeon. MonoNeon wears… unique outfits but I guess that’s what happens when you hang out with Prince too much. He plays a right-handed five-string bass left-handed, but totally upside down, with his thumb on the high strings. And he’s very good at it.

There’s another person who I recently learned played their guitar upside down, and it’s a doozy.

Some of you know that I play fingerstyle guitar. It’s the only musical thing I’ve ever pursued (and my pursuit has been streaky at best). Well, one of the first fingerstyle songs that most people learn, I’d say it’s the #1 “first real fingerstyle song” (ever-repeating finger patterns like “Blackbird” don’t count) is “Freight Train” by Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten. It wasn’t the first fingerstyle song I learned, that was Mississippi John Hurt’s “Creole Belle,” but it was the third or fourth.

Well this week I learned two things:

1. Libba Cotten lived in Syracuse (!) for much of her life up until her death in 1987 at 94 years old at Crouse Hospital (where I was born).

2. She played this canonical, this foundational fingerstyle song, completely differently than anyone else does, because her guitar was goddamn upside down.

A lot of people know Jimi Hendrix played a right-handed guitar left-handed, but he restrung the guitar. Libba did not. Watch her show every fingerstyle player that maybe our thumbs just aren’t that special.

Writing Update

I’m pleased to report that, even though I haven’t been publishing daily (or at all) as I was before, I’m kicking out more word-count than I ever have, just a little more deeply, thoughtfully, behind the scenes, with an intention toward some longform writing down the road. The momentum and lessons from that flurry do seem to be carrying me forward.

Health Update

Last week was the biggest physical health wakeup call of my life. I have been carefully processing it and have made a decision which I’ll put here because why not? As whistling-in-the-dark overly simplistic as this may sound, I will never eat too much, ever again, and I’m accomplishing that with ease and comfort by eating slowly, which comes with a dozen other benefits and zero downsides other than that it requires awareness (which isn’t really a downside).

There will never be an occasion where there would be any advantage to eating too much, and if I’m honest, every time I’ve eaten too much in my life, I’ve done it knowingly, intentionally, for a bunch of not-great reasons. I’m aware that those reasons are psychologically complicated and I’ve dealt with them throughout my life, but there’s something about the immediate clarity of being literally tortured for five hours and thinking you’re going to die as a direct result of intentionally eating too much… I’m confident that the fallout from this can carry me far enough to establish new habits and increased sensitivity to hunger, pleasure, and satiety.

It’s working very well so far.

Kiddos

No kid pictures update on my end this week, I didn’t feel like doing much this week, but I have 10 rolls of film to process so prepare for the deluge.

In other kiddo news though, my cousins Mark and Vita just had a third baby girl named Lana June. I think this is a badass name.

Much love PENpals,

Zach

I’m in the hospital. Got here via ambulance Friday night, in the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. Since I’ve never experienced pain like that, I didn’t know what pain like that does to you.

I won’t get graphic with the details of that night now, though I’ve written it all down. I’ll just say it was a lot of firsts for me.

• First time thinking for a moment that I could (actually) die

• First time panicking and uttering the words “call 9-1-1”

• First time in an ambulance

• First time in an ER

• First time with an IV in my arm

• First time a nurse failed to get a vein (5 times, I look like a junkie right now)

• First time getting a CAT scan

• First time in my own hospital room

• First time considering surgery

But the most important and consequential first for me is this: It’s the first time I’ve experienced an immediate, acute, very painful consequence for neglecting my body. I’ve spent my whole life in my head, taking my body for granted, and repeatedly treating it terribly in clumsy and ineffectual attempts to soothe my psychology (which haven’t worked, by the way).

Then, ironically, when my body hasn’t performed perfectly, I get mad at it. It’s like an abused child. Under the circumstances, my body has actually been remarkably resilient and capable. It can still do amazing things that it has no business being able to do. It has taken whatever I’ve thrown at it (or not thrown at it) and mostly not complained at all.

It’s time that my body get some much-deserved loving attention, however late it may be.

Much love, PENpals,

Zach

P. S. I’m okay. It was a gallstone. I super appreciate everyone’s love and concern but I probably don’t want to talk anymore about it. I hate talking about medical things. Hate. Everything about it.

P. P. S. Next week it’ll be back to pictures of these babies, hopefully some good ones I got on the beach.

I’m on vacation at the Jersey Shore for a week, and just in time for great weather.

In all seriousness, though, there’s something about the hunkered-down laziness of rainy days… maybe it’ll be just right.

Uncle Gavin and Aunt Becky brought us delicious tacos last night and we just spent the morning, or at least 18 minutes of it, down at the beach, wearing raingear in a cozy 51 degrees and a steady 51 mph wall of wind.

Also, here’s a followup picture from last weekend of my dad with Louisa and Wendell.

The Zettelkasten

I’ve taken a lot of courses on the internet over the years, some of which I’ve paid thousands of dollars for. Beau Haan’s free “book club” (totally a course) on implementing Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten in Roam Research puts every one of them to shame. It isn’t even close. I am floored, my brain has exploded, I feel like I just got bit by a radioactive spider.

I can highly recommend to anyone who is curious, likes exploring ideas, or simply wants their mind blown, to sign up for the Roam Book Club #5 waiting list here.

Hopefully the weather gets better out here. I brought my Bolex and a couple hundred feet of film to get Wendell’s first beach experience.

Much love to all. Feeling very good, very positive. Tough couple weeks but back up and ready to fully engage life and take more punches, and maybe throw a few.

Zach

On December 22, 2020, I began an experiment. I decided to write and publish a blog post/Twitter thread, somewhere between 250-1000 words, every single day for 100 days, and for no particular reason.

I did that, and during some pretty difficult times at work and at home.

It was easy.

This, after a series of 7,000(ish) days during which I wrote maybe a handful of things, all for some very important reason, and never published them. ~20 years, a few dozen unpublished things. 100 days, 100 times pressing publish (115 times if you count this PEN, another experiment of mine).

So, apparently, I can write some things down and publish them. They don’t have to be great, or even good. I can do them from a blank page (on hard mode), and there’s not a lot of rhyme or reason that I can figure out behind which ones resonate with people and which ones don’t. There were several that I spent extra extra time on and never heard anything about. Then there were a few where I was just totally phoning it in before bed after a long day and a whole bunch of people reached out to let me know it meant something to them. 🤷‍♂️

But I needed to be sure... Maybe anyone could post for a hundred days straight... Particularly as some kind of short-term goal. So I decided to continue the experiment.

Now 150 days in, I’m ready to call this experiment a success. It can be done. I can write something every day. In 150 days, I’ve written 70,000+ words of “original stuff,” spending about 30 minutes a day. I find these results promising. Not because the raw weight of that text is enough for a novel and a few screenplays. That way of thinking puts me in a sick place that I don’t like. It shuts off all valves of curiosity and creativity and enjoyment for me. I’ll admit though that if I step back and look at it objectively, it’s an interesting datapoint.

Let’s take away every good thing that has come from this daily posting habit, which is a lot. Why else does it matter to me? Well, if I can write that much with no reason and no crutch in that small amount of time, there are a number of things I have assumed are true about myself that are, in fact, false. What does that mean?

I can’t forget the conditions set up for this experiment: I wrote for no particular reason. Putting Reasons and Goals behind my creative efforts was an unintentional experiment I ran from the age of 19 until... last year. Reasons and Goals not only don’t work for me, they have the opposite of their intended effect.

So now, with the intention to carry nothing with me beyond my own natural curiosity, I begin my next experiment, which will not involve compulsory daily publishing. This experiment is about taking this energy and directing it toward exploring the stories I like making up, and exploring them at least five times a week for at least 25 minutes.

I have no expectation that this will be as easy as daily posting was. So much of my psychology is still tied up in the damage I’ve done around creativity. Each one of these experiments seems to be healing that nonsense, but it may take a while, and that’s okay.

To be clear: Posts may come out of some of these explorations. But that’s no longer part of the experiment.

This Week's Posts

I wrote about a lot of guilt I have about unfinished projects...

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/15/abandoned-projects.html

I wrote about a trick to deal with anxiety about something looming/impending/coming up.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/18/the-nervousnessexcitement-trick.html

I wrote about how I'm weirdly OCD about cleanliness unless there's fire involved.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/16/fire-and-perception.html

I wrote about some of the songs I sing to my kids when they're going to sleep.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/17/pop-lullaby-list.html

I wrote about a trick to deal with anxiety about something looming/impending/coming up.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/18/the-nervousnessexcitement-trick.html

I wrote about the ultimate dream I have for my Zettelkasten.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/19/zettelkasten-for-fiction.html

I wrote about some gamechanging features that David Vargas at RoamJS has given us.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/20/youtube-timestamps-and.html

Family

My parents are in Philadelphia visiting us right now. Wendell was out on the sidewalk with Toto and Boop drawing with chalk while Louisa was at a birthday party for one of her best friends.

The family just ate some falafel and tehina shakes and everyone needs a nap now.

Here’s a picture from yesterday: Boop and Allison walking Wendell to one of our neighborhood restaurants for lunch.

Wendell’s had a 104+ fever a few times this week and it’s great that he’s finally feeling better.

All seems well.

More soon, PENpals,

Zach

This was a week where everything seemed to go wrong, and then a friend of the family died, tragically, way too young.

I walked into Monday thinking everything was okay. This was going to be a week of progress, of focused attention to the things that need attention.

Monday was like 17 roundhouse kicks to the face.

Everything at once was broken, was late, was lost.

I will say that, by the end of the week, there were reasons to feel hopeful, mainly because my resilience appears to be stronger than it has ever been. I didn't fall apart, break down, or do anything I didn't intend to do. I didn't even miss anything that I did intend to do.

That's a really big deal for me.

The truth is, almost none of what happened is really about me, but this PEN is about me, so pardon my indulgence.

The weather is absolutely beautiful here in Philadelphia. I rode my bicycle through town several times this week, and the whole family went to our community garden plot to water the tomatoes and Louisa picked a flower. These are all digital photos taken with the Fuji X100V.

This Week's Posts

I wrote about my buddy Tom's amazing recording studio in an unlikely location.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/11/toms-studio.html

I wrote about one of the strange (and only) things I'm unapologetically proud of work-wise.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/08/profile-photos.html

I wrote about processing film at home, and there's a video of my film developing machine.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/09/processing-film-at.html

I wrote about one thing that I thought didn't line up with this non-coercive productivity thing I've been blathering on about.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/10/noncoercive-perseverance.html

I wrote about looking at addiction from a different angle that might help the layman understand this baffling thing better.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/13/take-everything-bad.html

I wrote about an incredible thing that Beau Haan's Zettelkasten Fleeting Notes method unlocks.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/12/fleeting-note-formats.html

I wrote some thoughts about top-down structures, their place, and why most everywhere is NOT their place.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/14/topdown-vs-bottomup.html

I also went on a recovery podcast this week. I'll share it when it's posted.

That's all for this week, PENpals. Maybe next week will be better.

Much love and peace and comfort,

Zach

Dear PENpals,

In early 2019, I learned about this thing called the Zettelkasten. It had been mentioned by a few nerds in a few disparate forums, and I was hungry for more information about it. I searched everywhere I could, read posts about its creator (a German sociologist named Nicklaus Luhmann) and watched the few YouTube videos that existed. The YouTube videos were mostly these two German academics talking about this Holy Grail/City of Atlantis/Fountain of Youth notetaking system, but they were very... academic about it.

I searched Twitter and discovered one person who was speaking about the Zettelkasten with what seemed to me an appropriate level of excitement. His name was Conor White-Sullivan, and I knew nothing about him other than that he was excited about the Zettelkasten and he had a couple of brilliant tweet threads about it.

I reached out to make conversation about this exciting thing, hoping to make an acquaintance.

"Building something better."

Little did I know that a year later, I would be writing literally everything I write, for every purpose in the "something better" that Conor was building, an app called Roam Research. Roam is the single most transformative piece of software I've ever used in my life (and I've used a lot of software). Every tweet, every post, every note for work, every outline, every screenplay, everything that I write is done in Roam, and now it's also my guitar practice notebook, my recipe journal, where I organize photos, everything.

Incidentally, Roam also recently closed a fundraising round at a 200 million dollar valuation. It's a notetaking app. And yes, it is that good.

Roam has an incredibly dedicated following of people like me. Of course, there are plenty of Roam users who don't give a damn about what a Zettelkasten is and just like Roam because it's the most frictionless digital notebook ever created, but the core group, including Conor himself, is here for the Zettelkasten (and it's broader, networked implications).

The Zettelkasten is Blackbeard's buried treasure, the elixir of the gods... It is the unicorn.

And full disclosure: I haven't figured it out yet.

But on the first ever Roam "True Believers" call (yes, people are so fanatical about this application that there is a category of users called True Believers who paid for their first five years in advance, you do not need to ask if I am one of those), I met a guy named Beau Haan. We had a lot in common. We were about the same age and sober about the same amount of time. He was an actor. Most importantly, he was as fired up about the Zettelkasten as I was.

As it turns out, he was fired up a bit more.

More than a year later, I'm now 21 days into Beau's Roam "Book Club" which is really the deepest and most comprehensive course on writing/thinking/notetaking (Zettelkasten Hint: those are all the same thing) that I've ever been a part of.

Beau implicitly claims that he has discovered the digital Zettelkasten, and he has implemented it in Roam, and I am beginning to believe him. This course has been spectacular.

I mentioned it's a "Book Club." Well, the book we're reading is the book that I originally read in one sitting back in May of 2019. I've never read a book in one sitting before. This is the book that captured my imagination about the Zettelkasten. This was the most cataclysmic book I've ever read. Every page was like a round of artillery shells blowing holes in the wall of useless bullshit I had built up around writing and creative work my whole life.

Here is the book. It has the least enticing title of all time. In case you forgot, the Holy Grail is the cup of a carpenter:

I was so taken with this book that I immediately tried to contact the author, and I found that he offered coaching through his website. I scheduled a session with him and took it from my old office in the Joseph R. Biden train station, with my card catalog behind me (yes, I intended to implement the Zettelkasten with notecards the way that Luhmann had, I was in the middle of my own Analog Renaissance and I was going to do this the RIGHT OLD WAY).

Professor Sönke Ahrens was very helpful, but at the end of the call, he essentially said "Look, it sounds like you have a bunch of projects you already know you want to make. You should just go ahead and make those. A Zettelkasten can be something you start now but I'm not sure there's a reason to reverse-engineer things you're already doing with a Zettelkasten." He also suggested I pick digital or analog, and not the analog-digital hybrid I had schemed out complete with stylesheets for printing index cards from Dynalist.

Oh yeah, at that point I had implemented my Zettelkasten in Dynalist, which was a nicer-looking clone of Workflowy, which was the most useful outliner ever made. I had no idea at this point that Roam even existed, or that it was going to follow in Workflowy/Dynalist's footsteps and add a couple of features that were literally beyond my wildest dreams.

I showed Sönke on that call how I thought a hierarchical outliner with referenceable blocks could be the best implementation of a Zettelkasten. He seemed intrigued, but as a practical person, he tamped down most of my explosive enthusiasm and wished me well.

I never did get my outliner Zettelkasten implemented. I thought about it all the time, often keeping me up at night, but I never had the energy or the insight to figure it out, and I never could. The truth is that my old conceptions around writing, organization, notetaking, and creative WORK were truly in charge and kept leeching their way into my Zettelkasten, plaguing it with the same problems I've always had.

Beau Haan figured it out! Look, to be clear, I don't know if he's figured it out, but I believe he has. And if he has, everything is changed. Whole new worlds are possible.

I have a half tongue-in-cheek collection of interests that I call Thought Technologies™. I put it in my Twitter profile and About Me page. The Zettelkasten is the most powerful Thought Technology™ for creative work that I've ever come across, and it isn't close, but the only evidence I have of it ever working is the claims of the guy who invented it. It's like the proof of a design for a nuclear fusion power plant that removes all energy concerns from the world to the end of time, but thus far it only works on paper. I haven't held it in my hands yet!

I believe I'm close.

God bless Beau Haan and Sönke Ahrens and Conor White-Sullivan and all these beautiful fucking nerds.

I would recommend Sönke's book to literally anyone who has ever written anything in a notebook, in a journal, for a class... Anything. And if you get excited about it, follow @BeauHaan on Twitter to see if you can get in to the next round of the "Book Club." Keep in mind, you will be kicked out if you don't do the work. That is in keeping with the fact that, thus far, he is giving it away for free, and he is the most earnest, intense dude, maybe ever.

This Week’s Posts

I wrote about the least optimal way to spend your time.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/02/optimizing-sickness.html

I wrote about what from my experience it takes to edit film.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/03/film-editing-endurance.html

I wrote about what it can feel like to finally give up and admit you were wrong about something.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/04/i-was-wrong.html

I wrote about one of the best things about this publishing habit I've had for the last 135 days and 40 weeks.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/05/low-key-reaching.html

I wrote about one of the many reasons I love riding a bicycle so much.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/06/bicycle-awareness.html

I wrote about a tendency I've had the last few years to eat at night and why long-term health thinking has never been an effective motivator for me.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/07/shortterm-incentives-are.html

Babies

We went to the diner in the Reading Terminal Market this morning and I messed up on my shutter speeds. Louisa got the sharpest photo of all (this is photo credit to Louisa, these are all digital, by the way, Fuji X100V).

The next two are photo credit to Allison.

Here's Louisa excited about some cookies.

And here's a total mistake one that I love anyway.

And in this last one, which we'll pretend is Wendell taking a selfie because that's fun, both sweaters were knit by my mom.

Much love, PENpals,

Zach

One minor way the pandemic unfortunately got me was that it hit just as I was really falling back in love with photography again. Also going to the library. The library will have to wait a little while longer, but photography's coming roaring back now.

I wrote about why, if you've fallen out of love with photography, shooting film might bring back that loving feeling.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/05/01/falling-back-in.html

Otherwise, this week was absolutely exhausting, and I'll leave it at that.

This PEN will be a short one full of freshly developed photographs.

This Week's Posts

I made fun of a company that I've never been fair to, is actually an amazing company, and I really have no right no make fun of them, but I did.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/25/blackmagic-design-brand.html

I wrote about what most tools for thought get wrong right out of the gate.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/26/better-thinking-through.html

I wrote about a way to think about notetaking that removes some of the unnecessary anxiety.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/27/capturing-fleeting-thoughts.html

I wrote about some of the tricky things about losing a mother when you're 5.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/28/losing-a-mother.html

I’ve been in a weird mood, sorry if it becomes unbearable. I wrote about how much I love storms.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/29/i-love-storms.html

I wrote about something I’ve gotten wrong over the years about creative tools and workflows.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/30/the-alarm-clock.html

Loading some film on my own reels for the first time and getting ready to put them in the tank.

Much love, PENpals,

Zach

I can't believe it. It's finally here. The app that the Markee team has been working on for the past year is live, and it is good. It's generally hard for me to feel proud of things, but I'm so proud of what our team has created.

This is the core team that built Markee, back in December. The team is bigger now.

Over the next few weeks we're putting the finishing touches on this thing and then the sales push begins. There's also a new, almost-complete website (videos coming soon)!

This is my first experience being part of a team that has built a single product this substantial, and one thing I've learned is that every other app I thought I was building in the past… was never going to happen. I'm grateful now that those projects died on the vine because this team has shown me that I simply don't have the skills to pull off something like this. I have huge, critical gaps (that I didn't know I had at the time) that would have doomed those projects to failure. I learned what I learned from them and I'm glad there was no further investment.

Let me tell you about my friend and partner Craig Doig, the CEO at Markee. He's in the bottom left of that GIF above. He's a private guy so he wouldn't want me saying stuff about him, but I've got to tell you a little bit about Craig.

Craig can visualize the complex superstructure of a company in a way that is truly baffling to me.

I can come up with ideas and strategies and I'm confident that if you put me in a room with a (single) problem and a ticking time-bomb, I can come up with a solution. But as soon as we get into the implementation of that solution and how it relates to the 4,127 other moving parts of a business, a team, a strategy, a pipeline—I'll quickly become overwhelmed and duck out to find another (single) hard problem to solve.

I cannot hold the whole machine in my head at once. Craig can.

He does it naturally. He doesn't even realize how incredibly rare this talent is, but he's got it. Without someone like Craig, a project like Markee couldn't even begin to be successful.

I'll tell y'all more about Markee in a few weeks at the official launch, but in the meantime, you can just think of it as a fully white-labeled meeting, collaboration, and event software, like a self-branded Slack/Zoom combination where the rooms you create have a collaborative Google Doc-like canvas in them.

Anyway, I think our chances are good.

This Week's Posts

I wrote about what I see as the main flaw in the design of our current economic system.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/20/this-version-of.html

I wrote about how demotivating reasons are.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/23/no-reasons.html

I wrote about the usual difference between the $500 version and the $5,000 version.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/18/knob-feel.html

This one is revision of an early PEN in observation of the Apple holiday tomorrow.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/19/hardware-is-good.html

I wrote about the greatest business failure of my lifetime.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/21/the-failure-of.html

I wrote about an aspect of my personality that I didn't know was an aspect of my personality.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/22/i-love-to.html

I wrote about my daughter’s voracious appetite for the same stories over and over and what I’m learning from it.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/24/over-and-over.html

Photography/Babies

While I still don't have any beautiful new baby pictures to show you, this beautiful monstrosity has arrived (6 months after it was ordered). You load your film on reels in the dark, attach your tank, fill the thing up with water and chemicals, set your program and press go. It heats up the chemicals, pumps them in and out of the tank, rinses in between, agitates the tank, it even cleans itself (these damned Germans):

I've got my chemicals ready to mix. I need to shoot one more roll of film and I'll be running my first batch (four rolls of beautiful color Kodak film, two 35mm and two medium format).

But since I can't have a PEN go out without a baby picture, lest all my family and friends unsubscribe in protest, here's Wendell from when we used to live across the way from the Holiday Inn Express (technically, Wendell has been to Paris so he’s allowed to wear this sweater).

Much love, PENpals,

Zach

We shot the Markee videos!

It was neat being on set directing actors again, and I have to say I gave these actors a really difficult task. I wrote the scripts to be messy conversational, spoken extemporaneously by someone being interviewed or giving a testimonial. That's really tricky. They did incredibly well, as did the entire crew: Mauro directing and doing some crazy 3D CGI, more on that soon, Mauro and Jason prepping for our first foray into virtual production, Hannah, Alexander, and Kim producing like crazy on a short timeframe, Newton casting, Christina script supervising, Josh on sound, Alexander recording additional audio and behind-the-scenes, Leisa on the always-perfect makeup, Brittney on hair, Ardit in his first role as a PA, Sam DITing and editing, and Matt approving the budgets (thanks Matt).

I wrote some thoughts after being back on set.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/15/creative-attention-in.html

Fake Companies

One thing that has been fun in the creation of these first Markee videos is making up five companies. As some of you know, I have always loved naming things. I love it. Well, I had five characters for whom I needed to come up with five companies. Together with our amazing designer Euge (who is taking some much needed vacation for the next two weeks), these are the five characters with their fake company names and logos I came up with (we had to knock these out in a day).

First, there's Valeria Gutierrez, a sales team lead for a big multinational corporation.

Next, there's Charlie Larkin, a creative consultant with a small design/content marketing agency.

Then, Lara, an operations manager for a big tech company.

Mona, the director of a non-profit theatre company.

Lastly, there's Newton, a customer support director. The funny thing with Newton is that he's also actually Markee's customer support director and he's actually an extremely talented actor (and he served as casting director for these videos). This logo is my personal favorite.

We loved the Toasty concept so much that we made a hoodie out of it (thanks to Kim for the iron-on graphic magic).

Are these the best fake company names and logos ever created? No. Do I love them as if they were? Yes. From this point forward, whenever you hear the word "Toasty," your mind just might say... "We got you." Thanks for that, Eu. Now go get some damned rest.

This Week's Other Posts

I wrote about kintsukuroi, probably my single favorite metaphor.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/11/kintsukuroi.html

I wrote about a strategy I'm using to reconnect with reading for pleasure, something I haven't done in far too long.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/12/reading-doesnt-have.html

I wrote about a variation on my business card that you should totally copy if you're a photographer.

^^^^https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/13/a-photographers-buisness.html

I wrote about an archetype from one of my favorite childhood movies.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/14/false-horns-on.html

I wrote about High Street, a truly superlative bread bakery in Philadelphia, and the attention to detail in their packaging.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/16/high-street-hoagie.html

Babies

We had a little health scare with Louisa this week but it turns out she's fine (biggest phew ever). Totally fine. I won't tell you what it was about because I don't want to embarrass the poor girl. She's fine.

No new pictures this week so I'm just going to bring back an old one. This is Louisa from when she was 6 weeks old. She's had a big personality from the moment we met her:

Much love PENpals,

Zach

I'm tired. More from the pressure I'm putting on myself than the actual workload, but... I'm tired. Looking forward to a vacation at the Jersey Shore for Memorial Day. Or as they say in Philly, "goin' down the shuuuuore."

Between now and then, a lot is happening, most of it this week.

Markee Videos

We're shooting the promotional videos for Markee on Thursday. Mauro is directing, and it's a highly technical shoot. I'm working with the actors. We're doing it all in our studios using virtual production and 3D sets. This is a really crazycool thing. We've been doing tests and even the quick, not-color-or-light-matched tests look amazing. It's opening up so many creative possibilities.

Again, this test (featuring Short Order senior producer Christina Reilly) is totally not good, yet somehow it's amazing.

There was a moment when I was planning out all the software animations and looked at my desk and realized I've become a caricature of myself.

The "Walking Every Street in Philly" Project

Started it last week. Check it out.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/08/the-first-step.html

For anyone worried about this, please understand that there are a lot of streets in Philly and I'm not rushing right to any notoriously dangerous neighborhoods. This is going to take years. More than anything, it's a fun excuse for me to exercise regularly in a gamified way. I'm not going to be stupid or careless, I'm going to bring people with me for as many walks as possible, and this is just going to be light and fun, cool? This is just walking. I just like to make it a game of filling in every street green because I'm goofy. How cool is this map though?

This Week's Other Posts

I wrote about being a slow reader and how angry I am that all the "fast readers" never let me in on the fact they all cheat.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/10/subvocalization.html

I wrote a Twitter thread of threads to pin to the top of my Twitter profile where I can just keep the ones I think are a good introduction to me.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/04/a-twitter-thread.html

I started a list of practical paradoxes that I have experienced.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/05/practical-paradoxes.html

I wrote about noticing the sensation of resistance as a solution to resistance.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/06/sensations-and-stories.html

I wrote about Authenticity, the second core ingredient in my production house's Original Recipe™ creative process.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/07/the-original-recipe.html

I wrote about an exercise I did in a course I took a year ago.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/09/my-favorite-problems.html

Babies

Well, it was Easter, but since I still don't have my film processing capabilities yet, the best pictures will sadly have to wait a few weeks. Sorry. Meanwhile, here's an old one of Wendell in the cold sunshine before he suddenly aged 15 years.

Much love PENpals,

Zach

I'm now fully recovered from my very-unbearable-to-Allison mancold after my second Moderna vaccine on Tuesday.

Another thing that made it a notable week is that Wendell got his first haircut, which I wrote about:

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/28/baby-wendells-first.html

And another reason it was a big week is that I hit the magic 100 days in a row writing and publishing every day (also 100 days in a row of exercise). I wrote about that too, of course.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/01/days-posts.html

So yeah, big week.

Gumps’s Journals

A really cool project I'm doing right now is digitizing/scanning all of my grandfather's journals with some cool technology and a very helpful assist from Annaliese (who also babysits Louisa and Wendell a lot). For those who didn't know my grandfather, he was called Gumps and he was a force of nature, pretty much universally beloved by all (because he universally loved all).

He's the guy who taught me it's okay/totally cool to be interested in all kinds of different things. He was a psychiatrist by trade but he self-published books of poetry, kept bees and raised goats, and a lot a lot a lot of other things. I'm sure as I start to go through these (thanks for sending them up, Aunt Val!), Gumps will show up a lot in the coming months.

With varying levels of meticulousness, Gumps journaled and saved letters from 1941 when I believe he was being fast-tracked as a doctor in the navy for WWII until he died suddenly in 2000. I will find out more details by reading. Stay tuned, as they say.

This Week's Other Posts

I wrote about how much I love ping-pong and one of the reasons why.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/29/pingpong.html

After getting my second vaccine today, I wrote about the way I conceptualized medicine working as a child.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/30/childrens-medicine.html

I wrote about self-centeredness and how it relates to my well-being.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/31/when-i-know.html

My experiment of publishing 100 posts in 100 days was successful, so I wrote about why I've decided to continue indefinitely.

I wrote about the trap of designing workflows before you have any output from them.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/02/workflow-second.html

I wrote about a few very Philadelphia examples of where we all communally agree to ignore the rules. This last one is a reprint from an early PEN. Since I decided to write daily the way I used to write the PENs, I've gone back and wanted to take some of those pieces and put them on the little blog.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/04/03/gently-ignoring-the.html

Babies

Another one of those situations where Allison "will never see them in these outfits again" so here are the pictures. My film processing capabilities can't come soon enough (ordered months and months ago, will arrive in a couple weeks). These were shot on the Fuji digital (X100V):

Is it just us or did Wendell’s haircut instantly age him like 11-16 years.

Hope everyone is getting their shots and feeling very safe soon.

Happy spring, PENpals,

Zach

Today is Allison's birthday. The love of my life, my partner in crime, the sorceress who fashioned two of the cutest babies I've ever seen (bias alert) out of oxygen, magic, and take-out food. She likely won't read this but I just want to let all my PENpals know that she's the best wife, the most nurturing mother, and she has more than earned the very happiest of birthdays.

I'll keep this one short because I'm taking Allison for her second Pfizer shot here in a minute (!). I get my second Moderna on Tuesday (!!). It feels like the end of a fifty year period in the wilderness but I must acknowledge that I've experienced some pretty powerful transformations this year.

It's a stressful time with imminent Markee launch but I've stuck to my new habits. They feel pretty resilient. I still do need to see how they do in Failure Mode but this week I'll hit 100 days in a row both exercising and writing and—well—something seems to be working.

One really cool piece of news: Just found out that in Q1 2021, Short Order Production House broke even. This was a horrible year for production companies and I feel so fortunate that my team has gotten us back to this point. Very hopeful for what's to come.

Syracuse plays my inlaws' alma mater tonight in the Sweet 16. I don't understand why every game has to be at a million o'clock at night, but LET'S GO ORANGE.

This Week's Posts

I wrote about what technologies and thought technologies™ I've been using to write a daily post for the last 95 (now 96) days straight.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/27/my-daily-posting.html

I wrote about the universal basic income results in Stockton, California and an idea I've had for a long time for an incubator of sorts.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/21/the-freedom-to.html

I wrote some thoughts about tickling my children and tickling in general.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/22/a-tickling-dilemma.html

I wrote about how creating something small every day allows me to be more mindful, deliberate, and flexible with the bigger things I want to make.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/23/the-creative-urgency.html

I wrote about the old factory floors we lived with for five years and that were so tragic to pull up.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/24/farewell-floor.html

I wrote about a different way to interpret hateful words.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/25/i-want-to.html

I wrote about the barrier to practice.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/26/practice-and-selfjudgment.html

Babies

I’m sort of stunned to be saying this, because it’s a full 180° shift from the way I’ve thought my entire life, but it turns out, focusing on quality in creative output leads to lower quantity and lower quality. Focusing on quantity leads to higher levels of both. I’ve been so dumb for so long, you guys. 🤦‍♂️

Here’s an excerpt from Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

That settles it, and it completely validates (on the “quality is important” scale) the now 89 middling, throwaway daily posts I’ve published since December 22nd. I wouldn’t actually even need that quality validation though. I have at least 5 additional incontrovertible validations of this practice. It’s nice to be able to scientifically remove any doubts about quality though.

The Markee launch is imminent, and I’ve decided to hold off on my plan to add an additional daily habit of publishing a short video until that’s up and running. It’s extremely exciting and a little scary and with all the positive movement in my life (89 days straight exercising too), there need not be any rush to add more.

You probably know by now that I’m a software fan. I wrote about that this week:

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/18/im-a-software.html

Well I am very happy (and proud) to announce that I have made my way onto a podcast of one of the software developers I’m a fan of! Mohit Mamoria, the creator of the best email utility ever made, interviewed me about myself (huh?), Productivity™, and “building in public”. I talked about my daily posts, how I stopped over committing to stuff, a bunch of other personal stuff, so if you want to check it out, the podcast is here along with a summarized transcript of sorts.

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This Week's Other Posts

I wrote about why I think outliners are so important. If you've come this far in your life without the use of one, I really recommend checking them out.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/20/the-outliner-where.html

I wrote about what might be the optimally saddest scene in any children's movie ever.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/14/the-girl-squirrel.html

I wrote about how saying yes to one thing is saying no to everything else.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/17/yes-no.html

I wrote about a project I'm thinking of doing that seems cool/fine/fun to me but people look at me weird when I tell them.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/15/walking-philadelphia.html

I wrote about what cars should do when they approach an intersection at the same time as a pedestrian. https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/16/keep-moving.html

I wrote about one of my favorite little quirky technological in-between eras.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/19/the-awkward-age.html

Syracuse Basketball Update

So I’m a little ashamed to say that this is maybe the second Syracuse game I’ve watched this year. Some of you who know me well might be shocked by this, but between the pandemic, two babies, and all the other stuff… I just didn’t watch basketball. Until last night. And it seems like Buddy Boeheim can shoot.

Fun fact for the non-Syracuse people on here. Jim Boeheim was Syracuse’s head basketball coach for a few years. Then I was born in 1982. He’s still Syracuse’s head basketball coach. And he doesn’t even look that different!

I used to attend Jim Boeheim basketball camp as a young teenager. Buddy Boeheim wasn’t yet born. He scored 30 points last night.

Anyway, I imagine most of my fellow Syracuse diaspora are watching these games alone from our COVIDpods, so I’m going to create a Clubhouse room tomorrow for anyone who wants to meet up and watch the game together. I did the same last night but just watched it with my friend Mike who is really just learning the ways of Syracuse basketball. I’ll post the link in Facebook, since that’s where all us Syracuse people are still connected. One pretty massive caveat though… TV services and streaming services are all out of sync. Even a couple of seconds out of sync makes it impossible to enjoy a game together. But hey, at least we can talk for a minute and not emote too much for the first 35 minutes of the game.

Babies

Allison’s getting ready to finally call it on Wendell’s hair. I’ll probably just cut it myself with my fancy-ass COVID clippers, but maybe we’ll go for a father-son cut. Anyway, it’ll be kind of sad to see it go. Here are a couple photos and a little video from today of the last we may see of this doo (Louisa also tells a little story in the video):

Also, my oldest friend Matt and his wife Valeria just had a baby boy! Super exciting stuff.

Babies are awesome. I’m gonna miss these babies.

Much love and G’Orange,

Zach

For the first time in our new home, we have houseguests! Allison's parents have come to stay (everyone's vaccinated now) and it feels so normal in the best way. We walked across town to go to lunch yesterday and it was 72 degrees and sunny and perfect.

Also, my office is "finally" "all set up" (mostly). I've grown tired of fiddling with it and I realize that I've been using its not-doneness as an excuse to delay starting some things. Let this PEN serve as me drawing a line in the sand.

I have everything I need to start recording videos and podcasts. I have more than enough. I can make stuff with these tools and have fun doing it.

Business Update

I probably shouldn't do this, but I'm going to give you a quick sneak preview of the new brand and website for Markee. Some of the content is still placeholder but it's 90% there and I'm wicked excited about it (not really looking for feedback at this point unless it's positive 😃 It's been a long process getting here).

Brand was done by the amazing Joni Trythall at YupGup and the website by the also-amazing Euge Nohara who heads up design with me at Markee.

The imminent Markee version release is really, actually, good. My tendency is to qualify it by saying "with the time we had to make it and the size of the team, etc., etc." but it's just plain good.

With the core of the product almost finished, it's a really big moment. As the person on the Markee team who has put in the fewest working hours of everyone, I need to say that this team has knocked it out of the park. It is unbelievable to me what they've accomplished.

On the Short Order side, I can now confirm with confidence that "the phone is ringing" again, finally. We can breathe (a little), and if the vaccination effort goes as smoothly as the president says it will, I think this little production house in Wilmington (Bidentown) is going to be just fine.

Personal Update

Don't tell anyone, but I've continued to write and publish every day and ride the Peloton every day for 82 days in a row. Since before Christmas... Shhhhh! It's not real yet.

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This Week's Posts

I wrote about an alternative to our cultural celebration of “Relentlessness.”

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/07/relentfulness.html

I wrote about how car thermostats have ruined so many people's understanding of home thermostats.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/13/thermostatic-unintuitiveness.html

I wrote a request for horse movie recommendations outside of _The Man From Snowy River_.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/08/looking-for-horse.html

I wrote about how "they don't build them like they used to" and why.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/09/how-they-getcha.html

I wrote about what companies really have to do to profit from charging their customers $0.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/10/the-economics-of.html

I wrote about my experience writing creative proposals over the years and what has worked.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/11/giving-a-fuck.html

I wrote about the simplest way all walled garden platforms can monetize and improve the world at the same time.

https://little.zachphillips.blog/2021/03/12/open-closed-source.html

Sunset

This one's from a few months ago and I may have even already shared it in the PEN, but I'm enjoying putting these sunsets in here. I haven't established a system or habit for it yet, but I will soon and my home film processing capabilities arrive in a couple of weeks.

Baby Update

More oldies... again... but there will be new ones soon.

This first image kind of perfectly captures the period of our lives when we were living in a small apartment with a newborn and this little girl right before an unprecedented pandemic nearly destroyed the world. The Baby Brezza, Louisa's lunchbox, the iPad, Wendell's crib in the background, the compression of everything...

And here are a few more from that same roll of film (these are half-frame shots from the 1950s Olympus PEN if you care about that kinda thing):

Much love, PENpals,

Zach