Experiments
In-flight projects & weird ideas
I’d Rather Be Meryl
Wine writer Dylan Joffe and I started a food and lifestyle project called I’d Rather Be Meryl. For me, it’s an exercise in courage (starting something, especially with your name on it, is scary), and learning to balance creative control (how do we make something we’re both proud of, without compromising our unique perspectives on quality?). The whole Meryl concept is that you don’t have to be perfect to be a good cook. Do you have to be perfect to be a good content curator?
The Slowdown
I’m helping to start a new Medium publication, The Slowdown, for a big consulting firm that’s trying to rebrand with better, more provocative creative and editorial. The publication will feature thought-provoking, long-form articles on interesting topics in technology, creativity, and business. In addition to helping with product and editorial strategy, I just published a feature story about how blockchain could change the publishing industry.
Abandoned Churches
On a recent solo roadtrip from Seattle to the North Woods of Michigan, I stumbled upon three abandoned churches—one in Montana, one in Wisconsin, and one in Michigan—and photographed them. Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with finding these bizarre and spooky sites, and everywhere I go I look for them. I recently found a bunch in central Croatia, where entire communities were abandoned during the Yugoslav Wars.
I love taking the photos, but I also want to know the stories behind the churches. Who gathered in these places, and why don’t they gather there anymore?
Cats I Meet
I have a weird little Instagram project called @_catsimeet_. Everywhere I go, I try to meet a new cat. Then I post a picture of the cat. That’s pretty much it. I have 80 followers. Want to make it 81?
Muscle Memory
From age nine to age twenty-two, I was a competitive springboard diver. I was never terribly good, but the mental and physical challenges of the sport continue to fascinate me. I still dream about my gainers, and I daydream about my back one-and-a-halfs. I’ll be walking down the street and feel a sudden urge, from deep down in my bones, to rehearse the motions of a particular dive. Thus, I’m extremely interested in the brain science of diving—what combination of raw athletic talent, practice hours, coaching, focus, and even muscle memory, contribute to an athlete’s success? I’m working on some preliminary research to find out.
West Virginia
My father’s side of the family is from West Virginia. My great-grandfather was a coal miner and a farmer, and he had two daughters, Arlene and Viola, who were born in Pittsburg. When Arlene was seven years old, she died of scarlet fever. Their mother, my great-grandmother, left the family after Arlene died, leaving Viola, my grandmother, and her father to fend for themselves. My great-grandfather took my grandmother to live with her aunt in Belington, West Virginia, while he went and worked in a coal mine in western Pennsylvania for most of the year. My grandmother grew up in Belington, which was an idyllic American town at the time (now in terrible poverty) under the care of Aunt Wilma. She later married my grandfather, an FBI agent under Herbert Hoover.
There are a million stories, and a whole mythology, wrapped up in this family history. I used to dream about going to live with my grandmother for a summer, to record all her stories. I never did it, and she died a couple years ago, but I still long to explore her history and turn it into a collection of short stories.
Home
I lived in Seattle for ten years, and for about eight of them, I wanted to go home. I wanted to be closer to my family on the east coast, and closer to better career opportunities in New York, but I was also homesick for something deeper and more difficult to name—the low hills and marshes, the way the earth smells in spring, the hot, sticky summer nights. I have a lot of friends who have moved all over the country, away from home, since college. I wonder about the state of "home" in America. Does it still matter to be near, or to go, home? Do other people feel homesick—for the distinct feeling of a place—like I do? Something I’d like to explore.