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Archive for December, 2008

A message from the beyond

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

I hope you don’t mind that I’m writing this as a ghost because according to professional opinion, I’m already dead.

As someone who used to make most of her living writing for print (aaaaaaah!) magazines (oh god, noooooo!), I can’t believe that I have to sift through this kind of crap when I should be enjoying the free-spirited world of the afterlife. While I rather like the tone and efficiency of the original, I’m a little annoyed with all the bad, jump-on-the bandwagon copycats.

Is this what great journalists do? Kill off their compatriots? And not even bother to be funny while doing it?

FYI, “the media” is not dying. (I call it “the media” because I hate that term almost as much as I hate to hear people throw it around with such funereal ease.) But whatever it is, I assure you it’s not dying. It’s changing. And it’s about time.

To retaliate—maybe it’s like haunting; after all, I am dead—I gathered the best examples I’ve found that prove that fact. I began by dividing them into things like “books” and “blogs” which suddenly struck me as pointless because the very reason why I wanted to include them is because they defied categorization. They were so innovative, so fascinating, so ahead of their time, they can’t be pigeonholed. This, my dear, death-bed-ridden media friends, is what we should aspire to. Read on. If you dare!

(Note: Many of these were not published/released/made in 2008, this just happened to be the year I read/saw/heard them. But I’m including them here because they made me feel, well, alive.)

Best stuff that used to be called “television”

The IT Crowd: The single greatest show on American television is not American (surprise surprise) and it’s not on television (at least here). This British sitcom is a Three’s Company for the Facebook (sorry, FriendFace) generation. It makes me laugh so hard I cry. True to its audience, all the episodes are online. You can begin your sobbing here.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job: I don’t have to remind you again that this is the greatest show known to man. If you don’t get it, well, maybe that’s the point. News I could not reveal when I interviewed Tim & Eric back last spring that I can reveal now: John C. Reilly’s Dr. Steve Brûle is getting his own spin-off show. FOR YOUR HEALTH!

Hulu: We don’t have cable, and we don’t have broadcast television. What we have is Hulu, where we can watch the premiere episode of Beverly Hills 90210 (the original one), Alf (which makes a lot more sense now after reading Permanent Midnight), the newest Muppet Christmas special (don’t bother), and 30 Rock (below). With everyone whining about how TiVo would ruin TV for advertisers, they found a way to make it work. And it works great.

30 Rock: I’m writing this on a plane where they’re showing that episode with Al Gore that I’ve seen about 20 times already (thanks to Hulu). It does not matter. 30 Rock is eternally rewatchable, and not only for locating the Star Wars reference in every show.

That Lion Video: Perhaps the most heartwarming tale this side of the internet, although I wish it was possible to watch it without Whitney screeching in the background. You can’t script this stuff!

Everything Sarah Palin Said: You can’t script this stuff! No really, you can’t!

Best visuals

20×200: Whoever said the internet would be the downfall of culture did not check with Jen Bekman. The premise is simple: She finds hot new artists. You sign up for emails that announce their work. Some pieces are $20 prints, some are $200 editions, a few are $2000 investments. Artists get exposure, people get art. High and low. Everyone wins.

Kate Bingaman-Burt: She’s been doing this for awhile now, but it never fails to astound…every day, Kate draws something she buys, then sells the drawings. She also offers drawings of her credit card invoices, which she sells for the minimum balance due.

Daniel Eatock: This British designer has been building a website of his work that features everything from his incredible dancing to car alarms to orchestrating giant crop circles advertising Big Brother. His book Imprint, is one of the most amazing compendiums of What You Should Have Been Doing With Your Spare Time During the Last Ten Years. After the jealousy subsides, It will inspire you to pursue all those self-initiated projects you’ve got on the shelf.

The Whale Hunt & I Want You to Want Me: Jonathan Harris is one brilliant boy, there is no other way to put it. He tinkers around with technology, creating experimental narratives about hunting whales with Eskimos in Alaska or revealing our obsession with online dating. Get lost in this dazzling little world. Get very lost.

The Selby: Beautiful photos of houses inhabited by people who are much cooler than you. Somewhat incongruously, more cluttered equals more classy here.

Christoph Niemann: Basically, whatever he touches.

Best books-as-rabbit holes

The Night of the Gun: As a culture, we’re memoir-ed out. Especially when it comes to the Memoir of the Abusive, Jail-Frequenting Addict. New York Times writer David Carr knew this, and instead of subjecting us to the same old, albeit beautifully-written, description of how much blow a person can cram into the void where a septum once was, Carr takes us on a remarkable and riveting journey through the making of his memoir. I spent an entire afternoon picking up the pieces of Carr’s life one-by-one by venturing through the artifacts of the book’s mesmerizing website. Carr includes every police report (and there are a ton of them), every photo, and clips from video interviews that he used to reconstruct his terribly tragic, yet remarkably redeeming life. From a crack addict to a New York Times awards show writer. You’ll never believe it. But you have to, because all the proof is right there.

Oh the Glory of It All: Same concept as Night of the Gun, different era, less coke. Sean Wilsey embarked upon a quest to reconstruct what happened to his family when his dad married his mom’s best friend and her husband went off and married Danielle Steele, while his mom went of the deep end and dragged him on a globetrotting tour to meet world leaders and the pope. You’d end up at reform school, too, right? It’s a lovely tale of teen angst, with every scrap of evidence right there online. The photos and blurbs about his parents—many nabbed from newspaper society pages and People—are simply priceless.

Best magazines

New Yorker: We only subscribe to one magazine. But we’re not going to renew it, and here’s why: Would you ever have thought the stodgy, looked-the-same-since-1850 New Yorker would have been the magazine that made the most fantastic transition to this millennium? Their website is the only one I can think of that tries and succeeds at replicating the print experience (same typeface and layout, even). Their blogs are great. The bonus video and audio is awesome. They have a conference and a festival. Long live guys with monocles. Online.

GOOD: I’m biased. Very biased. But when a young, constantly-diversifying company gets people this excited, this active, this involved…I can only imagine what will happen in 2009.

Best news

LA Observed: For every paper that’s failing in this country, there should be a front row seat to its demise like the one Kevin Roderick gives us every single day.

Wonkette: Maybe because they got sold away from Gawker and they drank too much to think straight. But Wonkette’s pugnacious, slurred coverage of the election reminded me of the old days, and I’m talking the way-old-Ana Marie Cox-days (who is still doing her thing, raunchily, elsewhere). I praise them for having the balls to get away with it.

Curbed/Eater/Racked: Still written by the hardest-working editors in the blogosphere, and still the best way to find out everything you need to know about what’s opening/closing/rocking/sucking in your hood. Of course, I’m biased.

Big Pool of Money/Another Frightening Show About the Economy: Who produced the most provocative and insightful coverage about the economic collapse? 60 Minutes? 20/20? Time Magazine? What’s that you say? A bunch of guys at Chicago Public Radio? This pair of shows blew my mind, picked up the pieces and had them read back to me by Ira Glass. Best quote: “So, have you ever seen that movie Boiler Room?”

Best NYT sections

Consumed: The best way get your recommended daily requirement of business, design, trends all at once is my estranged uncle Rob Walker’s column on consumer culture. Peter Arkle’s illustrations, like Leif Parsons before, are a very special bonus. Bonus bonus: Rob’s blog, Murketing, and book, Buying In.

Frugal Traveler: Matt Gross spent the summer engaged in a Grand Tour of Europe, but all his columns are just as fiscally magical. I find myself cheering him on as he scrimp and saves his way through the city, and marvel at his ability to wander into a bar at night and get invited home to some local’s house for dinner. It’s a way of traveling we should all aspire to, and he makes it feel not only possible, but better than the pricey alternative.

Best funniest

The Daily Show at the DNC and RNC: From treating the DNC like a tailgate to trying to get Republicans to say “choice”, the Daily Show’s coverage of the conventions was two weeks of the finest journalism I have ever witnessed.

Running Toilet: Ads have become the den of suck lately, but this PSA from Denver Water that actually happened, live, at Invesco Field, is the only one I saw this year that was worth watching (thanks, Bethy).

Iran So Far: Saturday Night Live is better than it ever has been, true. But the best parts remain the digital shorts, and the best of the digital shorts was this ode to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It’s way better than Dick in a Box. (Thanks Hulu, again.)

Green Team: I never get sick of it. Never.

Wes Anderson commercial for McCain: There was a trio of these fake campaign ads “directed” by famous directors. But this Wes Anderson one was so dead on. Right down to the gratuitous Bowie.

Best nightmares

The Road: Read cover-to-cover on a cold, sunless day, is not how this book should be consumed. Doing so will throw you into deep, plaintive funk for days. Movies can do that sometimes (and this will be one soon), but to be honest, I can’t remember the last book—if any—that has ever done that to me. Cormac McCarthy’s sparest prose (and that’s saying a lot) and bleakest premise to date is one terrifying read. Three months later, I still think about it almost every day.

Dexter: Whatever Jimmy Smits did to me this season has made me physically unable to watch the opening titles by Digital Kitchen, the best on TV. Cereal for breakfast from now on.

Best writing

Claire Hoffman: In 2006 this writer used slick prose and wit to expose smarmy Joe Francis better than any court case did. This year, whether she’s touring Dov Charney’s boy harem, inspecting Amy Winehouse’s drug use, or uncovering Prince’s homophobia, she confides in us like we’re her best friend along for the ride. The best lady writer this side of print.

Jonathan Gold: It’s not so much where Jonathan Gold eats, it’s what he eats (”a plate of CornNuts that has gone through media training”), how it’s served (”a willowy carafe encased in tight, zippered neoprene, like a fitted wetsuit on a supermodel”) and who cooked it (”a chef as hard to pin down as the first chanterelles in spring”). Those are all from the same article, by the way. Take away his fork-as-cultural divining rod and he still makes me a better writer, every time. That Pulitzer—the only one ever bestowed on a food critic—could not have gone to someone more deserving.

David Foster Wallace: In his passing this year, a wake of appreciation and remembrances lead me to revisit his work, finally buying the book named for the story that started it all for me. I remember buying a Gourmet before a flight in 2004 and reading “Consider the Lobster,” by this unknown-to-me, rambling man. I was almost angry at the end: Why isn’t all food writing like this? Which of course lead to: Why isn’t all tennis writing like this? and Why isn’t all travel writing like this? Well, it isn’t, because there was only one.

Best discoveries

Jill Bolte Taylor: If this TED presentation—the most mind-blowing, life-affirming story I have ever heard in my life—doesn’t change your day instantly, then you must be missing one hemisphere of your brain. To find out which one, watch the video.

Bhutan’s New King: What began as an eye-snagging story on the Guardian’s website about the world’s youngest king took me down a path of enlightenment towards the tiny country of Bhutan, which is slowly opening itself up to democracy. Their amazing taste in fashion aside, did you know that its citizens are the happiest in the world (who wouldn’t be, in those clothes), so much so that the country declared its Gross National Happiness to be more important than economic success? This may be common knowledge to you, but to me it was a revelation, and it reminded me that there are still secrets in the world to be discovered. And oftentimes, it’s writers that get to do it.

Got more highlights from “the media” this year? Add them in the comments! And I’ll see you next year, or in hell…you know, depending on how things go.

Update: I forgot so many things I went back and added some more in 2009. Ghosts reserve the right to do that.

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On Today’s DnA: Back to the handmade, and hand-crafted poetry by me!

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

As I hit the skies for what is potentially going to be the most painful travel day of my life, a quick post to remind you to listen to a special holiday and year-end episode of DnA today at 2:30pm PST (or stream or podcast using the icons added after the show). This month has a theme that’s most near and dear to my heart as Frances talks about a return to the handmade with Jenny Ryan, founder of the excellent Felt Club and director of the new Home Ec department at my favorite neighborhood design store, ReForm School. She also covers the opening of the pretty new Heath Ceramics store here in LA (I covered the opening for the Architect’s Newspaper blog) and has some fantastic tips for hosting high-style soirees with low budgets from Ron Woodson and Jaime Rummerfield.

Then, don’t touch that dial! After reading my “The Night Before Layoffs” at the last de LaB, Frances commissioned me to write and read another piece “rapping up” the year in DnA. I’m really looking forward to hearing the results…apparently engineer extraordinaire Ray Guarna tricked it out with music and a beat.

If you want to read along while you listen, we’ve posted the entire poem on the DnA blog.

(Oh! And the buttoned-up winter wonderland scene above? That’s a detail from a pillow, handmade by my talented mom.)

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Very GOOD Design, indeed

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Fwd:

You know an event was a success when it takes an entire day for the buzzing in your head to subside—or was that from one too many rum drinks? Either way, my co-host Casey Caplowe and I think the almost 200 people who sat in candy-colored Eames chairs (a palette especially selected by Frank Novak at Modernica, thanks Frank!) felt the same way as we did about last Thursday’s GOOD Design: LA: As seven talented designers we idolized presented their ideas for the city, we were just as as entertained and impressed—and in some cases, shocked!—as our audience was!

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First Enrico Bressan from Artecnica presented a solution for the street vendor crisis. From Hollywood’s late night bacon-wrapped hot dog delivery devices to the people who serve sliced mango sprinkled with chili powder from those quilted metal carts in Echo Park, the street vendors in LA have been jeopardized not only by chain restaurants who threaten to run them out of business, but a series of potentially illegal crackdowns by police and the Department of Health. Enrico proposed enlisting the vendors in a community service program that would help green the corners they occupied so they provided even more value to the city. He then proposed creating a website, VendOrFriend, which would allow customers to locate and promote the vendors. He also hinted that they’d need to commission some new product designs for the carts (do we see a Hella Jongerius churro stand in our future?). And in an awesome bit of synergy, we had Coco’s Tacos serving up their carne asada offerings in the parking lot!

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Next up was the lovely Frances Anderton, who dropped this bomb on us: It is estimated that 25% of morning traffic during the school year is parents driving their kids to school. That’s a quarter of all cars!!! The solution, of course, is walking kids to school, which would not only alleviate rush hour traffic, but also fight childhood obesity and other nasty side-effects (idling cars are actually more hazardous to our health than moving ones, who knew?). Frances’ presentation was made all the more charming when she showed a clip from the Kirk Douglas movie Strangers When We Meet, featuring an obviously LA street from the 1960s, with children skipping or pedaling down the streets en route to school, and contrasting it with her modern day “commute” to school with her adorable daughter (and design party regular) Summer, showing empty sidewalks and an SUV-packed parking lot. There’s plenty of resources at the CDC’s Walk Kids to School site.

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Then we heard from Barbara Bestor, who not only designed the GOOD Space, but plenty of other places we patronize far too often like Lou and Intelligensia. Even her own office on Hyperion in Silver Lake is a landmark of sorts; currently painted hot pink and emblazoned with OBAMA (outlined in twinkle lights for Christmas). She showed some really awesome examples of transforming the urban environment into art, from Chris Burden’s streetlamps at BCAM to Edgar Arcenaux’s Watts House Project (where GOOD had organized a field trip just the week before). And as her vision for LA, she offered a way to capitalize on the “strange beauty” of stripmalls by passing them on to artists and architects who could then transform the stucco-covered nothingness into flashy permanent installations. She needs a stripmall in order to do this, so if you know of one…hey, there’s bound to be some “available” in this economy, right?

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There’s always something being built at Materials & Applications in Silver Lake, whether its a gurgling moat, an igloo or a robotic origami garden (at their Christmas party last weekend, they had a Gingerbread Construction Contest, of course). The spunky and stylish Astrid Diehl spoke about their far-ranging solutions for capitalizing on the small amount of water that falls on LA, which can be summed up in the super-easy to remember: Slow it, Spread it, Sink it! In short, we have to get the city to naturally process stormwater before it gathers all the goo on our streets and flows into the ocean. So, they suggested starting with installing green roofs (slow it), capturing what you can in a stormwater storage system to save it for later (spread it), and perforating asphalt everywhere so water can flow through the soil (sink it). M&A even sponsored a series of workshops and has placed some great resources online. Since it’s been raining for a week straight, we asked Astrid what everyone should be doing to take advantage of the wet season. She said—and we’re not kidding—take a jackhammer and pop some holes in your driveway and sidewalk so all that water goes into the ground. Maybe your landlord won’t like it, but the surfers will.

Geoff McFetridge’s Nail Salon from Alissa Walker on Vimeo.

Next, LA’s graphic conscience Geoff McFetridge began by describing his Atwater Village neighborhood as a kind of Anytown, USA, with its easy rhythm of liquor store, nail salon, check cashing, nail salon, tacos, pack and ship, drinking water, liquor store, nail salon. But suddenly he started to notice a new rhythm: yoga, baby clothes, Starbucks, Coldstone Creamery. “That’s the wrong kind of visual bleakness!” he cried. And the biggest problem about the New Bleakness, he said, were the signs, the ugly, anonymous, soulless vinyl signs. He attacked nail salon signage specifically, because “if you can paint nails, you can paint a sign.” And as he talked, this video (above) played enigmatically behind him, which we finally realized was illustrating what would happen if just one nail salon decided to forego the vinyl. They could have a beautiful hand-painted work of art in the time it took Geoff to make a five-minute presentation. It was a wonderful moment that blended clever performance art and Geoff’s DIY ethos that had the crowd cheering. Good news for Geoff, too: He mentioned that in this economy people might not have the money to throw down on vinyl, forcing them to grab a paintbrush and mount that ladder.

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We toss around the word ‘visionary’ but Rene Daalder is the first real visionary I’ve met, blending the realms of film, visual effects, art and the internet, collaborating with everyone from Jan de Bont to Rem Koolhaas (who he is directing a film about; very excited about that), to his own think tank Space Collective. He lead off with some staggering statistics about how all the data we needed to do our jobs is well on its way to being 100% digitized, meaning we no longer need to go to an office to “work.” His vision for Los Angeles is, quite simply, to get rid of the offices and reurbanize these areas that we pack into during the day then abandon at night. Rene was easily our most controversial speaker (even eliciting some boos from the audience, especially when he said that the Nintendo Wii would someday replace actual sports and recreation), but I have to say I agreed with a lot of what he said, including the telecommuting/freelancing bit. I found myself pretty mesmerized by the thought of people moving into these abandoned office towers in downtown, navigating the empty freeways (or boarding a speedy bus) to have lunch with their friend in Santa Monica and be back home by 2pm.

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And finally, well, I wish I could capture Stefan Bucher’s presentation in all its seismic glory. After he requested to tackle a big problem, we assigned Stefan the issue of earthquakes, which he decided he would not help us prepare for, but rid completely. “Earthquakes.us.gov?” he said. “That’s loser talk.” It’s only the big earthquakes that are the problem, so Stefan advocated using heavy explosives to gradually relieve the subterranean tension (equating downgrading earthquakes like Snickers: from “King Size” to “Fun Size”). While we’re relieving tension, he said, we might as well go ahead make clean breaks between the red and blue counties as determined by the last election (brilliant). But such fissures in our culture would require some new entertainment concepts at the intersection of “Hollywood and Hot Spewing Magma,” hence Stefan’s ideas for new films that would address such changes…like this one featuring John Cusack, above. As the audience gasped for breath, I once again had flashbacks to the previous design event we had at GOOD…who knew designers were so funny? Well, of course we did, but still!

Fwd:

Finally a huge thanks to Keith Scharwath, not only for his awesome graphics (above, more here) that set the tone for the evening, but also for late-night counsel that encompassed everything from Keynote to plastic surgery. And to Kyla Fullenwider, Jenn Su and everyone at GOOD, if not for them there would have been no GOOD December at all (I’m kinda sad it’s all over…sniff). Plus, everyone in attendance got one of Metro’s new Naughty/Nice t-shirts and pins (which you can purchase here), as a huge thank you from one of LA’s best examples of how good design can make our city better. For anyone who was there, we are definitely going to find a way to make this a regular thing, but we need your suggestions: send them to designla@goodinc.com or leave ‘em in the comments!

Now I think I’m off to settle my brains for a long winter’s nap…

Posted in Good, advertising, building, crafting, creating, designing, eating, greening, growing, partying, playing, riding | Comments

GOOD Design: LA is Thursday!

Monday, December 15th, 2008

GOOD December kicked off December 4 and by the whirlwind of events I’ve raved about so far—de LaB’s City Listening! One Pot Supper! Uncompany Holiday Party!—you’d think we’d have already collapsed into a sweaty pile of do-gooding mush. Oh no! There is plenty more progressive-thinking, rum-drinking, and Christmas sweater-wearing to be had!

This Thursday is GOOD Design LA, where our crack team of design visionaries including Frances Anderton, Artecnica, Materials & Applications, Barbara Bestor, Rene Daalder, Stefan Bucher and Geoff McFetridge will present their solutions to LA problems. I’ll be co-hosting with GOOD creative director Casey Caplowe, and we’ll have graphics by Keith Scharwath (who also did our lovely invite, thanks Keith!).

As an added bonus, Ben & Jerry’s will be scooping out free ice cream, which is my personal solution to all LA’s problems. Hope to see you there!

GOOD Design: LA
Thursday, December 18
7-10pm (presentations start at 8pm)

GOOD Space
6824 Melrose Avenue
(between Highland and La Brea)

RSVP here!

PS: For those of you who missed it last time it was in town, GOOD is also screening Beautiful Losers on Wednesday, December 17. Details and RSVP here!

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Death of the dream job

Sunday, December 14th, 2008

In 2002 I was asked to write an essay for an Atlanta creative journal about finding my dream job. Actually, I was asked to write an essay about not finding my dream job. I had graduated from the hot Atlanta ad school the Portfolio Center just as the dot-com bubble burst. All my classmates who graduated in June of 2000 were flown to San Francisco and Manhattan, where they got corner offices, shiny pink iMacs and beautiful engraved business cards so thick they could cut cheese. We who graduated in December wandered the country aimlessly for months until we settled for ill-paying gigs in places like Birmingham and, for me, Sacramento.

My entire life I had wanted to be in advertising. I wanted to get paid to write clever sentences that made people laugh. In fact, my vision of my grown-up self for most of my life is pretty much identical to what we now know as the show Mad Men. I wanted to be Peggy Olson. Not the secret pregnancy part. But winning Maidenform and Popsicle accounts in smart wool suits, living in Manhattan and drinking Manhattans, on the 30th floor of a glass high rise with a gold plaque on my office door that proclaimed: COPYWRITER.

Instead I was writing bad marketing copy for a garlic-themed amusement park in a town that prided itself on how far away it was from San Francisco. With people who wore socks under their Tevas.

Eventually, I moved to LA and kept looking for my dream job. I looked for it for years. But while I did, I took another job that had nothing to do with advertising, and slowly gave up on my career as a writer.

But after two years I saved enough money for a trip to Europe. And that was where, on a quiet square in Italy, I realized that nothing was really stopping me from writing clever sentences that made people laugh. The only thing that was stopping me was that I didn’t have, well, a business card that said as much.

This moment was so sudden and so earth-shattering, I named my new freelance writing company after what I was eating at that moment, Gelatobaby. (Luckily I wasn’t in Paris or it would have been Snailbaby.) I built a website, put only the work up there that I really loved and promoted the hell out of it. People started hiring me for all kinds of writing, not just advertising.

And the funny thing about that dream job? It no longer exists. Sure, the ad industry ended up recovering. But it looks nothing like it did back then. Agencies consolidated under holding companies, cut back production budgets and incorporated smart interactive departments. Because I got left out of it means I was actually the one with the narrow, Sterling Cooper-ized vision of what advertising was supposed to be.

We talk a lot about entire industries needing to change in the face of adversity. The auto industry goes belly up and we’re like, you know, it’s their fault, they really should’ve made more hybrids. Newspapers declare bankruptcy and we whisper to each other, well, didn’t they get the memo that print is dead? But what we don’t realize is that the only thing that really needs to change is us.

We can’t go on being the same advertising copywriters, the same graphic designers, the same magazine editors we always dreamed of being. We probably won’t have a desk and parking spot or even health insurance. But that’s the beauty of it. A recession can make a corporation cut those things called jobs but it can’t stop really talented people from making a name for themselves. Especially now since we have things like Facebook to meet collaborators and Wordpress to publish our rants and Flickr to show off our design work. We can be whatever we want. You can be famous without leaving your house. I dare you to be. But sometimes it’s good to go outside.

We get it drilled into our heads at an early age: “Follow your dream. Follow your dream!” But no one ever told us to be willing to make drastic and necessary changes to that dream as technology and people and the world changed around us. So follow your dream. But whatever you do, don’t you dare waste another minute looking for your dream job.

I can call myself a writer now, but it’s something no door plaque has certainly ever proclaimed for me. And it turned out that I didn’t need those fancy business cards at all, either. All I needed was a gelato spoon printed with my email, which serves as a way for people to remember me. So forget about those ancient relics of a world that no longer exists, and start working on your own dream life.

Thanks to Edie for asking me to speak today, and also to the wonderful Jen, Jessica and Caroline for such a fun morning. All LA creatives, whether “freshly freelance” or not, should check out what they’re doing at The Uncompany. It was great to see everyone!

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