All posts by jmp

Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash Gambling. We all do it, one way or another. Take a chance! That’s what we say. Play the market. Cryptocurrency. Finance your home with an ARM. Payday loans. Vote for that politician who says he’s got your back. A friendly card game. A few bucks a hole round of golf. Take Read More

Cinderella Silhouettes – credit: Arthur Rackham Does it seem to you these days we’re looking for the foot of the fair princess that fits the glass slipper and only wicked stepsisters appear? I think of the world in which we were raised, proud, prosperous post-War America, beacon of democracy, leader of the free world, place Read More

credit: R. Crumb 1967 In 1967, R. Crumb saw the future and drew it for us with statements and notes in support. We didn’t know from computers, iPhones, texts, or email. Social and media were two different things. Flat out ignorance and feigned intelligence were familiar but artificial intelligence was science fiction if anything at Read More

An Educational Card from 1846 The Autumnal Equinox, well, it’s complicated. Not when it is but rather how Autumn itself is defined and by whom. According to the Royal Museums Greenwich (HERE), that place on earth where one can stand exactly on the Prime Meridian, which for me suggests a certain gravitas to its proclamations, Read More

September 11, 2001 – credit: archives.gov Perspective. It’s a hard thing to sustain. So many things come at us so quickly and persistently these days that we tend to lose sight of the way things once were and what has changed. Do we remember the dawn of this century and this millennium? It came to Read More

credit: education.nationalgeographic.com The Ring of Fire – the geologic one and not the Johnny Cash song – is a horseshoe-shaped belt along the edge of the Pacific Ocean where most of the earth’s volcanoes are located and most of the world’s severe earthquakes occur (HERE). Plate tectonics are the source of that activity, which in Read More

It’s been a while since we’ve mentioned our Freeform Radio project (HERE), but not because we haven’t been developing it. Rather, the effort we’re making is reaching a little higher and getting a little more complex. We’ve been working with an excellent art direction team in California and back East to create a pitch deck Read More

Teamwork – credit: the Author NASA, like many other agencies funded by the government that are out of favor with the current administration, is under siege. There is yet the latest of frequent efforts underway to strip the agency of the budget for a number of its traditional functions. Wiliness is perhaps its most traditional Read More

Ennui – credit: Walter Richard Sickert at ashmolean.org Ennui. A remarkable word. A term for our times, perhaps. Some would say all times, but for our purposes in this current era of errata never posted and the unrelenting barrage of images coming our way it is particular where so much is vague. It’s about response Read More

credit: pewresearch.org The hue and cry of political parties continues to rattle every nook and cranny of public discourse. The news launches one volley after another from one camp or the other moment by moment throughout the days and nights of our discontent. Those clever creators of clickbait are having a field day. There is Read More