You may recall Khaleel Seivwright, who during the pandemic built tiny homes for Toronto's unhoused. He was charged by the city and forced to cease construction. The city claimed it was their land and the structures were fire hazards.
Inspired by Seivwright, Ryan Donais is constructing Tiny Tiny Homes to solve the same issue. He's incorporated smoke detectors and put the structures on three wheels, therefore qualifying as bicycles under Toronto law.
You can get involved or donate to Tiny Tiny Homes on their website.
These untitled oil paintings are all by Brazilian artist Lucas Arruda. They're from his Deserto-Modelo series. If I showed these to my mother, she'd say, "Those aren't paintings. They're moods." She'd mean it as a compliment.
Kimmo Metsaranta writes about their series, Notes On A Place:
The pictures in the series are reconstructed observations of my surroundings. I change the spatiality and the condition of the buildings, so that their function changes or disappears completely, and they are not tied to a specific time or place.
I don't know exactly what that means, but I love the pictures.
Alberto Ortego builds 3D models and then does 2D paintings of the sets. They're set in the 50s but I get a strong Raymond Carver vibe from them, especially High Noon (above).
This week, a Bell Ringer named Jennifer asked if I could start putting easy-links at the bottom of posts so she could share them on social media. Also, a friend asked if I'd link to her Instagram. It wasn't the first time I've been asked either question so I thought I'd address them in a post and clarify my self-inflicted social media policy.
Each post ends with a way to copy the permalink so you can post wherever you like, but I did remove the Twitter/X and Facebook repost icons from my site before it launched. I also stated in the About section that I'd never link to content on social media. Why? Because I care a great deal about branding and I do not want to associate myself with those brands. I go out of my way in real life to not mindlessly promote things — for instance, I don't wear branded clothing because I feel that they're implied endorsements — and leaving those icons on my site in order to generate views would go against that decision.
This week, Meta decided to make the world a worse place by removing fact-checkers from Facebook and Instagram, and Elon Musk did this:
These are not behaviours I can abide. The truth is that I do not understand how anyone still uses these companies' services with good conscience. The continued use of Meta or Musk products promotes the brands — tacitly, perhaps, but also: undeniably.
During the pandemic, I made a point of cutting myself off from people I felt were going through life making the world a worse place by not behaving consciously. Friends and customers who were "casually" racist, homophobic, sexist, or transphobic were blocked on my phone and ignored completely in real life. Without explanation, I ended several relationships with people I've known for many years, some of them three or four decades. I was done with them. I am done with it.
Shane Drinkwater
One of my favorite working artists is Shane Drinkwater, but I've never linked to his work because it's only viewable on Instagram. Rick Holland, a favorite poet, now operates out of Substack, so — no — same goes for one of my favorite podcasters, Lea Thau, and for Mehdi Hasan, one of the best broadcasters working today. I will not support them because doing so funds their platforms. It puts money in the pockets of people and corporations actively, consciously, and intentionally ruining the good of the world.
2025 and beyond are going to be difficult for good people and glorious for the ignorant, oblivious, or mean-spirited. I do not need bad actors in my life and I will do my best not to put anything out into the world that makes people think that being a bad actor is okay. It may be misguided or arrogant to think that having an easy-to-click X logo on my tiny spot on the web is contributing to the downfall of society, but I honestly do believe that to be the case. You may think this self-righteous, but we must all remember that it truly does take a village. I refuse to be party to being grist for a mill that will crush us all.
Researchers at McMaster University have discovered a vulnerability in drug-resistant bacteria: zinc—or a lack thereof. Depriving bacteria of certain nutrients can cause important physiological changes, rendering them vulnerable to antibiotics, including those they once resisted. This new study revealed that zinc plays a vital role in how some of the most dangerous bacteria resist antibiotics. It opens the door to new clinical utility for old drugs, while also cementing nutrient stress as a viable path to new treatment options for drug-resistant bacteria.
WaPo's got a piece on the original 7-Minute Workout, along with a follow-along animation/timer. Those of you with resolutions that bend this way may find it useful. Scroll down a bit and click Try the Workout.
Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.
Illustration by Max Guther
I've been posting a lot of longform articles this week. Here's another, which, like most, you can listen to if you prefer: The Anti-Social Century by Derek Thompson.
In the past two days, fires in and around LA County have destroyed 27,000 acres and counting — sometimes as fast as three football fields every minute. It's an astonishing amount of land to go in such a short time. More than 130,000 lives uprooted. People left with nothing.
My thoughts are with friends in Pacific Palisades, Woodland Hills, Santa Monica, Studio City, Beachwood Canyon, and Lake Hollywood, which are currently on fire or bordering neighborhoods that are burning.
I haven't been to California since 2019, but I've lived in all of those places, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. I lived in Santa Monica for almost a year... spread over a decade. I know a lot of good people who call those cities and neighborhoods home.
In 2017, I lived on the Beverly Glen-Bel Air border when the Skirball Fire decimated Bel Air, burning 422 acres. It was a terrifying and clarifying place to be.
The next year, I was talking with my friend, Artur, who was bartending at the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica, when a Malibu resident just displaced by the Woolsey Fire sat next to me. He wore cut-off jeans, flip flops, and a ratty t-shirt, his face and hair grey with soot. "I just ran," he said. His house was gone, his car. He asked to borrow my phone and then just stared at it, realizing he didn't know anyone's number. "Do you have your wallet?" I asked. He nodded and realized why I was asking. He asked Artur about vacancies. So many people were fleeing, it was possible every room was taken — if you looked north over the hotel pool, you could see the smoke above Malibu, which lies just beyond Pacific Palisades. It was that close. Artur picked up the bar phone and within a few seconds was giving the man a thumb's up. The man looked at my drink and asked what it was. "A Two-Legged Dog," I said and motioned for Artur to fix him one, but the man signalled for him to stop. "Just water," he said. "Lots of water."
A few days earlier, I'd accepted an invitation to stay at a friend's loft in DTLA. I wished the stranger luck, said goodbye to Artur, and headed to the Expo. I was at the loft in a little over an hour. My friend had completely forgotten about the invitation and was packed to head north for a few days, along with a mutual friend, documentarian Nirvan Mullick. They were going to document the Camp Fire in Paradise and asked if I'd help. I knew in my bones I couldn't again be close to that kind of devastation. I declined.
