Creative Recommendations from July
What I'm reading, learning, watching, and making art with!
Hi friends,
It’s time for my Creative Recommendations from July! These are just for my lovely ~patrons~ aka my paying subscribers.
Each month, I curate my favorite things I’ve been reading, learning, watching, and making art with. If you want to upgrade to receive these once a month, you’d make my day 🥰
Before we dive in, I have a special announcement:
I’m leading a Quiet Time activity at Third Nature, an adult summer camp I absolutely love. I’ve gone to 5 adult summer camps, and this one is by far my favorite! It’s the perfect time to play, meet amazing humans, reflect, and set intentions. It’s upstate New York, Sept 4-7th. Learn more here.
Reading
I listened to Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz and really enjoyed it. I discovered it in the reading slump I felt after finishing every Becky Chambers sci-fi book and was looking for something similar. It’s a cozy sci-fi story about robots opening a hand-pulled noodle restaurant in San Francisco. In a time where AI is moving so fast, I’ve been turning to hopeful-ish sci-fi to imagine a world where things work out okay. This was a short and sweet little book. Read here.
In a similar vein, I’ve been reading I Am Not a Robot by Joanna Stern. It’s written by a tech journalist who decides to let AI take over every aspect of her life for a year. She lets Claude control her schedule, gets a robot to fold her laundry, rents a robotic dog for her son, goes on vacations to ride in Waymo self-driving cars, and more.
She’s a hilarious writer and even though there is plenty of scary stuff she covers, I found myself actively laughing along the way. She defines a lot of terms about AI that I thought I knew but didn’t actually know the technical definition of. Her ability to communicate these complex topics with humor is a great example of scientific communication for me. And it has beautiful (human-made) illustrations by Jason Snyder. As AI continues to become ever-present, I want to be educated about this thing that is changing our world so quickly. Read here.
Making Art With
Ok so I’m building another app. It’s called Landline OS, and it’s designed to turn your phone into a landline by blocking every app except texts, calls, and a few tools. If you want to use any apps, you need to physically charge your phone to unlock them.
When you charge, you can dial up to the internet and unlock those apps for a set period of time. Then it locks them and returns to landlining. I’ve been keeping my charger in the kitchen or by my desk. Creating that physical space from my phone has been incredibly helpful. My theory is that if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. When my phone isn’t an arm’s reach away, I don’t want to get up and go scroll or check my email.
I wanted to make a sister app to Free Time inspired by the same concept of helping people cut down their screen time and use their phone intentionally, but in a more fun, playful way.
Our phones have turned into pocket-sized computers. They give us instant access to the internet and an endless stream of content. The most interesting part about building Landline is that it’s making my computer feel more like a computer and my phone feel more like a phone. I want my phone to just be a tool. I want my computer to be something I use for work and fun. Like the good old days of having a computer room.
I started working on the design for Landline OS and wanted to make the illustrations myself. I’ve never felt like I had a digital illustration style and this was honestly a breakthrough for me to feel like they were coming out in a way I love!
If you want to get on the waitlist or beta test, you can here.
Watching
I watched the Netflix reality TV show Hitmakers this month and loved it. I’m an occasional reality TV show watcher when I truly need to mentally check out and I stumbled upon this one.
I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a shockingly wholesome show about a group of songwriters. It follows them going to songwriting camps where they have 2-day writing intensives to create songs for top musicians like John Legend, Shaboozey, and Blackpink’s Lisa.
I really enjoyed learning about their creative process and how they collaborate. And there is shockingly little drama for a reality TV show.
It actually inspired me to want to learn how to write a song! I’m home for the month and my dad is an amazing musician. One of my dreams is to write a song with him. I just finished the Artist’s Way (SHOCKINGLY) and one of my artist dates was taking a YouTube singing lesson. I’m not a great singer (yet?), but I’d love to be able to write and sing a song with my dad.
Inspired by
It’s official, I have moved out of New York! I’m trying not to make a big fuss about it because I’ve left and come back to New York 4 times before, but for now I’m out of the city. My entire life is officially in a storage unit in Asbury Park!
I really did not like packing. But I did enjoy Marie Kondo’ing my life. I generally consider myself a minimalist and don’t buy more than what I need. But I still have things I don’t use and moving is the perfect time to let go of them. Let’s just say the stoops in Park Slope were filled with some treasures last week.
As soon as I left and got on the train, I felt an immediate relief. New York is an intense place to live. I love it for so many reasons, but it’s also exhausting. I’m so happy to spend the month in the suburbs of Philly with my parents and get some quality time with them. They live in a very cute neighborhood with lots of trees and I’m able to walk into town or to the gym. Life moves a lot slower here, which is exactly what I need for a minute after a fast year!
I’m still working on getting a full-time job and am using my time intentionally until then. Feel free to send along any roles you think I might be a good fit for! I’m looking for Product Manager, Climate Communications, and Program Manager type roles right now.
Of course, my version of relaxing while applying to jobs is building an app. I feel a sense of fire under my butt because I know when I do get a job, my time will be so much more limited. So I want to get Landline up and beta testing ASAP.
This past weekend, I went with my mom to her nature journaling class. I haven’t done nature journaling before and loved it! This week we studied “weeds.” We went to an overgrown park and observed the different types of invasive weeds and sketched them. The teacher encouraged us to research them as we journaled, giving us this x-ray vision into the world around us. It was so cool.
Learning
I grew up driving on windy backroads and am comfortable on them, but highway driving has always intimidated me. So I decided to take a few driving lessons before I left New York. I figured if I could drive in New York, I could drive anywhere.
I took one locally in Park Slope with an amazing driving instructor. He was so calm and told me in a stream-of-consciousness way exactly what I should be thinking as I drove. It almost felt like a meditation on how to be aware of every part of your surroundings in the chaos of New York.
Then I took a highway driving lesson in Manhattan. We drove on FDR and entered and exited and merged a bunch. This is the part I’ve always been most scared of. It was really helpful practice, even though the driver there was…slightly less calming.
I know it may sound silly, but I’ve spent my adult life living in cities because I’m not confident driving. Once I realized I just need more practice, it felt like my whole world was opening up. I wish the public transportation in small towns was as good as New York. But when I am thinking about this next chapter, I want it to be less city-filled, and that usually requires being in a more car-centric place. So here I am, getting better at being a car person!
Dreaming about
Like I said at the top of this, I’m hosting a Quiet Time event at Third Nature summer camp. Adult summer camps are one of my favorite things ever. I grew up going to a Quaker sleepaway camp (I’m not Quaker) and it was the first place I felt truly myself. The joy, total freedom, making new friends, playing all day, and being outside was always the best part of the year. I’ve been chasing that high since then.
As an adult, I’ve gone to 5 different summer camps. At each of them, I’ve made lifelong friends. Something about unplugging and just getting to be a kid again is so magical. I’m counting down the days until bonfire and lake time at camp in September. Learn more here.
Listening to
Once again, this is my hardest section to write because I barely listen to music. When I do, I just come back to bands that I know and play them on repeat. I’ve been loving listening to the Nice to Each Other radio station by Olivia Dean because it feels like a perfect summer playlist. It’s fun, cheerful, and perfect walking-down-the-street energy. Listen here
I recently discovered the Creator Unplugged with Jun Yuh podcast. One of my favorite episodes is with CatGPT. She talks about how she started Physical Phones, which are landlines that connect to your iPhone. Obviously, very up my alley! She is so sharp and I love the way she thinks about combining her content strategy with her business. Listen here.
Ok for my paying subscribers, you always get access to my most embarrassing recommendation of the month. So here we go…