Mary Hawkins

Thanks to @brianxrayfilms.bsky.social and @sethpolansky.bsky.social for the chat, and make sure you all check out Igniting the Spark!

Today's 1st read: a dense-but-good scholarly article that I've had open as a tab forever. Identifying seemingly "small" acts of resistance enables people to see themselves as capable and resilient instead of broken or depressed.

TW: violence + assault.

www.responsebasedpractice.com/wp-content/u...

This Isn't Burnout Why Your Creative Job Isn’t Fun Anymore

Our collective loss of existential appetite is a healthy response to a profoundly unhealthy situation.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

Gonna take a second to brag about my awesome wife @maryhawkins.bsky.social, who illustrated these PSAs for swimming safety in NYC. She also created animated versions. It’s wild seeing her art on busses, in subway stations, on kiosks, etc, and I’m super proud of her!
#NYC #PSAs #SwimSafety #Art

The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction AI Chatbots, Newark, and the West Village Girls

This morning's reading:

"while the digital world has removed all friction, the physical world is where the friction still lives. Not the good kind... but the bad kind: the exhaustion of trying to hold together systems that no one’s willing to invest in anymore."

kyla.substack.com/p/the-most-v...

Irasutoya: the best-known illustrator in Japan, that you’ve probably never heard of Our Tokyo correspondent tells the fascinating story of the one-man illustration machine behind the free-to-use clip art service that’s shaped the nation’s visual language.

www.itsnicethat.com/articles/the...

Sign the Petition Say NO to Pickleball and YES to Expanding Roller Skating at The LeFrak Center

We're still hoping to have Gotham games here, but in the meantime...

www.change.org/p/say-no-to-...

This protest sign hits pretty damn hard, big props to this teacher

Make Something Heavy We're creating more than ever, but it weighs nothing.

Today's reading:

"We create more than ever, but it weighs nothing... movement isn’t meaning. ... Light things shape culture, but rarely shape us. ... Creation [is] a process of becoming....You don’t just create heavy things. You become someone who can."

www.workingtheorys.com/p/make-somet...

‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known rightwing counterparts – as do their methods

This morning's reading... I'm hopeful-not-hopeful for our solarpunk future where not all of us make it? Ooof.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Alice Guy-Blaché: female filmmaking pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché was one of the first people to make a narrative film, and she helped create over a thousand films as either director, producer or writer.

Alice Guy-Blaché, an early director who made thousands of films (at one point, her studio was putting out three a week!) but was erased out of the story of early cinema history...

www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-...

YouTube video by Юра Богуславский У неба нет края - Sky has no edge

The Sky Has No Edge... Stop motion with mosaics from Invisible Friends, a group of expat Russian animators.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-lc...

How to Think (and Act) Like a Dissident Movement AOC, solidarity, and people power.

www.thebulwark.com/p/how-to-thi...

Trump’s FBI Moves to Criminally Charge Major Climate Groups The Trump administration is targeting climate organizations that received a Biden-era grant.

Reading this a little late, because: firehose, but...

"The FBI is moving to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration."

newrepublic.com/post/192660/...

I took a heap of tees and did some math that basically meant taking a triangle out of the top between my shoulders. It's like a reverse dart. Anything stretchy that's meant to cover my hips rolls up, and I can't pretend like I want to wear crop tops or a baby doll tee.

Ooooh... This looks really cool too.

I have some stuff that I should gather up and repair/tailor. I love my body more than when I was younger, but clothes are scheming against me. It's annoying how many of my shirts either don't fit in the shoulders or don't fit at my hips.

Thank you two for such a delightful exchange. I'm giggling at my desk.

(...and you look great beawulf! Congrats on showing up your ex. 💜)

I know I don't want to live under any of their ideals, but this article from @noemamag.com and Alexandre Lefebvre explained to me what the f is going on here better than all the calls to connect and "listen" to the insults my MAGA uncle hurls my way.

From Statecraft To Soulcraft | NOEMA How the world’s illiberal powers like Russia, China and increasingly the U.S. rule through their visions of the good life.

"If liberal democracy is to thrive and not just survive in the 21st century, we must develop a deeper understanding of the attraction of alternative political conceptions and their envisioned good life that competes with it."

www.noemamag.com/from-statecr...

Thank you for voting!

“I am tired of mainstream media pretending that neutrality and gullibility are the same thing.”

Thank you to @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social for that gem. Catching up on email newsletters, and that was lovely…

What Felt Impossible Became Possible | dansinker.com

A hopeful history… I didn’t know the full story of Muncie Indiana:

dansinker.com/posts/2025-0...

Instagram and the Creative Process Why are we still here?

substack.com/home/post/p-...

"It doesn’t reward depth, patience, or complexity. Instead, it rewards the immediate & the easily digestible. ...What does that do to creativity? Inspiration? ...what ideas never had the chance to grow because they were harvested too early ...their smallest form?"

Ooooh... You should revisit it once a decade just to see where you go.

Ooooh! So pretty!

I'm glad Laika lives on in people's memories + art. Her story bothered the heck outta me as a kid.

OpenAI and Google's dark new campaign to dismantle artists' protections OpenAI and Google have cozied up to Trump's imperialist approach to AI for a shot at tearing down artists' copyright protections.

This morning's reading: "this is dark stuff: A $160b AI company and a $2 trillion tech giant invoking the need to maintain technological—and implicitly, military—superiority over China...to justify eroding artists’ already meager rights and protections."

www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/openai-and...

A photograph taken in Times Square shows chalking on the road in the foreground and hectic Times Square street scene in the background with crowds of people and bright lights from billboards and tall buildings. The chalking is in white and yellow. Large capital letters spell out: IT'S TIME TO "CHUCK" SCHUMER Senator Chuck Schumer has got to go. Send your message to the Senator in whatever form you can, whether by phone, email, social media or out in the world like this. Join the Resistance!

Members of the House AND the Senate are home during recess NOW through Sunday, March 23rd. This is our time to send them a message.

Welcome home @schumer.senate.gov 👋
New Yorkers are calling on you to #Resign

Times Square ✍️ @karinschall.bsky.social

#StopTheCoup #FightFascism #RiseandResist

The hardest working font in Manhattan A story of a 150-year-old font you have never heard of – and one you probably saw earlier today.

This evening's reading: a long, loving tribute to Gorton, a font whose letterforms that were right in front of us the whole time,

aresluna.org/the-hardest-...

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago The Dinner Party, an important icon of 1970s feminist art and a milestone in 20th-century art, is the centerpiece of our Center for Feminist Art.

I love that the set is a shout-out to Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party!

www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/...

Today's morning reading: a whole set of bad practices in leadership and work/working-together cultures, written nearly 25 years ago by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun. I bet your favorites are on there... Go check!

www.cwsworkshop.org/PARC_site_B/...