weekly retro #30: live laugh cup
i just got home, full of veggie burger, from one of our favorite spots to go with a couple of local pals. the weather is fantastic, my edible is about to hit, here's a gif of a cup that took me an hour to convert from .mov last night:
this cup is a souvenir from when i spoke at brooklyn web workers on monday. it's very live laugh love but about competing hot beverages, it's insane. my talk went well, it was a great crowd to speak at, and i think justin put together something really cool and important. my talk wasn't recorded, but since some folks have reached out asking for video i think i'll either do a public version of the talk on a livestream soon.
then on tuesday, jamie and i presented robot karaoke at chinatown.js. this crowd was great too - a bit of overlap with the night before it turned out! one of the hosts sent a clip of the post-talk group sing which i added to this youtube short.
after a couple days of writing, talks and community to and from the city, it was hard not to rot the next 48 hours. i kept things physically and mentally chill by organizing my space - and i found my freaking e-book reader that went missing in like 2018. the last book i read on it was bad blood lol. i charged it up and while smelling fragrance oils on stream the chat affirmed that i may be able to get library books on it. and i did! i'm like a third of the way in ina garten's memoir. i love libraries and technology!
i joined my first every candle science livestream and had a fun time demanding a true cavendish banana scent, evangelizing petrichor, and asking important questions to the very awesome experts at candle science. i don't know, though, if i sold fragrance oils i would absolutely mix them all together - at least for content!
as far as my own candles go, i sold out of the first round of my first collection! this was exciting and affirming, and i celebrated by buying a ton of fragrance oils (that's why i was organizing them on my livestream). i did finish curing a fresh batch of nice tomato and next week i'll have more eggs in stock.scroll to the bottom of bugsrock.online to see how to sign up for the store newsletter and find out first about launches.
i'm currently working on prototypes for the next collection, which is going to be a ~spooky~ version of the first one. i got to play around with beeswax for the first time since i was a teenager, and even back then it was just rolling sheets. this time, i was doing another first: hand-dipping candles to make birthday candles for an important friend having an important birthday. my first favorite part of candle-making is the experimentation and learning something new, and my second favorite is gifting what i make to cool people.
things i enjoyed this week
- we saw prince's sign o' the times concert film in imax which basically reactivated my crush on sheila e. as well as andy's crush on the plasma ball (you can listen/read about it in this podcast).
- here's a new glitter text generator
- for a soothing, education time, watch this book binding process
- i really enjoyed this pbs doc that went behind the scenes of the years-long rezoning fight for industry city, a divisive complex a block away from where i was born and where my mom was laid to rest. it really shows how incredible and diverse the community there is and how much fight they've got.
- i'm obsessed with andy baio's investigative work on the will smith ai controversy
i need to remember that i'm getting bloodwork on tuesday morning and i feel like i am more likely to remember it by typing it out here and maybe some of you will remind me hehehe.
xoxo jenn