The Level Up is an indie improv showcase. Join us as we watch amazing New York indie improv talents gain XP on the Magnet stage, unlock new achievements, and reach new milestones. Or do comedy.
Come support Michael as he dons his hosting-duties cap for three exciting indie teams!
I’ll be playing with Michael and the rest of the Level Up!
Looking forward to it! And to seeing you there!! (Yes, you. Come on out!!!)
Saturday March 28th, 2026 @ 10:30pm
Magnet Theater
254 West 29th St (btwn 7th and 8th Ave.)
New York City, NY 10001
Tickets $10: https://magnettheater.com/show/60825/
I wrote the following while standing on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, listening to music and watching the world.
The joy of closing your eyes and being able to listen to the bagpipes. I look into the distance and see a traffic cone on the head of a statue. I notice how much busier it is than in previous weeks — how a place comes alive at different times, and in different months and seasons. The joy of standing in the busy city and watching the world move around you — people sauntering and thinking and looking and catching and eating and speaking and jumping and being, of the crowds gathering to watch and hear the piper. Of letting the wind blow through my hair while the sun shines and the music plays; standing next to raised beds of flowers // the colours of green and pink and purple and white are soothing.
I got phished, because I failed to see the warning signs and ignored the one I did notice. But I do have questions. Did the scummers actually know that I was expecting a delivery, or was I just extra-unlucky?
https://jeremycherfas.net/blog/phished-again
Opens Ivory. 192 unread. Blimey, something awful must have happened. Oh no, it is just someone getting a musical education. And it is a delight.
A great and unexpected treat. Staying at friends, not so old New Yorkers. And in one of them, volume six of personal histories by John McPhee, “95 at this writing”. Absolutely my favourite writer of non-fiction, and these brief glimpses are simply wonderful.
listening to Dust and Ashes from Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 but shaking my head the entire time to signalize that I'm a Pierre hater
Bookmark: worseonpurpose.com/p/on-quality
"Not ‘western civ. doesn’t exist’ nor ‘western civ. is bad’. Rather, “western civilization is real & good, captured in writing & song and we are killing it with our violence, cruelty and greed, we have become the barbarians at our own gates.”"
Bret Deveraux, via Brad DeLong, but not going to link to his X https://acoup.blog/author/aimedtact/
Latest Eat This Newsletter looks at the various ways consolidation in farming and food ends up having bad consequences, and they're not even unforeseen, they're the point.
Also, why we won't eat the bugs; it's not in our DNA.
And, MAHA turns on a friend.
https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-309-wonky-patterns/
The eleventh episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out:
In Episode 11, I chat with flaMEd, the author of flamedfury.com about, among other things, web communities around games and television shows, sharing music interests with a personal website, community in the indie web, and more.
I hope you enjoy the episode!
Wonders of Web Weaving also has an RSS feed you can use to follow along from wherever you get your podcasts.
the direction of music; the music of direction.
I love this demonstration from Ghost Font: The Anti-AI Font Only Humans Can Read.
The explanation is very clear and as a proof of concept it works well. However like the newsletter that sent me there, I do wonder, how long will it continue to work.
Absolutely fascinating article (as usual) from dynomight, about what they called Pseudpocalypse, and that's the lamest thing about it. I would have gone with Pseudocollapse. Give that a short o (dog) and stress the o and in my opinion it sounds more like what they were aiming at.
Also, I used to live one street away from via Lorenzo Valla, so have filed this part away:
The idea of attributing authorship using writing style features goes back to at least 1440, when Lorenzo Valla demonstrated that the Donation of Constantine—in which Emperor Constantine supposedly donated the Roman Empire to the Catholic Church—used a vernacular that came from 400 years after Constantine’s death and was therefore a forgery.
