April 25 Archive Highlight; ""T2000 Part 2; Price Tag"
This month I’m continuing Last Month’s Archive look at the Dataset I created in celebration of 5 years of operating and 2000 Telelibrary calls; a group...
2025-06-01 15:48:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Yannick Trapman-O'Brien posts
May Reading Excerpt; the Sixth Extinction
We end the month with the end of species, and this book that proved to be a cornerstone of understanding for work I'm doing on a new piece.
2025-06-01 03:37:28 +0000 UTC View PostMay Reading; “We are the Asteroid; We are Bruce Willis”
This month’s reading was born of an unexpected chance to jump in with some other great Philly artists at the FringeArts/Obvious Agency Scratch Night which happened early this week. If you’re unfamiliar with one or both of those organizations, FringeArts is galactic in size on the Philly scale, and Obvious Agency has an incredibly ambitious and awesomely inter-planetary new piece called Spac...
2025-05-15 03:11:06 +0000 UTC View PostReading Excerpt: Never Say You Can't Survive
A very good and surprisingly hopeful May day leads to a last-minute shift on my chosen excerpts, because I just can't help myself — and because if 5 years of The Telelibrary has taught me anything, it's that when the right part of the right book lands in your lap, you should just roll with it.
2025-05-02 06:30:37 +0000 UTC View PostApril 25 Archive Highlight; "T2000 Part 1; The Dataset Awakens"
After hitting 2000 calls in the Telelibrary, I resolved to dive into the data again (just as I did after the first 1000 calls) and to see what I could learn, and what if anything has changed about the composition and operation of the System. This is a HUGE undertaking - especially for someone with Fischer-Price Data Science skills such as myself. As such, you’re going to be getting these updates in bits and pieces over the next many months. You’ll find one of those bit-and-pieces belo...
2025-05-01 03:18:14 +0000 UTC View PostApril Reading; “Writing Your Way Out”
It’s rough out there. Besides being a tricky logistical time*, the economy has been destabilized by repeated drastic changes to international trade, civil rights for immigrants and political dissidents face a string of high-profile assaults, and the immediate consequences of any of these actions remains unclear. These are the kinds of months in which I often struggle with the question of how useful my work is to the present moment and macro needs of the people I love.
<...
2025-04-13 22:46:30 +0000 UTC View PostReading Excerpt: "Organ Transplant System ‘in Chaos’ as Waiting Lists Are Ignored"
In yet another deviation from the mean, this Month's reading excerpt will be me mixing selections from two sources that I think really speak to each other, and are laying the groundwork for the thinking of a piece in early development. Check out snippits from the NYTimes investigation "Organ Transplant System ‘in Chaos’ as Waiting Lists Are Ignored" Brian M. Rosenthal, Mark Hansen and Jeremy White and "A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence" by Kartik Hosanagar.
2025-04-01 02:52:14 +0000 UTC View PostArchive Highlight; "Friends of the Shows"
Hello all - it’s the end of a hectic month, with the Telelibrary’s birthday and the beginning of sifting through 2000 calls of data, a surprise appearance in NYC, and preparations for Undersigned’s run at the Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans (next week! - we sold out to the pass-holders, but if you’re in town keep an eye out for Monday sc...
2025-03-31 18:01:05 +0000 UTC View PostMarch Reading; “Skipping the Line”
A few strange occurrences have had me back on the topic of algorithms and organ donations lately - both of which I think of as gateways to larger questions about how we as individuals, groups, and a society make difficult choices. So when I saw that the NYTimes has finished up a major piece on the Organ Transplant System, it felt like yet another sign that it’s time to pick up these threads again.
2025-03-17 16:48:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Reading Excerpt; "Impro," by Keith Johnstone
I may not think of myself as doing improv, but what happens when I treat the audience like they are? How can I take the tools we use to teach improvisers and use them to make audiences more comfortable being their authentic selves?
Maybe reading will help!
[Spoiler: sorta]
2025-03-01 22:48:04 +0000 UTC View PostArchive Highlight; "Selection Bias"
The Telelibary passed 2000 calls this month, and is headed next month for its 5(!!!!!) year birthday. As such, I’ll be giving it the spotlight for a few Archive Highlights, starting with this wandering anecdote that does (eventually) get somewhere.
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When I was in college, my classmates and I often attended panel discussions, visiting lectures, artist talks, and other cultural programming. This was in no small part because food was typically served a...
2025-02-28 23:15:14 +0000 UTC View PostFebruary Reading; “Off the Cuff”
One of the more curious and technical conversations I sometimes fall into comes when someone experiences my work and says some variation of “wow, you’re so good at improv!”
To which I invariably reply “oh I don’t do improv.”
While it’s true that I instinctually avoid compliments, this is actually a genuine statement. I regard the work I do as being separate from improv. I see improv as either a specific performance form (“performers using a shared structure...
Reading Excerpt; "The Barn"
Heavy but necessary reading, this phenomenal mapping of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 reaches across space, time, and the American fabric.
It's a particular moment to try to understand America, and why it is so resolutely as it is. I think this book is a cypher that helps show just how complex and interwoven that task is.
A warning: while I chose excerpts that avoid the moments of graphic violence in the book, if you know anything about the story of Emmett Ti...
January Archive Highlight; “One Show At A Time”
A heads up: this post contains photos and discussion of the fires in Los Angeles. If you were affected or are otherwise still reeling from this month, I invite you to consider reading something else today, and returning whenever feels comfortable. This post will still be here later, and so will you.
A few weeks ago, I was slated to speak at Next Stage in a salon discussion titled “Big Ideas on Limited Resources.” The panel was to be packed with some of my favorite ar...
2025-02-01 10:05:16 +0000 UTC View PostJanuary Reading; “The Past is Present”
As I head to the West Coast for Next Stage and a run of Undersigned, I thought I’d change up the normal programming with some reading I did for my work as a facilitator and Project Specialist at Monument Lab. Specifically, this month’s book came to me through the network of Collaborators, and really bowled me over.
2025-01-05 02:51:44 +0000 UTC View Post
Reading Excerpt: The Art of Frugal Hedonism
Now that this year has almost finished dumping its contents upon you, consider enjoying a little Less with this month's reading from Annie Raser-Rowland and Adam Grubb
2024-12-31 00:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostArchive Highlight; "Portrait of the Artist as a Broke Man"
Note: Long-time readers have may suspicions that this pun is a barely-altered version of a joke I’ve used more than one time. They would be correct, and I intend to sin again. For now, I’ve dug out an old piece of travel writing I did in 2012, which comes to you after this introduction of roughly eq...
2024-12-28 03:17:13 +0000 UTC View PostDecember Reading; “The Best Things in Life are Cheap”
It’s the holiday season, which is as good a time as any to think about the things we acquire and what they do for us. Above all of its arguments, I hope this book can function as an invitation to really savor some of the times and experiences you have this month; I’ve been working seriously on the project of having more fun with my work, and I wish us both the best success. To that end, s...
2024-12-15 17:14:37 +0000 UTC View PostNovember Reading Excerpt; "Everything for Everyone"
Now that the logjam of the Archive Highlight is clear, I can finally bring you a piece of a book that definitely gripped me and held my attention; this month I read Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072 by Eman Abdelhadi and M. E. O'Brien.
My thoughts on this one are complicated, and still forming - if you're down for wading into the tricky waters of near-future sci-fi, come listen with me.
Otherwise, if you want a vibe-check on the...
November Archive Highlight; "Forward Facing"
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Telelibrary Spoiler WARNING
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Hello all,
It’s decidedly NOT November any more, but a cascading series of tech issues with the original host of the audio for this piece have pushed me into burning the Yuletide Candle. This Archive Highlight marks a kind of experiment for me; in the past I’ve been very cautious about making any Telelibrary materials available outside of the ...
November Reading; “Future(s) Proof”
Well, here we are. Presented with a present that discourages, and a few bleak futures that seem to be rolling towards us as inexorable as a mudslide. For those of us in America, or those of us in its impact crater (which still seems to find its way to include everyone else), the top of the Month cemented a disappointing reality of the attitudes and prejudices of some Americans and represented a grave statement on voters’ confidence in the state of things now and soon to come. What...
2024-11-18 20:12:34 +0000 UTC View PostReading Excerpt; "Radical Friendship" by Kate Johnson
Happy Post-Halloween everyone! Postponed the edit on this one slightly to get a good nights sleep; hope you enjoy waking up to the invitation to feel every sensation the workday after Halloween night!
Conversations about confidence and generosity, conversational theater and the 5th wall ahead. Give a listen, if you're keen.
Archive Highlight; "The DJ Khaled Exception"
oh lord — I swear this one was meant to be just a funny quick post, and a slightly longer-form version of a joke I often tell at Immersive Creator tables, but it turns out I have a lot of feelings on this topic. I suspect I'll return to this essay to clean it up or find another angle sometime in the future, but for now, please enjoy one of the longest intros to a meme you've ever seen.
~
This past...
2024-11-01 04:22:30 +0000 UTC View PostOctober Reading; “Getting Friendly with Radicals”
This month I took a book off my pile of Things Recommended by Friends (only 473 to go!), and went on a bit of an unexpected journey; they say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can absolutely read a book based on cover alone, and sometimes doing so gives one the delight of ending up precisely elsewhere.
September Reading Excerpt; "Immortality"
Curious about the game I played this month for my reading? Wondering what it's like to justify arthouse video games as a deductible expense? Looking to hear me spend 9 minutes saying many words when "hey y'all look this is neat" would do?
You're in the right place.
September Archive Highlight - “Pay Up - pt 2 (UPDATE); “Management Plays the Long Odds”
This is the second in a series of posts about my experiments in different payment Systems across my projects The Telelibrary, Fair Trade, and Undersigned). If you missed the first, I recommend 2024-09-30 01:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
September Reading: "Reel Thrills"
Ah! September is almost over! In honor of that terrifying fact, let’s dive into some content on the more dark and foreboding side of things - this month’s reading is an exciting and innovative video game which comes at a new Patron’s excellent suggestion, and it only took me most of September to clear enough space on my hard drive to play it. Let’s jump in!
PLAYTEST OPPORTUNITY - IF WE WIN
Hey everyone!
A quick post here - I've gotten a commission to remount my 2019/2021 work IF WE WIN at a private party this coming weekend, and my budget affords me the chance to do 1-2 playtests to get some reps in and flush the water out of the pipes. That said, I can only really do so over zoom if I have enough interested participants with the same availability.
So! Just in case, I'm putting the call out - if anyone wanted to experience IF WE WIN persona...
August Reading Excerpt: "Remediation"
With thanks to some transit related wi-fi issues (if there's an AirBnB where the wi-fi works right away, I've never found it), August is finishing in the early days of September. I actually had a great time recording this on a mountain porch, so while it's fast, loose, and a little lo-fi, I hope you enjoy!
2024-09-03 15:01:19 +0000 UTC View PostAugust Highlight; The Immersive Spirit (or, letter to a young immersive artist) - pt 1
I'm in the woods! Wi-Fi is limited (in the WOODS?! Who could have anticipated?), so I'll be staggering the last releases of August as I catch as catch can). This is part one of several of entries in a piece of writing inspired by my favorite Robert Henri book, which has the following opening; let it also apply here:
MANY students have asked for this book, and that is the reason the fragments which are its composition have been brought together. No effort ...
2024-09-01 14:07:25 +0000 UTC View Post