These back to school bookbag and notebook combos by macro.baby fit the trends—and everything else you need them to hold.
The backpacks have a heavy-duty construction, padded nylon backs and bottoms with durable spun poly fabric, and an interior pocket for a laptop. The notebooks are on a high-quality 70-pound paper and feature an anti-scuff laminate cover with a super-soft matte feel.
Mostly, though, they look cool, right? Right.
I started a new job in June as a senior content strategist and writer at a Chicago studio (also fully remote!). But between making that transition and traveling for several weeks throughout the month, I haven’t had a chance to post a proper update. Now the point feels moot, so instead I’ll share some of my final work for the college — interviews with recent alum and students. It was such a pleasure writing and editing for California College of the Arts, and I can’t wait to visit campus — and the beach — when I finally get out to the Bay later this year. 🙂
“Writers, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, filmmakers, painters, printmakers, movement practitioners. I’m here to tell you that you’re needed. I was recently having this conversation with one of my friends in the humanities and they said, ‘Well, we’re not curing cancer.’ And I thought, fuck that. I might be inspiring the person who does.“
“We have to honor that the environment already gave us those resources to produce those textiles and we need to honor those materials. They’re still useful and they’re beautiful. We just have to find innovative ways to use them. As a society, we consume so many things, all the time, that it won’t be possible to sustain. I like thinking about the hidden history of materials.“
“Yes, it is hard—and sometimes even terrifying—but it’s also delicious to be in charge of yourself, to not be subject to other people’s expectations of where you should go and what you should be.”
“Sometimes people get so careerist in the artistic sense; they think it is all being in the studio. But some of my best work and connections were more organic. It’s not something you can game. You have to figure out where the heat is and invest your time and energy—and make the work. So many people get caught up in what the secret is that they don’t have any work when they crack it.”
Stars aligned: Diedrick Brackens and Lauren O’Connell discuss their new exhibition
My illustration a day project, dubbed macro.baby, continues. Through rain! Through shine! Through crippling sadness and/or shoddy window unit air conditioning!
Spend $75 or more on shop.jackiemantey.com this month and get a free print of “Pay Attention” (pictured above, to be mailed August 1). // Original image info: “Albanian Solider” (1906-1914) from photographer Augustus Sherman’s collection of photographs from Ellis Island, which is worth a scroll this Fourth of July weekend.
Have fun! Be free! Love your neighbor!
Five years is 1,825 days.
It’s 12 steps and two weekly meetups.
It’s one husband, three therapists, and a better best friend.
It’s a boost on a bad day.
It’s a confession on a good one.
It’s a letting go of all that was lost when drowned.
It’s noticing flowers bloom, leaves change, skin prickle, water bend, sirens howl, clouds melt, squirrels race, backs curl, dumplings steam, cake melt, chest tighten, pink glow, humility work, and truth help—for the first time, over and over.
It’s the distance it takes to be the same shape, stitching, color, and silhouette of spirit—turned right-side out.
It’s the whole of all that is countless.
I’m one shot deep into full inoculation. On my calendar, April 19, two weeks after our second shot, is circled in red, the outline of a wound, the unceremonious ending of a dread-full chugging along. I feel… complicated about it? I’ll be able to go hang out. Visit my masked neighbors. Be out again with people and friends. That makes me so happy but I am also shy about making plans, anxious about over-committing, afraid of under-committing. I feel like I have atrophied to my desk chair and the monotony of quarantine has emptied me, a hollowed tree trunk on its side. I have been growing behind a fence, having a conversation with myself in a gated space. And I feel trepidation about what to do once it is gone.
My macro.baby illustrations are now available on tote bags and backpacks on the Society6 shop. Carry all that baggage of yours in style!
I spent most of January in an escapist headspace, burrowing down into several subjects, my fascination with which have taken me by surprise.
1) Richard Yates. I read Revolutionary Road in 2008 when the movie came out because my tween brain imprinted on Titanic-era Kate and Leo in 1997 and I’m pretty much subconsciously committed to following them in a space ship to Mars if they were featured as star-crossed lovers in its alien-infested bowels.
But. I never watched Revolutionary Road the movie for some reason? Probably because I read the book first and it was devastating; too devastating to see on screen right afterward. Fast forward almost 13 years later, the movie’s on HBO Max and with all this quarantine time on my hands, I gave it a crinoline-skirted whirl and… god damn. Devastating, yes indeed, but I was surprised at how differently I thought of the characters and the plot with some years as an adult under my belt. (APRIL, I KNOW, IT SUCKS YOU CAN’T SELF ACTUALIZE BECAUSE OF THINGS OUTSIDE YOUR CONTROL, BUT YOU LUCKY BITCH, JUST ENJOY YOUR HOUSE AND WORK-FREE LIFE OMFG.)
Perhaps my bleak outlook is quarantine related. Or could it be because the movie is different from the book? I bought a three-book tome of Richard Yates’ work and decided to find out. This turned out to be the biggest January 2021 gift of all! What a cynical, destructive, brutal, little worm Revolutionary Road is. 😍 Like the girl-smirking-at-house-fire meme in book form. I love it, and I find such unrepentant catharsis in how slowly but surely Yates dismantles each character with the kind of rage-eyed honesty no one wants to be in front of but, if you see the people the way he does, feels so rewarding and relieving to watch.
And how he does it is startling. Funny almost. You can’t even see it coming. Example: The following savory paragraph about how the children can sleep comfortably now that their parents have stopped fighting (because mom and dad are high on their unrealistic self-deluded fantasy that will eventually kill someone but we’ll get there soon enough!).
“They could lie drowsing now under the sound of kindly voices in the living room, a sound whose intricately rhythmic rise and fall would slowly turn into the shape of their dreams. And if they came awake later to turn over and reach with their toes for new cool places in the sheets, they knew the sound would still be there—one voice very deep and the other soft and pretty, talking and talking, as substantial and soothing as a blue range of mountains seen from far away.”
Then, next paragraph, like a slap in the face from a surly sugar plum fairy:
“This whole country’s rotten with sentimentality,” Frank said one night…
HA!
2) Dennis Rodman. I know, girl! I don’t know! Whyyy?
This minor obsession was inspired by another thing we finally watched: The Last Dance docu-series, which chronicles the 1990s Chicago Bulls as they went for their sixth and final title. At first I was really grooving on Scottie Pippen, learning about his playing style, often relegated to the second paragraph (rightfully so) behind Michael Jordan (GOAT). Then I met Dennis “The Worm” Rodman. Like, basketball Dennis Rodman. I’m so compelled by him! I’m trying to figure out why? I love the way he played basketball, I know that much. Gutter ball go-getter, beast hunter of the rankest of rebounds, trash-talking trash man king of the trash can people…
3) Art as self-authorization. That both of the angry, broken-hearted people listed above struggled with addiction issues all their lives, is the only thing not surprising to me.
I’m interested in people who have channeled extraordinary pain into something else and then turned that “something else” into a brand new something else. Something only they could do or make or be. And if it’s got a little dash of rebellious, self-supporting stank on it, even better. Dennis Rodman became his own performance art piece on the basketball court after accepting that the love/loyalty he thought existed in the world did not, in fact, exist; turning into Dennis Rodman as we now know and (I) love him was the alternative to suicide. For Yates, writing about loneliness, hopelessness, and self-dishonesty the way he did throbs with recognition; this is someone who lived most of their life feeling like a balloon within a balloon, disconnected from others and bumbling about in the void.
Maybe what’s appealing to me about Yates and Rodman right now relates to the third thing I thought about a lot this past month: the idea that being an artist is simply a matter of self-authorization—authorizing yourself to see what you see and express it however you see fit, then move on. I dig that. Feel inspired by it. Even when it comes from deeply flawed sources. Especially when it comes from deeply flawed sources (who have tried and failed to redeem themselves over and over). For those artists I am “rotten with sentimentality.”
Related: Below are some videos I made for my gallery’s Instagram stories this month. I ~authorized~ myself to learn how to animate my work and post it even if I don’t think it’s perfect yet. Can’t wait to see what February brings. Stay healthy, friends.
Yes, 2020 pulled up the floorboards of our contemporary societies and shoved our noses in the rot. We’re all glad the year is done, while also recognizing that a change of the Gregorian guard means pretty much nothing except a mindset shift. I got you. Same floorboard-free boat, baby.
So, armed with a fragile optimism and a new year’s-inspired reaffirmation that the only actions I can control are my own 🙃, I’m sharing six apps I started using in the past 12 months that have helped me feel not so gross about everything. And you can too!
This app offers audio versions of magazine articles from a range of national and international publications. I like it because I don’t have to buy a million magazines or subscriptions (which I used to purchase in a flurry and follow-up only with a sweaty regret of the space they eventually take up on my bedside table). And Audm saves me time. I can listen to the latest issue of The Atlantic, for example, while I wash my face masks or clean my zombie-repellent flare gun.
Audm is one of two apps on this list that isn’t free (see also: Sun Basket). But at only $8.99 a month, it’s worth the time it saves me, the depth of knowledge it offers through the articles, and the variety of publication sources—not to mention their archives—to choose from.
Rarely does one download a free app and, soon after trying it, find one’s self exclaiming, “HOW IS THIS FREE?” But it’s 2021, anything is possible, and Pumatrac blew my cynical lil millennial mind. This ~free~ training app is from Puma, so there are ads for the brand’s clothes and workout items, but only on the homepage, and the ads are shockingly unobtrusive; way less distracting or overwhelming than most banner ads or YouTube spots. (Trying to read an article on a newspaper’s website at this point is like trying to uncover a dusty old article from the bottom of a stuffed time capsule.)
The app has video workouts in a variety of themes, like HIIT, pilates, running, and ballet. You pick a workout, download it to your phone, and then go through the circuit with your “trainer” in tow describing the technique and doing the workout with you. It’s as close to an in-person class as I’m going to get right now. My other favorite aspects: It tracks your runs, connects to your Spotify so you can listen to your own workout playlists in the background, and includes a daily calendar feature so you can plan your workouts for the week in advance and, hence the name, track what you’ve done in the past. The calendar automatically records your workouts to each date after you’re done.
I signed up for Sun Basket, a subscription meal kit delivery service, mere days before the pandemic started. It’s proven essential during our continued shelter-in-place predicament. The food is nice and fresh, and the app where you select your meals for each week is easy to manage. Sun Basket is based in San Francisco so, as you might expect, it has the sustainability thing down; the food is responsibly sourced and the packaging shows up with recycling and composting instructions.
I also like that I can order more than just meals for the week. The app has a la carte options for snacks, pre-wrapped breakfasts, yogurt, dips, juices, soups, salad kits, cuts of meat, and more. In a time when long, luxurious grocery shops are a thing of the past (oh, to spend a day dillydallying in the magazine or pasta aisles!), this app has been a game changer for my desire to eat healthier and more thoughtfully.
My brother, who is a gentleman and scholar and a librarian, recommended Libby last spring after I complained about OverDrive, the app I was using to download and listen to library audiobooks. He was, as he often is, right. I love Libby (which is by OverDrive). Superior to any other audiobook-related app I’ve used, Libby’s books download fast, the audio is smooth, and the download and returns (and remove-from-phone!) processes work efficiently.
I also like that Libby directly connects to my Chicago Public Library branch, which means when I log on to the app, I’m visiting my branch’s homepage. It’s become my one-stop app to place holds on physical books, as well as peruse, request, and listen to audiobooks. I like that Libby tracks my progress as I listen; lets me set my preferences for item searches, like format and availability; and has an intuitive UX that makes me excited to find my next read—err, listen.
I love learning new project management tools. I’ll admit it. Asana, a familiar program to me thanks to several freelance clients who use it, is far and away my favorite. Asana is just so easy to use and manage. The flying rainbow narwhals that occasionally shoot across my screen when I check off a task don’t hurt either.
The user friendly simplicity of Asana is exactly what I need for my individual *stuff*. When I started building shop.jackiemantey.com last April, I wanted a place to dump all the tasks I was racking up—a list that kept getting bigger by the hour as I moved through the process and realized how much work it would be. I tried Asana for this purpose, and it delivered.
With the free version, I’ve created several channels for various projects, separating them by art, writing, and personal goals; then I divided those up by project; then projects by tasks; tasks by dates; and so on. The board view is better for brainstorming than a Google doc, and the calendar view is more ideal than putting tasks on my personal cal. I also like that I have a place to dump related links I find or ideas I have that correspond to a particular project, versus putting them in a notes app or emailing them to myself to place later.
This meditation app is free and lets you choose from numerous guided recordings based on meditation type (i.e., sleep, yoga, singing bowls, cello music, mindfulness); intention (i.e., feel grateful, don’t freak out, really don’t freak out, calm the f*ck down); and, most valuably, timeframe (i.e., 5 minutes, 30 minutes, an immortal’s nirvana-ish eternity). With Insight Timer, you (I) can easily find a five-minute “calm the f*ck down” meditation, for example, to help you (me) out between Zoom calls. Or zombie attacks. Or whatever embarrassing, disheartening news is next. 🙃
