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BOOKS & PUNKS

 * October 1, 2024
 * Comments Off on BOOKS & PUNKS
 * By Sean Bonner

As many already know the book CRYPTOPUNKS: FREE TO CLAIM that I worked on most
of last year, which is being published by Phaidon, is currently at the printers.
As far as I know it should be in people’s hands in early December. I may or may
not have seen a copy already, and in either case I can attest that it turned out
beautifully. This thing is a brick, at over 800 pages it truly is an epic piece
of work. It’s substantial in every way. Beyond just a catalog of all 10,000
CryptoPunks, it’s filled with thought provoking essays and insightful
commentary. Interviews and assessments. And it’s put together in such a way that
you can pick it up, flip to a random section and spend a few minutes reading and
walk away feeling like you gained something from it. It’s not a cover to cover
read, but a collection of powerful stand alone work. I’m deeply honored to have
played a role in helping shape this from idea to final thing, and will be proud
to have it on my shelf, and delighted when I see it on others.

Which is inevitable due it’s size and color. I mean, look at this thing:

You might think being this thick, it’s 100% all encompassing. In our initial
talks that’s certainly something we aspired to. The end all be all, totally
comprehensive book on CryptoPunks. And in many ways it is, but also–it isn’t. As
we got into it we realized how this is a living thing, changing day to day with
new stories being written and old stories being revised. While working on it we
kept having to change something because something else happened, a big sale, new
information uncovered, etc. At some point we had to say “this is the cut off
point” otherwise it never would have been sent to the printer.

I also concede that there’s a level of information many people will find
interesting and then another level that only the super nerdy dorks like myself
even care about. Where possible, this book sticks to the things that are most
interesting to the most people. Don’t get me wrong, it goes deep. But not too
deep, if you know what I mean. And I think it’s stronger for that. I’d be remiss
if I didn’t send a massive thank you shout out to Stone at Yuga Labs and Belle
at Zak Group who were my constant and often daily contacts obsessing over this
thing as much if not more than I was.

That said, I am a super nerdy dork and I admittedly go too deep all the time, as
any number of blog posts here can illustrate. Which brings me to the next point
– I realized that I regularly find myself sending people links to things I’ve
written on the subject, or hear from someone that they read one of my older
pieces and that sent them of on a search of their own. There’s also been a few
interesting things that have happened since our self imposed cut off date. So I
decided I might as well go ahead and pull all that together, update old things,
document and explain some new things, and put out an unofficial companion to
CRYPTOPUNKS: FREE TO CLAIM. I floated the idea to a few people and the response
was an overwhelming yes, so that’s what I’m going to do. So I present: PUNKS NOT
DED.

This one is not for everybody, but it’s definitely for some people. I’m pulling
things together and deciding what new to include right now but thinking this is
going to come in between 60-100 pages. I’m matching height dimensions as best I
can so it’ll look nice on the shelf next to it’s larger sibling. Full contents
forthcoming but this will include previous blog posts, expanded wiki articles,
some updated and expanded history as well as some new events. Depending on how
it works out I might dive into some closely related derivatives a bit more too,
as part of the larger conversation, but that’ll kind of depend the page count I
land on and what I need to fill it. I’m thinking there will be a few different
versions of this.

 * Limited Hardcover. This will be a signed, numbered edition of 88 copies,
   individually named for each attribute. Available beginning 10/10 for
   preorder, crypto only.
 * Semi-limited Softcover. Unsigned. Print run to be determined by preorders,
   plus a few extra. Available now.

In the meantime, if you haven’t ordered CRYPTOPUNKS: FREE TO CLAIM yet make sure
you do so you get the first shipment. It’s available from Phaidon as well as on
Amazon and everywhere else near you. I can’t wait for everyone to get this thing
in their hands, it’s just worth it.



 * Tagged: books, CryptoPunks

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PRESERVING THE CULTURAL LEGACY OF CRYPTOPUNKS: A NON-PROFIT FOUNDATION APPROACH

 * June 2, 2024
 * Comments Off on Preserving the Cultural Legacy of CryptoPunks: A Non-Profit
   Foundation Approach
 * By Sean Bonner

In my last post I floated the idea that the Cryptopunks IP might be better
stewarded by a non-profit foundation than a for-profit company. My rambling
thought process might have seemed like I was suggesting Yuga Labs should start a
foundation, and that might have been what I was thinking at some point, but that
post has led to a number of discussions and I now think the best way forward is
the formation of an independent non-profit with a singular mission that everyone
could rally behind. A lofty goal I know, but also something I’ve seen play out
before and in the conversations that I’m having and seeing, seems like it could
be feasible.

For context, in 2009 I co-founded the non-profit community space, Crash Space in
Los Angeles which quickly became part of the global hackerspace and maker
movement. In 2011 I co-founded Safecast, an environmental non-profit initially
focused on building an open repository of radiation data in the aftermath of the
Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan. I was awarded a fellowship with the
Shuttleworth Foundation in 2014 and over the following years worked with dozens
of other non-profit founders as we helped solve each others problems with
learnings from our own experience, and co-authored a book about it. I’ve sat on
non-profit boards and advised, mentored or unfucked a number of others. All that
is just to say this is a familiar topic for me.

The first thing I wanted to do was identify the problem that we’re trying to
solve, this is important because if you don’t know the problem then you might
end up solving for the wrong thing. This isn’t perfect, but it’s kind of a
working problem statement at the moment:

“A single commercial entity controlling the Cryptopunks IP inevitably faces the
challenge of trying to satisfy a diverse community with varying ideas and
visions for the future. This situation creates an ongoing struggle to balance
commercial interests with the wide range of expectations held by individual
owners, making it difficult to take any action without upsetting some of the
audience, leading to a kind of mission paralysis. While some may suggest that
the company simply “do nothing,” this is not an ideal solution either.”

Once you have a problem then you can think of what a solution might look like.
Right now, we have this:

“Separating commercial interests from IP stewardship presents a promising path
forward. Establishing the foundation as a non-profit entity dedicated to the
stewardship of the Cryptopunks IP, with a board of directors focused on
preservation, offers a balanced and mutually beneficial solution. This approach
ensures that the legacy of Cryptopunks is maintained with integrity, allowing
the community, including Yuga Labs, to trust that their assets are being
protected and valued by a dedicated group with a singular focus. By focusing on
protecting the historical and cultural value of Cryptopunks, we support their
enduring significance and value.”

Again, not perfect but it’s a start. Those two statement are related, so as we
edit one the other changes as well. They also serve the purpose of helping
understand what the point of all this is, which helps get to a mission
statement. The mission is important, because it’s the guidepost that we can
constantly check back on and be accountable to, ensuring that future efforts are
in line with the initial vision. Another tentative bit of text which is starting
to take shape:

“The foundation promotes and celebrates the cultural significance of
CryptoPunks, the genre-defining cryptographic art project created by Larva Labs
in 2017. Our mission is to see that the legacy of CryptoPunks is maintained with
integrity, focusing on its historical and artistic value rather than commercial
potential and act as guardrail against exploitation. Dedicated to preserving and
maintaining access to the cultural and historical legacy of CryptoPunks, we
provide a home for the intellectual property and develop educational resources
for the public. The foundation strives towards building a secure future for this
iconic work. We engage with a variety of supporters who share our vision of
protecting and promoting the cultural impact of CryptoPunks.”

So these are shaping up to be some helpful starting points that we’re building
conversations around, which so far are interestingly only a little bit about
Cryptopunks generally and more specifically about the non-profit/foundation
world, governance, process as well as some very high level “what do we see this
doing 10 years from now, 20 years from now?” kind of discussions. There’s also a
very big “if” that this hinges on around the Cryptopunks IP of course, so we’re
also talking about time frames and things the foundation could do that would be
helpful to the greater ecosystem even without having the IP in house. I think
that’s an important discussion because if everything the foundation wants to do
depends on the approval of a separate for profit company, that’s a pretty large
weak spot. Conversely, if the foundation can do a lot of things on it’s own, and
get real momentum and serve a purpose independent of anything else, that also
helps justify things and strengthens the initial ask.

There’s another interesting thing in this specific case – with previous
foundations and non-profits I’ve helped get going we’ve often had a clear goal.
“What’s the thing we’re trying to do? At some point that thing will be done, so
then what?” but thinking of legacy and art on the blockchain, right out of the
gate we’re facing the reality that – if done right – all of this will outlive
us. At least that’s something I’m thinking about a lot – so in addition to all
of the above I’m thinking about the time I’m willing to invest in this, and what
kind of future I’m hoping it enables. This is actually part of a larger
conversation I’ve been having about (in my view) what kind of actions are
beneficial to society (art, creativity, etc) vs what kind of actions are
rewarded and encouraged (lots of douchebaggery) and how, with whatever time I
have left, I want to try and help make things better. But yeah, that’s a
different thing.

If any of this sounds interesting and you’d like to join us in hashing some of
this out, let me know and I’ll invite you. I’ll certainly write more about this
in the future as we get further along, but I wanted to put this out there now
just as a bit of a marker, if only so that months/years from now I can look back
and see what I was thinking at this point.

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YUGA & CRYPTOPUNKS: THE FILTH AND THE FURY

 * May 21, 2024
 * Comments Off on Yuga & Cryptopunks: The Filth And The Fury
 * By Sean Bonner

The last few days have been wild and I don’t even know where to start, or where
to continue from because everytime I start writing something it changes and I
have to keep starting over. Some wonderful things happened alongside some
terrible things. This is a series of somewhat connected thoughts and
observations that I hope leads somewhere helpful.

If you want to skip my recap and jump right to the commentary, click here.


SOME BACKGROUND.

Cryptopunks are art. Culturally important genre defining art. I know it, if you
are reading this you probably know it, and others are starting to realize it
every day. When Matt & John (collectively Larva Labs) the artists who created
Cryptopunks walked away from their creation it was largely because community was
attacking them for everything they did, or didn’t do – and demanding they do, or
don’t do any number of things. They never signed up to manage community
expectations, they just wanted to make art. Honestly, I can’t blame them for
that at all. This space can be brutal, and they certainly saw the worst of it.
At least up until that point, but we’ll get to that later.

Yuga Labs, who bought the IP, stated from the start that they saw their mission
was to provide more for the community, and to work to establish deeper
recognition of Cryptopunks in the art world. They said they saw themselves as
stewards and wanted to make everyone proud.

Museums, and Prints, and Books, Oh My

Under Yuga’s care, punks have found their way into the permanent collections at
major museums like LACMA, ICA Miami and Centre Pompidou in Paris. 24×24 pixel
on-screen images were recontextualized with high end limited edition large
format art prints that no small amount of collectors have proudly framed and
hung on their walls. Phaidon, one of the pre-eminent art book publishers in the
world have started taking orders on a massive 800 page slab of a book about
Cryptopunks, filled with images, essays and interviews. To say they have been
making headway on their goal of art world recognition is an understatement.

In Residence

Another initiative Yuga announced was an Artist In Residence program, playfully
titled Punk In Residence. AiR programs are a long standing tradition that often
gives an artist a chance to explore something they might not have, and gives an
organization or institution a way to support the arts with something tangible to
show for it. The work produced by not just an artist, but by all the artists who
participate in the program becomes a kind of creative conversation, playing out
across various canvases (or proxies) and through many lenses. Importantly, these
programs are not just one off – they need many artists in series over a period
of time to tell a story. I was an Artist In Residence at the MuseumsQuartier in
Vienna and have a catalog/book they published at the end of the year showing my
work along side the other artists involved and it’s a really cool way to feel
like a real part of this thing. They do this every year, and when you look at
all the books together it tells a beautiful story about how MQ has helped and
furthered all these different kinds of artists experiment with something they
might not have otherwise.


RECENTLY

To kick off the Punk In Residence program Yuga announced that the inaugural
artist would be Nina Chanel Abney, a contemporary American artist known the
world over who has works in the collections of museums like MOMA, Whitney,
Ruebell, Brooklyn Museum and others. Abney’s work is unapologetically political
often touching on topics such as race & gender, but at the same time is
colorful, fun and poppy, leading to the apt description that it’s “easy to
swallow, hard to digest.”

Why, 2015, Nina Chanel Abney

Some people might argue that picking an artist with a strong political voice to
start this program was a mistake, but both art and punk have always been built
on political activism and to ignore that is kind of ridiculous and I think
illustrates an ignorance about what this is all about to begin with. Matt and
John have said from the start that CryptoPunks was inspired in a large part by
the London punk scene, which gave birth to classics like God Save The Queen by
The Sex Pistols and White Riot by The Clash. Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ
anyone? So if art makes you uncomfortable, that’s probably the point.

[As an aside I think there is a wide gap between people who think of CryptoPunks
as art and people who think of CryptoPunks as financial assets. They can of
course be both, and if you think of them as primarily a financial asset you are
probably less likely to want to see politics anywhere near them, but both Larva
Labs and Yuga Labs have stated plainly they believe CryptoPunks are art, so
that’s the argument I’m running with here. The financial asset side doesn’t have
to like the art aspect at all, but can’t really expect it to just go away.]

A struggle with how things are communicated and cultural literacy was also
revealed during promotion of the Phaidon book. Cryptopunk owners (myself
included) like to think of ourselves as having our fingers on the pulse and
knowing whats going on at all times. But in talking about some of the
contributors to the book it became clear some people didn’t have the same
reference points as others. We saw people assume that since they didn’t know who
someone was, no one else did either. Or perhaps, because they did know who
someone was everyone else must know as well. This led to some confusion and a
complicated situation – how to inform people who think they already know it?
Don’t give enough information and people get mad that they feel left in the
dark, give too much info and people feel like they are being talked down to.
Striking a balance there is hard, and usually results in everyone being a little
irritated.

Beyond promotion the book itself was not without controversy, while many people
loved the idea and immediately bought several copies, others felt like they
should have gotten one free either because they owned a Cryptopunk or because
the book says “Free To Claim” (an obvious reference to the fact that Cryptopunks
were originally free to claim). Others had strong opinions about who was or
wasn’t contributing to the book, which led to some heated debates. This is a
perfect example of how no matter what you do, you can’t please everyone, and how
no good deed goes unpunished.


CURRENTLY

Last weekend (May 18) many people, myself included, traveled to see the opening
of Nina Chanel Abney’s new exhibition LIE DOGGO at Jack Shainman’s The School
museum/gallery space in Kinderhook NY. The exhibition includes some
retrospective 2D canvases from the last 4 years, leading into a new series of 3D
sculptures she has just produced and finally unveiling the world she did for her
Punk In Residence project – a collection of 500 animated 3D generated characters
built with Abney’s interpretations of many recognizable traits from the
Cryptopunk collection, rendered in her own style as well as a significant amount
of her usual character traits to make something that was distinctly her own, but
with a knowing inspirational nod to Cryptopunks. She called this new collection
Super Punk World, a clear world building expansion of the idea she began with
her 2022 digital body of work which is called Super Cool World. There were about
3,000 people at the opening, the vast majority of which had never heard of
Cryptopunks before, possibly never heard of generative art or NFTs even and
every one of them learned about these things in the end. This was a primarily
art world audience, not crypto people – so thinking back to the mandate of
building exposure of Cryptopunks into the art world, this was a huge success.
Everyone was delighted.

(photos by me)

A few days later the official CryptoPunks social media account announced the
launch of Super Punk World, and all hell broke loose. Criticisms of the art and
misunderstandings around the project quickly turned into attacks on Yuga, the
artist and individual Yuga team members who had worked on it. Things got ugly
quick, and open forums like Twitter devolved into a flood of racist, sexist
personal attacks with trolls and shitposters trying to out do each other to
catch the engagement stream. It was the worst of stereotypical cryptobro-ness on
full display. I was disgusted by what I saw, embarrassed for the space, and
heartbroken for the artist and people who have spent the last year working on
it. Before the end of the day Yuga’s CEO would step in and make an announcement
that these pieces would be randomly given away rather than sold, and there would
be no future Cryptopunks efforts from them.

It’s especially disappointing to see that in an industry like crypto which
celebrates independence and being censorship resistant, many essentially admit
through their actions that this only applies to ideas they agree with, and lack
the self awareness to see that.

Where this goes from here remains to be seen, but this brought up a bunch of
things to consider.


SOME THOUGHTS

Communication Misses

Judging by the number of people complaining about “Super Punks,” talking about
diluting the original CryptoPunks collection as if this was Cryptopunks 2.0,
suggesting no one has ever heard of Nina or that she was hired to make
derivative punks (or any number of other ridiculous claims) it’s pretty clear
the communication missed some marks. This is valid criticism, recently
understood with the book comms I mentioned earlier and Yuga was most likely not
trying to flood people with information and assumed they understood things
better than they did. This issue probably would have been helped by much more in
depth discussions about what an Artist In Residency program is for, who Nina is,
why she was chosen to kick it off, where it’s headed next, etc etc etc. The
collection having “punk” in it’s title seems to have confused a lot of people,
and posts from the main Cryptopunks account very likely exacerbated that.

It’s important not to be one sided here- lots of people also reacted without
reading anything, ignoring published information while imagining their own
histories and narratives and then panicking about them. I saw lots of people
insisting everything had been wonderful under Larva Labs or even that
Cryptopunks had been a decentralized community project until Yuga made it
corporate. It’s a disappointing state of the world when anything outside of 10
second tiktoks are basically ignored by everyone. What? 2 paragraphs of text?
I’m not reading all that!

Hindsight is 20/20 and it’s easy to sit here today – barely 24 hours after the
drama kicked off – and say if the collection was called “Punk In Residence: Nina
Chanel Abney” and it was announced from a newly created @punkinresidence social
media account after several weeks of posting educational materials this probably
would have landed very differently, but here we are.

Trolls Gonna Troll

Another crucially important detail: Yuga is a troll magnet. There are a
dedicated group of haters who will criticize anything they do, and will look for
any opportunity to go after them. This isn’t unusual, in fact it’s online
trolling 101 – target the big accounts and you’ll get some of their attention.
We’ve seen this tactic deployed across countless genres for decades, it always
works because people always take the bait. But Yuga has been tied up in years of
battles, both legal and social, and that’s made them both a big target and
hypersensitive to it – which ironically makes all that much more rewarding for
the trolls. Which complicates things when you consider the next detail…

Yuga has a Trust Issue

Be it massively hyped NFT drops that feel neglected after launch, mini games
missing the mark, surprise acquisitions, layoffs, sales of properties, mea
culpas, management changes, mixed messages from various accounts and unclear
priorities – Any of these things are easily justified or explained one at a
time, but in aggregate and the fact that if it’s not one thing it’s another
results in Yuga having a serious trust issue, and as such anything they announce
is now taken with skepticism and questions about how long until they change
their story or abandon it.

To date the Cryptopunks team has largely been exempt from that. Preferring a low
key hands off position, under the guidance of Natalie Stone the steps taken from
Cryptopunks have widely been seen as thoughtful and considered. The Cryptopunks
community has enjoyed a a kind of siloed relationship with Yuga, ups and downs
at “corporate” have rarely impacted Cryptopunks initiatives. While there are
lingering promises from the early days of the acquisition that are still
uncompleted (*cough* revamped marketplace *cough*) most of what Stone has put
into motion has been delivered, or is obviously in progress. She’s also been
there for the community, listening to concerns, requests, and trying to help
people understand where things are at and why. Even over the last 24 hours when
the timeline has been full of hate directed towards Yuga, much (not all) of that
seems to come with a caveat that people still trust and appreciate her. This is
difficult to pull off, and to me least, reads like all is not lost.

The wild card here is yesterday’s post from Yuga’s CEO. To begin with it’s vague
as to what next steps, if any, there are. It also brought up a lot of questions,
which at least as I’m writing this are not yet being responded to. Announcing
something and then changing course less than 8 hours later feels reactionary. No
matter how they decided to proceed, I think it would have been better to take a
week – hell a day or two at least – to think about it, let the dust settle and
give cooler heads a chance to prevail. If you launch a big long term project,
work on it for a year, and the first release lands poorly the thing to do is
iterate, learn from what happened and apply that to the next round. This is a
public show of a desire to improve things, and makes good on your promise to do
them. If you cancel it and walk away at the first (and entirely predictable)
backlash then that puts every future promise you make into question. Why would
punks (or anyone) take Yuga at their word going forward if it seems they will
pull a 180 if the road seems bumpier than expected. Why would a world class
artist like Abney even consider working with Yuga again if it seems they will
just give up if faced with any pushback?

In the last few weeks leading up to this launch several people have asked me for
predictions, and in every single case I’ve said the worst thing that could
possibly happen would be Yuga panicking and canceling the whole program. I
deeply hope that’s not where this is headed. The “in Residence” program is
important and valuable, things don’t always work perfectly the first time but
efforts should be made to keep it going and try again.

Perceptions by Others

Another very serious problem is that the reaction to Super Punk World was filled
with really hateful, xenophobic shit, and even though this mostly wasn’t coming
from CryptoPunks, the association is there and sulking away leaves that
lingering taste. As an example I’ve mentioned that people still blame the V1
Cryptopunk community for the actions of random trolls because lots of drama
happened at the same time and there was no one to come forward and say “this
isn’t us, we don’t condone this.” The official Cryptopunks account should post a
strong condemnation of the attacks on Nina and others, and Yuga should stand
behind her and this project they did together. Abandoning her at this point
makes everything I’ve just talked about worse. Standing up and defending an
artist would score a lot of points.

Update: Several people within the punks community put together a statement to
make clear that the hateful attacks were not from punks and that kind of
approach is not welcome in the community.

Way Forward

I’ve had many conversations with many people about what Yuga should do in
relation to Cryptopunks. In February when co-founder Greg Solano returned at
CEO, one of the announcements was the creation of a new company, BAYC LLC, to
house all of the Bored Ape projects. This made a lot of sense to everyone, Yuga
shifts to more of a quiet parent/umbrella role and individual properties get
siloed teams, budgets and focus. I said at the time that a follow up
announcement of a “CryptoPunks LLC” or similar would be welcome and calm fears
that the rug might be pulled out from the Cryptopunks team at any moment, or
that they would be sucked back into other parts of the company.

That could take a number of shapes, but I’ve iterated on the idea a bit and now
think a sort of non-profit foundation or trust might make more sense. Yuga Labs
owns a lot of CryptoPunks and is legally obligated to protect that investment. I
think if they set up a foundation to house and protect the Cryptopunks IP,
similar to to the Warhol Foundation, while keeping their punks as assets, then
actions of the foundation would in turn protect their investment.

There’s a huge fear in the Cryptopunks community that Yuga, hard up for cash,
will try to commercialize Cryptopunks. Transferring the IP to a foundation
resolves that fear instantly. This also allows the foundation to launch
initiatives (like In Residence or licensing) without the fear of “cashing in” as
they would be under a legal mandate to protect the IP. This could be funded by
Yuga, or by other foundations, or even in part by the community which has
already had many discussions about what it would take to buy the IP back from
Yuga and self manage it. Yuga matching an investment from the community would be
a very powerful statement here.

As it stands right now we’ve seen several statements from Yuga about wanting to
protect Cryptopunks, but in light of the aforementioned trust issues and
potentially backpedaling on the Punks In Residence program, anything they say is
being taken with several grains of salt. Taking a step like this I think would
be welcomed by almost everyone.

Update: This suggestion has led to several conversations which have come
together and a number of people are now working on setting up a foundation
independently, if you are interested in joining the discussions please let me
know. More on this in the near future.

 * Tagged: CryptoPunks, YugaLabs

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PERSONAL UNIFORM UPDATE 2024

 * April 1, 2024
 * Comments Off on Personal Uniform Update 2024
 * By Sean Bonner

A few inquiries lately so figured it was time for a check in / update. As I’ve
noted in pervious years – where I am, specifically the weather where I am, has a
shaping influence on the basic set up. I’ve been living in Vancouver now for
going on 4 years which is much cooler climate wise than Tokyo and that’s
reflected in the modifications I’ve made since then – though if you read my last
update this one is probably predictable.

Socks – I’m about 50/50 between Stance cotton socks and Darn Tough wool socks.
You’ll recall that one of the things I loved about Darn Tough was their 100%
guaranteed no questions asked replacement policy which essentially means you buy
them once and then for the rest of your life if your socks wear out you can
replace them for free. One of the things I’ve learned about Canada since living
here is that there’s a bunch of exceptions for everything. I’ve been told a lot
of this is due to panic that foreign companies were going to come in and take
over the market, so there’s a bunch of laws and policies requiring business goes
through Canadian companies which has led to some obnoxious monopolies and a
bunch of “exceptions” to policies that apply globally, but not in Canada. Darn
Toughs policy is one of those. So rather than just sending them in and them
sending you new ones, you have to send them to their Canadian distributor with a
note explaining what went wrong and why and they will then decide if they
replace them or not. In the last 4 years I’ve sent in 4 pairs of socks, one was
rejected because I didn’t buy the socks in Canada, one was approved but it took
3 months to get the replacements, and two other pairs just disappeared, and Darn
Tough hasn’t responded to any of my inquiries about them. So if the goal was to
make the policy too painful for anyone to take advantage of, consider that a
success. As a result I’ve been getting Stance socks instead, which are very
comfortable but not really as durable so I just know I’ll have to buy
replacements next year.

Underwear – David Archy Bamboo Boxer Briefs. Bamboo is such a great fabric for
underwear, so comfortable and more sustainable than whatever synthetic blends
most “tech fabrics” are made of.

T-shirts – Reigning Champ mid weight standard. These are great and I prefer them
over everything right now. One of the selling points of wool shirts was “wear
them for several days without worrying about washing them” and while cotton
isn’t as forgiving, these are solid enough that they can easily be worn 2 days
in a row without any concern at all. I really like this cloth weight and build
quality. If I could get this exact same thing in Bamboo rather than cotton it
would be my dream come true, but so far Bamboo seems to always be much thinner
and not as structurally rigid. I hate thin t-shirts and that ended up being part
of the deal killer with the Outlier wool shirts, they were either so super thin
that I felt like my nipples were going to rip through them or so thick that they
couldn’t be worn anytime outside of the dead of winter and took days to hang dry
after washing. Also the ethical trade off was no bueno.

Pants – Still on my Iron Heart Japan jeans kick. I’ve got 4 pair of various
weights, 14oz, 18oz and 24oz. Iron Heart repairs these for free in Japan too, so
as they’ve worn over the years I coordinate dropping them off when I’m in Tokyo
and they mend them in a way that seems unheard of outside of Japan. They don’t
just slap on a patch, they re-thread seams and darn the denim so when I get them
back it’s like thy never had a hole or rip. It’s incredible. I hunted all over
Canada to find anyone doing repairs like this, and no one even comes close. The
Russian seamstress at the tailor down the street from me almost ripped my head
off for asking if they could repair without a patch. I prefer black pants, the
24oz ones only come in blue. So I attempted to dye them at home with some RIT
dye which was kind of successful? For a few months anyway, then it kind of
washed out and was a bit messy in the process. That said, I do like the black so
I’ll probably dye them again.

Most of the time I’ll add a crew neck sweatshirt or sweater because I’m running
a bit cold these days and prefer long sleeves. If it’s hotter I’ll swap to light
hoodie or track jacket zip up thing.

Shoes – I realized the toe box on some of my smaller profile “skate” shoes were
cramping my toes and starting to hurt, so I’ve switched back to Adidas shell
toes almost entirely and with their new official vegan versions I don’t have to
hunt for all synthetic models as hard as I used to. The big toe area is much
more comfortable and they are fairly water resistant too which is good here
where it rains so much. I have some Gore-Tex Adidas cross/hike shoes that I’ll
use if we’re going out into the woods, but I don’t love them so not going to
specifically recommend.

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NOTHIN’ BUT A WORTHLESS TWO BIT PUNK!

 * February 15, 2024
 * Comments Off on Nothin’ but a worthless two bit punk!
 * By Sean Bonner

I wrote a long essay about a new body of work I’ve just created called Two Bit
Punks, I’m a bit long winded weaving my way through inspiration and
interpretation, but I hope you’ll take a few moments and read it. I’m really
happy with where I landed.

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GOODBYE SHANE

 * November 30, 2023
 * Comments Off on Goodbye Shane
 * By Sean Bonner

Shane MacGowan is dead. He was 65. If I’m honest I’m equally surprised he lasted
this long, and that he didn’t pull a Keith Richards and live forever in spite of
it all. As far as I’m concerned Shane was the greatest living Irish poet, which
would put him high on the list of greatest contemporary poets period. He would
argue that poetry and songwriting are the same thing and I wouldn’t argue with
that.

His songs were simultaneously beautiful and horrific, heartbreaking and lustful.
From The Nips, to The Pogues, to The Popes. Glorious. Disgusting. The picture
that he painted of life, from the down trodden to the rebels to the lovers to
the adventurers, was more vivid and authentic than anything his peers were doing
at the time.

Contrast “A Pair of Brown Eyes” with “Boys From The County Hell” with “Old Main
Drag” with “Sunny Side of the Street” and try to find that musical and topical
range anywhere else. I dare you. Shane could write in a way that made a homeless
drunk sound glamorous and aspirational, effortlessly bouncing between politics
to religion to sex to every other aspect of the human experience. Poppy upbeat
songs about the broken underbelly of it all right into slow beautiful songs
about lost love. He could make straight edge kids want to drink whiskey with a
song. God I fucking loved this guy. His ‘Friends of Shane’ is the only fanclub I
ever joined, and in hindsight regret how many times I wrote in asking if Shane
had been to a dentist recently.

I was introduced to The Pogues with “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” and
it shattered my entire idea of what punk rock was and could be, and set me off
on a journey that would lead to from Gainesville Florida to decrepit pubs in the
back alleys of Cork, and basement record stores in Dublin. It’s possible that I
may have taken some of the same roads that I did if I’d never heard of Shane but
I think it would have been far less likely. I have all of his records, I hunted
them down long ago and have listened to and sung them all a million times. I
know all the lyrics by heart. And this has lead to wonderful moments like
hearing “Sunnyside of the Street” in a random car commercial, delicately edited
to make people think buying a car will make them happy, but knowing that the
song is actually so much darker.

“Seen the carnival at Rome. Had the women and I had the booze. All that I can
remember now is little kids without no shoes. So I saw that train and I got on
it, with a heart full of hate and a lust for vomit.
Now I’m walking on, the sunnyside of the street”

I was going to embed the perfectly recorded album version of the song, but
decided this 1990 live version, at the height of his wreckage was more fitting.
If you think punk rock is leather and spikes and mohawks you haven’t seen
anything. There’s a tin flute in this motherfucker:



I could spend all day talking about his different albums and the songs and the
impact each one had on me at different points, like the best writers he touched
me with his words and imagination and helped me understand and see things in
ways I never would have. This is what poetry should be. This is what punk rock
should be. But I think some of that is meaningful only to me, and should stay
that way. I will just take this moment to say say Goodbye Shane, and thank you
for all the beauty and chaos you brought into this world. Your legacy will live
forever.

Long live Shane MacGowan.

“Cram as much pleasure as you can into life, and rail against the pain that you
have to suffer as a result.”

 * Tagged: shane macgowan

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HI, I'M SEAN BONNER

Washington DC. Bradenton. Chicago. Los Angeles. Vienna. Paris. Tokyo. Vancouver.
I've lived all over the place, mostly I'm from the internet.

I've built hackerspaces and blog networks, run an art gallery, a design firm, a
record label, an environmental non-profit. I've been a Associate Professor and a
Researcher. I write, take photos, make noise, and spend a lot of time thinking
about art and communities and the web.

---> Read more about me here.

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