newsletter

Just A Peck 0055 // Playwriting, Ashland, OSF

7/26/26

The pre-show flag at OSF
Issue 55 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention playwriting, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Elizabethan Theater, Kate Hamill, August Wilson, Marilynne Robinson, braids, castles, birds, drawing countries, the etymology of "weird", science fiction, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0054 // Smoke, Celluloid, Shakespeare

7/19/26

Wildfire smoke over Duluth
Issue 54 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention wildfire smoke, 35mm, The Odyssey, Shakespeare, Amy Berryman, Grachtenpand, marine art, GM-full TTRPGs, Catcher in the Rye, short films, The Legend of Zelda, Jurassic Park, cyberpunk, aerial photographers, collages, natural history illustrations, Earth's deepest holes, digital clocks, The Blues Brothers, the Spiel des Jahres, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0053 // Welcome to Year Two!

7/12/26

One year of the Just A Peck newsletter
Issue 53 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention the anniversary of this newsletter, dancing, My Ántonia, pinball, Bertrand Russell, pirates, Soviet control rooms, Terminator 2, State Fair foods, theories of consciousness, LEGO, Sagrada Família, Umberto Eco's library, the Milky Way, Shakespeare, 35mm projection, architectural watercolors, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0052 // Recovery, Reading, Independence Day

7/5/26

Justin reading on the deck while recovering
Issue 52 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention comfy chairs, Sagrada Familia, foodtrucks, fireworks, pre-war Jimmy Stewart, Pawel Pawlikowski, fasco-corporatism, Phil Tippett, Hedda Gabler, cardboard labyrinths, cyberpunk, colonialism, allegorical hells, Northern Germany, light sculptures, neon-and-rust oil paintings, wind tunnels, scanned maps, obscure words, animal adjectives, Darwin's bookshelves, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0051 // Fatherhood, Surgery, Recovery

6/28/26

Justin recovering after surgery
Issue 51 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention Father's Day, crepes, kayaking, hernia repair surgery, Armenian avante garde film, Jacqueline Harpman, Han Kang, Susanna Clarke, Toni Morrison, Quisisana, Chrono CCG, Concerts on the Pier, the Complete Kubrick, Duluth's Fourth Fest, Starlog, penguin relationships, fictional videogame stills, sci-fi, San Diego, the origins of hacker culture, Chinese cigarettes, the Criterion Closet, fatherhood quotes, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0050 // D&D, Friends, Grandma's 50th

6/21/26

Cheering from the end of the driveway at the 50th Grandma's Marathon
Issue 50 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention A Little Night Music, D&D, baby limes, Park Point, melons, Ole & Lena, tater tot hotdish, Grandma's Marathon, sunsets, Michael Mann, Dyson spheres, Jenny Offill, the NorShor Theatre, Bach, Victorian slang, mechanical watches, flip phones, rejected emoji, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0049 // Tonys, Malts, Weddings

6/14/26

American Players Theatre's Tony Award acceptance
Issue 49 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention malts, burgers, glassworks, APT's Tony, intermittent fasting, weddings, window shades, new play festivals, jazz(ish) trios, book discussions, poker, Spielberg, Mumbai, herring, gravity, astronauts, Noah Webster's dislike of cats, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0048 // Grand Opening, Games, Guthrie

6/7/26

Spending time with the kids in the Twin Cities
Issue 48 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention the BigBadGameStore, home repair projects, The Comedy of Errors, Lauren Gunderson's Little Women, the Guthrie, Apollo 13, Alec Guinness, Dortmunder, Kate Beaton, writing, dance recitals, Kurosawa, Marjane Satrapi, bird names, book dedications, trumpets, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0047 // Friends, Flicks, Flats

5/31/26

Friends gathered on the lakeside deck
Issue 47 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention deck parties, hail, early-morning movies, temperature swings, lemonade stands, flat tires, backyard marmots, 4chan, maximalism, colonialism, corridors, Thornton Wilder, the Mariana Trench, Marcia Lucas, tiny witches, The Muppet Show, '60s counterculture art, medieval notebooks, BigBadGameStore, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0046 // Smelt, Stairs, Saws

5/24/26

The Smelt Parade
Issue 46 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention the Smelt Parade, rotten stairs, miter saws, Crocs, board games, production design, Take It With You, American Players Theatre, The Comedy of Errors, Ray Nayler, Captain Carrot, star charts, DOS games, Van Gogh, Ojibwe nouns, blackout poetry, fake courtesy, clichés, typesetting, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0045 // Trolls, Pickles, Fasts

5/17/26

Hiking the Knife River Folk Trail
Issue 45 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention window tint, trolls, intermittent fasting, Duluth temps, pickles, fire pokers, garage updates, Edward Tulane, the Hindenburg's smoking room, great novels, Windows XP, Kyle Orla, childlore, punch cards, Mothership, moody book recommendations, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0044 // Birds, Karpeles, Morpheus

5/10/26

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Issue 44 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention birds, the Karpeles Manuscript Museum, Morpheus, Natalie Portman, senior-year lasts, painted rocks, satellite typography, solar eclipses, optical illusions, woodblock prints, puffins, miniature books, Star Wars, J. Wellington Wimpy, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0043 // Homegrown, Spencer, GLAFA

5/3/26

The fam
Issue 43 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention the Homegrown Music Festival, theremins, Spencer's visit, kayaks, sidewalk art, GLAFA, Nausicaä, Ray Nayler, silhouettes, movie posters, the Chipmunks, Sharon McMahon, cool choreography, nature photography, flight tracking, music theory, children's books, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0042 // Corey, Statesmen, Bookstores

4/26/26

Corey on his birthday
Issue 42 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention Corey's birthday, Seussical, SpongeBob, the Singing Statesmen, indie bookstores, Zoo School, the NorShor Theatre, Homegrown, GLAFA, Cheese Maps, bodega cats, baby names, Intellivision, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0041 // Kaylee, Middlemarch, Theater

4/19/26

Kaylee as a baby

Issue 41 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention Kaylee's 25th birthday, Middlemarch, Duluth theater, Mrs. Orwell, anti-fascist political activists, American English dialects, Milwaukee bus tickets, Swedish linocut posters, 8-bit typography, Guernica, GPS, retro-futurism, bird data, Seussical, the Singing Statesmen, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0040 // Easter, Artemis, Raiders

4/12/26

Easter family group photo Issue 40 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention Easter, Birster, Moon Cake, Moon Joy, Artemis II, Singing with the Stars, ex-pats, Raiders, Spielberg, Kehlmann, lab notebooks, orbital mechanics, Miyazaki, typography, banner ads, The Odd Couple, Muppet colors, and lots of other things I’m excited about.

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Just A Peck 0039 // Artemis, NASA, Hope

4/5/26

Artemis launch Issue 39 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention the space program, my grandpa, anime, Aki Kaurismaki, music videos, remote islands, reading modes, tall buildings, and lots of other things I’m excited about.

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Just A Peck 0038 // Construction, Drama Club, No Kings

3/29/26

Drama Club Leaders
Issue 38 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention construction, munchkin mediation, fasting, No Kings rallies, board games, Walter Hill, Bi Gan, Willa Cather, Gödel, crayon portraits, magnified sand, the atomic space age, seafoam green control rooms, Monet’s teenage caricatures, sorting algorithms, Windows 3.1, astrophotography, and lots of other things I’m excited about.

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Just A Peck 0037 // Detling, Project Hail Mary, MST3K

3/22/26

Detling Crew
Issue 37 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention college friends, board games, Project Hail Mary, MST3K, insect wings, niche museums, quiet things, postcards, computer game packaging, VHS, Lauren Groff, garage punk, low-budget 90s indie film, petri dish art, volume control UI, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0036 // Blizzard, Pie Day, Little Shop

3/15/26

Sunrise
Issue 36 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention blizzards, Pie Day, Little Shop, Wrecktangle Pizza, Fame, Agnes Varda, color perception, medieval manuscripts, short stories, HyperCard, pancakes, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0035 // Penka, Pella, Powers

3/8/26

Toddler Spencer
Issue 35 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention Spencer's birthday, Sirat, windows, Hiyao Miyazaki, short films, Richard Powers, Helen DeWitt, mobile games, the Lumière brothers, the Duluth Union Depot, Harrison Ford, Minnesota celebrities, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0034 // Méliès, Slide Rules, Bald Eagles

3/1/26

Screenshot of Gugusse and the Automaton
Issue 34 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I talk about Méliès, Slide Rules, Bald Eagles, commercial buildings, Phantom Thread, Jarmusch, walkmen, projection mappings, marginalia, Japanese Death Poems, historic maps, dreaming big, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0033 // Board Games, Blizzards, Big Apple

2/22/26

Spencer, Justin, and Jody in mixed-reality glasses
Issue 33 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I talk about our trip to New York, and briefly mention board games, Back to the Future, Carnegie Hall, collective nouns, ramen, Winnie the Pooh, car trip raps, stacked ice, de-icing planes, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0032 // Surprise Party, Sickness, Soiree

2/15/26

Oura Ring Biometrics
Issue 32 (25) of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention suprise birthday parties, biometrics, disco parties, broke wave filmmaking, anti-memes, ice bikers, inappropriate valentines, drywall, bird data, The Empire Strikes Back, Jim Thompson, Commodore 64, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0031 // Deliverance, Dial M, Sanibel

2/8/26

Deliverance paperback
Issue 31 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention haircuts, Deliverance, Sanibel, the Nostromo, mass market paperbacks, day-for-night shots, knots, looms, underappreciated movies and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0030 // Ice stacking, Twin Cities, Catherine O'Hara

2/1/26

All of us but Kaylee at AMC
Issue 30 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I briefly mention ice stacking, Catherine O'Hara, the Challenger, the Japanese New Wave, Ferrymen, ASCII rendering, 3 Musketeers candy bars, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0029 // ICE, ice, and my favorite (non-2025) watches from 2025

1/25/26

Rebel Alliance Loon
Issue 29 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I share my favorite (non-2025) watches/rewatches from 2025, and briefly mention ICE, ice, sea smoke, Hamnet, Joachim Trier, isometric pixel maps of NYC, the Apollo moon landing, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0028 // 2025: Favorite Reads

1/18/26

The Mountain in the Sea
Issue 28 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I share my favorite reads from 2025, and briefly mention brunch, boxed escape rooms, winter hikes, Duran Duran, LitRPG, Muybridge, triptychs, Michelangelo, Miyazaki, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0027 // 2025: Favorite Theater Experiences

1/11/26

The 39 Steps
Issue 27 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I share my favorite theater experiences from 2025, and briefly mention poker, Italo Calvino, rhythmic gymnastics, MTV, banana hammocks, and lots of other things I'm excited about.

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Just A Peck 0026 // 2025 - Year in Review

1/4/26

Year in Review
Issue 26 of the Just A Peck Newsletter wherein I share some of my highlights from 2025.

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