DREAM BIG, FAIL HARD

pingmag.jp, the tokyo based magazine about "design and making things" (their quotation marks), was a regular read of mine until it went on indefinite hiatus at the end of 2008. it featured a rotating group of writers in tokyo who visited galleries, interviewed artists, played with gadgets at trade shows, etc. and then reported at the site. in other words, it was a magazine. they don't seem to have supported any ads, so operation of the magazine must have been independently maintained and uncompensated. the writing was often coarse, but the writers get more than commensurate credit for the site being bilingual. i would have loved to have been involved, but was on my own indefinite hiatus at the time, in my case from japan. it's a shame that pingmag stopped producing new content, but who could be surprised.

it was, however, surprising to visit pinmag for the first time in over a year and see recent comments in several languages wondering when we could expect the magazine to start posting again. the content was quality and consistent, and people loved it.

so, people, portland people especially, let's get to work. fun work, that's just us doing the cool, insightful, sweaty whatever it is that we're doing all the time and then writing 500 or 1000 words about it every week or two. 'looking good in pants' is still finding its voice -- and struggling not to become just another site about books. 'looking good in pants' needs to become just another site with variety. plus, the art director needs some help. he's still struggling with the basics of adobe fireworks. pingmag has me reinspired. this site has the potential to fail epically hard. (by that point, i hope that laura miller will have took me on to write reviews for salon.) here and now, especially in portland. thanks for coming to my party.