Present Joys Featured Guest: Joseph Thomas

Joseph Thomas is an eastside-based software engineer who’s stewarded teams and projects for startups, artists, and cultural institutions. We appreciate his calm, curious nature and openness to new experiences. Read on to discover what’s been bringing Joseph joy!

Late last year, I dug up my old film cameras: a Canon F1 and a Mamiya RB67. It has been a nice way to get back in touch with my neglected creative side. Shooting with film makes you slow down and take in what you see in a way that is different from everyday looking. It’s meditative, and, for me, best when I stop intellectualizing and listen to what catches my eye.

Film photography is, to me, like alchemy - through the use of simple materials like glass, plastic, and silver, we are able to capture a moment in time. This is commonplace, and digital photography is certainly a more complex technical achievement - yet film still feels more magical to me.

I’m the TA for my friend Tonia’s Pico-8 class at Gray Area. Pico-8 is a low-res game builder with a fun built-in editor UI. Games are written in Lua and you work with primitives like sprites and update/draw loops. It’s a minimal yet un-opinionated platform and it feels good to get back to the basics.

I’m building a game where you play as Muenster, my nearly-blind, wobbly, sneezy old little dog. It’s in the early stages, but it has been the first time I have worked in code on a project that was purely for fun, and it feels good. Tonia is a great teacher and I’m enjoying being a part of the class and helping others

There are a number of photography books I have been enjoying, but for this list I’ve picked Ancient Light by David Malin. (Runners-up are Forever by Saul Leiter and Kodachrome by Luigi Ghirri)
These photographs were captured on large-format film plates within observatories.

This book is remarkable for a number of reasons: listed here in increasing order of how much each inspires me:

1. The images are stunning. There is something about them being in black and white which draws me in more than hi-res digital astrophotography.

2. Astrophotography is notoriously difficult - especially for film. Exposures can be very long, and you need a tracker (or a telescope, in Malin’s case) to adjust as the earth rotates. Thinking about this process leaves me impressed, curious, and humbled.

3. Malin’s negatives captured light emitted from stars that are light-years away. Of all the photons radiating away from that star, a few of them (relatively speaking) travelled all the way to earth to land on and transform little bits of silver on a piece of glass. Thinking of this vastness and infinitude is something that will never stop bringing me to awe. Space is big. We are little. This perspective is helpful.

I just turned 40, and bought myself a new (old) bike frame (a 1991 Miyata 910 SE for the gearheads in the room). My studio stays cool during the summer and, when I have the energy to spare, I’ve enjoyed assembling the parts, making my wheels true, and tinkering. What I didn’t realize when I bought myself this gift is that the gift is not just the thing itself, the gift is also giving myself a project that makes me happy and the time to work on it.

Frank & Muenster, mes deux petits clowns. I learn so much from these two, and aspire to be more like them ~ like Frank: always up for play, and like Muenster: obstinate, nonplussed, and easy good company.

I listened to Frank Ocean’s Blonde last night. I can’t believe it has been a decade since its release. Thank you, Frank, for making music that invariably brings me back to my heart.

Topanga Living Cafe We just went here for breakfast with our friend and client and I enjoyed it so much! Would have loved to have more time to explore Topanga. Next time!

Starting Ballet I went to my first ballet class this past weekend. I enjoyed learning the basic foot and arm positions and was inspired by the room full of students ready to discover their inner ballerina. In just one class, I have a whole new appreciation for ballet.

Dinner with Our Neighbors We have the sweetest neighbors across the way. They invited us over for sushi this week and made the table so festive and plentiful, it felt like an experience rather than a simple take in. It reminded me that one can make the simple things feel special by just adding a little bit of creative effort.

ilovemahj.com American Mahjong seems to be all the rage these days. I’ve been enjoying playing online with my sister whenever we can find an hour in our days.

Simplicity Van, Bruce, and I have been subletting a spot in Brooklyn and have been inspired by the simplicity necessitated by a short term-stay. A pared down pantry, an edited wardrobe, intentionally used objects–there’s something romantic about living this simply.

Play We visited some family in Philly and it was so cute to see my cousin Suhyun with her two kids, Theo and Leo. She’s so inherently playful and creative, made evident in the endless giggles bursting out of the boys all day.

Rennes While in Philly, we visited Rennes. Independent multi-brand brick & mortar shops feel all the more special these days so it was an unexpected treat to be able to visit one I’d been eyeing from afar for so long.

Floating After reading a passage in Polly Barton’s Fifty Sounds in which she details the impossibility of fully assimilating to Japan as a non-native resident, I went for a run at Prospect Park. It became instantly clear to me, as a native Angeleno running clockwise around the park, that the favored direction for Brooklynites is indeed counter-clockwise. I chuckled and thought of Barton’s quote:

It appears to me that predominantly, there are two schools: those who notice that they are ‘floating’ and decide to assimilate, all the while feeling that they haven’t assimilated enough; and those who notice neither that they are floating nor to what extent they have failed to assimilate. But if we’re being wholly accurate, maybe we should add a third: those who notice, and can’t bring themselves to assimilate, and choose rather to float away entirely.