Mr. Plethora
Where art thou Mr. Plethora?
There you are... doom scrolling. As usual. Looking for rib-sticking content that doesn't feel like a flash in the pan.
I doom scroll to sleep too, telling myself Instagram, Youtube and Newsletter consumption is research not vanity.
Back in the 19th century bored and curious doom-voyagers wandered sometimes on a whim here .👇🏿
P.T. Barnum's freak house where annoyingly weird and bearded people with large feet and felonies performed freakish performances for wandering imaginations.
In 2025 we have annoyingly weird influencers pretending their lives don't suck. Progress, I suppose.
Barnum built his uniquely faceted world brick and mortar by brick and mortar.
A strange house of lions, elephants and wowzers just for top hat, pocket watch wearing New Yorkers to ask…
“What cockamamie foolishness is P.T up to now?”
What a marvel!
What a grifter!!
What a charlatan who convinced common working stiffs that obvious lies were worth two small coins. Significant value, those days.
I respect his hustle.
Shapeshyfter will afford me the same except my foolishness is about becoming.
Here's the truth...
I'm 45. Midlife's latest slap across my brow taught me I've been cosplaying as a safe sucker for two long decades. Exhausting, really.
Time to spartan kick my boring past life into a deep, dark abyss.
So I'm doing what every middle-aged man does when he's ablaze in crisis. I'm starting a media empire. Like Monocle with far more chuckles, pity, lifestyle and TMI featured outbursts. A scrappy lifestyle journal (because life's scrappy) for the insatiably curious, man of plethora. Plethora of interests, facets, hyphens I'll have you know...
I imagine Barnum had one of those very small men who sings in Morse code? Maybe...
Let’s claw back further… 15th century.
Folks shorter than us, skinnier than us, dressed like renaissance era druids in linen and chenille —insatiably curious fans of fine art, formally known as Romans wandered like herded Swifties into Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Leonardo da Vinci painted dinner.
Yes—dinner. Leo painted The Last Supper veeerrry slowly. He had no other place to be apparently.
Church custodians making a whopping one brass coin an hour set up bleachers for Da Vinci’s underwear throwing fans to plop their barely-padded bums on.
He painted.
He rambled like a daytime talkshow host.
People watched him paint.
I wonder if he hummed Babyshark? Or chatted about church gossip and shadow theory and spicy ragu or whatever genius things geniuses mumble while covered in paint.
But alas... I'm no ring-master, or paint-master.
I’m ManyFace
I wander. I wonder. I make. I unmake. Participating in culture while making cool stuff is my thing... And, I’m making something grand. My own version of Europe’s great media empire. Monocle. I know… Lofty, Ambitious and Late. I’m 45 like I said.
Da Vinci and that nut job Barnum had their workplace. This is mine.
Welcome to Blaak Museum... A place of curation and where I build Shapeshyfter in detail, in public. Consider Blaak Museum the work side of Shapeshyfter.
Newsletters in this section are quasi-paid but I'm fair... Content is free up to the paywall. I try to keep most articles at minimum half free, sitting upon the shoulders of gnarlier paid bits.
So,
If I served you a Caligula-level feast made of three layers: Building a...
(Men’s lifestyle Publication)
(Creative Practice)
(Design Studio)
Everything built in real time starting day one… would that be worth ten bucks a month?
Would you tip your hat and step into the side my madhouse?
If yes—do your due diligence, click the wooing things, read the bits that wink back at you.
And if it feels right… I’ll see you behind the curtain.
Your Mad Hatter and fellow Man of Plethora
ManyFace