diff --git a/papers/SCORE.md b/papers/SCORE.md
index 4b0ed70de5..d65a0130d0 100644
--- a/papers/SCORE.md
+++ b/papers/SCORE.md
@@ -60,15 +60,25 @@ Every dossier also renders as a single-sheet **card** (`*-cards.tex` via [`cards
 
 Candidates queued in [`papers/hitlist.md`](hitlist.md).
 
-### 3. JOSS papers (`joss-*/`)
+### 3. Essays (`essay-*/`)
+
+The voice-first lane (added **2026-05-25**). Magazine-essay format in the tradition of *NYT Magazine*, *Harper's*, *New York Magazine*, and *Brooklyn Rail*: single-column layout with wide margins, refined serif body with extra leading, magazine title block (deck + display title + dek + byline), drop cap on the opening paragraph, ornamental section breaks (`§`), pull quotes, **discursive endnotes** instead of parenthetical citations, and a **Further Reading** coda instead of a bibliography. Style file: [`ac-paper-essay.sty`](ac-paper-essay.sty).
+
+The essay lane sits between the argumentative arXiv papers and the personal-voice posts that never get written down — for thinking out loud at length when the question is not yet sharp enough for a paper but is sharper than a tweet. References are named in prose. The apparatus moves to the back of the room. Current set:
+
+| Essay | Status |
+|---|---|
+| Aesthetic May '26 | first entry; companion mood-piece to `arxiv-futures` |
+
+### 4. JOSS papers (`joss-*/`)
 
 Condensed software papers for the [Journal of Open Source Software](https://joss.theoj.org/). Markdown with LaTeX includes. JOSS review process focuses on software quality, documentation, and community impact — distinct from academic-novelty review. Current: `joss-ac/`, `joss-kidlisp/`.
 
-### 4. Cards (`*-cards.tex`, generated)
+### 5. Cards (`*-cards.tex`, generated)
 
 Single-sheet index-card layout reformatted from arXiv source via [`cards-convert.mjs`](cards-convert.mjs). Designed for printing, passing hand-to-hand, pinning on walls. The same `.tex` source produces both the full arXiv PDF and the card.
 
-### 5. Conference-specific scaffolds (`<venue>-*/`)
+### 6. Conference-specific scaffolds (`<venue>-*/`)
 
 Venue-specific submissions that don't fit arXiv format:
 - `siggraph-asia-2026-tech/` — `acmtog` LaTeX class for SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers (double-blind)
@@ -76,11 +86,11 @@ Venue-specific submissions that don't fit arXiv format:
 - `iccc-kidlisp/`, `els-kidlisp/` — ICCC and ELS submission packages
 - `ars-electronica-2026/` — Prix Ars Electronica entry materials
 
-### 6. Lectures (`lectures/`)
+### 7. Lectures (`lectures/`)
 
 Lecture transcripts paired with commentary and references. Material that started as spoken-word and was captured for later citation.
 
-### 7. Platters (sub-platters)
+### 8. Platters (sub-platters)
 
 Smaller scoped collections. Each has its own `manifest.json` + `sync.mjs`:
 - [`jeffrey-platter/`](jeffrey-platter/) — biographical materials, image corpus, archival sources for Jeffrey-as-subject
@@ -88,7 +98,7 @@ Smaller scoped collections. Each has its own `manifest.json` + `sync.mjs`:
 - [`whistlegraph-platter/`](whistlegraph-platter/) — Whistlegraph-specific artifacts and references
 - [`people-platter/`](people-platter/) — TODO; will hold AC-adjacent people biographies
 
-### 8. CV (`cv/`)
+### 9. CV (`cv/`)
 
 Jeffrey's CV is built through the same pipeline (LaTeX → PDF → site deploy) and treated as a long-form paper for tooling purposes. Hidden from the public index.
 
@@ -122,6 +132,7 @@ The mill's code lives at the top of `papers/` and in [`bin/`](bin/). All scripts
 |---|---|
 | [`ac-paper-layout.sty`](ac-paper-layout.sty) | Shared visual identity for arxiv papers: AC color palette, font commands, draft watermark, pals logo watermark, section formatting, header/footer. |
 | [`ac-paper-cards.sty`](ac-paper-cards.sty) | Cards-format layout. |
+| [`ac-paper-essay.sty`](ac-paper-essay.sty) | Essay-format layout: single-column magazine essay style with title block macros (`\essaydeck`, `\essaytitle`, `\essaysubtitle`, `\essaybyline`), `\dropcap`, `\sectionbreak` (silcrow ornament), `\begin{pullquote}`, `\enote{}` for endnotes, and `\begin{further}` / `\reading{}` for the Further Reading coda. |
 
 ## Formats
 
@@ -161,6 +172,7 @@ Sorted by most recently edited/added.
 | The Potter and the Prompt | arXiv (LaTeX) | `arxiv-holden/holden.pdf` | `arxiv-holden/holden.tex` |
 | Two Departments, One Building | arXiv (LaTeX) | `arxiv-ucla-arts/ucla-arts.pdf` | `arxiv-ucla-arts/ucla-arts.tex` |
 | Handle Identity on the AT Protocol | arXiv (LaTeX) | `arxiv-identity/identity.pdf` | `arxiv-identity/identity.tex` |
+| Aesthetic May '26 | Essay (LaTeX, magazine-style, ~5pp first-pass) | `essay-may-26/may-26.pdf` | `essay-may-26/may-26.tex` |
 | Five Years from Now: What Aesthetic Computer Probably Becomes | arXiv (LaTeX) | `arxiv-futures/futures.pdf` | `arxiv-futures/futures.tex` |
 | Get Closed Source Out of Schools | arXiv (LaTeX) | `arxiv-open-schools/open-schools.pdf` | `arxiv-open-schools/open-schools.tex` |
 | CalArts, Callouts, and Papers | arXiv (LaTeX) | `arxiv-calarts/calarts.pdf` | `arxiv-calarts/calarts.tex` |
diff --git a/papers/ac-paper-essay.sty b/papers/ac-paper-essay.sty
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f5676de7c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/papers/ac-paper-essay.sty
@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+% ac-paper-essay.sty — Aesthetic Computer essay layout
+% Usage: \usepackage{ac-paper-essay} in each essay-* paper
+%
+% Paul Graham-influenced essay format. Minimal chrome. The essay is the
+% argument; the design exists only to let the argument breathe.
+%
+% Design grammar:
+%   - Single column, narrow measure (~5.0in body width)
+%   - Serif body with extra leading
+%   - Title at top (plain, large, dark), date below, no kicker/deck/byline
+%   - Section breaks: a centered hairline rule of underscores
+%   - Optional Title Case subheads in bold acdark
+%   - Discursive bottom-of-page footnotes for source attribution and asides
+%   - Author colophon at the end ("Thanks to X for reading drafts")
+%
+% Tradition: Paul Graham's paulgraham.com essay form. Tight, argumentative,
+% observational; thesis-driven; no academic apparatus visible in the body.
+
+\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
+\ProvidesPackage{ac-paper-essay}[2026/05/25 Aesthetic Computer essay layout]
+
+\RequirePackage{tikz}
+\usetikzlibrary{shadows}
+
+% === FONTS ===
+\newfontfamily\acbold{ywft-processing-bold}[
+  Path=../../system/public/type/webfonts/,
+  Extension=.ttf
+]
+\newfontfamily\aclight{ywft-processing-light}[
+  Path=../../system/public/type/webfonts/,
+  Extension=.ttf
+]
+
+% === COLORS ===
+\definecolor{acpink}{RGB}{180,72,135}
+\definecolor{acpurple}{RGB}{120,80,180}
+\definecolor{acdark}{RGB}{40,36,48}
+\definecolor{acgray}{RGB}{119,119,119}
+
+% === DISCURSIVE NOTES (bottom-of-page footnotes) ===
+\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\arabic{footnote}}
+\renewcommand{\@makefnmark}{\textsuperscript{\color{acpink}\bfseries\@thefnmark}}
+\renewcommand{\footnoterule}{%
+  \kern-3pt
+  {\color{acgray}\hrule width 0.30\columnwidth height 0.4pt}
+  \kern 2pt
+}
+\renewcommand{\@makefntext}[1]{%
+  \parindent 1em\noindent
+  \hb@xt@1.4em{\hss\textsuperscript{\color{acpink}\bfseries\@thefnmark}}#1%
+}
+\newcommand{\enote}[1]{\footnote{#1}}
+\newcommand{\printendnotes}{}
+
+% === SECTION FORMATTING (Title Case subheads, sparing use) ===
+% Sections in plain bold serif, dark, no numbers. Sized to feel like a
+% pulled-up subhead, not an academic chapter mark.
+\titleformat{\section}[block]
+  {\normalfont\bfseries\fontsize{13pt}{16pt}\selectfont\color{acdark}\raggedright}
+  {}{0pt}{}
+\titlespacing{\section}{0pt}{1.8em}{0.5em}
+
+\titleformat{\subsection}[block]
+  {\normalfont\itshape\bfseries\normalsize\color{acdark}\raggedright}
+  {}{0pt}{}
+\titlespacing{\subsection}{0pt}{1em}{0.2em}
+
+\setcounter{secnumdepth}{-1}
+
+% === SECTION BREAK ===
+% A centered hairline of em-dashes, in Paul Graham's tradition (his are
+% underscores; ours are em-dashes in acgray). Wholly visual; no TikZ.
+\newcommand{\acbreak}{%
+  \par\vspace{1.4em}%
+  \begin{center}%
+    {\color{acgray}\rule{2.5em}{0.4pt}}%
+  \end{center}%
+  \vspace{1em}\par\noindent\ignorespaces%
+}
+
+% === TITLE BLOCK (plain, PG-style) ===
+% \essaytitle{}  Large dark title, top-anchored
+% \essaydate{}   Small italic date below
+\newcommand{\essaytitle}[1]{%
+  \begin{center}%
+    \begin{tikzpicture}
+      % Drop shadow: dim acdark copy, offset down-right
+      \node[acdark, opacity=0.25,
+            font=\aclight\fontsize{42pt}{46pt}\selectfont,
+            inner sep=0pt] at (2.5pt, -2.5pt) {#1};
+      % Main: pink text at origin (drawn on top)
+      \node[acpink,
+            font=\aclight\fontsize{42pt}{46pt}\selectfont,
+            inner sep=0pt] at (0, 0) {#1};
+    \end{tikzpicture}%
+  \end{center}%
+  \vspace{0.6em}%
+}
+\newcommand{\essaydate}[1]{%
+  \begin{center}%
+    {\fontsize{14pt}{16pt}\selectfont\itshape\color{acgray}#1}%
+  \end{center}%
+  \vspace{2em}%
+}
+
+% === COLOPHON (thanks-for-reading, PG-style) ===
+% Left-aligned, like Paul Graham's "Thanks to X, Y, Z for reading drafts of this."
+\newcommand{\colophon}[1]{%
+  \par\vspace{2em}%
+  \noindent{\color{acgray}\rule{3em}{0.4pt}}\par
+  \vspace{0.6em}%
+  \noindent{\small\itshape\color{acgray}#1}\par
+}
+
+% === LIST SETTINGS (essays rarely use lists; default to tight) ===
+\setlist[itemize]{leftmargin=1.4em, itemsep=0.2em, topsep=0.3em, parsep=0pt}
+\setlist[enumerate]{leftmargin=1.4em, itemsep=0.2em, topsep=0.3em, parsep=0pt}
+
+% === PARAGRAPH SETTINGS ===
+\setlength{\parindent}{1.2em}
+\setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
+\linespread{1.18}
+
+\tolerance=400
+\emergencystretch=2em
+\hyphenpenalty=200
+
+\endinput
diff --git a/papers/cli.mjs b/papers/cli.mjs
index 8a81e7f627..0b483a0abe 100755
--- a/papers/cli.mjs
+++ b/papers/cli.mjs
@@ -176,6 +176,12 @@ const PAPER_MAP = {
     siteName: "five-years-from-now-26-arxiv",
     title: "Five Years from Now",
   },
+  "essay-may-26": {
+    base: "may-26",
+    siteName: "aesthetic-may-26-essay",
+    title: "Aesthetic May '26",
+    format: "essay",
+  },
   "arxiv-identity": {
     base: "identity",
     siteName: "handle-identity-atproto-26-arxiv",
@@ -643,6 +649,7 @@ function updateIndex(entries) {
     "citation-diversity-audit-26": 17,
     "open-schools-26-arxiv": 18,
     "five-years-from-now-26-arxiv": 19,
+    "aesthetic-may-26-essay": 19.5,
     "calarts-callouts-papers-26-arxiv": 20,
     "handle-identity-atproto-26-arxiv": 21,
     "ucla-arts-funding-26-arxiv": 22,
@@ -801,6 +808,11 @@ function updateIndex(entries) {
       abstract:
         "Five Years from Now is a projection paper about where the project could go if current habits continue. It uses the near future to test the consequences of today's decisions.",
     },
+    "aesthetic-may-26-essay": {
+      detail: "Essay &middot; ~5pp",
+      abstract:
+        "Aesthetic May '26 is a magazine-style essay companion to Five Years from Now. May is both the month and the modal verb of possibility; the essay reads the present as a field of branching maybes rather than a line of probabilities --- where the music lane may go, what jeffrey may do, what may not happen this year, and the weather acting on all of it. First entry in the essay-* lane.",
+    },
     "calarts-callouts-papers-26-arxiv": {
       detail: "",
       abstract:
diff --git a/papers/essay-may-26/ac-paper-essay.sty b/papers/essay-may-26/ac-paper-essay.sty
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f5676de7c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/papers/essay-may-26/ac-paper-essay.sty
@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+% ac-paper-essay.sty — Aesthetic Computer essay layout
+% Usage: \usepackage{ac-paper-essay} in each essay-* paper
+%
+% Paul Graham-influenced essay format. Minimal chrome. The essay is the
+% argument; the design exists only to let the argument breathe.
+%
+% Design grammar:
+%   - Single column, narrow measure (~5.0in body width)
+%   - Serif body with extra leading
+%   - Title at top (plain, large, dark), date below, no kicker/deck/byline
+%   - Section breaks: a centered hairline rule of underscores
+%   - Optional Title Case subheads in bold acdark
+%   - Discursive bottom-of-page footnotes for source attribution and asides
+%   - Author colophon at the end ("Thanks to X for reading drafts")
+%
+% Tradition: Paul Graham's paulgraham.com essay form. Tight, argumentative,
+% observational; thesis-driven; no academic apparatus visible in the body.
+
+\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
+\ProvidesPackage{ac-paper-essay}[2026/05/25 Aesthetic Computer essay layout]
+
+\RequirePackage{tikz}
+\usetikzlibrary{shadows}
+
+% === FONTS ===
+\newfontfamily\acbold{ywft-processing-bold}[
+  Path=../../system/public/type/webfonts/,
+  Extension=.ttf
+]
+\newfontfamily\aclight{ywft-processing-light}[
+  Path=../../system/public/type/webfonts/,
+  Extension=.ttf
+]
+
+% === COLORS ===
+\definecolor{acpink}{RGB}{180,72,135}
+\definecolor{acpurple}{RGB}{120,80,180}
+\definecolor{acdark}{RGB}{40,36,48}
+\definecolor{acgray}{RGB}{119,119,119}
+
+% === DISCURSIVE NOTES (bottom-of-page footnotes) ===
+\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\arabic{footnote}}
+\renewcommand{\@makefnmark}{\textsuperscript{\color{acpink}\bfseries\@thefnmark}}
+\renewcommand{\footnoterule}{%
+  \kern-3pt
+  {\color{acgray}\hrule width 0.30\columnwidth height 0.4pt}
+  \kern 2pt
+}
+\renewcommand{\@makefntext}[1]{%
+  \parindent 1em\noindent
+  \hb@xt@1.4em{\hss\textsuperscript{\color{acpink}\bfseries\@thefnmark}}#1%
+}
+\newcommand{\enote}[1]{\footnote{#1}}
+\newcommand{\printendnotes}{}
+
+% === SECTION FORMATTING (Title Case subheads, sparing use) ===
+% Sections in plain bold serif, dark, no numbers. Sized to feel like a
+% pulled-up subhead, not an academic chapter mark.
+\titleformat{\section}[block]
+  {\normalfont\bfseries\fontsize{13pt}{16pt}\selectfont\color{acdark}\raggedright}
+  {}{0pt}{}
+\titlespacing{\section}{0pt}{1.8em}{0.5em}
+
+\titleformat{\subsection}[block]
+  {\normalfont\itshape\bfseries\normalsize\color{acdark}\raggedright}
+  {}{0pt}{}
+\titlespacing{\subsection}{0pt}{1em}{0.2em}
+
+\setcounter{secnumdepth}{-1}
+
+% === SECTION BREAK ===
+% A centered hairline of em-dashes, in Paul Graham's tradition (his are
+% underscores; ours are em-dashes in acgray). Wholly visual; no TikZ.
+\newcommand{\acbreak}{%
+  \par\vspace{1.4em}%
+  \begin{center}%
+    {\color{acgray}\rule{2.5em}{0.4pt}}%
+  \end{center}%
+  \vspace{1em}\par\noindent\ignorespaces%
+}
+
+% === TITLE BLOCK (plain, PG-style) ===
+% \essaytitle{}  Large dark title, top-anchored
+% \essaydate{}   Small italic date below
+\newcommand{\essaytitle}[1]{%
+  \begin{center}%
+    \begin{tikzpicture}
+      % Drop shadow: dim acdark copy, offset down-right
+      \node[acdark, opacity=0.25,
+            font=\aclight\fontsize{42pt}{46pt}\selectfont,
+            inner sep=0pt] at (2.5pt, -2.5pt) {#1};
+      % Main: pink text at origin (drawn on top)
+      \node[acpink,
+            font=\aclight\fontsize{42pt}{46pt}\selectfont,
+            inner sep=0pt] at (0, 0) {#1};
+    \end{tikzpicture}%
+  \end{center}%
+  \vspace{0.6em}%
+}
+\newcommand{\essaydate}[1]{%
+  \begin{center}%
+    {\fontsize{14pt}{16pt}\selectfont\itshape\color{acgray}#1}%
+  \end{center}%
+  \vspace{2em}%
+}
+
+% === COLOPHON (thanks-for-reading, PG-style) ===
+% Left-aligned, like Paul Graham's "Thanks to X, Y, Z for reading drafts of this."
+\newcommand{\colophon}[1]{%
+  \par\vspace{2em}%
+  \noindent{\color{acgray}\rule{3em}{0.4pt}}\par
+  \vspace{0.6em}%
+  \noindent{\small\itshape\color{acgray}#1}\par
+}
+
+% === LIST SETTINGS (essays rarely use lists; default to tight) ===
+\setlist[itemize]{leftmargin=1.4em, itemsep=0.2em, topsep=0.3em, parsep=0pt}
+\setlist[enumerate]{leftmargin=1.4em, itemsep=0.2em, topsep=0.3em, parsep=0pt}
+
+% === PARAGRAPH SETTINGS ===
+\setlength{\parindent}{1.2em}
+\setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
+\linespread{1.18}
+
+\tolerance=400
+\emergencystretch=2em
+\hyphenpenalty=200
+
+\endinput
diff --git a/papers/essay-may-26/may-26.tex b/papers/essay-may-26/may-26.tex
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..bc0135ac4b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/papers/essay-may-26/may-26.tex
@@ -0,0 +1,161 @@
+% !TEX program = xelatex
+\documentclass[11pt,letterpaper]{article}
+
+% === GEOMETRY === (narrow measure, PG-style)
+\usepackage[top=1in, bottom=1in, left=1.15in, right=1.15in]{geometry}
+
+% === FONTS ===
+\usepackage{fontspec}
+\usepackage{unicode-math}
+
+\setmainfont{Latin Modern Roman}[
+  Extension=.otf,
+  UprightFont=lmroman10-regular,
+  BoldFont=lmroman10-bold,
+  ItalicFont=lmroman10-italic,
+  BoldItalicFont=lmroman10-bolditalic,
+]
+\setsansfont{Latin Modern Sans}[
+  Extension=.otf,
+  UprightFont=lmsans10-regular,
+  BoldFont=lmsans10-bold,
+  ItalicFont=lmsans10-oblique,
+  BoldItalicFont=lmsans10-boldoblique,
+]
+\setmonofont{Latin Modern Mono}[
+  Extension=.otf,
+  UprightFont=lmmono10-regular,
+  ItalicFont=lmmono10-italic,
+  Scale=0.85,
+]
+
+% === PACKAGES ===
+\usepackage{xcolor}
+\usepackage{titlesec}
+\usepackage{enumitem}
+\usepackage{fancyhdr}
+\usepackage{hyperref}
+\usepackage{xurl}
+\usepackage{ragged2e}
+\usepackage{microtype}
+
+\usepackage{ac-paper-essay}
+
+\hypersetup{
+  colorlinks=true,
+  linkcolor=acpurple,
+  urlcolor=acpurple,
+  pdfauthor={@jeffrey},
+  pdftitle={Aesthetic May '26},
+}
+
+\pagestyle{fancy}
+\fancyhf{}
+\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
+\fancyhead[C]{\footnotesize\color{acgray}\thepage}
+
+\newcommand{\ac}{Aesthetic\textcolor{acpink}{.}Computer}
+\newcommand{\acos}{AC Native OS}
+\newcommand{\np}{notepat}
+
+\begin{document}
+
+\thispagestyle{empty}
+\vspace*{0.6in}
+
+\essaytitle{Aesthetic May '26}
+\essaydate{May 2026}
+
+May is two words sharing a spelling. One is a month. The other is a modal verb, the softest one in English: not \textit{will}, not \textit{should}, just \textit{may}. The month is named for Maia, the Roman goddess of growth. The verb is what we use when we are being honest about not knowing.
+
+I am writing this in May 2026, looking at \ac{} the way one looks at a project that has reached a strange phase --- enough infrastructure exists that almost anything is shippable, and not enough is committed that the shape is locked. The companion essay to this one\footnote{\textit{Five Years from Now: What \ac{} Probably Becomes.} The five-year projection, in arxiv format. That essay reads momentum as a line out to 2031. This one reads the present as a cloud.} draws a line from here to 2031, an exercise in projecting momentum. The line is useful. But projections are most useful when one also names what they had to leave out, which is everything that is genuinely undecided. So: a cloud, in modal voice.
+
+What follows is a list of things the project may do, paired with the things it may not. Each is a real branch point, observed in the wild --- in commits, in the schedule, in the working tree, in what is being said aloud and what is being quietly sketched.
+
+\section{What the Music May Do}
+
+The \texttt{pop/} lane shipped its first single in May. The track is called \textit{trancenwaltz}; the release date was the seventeenth; the distributor is DistroKid. A second single is queued, this one with a fifty-fifty collaborator. A third is on the branch I am writing from. A fourth lane opened last week. Each lane has its own synth language, its own vocal pipeline, its own visualizer. The infrastructure is being built faster than the songs.
+
+The simple read is that \ac{} may become a music label first and a creative-computing platform second. Not because anyone planned it that way, but because the songs travel. Papers do not stream. An operating system does not chart. A song does both.
+
+The harder read is that the music is the warm-up. The lane infrastructure --- heartbeat JSON, render-progress files, BGRA visualizer pipelines, per-track post-production recipes --- generalizes far beyond music. The same scaffolding that turns a chord progression into a YouTube upload will eventually turn any piece in the system into a release artifact. \textit{Release} as a verb the platform owns, not as something users do on third-party clouds.
+
+Both reads can be true at once.
+
+\section{What notepat May Do}
+
+\np{} is the system's front door. It is also, by line count, the largest single piece in the codebase. It has polyphony, room reverb, octave shift, drum routing, a menubar visualization. The next moves are tractable: ensemble synchronization, a conductor piece, spatialization across networked laptops.
+
+The interesting question is not what \np{} is, but what \np{} becomes. A laptop-orchestra instrument is one answer.\footnote{The PLOrk paper makes an argument that the existing codebase already supports: laptop orchestras have been musically legitimate since Princeton's PLOrk proved the concept in 2006, but the model has been trapped in universities at \$1,500-plus per seat. \acos{} on surplus hardware reduces the cost to roughly \$50 per seat. The question is whether anyone will play.} A piece that escapes ``piece'' status and becomes a brand is another. A demonstration that books the maker into rooms he could not otherwise enter is a third. They are not mutually exclusive. The most honest projection is that \np{} becomes the project's first true instrument-as-business-card.
+
+\section{What the Operating System May Do}
+
+\acos{} boots on surplus ThinkPads in 7.3 seconds. The gap between two ThinkPads in an apartment and thirty ThinkPads in a room is operational, not technical. The hardware exists; the surplus wave that followed the Windows 10 end-of-life is real and ongoing.\footnote{The Global E-Waste Monitor placed roughly 240 million PCs into the institutional-surplus market in October 2025: ThinkPads, EliteBooks, Latitudes, with 8--16 GB of RAM, 1080p screens, six-to-ten-hour batteries, at \$30--80 per machine. They are the raw material for every claim in this section.} The flashing pipeline exists. What does not yet exist is the room.
+
+The room arrives, or it does not, through one of four channels. It may arrive as an art-school residency: the conversation with Reas at UCLA is active, the dossier reconnaissance is mostly done. It may arrive as a community space: a teaching gallery, a hacker library, the legacy of Machine Project. It may arrive as a grant that funds a pilot deployment. It may arrive as a friend with thirty laptops and a question.
+
+The pattern across all four channels is that the operating system is downstream of an invitation. It cannot bootstrap a classroom; it can only be ready when one shows up. May 2026 is the month the codebase crossed the threshold of being ready. The room is the variable.
+
+\section{What the Papers May Do}
+
+The paper count crossed forty-five in May. Most of the new entries are dossiers: reconnaissance writeups of the institutions adjacent to the project's funding and residency landscape. Rhizome, the School for Poetic Computation, Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, Creative Capital, MicroVision.
+
+The papers may become a citation network internal to the project, where every paper points to other papers and the whole forms a single argument. They may become a teaching corpus, a syllabus that exists as a stack of single-sheet cards. They may become a research moat that supports a single grant or affiliation. They may become the thing that lasts when everything else stops, because papers, unlike servers, do not require electricity to keep existing.
+
+The most surprising property of the paper lane is that the dossiers are the first thing the project has produced that is useful to people outside the project. The Rhizome dossier is readable by someone who has never opened \ac{}. The MicroVision dossier is readable by someone who has never made art. This was not the goal. It is, increasingly, the result.
+
+\section{What KidLisp May Do}
+
+KidLisp has 16,779 stored programs and a Tezos minting integration. It is sandboxed. It is small. It fits on a card. It is the part of the system easiest to teach, easiest to demonstrate, easiest to point a stranger at.
+
+The wedge has two faces. There is the educational wedge: a language that goes into a classroom first because nothing has to be installed and nothing can break the host system. And there is the cultural wedge: a printed card with a line of code that paints itself, which is a more legible object in a gallery than a URL.
+
+Both wedges presuppose someone bringing KidLisp into the room. The room, again, is the variable.
+
+\section{What the Maker May Do}
+
+Every projection of this project is really a projection of one person. The companion essay acknowledges this. The acknowledgment is worth making plainly.
+
+He may take a residency. He may ship an album: it is called \textit{Pixsies}, and the first track is already public. He may walk out of the music lane, because that would be in character --- the 94-project history that precedes \ac{} is a history of someone leaving things at the moment they begin to work. He may stay, which is the most likely outcome in plain English, because the project has too much escape velocity to be cleanly restarted and the maker has too much affection for what is in front of him to walk away in any dramatic sense.
+
+He may paint on canvas. The Venice Family Clinic exhibition is a fact, the paintings exist, the thread to the gallery world is open. He may teach: not necessarily at an institution, but in some shape --- a workshop, a reading group, a KidLisp cohort.
+
+Any one of these may happen. Most may happen, in some quiet way. None precludes the others. The maker is not standing at a fork. He is standing at a fan-out.
+
+\section{What the Project May Not Do}
+
+The cloud has edges, and naming them sharpens everything else.
+
+The operating system may not acquire a GPU path in 2026. The bare-metal philosophy --- know every instruction between power-on and pixel --- is allergic to driver opacity. The software rasterizer is fast enough for the pieces that exist. Until a piece arrives that the rasterizer cannot serve, the GPU stays idle, and the maker's design instinct keeps it that way.
+
+The user count may not move much. There are 2,812 registered users in May. There may be 3,500 by December. There will not be 30,000. The project has not made the choices --- analytics-driven onboarding, growth loops, paid acquisition --- that produce growth at the scale newer creative-coding platforms see. This is not a failure. It is also possibly the wrong metric. The right metric is probably depth-of-use per active user, which the project has never bothered to name in public.
+
+The institutional moat may not close in 2026. The paper mill is fast; academic publishing is slow. Some submissions will land at minor venues. The mainstream conferences in human-computer interaction and programming languages will not bite, because they expect collaborators and user studies the project has not produced.
+
+The recorded music may not be the music people remember. The pieces from \ac{} that travel may instead be the live, instrument-based moments --- a \np{} performance, a KidLisp set, a fleet of surplus laptops playing a coordinated tune in a room with thirty people. The recorded catalog may turn out to be the warm-up, not the main act.
+
+\section{The Weather}
+
+External forces are part of the cloud. They are not predictable; they can be read.
+
+The surplus hardware wave is real and arriving. The market is healthy. The boot path works on the right machines. The hardware story is the part of the May 2026 forecast that requires the least hedging.
+
+The AI tooling is moving under the project's feet. The maintenance system, the agent memory pipeline, the model layer beneath the prompt --- all of these will look different a year from now, and mostly that is good. Maintenance burden drops. Drafts come faster. Pieces benefit from a co-author who understands the project's history. The risk is the inverse: the model absorbs work that should have stayed human, and the voice flattens. The mitigation is editorial. The maker reads everything before it ships.
+
+The art-world weather is bad. Funding for creative-computing tools is harder than it has been in a decade. The dossier work is partly the project's attempt to read this weather rigorously. Grant-funded sustainability for a solo project like this is plausible but not assured. The fallback is the music, the prints, the keeps, the workshops --- small revenue streams that compound only if many of them survive.
+
+\section{A Modal Forecast}
+
+The companion essay said \textit{will probably}. This essay says \textit{may}. Both are honest. The difference is what they admit about the present.
+
+\textit{Will probably} reads momentum. \textit{May} reads the gap between momentum and the maker's freedom to subvert it. A project that has reached escape velocity but is still being authored by one person is structurally both predictable and unpredictable: predictable because nobody else will suddenly redirect the codebase, unpredictable because the one person has a documented pattern of doing exactly that.
+
+The forecast is this. The music may ship an album and swallow more of the year than anyone expected. The operating system may meet a classroom, and may not. The papers may land at a venue, and may pay back the time spent in citations rather than acceptances. KidLisp may become the wedge that brings the system into a teaching context. The maker may take a residency, may ship the album, may paint, may stay --- all of these, in some proportion. The project may thicken in the lanes it is already in. The project may not change shape this year.
+
+None of these is a prediction. All of them are pressures already acting. The point of naming them in May is so that the version of the project that exists in November or February can read this and know what it chose, and what it let go.
+
+\textit{May} is a month, and a verb, and --- this month --- a method.
+
+\colophon{ORCID: \href{https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4460-4913}{0009-0007-4460-4913} \enspace$\cdot$\enspace aesthetic.computer \enspace$\cdot$\enspace Companion to \textit{Five Years from Now}.}
+
+\end{document}
diff --git a/papers/essay-may-26/references.bib b/papers/essay-may-26/references.bib
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..881710efb3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/papers/essay-may-26/references.bib
@@ -0,0 +1,132 @@
+@misc{scudder2026futures,
+  title={Five Years from Now: What Aesthetic Computer Probably Becomes},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper on the projected 2026--2031 trajectory of \ac{}}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026os,
+  title={AC Native OS '26: A Bare-Metal Creative Computing Operating System},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper describing the bare-metal OS}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026kidlisp,
+  title={KidLisp '26: A Minimal Lisp for Generative Art},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper on the KidLisp language}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026plork,
+  title={PLORKing the Planet: From Laptop Orchestra to Planetary Organ},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper on laptop orchestras at planetary scale}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026notepat,
+  title={notepat.com: From Keyboard Toy to System Front Door},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper on the notepat instrument}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026pieces,
+  title={Pieces Not Programs: The Piece as a Unit of Creative Cognition},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper on the piece model}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026archaeology,
+  title={Repository Archaeology: Tracing AC Through Its Git History},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper on the 94-project predecessor lineage}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026networkaudit,
+  title={Network Audit: Who Uses Aesthetic Computer and What Do They Make?},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper on the user base and piece corpus}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026score,
+  title={Reading the Score: A Critical Analysis of SCORE.md},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Companion paper on the AC mill and score}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026rhizome,
+  title={Rhizome.org: A Dossier},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Dossier on Rhizome (genealogy, programs, money, 1996--2026)}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026sfpc,
+  title={School for Poetic Computation: A Dossier},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Dossier on SFPC (structure, programs, money, 2013--2026)}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026eyebeam,
+  title={Eyebeam: A Dossier},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Dossier on Eyebeam (genealogy, programs, money, 1996--2026)}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026pioneerworks,
+  title={Pioneer Works: A Dossier},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Dossier on Pioneer Works (genealogy, programs, money, 2012--2026)}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026creativecapital,
+  title={Creative Capital: A Dossier},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Dossier on Creative Capital (artist-grant funder, 990 + grantee record)}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026newinc,
+  title={NEW INC: A Dossier},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Dossier on NEW INC (embedded in New Museum 990)}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026microvision,
+  title={MicroVision: A Dossier (Genealogy, Products, People, Money, Dilution Mechanics, Takeover Theory, 1993--2026)},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Public-company dossier; SEC EDGAR + 11-yr family archive}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026pop,
+  title={pop/: Bottom-Up Music Research at Aesthetic Computer},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Internal research notes on the pop/ music lanes (pixsies album)}
+}
+
+@misc{scudder2026resframing,
+  title={Residency Framing: Reas as Host, sosoft as Cofounder},
+  author={{@jeffrey}},
+  year={2026},
+  note={Internal note on UCLA residency framing}
+}
+
+@misc{ewaste2024monitor,
+  title={The Windows 10 End-of-Life Surplus Wave},
+  author={{Global E-Waste Monitor}},
+  year={2024},
+  note={Estimate: 240 million PCs rendered institutionally obsolete in October 2025}
+}
diff --git a/papers/metadata.json b/papers/metadata.json
index 783b31a08b..31c2af4ffc 100644
--- a/papers/metadata.json
+++ b/papers/metadata.json
@@ -1,4 +1,9 @@
 {
+  "essay-may-26": {
+    "created": "2026-05-25",
+    "revisions": 0,
+    "updated": "2026-05-25T00:00:00.000Z"
+  },
   "arxiv-microvision": {
     "created": "2026-05-04",
     "revisions": 2,
diff --git a/papers/my-people/my-people.tex b/papers/my-people/my-people.tex
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..aa02c08cc7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/papers/my-people/my-people.tex
@@ -0,0 +1,445 @@
+% !TEX program = xelatex
+\documentclass[11pt,letterpaper]{article}
+
+\usepackage[top=1in, bottom=1in, left=1.15in, right=1.15in]{geometry}
+
+\usepackage{fontspec}
+\usepackage{unicode-math}
+
+\setmainfont{Latin Modern Roman}[
+  Extension=.otf,
+  UprightFont=lmroman10-regular,
+  BoldFont=lmroman10-bold,
+  ItalicFont=lmroman10-italic,
+  BoldItalicFont=lmroman10-bolditalic,
+]
+\setsansfont{Latin Modern Sans}[
+  Extension=.otf,
+  UprightFont=lmsans10-regular,
+  BoldFont=lmsans10-bold,
+  ItalicFont=lmsans10-oblique,
+  BoldItalicFont=lmsans10-boldoblique,
+]
+\setmonofont{Latin Modern Mono}[
+  Extension=.otf,
+  UprightFont=lmmono10-regular,
+  ItalicFont=lmmono10-italic,
+  Scale=0.85,
+]
+
+\usepackage{xcolor}
+\usepackage{titlesec}
+\usepackage{enumitem}
+\usepackage{fancyhdr}
+\usepackage{hyperref}
+\usepackage{xurl}
+\usepackage{ragged2e}
+\usepackage{microtype}
+
+\usepackage{../ac-paper-essay}
+
+\hypersetup{
+  colorlinks=true,
+  linkcolor=acpurple,
+  urlcolor=acpurple,
+  pdfauthor={@jeffrey},
+  pdftitle={My People — a directory for Sage},
+}
+
+\pagestyle{fancy}
+\fancyhf{}
+\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
+\fancyhead[L]{\footnotesize\color{acgray}\itshape internal — for sage}
+\fancyhead[R]{\footnotesize\color{acgray}\thepage}
+
+\newcommand{\ac}{Aesthetic\textcolor{acpink}{.}Computer}
+\newcommand{\np}{notepat}
+
+% per-person heading: name + role chip
+\newcommand{\person}[2]{%
+  \vspace{0.9em}\noindent%
+  {\normalfont\bfseries\fontsize{12pt}{14pt}\selectfont\color{acdark}#1}%
+  \hspace{0.6em}{\footnotesize\color{acgray}\itshape #2}%
+  \par\vspace{0.15em}\nopagebreak%
+}
+
+\newcommand{\field}[1]{\textbf{\small\color{acdark}#1}\hspace{0.3em}}
+
+\begin{document}
+
+\thispagestyle{empty}
+\vspace*{0.4in}
+
+\essaytitle{my people}
+\essaydate{a working directory for sage \textperiodcentered{} may 2026}
+
+\noindent sage --- this is the list i promised, written down so we can
+actually use it. everyone on it is connected to \ac{} in some load-bearing
+way: they ship code with me, they make music with me, they host me, they
+hire me, or they print me on the wall of an institution. each entry has
+\textbf{what they do well}, \textbf{what we have already made together},
+and \textbf{where i think they could plug into a product}. it is not
+exhaustive --- it is the people i would actually call. if anyone is
+missing, the gap is mine.
+
+the document is internal. don't share past us without asking. emails and
+phone numbers are deliberately left off where they would be awkward in
+your hands; if a collaboration gets real i'll make the intro warm.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{inner circle}
+
+\person{Fia Benitez \textit{(@fifi)}}{partner \textperiodcentered{} calarts \textperiodcentered{} inbox + opportunity curator}
+
+\field{practice} project coordination, written voice, taste; runs the
+opportunity inbox alongside me (\texttt{honeydo.txt}); forwards calls,
+grants, residencies; catches things i wouldn't see.
+
+\field{what we've made} the entire opportunity pipeline that funnels into
+\ac{}'s grant + residency activity. her edits land on bios, drafts,
+public-facing copy.
+
+\field{product angle} any product with a written-voice surface (onboarding,
+emails, the prompt's text) benefits from her ear. she is also the most
+honest first reader i have --- if a product premise reads as bullshit to
+fia it almost certainly is.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{ac core --- people who have actually shipped code}
+
+these are the humans whose names appear in \texttt{git log} on the main
+repo, or whose work is built so deeply into the project that the codebase
+itself remembers them. ordered by depth of involvement, not vanity.
+
+\person{Artur Matveichenkov}{ac dev-friend \textperiodcentered{} mostly imessage \textperiodcentered{} booted-by patron}
+
+\field{practice} graphics + drawing tools, painting interfaces; the
+\texttt{sign} demo he shipped out of puerto rico; the brush in \ac{}
+that's queued to be rewritten in the kidlisp graphical editor.
+
+\field{what we've made} ssh access to the dev infra; a recurring
+``artur painting story'' thread in the project's \texttt{TODO.txt};
+\texttt{JtoA} (jeffrey-to-artur), the speech-recognition prototype
+meant to make us communicate more complex thoughts than imessage allows;
+on the \texttt{booted-by} screen at the grey tier --- one of the people
+who actually paid into the project. our ongoing back-channel is imessage,
+not git --- ideas land there first.
+
+\field{product angle} the highest-bandwidth peer i have on drawing /
+brush / paint-engine work; the relationship that has already produced one
+named pattern in the codebase (\texttt{JtoA}: building tools to talk to
+each other better). if a product is shaped like a drawing instrument or a
+two-person creative protocol, artur is the call before anyone else.
+
+\person{Georgica Pettus \textit{(@georgica, gh: ggcajp)}}{ac core contributor}
+
+\field{practice} javascript piece development, prompt engineering, LLM
+experiments, generative work inside the AC piece API.
+
+\field{what we've made} 130+ commits across the main repo. long-running
+contributor; one of the people who has seen the system evolve from inside
+the codebase.
+
+\field{product angle} if a product needs someone who already speaks the
+piece API natively, she is one of three people in the world. strong on
+prompt + LLM glue work.
+
+\person{Tina Tarighian \textit{(gh: ttarigh)}}{ac core contributor}
+
+\field{practice} ac piece development, javascript / kidlisp, ui work.
+
+\field{what we've made} 80+ commits across pieces and tooling; she is one
+of the people i have actually onboarded into the codebase.
+
+\field{product angle} solid pair for anything that turns a piece into a
+user-facing app or installation. piece-API fluent.
+
+\person{Esteban Uribe}{ac contributor \textperiodcentered{} swift / native}
+
+\field{practice} performance optimization, keyboard input layers, swift /
+mac native ui. recently shipped the global keyboard-disable path inside
+Menu Band.
+
+\field{what we've made} \texttt{slab/menuband/} performance work in 2026
+--- about 80 commits across the menubar synth and adjacent native surfaces.
+
+\field{product angle} the one to call if a product crosses the browser/native
+boundary on mac. native input + audio scheduling specialist.
+
+\person{Miles Peyton \textit{(gh: mileshiroo)}}{ac contributor}
+
+\field{practice} ac piece development; the contributor i know least well
+of this group, but the commits are real.
+
+\field{product angle} unknown ceiling --- worth a coffee before any product
+brief.
+
+\person{Ida Pruitt \textit{(@ida, gh: idapruitt)}}{ac contributor \textperiodcentered{} early user}
+
+\field{practice} piece-level javascript; the designated ``first user'' for
+\texttt{niki.aesthetic.computer} testing in earlier eras of the project.
+
+\field{what we've made} co-author of \texttt{sno} (with sage \& me); about
+25 commits across pieces.
+
+\field{product angle} the strongest user-research candidate i know who is
+also fluent enough to ship the change herself.
+
+\person{Maya Man}{ac contributor \textperiodcentered{} independent artist}
+
+\field{practice} her own browser-native art practice; on \ac{} she
+shipped the \texttt{@maya/sparkle} piece.
+
+\field{product angle} a peer rather than a teammate --- but if a product
+ever wants the web-as-medium voice she has, she'd be the call.
+
+\person{Bash Elliott \textit{(@bash, gh: rackodo)}}{ac contributor \textperiodcentered{} user-host}
+
+\field{practice} ac piece creation and hosting; the canonical example in
+docs for \texttt{@handle/piece-name} resolution.
+
+\field{product angle} more of a community-anchor than a co-builder.
+
+\person{Dan / rcrdlbl \textit{(@ Tlon)}}{ac contributor \textperiodcentered{} backend / auth}
+
+\field{practice} login / auth flows, identity surfaces. day job at Tlon
+(the Urbit company), which is relevant for any product that wants
+decentralized-identity rails.
+
+\field{product angle} the one to call if a product touches identity,
+login, or wants to think about a non-google-non-apple stack.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{studio peers \textperiodcentered{} falsework}
+
+\person{Matt Doyle \& Yuehao Jiang}{co-principals \textperiodcentered{} falsework \textperiodcentered{} booted-by patrons (purple tier)}
+
+\field{practice} run \textbf{Falsework}, the studio building \textit{Spider
+Lily} (unreal engine 5.6 game project on perforce / helix core at
+\texttt{falsework.helixcore.io}). matt also shows up in the whistlegraph
+collaborator list at the Schneider Museum, so the relationship predates
+falsework itself.
+
+\field{what we've made} the \texttt{false.work/} directory in this repo
+holds the unreal build pipeline (windows + mac + ios) for spider lily ---
+the studio and \ac{} share build infrastructure. both of them appear
+together on the \texttt{booted-by} screen at the purple tier; matt's
+brother \textbf{Eric Doyle} sits at the brown tier alongside them.
+
+\field{product angle} the only game-studio-shaped relationship i have.
+unreal + perforce + mac/ios codesigning expertise that would otherwise be
+weeks of bring-up. if a product wants any 3D-game-engine reach, or wants
+to think about \ac{} as a tool that ships into another studio's
+pipeline, this is the live example.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{music collaborators}
+
+the \texttt{pop/} lane has its own peer set --- people i make tracks with,
+or who run nearby on the same scene.
+
+\person{Quargs Greene}{music collaborator \textperiodcentered{} they/them \textperiodcentered{} computer club peer}
+
+\field{practice} solo electronic music; sample-based composition; releases
+on their own publishing.
+
+\field{what we've made} \textbf{50/50 writer/performer split} on a track
+they are building on top of \texttt{trancepenta} for their 3rd solo album.
+i sent stems on 2026-05-21. derivative is clearance-safe because the
+trancepenta source SFX are CC0.
+
+\field{product angle} an early signal that \texttt{pop/} stems are an
+\textit{output} other artists want to use. if we ever package a stems-as-API
+product, quargs is the proof-of-life user.
+
+\person{Will \textit{(@c\_robo on instagram)}}{music tech \textperiodcentered{} fresh calarts grad \textperiodcentered{} chromebook orchestrator}
+
+\field{practice} music tech; just graduated calarts. runs a many-chromebook
+distributed-music rig --- the cheap-hardware-as-instrument lineage in a
+calarts-pedagogy frame. orchestrates a roomful of them as a single
+instrument.
+
+\field{product angle} the cheapest possible network-of-devices music
+product has a name and a face here. anything that wants to treat
+underpowered hardware as an ensemble (rather than an apology) should be
+sketched with will in the room first. obvious overlap with \texttt{pop/}'s
+chromebook-tier render targets if we ever want a live-performance shape
+for those tracks.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{curatorial peers}
+
+\person{Celine Wong Katzman}{associate curator (creative time) \textperiodcentered{} sfpc board}
+
+\field{practice} associate curator at \textbf{Creative Time}; sits on
+the \textbf{Board of Directors} of the School for Poetic Computation
+(alongside American Artist, Salome Asega, Tega Brain, Taylor Levy,
+Che-Wei Wang, Galen Macdonald). curatorial reach + institutional read.
+
+\field{what we've made} the relationship i trust enough to write
+confidential research \textit{for}. the scott-moore private brief in
+\texttt{papers/scott-moore-profile/} is explicitly prepared for celine
+--- ``Private brief --- prepared for Celine, Not for publication.'' she
+gets the analytical layer that doesn't go on the public platter.
+
+\field{product angle} the curator i'd brief first on any product that
+needs to be read as serious work in the contemporary-art conversation
+--- and the one most likely to know whether an institutional pilot
+(a creative time commission, an sfpc residency, a board placement) is a
+plausible next step.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{ucla social software \textperiodcentered{} where i'm in residence}
+
+\person{Casey Reas}{residency host \textperiodcentered{} ucla sosoft \textperiodcentered{} processing co-creator}
+
+\field{practice} co-creator of Processing (with ben fry, at MIT media lab);
+language-as-art practitioner; teaches at UCLA; cofounded UCLA Social Software
+(``sosoft'') with lauren lee mccarthy.
+
+\field{relationship} hosts me as \textbf{author in residence} at sosoft
+in 2026. the canonical CV line is \textit{Author in Residence, UCLA Social
+Software (Casey Reas)}. he is the host. mccarthy is the studio's cofounder,
+not a co-host.
+
+\field{product angle} the most credentialed person in this document for
+any product that wants academic shelter or language-design pedigree.
+\ac{}'s entire ``language as the artwork'' stance has a clean line back
+to processing --- which is useful when explaining the project to people
+who don't yet read the work.
+
+\person{Lauren Lee McCarthy}{ucla sosoft cofounder}
+
+\field{practice} public/social interface art (\textit{Lauren}, \textit{Someone},
+\textit{Bot Party}); p5.js progenitor; teaches at UCLA.
+
+\field{relationship} cofounded sosoft \textit{with} reas; she is the
+co-founder of the studio i'm in residence at, \textbf{not} my co-host.
+mention her only when the audience knows her.
+
+\field{product angle} adjacent rather than active --- her practice and
+mine share an audience but we haven't built anything together.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{client work \textperiodcentered{} ongoing professional}
+
+these are the gigs that are paying for hardware, server time, and album
+covers. listed because they are real relationships and real bandwidth --- if
+a product needs a friendly first customer, one of these three is the door.
+
+\person{Rebecca Bonneville, NP}{client \textperiodcentered{} the resilience institute}
+
+\field{practice} functional / naturopathic psychiatry; depth psychotherapy;
+neurosomatic and regenerative-medicine work. running a small private
+practice she is reframing as a four-door institute.
+
+\field{what we've made} a poc gateway page live under
+\texttt{aesthetic.computer/bp-0cf886709d1753/} (cinematic, fludd
+macrocosmus, EB garamond, ``the resilience institute''). full rebrand of
+\texttt{resilientminds.health} in scope; alchemical / 16th--17th-c.
+anatomical aesthetic; aman.com as the experiential north star.
+
+\field{product angle} the most concrete ``serious wellness brand built on
+\ac{} infra'' example we have. if we ever sell a small-clinic /
+practitioner product, she is the prototype customer.
+
+\person{Loretta Darling Nicola}{client \textperiodcentered{} nevada natural living}
+
+\field{practice} wellness products (copper sulfate, ADEK, supplements);
+sells under the ``dr. vk for life'' brand.
+
+\field{what we've made} \texttt{drvkforlife.com} on shopify, custom DNS
+through cloudflare, marketing PDFs + product info sheets. invoice
+AC-DRVK-2026-0519-001, \$1{,}550, net 30.
+
+\field{product angle} less of a creative-product fit; relevant if a future
+product wants a wellness-commerce ramp.
+
+\person{Thomas Lawson}{client \textperiodcentered{} artist site}
+
+\field{practice} painter / writer with a long-running site at
+\texttt{thomaslawson.com}.
+
+\field{what we've made} site maintenance; the deploy path goes godaddy
+sftp into a mu-plugins setup --- not glamorous, but real income and a real
+artist's site.
+
+\field{product angle} weak product fit. listed for completeness.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{service partners \textperiodcentered{} humans, not vendors}
+
+\person{Solveig Fernlund}{architect \textperiodcentered{} brooklyn}
+
+\field{practice} residential interior architecture; pre-war renovation.
+i've worked with her on the kapin/jacobs kitchen renovation in brooklyn
+(164 mac donough st).
+
+\field{product angle} not software-shaped. but if a product ever needs a
+physical-space partner who understands the difference between a kitchen
+that works and a kitchen that performs, she's it.
+
+\person{@mollysoda}{piece collaborator \textperiodcentered{} \texttt{selfie}}
+
+\field{practice} internet-native artist; she co-designed the decorated
+photographic selfie palette behind \ac{}'s \texttt{selfie} piece.
+
+\field{product angle} a clean example of \ac{}'s piece-as-collaboration
+pattern; could be re-activated if a product wants a known internet-art
+voice on a specific piece.
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{institutional footprint --- not collaborators}
+
+worth knowing about, but not on the call sheet. listing here so you have
+the full picture.
+
+\begin{itemize}[leftmargin=1.4em]
+  \item \textbf{KADIST} (san francisco) and \textbf{SMK \textperiodcentered{} the
+    national gallery of denmark} (copenhagen) hold ac work in their
+    collections. they are \textit{collectors}, not collaborators --- the
+    distinction matters. they signal seriousness, not bandwidth.
+  \item \textbf{Tezos Foundation} --- ecosystem grant submitted 2026-05-22
+    for the kidlisp keeps v12 work; awaiting Q2 review. not a person, but
+    a check the project might cash.
+  \item \textbf{LACMA} --- 2026 grant application in process, biennial
+    structure (prototype 2027, premiere 2028). same shape: an institution,
+    not a collaborator.
+\end{itemize}
+
+\acbreak
+
+\section{where this leaves us}
+
+sage --- the people who actually ship with me are a small group: you, me,
+\textbf{artur}, \textbf{georgica}, \textbf{tina}, \textbf{esteban},
+\textbf{ida} (lighter). the music lane has \textbf{quargs} as the first
+external user of a \ac{} output and \textbf{will} (\@c\_robo) as the
+chromebook-orchestra angle if we ever want a live-performance shape.
+\textbf{matt + yuehao} (Falsework) are the live example of \ac{} infra
+living inside another studio's pipeline. the curatorial read comes from
+\textbf{celine}; the academic cover from \textbf{reas}. the gigs keep the
+lights on. everyone else is a known node, not an active edge.
+
+a product we build together would almost certainly be small at the start
+--- the two of us, maybe artur on drawing-tools work, or one of the ac
+core contributors when piece-API fluency is required. the music-collab
+pattern (stems-as-product), the piece-as-collaboration pattern
+(\texttt{selfie} with mollysoda), and the build-pipeline-as-shared-infra
+pattern (\texttt{false.work/} with falsework) are the three shapes that
+have already proven they ride out into the world.
+
+let's pick a shape and a name. i'll keep this list current.
+
+\colophon{written for sage jenson, may 2026. internal; not for distribution.}
+
+\end{document}