Well, that was fun.

Here are some details on how the packages came to be:

Jeff Jacobs at ePac is a longtime reader and a fabulous print wrangler. He used their mighty Indigo to create the variety of packages you receive (there are 12 in all, go see what else you can find.) Perhaps hashtag #thepracticepackaging might be a good way to send a signal…

The original designs of all twelve packages were me, using primitive Illustrator skills. Errors are mine. Tweaks and improvements from Nik, the art director at ePac.

Tingting Naggiar helped with the Chinese translation and also did some file wrangling and tweaking for me.

On the back cover, John Larigakis, an independent (and generous) creative director did that really cool illustration.

The specific covers include:

A painting from Tom Thomson. I’ve been to his gravesite more than any other. It’s a long story. The riff on the bottom, about the metaphor and physics of paddling is from me.

The seflie comes from the strange case of the Macaque Monkey Selfie dispute.

The picture of Fountain, the urinal, was taken by Alfred Stieglitz of a readymade created by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Duchamp was merely an impresario in this case, but over time, took more and more credit. Read more here…

More Duchamp, I can’t help myself, the Mona Lisa is actually a postcard. He scrawled a mustache on it, done. But he did it first, and he did it when he was already Duchamp.

On the tarot cover (worth checking out the history of these so-called magic cards), look at the flap on the bottom. That’s the first published photo taken by the one and only Jill Greenberg. I was 18 in that photo.

The Genius cover is of the Thelonius Monk and his sidemen.

The Sriracha riff is spicy and good.

The writer’s blocks were created and glued by hand after being carved in the Glowforge. It shouldn’t work, but it does, often.

The “Fine Line” photo is a self-portrait taken about 7 years ago in Sydney. If you know the name of the artist who created it, please let me know. Thanks to my friend Bernadette for getting me down there in the first place.