— GeistHaus

How to whistle for help

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Oct 23, 2025

<figure><img alt="The bottom edge of a painting with lots of wax dripping off it, and a stick connected to the bottom." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/f01fbb95-82ae-4b0a-8c24-e64b437c9ded.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>Soon I will start looking for a new painting studio.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>Whistles aint cheap. <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-whistle-for-help" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gimme $2</a>. <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Betsy Streeter: How can you be of help to someone when they don’t want anyone to help them? You can’t. Unless they’re drowning, trapped under a building, inside a flipped car, or some other life-threatening situation, most people will not accept help that they haven’t asked for. There’s lots of reasons for this, and we’ll go through a few, but the most important one is that you don’t get to decide when someone else needs help. Even if it’s totally obvious—to you—that they need it, someone has to decide for themselves that they need it, before they’re even open to the conversation. So when you offer to help somebody that doesn’t believe they need it, they’re not going to take it. Because in their mind they don’t need it. They may just not want to admit they need it. To themselves or to you. And while we can debate whether this is pride, or stubbornness, or mistrust, or some other thing—all of which we can do without passing judgement, by the way—it ends up having the same effect. They will not take the help. One of the guiding principles at Mule is the “ask vs offer” rule, which is something that we picked up from a long-forgotten (by which I mean too lazy to google) article in a newspaper that’s probably run by fascists now. The rule is that you can’t offer people help. They have to ask for it. Which sounds almost cruel, but I assure you it’s the exact opposite. Let’s run through a scenario. Someone is trying to use the printer and it’s not printing. All-too-common scenario. They start muttering under their breath, they start negotiating with the printer, they start pulling paper trays and opening little doors on the printer looking for a jam, and then slamming those doors shut. Just a little louder every time. And because this is happening in an open space, everyone can hear it, and is thrown off whatever they were previously trying to do. Eventually, someone will ask “Hey, do you need help?” And the person at the printer will say something passive aggressive about how they’re just trying to get the printer to work. Until the second person eventually walks over, after a big huge sigh, mostly because they’d like the noise to stop. That’s “offer” culture. You need help, but you don’t want to ask for it, so you’re waiting for it to be offered. And even when it’s offered, you attempt to shrug it off, even though it’s the thing you’ve been passive-aggressively looking for the whole time. It’s exhausting. In “ask” culture, the person who’s trying to use the printer encounters the problem, tries a few routine fixes (if they know any), and then says “Hey, I need help with a printer jam.” And someone would say “I had one of those a few days ago. I can help you in five minutes.” No one else is bothered. No one is wondering if help is needed, because it was asked for. Everyone can stay focused on whatever they were doing, which was probably playing Snood. (The old games are best.) Asking for help is often seen as a weakness. And we all carry around memories and traumas of times when we were brave enough to ask, and got shot down for it. The other part of “ask” culture was that you have to respond to the request for help. And unless it was needed immediately, like someone about to drop a large jug of water you were intending to load into the water cooler, you could let people know when that help was available. Thus “I can help you in five minutes.” Of course, the real lesson of being about to drop a large jug of water, was to ask for help before attempting to lift it by yourself. Asking for help is often seen as optional, even though needing help is not. A two-person job will always be a two-person job, even if one person is willing to see if they can make it a one-person job. I am so guilty of this. I’ve carried refrigerators up flights of stairs on my back, rather than ask for help. Mostly because in the moment I believe asking for help will slow me down, and it might, but it also vastly decreases the odds that I’ll end up crushed by a refrigerator. I am not a good role model for asking for help. It’s also important to understand when people are actually asking for help, and when they’re just venting. I’m part of a secret little friends’ community where people do a fair share of complaining. (Look around, there’s a lot to complain about.) Sometimes it’s about work. Sometimes it’s about the world. Sometimes it’s about home. Sometimes it’s about the insane bureaucracy of dealing with a medical problem. We’ve gotten good at asking “Are you venting or looking for help?” when this happens. Sometimes people just need to get it out. And because we’re helpful people, who like to solve problems, we tend to immediately jump in with a solution. But if someone isn’t looking for help, they’re not going to take it. Which then makes us all upset that we offered help and it wasn’t taken. Help must be asked for. So when someone tells us they’re just venting we say carry on, and then throw some hug emojis on their message to let them know they were seen. It’s fine to vent, as long as the audience is open to being vented to. Sometimes they’ll come back later and tell us that now they’re ready for help. Sometimes they’ll come back and say “Hey that venting really helped me sort it out in my head and I figured it out.” Which means that just listening to people is incredibly helpful. I’m going to say that again: sometimes just listening to people is incredibly helpful. So many people just need to feel heard. Sometimes when we complain that people won’t take our help what we really mean is they won’t follow our instructions. We can’t assume that’s what people need. Sometimes people just need to be heard. They need to hear themselves describe their problem, or see it typed out by their own hand. And when we jump to giving them instructions that weren’t asked for we’re telling people that we don’t believe they’re capable of figuring out by themselves. Which they might not be, but coming to that realization on your own opens you up to receiving help in a way that having help imposed on you, even with good intention, tends to close people off. I think sometimes our offer of help is really about people not doing something the way we would do it, or with the same efficiency that we would do it. Any parent who’s struggled watching their kids learn how to tie their shoes is familiar with this, and also knows when to let them struggle a bit to figure it out, and when to jump in when they’re exasperated. (Yes, there’s a point where you need to just open the can of beans for your kid.) So maybe the answer is to sit down with someone first, bring ‘em a cup of coffee and a donut and just chat. Hear what they have to say, and if the moment presents itself ask them if they need help. And even if all signs point to them absolutely needing it, you have to be okay with them saying that they don’t. Maybe follow it up with “let me know if things change.” Be careful not to say “if you change your mind” because that implies that you are being a fool for not accepting my help. “If things change” leaves open the possibility that the situation got worse than anticipated, and sometimes that just enough mental wiggle room for the person you’re trying to help to eventually take you up on your offer. Also, believing that someone needs help doesn’t necessarily make it true. You might be imposing your own values on someone who’s perfectly fine being how they are. But look, if your goal is to help people, boy do I have good news! There’s a ton of people out there right now asking for help. Whether it’s people you see on your way to work, or organizations looking for money, or groups that need your help cooking meals for people, or a scout troop looking for troop leader, or a local teacher who could use help in the classroom. There are literally people in front of stores asking for money so they can eat. All those people are willingly asking for help. I suggest giving it to them and giving it to them on their terms. When someone is asking for money for a sandwich it’s because they’re hungry. Are there larger systematic issues that put people in that position? Absolutely, and you should work with your community to help solve those. But right now that person needs a sandwich. When someone tells you the kind of help they need, believe them. My friends and I are currently looking at resources on how to make ICE warning kits, which I’ve had to ask a friend in Chicago about. We’re doing this because we’re trying to help our neighbors. The fascist thugs making it necessary to do this are invading our cities under the pretense of helping us. Which of course they’re not. But we also once rounded up Americans of Japanese descent “for their own protection.” So much of our planet is still trying to recover from American “help.” Help isn’t always helpful. America has a long history of “helping” people that ended up being anything but. In my own city, I’ve seen mayor after mayor attempt to “help” the unhoused by clearing away their belongings and moving them to where they wouldn’t hopefully be seen. We have a history of help that gives help a bad name. I’m glad you want to help people. Many of us need it. Many of us are capable of offering it. The first step in helping someone is building trust, and we have a lot of work to do there. <hr/>🇳🇴 I’ll be in Oslo next week giving a talk. So I’ll be taking a newsletter break. Meanwhile… 🙋 …it would be amazing to come back to a new mountain of questions to pick from. Got one? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-whistle-for-help" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>! 📣 Dan Sinker, who’s been dealing with this shit in Chicago, was kind enough to pass along the info for making <a href="https://www.pilsenartscommunityhouse.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-whistle-for-help" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Whistle Kits</a> from the good folks at Pilsen Arts & Community House. 🥶 Here’s <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/fuck-ai-sweater?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-whistle-for-help" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a really stupid sweater</a> I designed that you can buy. 💀 …and <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/dont-build-the-torment-nexus-zine?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-whistle-for-help" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a really stupid zine</a> that you can also buy. 📣 Oh, and I have a few slots open for the next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/presenting-work-with-confidence-tickets-1754965010589?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-whistle-for-help" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Presenting w/Confidence</a> workshop. Most importantly, since this newsletter is about helping people… 🍉 Please donate to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-whistle-for-help" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>. The ceasefire is a fucking lie. 🏳️‍⚧️ Please donate to <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-whistle-for-help" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Lifeline</a>.

How to eat with others

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Oct 9, 2025

<figure><img alt="Horizontal painting. Yellow background. Black text that says DON'T RENT HERE. IT'S TOXIC." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/96e62042-901e-40a4-a680-d4b5c8af5f22.jpeg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>This is the last painting I did at my old studio. I left it behind.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>You can <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-with-others" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">support my shenanigans</a> for a mere $2/mo. <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Milly Schmidt: Some people have friends with very different politics and they keep them very separate to avoid conflict. Obviously there are benefits of having diverse friends, even politically. Do you think all your friends should be able to be invited to a party or have a meal together? I love everybody that loves everybody. I also think that hanging out with people who agree on everything is boring. It’s also close to impossible, thankfully, because you’ll ultimately find something you disagree about. And that tends to become when hanging out gets interesting. For example, this weekend friends will get together and someone will say they’re enjoying the new Taylor Swift. Someone else will say it’s an album for cop wives. And suddenly, that becomes an interesting hangout. Spending my childhood summers in Portugal, I spent a lot of time in cafés where people would argue about anything and everything. Finding the minor disagreement that would spark the argument was the goal of being at that café. Someone unfamiliar with that kind of environment would walk in and assume a fight was gonna break out. But this was just people communicating. This was people enjoying their evening by having spirited conversations with their friends. Which, counter-intuitively, ends up bringing people together. Because if I enjoy a lively discussion—and I do—the person willing to go toe-to-toe with me is going to be someone I end up treasuring as a friend. As long as everyone understands the rules of discussion. We are arguing about minor things. We’re making argumentative mountains out of molehills. This isn’t conflict, it’s sport. I also remember one particular evening in one particular café when someone loudly commented about how the previous regime did a lot of good for the country. Mind you, this was fairly soon after the revolution that knocked the fascists out of power. The café got stone cold silent. Every argument stopped. Every conversation came to a close. I have a vivid memory of hearing a spoon slowly stirring an espresso. And I watched as everyone’s head turned towards the man that had just said something positive about fascism. The silence held. And held. Until he quickly downed his coffee and politely excused himself as he walked out the door. Within seconds the café went back to its usual argumentative din. There are welcome arguments between friends, and there are arguments that end friendships. It’s important to know where that line is for you. While I appreciate having friends with different points-of-view, or even different politics (as you phrased it) I will not be friends with people who want my daughter dead. I will not be friends with people who want, or even tolerate, my neighbors being kidnapped. I will not be friends with people who believe some of us are somehow entitled to more rights than others. And I will not be friends with people who believe if we keep our heads down, as others around us suffer, we’ll save ourselves. We can argue about sports teams, we can argue about zoning, we can argue about the cost of goods, but we cannot argue about the civil rights of other human beings. We cannot argue about the right for people to live in peace. We cannot argue about the right for other people to love who they love. This is the line where argument turns from sport to a relationship-ending event. Personally, if I’m having a gathering in my home I want my friends to feel welcome. Not just by me, but by everyone else there. And I need my friends to know that me, my guests, and my house are a safe place. Not just for this particular event, but always. Think of it this way: if you invite someone from a marginalized community into your home and they ask if there’s going to be someone there that wants them dead, or doesn’t feel like they’re entitled to full personhood, and you tell them that you’re having a separate party for those folks the next night, how do you think that person would feel? You can’t claim to care about someone while also caring for the people who would bring them harm. You really don’t care about your friend in that situation. You’ve made a decision that speaks more to your standing in the social order than their safety. And that’s fucked up. If you had dinner with a trans friend on Tuesday, and dinner with fascists on Thursday, your trans friend had dinner with a fascist on Tuesday. Which of course brings us to Thanksgiving. My parents, being immigrants, didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. But in time, my brothers and I wore them down. We wanted to celebrate the same holiday that our friends were celebrating, which makes sense. We were kids. We wanted to belong. We also wanted pie, which was understandable. Pie is great! And, while I’m not overlooking the atrocious origins of the holiday, the idea that sitting down with the people you love and giving thanks is a genuinely nice idea. One that should actually be extended to all our meals. We sit down with the people we love and we share a meal together. The problem with Thanksgiving is that we’re not sitting down with the people we love, a lot of us are sitting down with the people we feel obligated to be sharing a meal with, even when some of those people want your friends dead. After my brothers and I had grown apart and eventually moved out of my parents’ house and into our own apartments, we still made an effort to come together for Thanksgiving. Mostly because it seemed to make our mother happy, and despite our disagreement on mostly everything else, we understood that this was important. Still, these were not what I would call enjoyable events. The tone was tense. The possibility of my father’s mood going sideways was always in the air. And we were guaranteed to speedrun from a conversation to an argument to a fight fairly quickly, which my father used as justification for getting up, grabbing his keys, and bolting out the door. Which was how Thanksgiving dinners ended. After a few of these, my mother started pulling me aside before my brothers got there and asking me “not to rile them up.” Which a few people reading this will understand translates to “don’t tell them there’s racism coming out of their mouths.” My brothers were free to use the N-word during Thanksgiving, the problem was that I wasn’t ok hearing it. The problem wasn’t that my brothers were racist, it was that I was pointing it out. At one point I asked her if she’d ever had one of these asides with either of them. Had she ever asked my brothers not to spew racist bile at the table? It was a needless question, because I knew she hadn’t. Growing up in their house racism was the default. That was the last time I spent Thanksgiving at their house. Let me say this plainly, for folks wrestling with whether they should spend Thanksgiving with relatives that want their friends dead: Don’t. In the end, we are defined not just by our actions, but by the actions we tolerate. If you insist on spending Thanksgiving with your racist relatives, go to fight. Call Uncle Bob on his Jim Crow bullshit. Make sure that the first person who brings up “men playing women’s sports” is met with a face full of mashed potatoes. When Aunt Mary starts reciting FOX News talking points on eugenics start screaming at the top of your lungs. When your brother-in-law starts yapping about the “criminal element” in the city, slap him with a ham. When your dad brings up what a terrible idea it is to have Bad Bunny do the SuperBowl halftime show, pick up the turkey and slam it across the wall. Become ungovernable. Bring airhorns. Bring whistles. Bring the chaos. Making a meal enjoyable for racists is never the goal. There are no medals to be won for sitting silently while a table that is meant for giving thanks is taken over by hatred. There are no medals to be won for being tolerant of people who want your friends dead. If you’re not willing to fight, then you’re just having a meal with racists. Telling someone they need to be on their “best” behavior is only an issue when their real behavior is intolerable. A better idea may be to spend the day with people who love and support you. People you actually give thanks for. The friends who have your back. The friends who love you at your fullest, loudest and truest. People only complain about the turkey being dry when the company is terrible. There is never enough gravy to make regret feel like anything but your soul leaving your body. When we are surrounded by people who deserve and cherish our company the meal is always amazing. Family is a choice. And those whose blood you share had first dibs at making a choice, and trust that they did. I will be honest with you, when my friends tell me that they’re off to spend Thanksgiving with family it fills me with sadness. Not because I’m not happy for them—I am! But because a part of me will always wonder what that is like. We are born ready to love those closest to us. Our parents and siblings had first dibs on our love! I was always ready to love my parents, and there is a part of me that always will, but there is a bigger part of me that refuses to become the person I need to become for them to love me back. They made a choice, and in return I made one too. I love everybody who loves everybody. When I invite my friends into my house it’s with the understanding that there is both love and nourishment there for them. There will also be music, which we may argue about. And we might argue about the best way to make brussels sprouts. Or whether pie goes best with ice cream or cheese. (The answer is two slices of pie, one with each.) We might argue about something happening in local politics. We will definitely argue about the new Taylor Swift. But we will never argue about whether one of us belongs there or not. We will never argue about whether anyone there should feel welcome or not. We will never argue about whether someone should’ve brought their significant other, or others. (A heads-up is nice, if only to make sure we have enough pie.) We will never argue about whether someone should have autonomy over their own body. We will never argue about whether Palestine deserves to be free. We will never argue about whether we should look out for our neighbors. We might argue about the best ways to do these things, and those arguments will get lively. They’ll get loud. Even within our core agreements, there is enough to argue about. There is love in those arguments, and in the end, they tend to bring us closer together. I love everybody who loves everybody. I hope that includes you. <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-with-others" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it here</a>! I might just give you the rambling answer you weren’t looking for. 💀 You like zines? Me too. You hate AI? Me too. I’ve turned an old essay, <a href="https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-not-build-the-torment-nexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to not build the Torment Nexus</a>, into a fun zine that can be yours for $5 cheap! <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/dont-build-the-torment-nexus-zine?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-with-others" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Buy it here</a>! 📣 If you get nervous/anxious/etc when you have to talk about your work, please consider taking my Presenting w/Confidence workshop. It really helps! There’s one next week. <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1754952924439?aff=oddtdtcreator&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-with-others" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Get a ticket</a>! 🍉 Please donate to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-with-others" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>. Shit is worse than ever. 🏳️‍⚧️ Please donate to <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-with-others" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Lifeline</a>. Reward the bravery it takes to live your realest life.

How to feel wonderful

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Jan 9, 2026

<figure><img alt="A recently set up and relatively clean art studio. There's a couple of tables, a rolling stool, and a shelving unit along the back wall filled with assorted crap." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/c8c545bf-efa6-43a2-ab70-fd71d207573f.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>New art studio taking shape!</figcaption></figure> This week’s question comes to us from Kylie Gusset: What makes you feel wonderful? Ok, yeah. So… the last couple of newsletters were heavy. <a href="https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-bury-your-father/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Dead fathers</a>. <a href="https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-attend-a-funeral/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Crazy families</a>. Feelings. (Y’all were so nice with your replies. Thank you.) This was all followed by a two week Christmas break where it rained every day and started to feel like cabin fever. On top of that there’s… the news. And yes, at some point we will talk about the news, especially because it’s unforgiving and relentless and if I were to mention “the incident” at the beginning of this newsletter there’s a pretty good chance “the incident” could mean a totally other incident by the time you read this newsletter. Under fascism, the incidents are plentiful and the horror remains unrelenting. So… For your sake as well as mine, this morning I went looking through the question pile for something a little light to start off the new year and Kylie came to the rescue. Thanks Kylie. Let’s talk about things that make us feel wonderful. And no, this is not a copout. Remembering, and holding on to the things that make us feel wonderful are fuel. In some cases they remind us of what we’ve lost. In other cases they remind us of what we’re fighting for. And, on a really good day, they remind us of what we’re still able to achieve despite the weight of absolutely everything trying to keep us from doing so. Last week I moved into a new art studio. It’s a little smaller than my previous one so when I got all my stuff in there I realized that I’d have to make some hard decisions about what needed to stay and what could go. I spent an hour sitting in the corner annoyed that everything didn’t fit and then I texted my friend Adam a photo of all my crap piled up in the new space along with the message “studio setup day,” which was actually shorthand for “fuck new studio setup day nothing fits and I think I’ve made a horrible decision.” Here’s the thing about my friend Adam: his joy is annoyingly infectious, and it’s 100% sincere. So when he texted back “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8LqMv416mw&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">I love studio setup day</a>!!” (Yes, two exclamation marks.) I realized I needed to adopt his attitude. After sighing deeply and muttering “fuck you, Adam” under my breath, I got out my notebook and measuring tape. I started sketching out where things could fit. I made a list of things I needed. I found my drill in one of the boxes. A couple of hours after getting his text I’d built shelving units, loaded them up with my stuff, mounted my tool chargers on the wall, created a list of next steps, and a list of things I needed to run to the hardware store for. So yes, studio setup day is wonderful. Sometimes you just need to be reminded of how lucky you are to have a place to unpack all your boxes into. I figure it’ll take me another week, maybe two, before I’m making new paintings in that space and it’ll feel wonderful to make those. It’ll also be wonderful to share those paintings with all of you. At the risk of turning the rest of this newsletter into a listicle, while absolutely also turning the rest of this newsletter into a listicle here’s some other stuff that makes me feel wonderful. (Also, small aside: it’s weird to say “wonderful.” I keep wanting to downplay it to “good.” Things that make me feel good. It feels very self-conscious to say something makes you feel wonderful. Also, a little dorky. Fuck it. Let’s feel wonderful this year. Not only do we deserve it, but we fucking need it.) Opening a new record feels wonderful. Going to the record store is great. Finding a record you want also feels great. But getting it home and opening it up? That’s the sweet spot right there. Are you going to attempt to slice it open with your fingernail and tell yourself that this is the one time you won’t get a papercut? (Stop. You will get a papercut.) Are you going to look for the weak seam in the plastic and risk bending the corner? (Stop. You are absolutely going to bend the corner.) Are you going to pull out your trusty pen knife and run it along the opening? (Yes, and here’s a pro tip: the duller the blade the better. A sharp blade will slice right into the cover itself. And never ever use a razor unless you’re a professional vinyl record opener.) But that moment when you first open the new record, pull out the vinyl, and then carefully peek to see if there’s anything else inside (lyric sheet, sticker, etc) is pure bliss. Being in line at a sandwich place for lunch, turning around and seeing a friend you haven’t seen in over a year and immediately hugging each other feels wonderful. This happened to me last week. We ended up eating together and catching up. Totally out of the blue. Yesterday I had to make a small repair in our apartment. It required me to come up with a solution, go to the hardware store, buy wood, make a thing with a saw and a sander, then attach it. And man, when I popped it in and heard that satisfying click that meant it was working as it was supposed to… it felt wonderful. I love being able to fix small shit like that. I’m coursing with endorphins just thinking about it a day later. Hearing “That’s great advice Dad, thanks” will always feel wonderful. Knowing that I was able to help my daughter, even if it was just as a sounding board. Even if it was for the most inconsequential of things like “how do you mix peanut butter” (Pro tip: drill and a clean paint mixing bit. Works for tahini too.) hearing that phrase will put me in a good mood for days. Finding the leading end of the roll of tape feels wonderful. Watching Erika’s face light up when she opens a Christmas gift feels wonderful. One of my hidden superpowers is that I’m really good at giving gifts. A few years ago I watched as she ripped open a large box that was filled with packing peanuts, thrust her arm into it, jumped three feet in the air, and then screamed “What the fuck is that?!?” That turned out to be a stuffed badger. We named her Carol. This year, for reasons we’ve already discussed at length, I didn’t have as much time for Christmas gifting. However, as I was walking back from my father’s funeral I walked past a small gift shop that had mounted ceramic jackass heads that said “We’re jackasses but we’re happy” in Portuguese, and that felt right, so I stopped and grabbed one. Getting new baby photos from your friends always feels wonderful. Listening to Fishbone always feels wonderful. Seriously, none of you are listening to enough Fishbone, and you’ve had the opportunity to be listening to Fishbone for over twenty years. I’m listening to them right now. Some of you younger folks might be wondering who the fuck I’m talking about, to which I say… <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK640dPPhXE&list=RDKK640dPPhXE&start_radio=1&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">you’re welcome</a>. Getting a surprise gift box from friends full of fun stuff from the city they live in is always wonderful. (I’m currently wearing a beanie hat from Movie Madness in Portland. Do I know what it is? No, but I want to!) Riding my bike around town feels wonderful. (Less so when it’s raining, which is a large part of what was driving me nuts last week.) Riding through the city, especially if there’s a warm breeze in the evening, and the sun is in the right place, and I can smell every restaurant as I’m riding through The Mission will always make me feel like I’m a part of the city that I’m riding through. It’s humbling in the most amazing way. People are crossing the street, people are walking home from work, people are picking up their kids, seventeen different types of vehicles are navigating the same stretch of street and absolutely no one is in sync but we’re all making it mostly work because a city is humanity’s most amazing broken machine. And when it doesn’t work it’s tragic, but it mostly does work. All of these things happened in the last couple of weeks. All of these things that happened in the last couple of weeks made me feel wonderful. And yes, there were a lot of things that happened in the last couple of weeks that most certainly did not feel wonderful. In no way I am minimizing those. I am listing these things out as reminders for why we fight. Your list may be very different from mine. I hope it is. (I want to know what’s on your list!) I’m listing these out as reminders of why it’s worth it to hold on to and preserve the things we love so that someday we can sit down together and share those lists with each other, because we shouldn’t be selfish with our lists. I bet there’s something on your list of what makes you feel wonderful that would make me feel wonderful, but it hasn’t even occurred to me! And vice versa. Maybe you’ve got spicy mango on your list. It’s wonderful, right? Maybe you’ve got a good molotov recipe. Wonderful, let’s share it. Maybe one of us will knock an ICE goon on his ass. I guarantee that’ll feel wonderful. Like ice cream at the perfect temperature, or a Thin Mint right out of the freezer. 2026 is the year we win. That’ll feel wonderful too. <hr/>Favor: if you share this newsletter out on social media (not-so-gentle hint), please add something that makes you feel wonderful in your post. ❤️ <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>. I’ll probably use it to go off on a tangential rant, but hey… 💰 Enjoying the newsletter? <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gimme $2/mo</a> and I promise to use it to make art. 📢 The first Presenting w/Confidence workshop of the year is scheduled for Jan 22 & 23. <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/presenting-work-with-confidence-tickets-1980129910867?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Get your ticket</a>! 🔬 Erika has a Design Research workshop coming up on Jan 15. <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lets-do-design-research-right-tickets-1978474590760?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Get your ticket</a>! 🧺 <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/gilly-amp-billy-enamel-pin-fpbpz-y2d7t?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gilly & Billy enamel pins</a> are back in stock! 💀 Still have a few <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/dont-build-the-torment-nexus-zine?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Don’t Build the Torment Nexus</a> zines in stock. ❤️ Once again, thank you to everyone who sent a note about my father’s passing. It sincerely meant a lot to read those.

How to point at fascists and laugh

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Nov 8, 2025

<figure><img alt="Background of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant with the text GO BIRDS. FUCK ICE. FREE PALESTINE. overlaid." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/c074d12b-8bb8-48bc-86cc-85232412c014.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>The last slide from my new talk. It plays a role below.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>Contribute to my eventual bail fund at <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">$2 a pop</a>. <hr/>This week’s question comes from me, actually: How was your trip? Last week I flew to Oslo to give a talk at Y-Oslo. It was my first talk in five years. It was my first flight outside the US in five years. Let’s mostly blame the pandemic for both because the pandemic deserves most of the blame for both, although not all of it. Some of the blame might also go to being a bit exhausted and my internal clock feeling like a blender at full speed. But mostly let’s blame the pandemic because fuck the pandemic. Anyway, these nice folks in Oslo were nice enough to invite me right around the time when I was starting to feel like maybe I was willing to do it again. And because it scared me a little bit to say yes, I said yes. And I went, and I did a talk, and it was fine. (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH2dFXDMwe4&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">You can watch it if you want</a>.) And Oslo is of course an amazing city that I hope you have an opportunity to visit yourself someday. Especially on someone else’s dime. Because it’s also very expensive. Not having flown for a while I was a bit anxious about the whole thing. I started having dreams about forgetting my passport a couple of months out. I also had to recreate all my little bags of cables and adaptors and tiny toothpaste, stuff I used to have at the ready. But also the national mood had changed. Exiting and entering the country was no longer a given. Especially when you hold a US passport that says you were born in another country. Before leaving for the airport I took the Gaza pin off my backpack because I wanted to avoid any bullshit going through security. I didn’t like doing it, but it seemed a sensible thing to do at the time. I was optimizing for “not giving them a reason.” Except having a Gaza pin on your backpack isn’t “a reason.” It’s a pin, showing solidarity with a people being erased with the help of our own government. (In this particular case the horror pre-dates Trump). And having it on your backpack does little more than say that you wish people weren’t getting murdered. Which in America is apparently a controversial position. Normally, I have all manner of pins, buttons, etc on my backpack or jacket and don’t give it a second thought. But the anxiety of having to pass through a space controlled by the federal government—and I think in 2025 we need to be honest and call it a fascist government—gave me enough pause that I edited myself. Which was a sign of something… something I didn’t like seeing in myself. Leaving the United States, even for a few days, turned out to be an amazing experience for many reasons, none the least of which because it was a reminder of what we’re losing every day. Walking the streets of Oslo felt free. I breathed easier. I worried less about what was around the corner. People were going about their day, living their lives, going to work, going home, meeting friends. And yes, I saw some of the same problems that all you’ll find in every city because cities are complex. But it is different to walk around in a city where your government isn’t hunting its own people. It is different to walk around in a city where your government isn’t kidnapping your neighbors. It is different walking around in a city where you can drop your children off at day care and not fear that their teacher is being kidnapped by goons whose salary is being paid by your taxes. It is different to walk into the public library of a city that cares about its people. (Seriously, always visit the library.) Being outside the United States was a reminder that we’re crabs in slowly boiling water. We’ve normalized so much of the shit going on, thinking that if we make a fuss the chef will turn the heat up. But the result is the same. Dying slowly means dying a little every day. We know what the big things are, and the big things are big. The kidnappings. The killing. The starving. These are absolutely things to worry about. But I also worry about the little things. Worrying what might happen if you express empathy for the wrong group of people online. Deciding to let something slide at work because you don’t want to make a fuss. Double checking every item on the wall behind you before you turn on Zoom for a work call. Wondering if you should pull a slide from your talk because it says Free Palestine. (I didn’t, but man, I thought about it.) Deciding to be silent when you need to be anything but. That extra little blip of anxiety when your kid makes a new friend that their grandparents are gonna ask a lot of questions about. Suddenly nodding along when your boss says something stupid like he doesn’t want any politics in the workplace right before telling Todd to take the diversity statement off the company website. Feeling the need to remove a pin from your backpack. The big things raise the temperature in the boiling water by a lot, and while the little things might only raise the temperature by a degree or two, they’re also dangerous because they’re less noticeable and there are a lot of them. Such a minor change. Such a small death. We can accommodate that. It’s not the hope that kills you, it’s hoping that the little things don’t matter that kills you. We are making ourselves small in the hopes of being able to hide in smaller spaces, but in the end it’s still hiding. And we shouldn’t have to hide. We are too beautiful to hide ourselves. Coming back to the United States, I had a panic attack landing at SFO. I was legitimately terrified shit would go down at passport control. For a little context, a couple of days earlier ICE had detained a British author, Sami Hamdi, who was on a book tour in the US, for making pro-Palestinian comments during his book tour. This was also at SFO. The airport that I call home. I feared that either I’d get harassed (my passport clearly states I wasn’t born here) or I’d see someone else get harassed. What would I do? Would I come to their aid or would I make myself small by pretending not to see it, or convincing myself it was none of my business? I’m sure other travelers saw Sami Hamdi getting rushed by ICE. Did they do anything? Would I have done something? This is our business. When they come for the brown-skinned person at the airport you go to their aid. Because you’ve read <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the fucking poem</a>. I never want to feel that way when I get home. Home should be safe and home should be safe for everyone who calls it home. We need to get out of the boiling pot because it’s killing us in big ways and in small ways. Plus, we need the pot for the rich and the horrible. We’ve made it way too easy for people to be horrible. Tim Cook giving a fascist an award should’ve been the end of Apple. Marc Benioff calling for thugs in the street should’ve been the end of Salesforce. Sam Altman’s product killing a kid should’ve been the end of OpenAI. A government not feeding its most vulnerable people should be the end of that government. Armed thugs kidnapping daycare teachers should be the end of those thugs, and lest you think I am advocating violence I would remind you that violence is already here. Looking out for each other is self-defense. Looking out for each other is the whole fucking poem. On Election Day we got a glimpse of life outside the boiling pot. We—and by we I am mostly referring to the people of New York City—climbed out of the boiling pot and voted for a man who has unapologetically not made himself small. Someone who has decided to take up the space that every human being is entitled to. Zohran Mamdani didn’t become mayor of New York despite his brown skin, despite being Muslim, despite recognizing that what is still happening in Gaza is a genocide, despite being a Socialist. He became mayor of New York because of those things. Because he refused to apologize for any of those things. Because they aren’t things you need to apologize for. They are things you celebrate. Because people needed to see, and believe in, someone taking up space, and celebrating the space they were taking up, and inviting you to do the same. In a shared space you can all call home. I ended my talk in Oslo with a slide that said GO BIRDS FUCK ICE FREE PALESTINE. As made famous by <a href="https://www.albawaba.com/entertainment/hannah-einbinder-wins-emmy-says-%E2%80%9Cgo-1612461?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Hannah Einbinder’s Emmy speech</a>, which I wanted to pay homage to. And as I was making the slide I thought to myself that no one in Norway would get the GO BIRDS part, but they would get the other two parts, and that’s ok because sometimes you toss in treats just for yourself. After the talk, I was sitting in the hallway of this strange student union building, in this foreign European city, when a Norwegian woman I’d never met before came up to me, pulled her laptop out of her bag, and pointed to the Philadelphia Eagles sticker on the cover. “Go birds!” she said. “Fuck ICE.” I replied. “Free Palestine.” we both said in unison. We do indeed have friends everywhere. When the fascists try to make you feel small you raise your bike over your head and you get big. I have no doubt that the fascists will react to last week’s election in the worst way possible. They’ll double down on their atrocities. They’ll double down on the kidnappings. They’ll double down hurting people we love. They’ll double down on making you think that all this, big and small, is normal. It’s not. They’ll be aided in this by democratic leadership telling you that to survive you’ll have to give a little. You’ll have to stop coming to the aid of trans kids. You’ll have to stop coming to the aid of immigrants. They’ll try to get you back in the pot. Instead you should point at all of them and laugh. Because you read the whole fucking poem. ❤️ <hr/>🙋 Got a question for me? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it!</a> I might give you a convoluted answer! 🎥 Again, here’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH2dFXDMwe4&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to Draw an Orange</a>. Look, this was my first talk in five years. I’m really proud of it. And when I’m proud of something I made I make it everyone’s problem. Plus, no conference in the US will ever hire me to give this talk. For the very reasons I’m writing about today. 👕 Yes, my talk has merch. How does your’s not? <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/fuck-ai-sweater?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Here’s your holiday sweater</a>. Here’s <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/dont-build-the-torment-nexus-zine?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">your holiday zine</a>. 📣 Erika has a <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lets-do-design-research-right-tickets-1956952069319?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Design Research workshop</a> coming up. You should sign up. She’ll teach you good things. 🍉 The ceasefire is a lie. Please support the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>. 🏳️‍⚧️ Fuck Gavin Newsom. Protect trans kids by supporting <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-point-at-fascists-and-laugh" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Lifeline</a>.

How to make coffee

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Oct 16, 2025

<figure><img alt="The back side of a painting. Two wooden panels cut at a diagonal, bolted together. Wax drips coming down the sides." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/95ce9bba-1ded-4d18-bc44-9eedae99b48b.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>The back side of art.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>Enjoying the newsletter? <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-make-coffee" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gimme $2</a>. Coffee aint cheap. <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Victor Lombardi: What are your opinions about how to make coffee? First of all let’s all agree that this is going to be an incredibly contentious topic. Because while I absolutely have opinions about coffee—which I also believe to be correct beyond reproach—many people will argue that their way to make coffee is the best way to make coffee. Which it will be for them. Everyone has the right to drink coffee the way they want. I also love tea drinkers. But maybe there’s someone out there who enjoys coffee, and is looking to try out a new way of making it. This is for you. Let’s also establish that what I’m going to be talking about here is basic American morning coffee. What Special Agent Dale Cooper (ACAB, sorry) would refer to as “damn fine coffee.” The kind of coffee a union electrician would fill a thermos with in the morning, the kind you grab at a cart on the street, at a diner, at a Wawa (or lesser convenience store like Sheetz or Dunkin), or better yet—make at home. Coffee starts at home. Let’s talk about my relationship with coffee. Because if you’re going to take advice from someone, you should know who you’re taking advice from. I am an addict. I need coffee as soon as I wake up. In fact, coffee is a non-negotiable part of the waking up process. I wake up, I go to the kitchen, I make coffee. If the stars are aligned, I’ll be lucky and Erika will have gotten up before me and made coffee. She makes great coffee. In fact, I’ll admit that I sometimes lay in bed seeing if there’s any chance that she gets up before me and makes coffee. Thereby sparing me the anguish of making coffee and then standing there waiting for the coffee to be ready, which in real time doesn’t take that long, but in “real” time takes forever. My relationship with coffee is one of dependency. I’ve gone out in snowstorms to buy coffee just to make sure it’s there in the morning. Coffee is personal history. I grew up with instant coffee, as most people my age probably did. It was the 70s. Our parents were enamored with frozen tubes that turned into orange juice, TV dinners, ferns, and powder that turned into lemonade. Modern conveniences of the space age. Signifiers of America’s place atop the world order, which turned out to be just as authentic and lasting. Astronauts drank Taster’s Choice. Flavor crystals. So sometime between Apollo 10 and Apollo 14, all our parents threw away their parents’ percolators and switched to instant coffee. If you’ve never had instant coffee, just think of it as the AI of its time: it sucked. This was also at the same time that we were being told that real food was killing us and we needed to switch from butter to margarine, from olive oil to canola, from cotton to polyester, from breastfeeding to Nestlé formula, and from hardwood floors to wall-to-wall shag carpeting, which the cat would always mistake for a full room litter box. (On the plus side, the first Space Invaders arcade cabinet was introduced in 1978.) I didn’t enjoy instant coffee. My mother told me it was because I was too young for coffee, which may have been true. But it also sucked, so more likely it was a combination of both. Luckily, there was something even worse in the house, which my mom saved for special occasions and company (we rarely had either): General Foods International Coffee, which was neither international nor coffee. It was basically Nestlé Quik for people who didn’t want to admit they were drinking Nestlé Quik. (The same way someone using ChatGPT doesn’t want to admit they’re coasting by on stolen intellectual labor.) It was slightly coffee-like, super sweet, and made you feel cosmopolitan for drinking it. I got addicted to that shit. So much so that I insisted on taking a tin (it came in fancy tins) with me the next time I flew to Portugal to spend a summer with my grandmother. (Who I have been writing about… A LOT! Putting a flag here for my therapist, who is probably reading this.) My grandmother took a look at the tin, and asked me what it was. I said it was coffee. She told me to make her a cup, which I did. She took a sip, made a face, poured the rest in the sink, threw the tin in the trash, and told me to get dressed. We walked to the café where she ordered us both espressos and said “_That_ is coffee.” And that was my first cup of actual coffee, as I think of coffee today. I had a lot of espressos that summer, which probably did some developmental damage. And after getting back to the States it wasn’t easy to find a café that served espresso in the 70s. It did, however, start my lifelong quest for better coffee. None of this answers your question, but we are getting there. Coffee takes time. I eventually talked my parents into a proper drip coffee machine. This still being the 70s it was most likely a Mister Coffee made of white plastic with a flat-bottomed basket for holding coffee grounds, which still came ground in a large tin can. Coffee beans were not a thing stocked at the local ACME Market. Once I got my own apartment in college, and was too poor to afford my own Mister Coffee drip-coffee machine, I resorted to a single cup pour-over jawn, which I filled by heating water in a pot on the stove. And here I need to take a minute. Because when I walk into a bougie café now and see “pour-over” as a special bullshit bespoke option I cannot help thinking that people are suckers. That’s how I made my coffee when I was too poor to make it any other way. Beans had not yet entered the picture though. For that, we have to introduce some minor crimes. In my second year of art school one of our friends got a job as a cashier in a little bougie market close to school. The kind of place that was a precursor to Whole Foods. Every week she would share her schedule with us, and we’d take turns going “shopping.” On our first trip there we all got a Chemex, coffee filters and… coffee beans. (We also filled up on fancy cheeses, lunch meat, bread, all manner of fancy peanut and almond butters, jams, jellies, and assorted other stuff, which our friend was nice enough to ring up for maybe three or four bucks. Hey, Reagan was president. The nuclear clock was at 11:59, and we were Pennsylvania children who came within minutes of being wiped out by the Three Mile Island meltdown, so we didn’t think shoplifting was too high on the list of crimes. I think at one point our apartment had four Chemexes in it. We got really good at making coffee. Which was handy, because coffee went really well with cigarettes. (Which sadly were not sold at the little fancy market. We had to learn how to break into the cigarette machine at school for those.) The next twenty years was spent trying out a variety of drip coffee machines, which got fancier after the original Mister Coffee. Auto-stop. Auto-start. All manner of programmable functions, all of them having everything to do with user convenience (not the worst thing) and nothing to do with the actual brewing of coffee. The Obama years brought giddy experimentation with French Presses, Aeropresses, home espresso machines, coffee scales, burr grinders, and even (good lord) hand grinders—all of which filled us with hope initially, but ultimately proved to be a little too fiddly for someone just trying to make a cup of coffee in the morning before having to run out and catch the bus, which ultimately resulted in a lot of people deciding that espresso pods were just fine, which they are not. I should probably get to the point and tell you how to make coffee. First you’re going to need coffee beans, and this is going to get contentious. For my money, there is nothing better than a French Roast bean. It’s dark. It’s oily. I’m about to get 500 emails about how wrong I am. I am about to get 500 emails about how light roast beans have more caffeine. This is, of course, correct. And yet I cannot stand light roast coffee. Trust that I have tried. Trust that I am not talking you out of what you love, merely expressing my own preference. French Roast beans make sludge. They make a damn fine cup of coffee. I don’t want notes of fruit in coffee. I don’t want notes of wood. I want coffee. Dark, bitter oily coffee that reminds me of a Pennsylvania coal mine. Also, Costco has French roast in 10 lb bags, because coffee should be hoarded. We go through a lot at our house, and a half pound bag of light-roasted coffee that a civet shat out that runs $30 will break us. It also tastes like shit, which shouldn’t be surprising considering the manufacturing process. Next we’re gonna need a grinder, and again, you’re going to get in your feelings. Burr grinders suck. Mostly, because the oil in French Roast beans will absolutely destroy them. Also they are expensive. Too expensive to run oily beans through. If you’re making light roast coffee feel free to get a burr grinder, but your reward will be bad coffee. Blade grinders are $20 and they last forever. Until they break. But they’re $20. Finally, we are going to need a coffee maker. Remember all that money we saved on beans and grinders? There was a reason. We’re going to spend it on a coffee maker. Trust that I’ve tried dozens of different coffee makers in my time. Trust that I’ve tried different categories of coffee makers in my time. There is no better coffee maker than the <a href="https://us.moccamaster.com/collections/thermal-carafe-brewers/products/kbt?variant=44554681450659&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-make-coffee" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Technivorm Moccamaster</a>. It has exactly one button on it, and that button makes coffee. The coffee goes into a thermal carafe which keeps it hot, and doesn’t sit on a hot plate, which cooks it. You want your coffee brewed, not cooked. It retails for around $350, which is pricey. But it also lasts forever. It has very few moving parts and they’re mostly replaceable should one of them break. (Which it won’t.) Think of it as buying a really good pair of shoes that you can resole and will last you a lifetime. Trust me on the coffeemaker, if nothing else. Having gathered all the necessary components we will now make coffee. Let’s talk about measuring. Throw your coffee scale away. Coffee is made by feel. Coffee is made with your heart. Coffee is made with your chest, not with a scale. Fill the grinder to the top. Press down on it and grind those beans like you’re grinding a fascist’s bones. Pulverize those fuckers into a fine dust. You cannot use too many beans. Every bad cup of coffee is the result of not enough beans, and I’m including folks who enjoy light roasts here. You’re not using enough beans. The basket is that size for a reason, if it was meant to be half-filled it would be half the size! Add the grounds to the basket. Fill the coffee maker with cold water. Not warm. Not hot. Cold. Hit that button. While you wait for that coffee to brew you can clean the counter, or wash the dishes, or sweep the kitchen floor, because that wait will be interminable. But in the end, you’ll have a perfect cup of coffee. That perfect cup of coffee will remind you of every cup of coffee you’ve ever had. From espressos with your grandma, to pour-overs in your first college apartment, to stopping at Wawa on the way to your shit job, to fumbling through crappy coffee setups in hotels all over the world, to every cup in a diner at 3am while you were on your way to or from somewhere, to incredibly bad cups from the machine in the hospital waiting room while you waited to find out if news was bad or good, to Sunday mornings in the Fall sitting in the front room listening to Françoise Hardy on the turntable as your wife leans over to kiss you good morning and tells you “Good job on the coffee this morning.” A coffee maker is a time machine. Reminding you of where you’ve been, and how you got here, right before dropping you back exactly where you need to be. Make it count. <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-make-coffee" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it!</a> I might have a long-winded tangent-filled answer for you. 🐋 I’ll be speaking at <a href="https://www.y-oslo.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-make-coffee" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Y-Oslo</a> in a couple of weeks if you’re in the neighborhood. 📣 There are a few spots life for the Presenting w/Confidence workshop in November. <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/presenting-work-with-confidence-tickets-1754965010589?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-make-coffee" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Sign up here</a>. 🖤 RIP D’Angelo. 📆 Happy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown%27s_raid_on_Harpers_Ferry?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-make-coffee" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">John Brown Did Nothing Wrong Day</a>. 🎉 We’ve been busy adding a lot of fun crap to the store. 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