Memos by Brian Swichkow

Topanga, CA
Topanga, CA is an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, California, which the County's annual report for the Santa Monica Mountains calls "the LA County unincorporated area of Topanga."...
benefactor
benefactor is a formal word for a person who gives money or other help to a person or an organization such as a school or charity. The Oxford Learner's Dictionary gives examples such as equipment...
tragedy
tragedy is a very sad event or situation, especially one that involves death, and also a serious play with a sad ending, especially one in which the main character dies. The Oxford Learner's...
Lightning in a Bottle
Lightning in a Bottle is a multi-day festival whose 2027 edition is scheduled for May 26–30, 2027, at Buena Vista Aquatic Recreational Area in Kern County, California. The festival's First Timer's...
Hollywood, CA
Hollywood, CA is a neighborhood of Los Angeles that Los Angeles City Planning's Hollywood Community Plan places five miles west of downtown Los Angeles and 12 miles from the Pacific coast. The plan,...
Bombay Beach, CA
Bombay Beach, CA is an unincorporated community in Imperial County, California, on the east side of the Salton Sea, named by the County as one of its eight unincorporated communities. Imperial...
Austin, TX
Austin, TX is a city in Texas that the Republic of Texas established as its capital in 1839; the Austin City Clerk dates the city's incorporation to 1839 and its first election to 1840. According to...
Miami, FL
Miami, FL is a city in Florida, incorporated in 1896, that the City of Miami's 2025 Popular Annual Financial Report places at the mouth of the Miami River on the western shores of Biscayne Bay. The...
Las Vegas, NV
Las Vegas, NV is a city in Nevada that, according to the City of Las Vegas, celebrates its birthday on May 15, the date of a 1905 railroad land auction, and was incorporated on June 1, 1911. The...
experience
experience is the knowledge and skill gained through doing something for a period of time, the things that have happened to a person that influence the way they think and behave, and an event or...
becoming
becoming describes something that suits a person or gives a pleasing, attractive appearance, or something suitable, appropriate or proper; as a noun, it names any process of change. Dictionary.com's...
essential
essential means completely necessary, or extremely important in a particular situation or for a particular activity, and also describes the most important aspect or basic nature of somebody or...
OpenDiv
OpenDiv is a project that, in its own words, "aims to translate divinity for a secular world," and that held the Open Div Summit, a four-day "pod-conference," on February 25–28, 2021. The summit...
maxim
maxim is a well-known phrase that expresses something that is usually true or that people think is a rule for sensible behaviour, as in the old maxim "You get what you pay for." Oxford's other...
definition
definition is an explanation of the meaning of a word or phrase, especially in a dictionary, and also what an idea means, as in someone's definition of happiness. The Oxford Learner's Dictionary...
osmosis
osmosis is, in biology or chemistry, the slow steady passing of a liquid through a membrane as a result of there being different amounts of dissolved substances on either side of the membrane. The...
assimilation
assimilation is the act or process of assimilating, or of absorbing information, experiences, and the like, as in the need for quick assimilation of the facts. Dictionary.com also defines it as the...
grounding
grounding is knowledge of or instruction in the basic principles of a subject, as in needing a thorough grounding in linguistics to understand a lecture. Dictionary.com's American entry gives three...
Kumospace
Kumospace is a software company that makes a virtual office platform for remote and hybrid teams. Users move around a shared virtual space and talk through video, chat, and spatial audio, which the...
Breakout
Breakout is a US organization that designs and runs place-based experiences, including convenings, immersions, and city activations, for people working to shape cities and communities. Breakout's...