Fun Stuff

I'm Sam. I lived in Philadelphia my whole life and never planned on leaving. Then my girlfriend took a new job in New York, and we found an apartment in Williamsburg almost by accident. I didn't expect to feel at home here. I did, right away. People were welcoming in a way that's hard to fake, and even harder to plan for.

The more time I spent in the neighborhood, the more I noticed the artistic culture running underneath it: galleries, studios, makers working a few blocks from wherever I happened to be. I wanted to know more, who was doing the work, where it was showing, what was actually worth walking to on a given night. So I started going myself, then started writing down what I found. Fun Stuff grew out of that habit, a way to highlight the people who make this neighborhood what it is and build something that could bring the community together around the work itself, not just around a calendar of it.

I'm an engineer and builder by background, and that shows up in how I run this. I research every event from primary sources, not press releases, and attend when I can, usually a few things a week.

The editorial line matters more than the format. I want to champion the artists and makers who end up in these pages, which means every entry gets real, thoughtful writing instead of a copied listing. The goal was never a comprehensive calendar. There are plenty of those, and none of them are why anyone actually goes anywhere. What you can trust is the curation itself: every event here made it in because I think it's genuinely worth your time, not because it filled a slot. Fun Stuff exists so people who care about artists, makers, and creatives in this neighborhood have an easy way to find them, see the work, and connect with the people behind it.

Twelve issues in, two things have surprised me. The first is how much is genuinely happening here in any given week. There's always more worth covering than I have room for. The second is how people respond when I reach out. Cold messages to artists and studios I've never met get warm replies more often than not. That's not something a good pitch can manufacture. It says something real about the neighborhood itself.

I think Williamsburg is a genuinely great place to live, work, grow, and build relationships. All you have to do is extend a hand, and someone will shake it. Fun Stuff is my way of doing that every week: pointing at what's worth showing up for, and at the people worth knowing once you're there.