you’ve done the big thing.
now do the real thing.
A private atelier for public figures and cultural misfits who are ready to make their before/after artifact.
philosophy
File under: founders, artists, and other public weirdos who are successful on paper and starving for canon.
Here, we don’t “build your brand.”
We make the one artifact everything else orbits around — your Kitchen Confidential or Star Wars.
Work that outlives the algorithm and quietly (or loudly) changes how the world sees you.
It’s fun, stylish, and very alive — closer to a great party than a Q4 offsite. If it fits in a conference room, we don’t make it.
The work
We start by trading references, stories, and jokes until your before/after artifact feels inevitable.
Then we give it a name, a face, a few haircuts, and a Ralph-worthy polish.
You leave with a tangible object that lives in culture — the piece that recalibrates who calls and upgrades what rooms you’re in and what your name is worth.
Not a vanity project, but the artifact your future deals and reputation compound around.
SELECT receipts
1998-2026
HARD PACK MAGAZINE
Bored CMO → editor of the ski avant-garde. We built the mag of his dreams — “Paris Review meets Thrasher, but for skiing.” His life isn’t going downhill.
Read Up
TIES WITH ALBERT
HAMMOND JR.
Albert from The Strokes and I turned an afternoon in the garment district into a Ralph-coded cult tie collection everyone went nuts for.
This Is It
GQ STYLE X
MUSIC COLUMNS
Inspired by The Style Guy, I became the Style & Music Guy. I heard Chalamet cribbed his Dylan bio-pic get up from these writings.
Listen Up. Get Fly.
FISHO MAGAZINE
Writer, editor, and photographer Nick Marzano traded the corporate terror of Meta for FISHO — a properly weird art-meets-fishing platform we dreamed up together.
Reelin’ In The Years
SCREAM OF
MY BLOOD
Teamed up with longtime co-conspirator Eugene Hutz to help make and sell a Gogol Bordello documentary to the suits. Landed at Tribeca.
Movie Magic Here
OUR SHOW WITH ELLIOT ARONOW
Memory is hazy but I wrote, hosted, and produced an anarchic talk show that turned into the scene’s Dick Cavett. LCD, Vampire Weekend, Das Racist, Chromeo were all down for the cause.
Have Your Party On TV
if you’re still here, you’re one of us.
minor genius studio is my private atelier, a place where peers gather to make iconic work.
Rare by design, for those who’ve already done the big thing and are finally ready to do the real thing.
If you’re tired of being hired for your labor and want to be chosen for your aura, this is the right room.
what happens here
Think of the studio as a fun and slightly dangerous laboratory for your next myth.
We’re not optimizing your pipeline; we’re making the cult object your audience would rescue if the internet caught fire.
We dig through past lives, half-finished decks, bad advice, and the ideas you buried in a Google Doc called NEW PROJECT_V7_REAL_FINAL.
We trade references, steal from your own myth, and build a form around it — magazine, show, film, brand, offer. No sticky notes on whiteboards. No breakout groups.
What comes out is a clean, undeniable reference point — the thing future profiles footnote, the project your friends point to and say, “That’s them.”
It doesn’t just upgrade who calls; it rewrites your “before and after” so everything you do next makes a different kind of sense.
Don’t stress, this isn’t about your “life’s work. We’re just going to make the one thing only you could have made, at its best.
who’s in the room
On my side: twenty years making cultural artifacts with LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, Mark Ronson, GQ, Michael Imperioli — not as a fan in the corner, but as a peer in the room.
I’m here as conspirator and editor, never your coach.
On your side: you’ve got receipts — press, rooms, careers, catalogs, maybe exits or awards. Externally, you’re “doing great.” Internally, you know you’re one artifact short; people are still introducing the 2015 version of you.
You’re not looking for a glow-up or a funnel. You’re looking for the piece that matches your aura and sets your next price.
why it matters
One great artifact does what ten industrious years can’t.
When the work finally matches your aura, the world updates its file on you — invites shift, fees move, and “Oh, that’s what you do” finally lands.
If you feel the charge reading this, apply below. Real recognize real.