Welp, it ain’t a Monday unless yer runnin’ late, huh bud?

This week, we’re crackin’ open what it really means to be part of a community — not the hashtag kind, but the hand-stitched, heart-built kind. From sidewalk chalk to stage lights, we believe community is more than just who you’re near. It’s what you make with the people beside you.

So go on bud — click around. This week’s issue was made with care, and it looks a whole lot better now that you’re here to read it.

Today's Issue Includes:

• This Week's Front Porch Partner: HubSpot

• Chattanooga's Upcoming Events

• Community Spotlight: The Walnut Branch Volume 4

• Stuff I saw on the internet: The Wiki Game

• Deep Thoughts with Bubby: Community as an Art

• Clementine's Corner: 2000's Vibes

• Wrap Up

Go on and crank this week’s theme song real loud, ‘cause it’s Freakier Friday week!

This Week’s Front Porch Partner: HubSpot

Together with

Wanna pitch in and help Chattynooga grow without spendin’ a dime? Just clickin’ this ad from our buddies at HubSpot sends $2.80 our way, easy as pie. No signups, no strings — just one lil’ tap puts wind in our sails. Thanks for helpin’ us keep this porch light on, friend!

Want to get the most out of ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.

Discover how HubSpot's guide to AI can elevate both your productivity and creativity to get more things done.

Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation with the power of AI.

Download the free guide

What’s Goin’ On in the Scenic City?

Community

• M-PACT: Where Men Connect
  August 9 @ Miller Park, 8AM–3PM
  A full day of games, music, bounce houses, cold plunges, and big ol’ hugs. It’s community, vulnerability, and shoulder hugs all in one.
  🫂Cold Plunge with new dude friends!

• The Frozen Steppe Pre-Release Party
  August 9 @ The Crazy Book Lady (GA)
  Jay Olsen-Thrift is throwin’ a birthday book bash, complete with a TTRPG one-shot and exclusive early access to her new book, The Frozen Steppe. Nerd joy awaits.
  🎲 Roll for Bookish Vibes

• Junior Entrepreneurs Market
  August 16 @ Sweet Maple Market
  Slime? Handmade crafts? Kids runnin’ booths like baby Shark Tanks? Support the next gen of creative CEOs. We’re givin’ ya a two week heads up just so you ain’t got plans!
  💼 Invest in Big Slime

Music & Entertainment

• Cherokee Cultural Celebration 2025
  August 9 & 10 @ Red Clay State Historic Park
  A rich celebration of Cherokee culture with dancing, music, demonstrations, and tradition. $5 per carload—bring friends and a fold-out chair.
  🪶 Celebrate with Intention

• Chattanooga Margarita Festival
  August 9, 6:00 – 9:00PM @ First Horizon Pavilion
  Ten mini margs. DJs. A vote for Chattanooga’s finest. Support the Market, support your lime-loving self.
  🍹 Sip Happens, Vote Wisely

• Throwback Thursday @ The Hunter
  August 7 at 6PM @ Hunter Museum of American Art
  Free museum entry, gallery talks, and historic shoes that you’ll wish were still in style.
  👠 Strut Through the Past

Outdoors ‘n’ Stuff

• Pirates, Parrots & Princesses at the Chattanooga Zoo!
  August 9 @ Chattanooga Zoo, 10AM–1PM
  Dress up and party like royalty or a pirate. Feathered friends included. Arrr you ready kids?
  🏴‍☠️ Aye Aye, Captain!

• Sensory Night with The Creative Discovery Museum
  August 7 @ Creative Discovery Museum, 5:30 PM - 8 PM
  A calm, low-stimulus playtime for sensory-sensitive kids and their grownups, in partnership with Lighthouse Kids! Free with registration.
  🎧 Quiet Joy, Big Impact

Got somethin’ cookin’ that the Scenic City oughta know about? Wanna talk about how cool your weekend was? Tell us all about it! We’d love to yap it up and holler all about it from the porch! Just reply to this message, or send a separate one to [email protected]!

Hand-Picked Community Spotlight: The Walnut Branch Volume 4 is OUT!

A New Chapter in Chattanooga’s Creative Story

The Walnut Branch, Walnut Street Publishing’s quarterly publication, is back with Volume 4, baybee! featuring bold, heartfelt work from some of Chattanooga’s most thoughtful creators, including some of our own talented Chattynooga readers:

• Mariah Berry’s Not Nemo, Not Hiding from Not Bruce challenges labels and expectations through a vibrant mixed-media piece about identity and courage.

• Paul Zachos takes us on a poetic photo journey through ancient ruins, exploring memory, decay, and the stories we leave behind.

• And the cover? Designed by our pal Laurie Geisen, with electric blue curls and a stare that makes ya wanna look closer.

There’s so much more submitted than I can even cover this week, you’ll just have to see fer yerself. This issue is a tribute to vulnerability, resilience, and Southern-made storytelling. If ya weren’t at the launch party last Friday, you can scoop up a copy of the issue for 10 smackaroonies on their website instead!

Stuff I Saw on the Internet: The Wiki Game

You ever find yourself click click clicking around on the Internet, and before you know it you’ve wasted an hour and gone down a rabbit hole longer than the receipt from CVS when you just bought gum? Well, that’s the whole point of this week’s thing we found on the internet. It’s called The Wiki Game, and it’s both a head scratcher and a barrel of fun.

The Wiki Game has you compete against people from all over the world who are playing at the same time as you. You get two Wikipedia articles that have nothing to do with each other. You start in the first page, then you have two minutes to click the internal hyperlinks to get to different articles. The goal is to get to the second wiki page in as few clicks as possible. Whoever does that, wins! Think six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but make it Wikipedia. And, the game resets every two minutes with two new articles to connect, so if you get a tough one, don’t worry. You’re bound to know the next one!

My only word of warning with The Wiki Game? It’ll suck ya in quick! Bubby and I played a few rounds last night and before I knew it I had seen 100 articles and been at it for an hour. But you know me, I’m a sucker for encyclopedic knowledge!

So, if you’re looking for something semi-productive to do to waste time on the Internet this week, check out this internet gem.

Deep Thoughts with Bubby: Community as an Art

Imma be real honest with ya buds, I ain’t no painter or poet like the beautiful folks pourin’ their soul into the work they submitted for The Walnut Branch — though I do think my grilled cheese symmetry is worthy of a gallery showing — but, I been thinkin’ a lot lately about how community is its own kinda art.

Not the kind you hang on the wall, neither. More like the kind you gotta live inside of to truly experience the beauty of it.

See, buildin’ real community is slow work, and it ain’t always somethin’ that you get really excited about when you’re doin’ it. It’s pieced together in the in-betweens: quiet check-ins, borrowed rakes, shared home cooked meals from your neighbor’s kitchen, and random “How ya doin’ bud?” texts at 11:47 PM, after seein’ on “The ‘Gram” that they may not be havin’ the best day. It’s lookin’ folks in they eyes while they talkin’, even if sometimes it’s for ten minutes atta time (sorry, but also thank ya in advance). It's listenin’. It’s invitin’ folks back, even when they don’t say much the first time. It's personal thank-you notes. Group chats that never die.

And you don’t always see the brushstrokes while you’re makin’ it. You just show up, again and again, addin’ yer bit of color until one day ya look up and there it is — a tapestry of faces and stories and inside jokes, held together by care and effort (and maybe a lil’ duct tape… just to make sure).

What makes it art, if you ask me, is that it shapes you, too. The more you pour into your people, the more they seep into how you move through the world. Suddenly you’re a little softer. A little louder. A little braver. You see sidewalk chalk and think of someone. You pass by their old house and smile.

Community’s not about perfection, it’s about intention. About not lettin’ folks fall through the cracks. About makin’ sure there’s a seat, even if it’s a wobbly one. Sarah Hawk mentions this in a beautiful talk about buildin’ a culture of inclusivity in remote spaces, but it certainly applies to any community space:

Although community buildin’ may not fit the traditional sense of art, the beauty that comes of it is just as valuable and tangible as that bundle of stickers ya snagged from them market vendors over the weekend. Sometimes, you reap the rewards through a potluck, a hug when ya need it most, and deep belly laughin’ that you can hear from two porches down.

And the best part? You can build your own version of community, too. It can even look completely different from someone else’s idea of what community is to them, you just gotta keep showin’ up little by little where ya can.

With that all on the table, lemme end this with some questions that I’m curious about from y’all’s perspective:

• What does community look like to you?

• What do you think you’re missin’ within your community that ya wish you maybe had more of?

• How can you be more intentional within the communities you’re apart of this week? Nothing crazy ginormous, think small here.

If you’re curious in sharin’, press that reply button or send a whole different email to Ole Bubs at [email protected] with the subject ‘Community as an Art’, we’d love to hear your perspective!

Clementine’s Corner: 2000’s Vibes

This weekend, as we do most weekends, Bubby and I had movie night. We found an old Disney movie to watch because we heard there’s a sequel coming out soon. That’s right, we discovered Freaky Friday this weekend.

Now I love a good book to movie to 2000s remake and Lindsay Lohan is kind of the queen of them. I’m no movie critic but I do have a lot of big opinions about this movie. First of all, the soundtrack is perfect. Something about that pop punk, angsty rock music made me want to time travel back to 2003 and just vibe. And the clothes! Personally I think the grungy, baggy pants with a pointless belt and chunky blonde highlights look is pretty chill. Bubby says it looks like the scary store at the mall exploded all over them, but he just doesn’t get it.

I don’t know, maybe I was born in the wrong generation, but watching Freaky Friday has me feeling nostalgic for a different time. I’m a sucker for classic films. And you better believe you can catch Bubby and I at the Northgate AMC this weekend with a giant bucket of popcorn for Freakier Friday.

What’s your favorite throwback, feel good movie? Get back to me by sending a reply through the email tubes!

Well buds, looks like this week’s issue has come to a close.

Whether you found a new event to mark on your fridge calendar, a piece of art that hit too close to home (in the best way), or just a little spark of “maybe I do belong here”, we’re glad you dropped by.

Community ain’t something that shows up overnight. It’s just somethin’ we make together, moment by moment. And sometimes, that can even look like just reading to the very end of a goofy newsletter sent by some friends of yours.

Thanks for showin’ up. For seein’ what’s worth seein’. For helpin’ us keep this porch swing swingin’. See ya next week, neighbor!

— Bubby & Clementine