A fine strategy
10 things worth sharing: making ugly art, the magic of browsing, and more...
Hey y’all,
Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:
For me, attempting “ugly” art or trying to make “bad” art are both fine strategies when nothing else works...
Book club news: My October pick is Sally Mann’s Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs. Next Thursday afternoon at 2PM CT I’ll be interviewing Rob Walker, the author of September’s pick, The Art of Noticing, on Instagram Live. (Follow me to get notified: @austinkleon.)
A typewritten interview with the legendary Joy Williams, whose new novel, Harrow, is out now. (It’s her first novel since The Quick and The Dead.)
One of my favorite music writers on one of my favorite pianists: The Honky-Tonk Nun of Ethiopia.
SAGE Studio, a local Austin, TX studio arts program for artists with disabilities is raising money for a new space on Kickstarter. (You may have seen me in my Rick Fleming t-shirt.)
Fellow Elder Millennial (or older) parents: here’s why your kids’ Common Core math problems look so weird.
TV: we’ve been all about the British TV recently, enjoying the comedy This Way Up and the new season of Grand Designs. (Which featured maybe my favorite episode ever.)
RIP comedian Norm Macdonald. RIP TV personality Leta Powell Drake.
On the importance of physical collections and in-person browsing: “Spontaneity is learning. Browsing is research.”
As you may have heard, the supply chain is a mess right now, so if you’d like to get any of my books signed and personalized for the holidays, you may want to order them from Bookpeople now, while they’re in stock! They ship everywhere, and I’ll draw a skeleton or an owl or a stick person in as many as you buy.
Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free, but not cheap. You can help it keep going: forward it to someone who’d like it, read my books, shop for some of my favorite gear (I get a cut), buy a t-shirt, or hire me to speak.
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xoxo,
Austin
