I have two kids in a Texas public elementary school, so you can imagine the state of my mind this week. Here are 10 things that took me out of the hellscape, if only briefly:
In case you missed it, this is the last month of the Read Like an Artist book club. I recapped the dozen books we read together.
I’ve just started Iain McGilchrist’s gargantuan 2-volume tome The Matter With Things. (His previous book, The Master and His Emissary, was one of my favorite books I read last year. Here is a lecture I drew to give you an idea of what the new book is like.)
For evening fun, I’m reading Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome’s 1889 novel about three friends that go on a boating misadventure. (I’d never heard of it, but found it at the top of a list of the 50 funniest books of all time.)
Two brand-new books I’m excited to read: Dan Chaon’s Sleepwalk (read an excerpt) and Jody Rosen’s Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle. (Rosen talked to my friend Brian Braiker about the book and Jill Lepore wrote about it in The New Yorker.)
A bright spot in the week was getting a private tour of the Ransom Center by curator Aaron Pratt. Some gems I saw: a Coronelli celestial globe, James Joyce’s schemas for Ulysses, and Robert De Niro’s library. (I also got to turn the pages of a Gutenberg Bible.) You don’t have to be in Texas to enjoy the holdings: the digital collections are incredible, too. (Check out this advertisement for “How To Enjoy James Joyces’ great novel Ulysses” and this photo of Marilyn Monroe reading it.)
Comedy: As anticipated, I enjoyed George Carlin’s American Dream. If you want to go a little deeper into his writing process, check out his last interview from 2008 and this recording, Carlin on Comedy. (If you’ve never watched his standup, you can’t go wrong with Jammin’ in New York.)
Filmmaking: Some fun new-to-me details in this profile of Mad Max director George Miller. Not only did he direct the movie Happy Feet and draw inspiration from Buckminster Fuller’s I Seem To Be A Verb, he’s also a doctor! “His day job came in handy… because every time the production ran out of money, he worked as an emergency physician to make money.” (I’ve been told that Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road is a good read.)
Music: Shabaka’s Afrikan Culture and my Gemini Power! playlist.
RIP Andy Fletcher, co-founder of Depeche Mode, one of my favorite bands. (Take a listen to Depeche Mode 101 or Violator.) RIP drummer Alan White. RIP writer Roger Angell. (I love this passage about sports fandom and “the business of caring.”) RIP actor Ray Liotta. (To me, he’s Goodfellas, but Hanif reminded me of his great performance in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.)
Advice from poet Jane Kenyon: “Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.”
I’d like to end with a special birthday shout-out to my favorite person: my wife Meghan. She edits every single one of these emails and she is celebrating her 40th year on the planet tomorrow. To quote Roger Ebert, “She is the great fact of my life,” and if you like my work, a great deal of it exists because of her. I love you, baby! (Don’t edit this out!)
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xoxo,
Austin
PS. If you need an easy graduation gift, consider my trilogy:
Please wish Meghan the happiest of 40th birthdays. I appreciate the work she does on these emails!
Happy Birthday Meghan! Genini's are awesome.
Love the Gemini playlist.
Sending you all moments of peace and calm