Against prognosticating

10 things worth sharing this week

A collage I made around a drawing Warren Craghead sent me on a postcard

Hey y’all,

Halloween’s over, but the season of horror continues. Americans: If you haven’t already, go vote.

Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:

1. In brain-scrambling times like these, I like to read old books. I’m currently reading one of Michel de Montaigne’s essays every morning to avoid a.m. doomscrolling. 400 years ago, Montaigne wrote in “On Prognostications” about “the stubborn curiosity of our nature which delights in worrying about the future as if it had not enough to deal with in the present.” He then quotes Lucian: “Let the mind of men be blind to what is to be. May those who fear be permitted to hope.”
   
   

2. My Tuesday letter “On notebooks and memory” was an excuse to link two of my current favorite books: Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Datebook Volume Three and Roland Allen’s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper. Allen points out that “people often start diaries in times of upheaval,” and that’s certainly true for me: I have the years 2017-2021 to thank for my morning pages habit. I’m grateful to have a paper place to dump all my angst! (A diary is a good place to have bad ideas.)
   
   

3. “In Busytown there’s just enough innocent mayhem and tripping and falling to hint at a darker side of things, like failing 1970s marriages and the things on television news that adults were always yelling about.” Chris Ware on Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature. (We bought all the Richard Scarry books for our kids, and the surprising influence of What Do People Do All Day? is one of my all-time favorite publishing stories.)
   
   

4. “More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible,” wrote Tim Kreider in “The Busy Trap,” collected in We Learn Nothing. “If your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary.” (So long Busytown, welcome to Business Town.)
   
   

5. “America is full of frustrated, broken, baffled people because so many of us think, ‘If I work this hard, this many hours a week, I should have (a great job, a nice house, a nice car, etc). I don't have that thing, therefore something has corrupted the system and kept me from getting what I deserve, and that something must be (the government, illegal immigrants, my wife, my boss, my bad luck, etc).’” How The Karate Kid Ruined The Modern World.
   
   

6. “There are two camps of wrestlers in lucha libre: the técnicos, or experts who abide by the rules, and the rudos, or rough ones who break them.” For years, my smartest friends have told me that if you want to understand American politics you need to understand wrestling. Dan Sinker recently shared rough cuts of episodes from his doomed podcast on the subject, American Heel.
   
   

7. “It’s one thing to say ‘corporate AI can be dangerous’ and it’s another to forever imagine the foot of a T-800 crushing a human skull.” A guide to the best Luddite horror films.
   
   

8. Eye candy: Exquisite corpses by Kerry James Marshall, Basquiat’s jazz paintings, and Francine Winham’s photos of jazz musicians. (It suddenly occurs to me that my month has been full of jazz and baseball — two of the great American contributions to human culture.)
   
   

9. Dark ear candy: I plan to make some time today to listen to The Cure’s first album in 16 years.

   
   

10. RIP Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. (I’ve been listening to “Box of Rain” and the Cornell ‘77 show.) RIP filmmaker and Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey. RIP actress Terri Garr. (I love her in Young Frankenstein.)
    

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Enjoy your weekend, and good luck to us all next week.

xoxo,

Austin

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