Be the weird you wish to see

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

Spring has sprung in Texas, and to celebrate, I’m offering 20% off paid subscriptions. A paid subscription gets you a special newsletter from me every Tuesday, membership in a community of thousands of creative people, and access to comments and the full archives. The kind support of paid subscribers also keeps this Friday letter free for everybody:

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

1. Every once in a while I see something that’s so good and so fun, I just think, Man, I wish I’d thought of that! That was exactly my reaction to video artist Erik Winkowski’s “ZINEMAIL No.1.” Can’t wait to see more of these in his newsletter, Paper Films. You can check out Erik’s other work here. (Thanks to Mitchell Volk for pointing me in Erik’s direction — Mitchell is also doing really creative things with animated gifs in his newsletter.)
   
   

2. If that’s not enough inspiration for you, art coach Beth Pickens has a new deck of cards for everyday creative challenges called The Artist's Deck. If you haven’t already, you should really watch our chat together about death, deadlines, and doing your art no matter what.
   
   

3. Mailbag: I answered a batch of your questions in Tuesday’s letter, “The point of this world.” This was fun enough that I think I might make it a regular thing? (One more reason to take advantage of the spring sale!)
   
   

4. No smoking: “You can hold an unlit cigarette in your hand in the studio instead of smoking it,” Brian Eno once said. “It has much the same effect.” I finally tracked down a good place online to buy the cigarette pencils I like to “smoke” in the studio: You can buy a “loosie” or a big can of them from St. Louis Art Supply.
   
   

5. “Words + pictures = magic.” My old pal and New Yorker cartoonist Drew Dernavich visited at the tail end of SXSW last weekend and he was the first studio visitor to be gifted a cigarette pencil:

   

6. Dub reggae: Drew hipped me to Michael Veal’s Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae, which is just a tad too academic for my taste, but is full of wonderful stuff about some of the greatest music ever made. Reading it got me listening to old favorites like King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, Super Ape, and Heart of the Congos. (“Dub reggae is the peak of human achievement,” is how my friend Thor Harris puts it.)
   
   

7. Drew must’ve left some magic behind in the studio because all I wanted to do over spring break was make block prints and listen to dub reggae:

   If you want to get started with block printing, Speedball makes a really handy beginner’s kit. I’ll talk more about the method in a forthcoming Tuesday newsletter. (I was really inspired by the workshop I took with Dana Tanamachi I mentioned in my “Living Seasonally” newsletter.)
   
   

8. Support public libraries! Several people have asked me where to get the “What’s more punk than the public library?” t-shirt I’m wearing in that video. Please buy one from the Mount Pleasant Library Friends site — all the others online are knockoffs. For my American readers: Our president issued an executive order to dismantle the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services. The ALA has a page of frequently asked questions about the order including a list of what you can do. (Don’t have a library card? Go out and get one today!)
   
   

9. Romanian film: I can’t fully recommend Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World — I thought it was too long and beats one over the head a bit — but it has moments of real, vulgar, comedic brilliance, and I love the story of how actress Ilinca Manolache cooked up her alter misogynist ego “Bobita.” (It might not totally be my thing, but with any piece of art, I ask myself: Am I still thinking about it the next day? The next week? If so, there’s something to it.)
   
   

10. There are terrible things happening in the world, but you can’t let it rob you of getting joy out of your day-to-day living while you can. One thing that never fails me: Stepping away from the screen and leaving the house. This week I found some major treasure on one of our daily walks. I took my kids to a baseball game. I shopped for records and art supplies and chatted with strangers. I know I’ve said it over and over and over again but I’ll say it again: the more I make an effort to engage locally with my neighborhood and my city, the better I feel about life. (If you’re in Austin, mark your calendars on April 12 + 13 for The Book Trail crawl. And check out the marvelous poster with a block print by Strawberry Milkweed! I shared an itinerary with some of my favorite participating bookstores.)

Thanks for reading. This hand-rolled, ad-free, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the love and support of readers like you. If you want to help keep it going, buy my books, hire me to speak at your event, or, best of all, take advantage of the 20% off sale and become a paid subscriber:

And remember: “They can’t cancel the spring.”

xoxo,

Austin