Crazy socks and silly rituals

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

Next Wednesday (4/22) here in Austin, Texas I’m interviewing Hrishikesh Hirway (host of my favorite podcast Song Exploder) onstage as part of the release show for his new album. Details here.

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

1. My 11-year-old’s take on crazy sock day feels deeply profound to me and relevant to contemporary life in ways I don’t want to ruin with explanation. “Out of the mouths of babes…” and tweens!

   

   Pre-order before June 2 to get the goods

2. I am downright delighted by how many of y’all have picked up the pre-order goodies for Don’t Call It Art. I’m extremely impatient to have this book out in the world, so seeing the zines and posters printed out and in your spaces is a real treat…

   

   thx to pathfindermarr and lizetaviva on Instagram

3. One of my favorite parts of Don’t Call It Art is about “silly rituals” — the fun, goofy things we do in the studio to make our work feel more like play. (I always ask people if they have any silly rituals in my typewriter interviews.) I have quite a few, and one of them is weighing my notebooks when I start and finish them:

4. “You think you’re doing random stuff, but your unconscious is screaming out a kind of sense that others can see better than you.” —Brad Neely, Creased Comics
   
   

5. I finished Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove for the second time. I loved it when I read it 15 years ago, and probably loved it even more this time around. The first time I read it, I didn’t have sons, I hadn’t read Don Quixote or Tolstoy’s big novels, hadn’t had any midlife crises, and I didn’t know anything about Stoic or Epicurean philosophy. (One of the primary creative tensions in the book.) That’s the magic of re-reading: you’re changing all the time, so the book is a different book every time you pick it up. Parts can be as bloody and gruesome as McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (published the same year!), but Lonesome Dove is funny and fun and you don’t want it to end. My highest recommendation, and a perfect big book for summer.

   

   One of my paper time capsules (the map is full of spoilers, beware!)

6. Calling it Art: “Duchamp helps us understand that ‘art’ shouldn’t be thought of as a noun that picks out certain kinds of objects, but as a verb: We ’art’ absolutely any object at all by using it to trigger thoughts and conversation.” That’s Blake Gopnik in the New York Times, quoted by my friend Rob Walker in his letter, “Just Art It.” (I love the Duchamp galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art — Rob gave me valuable intel: the MoMa show is headed there in October.) I’m a fan of Calvin Tomkins’ two books about Duchamp, Duchamp: A Biography and Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews.

   
   

7. “A lot of these moments… are usually so small and fleeting that we don’t pay attention to them. And we’re kind of experiencing them almost on autopilot and running on emotions. And we’re not really choosing anything. We’re not making a choice there. And so, I’m basically just collecting these moments. There might be a small touch of some discomfort or dissonance or awkwardness or absurdity or something. And I just jot it down, and sometimes it’s clearly funny as it is. Sometimes I have to kind of find it on stage as I share this moment with the audience. But it all starts from just being present and engaged with your life.” Comedian Sheng Wang on stand-up and his new special, Purple. (I haven’t watched it yet, but I laughed a lot at Sweet and Juicy — I tried to get “Uncle Sheng your breath smells like birds” into my new book, but just couldn’t quite fit it in....)
   
   

8. Mixtape: Last April I made an “April Showers” mix that I love. Earlier this month I was listening to Prince’s “Sometimes It Snows In April” and wondered if I could do a frozen version of April Showers, with a bunch of wintry music that might still sound good in spring. Here’s what I came up with: Snow in April.

   

   Listen to the mixtape

   
   

9. RIP singer Asha Bhosle. Check out this playlist that Hrishikesh made that features a bunch of her work.
   
   

10. Don’t miss my typewriter interview with the great Tim Kreider.

    

Thanks for reading! This hand-rolled, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the kind support of readers like you. The best way you can support my work right now is to pre-order the new book!

xoxo,

Austin

PS. I was a bit stupefied by this news story, but to be honest, a box of POSCA paint pens and Steal Like an Artist would make a killer present.