Digging deep
10 things worth sharing this week
Spooky season is upon us. Ghouls abound. I voted early, so now I’m gonna try to enter into the spirit by carving some pumpkins and rooting against the Yankees.
Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:
Two of my favorite artists are publishing books in non-traditional ways: Kelli Anderson’s Alphabet in Motion was fully-funded on Kickstarter in less than a day and Brian Eno is publishing What Art Does as a limited artist edition through MetaLabel before it will be available in a wider release from Faber next year.
Spooky reading: I really don’t think you can go wrong with the classics. I love Frankenstein, Dracula, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — as with many classics, they’re much weirder than you can even imagine. I also love short story collections — a big favorite of mine in recent years was Lafcadio Hearn’s Japanese Ghost Stories.
Spooky ear candy: If you’re throwing a Halloween party, I made a silly little “Monster Mash” playlist you can throw on. (I love this Halloween Nuggets: Monster Sixties A Go-Go box set.) I also recommend Walter Martin’s Halloween episode. If you just want some solo October vibes, check out my mix “The October Country.” And I told you about Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee back in April, but it’s now available on Bandcamp. Probably my favorite album released this year — check out the song “Dracula.”
Spooky viewing: We watched the original 1942 Cat People with the kids and they seemed to dig it. I love those old horror movies produced by Val Lewton — we might try I Walked With A Zombie on them next year. Other hits with the kids are the classic Universal monster movies like Frankenstein and Creature from the Black Lagoon. I’ve heard Over the Garden Wall is good, but haven’t checked it out yet — there’s a new two-minute stop motion film coming soon to celebrate its 10th anniversary. If you need something lighter, there’s always It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown — preferably from a bootleg VHS rip with vintage commercials, since Apple TV owns the streaming rights now and it won’t be broadcast on TV. (I’ve stopped relying on streaming media for our holiday favorites and buy classics I know we’re going to watch again on physical media.) For really little ones, I recommend Room on the Broom.
“Obituaries are some of the most nutrient-dense texts a child can read…. The obituaries section is exclusive real estate. They don’t let boring people in.” In Show Your Work!, I made the case for reading obituaries, but I never thought of making them a curriculum for students.
“Is reading Faulkner going to make you a better person? Absolutely not,” writes Jessa Crispin, “but the whole universe wants you to be optimized, productive, monetized. And sitting around and reading a work of art when it is not your job to do so is a rebellious act that insists I am a human being, actually, and not a cog, not a good little worker, not a cozy girl eating the slop that is fed to me. And developing the parts of myself that are unproductive, ugly, and a drain on resources is a beautiful act of rebellion.”
RIP comic book writer Joyce Brabner. Seventeen years ago, I had lunch with her and her husband Harvey Pekar in Cleveland — one of the highlights of my young life as an aspiring cartoonist. If you’ve never seen American Splendor, the movie based on their life and the book Our Cancer Year, it’s very much worth a watch.
“Boredom can be viewed as a kind of fossil fuel, poured into inertia and ignited with fabulous results…” RIP writer Gary Indiana. The Paris Review has de-paywalled his “The Art of Fiction” interview. (That boredom quote is from his novel, Do Everything in the Dark.)
“Is not a tombstone an away message?” The poets go, but they leave us so many away messages.
“In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.” That’s Edith Wharton, from a dip into my commonplace diary.
Okay, forgive me, but there’s one more thing I have to share:
I’ve been working on this book for over half a decade and I’m tremendously excited to get it out into the world. Thanks to all y’all for reading this newsletter and providing me with a playground to work out my ideas, share what I love, and show my work. Extra special shout-out to the paid subscribers who fund the fun and keep Friday free for everybody:
xoxo,
Austin
PS. The new book won’t come out for a while, so there’s plenty of time to catch up: The Steal Like an Artist Audio Trilogy is still only $9.99 on Apple Books and the paperback of Steal Like an Artist is still only $8 on Amazon.
I don't read them every week, but I do love a well-written obituary. I've collected some wonderful ones as inspiration for the draft obits I've prepared for my husband and me. (We don't have much family left to take care of such things after we're gone, so we're doing this stuff ourselves.) The best obits manage to convey the personality and interests of the deceased and even have a bit of humor in them. We'll probably have a short one published in our local paper (if it's still operating) and the full version on the funeral home's website (it's part of their service).
A useful book: "Yours Truly: An Obituary Writer's Guide to Telling Your Story" by James R. Haggerty. https://a.co/d/6j454bB
Lastly, this reminds me of the adage that was still followed when I was a girl but has thankfully died off in recent decades: The only times a woman was to have her name in the paper were when she was born, got married, or died. I miss the wedding announcements complete with bridal party names, description of the wedding gown, and the honeymoon destination.
Congratulations on the new book!
And thanks for this newsletter. It's one I read every week. Sometimes I end up with a bunch of things to read and others not so much. Today's nugget for me was the Jessa Crispin quote. I love any little act of rebellion, and all the more so when it includes reading.