Drawing at the skate park

10 things worth sharing this week

Before people ask: Yes, you too can have a Gravity Falls hat!

Hey y’all,

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

1. When you have two or more kids, I’ve found it’s really important to split them up once in a while to get some good one-on-one time. My 7-year-old and I had some terrific adventures at the Texas Book Festival last weekend: First, we met Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, and then we walked down to the skate park and drew together. (And I used the opportunity to write about how much I like thinking about skateboarding.) He’s also been coming into the studio to draw with me and a few days ago I visited his 2nd grade class and taught a zine workshop. We made simplified version of my gratitude zine — thanksgiving zines!
   
   

2. “My father rolled his eyes. He thought residencies were lame. He said he wouldn’t be caught dead at a writers’ colony. My mother snapped at him: ‘Your whole life is a writer’s colony.’” I really liked Ada Calhoun’s Also A Poet, a memoir about her father, the art critic Peter Schjeldahl and the poet Frank O’Hara.
   
   

3. I’m a huge fan of Michael Mann’s Heat. I just started his novel with Meg Gardiner, Heat 2, and it has completely sucked me in. (Just beware: there are some disturbing scenes involving sexual assault.)
   
   

4. On biting your piano: “The sensation is amazing. It goes up through your skull, your head resonates like a tuning fork.” (viaMarc Weidenbaum)

   
   

5. How in the heck did I miss that a documentary about the film composer Ennio Morricone was released this year? I must see this movie immediately! (In the meantime, this BBC documentary is pretty good.) Also: John Wick 4 is coming next year. Will they trim the Wick? (Speaking of run times: I love how the Criterion Channel has a recommendations page based on how much time you have to watch.)
   
   

6. Gear: I have wanted a Telecaster for years and I finally bought a Squier model that plays like a guitar twice the price. Love it. (I also bought a laptop stand that isn’t hideous and works. Is it better than a big stack of hardcover books? Maybe.)
   
   

7. Recently discovered tapes mean that we now have 4 hours of Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas.
   
   

8. I forgot how much I loved Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys when I was a teenager. I hadn’t heard much blues or funk and compared to the other Hendrix albums it just sounded so tight but still from another planet. Still does!
   
   

9. RIP Mimi Parker of Low, a band that means a lot to a lot of people who mean a lot to me. Until this week, I was somehow completely ignorant of their catalog, but thanks to many playlists I’m catching up. (“It kind of saved our asses… that we were not successful,” she said. “It’s given us freedom to surprise ourselves and others too.”) I love their song “What Part of Me.”
   
   

10. RIP Brazilian singer Gal Costa. When I visited Brazil years ago, I listened to a ton of Tropicália — she’s featured heavily on the legendary comp, Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis. If you need a pure place to start with her voice, just throw on her first album. (Whenever a musician dies, I take a bit of comfort in how easy it is to bring them back via your speakers. Their songs are like away messages.)
    

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xoxo,

Austin