For no good reason

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

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

1. For whatever reason, some of my books are dirt cheap on ebook right now: you can get Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work! for $1.99 on various ebook platforms. (This may or may not be true based on when or where you read this!)
   
   

2. I continue to wear down my new Caran d'Ache pastels. Right now I’m drawing succulents that I see on my morning walks onto old sheet music and pages from thrifted books. I’m not sure what I’m doing or why I’m doing it or what I’m going to do with these drawings. “It’s a good way to do stuff,” Ralph Steadman says. “For no good reason.”
   
   

3. Purely visual work like this is a form of “crop rotation” — one of the gardening metaphors I like to use in the studio:

   
   

4. “Maybe your own personal routine should look exhausting to someone else! What sets you free — the more it’s really yours — should probably look like torture to another human.”
   
   

5. I’m exhausted by my routine right now, because my kids went back to school this week, and that’s always a big transition for everyone. I’ve been thinking a lot about the creative seasons, and how we still have plenty of summer (and heat) left. Drawing all those succulents has me thinking a lot about light — how you can’t feel autumn coming, but you can see it: the light in Texas is subtly shifting, and the days are getting shorter. Who said it better than Thoreau? “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
   
   

6. Every once in a while I come across an old album and think, “How is this not already one of my favorite records?” The Slits merged two of my favorite genres — punk and dub reggae (see item #2) — onto their 1979 album Cut. I’d long loved their cover of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” but stupidly figured they were just a one-off novelty act and didn’t investigate further. (Side note: If I’m being totally honest, I have loved “Grapevine” since I was about 5 years old and had The California Raisins Sing The Hit Songs on cassette. I also love Creedence’s cover and Marvin Gaye’s version. Until this very moment, I didn’t realize the song was first recorded by Gladys Knight & The Pips!) Anyways, back to The Slits: I heard guitarist Viv Albertine’s memoir is very good, so I’m going to crack that this weekend.
   
   

7. Speaking of punk: photographer Pat Blashill is in Austin, TX early next month to celebrate the release of Someday All The Adults Will Die! The Birth of Texas Punk. (I’m very jealous of authors who can come up with good book titles.)

   
   

8. “Man was [supposedly] continuing to progress and evolve and get smarter, and we saw none of that. What we saw was people who were unable to think critically or think abstractly, especially in America.” Chris Smith’s documentary about Devo is streaming on Netflix. Here is a very generous and thoughtful review by Matt Zoller Seitz. (Don’t miss Smith’s other collage-like music doc, Wham!)
   
   

9. RIP reader Dan Pelzer. He read over three thousand books in his lifetime, and now anyone can see his list. (Meanwhile, a new survey says reading for fun in the U.S. has fallen by 40%.) Remember lesson 10 of the Read Like an Artist zine: “When you share your favorite books, you meet the people who love those kinds of books, too. They’ll give you even more to read.”
   
   

10. “People work against themselves because they’ve internalized certain messages either from their family or society that they always have to work hard. That the way is to succeed is through hard work all the time. People have to learn to know the signs of trying too hard. Take a breath and do something to chill.” Noah Kalina calls his psychologist dad and asks him for advice about creative burnout. (Here’s the full video.)
    

Thanks for reading. This hand-rolled, ad-free, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the kind support of readers like you. To keep Friday free for everyone and get an extra exclusive email from me every Tuesday, become a paid subscriber:

xoxo,

Austin