Free posters, zines, and a mixtape!

Don't Call It Art pre-order goodies + 10 things worth sharing this week

Bonus goodies for folks who pre-order Don’t Call It Art

Hey y’all,

Let’s get right to it:

1. I had a ton of fun over the past couple of weeks making a big batch of bonus goodies for folks who pre-order my next book, Don’t Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again. All you have to do to get them is pre-order the book wherever you like to buy books…
   
   

   …then take a photo or screenshot of your receipt and fill out the form on this page. You will immediately be able to download a printable PDF that includes:
   - A personal note from me
   - 5 mini posters
   - 5 zines with bonus material

   - 1 playlist of all the musicians mentioned in the book, plus a J-card if you’re feeling inspired to make your own mix on cassette!
   
   

   Pre-ordering the book not only gets you these exclusive goodies, it’s the best way to support my work right now. Pre-ordering lets bookstores and retailers know they should be stocking the book and helps boost the numbers in the first week of sales to increase the chances of it hitting the bestseller lists.
   
   Publishers Weekly published our first review this week and said the book’s “cheery, upbeat lessons” are “full of fun, wryly witty wisdom.” If you like my other books, you will love this one!
   
   

   
   

2. I spent all Wednesday in a studio in Austin, Texas recording the audiobook:
   

   

   I didn’t have time to play guitar, but I did pull a few cards from the Oblique Strategies deck

   Quite the step up from recording The Steal Like An Artist Audio Trilogy in my closet during the pandemic, but man, I forgot how physically and mentally demanding it is! During our lunch break, I played the engineer clips of Winnebago Man to re-enact what was going on in my head all day. (PS. You can buy Don’t Call It Art in any format — hardcover, ebook, or audiobook — and still be eligible for the pre-order goodies!)
   
   

3. I’m in that weird place called “the gulp” —  the thing is finished and it’s no longer in your hands, but it’s not in anybody else’s hands yet, either. This can be a dangerous time for the psyche of a creative person. My favorite example is Paul McCartney, who thought that Revolver was out of tune and the other Beatles had to assure him that it was just fine. (The Walter Martin Show has infected me with Beatlemania.)
   
   

4. “Never look at the audience. Look over their heads, look somewhere else, look into the darkness…” Advice from Steve Martin.
   
   

5. I enjoyed this story of Bob Dylan, one of the greatest thieves in musical history, being sore at John Lennon, another brilliant thief, for stealing from him. I chased it with Anthony Lane’s “How Bad is Plagiarism, Really?”
   
   “We have a word, in English, for self-plagiarizing so habitual, and so fruitfully evergreen, that it becomes the mark—the smack, if you will—by which an artist is recognized and loved. We call it style.”
   
   Lane’s ending made me chuckle, because, intentionally or not, he’s lifting from Alfred Hitchcock, who said, “Self-plagiarism is style.” (Steal like an artist.)
   
   

6. “An idea arises spontaneously, just like any other thought… a concept is built deliberately through a series of choices and constraints.” Penny Lane on ideas vs. concepts.
   
   

7. VHS/90s nostalgia: When I got chicken pox in the fourth grade, I spent a week on the couch watching a VHS tape dubbed with a double feature of Wayne’s World and Edward Scissorhands. (The former was a pizza night hit — it really holds up.) My gaming fifth grader is really into VHS — my mom actually mailed him her VCR — so I’m curious whether he would like Retro Rewind, a game where you work in a video store. (Criterion just ran an interview with Alex Ross Perry, who directed an essay film about the rise of VHS, Videoheaven.)
   
   

8. Map reading: the cartography of literature and Saul Steinberg. (This photo of Steinberg with his six-year-old self is mentioned in the back of Don’t Call It Art. I thought of it when I saw this gallery of fathers and sons holding hands.)
   
   

9. RIP drummer James Gadson. One of my favorite things is him grooving behind Bill Withers singing “Use Me” on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972.
   
   

10. Lifting my spirits: pictures of Earth from Artemis’s moon flyby, this baby beaver rescued in Austin, and Athena’s new owlet.
    

Thanks for reading! This hand-rolled, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the kind support of readers like you.

xoxo,

Austin

Coming June 2nd to a bookstore near you.