Going through the motions

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

Meg moved all her plants into my studio to keep them from freezing. One of her citrus trees is blooming and it smells heavenly. Outside, the sun is shining.

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

1. Why “going through the motions” is the artist’s secret weapon for getting started.
   
   

2. I took down the paywall on the 1200+ words I wrote about Roget’s Thesaurus because I want more people to know about its origins. Like many a classic book, it is much weirder than you might think — “an oddball philosophy of language masquerading as a reference book.”
   
   

3. Art: Nina Katchadourian’s new show at the Morgan starts today. I love her work — her Curiouser show at the Blanton gave me one of the greatest gifts art can give us: permission. (More on the new show in her newsletter.)
   
   

4. “My two favourite things in life are libraries and bicycles. They both move people forward without wasting anything. The perfect day: riding a bike to the library.” This print is just one of the gems on author and illustrator Melissa Sweet’s website.
   
   

5. Steven Soderbergh can’t quit. (A great profile by Matt Zoller Seitz — I sent it to a few of my film nerd friends and it turns out we all highlighted the same passage.)
   
   

6. “Let’s face it—artists are always working, though they may not seem as if they are. They are like plants growing in winter. You can’t see the fruit, but it is taking root below the earth.” (See also: Corita Kent on seasons and Katherine May on wintering.)
   
   

7. We finally watched The Lion in Winter (1968) — you know a movie is wild when it can claim to be an ancestor of both Arrested Development and Succession. (The fourth season of the latter starts next month.)
   
   

8. Owl power: I’ve been captivated by the adventures of Flaco, a Eurasian eagle owl who got loose from the Central Park Zoo. In my own backyard, the owls seem to be thriving: they spend their nights hunting, and their days vying for space and dodging blue jays.
   
   

9. How I feel about piracy and bootleg copies of my books.
   
   

10. RIP composer Burt Bacharach. I’m a big fan of his work with Dionne Warwick — check out this performance of “Walk on By.”
    

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a completely reader-supported publication. The best way to support it is to buy my books, hire me to speak, or become a paid subscriber:

xoxo,

Austin