30 Comments

Austin, I always look forward to your emails. I am now a proud paid subscriber! Thank you for introducing me to Saul Steinberg...so brilliant! I also see book stores expanding! AND I hope you are aware that libraries are transforming too. See the CBS Sunday Morning segment called Beyond books: The 21st century public library. Look forward to your thoughts...

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Welcome!

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OMG The Routes Twang Machine—everyone a bop and the new soundtrack to my summer. Also love Florence + The Machine new song Free.

“Sometimes I wonder if I should be medicated

If I’d feel better slightly sedated.”

YES WHY YES I THINK I WOULD…..

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Marc Maron interviewed Michael Mann recently on his podcast, WTF. Lots of chat on his writing both Heat and the soon to be released book; optioned for a movie, Heat 2.

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If you love HEAT as much as I think you do, give this podcast a try: https://oneheatminute.com/podcast. It's a hilarious and incredibly thoughtful analysis of the flick, minute by minute. It works so much better than you'd ever think it might.

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Queued! We watched the special features from the blu-ray the other night and they were underwhelming!

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Thank you for reminding me to read the happiness post. I just lingered over all of the 85 comments while sipping my coffee. Great way to start my day. I always come away from your emails and blog posts and Instagram posts inspired, with screenshots of books to read, quotes to think on, and ready to go make stuff in my studio. Thank you!

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Very happy to hear this! :)

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As always, thanks for the newsletter—thought of you and your work when I saw these "no/but" comics this morning.

When Neil Gaiman says "Everything you need to know about creativity and making art is in these not/but comics...", I had to take a look :)

I believe you've made a lot of the same points (esp. the last link lol) and it's cool that the artist is looking to do a prompting deck of them.

http://www.to-zo.com/notbut

https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1550449181185261570

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e70fc1e4b088804187716b/1487105352575-JXFGGGYH453J27VK7HTC/NOT_BUT_013_pen_web1280.png

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Oh these are very nice! Good Friday roundup fodder, thanks :)

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Happy to be of service!

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Love these!

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Just one question, how do you "do it all"?! Love your blog! It is the best part of my week.

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Those vintage scrapbooks are really amazing and beautiful. I love seeing the different styles of how people kept their memories and mementos, just like today. I feel I need to up my game a bit. :-)

Thanks for sharing!

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I came here to say the same thing! :-)

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I follow an artist who make what she calls a "trashy memento journal" which is really just a hodgepodge of things she wants to keep that aren't necessarily something to put into a nicer art journal. I've started saving up bits and pieces to put one together just for fun - the cover will be made from a Cheez-it box. Apparently the drive to save mementos and organize/display them in books is something a lot of us have. Today there's just so many choices of ways to go about this - perhaps I've been overthinking it too much...

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Love this idea — I like to take junky scraps from the takeout meals we get and incorporate them into collages

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Oh, I love the idea of a trashy memento journal! I’ve been struggling with what to do with the ticket stubs, transit passes, and even pretty napkins that I have saved from recent travels in Europe and Canada. When I was in NYC last April, I went to the Treasures exhibit at the NYPL and was inspired by an art journal created by the choreographer Jerome Robbins. He made seasonal art journals (as a way of getting “unstuck” artistically), and he combined tickets and other quotidian ephemera and it was beautiful. I am going to experiment with separating the “trashy” stuff, I think. Thanks for the inspiration!

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My problem these days is I don't get out as much as I used to so collection of new stuff is slow. Here's the artist I mentioned, Iris Fritschi-Cussens (who got the idea from James Luke Burke): https://www.instagram.com/p/CfPNA0GoZsd/

She talks more in depth about making the journal on her Patreon. What I love about it is the messiness of it - it might help me get over some of my perfectionism. Haha

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Thank you! I am also a recovering perfectionist. This makes starting a project difficult, so I like this method - it’s supposed to be imperfect!

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You might really like Iris then, she's all about trying to overcome the perfectionist. I also find her to be quite funny.

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Love, love , love Claes Oldenburg....RIP indeed. Made me smile and laugh in good times and hard. First one I saw: Giant Soft Fan at MOMA. Fun!!!!

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You truly pack it all in. Thanks for another great list. As I looked at your opening collage I wondered what kind of glue you use. The image appeared kind of shiny, kind of see through, and it felt a bit like the decoupage my mother used to create.

For some reason, today I clicked through to your shop and discovered the lovely box of UHU glue sticks. Those are my main go-to's as well. Do you ever put a layer of glue over the final piece?

Another thing I appreciate about you and your newsletters is that there are always things that you share which feel comfortable to me and then you stretch me with new books, thoughts, and music. A perfect combination.

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I was visiting a collage artist friend of mine and he needed to re-glue something and pulled out one of those UHU sticks. "If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me!" I thought.

The shiny part of the collages you see is probably the transparent tape I use to lift images.

Thank you for reading and for these kind words!

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Speaking of lifted images, I tried that today. It works well but has me wondering: Why not Just cut the image out and glue in? Then it wouldn't have plastic over it.

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Very cool. I just saw Brendan Wenzel showing a collage he was making on Instagram and he was using UHU too. I feel so much like I'm in the in crowd. LOL

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I've finally become a paid subscriber!

Thanks for the link to the June Huh story and the reminders to check out Range plus The Master and His Emissary. I think the latter will be particularly interesting for me.

Keep up the great work, Austin!

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Welcome! :)

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Welcome to the best comment section on the internet!

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