Letters mingle souls

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

I’m delighted by the response to my typewriter interview with writer Mary Ruefle. The support from paid subscribers is what buys me the time to do these kinds of special things! If you’d like to join in the fun, I’m extending the spring 20% off sale until the end of this weekend:

Here are 10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. ”Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls, / For thus, friends absent speak.” I was making collages while listening to Katherine Rundell’s Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne and found a vintage postage stamp quoting the poet.
   
   

2. “Something magical happens when a scientist writes with chalk on a blackboard.” Why scientists can’t quit chalk, even in the digital age. (See my post on “thinking with chalk.”)
   
   

3. In my mid-life quest to be the creature of the 20th century that I am, I have started reading quarterly-ish magazines cover-to-cover. The Believer’s music issue from last winter was quite good. A highlight for me was Gray Tolhurst’s interview of his dad, Lol Tolhurst, founding member of The Cure. What starts as an interview about their collaboration on the book Goth: A History becomes a conversation about what it’s like to be in a relationship between creative fathers and sons. Unexpectedly touching.
   
   

4. More of my people: The film fans who refuse to surrender to streaming. (A disc I’d like to own is the Criterion Collection edition of Repo Man — I’m looking forward to reading this oral history of the film.)
   

   
   

5. “I read in order to calm down.” Steven Soderbergh’s Year in Reading. So many things I care about get mentioned in this conversation: not being guilty about quitting books, Sarah Bakewell’s How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne, the diminishing returns of new technology, and keeping a commonplace book. (Found via Mark Larson’s rebooted weekly blog, which continues to whip ass.)
   
   

6. Ear candy: Waxahatchee’s “Right Back to It” is one of the best songs I’ve heard in a while. Here’s a great live performance with MJ Lenderman on harmonies and friend-of-the-newsletter Spencer Tweedy on drums.
   
   

7. Netflix: The Greatest Night in Pop, a documentary about the recording of “We Are The World.” (If you like that, I also recommend Wham!)
   

   
   

8. Austin, TX: The STAPLE! Independent Media Expo is coming up next month. I took my 5-year-old in 2018 for a day of zines, but the show’s been on hiatus since the pandemic began. Among the other attractions, cartoonist Ron Rege, Jr. is appearing to promote his forthcoming Shell Collection. You can get tickets here.
   
   

9. RIP poetry scholar Marjorie Perloff. I read her book Unoriginal Genius right around the time Steal Like an Artist was coming out.
   
   

10. “Drawing is a verb.” RIP artist Richard Serra. I’m a big fan of his Verb List. There’s a good Art21 segment of him talking about the eye as a muscle. Somebody asks him what he does in his sketchbook all day. “I keep track of myself,” he replies. “It’s a way of keeping your eye and your hand together.” 
    

Thanks for reading. The best way to support this newsletter is to become a paid subscriber, and right now is the best time to join our merry crew:

xoxo,

Austin

PS. How about a few more lines from John Dunne’s ”To Sir Henry Wotton”?

Seeing the snail which everywhere doth roam,
Carrying his own house still, still is at home,
Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail,
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.

Some snails from my instagram