Living seasonally

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

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

1. Last weekend I attended a retreat at Laity Lodge organized around one of my favorite topics: living seasonally. I got to spend some good time with my friend Alan Jacobs, made a bunch of variations of the linocut above in a workshop led by designer Dana Tanamachi, and was introduced to the pipes of Uwade, who I’m very sure you’ll be hearing more from. I also got some good hikes in around the canyon — when I arrived on Friday it was still winter, and by the time I left on Sunday, it felt like spring had sprung. (Inside and outside.)
   
   

2. “Why don’t I go on more retreats?” was a thought I had when I got home, and then I immediately laughed thinking about these lines from Ada Calhoun’s Also A Poet, a great memoir about her father, the late art critic Peter Schjeldahl: “My father rolled his eyes. He thought residencies were lame. He said he wouldn’t be caught dead at a writer’s colony. My mother snapped at him: ‘Your whole life is a writer’s colony.’”
   
   

3. “It's a version of pointing, writing is…. Also, and this feels very good, I've learned that a lot of teaching, maybe all of it, is sharing what you love.” If you click on one link today, let it be my typewriter interview with poet, essayist, and student of joy Ross Gay. (Don’t miss all the links to Ross’s influences and the playlist of his favorite musicians in the P.S.)
   
   

4. Doing the typewriter interviews got me interested in the “Proust Questionnaire” a while back, so I was delighted to see Malaka Gharib try it out on her 97-year-old grandmother. What a great assignment that would be: Give the Proust Questionnaire to the oldest person you know! (The questionnaire wasn’t actually developed by Marcel Proust, by the way, he just answered it a few times. Check out Ethan Kindley's New Yorker essay on how it became a thing.)
   
   

5. “We’re living through a comma right now.” RIP conceptual artist who played with words Mel Bochner. I got really interested in his work and ordered a few of his books just a few months ago when I saw these maps and preparatory drawings in The Paris Review, and then discovered his drawings binder, thesaurus paintings, and “The Joys of Yiddish.”
   
   

6. “It's almost like she expanded time and created a space where we could all contemplate and feel and think together in her music.” RIP singer and pianist Roberta Flack. This remembrance by Ann Powers is very much worth reading, as is Ethan Hein’s look at her gigantic hit “Killing Me Softly with His Song” and Ethan Iverson’s look at her debut album First Take. (For more Flack: check out this playlist, the American Masters documentary about her, and her records, of course — don’t sleep on Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway!)
   
   

7. “In church, someone’s going to say ‘Amen,’ whether you’re good or bad.” RIP singer and songwriter Jerry Butler. His biggest album was The Ice Man Cometh, which featured production work by the great Gamble and Huff — my favorite track is “Never Give You Up.” (I didn’t know he wrote “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” with Otis Redding!)
   
   

8. “I don’t like to look real deep at what I do with my characters. It is that strange fear that if you look at something too closely, it goes away.” RIP actor Gene Hackman. He was in so many great movies, but my personal favorites are Young Frankenstein, The Birdcage, Unforgiven, and The Royal Tenenbaums.
   
   

9. I am, once again, sick of spelling February! Today, thankfully, is the last day of the month and the birthday of the great Michel de Montaigne. (Unfortunately, Sam Anderson and I broke our streak of getting together to celebrate.) March brings the promise of spring, and as David Hockney reminds us, “They can’t cancel the spring.” If you’re feeling ambitious, perhaps you might like a 31-day “Practice and Suck Less” challenge:
   
   

   

   Practice Suck Less 31 Days

   542KB ∙ PDF file

   Download

   Download

   
   

10. Your assignment for tonight: Look up! All of the planets in our solar system will appear in the evening sky.
    

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xoxo,

Austin

PS. Thanks to Diana Antia for this photo of my book Show Your Work! and some orchids she grew. Lovely!