My third eye

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

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

1. We talk about “comfort food” and “comfort listening” — so I wrote about “comfort work,” or work you do when you don’t know what else to do. (So many good comments on this!)
   
   

2. I finally finished Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, a novel about two friends who make video games. It surprised and delighted me right up until the end. One of the best books I’ve read all year. (The title comes from Macbeth.)
   
   

3. I like Lewis Hyde’s books — The Gift in particular was a huge influence on me — so I don’t know why I missed Lewis Hyde’s A Primer for Forgetting, his assemblage of art and writing on the importance of forgetting. Right up my alley. (Here’s a page on boredom to give you a taste.)
   
   

4. “One of the weird contradictions of living in the future is that every artist is at the tip of your fingers, but you can only find who your fingers know to search for.” Dan Kois’s interesting profile of Rod McKuen, a poet who sold 60 million books and 100 million records and is now largely forgotten.
   
   

5. I read Elvis and Me years and years ago after we visited Graceland. I remember it being trashy and delicious (it inspired Martin Gore to write Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”) so I was intrigued when I heard Sofia Coppola is adapting it into a movie. (She’s showing her work on Instagram: @sofiacoppola. For a blast of nostalgia, check out her office in 1999.)
   
   

6. I asked Twitter “What’s your favorite book about loneliness?” and I was surprised how many of the books I had already read. (You have to be careful to differentiate solitude and loneliness, however, which can be tricky. As Maggie Nelson says, “Loneliness is solitude with a problem.”) Among my favorites: Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City, Kristen Radtke’s Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness, John Williams’ Stoner, Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos, and Bohumil Hrabal’s Too Loud a Solitude. One book I’ve always wanted to read is Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone. (And upon further reflection, it seems like poems and songs might actually do the best job of tackling the subject!)
   
   

7. Ear candy: I love the Afro beat + electronica sound of Ibibio Sound Machine. Been blasting their new album, Electricity, in the studio at top volume.
   
   

8. Eye candy: We re-watched Rebecca and I couldn’t believe how much of Phantom Thread was in there. Those two movies would make an amazing spooky season double feature.
   
   

9. Netflix: We enjoyed the first few episodes of Mo and the documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It.
   
   

10. RIP Mike Schank, the sweet, funny sidekick in the documentary American Movie.

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xoxo,

Austin

PS. An owl has returned to our owl box! Is it one of the Coconuts or a new visitor? Who knows! Cross your fingers that this is the year we get some owl babies…

Austin Kleon @austinkleon

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