Not knowing what’s impossible

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

A big shoutout to our paid subscribers for keeping Fridays free for everyone:

Quick reminder: I’ll be at Bookpeople this coming Wednesday to interview master of picture and words Edward Carey. (I’ll be available to sign books after.)

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

1. When Orson Welles was asked how he made Citizen Kane, he replied, “Ignorance! Sheer ignorance! There’s no confidence to equal it.” He said he didn’t know enough to know what was impossible.
   
   

2. “Exasperation!” replied philosopher Mary Midgley when she was asked why she wrote a book about the self. “I keep thinking that I shall have no more to say, and then finding some wonderfully idiotic doctrine which I can contradict.” I finally picked up her book The Myths We Live By. I liked her straightforward prose and sense of humor and I immediately saw her influence on Iain McGilchrist, whose massive books I’ve read over the past two summers. I might now pick up The Essential Mary Midgley or Science and Poetry. (Midgley wrote another book called What is Philosophy For?, to which my answer is: “At the very least, most philosophy books are for bringing about drowsiness and a resulting nap.”)
   
   

3. I’m reading a downright gorgeous expanded edition of Anni Albers’ On Weaving. (It inspired me to write about “Warp & Weft” and the creative tensions of the grid.)
   
   

4. “I believe that if you look long and hard enough at what you loved best at fourteen and how you lived then and what you saw in the world, it will reveal both the world and you.“ An interview with Ander Monson about watching the movie Predator 146 times for his new memoir. (It reminded me of Sean T. Collins’ Pain Don’t Hurt, a book of 365 meditations on the movie Road House.)
   
   

5. Another book on my shelf that I’ve been meaning to read is Ed Yong’s An Immense World, about “non-human perception.” I’ve bumped it up in my queue after watching this delightful video of him explaining how other animals use their senses.
   
   

6. Eye candy: We watched Tron for the first time (the whole family liked it!), and now we’re digging Light & Magic, a six-episode series about Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company George Lucas founded so he could pull off Star Wars. (As a kid I wore out a VHS copy of From Star Wars to Jedi, and I’m only now realizing that you could probably trace my book Show Your Work! back to my love for these kinds of behind-the-scenes documentaries.)
   
   

7. My friend Wendy MacNaughton posted a behind-the-scenes look at her visual NYTimes Op-Ed, “How To Have Fun Again.” (I try to take note of who looks like they’re having fun and see if there’s anything I can steal.)
   
   

8. Ear candy: I often listen to ambient music when I’m writing, so this gigantic playlist by Ghostly is a gift. (Speaking of ambient, Brian Eno has a new song out, as does my favorite live rock band, Deerhoof.) I’m also stoked for the super deluxe reissue of The Beatles’ Revolver.
   
   

9. RIP writer Peter Straub. His novel Ghost Story scared the crap out of me. Here’s a lovely remembrance thread from his daughter Emma.
   
   

10. RIP writer Barbara Ehrenreich. I was a sophomore at Miami University’s 2002 convocation when she ended her speech by encouraging us all to march with the workers who were about to strike for a living wage. I recommend her classic book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

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xoxo,

Austin

PS. Here’s a sunset behind my new studio, which, at the rate it’s going, will probably never actually get finished or worked in, but is now pretty to look at: