Retrograde rocket

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

A “retrograde rocket” is a rocket engine on a spacecraft that helps slow the craft down enough that you can bring it out of orbit or land it safely. I’d like one for my spacecraft, please!

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

1. As I noted last week, the eastern screech owls in our backyard seem to be back for the season, so I finished up Jennifer Ackerman’s What An Owl Knows. On deck is a book several of you recommended to me, Alfie and Me, ecologist Carl Safina’s book about his life with an orphaned screech owl. (You can see some beautiful photos of Alfie and her crew on Instagram, and while you’re over there, check out Owls at the Met, an Instagram account of owls found in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.)
   
   

2. I read a galley of Nicholson Baker’s forthcoming book, Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art, about how he learned to draw during the pandemic. Next spring I’d like to get him on a Zoom with Sam Anderson, another writer who draws, and talk (and maybe argue) about drawing. Baker’s book reminded me how much I love Félix Vallotton and David Hockney’s Secret Knowledge, and how I need to read Robert Henri’s The Art Spirit. (Two classic books I’d recommend for new drawers are Ed Emberley’s Make a World and Betty Edwards’ Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain.)
   
   

3. A beautiful routine for California dreamin’: my friend Erika Hall, author of Just Enough Research, starts her mornings looking at weather web cams across California. (Check out Mt. Tam and Pacifica.)
   
   

4. Classic noir: I enjoyed James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice after reading about it in Kenneth C. Davis’s Great Short Books: A Year of Reading—Briefly. I read Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep earlier this year, so to continue the hard-boiled theme, I think I might read Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon or The Thin Man.
   
   

5. A list of self-care habits for kids that’s really just solid advice for all humans.
   
   

6. “It’s as fresh as the day I cut it.” Brenda Lee on “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” (If you dig that, check out writer Annie Zaleski’s book, This Is Christmas, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Holiday Hits.)
   
   

7. If you’d really like to get into the spirit, I suggest Matthew Perpetua’s “At The Holiday Party” and his other holiday playlists. (Don’t sleep on “Jazzy Christmas, Baby,” which is what we’ve been listening to at dinner most nights this week.)
   
   

8. RIP actor Ryan O’Neal, the lead of my favorite Kubrick movie, Barry Lyndon. (We recently watched him with Barbara Streisand in What’s Up Doc?)
   
   

9. “I don’t consider myself to be especially wise, but I will say that it’s pretty clear that some people want to get out and some people don’t. I wanted out.” RIP actor Andre Braugher. (I haven’t watched Homicide yet, but I loved him in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.)
   
   

10. Your assignment this week: Start thinking about out how you can make time and space for your art practice this holiday season. (You could start by ordering some toys off my holiday gift guide.)

Thanks for reading. This is a hand-rolled, algorithm-free, completely reader-supported publication. If you’d like to support my work, buy my books, hire me to speak, or become a paid subscriber:

xoxo,

Austin

My books make perfect stocking stuffers!