The carousel keeps turning
10 things worth sharing + 20% off summer solstice sale!
A few days ago this newsletter passed 200,000 subscribers! To celebrate the big number and the summer solstice, I’m offering 20% off paid subscriptions. When you go paid, you get a bonus letter every Tuesday and membership in one of the coolest creative communities on the internet. Paid subscriptions also keep the free Friday newsletter going for everyone.
You can subscribe yourself or give one as a gift or even get one for your whole group:
If that’s not a good enough deal for you, at the time I’m writing this, the paperback of Steal Like an Artist is 50% off and only $6.99 on Amazon. I’ve never seen it marked so low. A steal, indeed.
Alright, alright, alright! Here’s this week’s list of 10 things I thought were worth sharing:
I turned 41 last weekend. One of my favorite presents was this vintage stamp carousel that Meghan got me. I didn’t even know such a thing existed, but I’m told they used to be pretty common in offices. I’ve been spinning it here on my desk, thinking about circular time, nostalgia, volvelles, and Fortuna’s wheel. All the things that go round and round. (Just this morning I was reading The Idler and learned about prayer wheels.)
Art with words: Earlier this year I had the pleasure of writing the forward to Citizen Printer, a forthcoming book about the work of printmaker Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. If you’re in the Bay Area anytime soon, Letterform Archive is opening a major solo exhibition at the end of this month, with a reception on July 20.
Book anatomy: One of the nerdier letters I’ve written lately was about the edge indexes I make on my paperbacks and notebooks. (Don’t miss the helpful video about book anatomy at the bottom of that post.)
I’ve been writing like crazy, so I’ve needed things to take my brain off the work at night. We were bingeing Bridgerton but we ran out of seasons, so now I’ve been sucked into Below Deck, which is absolute trash and perfect for totally watching television. (I’m not alone: the director Steven Soderbergh has frequently listed it in his yearly “Seen, Read” roundups. When asked why he loves it so much, he replied, “It’s about work.”)
A great example of Show Your Work! in action: I loved this post by my friend Art Levy about how he recorded his new album and made the art out of linocut stamps. (Art is the host of My KUTX on 98.9 here in Austin — I was delighted to do DJ sets in 2017 and 2019.)
I made another monthly mixtape for June. I tried to stick to stuff I like to play by the pool for this one: there’s a couple Junior Murvin tracks, James Brown, the Everly Brothers, Prince, Donovan, The Wailers, and more. You can listen on Spotify or YouTube.
If you love scratchy records: I’ve been doing the dishes to the Walter Martin Radio Hour. I’ve been listening to Walter’s music for half my life — first his band The Walkmen and later his solo records — so it makes sense I’d dig the music he listens to. The first episode has a lot of great New Orleans and Caribbean music, the second concentrates on the songs of Leiber & Stoller, and I’m not done with the third yet, but so far it’s more of a grab bag of Walter’s favorite songs. (My only nudge is that it’d be nice for him to post a tracklist of each episode!)
RIP actor Donald Sutherland, who “recounted how he was once rejected for a film role by a producer who said, ’This part calls for a guy-next-door type. You don’t look like you’ve lived next door to anyone.’” (I really like him in the video for Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” — here’s the story of how it was made.)
RIP musician James Chance. Lots of good clips of him and his band on YouTube — I recommend his cover of James Brown’s “I Can’t Stand Myself” and “Sax Maniac” from the movie Downtown 81.
Plenty to steal from the research techniques of John Durham Peters: “Write early in the morning, cultivate memory, reread core books, take detailed reading notes, work on several projects at once, maintain a thick archive, rotate crops, take a weekly Sabbath, go to bed at the same time, exercise so hard you can’t think during it, talk to different kinds of people including the very young and very old, take words and their histories seriously (i.e., read dictionaries), step outside of the empire of the English language regularly, look for vocabulary from other fields, love the basic, keep your antennae tuned, and seek out contexts of understanding quickly (i.e., use guides, encyclopedias, and Wikipedia without guilt).”
Thanks for reading! This is a completely reader-supported publication. We don’t take ads or sponsorships — I only point to the weird stuff that I love. There’s no big team behind this operation, no assistants, just four hands — mine writing, and Meg’s editing. Week after week. If you love this letter, you can help keep it going by becoming a paid subscriber:
xoxo,
Austin
You are too much. You bring to my notice the most remarkable things — in this case writers. For instance Elisa Gabbert who, in one essay, “Infinite abundance in a narrow ledge,” pulls together Rilke , Bachelard, and A Pattern Language, all catnip for this reader.
And then (!) John Durham Peters. TheLA Times interview is amazing in its depth and patience. I immediately ordered Peters’ new book.
Thank you for helping to nourish my brain!
Ann Turkle
I love all the ways you acknowledge what Meg brings to your art! Thank you for letting us see the difference a supportive spouse makes. Recently you commented on how you protect your new ideas by only talking to her, because she's the only other person who knows what you're really wanting to do. I thought that was just great.
Sometimes I think our spouses know even better what we want to do and help us clarify our intentions.