Time is not a butler

10 things worth sharing this week

“Time is not a butler,” 2014

Hey y’all,

First a reminder: I’m Q&A-ing with Tom Hart next Tuesday at 1PM central.

I wrote a lot this week, so today’s letter is kind of packed. I used to hold back with blogging, scheduling posts and such, but my approach lately is to just “spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time.” More is always on the way.

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

1. Some advice from 20 different artists: Don’t worry about style.
   
   

2. YouTubers Colin and Samir asked me to talk about plagiarism, and the interview turned out to be this kind of perfect 20-minute summation of a lot of my thoughts about creative work.
   
   

3. On the topic of avoiding plagiarism, here’s a great post about how to use reference images: ”How to learn to draw anything.” (Also great: my friend Dave Gray on how to know what to draw.)
   
   

4. The film critic Roger Ebert died ten years ago. I wrote about what his work meant to my work, and how he was a writer who draws! (From the archives: writing advice for artists and visual thinkers.)
   
   

5. “Do you know how many books I had published when I was 40? Zero.” A walk through James Hannaham’s Brooklyn. (A happy belated to Isaac, who’s just a handful of months older than me: I’m turning 40 in June. A reader approaching middle age…)
   
   

6. Hence, a listener approaching middle age: Every new Deerhoof is a cause for celebration, but this is their first with all-Japanese lyrics and it sounds incredible. The new Depeche Mode sounds great at full volume in the studio. I also like the new Yo La Tengo album, especially the quieter songs, like “Aselestine.” And for those who aren’t already amplified to rock, here is a Guided by Voices primer. (Finally, one of my favorite records, Yasuaki Shimizu’s Kakashi has finally been reissued on vinyl — you can get it bundled with his album Kiren on Bandcamp for $40.)
   
   

7. The highlight of the week: Meg and I got to meet a screech owl in person. (Includes photos!)
   
   

8. Pizza night blockbuster: How did it take me 21 years to see Lilo & Stitch? Absolutely delightful. It is so satisfying to me when I see something and I think, “This is so unlike everything else… how did this even get made?” And the answer turns out to be: “It’s not like everything else because it wasn’t made like everything else.”
   
   

9. RIP musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. (Here he is playing piano for the isolated.) RIP music executive Seymour Stein, who signed Madonna and Talking Heads. (Check out this Sire Records comp from 1987.)
   
   

10. Ten lessons I’ve learned from a year of riding my bike.
    

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xoxo,

Austin

PS. I just got word that Steal Like an Artist is going into its 30th printing with over a million copies in print. Mind-blowing. Thank you to everyone who has read it and shared it with others. Many have told me it changed their life, but the life it really changed was mine. Very grateful.