Waiting to be thrilled
10 things worth sharing this week
If you want to know the state of my mind, I’ve been copying the messages from old horror movie trailers into my diary.
Here are this week’s 10 things:
The creativity to be found in defining yourself based on what you won’t do.
Pushing back against techno-optimism: “It is stupid to be categorically against technology. It is not stupid to be suspicious of technology.” (This post was inspired, believe it or not, by watching a lot of DuckTales and reading Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge comics with the kids.)
How John Steinbeck tricked his kids into reading ”great books.”
There’s a new remixed 30th anniversary edition of Dave Hickey’s 1993 collection of essays on beauty, The Invisible Dragon. It’s never been my favorite of Hickey’s books, so I think it’s both bold and shrewd of editor Gary Kornblau to mix in five previously uncollected Hickey works on topics such as Dolly Parton and Richard Pryor with the original essays. (For the record: my favorite Hickey is Air Guitar.)
Seen a lot of people lately complaining about long movies. I highly recommend my method of intermissions: watching half a movie now and half a movie later.
Chill studio music: It’s been gloomy and rainy out and I’ve been playing the reissue of Hiroshi Yohimura’s 1986 ambient album, Surround. (I asked Santa for this 3-record Yohimura bundle for Christmas — now that even Bandcamp is dying I am doubling down on physical media.)
A poem I loved: Simon Armitage’s “Poetry.” (Scroll to the bottom of Alan’s post.)
RIP actor Richard Roundtree, star of Shaft.
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
Related to your "Defined by negatives" post, here's a half hour clip of the Talking Heads as a 3 piece in early 1976.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fdLi_60SIQ
https://thekitchen.org/on-file/live-at-the-kitchen/ (background)
I found this thanks to Jesse Rifkin's recent book, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE: Music, Community, and Vanished Spaces in New York City. Loved the book, highly recommended to anyone interested in NYC, late 20th century music scenes, and the concept of "scenius" (mentioned on pg. 13!) in general.
Very well organized (loved the $100 equivalency chart across the decades), very pragmatic (venues that didn't depend on music turning a profit were able to take more chances in booking, free or cheap food for artists helped foster community), and comprehensive including lesser documented scenes like loft jazz and anti-folk in addition the better known folk, disco, and punk ones.
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/this-must-be-the-place-jesse-rifkin
(I was also fortunate enough to take one of Jesse's NYC punk walking tours which was utterly amazing and informative and really gave me a physical context to the scene i.e. "a lot of these places were really close together" :D)
https://walkonthewildsidenyc.com
It doesn't get much better than Carl Barks!! Excellent points on a balanced view of technology.
Beautiful quote from Dyer — will be keeping carrying that with me for a while
Lastly, thank you for the Free Play recommendation from last week!! I've read through most of it and it's simply wonderful. A beautiful view on how creative practices are the playground which we cultivate a greater intuition for our daily lives.