Watering the garden

10 things worth sharing: envying the plants, intelligent thoughts on television, interviews worth reading, and more...

Hey y’all,

Thanks to everyone who came out last Saturday for Indie Bookstore Day. If you didn’t snag a Read Like an Artist zine, I posted the full text in Tuesday’s newsletter.

Reminder: Mother’s Day is Sunday! If you need a last-minute gift, it’s real easy to give a subscription to this newsletter:

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

1. I’m watering the garden, envying the plants.
   
   

2. I spent some time in my diary mapping out Lawrence Weschler’s “unified theory of cultural transmission.”     
   
   

3. I started David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years after so many people recommended it when I asked for a philosophical book about money. (I listed the most-recommended money books in a previous issue.)
   
   

4. A few brand-new newsletters I’m checking out: Zine Munch, a “zine about zines,” and Dracula Daily, which sends you bits of Bram Stoker’s story that happens in letters between May 3 and November 10.
   
   

5. “What is more pure than an amateur love?” Anne Trubek on the joy of Booktok. (I have a TikTok account, but so far I’ve only posted videos of Coconut The Owl. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen her or her partner in months, so maybe it’s time for me to branch out.)
   
   

6. New gear: My friend Matt Bucher brought a bag full of stationery goodies to our lunch on Tuesday, and inside was a box of Musgrave 600 NEWS pencils, his favorites, which have a soft lead that I love. (I actually used one to map out the rough draft of this newsletter.) I’m also loving these RockBros waterproof bicycle panniers that my friend Clive Thompson recommended. (Turns out you can haul a lot of library books on your bicycle!)
   
   

7. TV: I first came to know Phillip Maciak’s writing when I read his essay “The Year in Yelling,” about my beloved Moonstruck. This recent interview with him about TV and “taste hierarchies” is well worth reading, as is his love letter to Reservation Dogs. (We’re currently enjoying one of his recommendations: the rom-com Starstruck.)
   
   

8. Other recent interviews worth reading: Jeff Tweedy (“During this period of deprivation it occurred to me that making music is really everybody trying to figure out how to have more good days than f***ing bad days”), Dolly Parton (“I’ve dreamed myself into a corner, meaning my dreams have come true so I have to keep them alive”), and Werner Herzog (“When I don’t know how to continue writing, I just continue anyway”).
   
   

9. Kevin Kelly turned 70 and shared 103 bits of advice. (One of my favorite bits: “Copying others is a good way to start. Copying yourself is a disappointing way to end.”)
   
   

10. My thoughts are with Scott McCloud and his family after hearing the terrible news that his wife Ivy Ratafia McLeod was killed in a car crash. (We’re currently reading his classic, Understanding Comics, in our book club.)
    

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. The best way to support my work is to buy my books, hire me to speak, shop for some of my favorite gear (I get a cut), or become a paid subscriber and help keep Fridays free for everyone:

xoxo,

Austin