Why Am I Talking?

10 things worth sharing: my new favorite acronym, how to break in a Sharpie, the lifelong joy of playing the piano, and more...

Hey y’all,

If you happen to be attending SXSW, I’m speaking and signing books today.

I’ve spent the entire week promoting the 10th anniversary edition of Steal Like an Artist. Thanks so much to everyone who pre-ordered. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I think you’ll love it:

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

1. I’ve started giving myself a temporary tattoo on my arm: WAIT, an acronym that stands for “Why Am I Talking?”
   
   

2. I’m still nuts about my bicycle. Yesterday I rode over 30 miles! (Earlier this week I biked to Bookpeople to sign 250+ pre-orders.) Currently reading David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries, which is part memoir, part manifesto. (Next up: Just Ride.)
   
   

3. My April pick for our Read Like an Artist book club is Nell Painter’s Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over.
   
   

4. When I grow up, I want to be like Collette Maze, who’s played the piano for over a century. (This video interview with her is great: “You’re either young or you’re not.”)
   
   

5. In the “Tell Good Stories” section of Show Your Work! I wrote about Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn’s Significant Objects, a collection of short stories written about thrift store objects. They have a new book, Lost Objects, which is made of stories about objects people have lost.
   
   

6. Rare thoughts on writing from Cormac McCarthy.
   
   

7. A great tip for using Google Maps: while in Street View, check the upper left-hand menu to see if there’s a clock icon. If you click it, you can see any previous street views that Google has captured. In my neighborhood, their data goes back to 2007, so I can go back to many locations and actually see what the city looked like when I first moved here. (via Recomendo.)
   
   

8. Ear candy: I loved last year’s collaboration with Pharaoh Sanders, so I’ve been digging into the Floating Points back catalog. (I did a lot of writing this week to the new single, “Vocoder.”)
   
   

9. RIP pianist Bobbie Nelson, who played with her brother Willie for over 8 decades. (“We were just little dumb kids that got dropped off in the world.”)
   
   

10. An oldie relevant to this week’s book-signing activities: How to break in a Sharpie.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to new subscribers! This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. The best way to support my work is to buy my books, hire me to speak, or become a paid subscriber:

See y’all next week.

xoxo,

Austin