Weekly Newsletter: Intelligence in your fingers

This week: feeling vs. thinking, meditation, erasure poetry, soul music, and more... 

This week: the intelligence in your fingers, meditation, erasure poetry, soul music, and more... View this email in your browser. Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  I think we tend to overestimate the intelligence in our heads and underestimate the intelligence in our fingers.   I devoured an advance copy of Tim Kreider's new essay collection, I Wrote This Book Because I Love You. (For a preview, read: "A Man and His Cat.") His previous collection, We Learn Nothing, was at the top of my favorite books I read in 2012.   I had an interesting conversation with Bill Deresiewicz last week about the new book he's writing. (Check out his essays, "The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur" and "Generation Sell" for an idea of what it might be like.) In prep for our phone call, I read his book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, which I liked quite a bit.   Jeff Tidwell on meditation and one of my favorite books, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. (I quote it in the "Be An Amateur" section of Show Your Work!)   The Trump-Era Boom in Erasure Poetry. No mention of my blackouts, aging rock stars' embracing the form, or the already huge amount of blackout poetry online, but I'm grateful anyways, as I had never heard of Doris Cross and her dictionary columns.    Some sweet soul music: the transgender soul pioneer Jackie Shane (I adore this live performance of "Any Other Way"), William Bell's Tiny Desk Concert, and an epic Al Green performance of "Here I Am" on Soul Train in 1974.   Eye candy: a teaser trailer for episode two of World Of Tomorrow. (The first episode is streaming on Netflix, and it is so, so good. Take 16 minutes and watch it.) Here's an interview with creator Don Hertzfeldt.   How to fold the Blade Runner unicorn. (I saw Blade Runner 2049 this week and really liked it. If you haven't seen the original, watch The Final Cut.)   Streaming on Netflix: Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry.   I'm 27 out of 31 days through my October daily blogging project. Read all my posts here. (Favorites this week: creative mornings and how to read collected works.) Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter, forward it to a friend, buy a book, get the new calendar, or tweet me some love.  If you're seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here. xoxo,  Austin Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Subscribe to this newsletter Follow me elsewhere: Twitter Instagram Tumblr Copyright © 2017 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. You're receiving this newsletter because you signed up for it at www.austinkleon.com My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, Texas 78749 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

Weekly newsletter: Wake up like Leonardo

This week: unplugging from the internet, learning how to think, and more... 

This week: unplugging from the internet, learning how to think, and more... View this email in your browser. Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  Leonardo da Vinci woke up in the morning and made a list of what he wanted to learn. (Can you tell I've just started Walter Isaacson's new biography?)   Alan Jacob's great new book, How To Think, is out this week. (You may remember me raving about his book about reading.) It's fine that The Atlantic interviewed him and all, but the real news is that I'm interviewing him at Bookpeople here in Austin this Monday, 10/23 at 7PM. Very excited about it. Come on out! Details here.   "Read more than you write, live more than you read."   People who built the internet are unplugging from it. Tech people drive me crazy when they're quoted saying, "We never saw this coming!" when people like Neil Postman and Ellen Ullman and Ursula Franklin (among many, many others—but I recommend their books in particular) were sounding the alarms the whole time. (Related reading: One person's history of Twitter, from beginning to end.)   On copying paintings at the Louvre. (Copying is how we learn.)   I love this description of musician Arthur Russell's apartment in the liner notes of Love Is Overtaking Me. It made me re-listen to Olivia Laing's radio essay about his life. (Her book, The Lonely City, was one of my favorite things I read last year.)    Actor and director Sarah Polley on the men you meet making movies. (I highly recommend her movie, Stories We Tell.)   Two painters will be the first black artists to officially paint a presidential couple. (I love Kehinde Wiley.)   An ingenious hack for sketching with two-point perspective.   I'm still blogging every day in October! It's been really fun, like the old days. (Here's Seth Godin on keeping a daily blog and Paul Ford on his website turing 20.) Read my posts this week about escaped iguanas, free drugs, the crescent moon, and more, here. Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter, forward it to a friend, buy a book, or tweet me some love.  If you're seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here. xoxo,  Austin PS. I signed a bunch of books at Bookpeople here in Austin (available online — they ship everywhere!) and since I couldn't sign the new calendar, I added some original post-it art! 😎 Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Subscribe to this newsletter Follow me elsewhere: Twitter Instagram Tumblr Copyright © 2017 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. You're receiving this newsletter because you signed up for it at www.austinkleon.com My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, Texas 78749 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

Weekly newsletter: How to take a nap

This week: the art of napping, why stupid people don't know how stupid they are, and more...

This week: how to take a nap, why stupid people don't know how stupid they are, and more... View this email in your browser. Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  For your weekend pleasure, here's how to take a nap.   John Gall sent me designer Paul Sahre's memoir, Two-Dimensional Man, and I enjoyed it. Some fun connections: Paul taught Tamara Shopsin, who wrote one of my favorite books of the year, Arbitrary Stupid Goal, and he also grew up in Binghampton, NY, home of the spiedie and Broome Community College, where I first gave the talk that became Steal Like An Artist. (PS. Both John and Paul have good interviews on The Great Discontent.)   I love watching Heather Hardison paint signs. (More on sign painting, here.)   The art of finding what you didn't know you were looking for.   Why stupid people don't know how stupid they are. (See also: Suckcess.)   I'm currently reading David Rakoff's Half Empty, which is quite funny. If you don't know his work, maybe check out the This American Life episode, "Our Friend David," which contains his funny rant about the Broadway musical, Rent, which contains the great line, "Hanging out does not make you an artist."    Time waster: I lost a full day to playing Frank Lantz's new game, Universal Paperclips. I feel, oddly, like it should exist in the same universe as 17776 and World of Tomorrow. (Speaking of, I'm dying to see part two.)   To stream: I liked The Big Sick and the HBO documentary about Steven Spielberg, but I love the collection of creepy little Val Lewton horror movies on Filmstruck.   Ear candy: from classical station WXQR, here are 20 essential recordings of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. (If classical's not your thing, try this 104-hour-long Twine Time playlist on Spotify.)   How to raise a surrealist. Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter, forward it to a friend, buy a book, the new calendar, or tweet me some love.  If you're seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here. xoxo,  Austin Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Subscribe to this newsletter Follow me elsewhere: Twitter Instagram Tumblr Copyright © 2017 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. You're receiving this newsletter because you signed up for it at www.austinkleon.com My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, Texas 78749 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences