What to do with jealousy

In this week's newsletter: what to do with jealousy, the art of practicing, looking at your fish, and more...

In this week's newsletter: what to do with jealousy, the art of practicing, looking at your fish, and more... View this email in your browser Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  What to do with jealousy.   I'm burning through Heidi Julavits' diary, The Folded Clock. ("One of the hazards of reading it," wrote Eula Biss, "may be its ­potential to inspire envy." Indeed! Oh, that we could all split our time between a Manhattan apartment and a summer house in Maine and writer's colonies in between! It's a testament to how good her writing is that I don't totally hate her.)   Liana Finck is one of my favorite cartoonists, and her comics memoir, Passing For Human, is even weirder and darker than her cartoons. I identified with this line from a recent interview: "I think I was a real artist until I turned 11." (See: Lynda Barry's "Two Questions," from What It Is.)   John Hendrix can draw his butt off, and he's been busy: he just released his new illustrated biography, The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler and he just started an MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program at Washington University. Dude's on fire.   Seeing the cosmos in the kitchen: Pancake moons and grounds galaxies.   An interview with Anne Trubek, founder of Belt Publishing, out of Cleveland. (I find my wife's home city terribly underrated and love discovering the cool stuff going on there.)   I wrote about having my picture taken by one of my favorite photographers.   Ear candy: Prince's Piano & a Microphone 1983, a cassette recording of a private rehearsal in his home studio. I recommend listening while doing the dishes, and pretending he's in the other room, killing time while he's waiting on you to finish.   TV: my wife and I are watching Killing Eve (created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, star and creator of the also-excellent Fleabag) and re-watching the first two seasons of The Good Place, which is even better this time around. (The show's podcast is worth a listen.)   More on the advice: "Practice, suck less" and "Look at your fish." Thanks for reading. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, forward it to a friend, tweet me some love, or best of all, buy a book! If you're seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here. xoxo,  Austin PS. I just want to say this week felt even worse than usual in this country, and if you're suffering, you're not alone. There are people who love you and believe you and believe in you. Hang in there. PPS. For the love of everything, if you live in the US, please make sure you're registered to vote these bastards out. (And make sure the young people in your life are, too.) Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Subscribe to this newsletter   Copyright © 2018 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, TX 78749 You're getting this email because you signed up for it at austinkleon.com. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Amazon Affiliate links offset the cost of sending these missives. (And pay for diapers.)

Why it takes longer than you think

In this week's newsletter: why practice is so hard, looking at your fish, good books, and more... 

In this week's newsletter: why practice is so hard, looking at your fish, good books, and more... View this email in your browser Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  "It isn't so much that geniuses make it look easy; it's that they make it look fast."   I tore through Edie: American Girl, an oral history of Edie Sedgwick and the 1960s. (Fun bit: George Saunders says the book was an influence on the montage sections of his novel Lincoln in the Bardo.)   I've been reading a bunch of art books about seeing and influence: Gorey's Worlds, a catalogue of Edward Gorey's personal art collection; Lawrence Weschler's Everything That Rises, which has me seeing things; and The World Through Blunted Sight, an investigation of faulty or failing eyesight in the work of artists and writers. (Fodder for my file of artists whose physical shortcomings led to their signature work came.)        I re-read cartoonist Eleanor Davis's How To Be Happy. I just love her stuff. I also recommend her book Why Art? and, maybe most of all, her comic diary, You & a Bike & a Road, which might be my favorite thing I've read all year. So happy she's working on a new one.   The (surprisingly long) history of the cut-up technique.   The New Yorker profiled my friend Jason Polan, author of Every Person in New York, and his Taco Bell Drawing Club. (I'm happy to have been drawn by Jason a few times — I wrote about the TBDC in my post on finding creativity and community in mundane retail spaces.)   Love the idea of starting a museum club.   David Sedaris: "It's fascinating, the things you see when you're on foot." (I write about Sedaris and walking in Keep Going.)   Ear candy: My collage-making music this week was David Bowie's Scary Monsters. I'm also enjoying Numero Group's Basement Beehive: The Girl Group Underground.   The advice tacked above historian David McCullough's desk: Look at your fish. Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter and want to support it, forward it to a friend, tweet me some love, or best of all, buy a book! 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   Copyright © 2018 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, TX 78749 You're getting this email because you signed up for it at austinkleon.com. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Amazon Affiliate links offset the cost of sending these missives. (And pay for diapers.)

Open every day of the week

In this week's newsletter: books, teachers, voting, journals, and more... 

In this week's newsletter: books, teachers, voting, journals, and more... View this email in your browser Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  I'm putting the finishing touches on Keep Going. My secret to revision: reading aloud.   I re-read James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, which blew my mind as a teenager, and still blows my mind today. I remember buying it in a Waldenbooks at the mall with my mom. (I think because of the Howard Zinn blurb? I can't remember which book came first.)    I started Lawrence Weschler's Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences, and it's already rubbing off on me, because I've started seeing stacks of notebooks as paper skyscrapers.   The portrait painter who can't see faces.   My son and I have been making a bunch of zines. (Whatcha Mean, What's A Zine?)   What teachers are doing to pay their bills. (For a lift after that, here's Lynda Barry's classroom tumblr and how Sally from Peanuts made one man a better teacher.)   Draw Out The Vote is a state-by-state comics voting guide. (Please, please, please vote.)   The melancholy of John Cheever's journals and the surprisingly happy journals of Jules Renard. ("The truly free man is the one who will turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.")   Ear candy: the great Chilly Gonzales has a new album out, Solo Piano III.   Some speaking news: I'll be at Texas Lutheran University next week — the event is free and open to the public. (I also spoke to Danny Gregory in advance of my keynote at Sketchkon in November.) Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter and want to support it, forward it to a friend, tweet me some love, or best of all, buy a book! 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   Copyright © 2018 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, TX 78749 You're getting this email because you signed up for it at austinkleon.com. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Amazon Affiliate links offset the cost of sending these missives. (And pay for diapers.)