Austin Kleon

Gift ideas for dads & grads

It’s what folks in the book industry call “Dads & Grads” season. Here are two ideas:

1. Give them one of my books with a few crisp bills as a bookmark. (When in doubt about which book of mine to give, I suggest the deluxe hardcover anniversary edition of Steal Like an Artist.)

2. Gift them a paid subscription to my newsletter. (Sometimes it can feel weird giving digital presents, so I made an analog zine you can download, print out, fold, and customize that will explain everything. There’s even a video to show you how to make it.)

3. Buy something off my gear list, last year’s gift guide, or my yearly list of favorite books.

May 2025 mixtape

Listen to this mixtape on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube

Here is a mopey, gloomy, gothy, synthy mixtape for a heating earth. A cousin to Dancing in the Ruins.

I made it from a sealed, pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents at the record store. I taped over the cassette’s protection tabs and then I taped over the music and then I taped over the artwork.

I wish Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without A Face” didn’t have to have the bad macho guitar breakdown 3/4 through, but that’s how it goes.

You can listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.

Filed under: mixtapes

April Showers (a mixtape)

Listen to this mixtape on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube

After I started May’s mixtape, I remembered that I never posted April’s mix. I made it from a sealed, pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents at the record store. I taped over the cassette’s protection tabs and then I taped over the music and then I taped over the artwork.

This is another “sad dad bad had” mix for spring with a bunch of country weepers and other stuff I like.

It was originally going to be more tropical, starting with Michael Hurley’s “Polynesia.” (I listened to a bunch of his stuff after he died because so many people I know posted playlists and radio tributes to him.)

That Side B playlist betrays the fact that I originally had that side play out with Freddie McGregor’s cover of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released,” but I didn’t think it fit, somehow. (And I wanted to save it for a happy summer/pool playlist in June.)

You can listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.

Filed under: mixtapes

Maycember rage

From a Parents.com article titled “Maycember’ Madness Is Real and Leaving Parents Even More Burned Out”:

Much like the month of December, my packed calendar at the end of the school year has left me feeling like there’s not so much joy, as obligation and overwhelm. Instead of cruising into summer with a sense of relief, I’m sweating my way to the finish line—and possibly crying and stress snacking at certain points, too.

Feeling that in our house. Once I heard the term “Maycember,” I knew I had to use it for Friday’s letter: “Maycember Rage.”

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