A certain souvenir made in gratitude

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

A portrait of the postman Joseph Roulin by Vincent van Gogh (1888)

Today is Vincent van Gogh’s birthday.

On August 7, 1883, he wrote to his brother Theo that he felt an obligation, being given life, “to leave a certain souvenir in the form of drawings or paintings in gratitude.”

I love that. Art as a souvenir of our time here, made in gratitude.

Here is the whole passage:

It’s a matter of relative indifference to me whether I live a long or a short time. Moreover, I’m not competent to manage myself in physical matters the way a doctor can in this respect. So I carry on as one unknowing but who knows this one thing — ‘I must finish a particular work within a few years’ — I needn’t rush myself, for that does no good — but I must carry on working in calm and serenity, as regularly and concentratedly as possible, as succinctly as possible. I’m concerned with the world only in that I have a certain obligation and duty, as it were — because I’ve walked the earth for 30 years — to leave a certain souvenir in the form of drawings or paintings in gratitude. Not done to please some movement or other, but in which an honest human feeling is expressed. Thus this work is the goal…

(In Van Gogh: The Life, the authors mention that the artist was fond of that word, “souvenir,” and used it for many of his works. It’s worth remembering that the word comes from the Old French word meaning memory, or “to recall,” and the Latin word, subvenire, meaning “to come to mind.” )

And, because you know I’m newly obsessed with owls, here are two barn owl drawings he made in 1887: “Barn Owl Viewed from the Front” and “Barn Owl Viewed from the Side.”

Books that suck you in and books that spin you out

Monday, March 29, 2021

Here is an idea I love that may or may not be true:

Some books have a centripetal force— they suck you in from other books.

Some books have a centrifugal force — they spin you out to other books.

Moby-Dick, for example, is a book whose force seems to me centripetal: after being pointed to it by other books, I found myself returning to it, again and again. It sucks me in.

The Writer’s Map, on the other hand, a glorious current read of mine, is a book whose force feels centrifugal: two chapters in, and I already have a long list of books and to chase down. It spins me out.

Both kinds of books can be extremely valuable to the reader, and I don’t think one kind is necessarily better than the other. I’m also not sure that these forces are objectively observed. One reader’s centripetal book could be another’s centrifugal, and vice versa. It’s also possible that a book can both suck you in and spin you out.

This, by the way, is not an original theory of mine. I first heard it from my friend Matt Thomas, over a decade ago. “Good movies, I find, are centrifugal,” he once tweeted. “That is, they spin you out—to other movies, ideas, art, people.” He’s also tweeted that he finds Facebook centripetal (it sucks you in) and Twitter centrifugal (it spins you out).

I asked Matt where he got this idea, of media with centripetal and centrifugal forces, and he pointed me to Susan Douglas’s book about radio, Listening In. I searched the whole book and only found this reference:

“Listening, argues one researcher on perception, “is centripetal; it pulls you into the world. Looking is centrifugal; it separates you from the world.”

(This passage speaks to Murray Schafer on sound, but that’s for another blog post.)

Again, I don’t want to place a value judgment on a book based on its centripetal or centrifugal force, but I do think that a centrifugal book can be of lesser quality and still retain its value, as its value is found in the things it spins you out to.

Matt suggested to me that there’s a third category of work: the work that doesn’t spin you at all, the work that doesn’t move you in any direction, the work that barely has any force to it.

These books are to be avoided.

Big mood

Thursday, March 25, 2021

I posted this yesterday and was met with a wave of positive replies. (“I feel seen,” “same,” “relatable,” “TRUTH,” “I thought it was just me,” etc.)

It was just a silly post, but it made me think of all the times on book tour when somebody would step out of the signing line and say, “You put into words what I was already thinking.” This should be taken as a compliment. Steinbeck said what we really want as readers is “corroboration,” for another human being to essentially say, “No, you’re not alone.”

Of course, the only way as a writer to get there is to truthfully articulate what you, in particular, think or feel. Then, hopefully, the readers who think and feel the same — or are inclined to — will find you.

A panel from Charles Schulz’s *Peanuts,* November 12, 1959

As for that torn feeling, between compassion and disgust, love and misanthropy: Always, always, I repeat to myself, “Be the light or reflect it.” (If you can’t be a sun, generating your own light, be a moon, reflecting it.) “I’m trying, Ringo,” Samuel L. Jackson says in Pulp Fiction, “I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd.”

Carving Coconuts

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

It has been days since I saw Coconut The Owl, so in an attempt to bring her back into view, I spent yesterday morning making these block prints:

I use really cheap, simple tools. You can get most of what you need in one handy little kit online. (Try poking around the Speedball store.) I like to print on random newspaper pages at first, both to test the print and see what random colors do to it.

I’ve been inspired by Frasconi: Against the Grain, a wonderful out-of-print monograph of the woodcut work of Antonio Frasconi, who emphasized that anyone could make block prints and that you “don’t have to go to a special place, with a lot of heavy equipment. This is something you can do in any corner of your home.”

Block printing is also a wonderful thing to do with kids. My oldest can carve safely, especially with the soft “speedy carve” style blocks. My youngest, who’s a little more cautious, helped me with the brayer.

I might find some good paper and do an actual run on this print. Sign up for my weekly newsletter to be the first to know when they’re available.

Covers for books I don’t intend to write

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

One thing I do to procrastinate on books I should be writing is make fake covers for books I don’t intend to write.

The one above came from a typo: I tried to type “hell yeah” and typed “hell year” instead.

The one below is a manipulation of a book on small business taxes my wife got from the library:

I find this kind of creative lark really freeing and fun and pressure-relieving. It can also lead to new ideas.

I’m reminded of Guided By Voices frontman Bob Pollard, who said:

Back in high school, maybe 4 or 5 people wanted to be in a band, but nobody knew how to play an instrument. So in art class, we’d sit there and make album covers, and the credits, and I’d have the lyrics, and we’d have everything but music. We even made t-shirts for our band. Walked around, and people’d say, “You guys have a band?” “Yeah, yeah, we’ve got a band!” And no one could play anything. So it started out as kind of a fantasy.

When Pollard is writing, he says he often likes to start out with song titles and fake band names, and then write songs for those specific titles and names. (cf. Nathaniel Russell’s Fake Fliers.)