Friday’s newsletter was inspired by this vintage stamp carousel that Meghan got me for my birthday:
I didn’t even know such a thing existed, but I’m told they used to be pretty common in offices. I’ve been spinning it here on my desk, thinking about circular time, nostalgia, volvelles, and Fortuna’s wheel. All the things that go round and round. (Just this morning I was reading The Idler and learned about prayer wheels.)
Read the rest here.
Tuesday’s newsletter was about making indexes on the fore-edge of your books and notebooks. Some truly nerdery, which was fun to write about. Read the letter here.
Here’s another monthly mixtape I made from a sealed, pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents. (Loudon Wainwright III’s Grown Man.) I tape over the cassette’s protection tabs and then I tape over the music and then I tape over the artwork.
For this one, I was going for summer pool vibes. I started with the Junior Murvin track that I think I’ve played every day of this month.
All these songs are streaming online, so you can listen on Spotify or Youtube:
SIDE A
– junior murvin, “roots train”
– the marvelettes, “the hunter gets captured by the game”
– james brown, “super bad”
– donovan, “epistle to dippy”
– the everly brothers, “gone, gone, gone”
– junior murvin, “give me your love”
– prince, “the ballad of dorothy parker”
– deerhoof, “running thoughts”
SIDE B
– the knife, “heartbeats”
– wailers, “duppy conqueror”
– new order, “thieves like us”
– bacao rhythm & steel band, “PIMP”
– lefty frizzell, “always late”
– mulatu astatke, “tezetaye antchi lidj”
Listen to more monthly mixes.
Here are a couple of blind drawings in my pocket notebook from the Joy Williams event I wrote about in last Friday’s newsletter:
Last Friday [6/7/2024] I went to the Ransom Center to see Joy Williams read from her forthcoming collection, Concerning the Future of Souls. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable readings I’ve ever been to: I got there early so I could browse the Elizabeth Olds show; the reading started promptly at 7 p.m. — beginning with opener Jim Gauer reading from Novel Explosives — and wrapped up promptly at 8 p.m. without any tedious Q&A; and drinks and nibbles were served as folks waited in the signing line. (I quite enjoyed the house “Joy Williams” cocktail of white rum, maraschino liqueur, lime and grapefruit juice.) Kudos to my friend Matt Bucher and the other folks at the DFW Society for bringing it together.
(It turns out that the “Joy Williams” cocktail was probably just a re-named Hemingway Daiquiri.)
Today’s newsletter is about “solar returns” and revisiting old work.
Here’s Richard Linklater in the documentary Dream is Destiny, talking about the non-linear nature of time:
You don’t want to come back to this exact same spot, but you can’t help it through life. It’s a spiral. You know? You kind of come back to a new spot. You’re farther down the line, but you’re in a similar position.
You can read the rest here.
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