Austin Kleon

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Rats

Rats from the end of Herzog’s Nosferatu

“Recently, I phoned Levitin. He told me he suspects that humans during the Trump era are unwittingly re-enacting the rat experiments that James Olds and Peter Milner did in the 1950s, wherein the creatures repeatedly pressed a lever to feel an electric jolt to their reward centers. The poor subjects became such hostages to gratification that they stopped eating, drinking, even having sex. Eventually, they died of exhaustion.”
—Jennifer Senior, “Our Brains Aren’t Designed to Handle the Trump Era”

“The people who lived in the portal were often compared to those lab rats who kept hitting a button over and over to get a pellet. But at least the rats were getting a pellet, or the hope of a pellet, or the memory of a pellet. When we hit the button, all we were getting was to be more of a rat.”
—Tricia Lockwood, “The Communal Mind”

Pre-order Keep Going and get a FREE print!

If you pre-order the book before midnight EST April 1, my friends at Workman will send you a free 8″ x 10″ print of my blackout poem, “Overheard on the Titanic.” (“I mean yes we’re sinking / but the music is exceptional.”) Details here. Pre-order sale is now over! (If you want a mini 6″ x 6″ print, tear out the page in Keep Going.)

Here’s a closer look at the print:

Masquerade

One of my favorite little art books to show the kids is photographer Inge Morath’s Saul Steinberg Masquerade, a collection of portraits of people wearing Steinberg’s paper-bag masks. (More from the book here.)

Here’s a mask Owen and I made when he was pretty small out of a Trader Joe’s bag:

Steinberg also made these funny little single sheet masks with just a spot for your nose. I’ll make one sometimes if we’re goofing around:

My pal Wendy is a big Steinberg geek, too — here she is entertaining Jules with a napkin a year ago in San Francisco:

The other day I reminded Owen of the book’s existence, and the next morning he surprised me in the bathroom:

Never gets old.

5 good books I’ve read this winter

Why wait until the end of the year? Here are 5 really good books I’ve read so far this winter:

The Labyrinth
Saul Steinberg

First published in 1960. Out of print for years. Now beautifully reissued by NYRB. (Are they my favorite imprint? Maybe.) Incredible, 59-year-old drawings that look absolutely fresh. An American classic.

Bowlaway
Elizabeth McCracken

I don’t read as many novels as I probably should, and this is a novel novel. McCracken goes for it, doing in the book what, I think, only a novel can do. And damn, can she write a sentence. So many underlines. (Related post: “The religion of walking.”)

Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)
Jeff Tweedy

I don’t really listen to audiobooks (they don’t fit into my commute-less life), but I got my hands on this one, and used it for company while shoveling snow. Except for the “aw shucks, can’t believe I’m writin’ a book” intro (come on, man), I found it really warm and smart. A bunch of good stuff about the creative process and parenting. (Related post: “On solitude and being who you are”)

Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
Walker Percy

Seems like a love-it-or-hate-it book, but I tore through it. One of those books that came at just the right place and just the right time for me. (Related reading: “Walker Percy’s problems of re-entry”)

Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed
Werner Herzog with Paul Cronin

A  500-page interview arranged to cover Herzog’s career in chronological order. This book  took me forever to get through, not because it was a slog, but because it’s so dense with insane stories and poetic insights, I was constantly stopping to underline. (Related reading: “Werner Herzog on writing and reading”)

Okay, back to reading. Get more reading recommendations in my weekly newsletter, or browse the past decade of my favorite books.

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