Austin Kleon – Page 255

In praise of mediocrity

Friday, October 12, 2018

“Mediocrities everywhere… I absolve you.” — Salieri, *Amadeus*

Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants, writes about the slow disappearance of hobbies and amateur pursuits, and finds, in their absence, a void of freedom:

The promise of our civilization, the point of all our labor and technological progress, is to free us from the struggle for survival and to make room for higher pursuits. But demanding excellence in all that we do can undermine that; it can threaten and even destroy freedom. It steals from us one of life’s greatest rewards — the simple pleasure of doing something you merely, but truly, enjoy.

NYC snapshots

Thursday, October 11, 2018

“I still think of New York City as a powerhouse of a place in which human energy, imagination, and spirit are nourished.”
—Philip Glass, Words Without Music

Since I was 19-years-old and visited for the first time — a whole week! paid for! — NYC has been one of my favorite places in the world. (How could it not be?) One day I hope to have a whole week there again, but recently I’ve made quick, two-day trips: fly in one the morning, stay over, fly out the next night.

Never a resident, always a vampire. Flying in, sucking up the energy, then flying back out. But these quick trips kick up the bloodsucking a notch. (Last time was a visit to my publisher and photo shoot, this time a last-minute corporate offsite gig.)

“There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.”
—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

On these quick trips, I like to let wherever I’m staying dictate where I go. This time I was staying near Wall Street, so I walked six miles, down to Battery Park for the sunset, then up the esplanade, then east to McNally Jackson to book shop, and finally back down through Chinatown while eating a heavenly strawberry ice cream cone that cost me $6 but tasted like $60.

My gig was on the lower east side, so I got to walk over to Katz’s and Russ & Daughters for the first time and load up on bagels and deli for the plane home. (My bags are stuffed and they smell heavenly.)

There’s still a little bit of funk around there, so I got to take a stroll before and after. Vampiring it up until next time. Now it’s time to board the plane for home.

It’s like you were blind before

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Claes Oldenburg, Ray Gun Wing — Claes Oldenburg, *Ray Gun Wing*

A few years ago, Tamara Shopsin, illustrator and author of the splendid Arbitrary Stupid Goal, recalled seeing a Claes Oldenburg exhibit:

I’ve loved his work for a long time, but had never seen his Ray Gun Museum. It is a display case of 1950s toy ray guns alongside homemade ray guns and found ray guns. It is funny because by the end anything shaped like an “L” really is a ray gun. And you go home and for a while you see ray guns everywhere — boots, toothbrush, your laptop.

The same thing happened to me just from looking at the them on the internet — I was watching John Waters preview his new show, Indecent Exposure, on PBS Newshour, and…

…those sevens looked like ray guns to me!

And later Waters showed off his piece “308 Days,” which is a 3.5 x 9 feet long piece showing about 10 months worth of his crossed-out to-do lists on index cards:

Looking at the scribbles I thought, “Hey, wait a minute that reminds me of…”

Cy Twombly, Letter of Resignation #26 (detail)

Twombly! Waters is a collector, and says he owns over 80 of his books. He keeps the catalog for Letters of Resignation beside his bed. (His housekeeper once told him, “They have the nerve to put this in a book!”) Waters says he loves Twombly because he makes people mad. “This kind of contemporary art hates you too, and you deserve it.”

He explained on Newshour:

I even have a piece that says, “Contemporary Art Hates You.” Because it does, if you hate it first. It’s a thin line. You can’t have contempt about it and go in, but you have to learn, you have to study a little. You have to figure it out. Why these things happen and then suddenly this whole world up– opens up to you. You can see it in a completely different way. It’s like, you were blind before.

The minute you start looking, the world will keep showing you pictures.

PS. Here’s Waters showing off the joke with the sevens:

Harry and his monster hat

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

“One cannot open a newspaper without being disgusted by new records of shame…. the house and land we occupy, have lost their best value, and a man looks gloomily at his children, and thinks, ‘What have I done that you should begin life in dishonor?’”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1851

A devastating image by photographer Brook Mitchell in the NYTimes. Nails the stakes of climate change: It is our children who will have to sift through the wreckage.

I was particularly affected by the photo, as I have a towheaded almost-six-year-old who looks a lot like Harry. (“Where have you been my blue-eyed son?” Dylan sings in “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall,” a song that now destroys me.)

A little googling led me to the original Guardian piece about Australian farm families battling the draught. You can see more photos of Harry and his family there, including this one, of him wearing what he calls his “monster hat”:

That one brings the slightest smile: Children are resilient, and no matter how bad it gets, there will still be moments of humor. Even if it’s gallows humor.

Be the light or reflect it

Monday, October 8, 2018

vantablack — The darkest known substance: Vantablack

“The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
—Carl Jung

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

“What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.”
—Marcus Aurelius

Seeing a lot of “We’re fucked” tweets lately. These tweets are not necessarily wrong, but I don’t see their point.

“Doom is inevitable,” as Seth recently put it. “Gloom is optional.”

Life is bad enough. Twitter is already worse than bad. I’m not asking you to blow sunshine up my butt, but if you’re going to tweet, “We’re fucked,” at least follow it up with the “eat trash be free” raccoons:

I am, believe it or not, one of the least optimistic people you will meet. I’m not kidding. You don’t want to see what I write in my diary. (That’s why I write it in my diary.)

But I’m here. And I have people who depend on me to be here. So I gotta keep going, somehow.

Edith Wharton said, “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

You don’t have to have your own light. You can reflect someone else’s. That’s what I’m doing, here, and elsewhere: I’m trying to find the light and reflect it. I’m trying to be a reflector, not Human Vantablack.

We all want to scream into the void. We all feel the need to express the dread. But, it’s like Zadie Smith says, “Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself.”

“It’s not dark yet,” sings Bob Dylan, “but it’s getting there.”

So either be the light or go find some and reflect it.