Austin Kleon – Page 249

Merry Christmas

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Hope your day is full of sweet beats.

I don’t post my year-end reading list until the end of the year, but I definitely start working on it this early. (This year’s biggest problem: I’m devouring Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, and if I keep up at this pace, I’ll have to bump something from the list above.)

Last year I wrote about rethinking making lists entirely, and this year in August I posted a list of favorite reads (so far) of 2018, but I’m still loathe to finish this year’s final list. Reading has become more and more of a private thing for me as the online universe has disintegrated: The page is where I go to not be judged, but to be understood (a book is a mirror, etc.). The minute you make some kind of public list you’re opening yourself up to all sorts of judgments and scrutiny about your habits.

Overall, I think the best move (as a non-critic, at least) is to go with an unranked list. Music writer Ted Gioia, for example, switched to an alphabetical ordering for his Best of 2018 list. “I am doing this because each of these albums deserves recognition and the sequential ranking tended to focus too much attention on just a few recordings.”

I also like Gioia’s explanation for why he still makes lists:

Like any music lover, I enjoy sharing my favorite music with others. But in the last few years, a different motivation has spurred me. I believe that the system of music discovery is broken in the current day. There is more music recorded than ever before, but it is almost impossible for listeners to find the best new recordings….

I have nothing so noble for a cause, but let’s face it: I’ll suck it up and make this year’s, if for no other reason than because I’m a list junkie and a completist.

Don’t discard. Keep all your pieces in play.

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Note: Here’s a (lightly edited) post from my ancient tumblr which eventually made its way into chapter 5 of Steal Like An Artist. I want to archive it here because I refer to it so often…

Margaret Atwood once said, “You’re supposed to do one thing. If you do more than that, people get confused.”

It’s not just that other people get confused – you yourself get confused. You love all these things, but you feel like you’re supposed to pick one.

The best talk I ever heard/drew on the subject was Steven Tomlinson at TEDxAustin in 2010. He told this story: He was going around trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with his life, so he visited a professor named Will Spong, who had a reputation for being a no-nonsense hardass. Steven went to Spong’s office and explained how he loved business, he loved theater, and he loved the seminary, and then he asked Spong to tell him which one he should choose to pursue. This is how Spong answered:

This is the stupidest question anyone has asked me. You’re telling me that there are three things you love and you want me to tell you which two to cut off…so you can limp along on the other one? This is not how things work. The advice I have for you is: don’t discard. Find a way to keep all three of these things in the mix. We’ll find out [what you should do for a living]. Right now, what you do is spend 2 hours a week whole-heartedly engaged in each of those 3 things. Let them them talk to each other. Something will begin to happen in your life that is unique and powerful.

Spong went on to explain, “You don’t need a career, you need a calling. And right now, you’re listening.”

Here’s Steven:

Now, it’s interesting how he framed this puzzle: that there’s this technology for finding your way that doesn’t involve making some bold sacrificial commitment, but rather, being determined to keep all the pieces in play, and trusting that there’s some wisdom in that, that’s going to start to burble up into something you’re looking for. This is perhaps what the theologian and writer Frederich Buechner meant when he said, “You find your calling where your deep passion meets the world’s deep need.”

It’s a lesson I constantly have to re-learn: Don’t discard. Keep all your pieces in play.

Thanks again, Steven. Here’s the whole talk:

And here’s my whole drawing:

Four (or more) seasons

Saturday, December 22, 2018

From Kottke.org:

Nestled amongst hundreds of stunning shots of the aurora borealis taken by Finnish photographer Jani Ylinampa is a series of four photos of Kotisaari, showing the island from a drone’s point of view for each of the four seasons (clockwise from upper left): spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

I came across this image last week and I keep thinking about it. There’s something so magical about seeing the same view in each season. (This is what Thoreau was recording so diligently in his journals.) The Kotisaari photos remind me of Paul Octavious’s Same Hill Different Day:

Of course, this kind of project requires that you live somewhere with actual seasons. Here’s Paul on living in Chicago:

I live near Lake Michigan… it’s like living by an ocean. Also, having all four seasons is inspirational because I can do a photo project and see it evolve throughout the year. Going outside to a hill, or a tree, or taking one subject and revisiting it multiple times inspires me to see how I can photograph it differently each time.

Now I’m reminded of Kurt Vonnegut claiming in Palm Sunday that there are actually six seasons in the Northeast: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Locking, Winter, and Unlocking.

Regardless of how many seasons there are wherever you live, one should heed Thoreau: “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”

Surf’s up

Friday, December 21, 2018

“You just have to know where to go when.”
—William Finnegan, Barbarian Days

In 1992, a librarian named Jean Armour Polly was asked to write about the internet for the Wilson Library Bulletin.

In casting about for a title for the article, I weighed many possible metaphors. I wanted something that expressed the fun I had using the Internet, as well as hit on the skill, and yes, endurance necessary to use it well. I also needed something that would evoke a sense of randomness, chaos, and even danger. I wanted something fishy, net-like, nautical. At that time I was using a mouse pad from the Apple Library in Cupertino, California, famous for inventing pithy sayings and printing them on sportswear and mouse pads (e.g., ‘A month in the Lab can save you an hour in the Library’). The one I had pictured a surfer on a big wave. ‘Information Surfer’ it said. ‘Eureka,’ I said, and had my metaphor.”

She named the article “Surfing The Internet,” and the rest is history. (What’s interesting to me, re-reading the article, is that it also contains another metaphor: mining. “Tunneling through the network matrix in search of gems and ore is not far from fact. Sometimes it is hard work, and a lot of it is working in the dark.”)

I thought a lot about the surfing metaphor last year when I read William Finnegan’s surf memoir, Barbarian Days. I was completely new to surfing when I picked up that book, and I quickly learned how the sport isn’t really about “going with the flow,” it’s about finding waves. You catch waves when you surf, but you don’t take just any garbage water that splashes up on the shore. You seek out just the right one to ride.

How much better off we’d be online, I thought, if we went back to truly emulating surfers: leaving the crowded beaches, seeking waves in obscure locations, etc. Social media has “streams” (you can’t surf a stream) or worse, “feeds” (like pigs at a trough). I want the sea, man. I want to surf again!