Couple of fun things:
1. Over a quarter of a million people now subscribe to my newsletter.
2. I sold my next book:
These things aren’t unrelated: over the past decade, the newsletter has turned into a wonderful playground for me: a place where I can work out my ideas, share what I love, and show my work while I come up with the next thing…
The Blanton filmed me talking talking about the museum:
I love to copy paintings when I’m here, because drawing makes you slow down and actually look at the thing… We spend a lot of time looking at images. We’re on our phones, we’re scrolling… but there’s something about being in the presence of a real work of art that someone has made with their hands, that someone has sweated over. Seeing it in person and seeing it at scale… it is unbeatable. It’s infectious! It makes you want to go home and make stuff! I mean, a good day at the museum for me is a day that I get out of there and I think, “I really feel like going home and writing!” or “I really feel like going home and drawing!” There is a kind of mania that happens when you’re in an art museum. You start seeing everything around you as art. And that’s the greatest thing that art can do: help you see your everyday world in a new light.
I included the video in today’s newsletter about a good day in the museum, or how I like to look at art.
Some friends of the newsletter at Demco made my book truck dreams come true and shipped me this yellow beauty.
Inspired by the librarians at my local branch who give their book trucks names like “Shelvis Presley” and “Trolley Parton,” I’ve decided my new truck needs a name.
You can cast your vote in today’s newsletter.
I was interviewing Franz Nicolay about his book, Band People, and at one point I asked him, “Where do you think ambition comes from?”
Before he could answer, I blurted out, “I think it comes from a big hole in you!”
We laughed. He didn’t disagree.
Here’s Tony Schwartz on the two lessons he learned from being Donald Trump’s ghostwriter:
The first lesson is that a lack of conscience can be a huge advantage when it comes to accruing power, attention and wealth in a society where most other human beings abide by a social contract. The second lesson is that nothing we get for ourselves from the outside world can ever adequately substitute for what we’re missing on the inside.
Casually, and anecdotally, this is what I’ve often observed in my (thankfully limited) experiences around famous or quasi-famous people.
First, it’s hard to tell in the “suck-cessful” what’s ambition or drive or hard work or whatever you want to call it and what’s sociopathy.
Second, fame never fixes anything for anybody.
Because nothing from the outside will fill what’s missing on the inside.
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