Austin Kleon – Page 566

AFTER A WHOLE LIFETIME OF LUCK

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

“I’m interested in truth and beauty….If your words aren’t truthful, the finest optically letter spaced typography won’t help. And if your images aren’t on point, making them dance in color in three dimensions won’t help….If you look after truth and goodness, beauty looks after herself.”

– Edward Tufte, on NPR

According to his former sex slave, Osama Bin Laden is obsessed with Whitney Houston. “He would say how beautiful she is, what a nice smile she has, how truly
Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and by her husband, Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed.”

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Two of the songs on this list are going to be played at our wedding. Can you guess which ones? (MP3s for all 200 songs.)

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Lynda put a couple updates on her page, including an advertisement for the “Writing The Unthinkable” workshop she’s doing in Madison, and a preview of her work-in-progress, WHAT IT IS:

Lynda sent me two or three pages of this, and it is going to be sweet, lemme tell you.

ABANDONED

Monday, August 21, 2006

This week I’m going to post a couple of abandoned pages from The Book. Here’s one of them. (Ever notice how watching “Deleted Scenes” on DVDs makes you glad they were deleted?)

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Spent a good weekend visiting family, researching the Historical New York Times database, combing through census records, and sifting through histories of Fairhaven and New Bedford Massachusetts. My old research/genealogy bug is kicking in…

What will I be listening to today? The Studio 360 on Moby-Dick. What am I reading? The paperback of MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD (LITERALLY)

Friday, August 18, 2006

“…for most young writers, maybe for most writers, “theme” is a word they should just strike out of their vocabulary. Because if you think about it beforehand, what you’re really saying is, “I’m gonna control this bastard. This book is gonna be about the impression of the masses [held] by the elite.” Well, the book just died. Because you know too well.”

– George Saunders, interview

This story is giving me big problems. I’ve tried to strangle it into submission. And that never works. So, I’ve had to kill a lot of darlings. This is one of the victims. Maybe she’ll pop up again. You never know…

Whenever I get about as far along as I can for the day, I pick up the ukulele and try to vent my frustration by writing songs. Little soundtrack ditties for the book. This is one of them:

[audio:http://www.austinkleon.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/tiptoe.mp3] [MP3]

I recorded it using a crappy computer lapel microphone, a ukulele, and an egg shaker. That thumping sound you hear is my fist against the desk.

Tonight, we’re going to see the Ditty Bops.

EVERYBODY’S TRYING TO BE MY BABY

Thursday, August 17, 2006

“I don’t want to throw out any sacred things. What…is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance. And all music is.”

– Vonnegut, BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

I’ve found music is one of the only really great cures for depression. Yesterday I listened to Carl Perkins’ “Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby” probably half a dozen times:

well they took some honey from a tree / dressed it up and called it me

everybody’s tryin’ to be my baby

i went out last night ’bout half past four / fifty women knocking on my door

everybody’s tryin’ to be my baby

Now, there’s some debate as to whether Perkins wrote the song or not (there was a swing band in the 30s who did a song by the same name), but regardless: what possesses somebody to write such a ridiculous song? Do you think Carl Perkins’ life was really like that?

I prefer to think that whoever wrote the song was just using their imaginations. What if, instead of being lonely, a million women were chasing you around? What if, instead of being a nobody, everybody in the world wanted a piece of you?

There could even be a little trace of menace in the song. I mean, does this guy ever get any alone time? If you swapped “to be my baby” with “to get my money,” you’d have a paranoid celebrity song, wouldn’t you?

Either way, I like the song, and it makes me feel happy.

IS A BOOK DISCUSSION THE REMEDY FOR THE 1/4 LIFE CRISIS?

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

We’re starting a 20 and 30 somethings book discussion group at the library, and I’m in charge.

Because this demographic isn’t the biggest on book discussions, I’m trying to use pizza as bait. So spread the word. We’re going to read sweet books–a nice mix of graphic novels, prose fiction, and memoirs. If you live in Cleveland and fit the profile (even if you’re off by 5, 10, 15 years) you are invited!

Our first book is going to be Marjane Satrapi’s PERSEPOLIS.

Check out our Myspace page, and if you’re so inclined, add us as a friend.

*** I would like to note that I did NOT design the flyer above. When it comes to publicity, I am at the mercy of our marketing department.