Search Results for: 100 things
BLOGGER’S QUEST(IONNAIRE)
The content of this interview I did with Nate Burgos over at Design Feaster might be familiar to anyone who’s read my posts about blogging before, but you might want to take a look anyways.
On why I started a blog:
When you’re a writer in college, you have the ultimate luxury: a captive audience. Your teachers get paid to read your writing and your classmates pay to read your writing. And then, suddenly, you get out of college, and nobody gives a crap anymore. So you start a blog!
On my hatred of computers:
This might be blasphemous for a blogger to say, but I don’t like spending more time in front of a computer screen than I have to. The good stuff comes from your hands and your head. (The cartoonist Lynda Barry says, “In the digital age, don’t forget to use your digits!” A blog is just a delivery system—a way to get eyeballs looking at your stuff (and minds thinking about it).
GET YOURSELF A CALENDAR
Several months ago, I was at a talk by comics artist Jessica Abel, and somebody asked her for her number one productivity tip. She said, “get yourself a calendar. Here’s what she has to say (emphasis mine):
“Get yourself a calendar, and schedule the work you have to do in there. Make sure the calendar is the type where you can see a day or a week at at time (not a month at a time), so there’s room to write under each day. Then, mark in any regular commitments you have…Once you’ve got all that there, you will be able to see how much time you really have to work….In the time you have for work, assign yourself very specific tasks…Taking a little time to get all this in your book will do several things for you. It will become clear to you how much you can reasonably get done in a week. It will become clear where you might need to shorten your daily activities to fit in more drawing. And, most importantly, it will give you concrete goals, so that when you finish what you set out to do, you can cross it off and feel good about yourself, and you can also stop working, sometimes the hardest thing to do for a freelance artist. Knowing when you’re on and what you need to get done makes your free time, once you’ve accomplished these goals, truly free, guilt-free. And that’s the most important part of learning to make a life as a working artist.”
When I started the book at the end of June, I knew I had six months to get the manuscript finished. 25 weeks to make 150 brand-new poems. That’s 6 poems a week, one poem a day…if I took a sabbath. But there was no way each poem was going to be worthy of being collected in the book. So I decided to shoot for a 3/5 success rate (which is still way too optimistic), and make 250 poems in 25 weeks. 10 poems a week. Out of the 250, I’d throw out 100, and still have 150 for the book.
250 poems!
I couldn’t see it happening, so I drew it. 25 rows, 10 checkboxes. If I was doing everything right, by Christmas all the checkboxes would be full.
And that’s how I’ve been living for the past four months. Every week, there are 10 checkboxes to be filled, and I fill them. At the end of every poem, there’s the satisfying X.
Creating any long work of art is all about time management. Any goal you want to accomplish: get yourself a calendar. Break the task down into little bits of time. Make it a game.
RECOMMENDATIONS
I don’t know what possessed me—I chronicle most of the stuff I’m reading / watching / looking at / listening to on my tumblelog and twitter and muxtape—but here’s a big bunch of stuff that I’ve dug in the past couple of months:
 |
What It Is by Lynda BarryWhat more can I say about this book? It’s collage, it’s a writing textbook, it’s a memoir…it’s everything. It’s big. It’s hardcover. It’s awesome. |
|
Devotion music by Beach HouseQuiet, soft, and beautiful. Lots of organ and reverb. Good hangover music. |
 |
And Then There Were None… by Agatha Christie
Hmmm. A group of strangers stranded on a mysterious island, all with shady pasts that come back to haunt them…sound familiar? My wife is an Agatha Christie nut. This was the first thing of hers I’ve ever read. 173 lightning fast pages. Fun read. |
 |
Away from Her a film by Sarah PolleySo sad, but so good. And the first time directing for Sarah Polley. She was quoted as saying the film was about
It’s also a terrific example of how short stories fleshed out (as opposed to novels being compressed) make better films. (See also: In The Bedroom) My favorite line (from the Alice Munro short story):
|
 |
Giant a film by George StevensPT Anderson was once asked to name 3 films that he loved but no one had ever heard of. He replied,
I recommend all three, too. Giant is a 3-hour epic set in West Texas. (Shot in Marfa.) James Dean. A gorgeous, young Elizabeth Taylor. What’s not to like? |
 |
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray PollockI first heard about this book last year when my parents sent me clips from their local newspapers. This is the book I wanted to write as an undergrad: an updated Winesburg, Ohio set in the Southern part of the state. I grew up about 30 miles from the real Knockemstiff, but I never really belonged there, not the way Donald Ray Pollock belonged: he worked at the Mead paper plant in Chillicothe for 30 years before he started writing, and got his MFA at Ohio State. He knows his place and writes about it beautifully. This is a strong first book — but it can tough to read all the dark stories (note: it’s full of sex, booze, foul language, and drug use) at once. I recommend spreading them out. Standout stories for me were “Real life” and “Discipline.” |
 |
No More Heroes a videogame by Suda51This is a violent videogame for the Wii, in which you play a hipster assassin with a lightsaber. It’s basically a GTA ripoff, but the art is great, and the game is full of little side missions which really make it entertaining. A good buy for $30. |
 |
PILOT G2 BOLD POINT GEL PENHoly crap these things are awesome. If you want to lay down a big fat line, these babies will do the trick. 1mm > .07mm. |
 |
Some Like It Hot A film by Billy WilderBilly Wilder is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors: I especially love The Apartment, which also stars Jack Lemmon. And Marilyn Monroe is gorgeous, of course… |
 |
Thoreau at Walden by John PorcellinoJohn Porcellino is definitely in my top 5 favorite cartoonists, and his simple, zen lines are perfect for adapting Thoreau into comics. |
|
Youth Novel music by Lykke LiI can’t really describe her music. I always play it when I’m walking to the bus… |
 |
Dan in Real Life a film by Peter HedgesIf Eddie Campbell says something is good, you know it’s good. This really surprised me. It’s a story about nice people who get into a genuine conflict. Probably why it didn’t get very good reviews: no explosions or incest or whatever… |
Phew. That was too much work. I think I’ll save this kind of thing for the next year-end lists.
What stuff are y’all into right now?
LETTER TO A YOUNG COLLAGE ARTIST
The year was 1997. I was 13 years old. Green Day was the coolest band in the world. Two years previous, they’d just put out their album, Insomniac, with an insane-looking cover. I checked out the liner notes, and found out it was done by a collage artist named Winston Smith:
I had a great art teacher, Robyn Helsel, who assigned us a project where we had to pick a contemporary artist and write to them. Most of the class picked their artists out of a catalog. I picked Winston. I used my dad’s e-mail account and sent probably half a dozen e-mails to a gallery curator I found online, asking for Winston’s home address. The curator finally replied: “Stop bugging me, kid. Here’s his address.” I sent Winston a two-page letter using a ransom note font in Microsoft Word, telling him about me and my band, asking him about his technique, his influences…I even had the audacity to include a sketch of an idea I had for a piece he might want to attempt. (I have the letter somewhere…but unfortunately, not the sketch!) A few months went by. As I remember it, nobody in the class heard back from their artist.
Then one day a huge, stuffed manila envelope came in the mail. I ran to the kitchen table, tore it open, and dumped out its contents. There was a 14-page hand-written note from Winston and probably 50 pages of color photocopies of his work and press clippings. I couldn’t believe it. An artist—a real artist!—had written me back!
To me, it was the equivalent of Rilke writing back to the young poet. He told me about his life and his methods. He urged me to always question authority, stay away from drugs, and keep getting straight As so one day I could pay the bills. (An artist—a real artist!—was telling me it was okay to get straight As!) I’d never heard anybody talk about the kind of things he wrote about—art, America, growing up in a small-town—it was like a time-bomb that went off in my brain.
The letter, and I’m not exaggerating, changed my life.
I wrote him back, and he wrote me back. We’ve kept up a casual correspondence since.
I was at my mom’s over the holidays, and decided to use her new scanner to
archive some papers I wanted to preserve for safe-keeping.
I’m not sure if it will interest anyone else, but I’m posting it here as a shining example of great generosity from an established artist to an aspiring artist. It’s one of my most treasured possessions, and I just really freaking love it and want to share it.
And so, with Winston’s permission, here it is. (Also: be sure to check out Winston’s work and buy some of his stuff!)
VIEW THE WHOLE LETTER AS A FLICKR SET
- ← Newer posts
- 1
- …
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- Older posts→