Austin Kleon

You are here: Blog / Archives for newspapers

Reading with a blade and glue stick


I read books with a pencil, but I read the Sunday NYTimes Book Review with an x-acto blade and a glue stick.*


I cut out good quotes and paste the author’s name below. Then I stick them in a little envelope in the back of my commonplace diary:


Sometimes two scraps talk to each other, like this African proverb and fortune cookie. Occasionally, when I don’t have a good line for the day, I dump out the scraps from the envelope and see what I’ve got:


Sometimes if you push these scraps around they talk to each other, too.


Afterwards, the cut-up book review makes these weird little picture and caption combos, which are almost more interesting than the things I cut out…


* Brands of x-acto and glue sticks are in my gift guide.

Why don’t you sing the newspaper?

In Jim Jarmusch’s documentary about the Stooges, Gimme Danger, Iggy Pop makes fun of something Andy Warhol said to him when they were staying at the infamous Tropicana Motel: “He said, ‘Why don’t you do some songs… just sing the newspaper. Just sing what it says in the newspaper.’ I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but that was his idea.”

It’s not terrible advice. It worked out for John Lennon, whose lyrics for The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” were inspired while reading the January 17th, 1967 edition of the Daily Mail.

The Los Angeles Times, Sunday, July 13, 1986

And it worked out for Prince in 1986. He was shook up from an earthquake and reading various newspaper stories in the Los Angeles Times in the week before recording his song, “Sign O’ The Times.” As reported by Duane Tudahl in his fabulous book of Prince’s recording sessions:

Many of the stories… included President Reagan’s “Star Wars” antimissile program, the growing AIDS crisis, the investigation of January’s space shuttle explosion, and stories of drug abuse in the inner city were all big news stories. These blended with the Minneapolis Star Tribune and their reporting about a street gang called “The Disciples.”

Of course, there have been many songwriters who get inspiration from the headlines, and even those who write about the newspaper itself. (Getting poetry from the newspaper is a subject that interests me for obvious reasons.)

Here’s one of my favorites: Bill Callahan in Smog’s “The Morning Paper”:

“The morning paper
is on its way
It’s all bad news
on every page

So roll right over
and go to sleep
The evening sun
will be so sweet”

These songs are like Ezra Pound’s definition of literature: “News that stays news.”

* * *

Related reading: “He could sing the phonebook!”

The front page

Here’s our copy of yesterday’s front page of The New York Times, “compiling obituaries and death notices of Covid-19 victims from newspapers large and small across the country, and culling vivid passages from them.” 

For me, the most chilling detail is in the bottom right-hand corner:

“Continued on Page 12.” They listed 1,000 people — only 1% of the dead — and even those couldn’t fit on the front page. (Jason Kottke observes that if you visit the online version, it takes you ages and ages to scroll to the bottom of the page.)

A list, an assemblage, a word collage, and, in some ways, a piece of conceptual art: you don’t have to read it all to feel its impact.

Not waving but drowning

Holy hell, this poem. I’d read it before in All The Poems, but hearing her doing the voices gave me chills.

She wrote it, she said, after reading a story in the newspaper about a drowned man whose friends thought he was just waving. (I’m thinking of John Lennon’s “A Day in the Life,” now, and wondering just how many pieces of art have come from the newspaper. In Gimme Danger, Iggy Pop makes fun of Andy Warhol for suggesting to him, “Why don’t you… just sing what it says in the newspaper?”)

“A lot of people pretend, out of bravery, really, that they are very jolly and ordinary sorts of chaps, but really they do not feel at all at home in the world or able to make friends easily,” Smith explained. “Sometimes the brave pretense breaks down…”

It’s impossible after hearing the poem not to look around at the world and wonder who is waving and who is drowning.

Here is a longer video interview in which she recites the poem and also sings:

Recent posts

Follow me elsewhere

This site participates in the Amazon Affiliates program, the proceeds of which keep it free for anyone to read.