I work all day with words so I have to set aside special time to listen to podcasts the way other people probably have to make time to read.
This morning I made this trash collage out of scraps on my desk while listening to Marc Maron’s wrenching monologue and wonderful interview with the late filmmaker Lynn Shelton. (So sad. My condolences to her people.)
“Every time we make a thing, it’s a tiny triumph” is a line somebody wrote me in a letter. It’s the truth.
It’s not like I was holding that much back before — unfortunately, I tend to do my thinking out loud — but for better or worse, I’ve been more candid than usual in recent interviews. I don’t know what’s brought it about, really, other than: Being truthful and open feels really good, but even more than that, it’s not boring. So many podcasts are so boring and who wants to be boring? I’m also just genuinely happy and relaxed right now, so, I dunno, I just don’t feel like bullshitting. (You’d think the opposite would be true? That I’d have more patience for bullshitting now that I’m happy and relaxed? Life is weird.)
My interview with Jonathan Small on Write About Now:
And my interview (in two parts) with Chris Do on The Futur:
Filed under: interviews
Listen to “#86 Austin Kleon: "Scumbags and Lowlifes Can Create Beautiful Art”” on Spreaker.
I had a fun and very candid chat with Andy Langer on Texas Monthly’s The National Podcast of Texas. (Listen here or wherever else you listen to podcasts.)
To quote Tristan Tzara, “thought is produced in the mouth.” Only an extrovert or a poet would say that, and, unfortunately, I’m both. Sometimes I don’t know quite what I think until I say it. (And often what I say out loud is articulated much better in the books.)
Here’s a part of our conversation about what I saw on book tour that I was happy to see highlighted:
“People are anxious about feeling like they should be doing more. Information is not their problem. A lot of these people that I meet, they’ve read all the blogs, bought all the books, and they know they’re supposed to get up and do their three morning pages and share something every day. They know they’re supposed to write down their dreams and thoughts and do their bullet journal. They know they’re supposed to be doing this stuff, but what they really need is someone to just take them aside and remind them this is supposed to be fun. This work we’re talking about isn’t about running an Etsy shop. It’s about like feeling like a human being. It’s hippie stuff like that people really need someone in my position to share. They need someone to say, ‘I watched three hours of Justified last night.’ You would be amazed how many nights I spend drinking whiskey and watching reruns of my favorite shows. The purpose of this work is not to build a side hustle. It’s about being a human being, and there are just so many people out there right now that just need a little bit of affirmation.”
On a sidenote, it was good to visit the Texas Monthly office, too, because they gave me one of my first reviews almost a decade ago.
To promote Keep Going, I spent the past two weeks recording podcasts all afternoon, so here’s a little roundup of the first ones to post.
1. I was totally flattered to be the first male guest invited on the Crafty Ass Female podcast. We talked about a bunch of stuff, but my favorite part of the conversation was when we talked about how feminism is the way out of the nightmare of being a man. (A strong belief of mine!)
2. Had a great time talking to the fellas on the He Shoots, He Draws podcast.
3. Enjoyed chatting again with The Kindle Chronicles. Len excerpted this bit:
“When I first started out, if you had told me that my books were going to be shelved in Self Help, I would never have believed you. And when I first got started I had no idea there was such a thing as an illustrated gift book. I just didn’t know that those genres existed in publishing. The really fun thing for me about doing this kind of book is that it allows me to be as weird as I want to be in a mainstream format. That is the great gift that these books have given to me.”
This is going to be one candid book tour, lemme tell you!
A week or ago I talked to Danny Gregory (author of books like Art Before Breakfast and An Illustrated Life) in anticipation of my keynote at SketchKon in November. We talked about a variety of things: the power of paper, banker’s boxes, my notebooks, paper monuments to human effort, David Sedaris, something small every day, Thoreau, collage, zines, finding your voice, etc. Listen here.
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