I asked the great Tim Kreider ten questions about writing, not writing, great writers who are funny, and more. Here are his replies.
Are you really helping here? My interview with Tim Kreider
This afternoon I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim Kreider, author of We Learn Nothing, about his life and work. You can watch our conversation on on YouTube.
We talked about so many things, but I loved what Tim said about Kim Stanley Robinson and Rebecca Solnit being the angels on his shoulder when he’s writing and starts feeling too cynical or grim:
Are you really helping here? That’s what you ought to be doing if you’re a writer. Or any kind of artist. Helping. Some. And it doesn’t mean cheerful or Pollyanna-ish. Francis Bacon, the painter, was helping. William S. Burroughs helps. We all help in different ways.
Here are my prep notes:
Big thanks to Tim for being game and thanks to the folks at Literati for setting it up.
Stay tuned: Next month I get to interview Sarah Ruhl about her book Smile.
Tim Kreider’s We Learn Nothing
My January pick for our Read Like an Artist book club is Tim Kreider’s We Learn Nothing. To get the book in time to join our discussion next month, sign up now.
Here’s my intro:
“Fourteen years ago, I was stabbed in the throat.” So begins this collection of personal essays from the former political cartoonist, unfairly as gifted with words as he is with pictures. Krieder’s writing will not be for everyone, but I would like to assign everyone over the age of twenty “The Referendum,” a piece about how as we age, our peers give us a “glimpse of the parallel universes” that would have resulted had we made different life choices. I love this book because the essays only get deeper and richer with each year. Interspersed throughout are Kreider’s cartoons, which take their cues from biting satirists like Ralph Steadman and George Grosz. This is a contemporary classic.
Our first @literati book club pick of 2022 is extremely appropriate, given the new year we’re facing. Join us! https://t.co/i42s5oWNwB#readlikeanartist pic.twitter.com/p7Bx8Ap2cB
— Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) December 29, 2021
To join our discussion, sign up for the club!
Do nothing for as long as possible
I sent this Oblique Strategy to a friend who asked what he should do on his 3-week vacation.
The nerd that I am, I have a small library of books about doing nothing: Jenny Odell’s How To Do Nothing, Tom Hodgkinson’s How To Be Idle and The Idle Parent, Roman Muradov’s On Doing Nothing, Kenko’s Essays in Idleness, Robert Louis Stevenson’s An Apology for Idlers, etc.
Even though I feel an enormous laziness in me, I find after about one afternoon of doing nothing I’m ready to go back to work. My laziness is somehow connected to my productivity, like they’re two poles, keeping my life’s rope tight enough to walk on. (Tim Kreider: “I’m the most ambitious lazy person I know.”)
I used to laugh at my friend John T. Unger when he said “relaxing makes me tense,” but it’s making more sense as I get older. I prefer drawing to meditation and walking to sitting still.
It helps that I play for a living, so I don’t need much of a break from The Work.
What I’d really like is a break from work with a lowercase “w”: answering emails, scheduling interviews, making deals, etc.
But that stuff I can always blow off for an afternoon or two.
No vacation needed.
