Hey y’all,

Happy Friday the 13th. The monarchs are already migrating and my favorite month is going by too quickly. Last weekend I flew to Michigan for my college pal’s wedding. I got to hang out with my friends, walk around Ann Arbor for a few mornings, and breathe in that crisp Midwestern autumn air. A bunch of the 10 things this week came from my adventures:

1. On Saturday, I caught up with one of my favorite cartoonists of all-time, the great John Porcellino, who was tabling at the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to stay long enough to see Jaime Hernandez or Jillian Tamaki — Zingerman’s was opening soon and I had a wedding to get to.
   
   

2. The next day, I signed some of my books at Literati Bookstore and bought Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch purely based on the excellent paperback cover. Later, I enjoyed her visual inspirations for the book in Pioneer Works’ excellent 13 Ways of Looking series. (We have Little Labors on our shelves but I still haven’t read it.) I also picked up a One Line A Day diary for my soon-to-be 11-year-old — I told him if he keeps it up, by the time he fills it… he’ll be driving. (😱)
   
   

3. I drive a 2010 Honda Fit, so when I rent cars I love to get something kind of souped-up and silly. A highlight of my trip was driving a Dodge Charger down a rainy interstate at night with Oneohtrix Point Never at ear-splitting volume. (I listened to a lot of James Blake’s Playing Robots Into Heaven on the plane — I learned about it after watching his interview with Brian Eno.)
   
   

4. Travel tip I learned for noisy hotels: you can use your iPhone as a white noise machine, no app required. (Another tip I relied on: take a photo of your hotel room number.)
   
   

5. My favorite store in Ann Arbor is the comic shop Vault of Midnight. So much fun. I bought Hilda: The Wilderness Stories for my friend’s daughter, and eyeballed the new Daniel Clowes book, Monica, which landed on the front page of the NYTimes Book Review.
   
   

6. I needed way more time in Encore Records — they were blasting the new Animal Collective album, which sounded great. I bought a bunch of cassettes, including a copy of The White Stripes’ De Stijl. (Appropriate, I thought, since they’re one of the great Detroit bands.) Later, I finally watched Under Great White Northern Lights, which includes my favorite Jack White quote. I also read about elusive drummer Meg White in Elle.
   
   

7. The great Austin, Texas band American Analog Set have announced their first new album in 18 years. They’re also reissuing a bunch of stuff with Numero Group. (My favorite of theirs is Know By Heart.) Supposedly, the band still practices in Andrew Kenny’s garage on Monday nights, so maybe we’ll get a local reunion show. Or maybe I should bike around Cherrywood on Monday nights with my ears open…
   
   

8. On Tuesday y’all told me what’s good right now, and it was just the most delightful thread. I’ve got so much to explore, but some good things I can co-sign: fall weather, Trader Joe’s Harvest Blend tea, doing nothing, riding your bike, Brian Doyle’s One Long River of Song, compost heaps, gardens, the Sequential Artists Workshop, evening walks, morning walks, Wes Anderson’s short films on Netflix, friend dates, soft-leaded sharpened pencils, being silly, deep cleaning, commonplace diaries, Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert, and doodling ghosts.
   
   

9. One of the most-mentioned good things is the gay pirate TV show Our Flag Means Death. It took me a few episodes to get into season one, but season two has shot right out of the gates. A big thing I love about the show is the music supervision by Maggie Phillips — I’ve had Francis Bebey’s “Pygmy Love Song” stuck in my head for days. (Pro-tip: if you love the music in a TV show or movie, search its name and the words “music supervisor” — there’s a job I wish I knew existed when I was younger!)
   
   

10. I’m stoked that the annular solar eclipse on Saturday is passing through Texas. (Here’s an interactive map showing where else you can see it.)
    

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xoxo,

Austin