|
Beth Pickens lives in my head. She is also in my text messages and in my life as a 3-D human being I've known for almost 25 years. But I always hear her calm, certain voice in my brain when I'm feeling demoralized in my writing practice, because Beth's whole thing is helping artists keep making their art. She tells me that meaningful writing takes time. She tells me it matters now more than ever, even though it isn't overtly political work. She tells me not to stress about how uninspired I am, to just open the document.
Great news for my brain and yours: Beth made a deck of cards for artists to use when they face the inevitable creative roadblocks. It's out on Tuesday!
I asked her to pick 5 cards for us today, and tell us why she picked them. Read on for her wisdom on numbing out, internalized ageism, Bozo Theory (patent pending), and so much more.
-AF
From the Feelings suit (water):
Grief
The grief card feels like the theme of 2025 for almost everybody in my life. (There is no rage card in my deck, but underneath rage is tons of grief.) Identifying and accepting grief is essential for it to move through us. Our culture teaches us to numb ourselves and avoid grief at all costs and that has some major consequences, personally and collectively. Reminder: your creative practice can be a balm, sanctuary, and compost system for grief.
From the Feelings suit (water):
Powerlessness
Chaos makes us feel powerless; that’s the political aim. Honestly, we are powerless over a lot: the future, the past, other people. But that is eclipsed by where we do have power: ourselves, our choices, words, beliefs, values, and actions. We have power to make our worlds right where we are, today, right now. You must have a meaningful life, no matter the political present. That human-shaped disease in DC that has seized power cannot own your life, your interiority, your refusal, and your enduring love.
From the Blocks suit (earth):
Gatekeepers
Gatekeepers are people with power who feel scary to approach for introductions, opportunities, and resources. I chose this card because it features my beloved, patent-pending Bozo Theory, which states that every decision-making body (panelists, jury, selection committee) is just a group of bozos and every round there will be a new group of bozos. Sometimes, your bozos will decide outcomes, so you must have your hat in the ring. You and me? We also serve as bozos.
From the Myths suit (air):
I’m Too Old
A classic piece of capitalist detritus! You are never too old to have the creative life you imagine or something even bigger and better. Friends, give me a world filled with old women, old queers, old sluts, and old freaks making all the art, community, and culture. Go listen to Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Yoko Ono. Read Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet. Divest from internalized ageism. We have the power to do this.
From the Traps suit (fire):
Jealousy
Speaking of Yoko Ono, I wrote this card first because so many artists in my life were experiencing bouts of debilitating jealousy and Ono’s song “Revelations” is the blueprint for transformation. She instructs us to transform the jealousy into admiration and, then, what we are jealous of will become part of us! What a beautiful and generous way to engage a totally human but terrible-feeling emotion. Jealousy signals desire.
Ok now I'm crying at that Yoko Ono song. Read more about Beth's work here and get The Artist's Deck for a creative person you love. Maybe that person is you?
|
|
Rebecca Traister on the Democrats' multi-decade strategy of "just win, baby"—and what it really means, politically, to win or lose. I join her in rolling my eyes at Democrats considering whether to capitulate to "avoid" a government shutdown. They are shutting it all down, with or without your approval! Related Qs: Why in the ever-loving Quince ad does my state governor have a podcast? Use offer code NOTHANKS. And how am I still getting spammy Dem fundraising texts?! The audacity.
"The only way to balance out a history of nothing was with a future of everything." John Manuel Arias on his immigrant mother's obsession with Martha Stewart and conversion to the American religion of excess. [Harper's Bazaar]
What happens when you bring the outside world into prisons using VR? “You see tourists, regular people going to and from work. And that’s when it hit me: I want to live life like that. I deserve it. I owe it to myself.” Abigail Glasgow reports. [The Guardian]
“Nature isn’t out to get you. It’s just happening around you. We have separated ourselves from it so much that it has become a monster.” This and other things that J Wortham learned from a 10-day survivalism training. [NYT gift link]
Defector is interviewing fired civil servants, and for such straightforward reporting, the series is a real tearjerker.
"How often, in your everyday life, do you touch the floor?" Brittany Newell on liminal spaces and working horizontally. [Amulet]
|
|
The To-Do List Pie
Archival from 2013. It took more than a decade but I have now completed 100% of this chart. Though the one weird upper-arm hair continues to grow back.
~~
Today is this newsletter's 12th birthday. I sent the first edition on March 14, 2013, and it contained a celebratory Drake gif (ahahaha) captioned with: "I finally got around to creating a newsletter!" Just a reminder to make the thing you want to make—you're probably not as late as you think you are.
If you've been reading this newsletter since the early days, maybe it's time you became a paying member? Honestly the price has barely changed in 12 years.
BECOME A MEMBER
|
|
"Hold On," a delicious new song from Bouquet.
|
|
There's a toddler running our country. Don't call me after 3pm, either. We support women's rights and wrongs. Gabby Windey is everything I wish the Kardashians were. Light and heavy, normy and weird, relevant and psychedelic all at the same time.
Thinking about renaming this section "LITTLE GEM 🥬" but I can't decide if it's too cute. Might just go for it.
|
|
Be the woman leader the world needs now. DO POWER DIFFERENTLY in a 5-week online course with the Omega Institute. We begin April 7th. Apply today!
Walk the Pod: Daily podcast for mindful movement. 3 months FREE virtual walking club! Escape the scroll, embrace the stroll. Start today!
Free workshop: Get your business featured in the media. Stand out from the crowd with the help of a journalist who knows how. Sign up now.
Escape to the Swiss Alps this weekend with “Heidi: A Graphic Novel”. “Heidi” transcends time and celebrates nature, the power of kindness and the beauty of childlike wonder. Gorgeously adapted in graphic novel form, this classic will melt your heart. Share with your kids or re-read for yourself. Buy Now!
Chortle delivers funny writing to your inbox every weekday! Think of us as the clever corner of the internet you’ve been missing. Check out this interview in which Ann Friedman herself answers three quirky questions about letters, then stick around for more. You’ll be glad you did!
Eyeballs? Clicks? We've got it all.
Get your own ad!
|
|
Four tools:
- Resistance Guidebook, a doc full of very concrete answers to "What can I do?"
- Making a Plan, a zine by Mariame Kaba that "helps you to connect the personal to the political."
- 100 days of creative resistance, "a free email of encouragement, opposition, and commiseration."
- Remember you are a citizen first, not a shopper. Marion Teniade has a great framework for thinking about "consumer activism."
|
|
A thought on last week's masculinity edition: "It made me feel very tender towards the men in my life, in the loveliest way," says Maggie.
Carla Fernandez's Renegade Grief is out now. You might recognize her name because I chatted with her about my grief in the wake of the election. The book is excellent and I recommend it for past, present, and future grievers. (Yes, all of us.)
And are you a writer who loved Beth's words above, but could use some structured support and accountability? Join me and Jade Chang for a writing workshop this spring.
|
| This newsletter is picking a card. |
| Forward it to your favorite 12-year-old. |
|
|
