Austin Kleon - Art takes you where it wants you to go

Hey y’all,

Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:

1. Art takes you where it wants you to go.
    
2. I’ve just started Joseph Meeker’s The Comedy of Survival, which argues that a comic mode is more effective than a tragic mode for people living through disastrous times like ours. (I learned about the book from Mandy Brown’s outstanding website, A Working Library.)
    
3. A clever solution for storing zines.
    
4. Sheet music sales are up 25% in the UK, as people turn to practicing the piano in lockdown.
    
5. Parents: my kids loved Mo Willems’ Lunch Doodles series and they’ve made me watch Don’t Let The Pigeon Do Storytime twice now. (Here are my favorite resources and supplies for drawing with kids.) They’re also excited for the reboot of Animaniacs.
    
6. The German TV show Beat Club has an amazing YouTube channel of performances from 60s and 70s musical acts, including: The Easybeats, Johnny Cash, Curtis Mayfield, and Kraftwerk.
    
7. Eye candy: Animator Don Hertzfeldt just released episode 3 of his incredible series, World of Tomorrow. (If you need to catch up, here’s episode one and episode two.)
    
8. Ear candy: last week harpist Mary Lattimore released a new album called Silver Ladders, and Future Islands return to form a bit with As Long As You Are. I threw tracks from both albums on this week’s Spotify playlist.
    
9. For comfort viewing this week, we re-watched a bunch of old favorites. Highlights: I Married A Witch, The Life Aquatic, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Casablanca, and The Matrix. (Of the latter two, I’m reminded of Umberto Eco, who said: “Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred clichés move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.”)
    
10. We don’t just care for things because we love them, we love things because we care for them.