Austin Kleon - The comfort of a pencil

Hey y’all,

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

1. The comfort of a pencil.
    
2. The Kleon Studio Gift Guide. I made this years ago and forgot about it, but I’ve updated it for 2020. May be too late for stocking stuffers, but not too late to give yourself a little present!
    
3. I’m currently reading Maria Konnikova’s The Biggest Bluff. I could be making this up, but it feels like one of those books where an author is coming into her peak skills while also finding a perfect subject for those skills. So exciting when that happens. (For the Bookshelf series this week I wrote about Joe Brainard’s I Remember.)
    
4. If you want to remember something, try drawing it.
    
5. To celebrate his 250th birthday, I wrote about my favorite Beethoven stories.
    
6. A technology that has changed my life: Schedule send.
    
7. Parents: Blob Opera is good fun and season two of Hilda is up on Netflix! (Get the comics, too! They’re great.)
    
8. Worth streaming: I absolutely loved The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. (On HBO Max, which is finally available on Roku.) I got sucked into the moody millennial soap opera Normal People the same way I got sucked into the book. My old favorites The Ross Brothers did it again with Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets. 
    
9. RIP John le Carré. RIP Charlie Pride.
    
10. Hope y’all get a break this holiday season. Ditch work to do your job. Do nothing for as long as possible. You deserve it.