Austin Kleon - Something that will outlast them

Hey y’all,

Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing: 

1. This week I’m enjoying the win. I’m sure my disgust with civilization will return soon. (And when it does, I’ll turn it into compost.) I can count two good things that came out of the former administration: my diary habit and Warren Craghead’s amazing drawings.
    
2. My kids love video games, so I’ve been reading more about them. Raph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for Game Design was a new experience: I don’t think I’ve ever been more turned off by the design of a book (crude drawings and pesky endnotes) while simultaneously devouring it.
    
3. As for beautifully-designed books, I picked up Tamara Shopsin’s 5 Year Diary (I’m going to write one line in it a day) and her collaboration with Jason Fulford, Offline Activities. 
    
4. Did you know Thomas Jefferson cut up the gospels? (You would if you’d read Newspaper Blackout!) I keep thinking about this essay about a new biography of The Jefferson Bible.
    
5. I wrote a couple things about art and family this week: “Siblings with and Without Rivalry” and “The Girls.”
    
6. Jennifer Daniel on designing emoticons.
    
7. Ear candy: the algorithm served me this track recorded at home by the pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and now I’m a fan. (A few have raved to me about his Philip Glass album, but right now I’m enjoying the Bach and the Debussy/Rameau. If you’re into CDs, you can get them all in one set. He has a new one called Reflections coming in a few months.) Over at NPR Classical there’s a nice Tiny Desk Concert and an interview about how he’s weathering the pandemic.
    
8. Eye candy: if you can’t get enough of Coconut The Owl, check out Coconut’s cousins, Merlin and Minerva, two screech owls who have a box and their own cam elsewhere in Austin, Texas. 
    
9. On this week’s Bookshelf, I looked back at Mary Ruefle’s collected lectures, Madness, Rack, and Honey.
    
10. Some solid advice from E.L. Doctorow: “Read deeply, steal what you can and always listen for the music.”