Austin Kleon - Pretend I’m dead

Hey y’all,

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

1. “Pretend I’m dead.”
    
2. Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing is one of the best books about writing I’ve ever read. And, because reading books about writing is just one of the many ways to avoid writing while still pretending to care about writing, I also started George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, his Russian short story class in a book.
    
3. “Everything I do is the most important thing I do.”
    
4. The story of Louis Armstrong’s last tape. (I love looking at his collages.)
    
5. “In English, attention is something you pay. In Spanish, it is something you lend, and in German, something you gift. You ‘do’ attention in Italian and French.” Tenderness shares a root with attention.
    
6. I enjoyed Questlove’s Summer of Soul, especially all the straw hats and Redd Foxx joking in the brilliant section about the moon landing. If you dug it too, check out Mel Stuart’s classic documentary, Wattstax. (And free episodes of Soul! and the documentary, Mr. Soul!)
    
7. Eye candy: Barn quilts.
    
8. Ear candy: I am almost a decade late, but I really like this Krautrock-inspired Lower Dens record, Nootropics. (Bonus: Dave Grohl on what he stole from The Gap Band.)
    
9. RIP filmmakers Richard Donner and Robert Downey, Sr. (I’ve been meaning to watch Putney Swope.)
    
10. Not sure if it is half full or half empty, but the year is 52% over.