Tag Archives: Austin Kleon

The Folio: What I Read Mid-April Through Mid-May

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Legacy, Raised Pinkies, and Cookie Crisp

This month’s reads were about legacy and our role in crafting it. What we spend our time on and how much intention we put behind it. 

NOT THE SNOOZEFEST YOU MIGHT THINK.

These are the books that I enjoyed enough to finish in the last month:

Writers at Work 08: The Paris Review Interviews

This 8th in a gazillion-volume collection from The Paris Review is an invaluable, delightful, and infuriating look into the process, philosophy, and weirdness of various writers. It’s a fantastic reminder to consider the whys and how-fors of craft, examining writing in social, authorial, political, and moral contexts.

From the profound to the gentle, the hilarious to the maddening — boy, what a mess we writers can be. Most interviewees were generous with their self-reflection, some were cloying or downright insufferable, all brilliant. I did have to remind myself these interviews are polished and edited, because there were moments I was like “ARE WRITERS SUPPOSED TO BE THIS GOOD ON THE FLY?”

Undergirding most of their thoughts is awareness of permanence in the work. While perhaps not intentional during the creative process most expressed an consideration of the afterlife of their words. Some eschewed it, some hugged it tight

Standouts:

  • E.B. White (“A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter”)
  • Robert Fitzgerald (“I don’t think it comes on that way…wanting to be a writer. You find yourself at a certain point making something in writing, and this seems to be great fun.”),
  • Elie Wiesel (“I am myself only when I work” and “Writing is so personal, so profoundly and terribly personal.”)
  • John Irving (“I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way…the more you know about a book, the freer you can be to fool around.”

King Lear by William Shakespeare

You may have heard of this one. Lear descends into madness after handing over his kingdom to two rotten daughters while pushing away the good one. Cue the descent into madness, a cocktail of chaos, tragedy, bad spouses, fools, and some seriously bad-hair weather. It’s all about power, betrayal, redemption — Willie Shake’s big hits.

Do I need to provide quotes or explanations, because this one’s been chewed over for centuries? But, hey, it’s still kicking, repackaged as everything from Succession to Ran to A Thousand Acres to Cookie Crisp. (Kidding. Although I saw some Cookie Crisp hawked on an endcap at two stores the other day. WHO ASKED FOR THIS?)

T.G.I.Family Size

Shakespeare is meant to be watched, yet modern audiences (Hi! Me, even, with all my fancy learnin’) still struggle with the language. Somehow, Lear was never in my studies. Not even the college Shakespeare class. Not sure how that happened. Maybe I had a choice and picked something else, or I just don’t remember because I was focused on BEING IN MY VERY COOL COLLEGE A CAPPELLA GROUP.

Anyway, I’d watch a scene and then read it to soak up the wordplay. 

Not here to brag or claim I only skim the cream of literature, but yeah, my pinky is raised as I type this.

About Alice by Calvin Trillin 

This gem of a memoir by Calvin Trillin is a heart-stuffed tribute to his wife, spilling over with tales of their life and her impact on his work. Love as the ultimate legacy? You bet your sweet typewriter it is.

I crave this and would never, ever use it.

I picked About Alice up as a palate cleanser after Lear: short, digestible, and focused on love. It turned out to be both gorgeous and devastating.

Humorous and heartbreaking, it’s a love letter for the ages. There is something intimate in sharing mostly unremarkable moments of a life together. It’s absolutely uncynical, offering respite for a weary soul. Trillin’s love is overwhelming, and we breathe along with him.

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

Are we coding ourselves into oblivion? Can we resist as a form of legacy? Or do we need to surf the beastly waves of tech change to leave our mark? Should we examine these questions through the lenses of technology, identity, and purpose? 

MAYBE!

Picking up this book feels like grabbing a live wire, thanks to the AI anxiety zapping through the creative world right now. Vonnegut serves uncomfortable truth: as technology grows, we and our humanity risk being downsized. Before you hand over your creative keys to some cold, calculating circuits (Would Lear? Doubt it.), think twice.

Yet, despite the gloom, Vonnegut’s just-so, wry humor stops you from walking too far into the existential sea (and hey, if you do, maybe a friendly AI lifeguard will save your ass — what do I know?)

Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

Encouraging creatives to share their process openly. It’s about peeling back the studio curtains and shouting, “Check this out!” to build a tribe that gets you. Kleon’s all about transparency and collaboration, pounding the drum for a legacy that’s more than your final masterpiece — it’s also about the blood, sweat, and tears that got you there.

I’m actually trying to do this with my book — small snippets (“Daily Dispatches”) on my socials, and then dropping a chonkier update here each month. It’s a solid way to summarize the process without blasting everyone with full-frontal, nuclear emotion.

(Hey, you keeping tabs on me? Are you scrolling with me on Threads? How about Substack Notes? And oh, Instagram — where you can witness my gloriously pathetic attempts at photography?)

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Good gosh damn, Donna Tartt can write. This one had me staying up late and getting up early.

The novel follows a group of elite college students tangled up in a murder. I could crack wise about the different kinds of marks we can leave, but let’s keep this highbrow. The main characters shine in their intellectual pursuits and cloud everything else with a cascade of dark actions. They seek extraordinary legacy, struggling with their ethical compromises and the consequences. The book reflects on how the stories we tell about ourselves — and the secrets we keep — shape our legacy in complex ways.

As with her other works, Tartt writes with needle-sharp detail, creates insanely deep characters, and does so with near-celestial language. Her plots unfurl with deliberate grace.

I mean, holy cow.

___

Last month was a whirlwind romance with The Secret History, and I had a writerly crush on Show Your Work. The long and the short of it, quite literally.

What did you read this month?

Month in Review: July Inside of July

Game of Thrones, Gratitude, Humor, Inspiration, Knitting, Month in Review, Parenting, Writing, , , , , , , , , ,
“My life, I realize suddenly, is July. Childhood is June, and old age is August, but here it is, July, and my life, this year, is July inside of July.”
– Rick Bass

This is my place now.July within July. Lots of soul-searching and reflection while trying to find ways to contribute to society that are fulfilling and whole.

No big whoop.

Of course, all that mid-life reflection is wedged in between summer’s full-frontal parenting. I can dive deeper once the house is a little more quiet and a lot less fun in a few weeks.

July was a month of exploration and the thrilling reminder that spending time with true friends is easy and honest. Don’t you just love it when spending time with people is untangled and so full of laughter that the joy is like another guest? Cheers all around – I am raising a nice glass of harmless, sexy rosé.

Finished the Blanket of Neverending Cussing for my daughter, who is thrilled with it. I started a shawl using this fabulous yarn. I’m using the Boneyard Shawl pattern, which seems appropriate if not a little too on the (rotted) nose.

Other than that, it’s been a lot of staying in the moment except when children or dental pain  act up. Then I try to stay in any other moment but THE moment. More on that another time.

Here are some things I enjoyed in July:

I like the process of cooking much more now that I have time and energy due to some volunteering positions coming to an end. I have a subscription to Cook’s Country, which has led to nothing but clean plates at the table, which is honestly a little surprising considering that I have one child who spent several years only eating beige foods with the occasional not-found-in-nature neon orange food. May I recommend the bacon-wrapped chicken?

I’m likely having some sort of midlife crisis presenting itself as a combination of severe writer’s block (meaning I have no engaging ideas) and the ticking clock that, as Lin-Manuel Miranda put it makes me at least want to write like I’m “running out of time.” I will never be a young writer at this point. In many ways I’m 20 years behind, and my life has been a collection of minutia and silly nonsense and time sucks that I don’t have a lot of great stories to tell at this point. But I do have a good sense of the mundane, a fairly good voice, and am ready for some adventures. All the right ingredients for something. Perhaps bacon-wrapped chicken.

Is it possible that Lin-Manuel Miranda is my patronus? Am I doing that wrong? I’m fascinated by intensity and giftedness and I like how it’s presented as a design feature here.

My heart pounded when I stumbled on this article on creativity and “fitting in.” For me, the urge to create is sometimes in a war with the sense of feeling alien. When I was younger, an author told me that writers often feel like they see the world differently than most people. That kept me writing and kept me from feeling like a complete freak. Now I embrace the complete freak I am and worry very little about fitting in while handling the extra-terrestrial bass line of my days.

I had the privilege of reading books written by acquaintances this past month. There’s something about reading pieces by writers I know that reminds me of the sheer act of bravery it takes to put out one’s writing out into the hands of others – especially fiction, the genre I believe renders the author most naked and vulnerable. To Christy and Helen, so much applause and thank you for the words you both put out into the world. Beautiful work!

Speaking of beautiful work, there’s this poem. I want to rip it open and crawl into it and zip it back up so that it cradles me against a cold night.

Then, on a somewhat lighter note, if you have 10 seconds, you may like this blackout poem by Austin Kleon.

I’m on a poetry kick these days. They are watercolor and they are anchors and they are glorious economy.

Glorious and terrifying and not poetry was Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. Hits a little too close to home these days.

I finished the second season of Liz Gilbert’s Magic Lessons podcast. I particularly loved Michael Ian Black taking no bullshit from an improv artist and producer. It seemed reasonable to try out Black’s How to Be Amazing and now, just like that, I have new favorite podcast. M.I.B. is charming, bright, and four episodes in I’m finding him to be an excellent interviewer.

Game of Thrones returned and we actually sprung for HBO because I got tired of waiting months and then binge watching. Doing it that way feels like scarfing down an entire bag of Doritos. By the end of it, you’re a little queasy and yet you feel like you’re still missing something (in the case of Doritos, it’s probably your sense self-worth.)

HBO also gives John Oliver (thank goodness) and The Defiant Ones. Fascinating stories, with a hefty dose of misogeny in Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre’s life stories. People aren’t all one thing or the other, are they? Yet, sometimes we want them to be all one thing — John Oliver.

@Midnight is going off the air this week. This is one show that almost always makes me giggle in that “ooh, that’s naughty” kind of way. It’s the same sort of giddiness that all 13-year-olds feel when they hear their first silly parody song. So I thank @Midnight for being the Weird Al of late night television. And I mean that in the best way possible.