Cue the music, brew that pot. A wood thrush (rare!) can to our yard yesterday — and if you’ve ever heard their ethereal, flute-like song, you have some idea of how excited I was.
Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:
- I spend a lot of time reading book recommendations instead of just reading books. So maybe reading Emma Reads Too Much’s list of books about books will entice me to finish a few more?
- Plug-in solar laws are being passed in different states, my social feeds are full of gardening and DIY, and I think the time is ripe for solarpunk optimism. I love this solarpunk animation from years back (yes, it’s a Chobani commercial; the irony is not lost on me) and think we could all benefit from imagining better futures we can build rather than doomscrolling.
- “And what a pleasure that is; to be, on the page, less of a dope than usual.” Really enjoyed George Saunders writing about his creative process, especially the small incremental changes he makes that end up making his writing more compassionate.
- Oh to be gifted a well-serviced typewriter from the patron saint of typewriters himself, Tom Hanks.
- “Somehow, before personal computers and email, they managed to collaborate on an entire book—drafts of pages written on typewriters were placed in yellow envelopes and mailed across continents and ocean.” There’s a lot to love in this creative advice from Anna Brones’ mom, but I am fascinated people used to write books without computers.
- I have way more ideas for creative projects than finished products — so I really enjoyed this video about how you can get stuck in it. Time to make a few zines and short stories!
- It’s the season of commencement speeches: I prefer Harrison Ford’s to the viral AI one going around. But DFW’s “This Is Water” speech and Baz Luhrmann’s sunscreen speech are my two all-time favs.
- We’re on the Zara Larson hype train in our household, and the viral clip of her being very tired (and relatable) doing a 5 a.m. sound check for The Today Show is how I feel being on a video call before 10:30 or so.
- Western AF introduces me to a lot of great music, but I’ve come back to “Wishing Bone Blues” by Cristina Vane so many times over the years, I think I’m responsible for 1/10th of the views. Such a good guitar solo.
- I wrote about the four reference books I keep on my writing desk and had a great time paging through my usage history again — another encouragement from DFW!
See you on down the dusty trail,
Isak