Isak's Blog

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. The humidity dropped in Minnesota, so I ordered a new winter coat and can’t wait for colder weather.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. “I’m a machine for turning Talking Heads bootlegs and hammocks into pungent tech criticism.” Love this Longreads Questionnaire with Cory Doctorow, the tech blogger and fiction writer who I didn’t know had a thing for David Byrne, too!
2. I loved learning about the book clusters R.F. Kuang draws on for each of her books — Victorian lit for “Babel” with its maximal prose, Dante/Milton/Ovid for “Katabasis.”
3. I wrote about Cory Doctorow’s and R.F. Kuang’s advice to not pay too much attention to how you feel about your writing when you’re writing. First it has to exist, then you can make it good.
4. Love these illustrations Gustave Doré made for Dante’s Divine Comedy. I’ve taken a break from reading Inferno, but they complement the mood!
5. Love this video about how Terry Gross reads a book.
6. “Reading is prismatic, and a great writer shows us how to read far beyond their own works.” Enjoying this series from The Guardian asking writers about influential books they’ve read, especially this one with Madeline Thien about running up and down mountains listening to Middlemarch, the plurality of reading, and The Iliad.
7. “It’s clear the problem isn’t the writing, but the starting. In those cases, it’s helpful to think about why starting is difficult and then apply a solution.” Writing is easy once I’m actually writing, but the procrastination and hand-wringing before starting is my biggest obstacle. So I like this idea of using writing catalysts to get in the writing flow with less activation energy.
8. Taking notes on how to take good travel notes.
9. I’m still reading out of season with Dan Simmons’ “The Terror,” but pretty soon that will invert to reading thick, hot summer books.
10. The psychology behind why you rewatch the same movies (the same probably also applies to books).

See you on down the dusty trail,

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. Minnesota’s afternoon rainstorms have been perfect for reading, writing, and sitting on the couch.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. Funny how we assume the artists we look up to must be so literary, serious, and important compared to ourselves — then learn that’s exactly how they feel about who they look up to! I’m going to have to watch this entire Karl Ove Knausgård episode from BBC’s Arts in Motion.
2. Maria and I loved watching Desk Set last weekend, a 1957 rom-com about a whip-smart reference librarian and the computer engineer replacing her entire research department with a computer. Very funny, and unfortunately timely with AI!
3. I’ve been reading why people like Dante’s “Inferno” so much, so naturally I’ve been listening to Hozier’s “Unreal Unearth” album again and again.
4. “Oh Lord. I could talk about the various ways — in nature, in folklore, things like that — but honestly, the surest one? Spite.” T. Kingfisher on the surest way for him to find inspiration. This is my surest way, too! Austin Kleon recommends it, too.
5. I recently read “The Emerson Circle” and loved learning more about the Transcendentalists, but mostly Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, and Thoreau. Just in time to watch this new PBS miniseries on the Thoreau! Robert Gross’ book is up next to read.
6. “Well, I don’t have to worry about how to pay the mortgage. I get to write the stories I want to write.” Octavia Butler on the best parts about her success as a writer — the dream! I’m also an early-morning writer; by 5 p.m. my brain’s largely unhelpful and annoying.
7. I read the first Knaussgard book in 2016, and autofiction was this new, interesting genre to me. This week I revisited a LitHub article written by Robert Moor in 2024 (whose new book I’m v. excited to read) about the book “Bjarki, not Bjarki,” a great book about creativity, writing, and autojournalism.
8. Speaking of autojournalism: it’s starting to feel like summer, which means I want to float in a pool, drink gin and tonics, and read Hunter S. Thompson. Van Neistat likes him for his adventures and prose; I love him writing so politically and entertainingly.
9. Literary fly fisherman! I read “A River Runs Through It” in college in two days (molecules, molecules) and loved it. “Ninety-two in the Shade” felt like Norman Maclean meets Hunter S. Thompson. I’d add Callan Wink as a favorite modern literary fly fisherman, a form I hope continues.
10. We forget how much agency we have; you can just email people stuff. I’m not great at taking this advice often but it has worked well for me in the past.

See you on down the dusty trail,

Happy Friday,

My creative antenna has been WAY more open than usual this week, and I’ve been riding it as long as it’ll push me, grateful each morning.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. I started my morning sitting in a chair, listening to the new Bon Iver live album, drinking a pot of coffee, and watching the sun melt the ice off the trees. Bliss. I love hearing artists rework their music to sound so different than the original studio version.
2. Summer is approaching, which means I need a Big Summer Book. There’s something great about unfolding a huge book in June knowing warm months and many chapters lie ahead of you! This list has helped me narrow down my top picks. Maybe it’s time to lug around a thick copy of “War and Peace” all summer like Ladybird Johnson? Or maybe a thick Stephen King book. (Maybe both?)
3. It’s spring migration for my fellow birders! This year I got a phone with a better zoom lens and I LOVE IT for photographing birds. I don’t want to spend $5k on a good photography rig, so having a phone that doesn’t take potato-quality bird pics is great for sharing with friends.
4. Is creating art about finding meaning for ourselves or sharing an experience with others? Lo-fi Cinema on the joy of creating for both self-discovery and connection with others.
5. I’m listening to “The Comfort Crisis” while walking outside or doing chores and love the idea of a Misogi: a hard task you undertake with roughly a 50/50 chance of success. The quirkier and more challenging the better, but do it for yourself, not social media. Reminds me many of Beau Miles’ adventures like when he commuted to work by kayaking 4 days from his home to his office. I’m a low-momentum homebody so this stuff fascinates me.
6. I was avoiding my important writing pieces this week by procrastinating on my phone or organizing my digital files. And while procrastinating, I noticed Casey Neistat posted a new video about how procrastination and busy work are a necessary, integral part of the creative process, and I’ve felt less guilty about it.
7. I didn’t expect to tear up while scrolling my TikTok feed, nor did I expect such a short video to shift my perspective on childhood and adulthood.
8. “You give a chunk of the precious few hours of your life to something, imagining a great moment someday when it will all come together, and then when it does, you turn around and realize how many other great moments made up what you thought was ‘the process.’” Brendan’s always been great at celebrating how the little moments in our day end up being the most important thing we have. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” says Annie Dillard.
9. I’ve been reading Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act” before bed in that consciousness window where you’re not fully awake but not quite asleep either. I have a surface-level understanding of Jung’s shadow self (check #4 above!), but I think there’s more communication going on with your subconscious in that half-dream state.
10. I’ve been making my way through Dante’s “Inferno,” and watching lectures from Yale, Better Than Food, and Brian McEvoy has helped me better understand what I’m reading beyond “whoa, this is really graphic and messed up.” And don’t sleep on “keyword + lecture” videos with super-low views, those are sometimes the best ones.

See ya on down the dusty trail,

Note: After ten years of meaning to, every Friday I’m going to send out a list of things I found and interesting and worth sharing. These posts will share a mix of articles, books, music, art, and ideas that have inspired me. Welcome to the first.

Happy Friday,

It’s false spring in Minnesota, and only three hours of writing stands between me and a few pizzas and the Olympics this afternoon. Here are 10 things I found interesting this week: