Isak's Blog

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. It’s officially summer, and I’m soaking up LONG and HUMID summer days here in Minnesota and making plans for the summer solstice.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. A new PBS documentary about the Mississippi River looks SO good, can’t wait for this to come out.
2. I love following Dave Fogler’s YouTube channel for his time-intensive, pointless house modifications — but also for the midcentury vibes and fun vlogging, and his latest on eliminating corporate logos on his truck is a fun watch.
3. “I have faith that these typewriters are going to lead me somewhere. I don’t know where, but I hope somewhere interesting.” In which Ruth Ozeki discovers the joys of a typewriter. I also enjoyed learning about her writing process journal to aid her writing process.
4. If you’re having trouble writing, try reading, watching movies, going to a museum, or going out with a friend. Austin Kleon’s book “Don’t Call It Art” came out this week, and Chapter #7 is “Problems of output are problems of input.” (He’s making the book tour rounds, and I was happy to see him on the “A Reading Life” substack, too.)
5. I’ve been carrying a Field Notes journal in my back pocket since 2019, and I immediately ordered both sets of their new “Explore America” series, which reminds me of their fantastic “National Parks” series.
6. Larry McMurtry would write five pages a day on his Hermes 3000 typewriter, even stopping in the middle of a sentence to avoid going over his daily limit. I loved reading the Tracy Daugherty biography on him last summer, and the new “Western Star” bio is on my desk now.
7. My Big Summer Book pick right now is “Bag of Bones” (my version is 736 but it’s a small mass market paperback), and I am loving the eerie, summery tension laced throughout this one. I’m only 20% in, but I’m curious why this hasn’t been held up as one of his better books?
8. Resonated this TikTok about how creative backlogs can be a block. I’ve had a bunch of creative ideas rattling around in my head for too long, and doing them and moving on sounds easier and more fun than thinking “I really should do that soon.” Should!
9. There’s a plethora of book clubs and read-alongs on Substack that I’m finally going to give one a try and join Many Meetings on a read-through of The Silmarillion — a book I’ve read a few times but never feel like I quite grasp! Third time’s a charm?
10. “Doing the thing every day is easier than not doing the thing every day.” I regret that rigid consistency helps me do the things I want to do but I do wish I was less all-or-nothing about it.

See you on down the dusty trail,

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. I spent my afternoons this week dethatching my lawn (lawns are stupid) by hand with a rake before having the good sense to rent a power rake for an hour. At least I listened to a bunch of “Butcher’s Crossing.”

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. As an avid user of Field Notes’ pocket notebooks, I enjoyed this 4-minute ASMR video of some dude making very professional-looking pocket notebooks.
2. Loved reading about John Cougar Mellencamp’s performing in a hard-hat minutes with a bandaged head after a fan hit him on the head with a glass bottle, and how the original “Jack & Diane” lyrics were about an interracial couple. I need to read more “33 1/3” books (which this book is not - but it reminds me of the great series.)
3. I like using paper dictionaries more than Google, but I’m going to order one of these old Franklin Language Masters. It’s like a desktop calculator, but instead you type in your word and it returns the definition. So cool.
4. I can’t get enough of “authors recommend books” articles, so this New York Times article with Esi Edugyan recommending two books on my “really want to read soon” list (”Love in the Time of Cholera” and “War and Peace,” a possible Big Summer Book) to read by age 40 is good impetus.
5. I have a half-dozen Library of America hardcover books (the most beautiful books on my shelves, unless you think beat-up hardcovers of Robert Caro are more beautiful). If you’ve admired them in a bookstore, you’ll like this speech about its history and cultural reach. Consider me curious about them printing 17,000 pages of Henry James.
6. “I think discomfort is so important for change for an artist. Otherwise you’d just write the same thing over and over again. New experiences breed new creative work.” Goth Babe absolutely nails how adventures and discomfort are important to quality of life and creativity. After living in a van with my wife for years, I enjoy but struggle with how convenient living in a home is; I even miss - especially miss! - hard days on the road, because they’re the other side of the coin to unforgettable, adventurous days.
7. Both Nick Offerman and David Byrne recommended the movie “Dead Man” on Criterion’s Closet Picks, which Byrne described as being like Cormac McCarthy. (I’m very much the “dude in his 30s who likes McCarthy” stereotype but at least have the less common opinion that “The Border Trilogy” is his best work.)
8. Mailbag: I got a copy of the new Larry McMurtry bio, “Western Star.” Tracy Daugherty’s biography of McMurtry was one of my top reading experiences last year — I read it over a week of afternoons on a hotel rooftop pool in downtown San Antonio, drinking bitter-warm IPAs in the heat after spending mornings on the riverwalk.
9. If you’re curious about using a typewriter for distraction-free rough drafting, I can attest the first half of Joe Van Cleave’s video on incorporating is a helpful system to incorporate them into your writing/editing, analog/digital workflow. (My main use is they’re not connected to the internet, so if I put myself in a room without a screen I’ll actually write.)
10. Last, a STRONG recommendation for Mason Curry’s article on how to be a writer with a day job, some writing after work, before work, during work. I nodded and whispered “yes” to myself throughout the whole thing.

See you on down the dusty trail,