Isak's Blog

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. It’s been a long, hot week and I could use a lake.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. This New Yorker owns so many books in his studio apartment, his landlord is trying to evict him. (Goals?)
2. “I always loved this slogan used by the New York State Lotto: ‘Hey, you never know.’ As someone who’s taught writing for many years, I don’t know a better mantra for anyone involved in the arts.” This George Saunders article has so many good nuggets in it. Another: “Someone might have to live a long time before the thing they were born to say becomes fully formed and accessible to them.”
3. You can now browse every Criterion Closet pick in a virtual closet on this cool web app.
4. Today is the last day to bid on the American Library Association’s iconic READ posters of celebrities holding their favorite books. (Of course Nicolas Cage’s is Siddhartha.)
5. I like when people a) make arbitrary stupid goals, and 2) use them as an interesting hook for doing something, so I’m still thinking about how Beau Miles ran a marathon from home by running one mile around his house every hour for 24 hours straight and fitting in as many chores as possible in-between.
6. I wrote about Henry David Thoreau’s Type II Fun trip camping in the woods, foraging for food, and using some old lumber as a sleeping bag to stay warm at night, which reminds me of this old Dirtbag Diaries podcast episode about the three types of outdoor fun.
7. How I work isn’t all that different from a Large Language Model: I read a bunch, let the ideas simmer, and then draw on them all — consciously or not — to write. The problem is that now a bunch of stuff I read is AI-generated whether I know it or not, which is affecting the whole process like a genetic mutation.
8. I’ve been missing the fried bologna sandwiches and classic country bands of Robert’s in Nashville from this time of year last year, so I’ve been listening to this Vintage Country playlist on Spotify a bunch this week.
9. My Stephen King kick continues with “Different Seasons,” a collection of novellas including “The Body” — which is probably better known for its adaptation into the movie “Stand By Me.” I loved this movie when I was younger: a group of boys hiking, telling stories, getting into mischief and adventure — and I’m delighted how well it was adapted and sad it was banned in Utah schools this week. (I guess they also banned “Bag of Bones” which I also just finished?)
10. I like this idea of using a typewriter to write a cover of an essay/book you like, like a shorter version you make for yourself.

See you on down the dusty trail,

Happy Friday Sunday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. I spent a few days at a lake in Minnesota floating and listening to loons a c fireworks, so this newsletter’s coming a few days later than scheduled (someday I’ll code a “publish in future” option on my website).

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. Typewriters acted as a “meeting technology that enabled White women to marry above their socioeconomic backgrounds and achieve upward mobility.”
2. Twice a year LitHub publishes a long list of upcoming books, and great for 1) finding interesting new books (obvi), 2) guessing which ones will be mega-popular prize winners, and 3) finding niche titles I’d never encounter otherwise.
3. All of us contain a variety of selves, and “a piece of writing succeeds when the writer invokes the best self to tell the particular story at hand.”
4. Very excited for Peter Heller’s “The Dog Stars” to hit the big screen this August. His literary wilderness thrillers are a go-to beach (lake?) read for me, and this is one of his best (I just hope the movie doesn’t lose the emotional tenderness of the protagonist!)
5. Goth Babe on why luxurious RVs can never capture the same experience as simplicity and companionship of camping with friends.
6. I think that semi-myth about writers writing in a frenzied bout of inspiration so intense the rest of your life recedes to a small echo is that state we all aspire to be hijacjed to - no matter how real or fleeting it might be. The dream: to be inspired with such certainty no doubt or judgement gets in the way of output!
7. “There are such obvious benefits to not scrolling your life away, and yet we do it all the time.” I think phones suck our energy, curiosity, and agency away from our interests and self-expression, but I still find advice like “find moderation and intention” to not be ass effective as I’d like.
8. This video from 10 years ago still crops up in my mind as on of my favorite examples of good (unexpected) storytelling.
9. There’s purpose and peril in daydreaming of “could be’s” in your future and “could have been’s” in your past — and this book sounds like an excellent teacher for not becoming too weighed down in the latter.
10. Still videos of nature doing its thing set to chill music like this invariable 1) calms me down, and 2) simultaneously gives me an existential crisis about how we’re spending our existence in this place.

See you on down the dusty trail,

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. The orioles are around, a green heron flew through, and a baby skunk and myself scared each other while I was out for a run.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. Love these three roundups of interesting book dedications from Molly Young.
2. RIP John Basinger, who memorized the entirety of “Paradise Lost” (my copy is 512 pages) by bringing his copy to the gym and memorizing seven new lines on the exercise bike and reviewing the previous 14 lines while lifting weight.
3. It’s fun but quickly boring to notice the trendy Classics everyone is recommending online — last summer was “Lonesome Dove,” then it was “East of Eden,” and “Count of Monte Cristo” is still popular. So I really liked Tip #4 from Naomi Alderman’s list to google three books you love in quotation marks to find an article talking about those three specifically — which would likely recommend another book you’d like. (Mine? I switched to authors: Annie Dillard, Aldo Leopold, David Gessner. First result worked well!)
4. Which helped me find this decade-old article about Annie Dillard, one of my favorite writers, and her book “Teaching a Stone to Talk,” one of my favorite books of hers. “That’s what interests Dillard: ‘ultimate concerns’. To address them she relies on two things: her senses and everything she’s read.”
5. I like older interview-style shows that interview creatives — and I’d never heard of “Bookworm,” a public radio show hosted by Michael Silverblatt from 1989-2023 (!). Here’s a helpful link to the full archive. I’m listening to interviews from the 90s with Elmore Leonard and Tom McGuane.
6. I’m nearly finished with Stephen King’s “Bag of Bones” about a writer grieving the sudden death of his wife and the ensuing writer’s block. The main character never reaches the top of the best-selling book lists and has to schedule his publications around other, more successful writers — which was inspired by King competing in real life with Tom Clancy.
7. Really like this list of recommended reading for every summer mood. I’ve paired Stephen King with summer reading since late elementary school, so I’d recommend his for when you want the literary equivalent of walking out of the summer heat into the cool but eerie shade of a quiet forest.
8. Do today’s writers have regular columns? The media landscape has changed so much, I can’t keep up, but I wonder if a column like Kurt Vonnegut’s or Hunter S. Thompson’s would work today — even if they’re as true today as they were over 25 years ago. When in doubt, write about human ignorance and imperfection, eternal truths.
9. I feel like I never let myself be bored anymore. (Thanks phones and infinite scroll!) The closest I get is around 4 p.m. when my brain’s so full of information and exhausted from computer work that I do chores without even music or podcasts to fill my thoughts. Here are some things to do while waiting that I probably won’t do but will think about as I unlock my phone.
10. Finally: end your week with this poem from Mary Oliver.

See you on down the dusty trail,

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. I spent my evenings this week pressure-washing my concrete and listening to Stephen King narrate his book “Bag of Bones.” Recommend!

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. Really enjoying Austin Kleon’s new book “Don’t Call It Art” and was delighted to find a short sub-chapter about having fun — which pairs with a question I’ve been asking myself this spring: What if this were fun?
2. I’m always fascinated by how writers spent their days before the internet (both the constant procrastination and the endless barrage of information), so this article with Louis L’Amour’s typewritten weekly to-do lists (nevermind the title) was so fun to read. It feels simultaneously so similar and yet dissimilar to modern routines.
3. Isn’t it fun to learn a new word for something you already do? I decided to blog more often this year about what I’m reading, thinking, and doing, and turns out that’s a “digital garden” of exploring and connecting ideas.
4. There’s a plethora of “the internet has made it harder to read” articles, but I found this article interesting because it wondered if having a job where you read bad writing (emails, reports, social media, etc.) all day makes it harder to wind down with a good book.
5. Meanwhile, here’s a guy who reads good writing every day for his job: “Not every executive can read every book,” he explains. “Everybody’s busy and they don’t have time to read everything.” Clark Speicher works for Hollywood reads a book every day or two (especially Lit), surgically breaks it down beat by beat, and recommends how it be adapted.
6. Every since I started percussion in band in fifth grade, I’ve been tapping on surfaces around me. So I decided to level up and learn the sticking for a tough song: the drum intro for Van Halen’s Hot for Teacher. There’s something satisfying about working through how a song works, it feels similar to doing a Rubik’s Cube in my opinion.
7. There is SO much energy in this Die Spitz show on KEXP, this is a blast.
8. Fela Kuti was a big inspiration for David Byrne and Brian Eno for Talking Heads’ “Remain in Light” album, but I didn’t know Hanif Abduraqib was a creative producer for the recent podcast mini-series “Fela Kuti: Fear No Man.” Plus Jad Abumrad from Radiolab!
9. Love this Instagram account from Nicholas Triolo sharing 200 books about ecology and justice in 200 words or less.
10. With summer heating up, now’s a perfect time to watch an old movie that pairs with higher temps.

See you on down the dusty trail,

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,