Johnsteinbeck on Isak's Blog

Friday Favorites 14

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. We’ve had some gorgeous spring weather this month, but I think it’s about to feel like full-on summer next week — so I’m squeaking in more time outside before the bugs come out.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

My favorite part of big book round-ups like The Guardian’s 100 best novels of all time is how many people react with that old internet adage: why wasn’t I consulted?
I agree with David Byrne that creativity comes from following what you’re passionate about. I can tell in my writing what I’m finding interesting and not!
Cal Newport’s book “Deep Work” had a big impact on me, and his latest op-ed about how social media has shrunk our attention spans so people are relying on AI to do their thinking for them seems on the mark.
New American Masters about Mary Oliver coming out in August looks very good. Wild Geese is of course one of my favorite poems of hers, along with Sleeping in the Forest. I have a CD of her reading her poems in my car that instantly chills me out.
I wasn’t familiar with Brad Neely but his typewriter interview with Austin Kleon is my favorite in the series so far.
Still thinking about this woman who lived alone in a cave for 500 days, lost count of the days after a few months, and whose response to completing the challenge was “Already? No way. I hadn’t finished my book.”
New Olivia Rodrigo song reminds me of Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins and I will not patiently wait for some loud live versions to confirm.
TV and movie adaptations are never as good as their books — but there are still adaptations I love (Little Women, Lord of the Rings, Fight Club), and the new East of Eden miniseries looks pretty good.
While I haven’t yet started a Big Summer Book, I am enjoying Crime & Punishment (which should really just be called Crime & Overwhelming Guilt) — but Raskilnikov’s guilt and misfortune is actually just really funny to me? I must not be alone because apparently they made a comedy stage adaptation in 2023.
I love how many people are into birding these days, and I loved the Listers documentary and am very, very excited the duo is working on their next documentary about the ivory-billed woodpecker.

See you on down the dusty trail,

A writing space of one's own

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I like to daydream about the perfect writing space. Usually it’s a cabin in the backyard with a desk, big windows, a shelf of books, a coffee pot, and — if I’m really treating myself — a wood stove and sleeping cot. Somewhere I can get away from all my cares, distractions, and worries to do good work.

It’s not really about the actual space. It’s the daydream that the space would unlock something within you, that you’d finally overcome your blocks and weaknesses to unleash your full creative potential. And in that way, it really is a daydream.

Friday Favorites 8

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Happy Friday,

The woodchuck has emerged from hibernation, I’ve been playing the live Bon Iver album all week, and I’ve got a thick stack of books about the Transcendentalists I’m excited to dip in and out of.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

Robert D. Richardson said Emerson thought that “language is the archives of history, … a sort of tomb of the muses.” The OED, the dictionary that traces the etymology and history of each word, has a hefty paywall that you may be able to access for free through your library. Mine does! And it’s great for procrastinating. “The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry,” said Emerson.
Maria and I downloaded Rollercoaster Tycoon and spent SO much time building a perfect park on the first level. It’s just as fun to play as when I was 10, and there’s a surprising amount of people still playing the game — like this person who made a rollercoaster ride so long, it won’t finish until after the heat death of our universe.
Your bad art is fertilizer for your good art. It’s the only thing that can close the gap between your what you want to make (your taste) and what you’re currently capable of making (your skill level) that Ira Glass talks about. More garden-creativity metaphors from Austin Kleon.
I’m always surprised to learn how much my creative heroes stole a lot of their ideas from their creative heroes. “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard is one of my favorite books, and she considered naming it “Creekside Solitaire” (like Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire), “Tinker Creek Almanac” (like Aldo Leopold’s “Sand County Almanac”), and plain old “Tinker Creek” (like Thoreau’s “Walden”).
Speaking of Annie Dillard, the first time I read “Tinker Creek” I felt simultaneously exultant (now THIS is what a book can be!) and decimated (she’s already done it, what’s the point of making more art?!). Funny stuff for an aspiring writer of twenty-one, but looking back now, the whole experience reminds me of that line from Steinbeck’s “East of Eden”: “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
Love this writing trick from Oliver Burkeman: draft it on the computer, print it out, delete the document, and type it back in. You’ll inevitably make edits, but the whole thing seems way less taxing. Like Lauren Groff says further down, “I’m trying to Jedi-mind trick myself into not putting so much pressure on any particular project.”
I love when two opposing things are true, and it’s up to you to know which advice to follow: Rick Rubin creates art for himself, never for the audience. Ralph Waldo Emerson always wrote with his audience in mind. My writing practice has the pendulum swinging to far to the latter.
“Bad texters are bewildered by expectations for prompt written communication, feeling punished by a system they never opted in to.” Interesting article from The Guardian on people (me!) who feel dread and anxiety over texting. Personally I’m a burst-texter, going silent for a while and then responding to all the messages at once.
And come to think of it, I don’t like calling or texting on my phone — mine’s mostly a camera and internet device, which is funny because I yearn for the days the internet was a place you went on your home desktop computer, not this black void in your pocket slowly eating all your waking moments. (Anyways: I still use Foqos and a 10-cent NFC tag to block stuff on my phone now and it’s wonderful.)
One of my favorite summer memories last year was sweating on a hotel rooftop pool in San Antonio, sipping a cocktail, and reading Tracy Daugherty’s biography of Larry McMurtry. I’ll be at a hotel pool again soon (not in summer, and not on the roof), but I might recreate it with this brand new Larry McMurtry biography by David Streitfeld. “It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living.”

See ya on down the dusty trail,