Isak's Blog

It’s pretty common for cradle-to-grave biographies to open with a few chapters of the subject’s parents or grandparents so readers have a full picture of background. But my absolute, favorite niche thing in two biographies I love is when the author decided that to really understand their subject, they had to go way, way back.

That in order to truly understand a person, you first need to understand the geologic history of where they grew up.

Happy Friday,

Cue the music, brew that pot. I’m sending this newsletter out before killing time at my local bookstore before catching a matinee of “The Odyssey” — an ideal way to start the weekend early.

Here are 10 interesting things worth sharing this week:

1. I’ve been listening to Charli xcx’s “No One Lasts Forever” on repeat since Tuesday, the one with filmmaker David Cronenberg talking about death, mortality, and art. Goosebumps. So I loved this deep dive into the song with Charli, AG Cooke, and Finn Keane. I assumed they sampled an interview, but Charli personally recorded him! It reminded me of Steve Reich’s “It’s Gonna Rain” and “Different Trains,” and it was neat to hear AG Cooke confirm it.
2. Seriously impressed by this person’s dedication to building a typewriter-inspired writerdeck, complete with 3-D printing a typewriter shell, creating an LED word counter, and a sliding screen. Puts my writerdeck (ViWoods e-reader plus a clacky keyboard) to shame!
3. I don’t take for granted how great music streaming is — you can listen to anything, whenever you want! A miracle. But there’s also too much to choose from, so I’ve been enjoying curated radio shows more: American Routes, David Byrne Radio, Mark Hoppus’ After Hours Radio, and the weekly Bob Dylan radio hour on 103.3.
4. I might have to find the 37-volume set of Pliny writing about the natural world in the first century A.D. to dip in and out of like Valeria Luiselli suggests. Same but different: I snagged a copy of NYRB’s “The Journal” from Thoreau, a collection of entries about the natural world — its secrets and experiences.
5. One of the best openers I’ve read in a while: “Take capelin, a small silvery fish in the smelt family. Now add salt. Then throw those two ingredients in 110 vats, each of them about 10 feet tall, and let them sit in a defunct factory for over two decades. The resulting stench might haunt an entire community, as it has the people of St. Mary’s, a coastal town of about 300 people in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
6. I’ve been enjoying ending my day by reading a snippet of this New Yorker essay about an international scandal and “Alpine Divorce” — a bonkers story for outdoorsy folks.
7. “But there is a value, too, in language that dissolves like an afternoon in July, the last rays guttering in the branches as you close your book and go inside.” Great writing about the “Beach Reads” here — but I’d be lying if I didn’t say summer and winter are for big books! Something about the long seasons around the solstice make me want a long story, not an episodic one.
8. In a huge loss for Minnesotans and people with good taste, Pearson’s — of Salted Nut Roll fame — is closing in Minnesota. I await an in-depth, 3,000-word tribute to the snack and will report back.
9. I’m more of a “scribble it in a field notes notebook” type of guy but I very much love the appeal of creating a digital garden to have some semblance of organizing what I read online.
10. And finally, 30 seconds of David Lynch to end your week: “Stay alert, do your work, don’t worry about the world going by; it doesn’t mean you can sit around and not do anything, you’ve got to get your butt in gear and do it.”

See you on down the dusty trail,

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,

There are two kinds of vacations I take: the relaxing ones where you visit a new city, stay in a hotel, and explore a new part of the world. Then there are the dirtbag vacations, where I’m sleeping in a tent, hiking and camping somewhere, and come back a bit stronger and wild.

This isn’t a new thing.

Back in the mid-1800’s, two of the more influential writers that kicked off the American Renaissance were Ralph Waldo Emerson, the spiritual figurehead of the Transcendentalist movement, and his student/protege/apprentice Henry David Thoreau.

Happy Friday,

It’s unseasonably warm in Minnesota, and spring birds are returning: phoebes and bluebirds are back this week, but my local Great Horned Owls are quiet. I never know if that’s because it’s easier to hear them in winter (it’s very bare, so sound travels), or if I just get more busy this time of year and miss out on their hooting at dusk.