Before I jump off with this week’s edition of “My Library” I’d like to welcome all the new folks who’ve subscribed recently. Thank you for showing your interest and support of my creative endeavors! It’s nice to know that I’m not sharing my writing and art with an empty void.
So for those who are new, the purpose of the weekly “My Library” is to share what books and articles/essays I’m reading, podcasts/videos and music I’m listening to, and what art/artists I’m coming across. The idea is about sharing ideas, because sharing ideas is, for me, what inspires my creativity, exposes me to new ways of thinking of and doing things, and generally enriches my life…so perhaps it will enhance yours too. The other purpose of this is for me to practice thinking about and writing about such things more deeply as a way of understanding both myself and the world better. (So, yes, there’s a tad bit of selfish motive.) If you have a recommendation, please feel free to share it in the comments.
Books:
I completed five short books this week.
All three of Austin Kleon’s “How to Steal like an Artist”, “Show your work”, and “Keep Going.” I like his style, there’s a sort of comic/graphic novel style which I love which makes sense since he identifies himself as a “writer who draws”. I recommend them to anyone who is an artist (writer, musician, etc) and needs some encouragement or new ways to think about their work. He also has a substack that you can enjoy here.
“The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros - a lovely short book about a Latina growing up in the city.
“Heart Berries” by Terese Marie Mailhot - an intense, poetic memoir of being an indigenous woman and suffering mental illness.
I started:
“The Sibling Society” by Robert Bly - am about halfway, I have to renew it from the internet archive on an hourly basis, so requires I am always in range of good cell signal. And reading on my computer takes me longer than a regular paper book. Bly draws on the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk” to show how no one has really grown up and we are a society of children/teens. Even though it was written in the late 90s, it is still relatable to our current times.
“The Cult of Smart” by Fredrik de Boer - I’ve been reading his writings on substack; I can’t remember how I discovered him, but as a college “drop-out” from an extremely academically oriented family (of my 7 siblings, there are four with masters degrees, two with Ph.D.’s and one working their Ph.D. and one JD…I am at the bottom of this alphabet soup bowl with a lowly Associates degree in culinary arts, never finishing my BA/BS degree), the title alone resonates. He does come out and say he’s a Marxist (refreshing!), and is critical of the liberal-progressive views, proposing that despite all their talk of equality, education is not one in which they want things to be equal. Still not entirely sold on his argument, but then, I’m only on chapter two.
“Day Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work” by Mason Currey - I am fascinated and obsessed with this book, and still not even halfway. It doesn’t need to be read linearly, but since I’m reading via Scribd on my tablet, it isn’t conducive to just thumbing through and reading a few at random. It tickles my brain to know that Beethoven counted his coffee beans every morning (60 was the perfect amount for how he liked his coffee) and that Proust ate a croissant or two every morning while writing, in bed. Reading them one after another quickly reveals themes that are helpful when thinking about how I structure my creative work days. (I get up at around 6 am, feed the cat, have coffee, and read, but will often interrupt that by instantly jumping into writing, which I will do for a few hours). You can read about many artists individually at Mason Currey’s Substack “Subtle Maneuvers.”
Substacks:
I have been discovering new Substacks every day. The ones I’ve enjoyed the most this week were:
More poetry by Sherman Alexie:
More Charles Eisenstein:
I read this from Heather Heying a few months ago, but revisited it, as some people in my life have accused me of being contrarian simply because I question a lot.
And finally, from Wabi Sabi Life, reflections on how less is really more:
Film:
I suppose the question is: who isn’t watching The Sandman on Netflix? Followed up with why not?!
I first discovered the graphic novel series about a dozen years ago through listening and investigating the meaning of Tori Amos’ music lyrics. She has a few songs in which she references Neil (Gaiman) and the “Dream King.” I grew up very sheltered, without a tv, in a small town in Northwestern Ontario (that’s in Canada, not the town in Oregon), and so when I first was coming out from under that rock existence, I thought perhaps the Dream King was a reference to some foreign Dairy Queen equivalent, perhaps an Ice cream truck? I later learned of her lifelong friendship with Neil Gaiman and how they inspire each other (or shamelessly steal from each other as I heard them say in one interview), found The Sandman, and was hooked. I renewed my Netflix subscription just to watch it. So far, we’ve only watched one episode. One of the glorious things about moving to a simpler life in a healing place is the lack of necessity to binge-watch something or to watch anything at all.
The Sandman is a story about Morpheus, the god of dreams, and it includes his family, The Endless, who are gods of other realms - his sisters Death, Despair, Delerium, etc. I won’t tell you much more because I don’t want to spoil it, but if you like myths that draw on archetypes you might like this. Fans say it’s a very true adaptation to the novels; it’s been so long since I read them, I can’t speak to that.