In December I finally subscribed to Austin Kleon’s newsletter. Each Friday he sends a list of 10 things he’s into. Considering that my weekend starts on Friday, that’s excellent reading for the weekend. So, in honor of Kleon and his famous Steal Like An Artist, I’m going to steal from this artist.
I’ll start with the thing that made me start this list:
Austin Kleon’s newsletter and blog. If you don’t follow this guy, you should. He’s great on all his social media platforms, balancing work life and personal life. He also has the most photogenic family ever.
Other Internet Media Things
A few weeks ago Marie Kondo’s second book on organizing came out. Of course, I sell this book (it’s a bestseller), but as an archivist (someone who focuses on collecting) I dislike its emphasis on present-feeling emotions. That’s why I’m glad counterculture exists. In “The Tao of Trash” and “Sifting: Technology, Trash, & Digging for Memories” the New England Media & Memory Coalition examine the arbitrariness of “value.”… Sort of like the arbitrariness of “sparking joy.”
Books
The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee crafts a heart-wrenching tale of three women, all American expatriates living in Hong Kong. Mercy, in her mid-twenties and without a job or direction; Hilary, struck between the two tidal forces of her husband’s midlife crisis and affair, and the stalled adoption of a child; and Margaret, mother of three who literally loses her youngest child on while on a short trip to Seoul. As a chronic list-maker, I’m creating a brand new personal reading list just to put this book at the top: Fiction – The Complex Inner Lives of Women. (I just don’t know where this list will live just yet.) Lee puts into words what would be otherwis unmentionable. It’s beautiful and harrowing and foreign and familiar.
Movies & Television
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). I’m not sure why it took me so long to come to this film, but this is what I want horror to become. This Persian-language American horror film takes place in the fictional Iranian ghost town of Bad City (its name implies the seedy underworld that it depicts). The film’s director, Ana Lily Amirpour, describes it as “the first Iranian vampire Western.” The plot follows Arash, a hard-working young man; Hossein, Arash’s heroin-addicted father; Saeed, a pimp and drug pusher; Atti, a prostitute working for Saeed; The Girl, a music-obsessed loner who stalks those she finds on the streets late at night; and a cat. I especially love the visual of the chador replacing the traditional “Dracula” cape. I have a new favorite fictional vampire. Skateboarding into the night.
The X-Files. People who know me are surprised to discover that I didn’t watch the X-Files when it aired in the 1990s. My parents weren’t into it, so we didn’t watch it. So when a friend (whose taste is impeccable) began live-tweeting her adult re-watch of the series, and I noticed that Hulu Plus has all 9 seasons, I decided to check it out. I’m about midway through season 5 as of publishing this post. If you follow me on Twitter at all, you know that I think Mulder is silly, Krycek is annoying, Scully a goddess, and Assistant Director Skinner is…well, let’s just say I’m into it. #janwatchesxfiles on Twitter.
Bookstagrams
Last year, suspenders83 took photos of every book she read. To keep things interesting, she scoured second-hand bookshops to find the most unique book jackets and covers out there. This year, she is hand-drawing each cover in her book journal. This is such a cool way to creatively engage with the book-as-object.
readasaurus_rex includes a lot of older fantasy and young adult books in her reading. I love seeing the tattered covers of books that took me to far of places when I was younger being given new life on new social networking platforms.
Food
Maangchi’s Korean Lettuce Salad 상추겉절이 is spicy and delicious and so easy to make. Try not to get sucked into a YouTube hole of Maangchi’s cooking videos.
BookPeople’s In-Store Displays
My favorite book store is always doing something for the community. Black Lives Matter and David Bowie’s Favorite books are two displays that are deeply meaningful to us. (I worked on one of these.)
Finally
The return of the Boston Yeti. I am now, and forever will be Texas’s biggest Boston Yeti fan.
Archiving Aloud 