Old animations, new music, bad AI art, and excellent parody

It's time for some recommendations.

I’m experimenting with more frequent newsletter posts; every other post, like this one, will be for paid subscribers only.

One of the tenets in my “Jumpstart Your Writing” workbook (which you should download here! If you like free things and advice about writing) is that if you want to be a writer, you have to read. Read all the time, read as much as you can. 

Austin Kleon is a brilliant thinker and curator of cool stuff; a few years ago he talked about this balance between input and output. He quoted writer Ted Gioia who said, in part: 

I could not do what I do if I was not zealous in managing high-quality inputs into my mind every day of my life. That’s why I spend maybe two hours a day writing. I’m a writer. I spend two hours a day writing, but I spend three to four hours a day reading and two to three hours a day listening to music.

People think that that’s creating a problem in my schedule, but in fact, I say, ‘No, no, this is the reason why I’m able to do this. Because I have constant good-quality input.’ That is the only reason why I can maintain the output.

But also, also, seeking out input is not just about being a better writer/artist/productive creative. It’s also about, you know, being human. Enjoying your life. Input should be joyful and inspiring and fun, with no output required. Output will be, should be, the happy byproduct of enthusiastic, uh, putting-in.

So, in the spirit of joyful input, here’s a short list of some stuff you should put into your brains as soon as possible.