Tag: Austin Kleon

Replied to David Lynch on getting ideas

Thank you Austin for sharing. I love this reflection on ideas from David Lynch:

If you catch an idea, you know, any idea, it wasn’t there and then it’s there! It might just be a small fragment, of, like I say, a feature film or a song of a lyric or whatever, but you gotta write that idea down right away. And as you’re writing, sometimes it’s amazing how much comes out, you know, from that one flash…

This reminds me of an interview between Kevin Parker and Rick Ruben in which Parker talks about the challenge of capture ideas when they come to you. Ruben shares how Neil Young always responds to ideas no matter how rude it may be. This excerpt captures Young’s thinking:

Usually 1 sit down and 1 go until I’m trying to think. As soon as I start thinking, I quit… then when I have an idea out of nowhere, I start up again. When that idea stops, I stop. I don’t force it. If its not there, it’s not there, and there’s nothing you can do about it… There’s the conscious mind and the subconscious mind and the spirit. And I can only guess as to what is really going on there. (Zollo, 1997, pp. 354-5)

Ruben then gives Parker permission to stop what you are doing and capture the ideas when they come.

Replied to Recording an audiobook during a pandemic by an author

It took us two days to get through 42,000 words, which I’m told isn’t too bad! I had two big revelations:

1. Recording is a physical process. It’s actually really hard work — it requires a ton of concentration and performance while sitting on your ass. My throat and my nerves were raw and I was an exhausted wreck at the end of the day! You start to notice every single weird pop and click your horrible mouth makes. I drank probably 3 gallons of water. (I was told, too late, that a green apple helps with mouth noise.)

2. You should record the audiobook before you turn in the book. I always read my work out loud when I’m editing, but being forced to say your words into a microphone and hearing your voice over headphones turns up every wart and wrinkle in the text. “What illiterate wrote this script?” I thought, five minutes into recording. The books got even better in the course of recording.

Thank you Austin for sharing your recording experience. It sounds like the closet is the way to go.

The process of using tools provided and dialling in remotely reminded me of Jacob Collier’s reflections on the use of Source Connect on the Switched on Pop podcast.

Looking forward to hearing the books. Maybe it is a trick of the mind, but I always like hearing an author read their own work.

Replied to #perfect31

What this became over the course of a month was a really cool kind of daily blogging exercise. My posts got deeper (and longer) as the month went on and I started using the albums just as an excuse to write about whatever they made me think about when they were playing.

Austin, you have some record collection. Thanks for sharing. Even better, now I have another playlist to listen to:

Replied to The fog horns
I finally got around to listening to Damon Krukowski’s Ways of Hearing. This association with the field recording and music reminds me Krukowki’s recollection of meeting John Cage who said he, “never closed the window [to his apartment]. Why would he? There is so much to listen to all the time.”