My Poem

A record producer, an abstract painter, and some Irish dudes walk into a bar...

One night when I was three years old, my father put me to bed as usual, turning off the lights and closing the door behind him.

He didn’t notice, but there was something different about this night: on the usually clean floor of my room sat an open tin of crayons.

Instead of taking my normal cue to go to sleep, I got up, retrieved two of the waxy writing implements — one yellow, one blue — and, while standing on my bed, proceeded to draw a street scene on the wall.

I created houses, a school bus, people, clouds; improvised renderings inspired by the imagery of my young life.

Eventually my father noticed the lights on in my room, and he reentered to find me, mid-drawing, having already covered most of the white space above my bed.

“What do you think of my poem?” I asked, as only a three-year-old could.

To my parents’ credit, I didn’t get in trouble for my after-hours artistry. In fact, the drawings would remain intact for another 10 years — until the eve of my bar mitzvah, when my mother finally decided enough was enough.

I’ve been thinking about that act quite a bit recently, about how present we are when we’re small. And how a child’s feeling of play is so easily lost over time.

My mind today is such a storm of stories, memories, insecurities, and all sorts of other things, I frequently struggle to be present for myself. Even a simple act like reading can be impossible when encroaching thoughts conspire to distract me.

But when I’m able to get there, I become so immersed in whatever project I’m doing that time just melts away. Everything else recedes into the background, and I am one with the work.

It may be my favorite feeling in the world.

These days, my creative impulses have brought me to writing and voice acting. I practice them both every day, trying to relax into that magic feeling. I know it’s inside me, somewhere. Sometimes I find it, often I don’t.

If only it were still as easy as simply reaching into a tin of crayons.

On to the list…

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The Best…

…Book I Read This Week

The Creative Act: A Way of Being (Penguin Random House: 2023) — By Rick Rubin

There are so many books about creativity, it could be a genre unto itself. The latest, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, comes from famed record producer Rick Rubin.

His book is a series of short essays aimed at helping the reader understand how to access their creativity and how to live a creative life.

Rubin structures the book almost like a devotional. There are 78 essays, each one no more than 3-4 pages. The prose is simple, with a spiritual feel, and occasional references to Buddhist thought.

As Rubin mentions near the start of the book, some ideas will strike the reader more profoundly than others. I found quite a few very meaningful, and occasionally, one would make feel something so deeply that I had to stop reading. Like this one:

“All art is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment.”

This is a seismic concept for me. I’ve spent much of my life running away from the pressure I put on myself to create something “important” or “big.” So the idea of looking at every project as an experiment rather than a magnum opus points me toward freedom and play.

A handful of times, I had to put down the book and just write, because I could feel ideas pouring out of me.

In a few cases, the act of typing the words only took about 25 minutes, but the process of accumulating the thoughts and feelings I put into them took 25 years or more.

I expect to return to this book many times in the future. Thanks to reader Greg G. for the recommendation.

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…Painting I Saw This Week

The Knife Grinder (1912-13) — By Kazimir Malevich

Photo: Daniel Fleschner / Yale University

On a visit to the Yale University Art Gallery yesterday, I saw some incredible works, many by artists straight out of an intro to art history course.

Saying a piece was the “best” that I saw is silly, but we at this newsletter are devoted to our conceit.

This Malevich painting has been embedded in my brain for years. I don’t remember when I first saw it, maybe during a high school or college visit to the gallery. But it’s never far from my thoughts.

When I look at this work, I feel like I’m seeing a moving image. I can sense Malevich anticipating the coming cultural domination of film.

Through the use of abstract shapes, he creates the feeling of repetitive motion, as his subject toils over a knife-sharpening machine.

On this visit to The Knife Grinder, I got up close to it. I tried to isolate the individual shapes, separating them from the collective representation.

I wanted to understand how Malevich saw each shape in his mind, and I pondered whether he thought of them like puzzle pieces.

I imagined him standing with his easel outside a building, looking inside through a shattered window, trying to capture the movement of a peasant at work.

Within just a couple years, Malevich would dramatically shift the nature of his work, from the colorful and intricate Cubo-Futurism of The Knife Grinder to the radically abstract Suprematism of Black Square.

Walking out of the gallery, I thought about the idea that each new work of art begins as an experiment.

I wondered what Malevich thought might happen when he started the The Knife Grinder — and how finishing it helped him decide where to go next.

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…Song I Heard This Week

“Every Breaking Wave” — U2, Songs of Surrender (2023)

Last week, U2 released Songs of Surrender, a mega-set of 40 tunes from their catalog, reimagined with new acoustic arrangements.

U2 die-hards should give the whole thing a listen. But for a more general crowd, I’m highlighting “Every Breaking Wave” as one particular track that shines.

A lot of people missed this song when it first came out in 2014, myself included. Even though War, The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby form a holy trinity for me, I initially didn’t give the album Songs of Innocence much of a chance.

But when I finally did a few years ago, the acoustic “bonus” version of “Every Breaking Wave” was my entry point. The beauty of the simple arrangement and the power in Bono’s voice pierced my heart, causing me to conjure images of every failed romantic relationship I’d ever had.

In one particular scene from my life, a girlfriend says to me, “Sometimes you have to take risks to make a relationship work. You just don’t seem able to do that.”

I’ve been walking around with those words in my head for exactly half my life. When you’re 43 and you’ve never been married, a comment like that — true or not — tends to stay with you.

So when Bono sings, “Every dog on the street / Knows that we’re in love with defeat / Are we ready to be swept off our feet / And stop chasing every breaking wave,” it hits me hard. I see myself as the “gambler [who] knows that to lose / Is what you’re really there for.”

The new Songs of Surrender version features Bono, almost a decade older, trading raw power for vulnerability and wisdom. Now I hear forgiveness in his voice, as if he’s telling me, “It’s okay, brother. I understand.”

I’ve always been drawn to U2’s combination of spirituality and scope, but “Every Breaking Wave” demonstrates that they can stir emotions when they’re direct and personal as well.

For me, there’s pleasure in that pain.