Latest / Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield / DMA#44: Funding the Absurdity: How to Pay for Ink Without Selling Your Organs with Mason Currey

Transcript

DMA#44: Funding the Absurdity: How to Pay for Ink Without Selling Your Organs with Mason Currey · Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield

0:00
SPEAKER_01: There's still some people shuffling and finding their feats.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: Hi, everyone.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to... This is Draw Me Anything.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: My name is Jason Chatfield.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm a cartoonist and a comedian in New York City.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: This is my subset called New York Cartoons.
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SPEAKER_01: And my guest today,
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SPEAKER_01: my repeat guest,
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SPEAKER_01: is Mason Curry,
0:16
SPEAKER_01: author of the new book,
0:17
SPEAKER_01: Making Art and Making a Living Adventures in Funding a Creative Life.
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SPEAKER_01: I initially, when I got the book, thought it was finding...
0:27
creative life and i was like oh no it's way more important
0:29
funding it's about money
0:32
funding first finding later yeah exactly how are you welcome
0:36
welcome thanks oh
0:37
thank you so much yeah i'm great yeah thanks thanks thanks for
0:39
having me on today's
0:40
pub day for the books so um it's fun to be here with you
0:43
congrats happy pub day
0:45
it's very special to be talking to you on pub day it's a very
0:47
special day for an
0:48
author you know because it's all of this lead up and pre-sales
0:51
and interviews and
0:52
SPEAKER_01: campaigns and guest posts and stuff and then
0:54
You know,
0:55
you hit,
0:55
it's like hitting publish and then wondering what the hell.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: You throw your baby into the world and you have no idea.
1:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:02
SPEAKER_03: It's like, yeah.
1:02
SPEAKER_03: What's going to happen?
1:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, with Substack, you hit publish and it comes out in like 10 seconds.
1:06
SPEAKER_03: And then with a book, you hit publish and it comes out in like a year.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: It's a big lead up.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: I was trying to think about when I read your first book.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: Well,
1:16
SPEAKER_01: the book that really hit me,
1:18
SPEAKER_01: and I think I told you at the time,
1:20
it's the first time I had been reading a book and physically
1:24
not be able to put it
1:25
SPEAKER_01: down.
1:25
I was literally doing dishes or cooking and couldn't stop
1:29
reading this thing.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: It was the first time I'd had that.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it was a big deal.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: So daily rituals...
1:35
SPEAKER_01: was a very big book for me.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: I think it was 2020, I want to say-ish, 21, maybe 2019.
1:43
SPEAKER_03: It actually came out in 2013.
1:44
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so that's when I found it.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: I found it in 20.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: I think I found it in 20.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going through the pandemic.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: That's the one.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: And then the follow-up as well.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: Women at Work was fantastic as well.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: I gobbled that one up as soon as it came out.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: There it is.
2:01
It's one of these things that,
2:02
I don't know if it's just me because I'm obsessed with process.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit of a process junkie just in general.
2:07
But the thing that struck me when I read this book is that
2:12
these people across
2:13
SPEAKER_01: hundreds of years who have not met each other,
2:15
SPEAKER_01: they didn't even live in the same countries or eras or times,
2:19
SPEAKER_01: there were two things that jumped out at me.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: One, that many of them started work not long after waking.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: They would kind of work for two or three hours on average.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing is they all had a walk.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: in a day, somewhere in there.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: They had a perambulatory, some kind of walk.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Is that, did you notice that pattern when you were writing that book?
2:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
2:39
Yeah,
2:40
the walking and the mornings are the two of the big seams,
2:43
but also the sort of
2:46
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
2:47
SPEAKER_03: I feel like everyone has to do something special,
2:50
maybe a little odd or eccentric to sort of get themselves into
2:54
the particular
2:55
SPEAKER_03: headspace where they could do their particular kind of creative work.
2:59
SPEAKER_03: So there's also a lot of that,
3:00
SPEAKER_03: you know,
3:00
SPEAKER_03: wearing a particular item of clothing,
3:03
SPEAKER_03: making a particular beverage,
3:05
SPEAKER_03: taking a precisely timed nap.
3:07
SPEAKER_03: You know,
3:08
SPEAKER_03: not speaking to anyone before you get started,
3:10
SPEAKER_03: doing a headstand,
3:11
SPEAKER_03: you know,
3:12
SPEAKER_03: like exercise.
3:14
SPEAKER_03: So that to me was the other big theme is like,
3:17
SPEAKER_03: it's this sort of funny,
3:19
SPEAKER_03: slippery,
3:19
SPEAKER_03: fragile thing,
3:20
SPEAKER_03: like painting or writing a novel.
3:23
SPEAKER_03: And so it's like, how do you get in that right headspace?
3:26
SPEAKER_03: So I think you sort of see that play out in people's days.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: It is funny.
3:31
It's like they found one thing that works and then they were
3:33
like grabbed onto it for dear life.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: All right, just keep doing this every time and then you can work.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can relate to that.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
3:40
SPEAKER_01: I was going to say,
3:41
SPEAKER_01: I think last time we spoke,
3:42
I revealed to you something I discovered after 16 years of
3:49
doing a daily newspaper
3:50
comic strip was the only place I could really get in the right
3:53
headspace and work.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: was on a Sunday,
3:56
I would get in the bathtub and I would pour myself a scotch and
4:00
have a yellow legal
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SPEAKER_01: pad,
4:01
SPEAKER_01: no phones,
4:02
SPEAKER_01: no iPads,
4:02
SPEAKER_01: no nothing,
4:03
SPEAKER_01: no laptop.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: I called it Scotch Bath Sunday.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: And for some reason,
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SPEAKER_01: for years and years,
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SPEAKER_01: that's the thing that worked for me,
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Scotch Bath Sunday.
4:12
So I think,
4:14
yeah,
4:14
I tried every single,
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that's why I was obsessed with this book.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: I tried every single trick that everyone says to
4:20
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Cal Newport,
4:21
SPEAKER_01: I've read,
4:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:22
deep work and digital minimalism and all these things trying to
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figure out,
4:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:26
SPEAKER_01: optimizing and no,
4:28
SPEAKER_01: bathtub.
4:30
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
4:30
SPEAKER_03: No,
4:31
SPEAKER_03: I think that's like,
4:31
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
4:32
SPEAKER_03: it's,
4:32
it is about finding what works for you and then just like
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sticking with it.
4:36
SPEAKER_03: And I think there is a little bit of superstition there,
4:38
SPEAKER_03: but there's also something really powerful about the repetition.
4:42
SPEAKER_03: You sort of,
4:43
train your mind to get into that particular headspace on a
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somewhat regular basis,
4:49
SPEAKER_03: you know,
4:50
SPEAKER_03: in a way that you can use,
4:51
SPEAKER_03: that you can kind of harness it.
4:53
SPEAKER_03: So that sounds a lot like a lot of the people in the book.
4:55
SPEAKER_03: So I think you're in good company.
4:56
SPEAKER_03: I left it to a modern version with idiots like me.
5:01
SPEAKER_03: I did interview some contemporary people.
5:02
SPEAKER_03: It's more historical figures,
5:04
but the tricky thing with contemporary people is I don't always
5:08
know if they're
5:09
SPEAKER_03: giving up the goods.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: Like in a phone interview,
5:11
I feel like they might have some more weird things they don't
5:13
want to reveal.
5:15
That's part of the reason I love diving into people's diaries
5:19
and letters and the
5:20
memoirs and autobiographies and the things other people have
5:22
written about them is
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SPEAKER_03: you can create this sort of composite portrait of
5:27
SPEAKER_03: you know, what they were like.
5:28
SPEAKER_03: So I love doing that kind of work.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: That's my favorite part.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: Same.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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I feel like I learned a lot about a lot of my favorite artists
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and writers and
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SPEAKER_01: composers and poets and painters and
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similar in this book too so the the new book anyone who's just
5:41
joining us it's it's
5:42
out today it's called making art and making a living hard cover
5:46
it's a beautiful
5:46
book really really beautiful book uh done really well at
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celadon uh i've done a
5:51
really really good um job of this and speaking of cal he
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blurbed your book three of
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SPEAKER_01: my favorite authors blurbed your book
6:00
SPEAKER_01: I swear to God,
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SPEAKER_01: Austin Kleon,
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SPEAKER_01: who's also been a guest on this show,
6:03
SPEAKER_01: Cal Newport,
6:04
SPEAKER_01: and Oliver Berkman,
6:05
SPEAKER_01: three of my all-time faves.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: And they rave about this book.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's pretty impressive.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: No,
6:11
I feel really lucky and happy that I got so many really smart
6:16
people to say nice
6:16
SPEAKER_03: things about it.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: You got them to by getting them to read the book, which is great.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: But the one that stuck out to me was Austin Kleon.
6:25
Everyone would know him from Steal Like an Artist and Keep
6:27
Going and a number of
6:29
SPEAKER_01: really,
6:29
SPEAKER_01: really good books in this genre.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: He said,
6:31
SPEAKER_01: by telling the stories of creative people in the past,
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SPEAKER_01: Mason gives readers a wider range of possibilities for the future.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: And I always find much to steal from his books.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: That's a really, that's what I came away from it with.
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SPEAKER_01: Because for the last,
6:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
6:47
SPEAKER_01: six to nine months,
6:48
my Substack has been exploring the realities of being a creative
6:54
artist and making a
6:55
SPEAKER_01: living.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: I've made my living for 21 years freelance as an artist.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: That's all I do.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: don't have a day job,
7:01
SPEAKER_01: don't have a side hustle,
7:02
SPEAKER_01: don't have a patron or a rich parents or anything.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: And it's not to say that that's,
7:10
SPEAKER_01: again,
7:11
that's not like a badge of pride and the alternate version of
7:15
that is a badge of
7:16
SPEAKER_01: shame.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: It's that I didn't know.
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SPEAKER_01: I had no idea that there was another option.
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SPEAKER_01: I just grew up going, well, if you do the thing, you do the thing.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: And reading this, I was so amazed at some of my favorite books
7:29
writers and philosophers and people who I'm like,
7:33
oh,
7:34
I didn't paint this.
7:34
I was like,
7:35
they didn't make their money doing the thing that we know them
7:39
for.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
7:42
this book is a home run of a book pitch and you're the exact
7:46
right person to write
7:47
SPEAKER_01: this book.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: But it's a combination of everything that,
7:52
SPEAKER_01: as Austin says,
7:54
by studying these magnificent minds of the past and how they
8:00
made the things that
8:02
SPEAKER_01: we know them for,
8:04
SPEAKER_01: you actually get a sense of maybe how to frame the future.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: And I do feel that very strongly.
8:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:11
I really appreciate Austin putting it in that way because I do
8:14
sometimes think,
8:15
SPEAKER_03: you know,
8:15
SPEAKER_03: I'm sort of attracted to these impossible problems.
8:18
Like how should you organize your time in order to make your
8:22
best creative work and
8:23
SPEAKER_03: how should you pay for it?
8:24
SPEAKER_03: And there's never a one size fits all answer.
8:27
And I don't really find myself personally even wanting like
8:31
advice necessarily.
8:32
SPEAKER_03: And I really don't feel qualified to
8:35
give advice but what I always crave are stories of what people
8:39
through time
8:41
actually did like what was their real circumstance how did they
8:44
think about this
8:45
dilemma and how did the way they thought about it influence the
8:49
choices they made
8:50
and their like larger career and so I just want to sort of like
8:53
lay it out for the
8:55
SPEAKER_03: reader and I hope that by
8:58
experiencing these stories like certain aspects of the dilemma
9:02
or of these people's
9:03
lives and how they came at it will sort of like sing for you or
9:07
resonate with you
9:07
and like make you sit up in your chair it's like oh yeah i mean
9:10
for me like working
9:11
on this like reading about these people there's stuff where i
9:13
think oh my god yes
9:14
that's exactly what it's like or yes that's exactly what i'm
9:17
trying to do and then
9:18
there's other people where i think oh my god i could never be
9:20
like that but i love
9:21
SPEAKER_03: reading about someone who had that kind of nerve or that kind of um
9:27
SPEAKER_03: you know, like over the top.
9:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Moxie.
9:30
SPEAKER_03: So yeah,
9:32
I do hope that like there's a way in which telling historical
9:34
stories can inform
9:36
SPEAKER_03: contemporary people's lives,
9:37
SPEAKER_03: even though our individual circumstances,
9:39
SPEAKER_03: you know,
9:40
SPEAKER_03: might be different in a lot of ways.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: I think,
9:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:44
there are so many people who carry a level of like shame or
9:48
guilt or whatever it is
9:50
about the things that they have to do in order to do the thing
9:55
that they do.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: They call themselves a writer,
9:57
SPEAKER_01: but they spend the majority,
9:58
SPEAKER_01: they make the majority of their income doing something else.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: They have a temp job, they do something else.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: By the way, Jennifer Douglas, what is the title of the first book?
10:04
SPEAKER_01: It's called Daily Rituals.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: It's right here.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: There it is.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: Daily Rituals.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:11
Things like Grace Hartigan,
10:13
she did a series of temp jobs to fund her painting.
10:16
I think it was John Cage did a television show and was like a
10:19
mushroom expert to fund his music.
10:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I should tell that story for people who don't know.
10:24
SPEAKER_03: It's one of my favorites.
10:26
SPEAKER_03: John Cage, you know, famous American avant-garde composer.
10:29
SPEAKER_03: Big surprise, avant-garde composing doesn't pay a lot.
10:32
SPEAKER_03: So for most of his life, he really made very little money.
10:35
SPEAKER_03: He kind of cobbled it together as he could.
10:37
SPEAKER_03: And then...
10:38
SPEAKER_03: At one point,
10:39
SPEAKER_03: when he was in his 20s,
10:40
SPEAKER_03: he was so broke that he went out,
10:42
SPEAKER_03: he was living in Northern California,
10:43
he went out to forage wild strawberries to try to supplement
10:47
his broke artist's
10:48
SPEAKER_03: diet.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: And he didn't find strawberries,
10:51
SPEAKER_03: instead he found mushrooms,
10:52
SPEAKER_03: and he went to the library to make sure they were edible,
10:55
SPEAKER_03: and they were,
10:55
SPEAKER_03: and he started incorporating mushrooms into his diet.
10:58
And then he sort of became fascinated by mushrooms and over
11:01
time became this like
11:02
SPEAKER_03: dedicated amateur mycologist,
11:05
somebody who studies mushrooms and amassed this huge library
11:08
and was one of the
11:08
SPEAKER_03: early founders of like the New York Mycological Society.
11:11
SPEAKER_03: Anyway,
11:12
SPEAKER_03: years later,
11:13
this ended up being an unexpected money-making opportunity for
11:16
him when he was on
11:17
SPEAKER_03: tour in Europe and he got invited to go on this Italian television show.
11:23
quiz show where they would ask people questions of increasing
11:26
difficulty about like
11:28
passion of theirs or a subject that they were into so he chose
11:31
mushrooms of course
11:32
and over like five episodes one like one at all he won like the
11:36
equivalent of 90
11:37
grand in today's dollars and that was he said the first
11:40
significant money he ever
11:41
made I think he was 47 and he used it to buy himself piano and
11:46
a Volkswagen band
11:47
SPEAKER_03: for he and his partner to tour around the US so
11:52
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
11:52
SPEAKER_03: I love those kind of stories.
11:54
SPEAKER_03: There's something just so beautiful and entertaining about them,
11:57
but also it goes to show how you never know which of your
12:00
interests are going to
12:02
SPEAKER_03: unexpectedly converge or influence things later.
12:06
SPEAKER_03: He also said that he felt like mushrooms taught him about music,
12:10
that there was something to be learned about composing from his
12:13
study of mushrooms.
12:14
SPEAKER_03: So it's a fascinating kind of through line.
12:16
And I think it's quite delightful that he ended up getting a
12:19
big payday out of it too.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: It is interesting.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: It's sort of,
12:23
I was listening to a comedian talk about that recently about
12:27
how if you're just a
12:28
comedian and you only do comedy and you spend every day just
12:31
doing comedy,
12:32
your comedic kind of like subject matter is kind of just going
12:36
to be about airports
12:37
SPEAKER_01: and travel and hotels and shows and
12:40
SPEAKER_01: It's not very relatable because you don't really have another thing.
12:43
But if you have another interest or you have a life outside of
12:45
just getting on
12:46
SPEAKER_01: stage and you have this fascination,
12:48
SPEAKER_01: like John Casey did with mycology,
12:52
SPEAKER_01: you have an almost infectious enthusiasm
12:56
for this thing that you can then share with people and you have
12:59
like a unique
13:01
SPEAKER_01: thing,
13:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:02
SPEAKER_01: a perspective or an artistic,
13:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:05
SPEAKER_01: knowledge of this thing.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: And I think that was really like when I was reading this book,
13:11
SPEAKER_01: which by the way,
13:13
SPEAKER_01: honestly,
13:14
SPEAKER_01: I,
13:14
SPEAKER_01: about halfway through the book,
13:19
SPEAKER_01: I had a feeling like,
13:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
13:23
I'd studied art history in high school and I'd studied all
13:26
these artists and I
13:27
SPEAKER_01: thought I knew everything about them,
13:28
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
13:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:30
SPEAKER_01: in the way that everyone thinks they know about,
13:33
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:33
SPEAKER_01: these artists.
13:34
And I'm like,
13:35
I had no idea that Van Gogh and James Joyce were just like
13:38
terrible brothers.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: Well,
13:40
SPEAKER_01: not terrible,
13:40
but like they had these like siblings like that kind of
13:44
bankrolled their life,
13:45
SPEAKER_01: basically.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: I was like kind of angry with them a little bit.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: A little pissed with them.
13:49
Yeah,
13:50
Joyce is in particular sort of a terrible person,
13:53
which he sort of admits to.
13:54
SPEAKER_03: But for those who don't know,
13:57
SPEAKER_03: he ruthlessly relied on his younger brother to support him,
14:02
especially during the crucial early years that he was writing
14:04
the books that would
14:05
SPEAKER_03: later make him famous.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: And there's even this really sad story about
14:08
He's writing the stories that will be in Dubliners and at the
14:12
time he's living in
14:13
Trieste in Italy and he's supposed to be working as like an
14:16
English teacher but
14:17
he's sort of like not a very responsible teacher and he's
14:21
constantly going out
14:21
drinking and he's neglecting his duties as a father and a
14:24
partner and everything.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: But he's writing these great stories and his brother keeps saving him,
14:29
SPEAKER_03: literally like dragging him out of the bar,
14:31
SPEAKER_03: making him stop drinking and
14:32
SPEAKER_03: paying his rent, all this stuff.
14:34
And then Joyce says,
14:36
you know,
14:36
well,
14:36
when this book is done,
14:37
I'm going to dedicate it to you.
14:38
SPEAKER_03: And then when the book finally comes out, he forgot.
14:40
SPEAKER_03: It's like the most, the most joint thing ever.
14:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
14:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
14:45
SPEAKER_03: No,
14:45
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
14:45
SPEAKER_03: he's,
14:46
SPEAKER_03: he's infuriating,
14:47
SPEAKER_03: but it's like,
14:47
SPEAKER_03: I,
14:48
SPEAKER_03: it's,
14:49
SPEAKER_03: there's a line in the great biography of him by Richard Ellman,
14:52
SPEAKER_03: which is this famous like doorstop biography that,
14:55
SPEAKER_03: um,
14:56
that it was almost like the more chaos there was in Joyce's
14:59
life,
14:59
the better he wrote.
15:01
SPEAKER_03: I think Ellman calls it a secret discipline about his work.
15:05
SPEAKER_03: He had some sort of secret thing.
15:08
SPEAKER_03: The more his life was in chaos, he could turn to this other world.
15:11
So there's a weird way in which he arranged his life in exactly
15:15
the right way for
15:16
SPEAKER_03: his writing,
15:17
even though it was exactly the wrong way for his friends and
15:20
family and loved ones.
15:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:22
SPEAKER_03: I'm fascinated by that dynamic too,
15:24
SPEAKER_03: the way in which chaos and poverty or almost poverty,
15:29
SPEAKER_03: uncertainty,
15:30
anxiety can sometimes be a good thing for a project if you can
15:35
keep it all in the
15:36
SPEAKER_03: air,
15:36
SPEAKER_03: keep all the balls in the air for long enough to get your thing done.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
15:42
SPEAKER_03: It's not for me.
15:43
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
15:43
SPEAKER_03: on the other poll,
15:44
we had people who wanted to have really respectable
15:48
middle-class professions as a
15:49
SPEAKER_03: doctor or a lawyer or an insurance lawyer,
15:52
SPEAKER_03: insurance agent,
15:54
because they felt like the way they needed to do their art was
15:56
to have comfort,
15:57
SPEAKER_03: security,
15:58
SPEAKER_03: middle-class prosperity.
16:00
SPEAKER_03: I'm closer to that side of things, personally.
16:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Wallace Stevens working at the Hartford Insurance Company.
16:06
SPEAKER_03: William Carlos Williams working as a family doctor.
16:10
SPEAKER_03: Charles Ives, the composer, working in insurance.
16:12
SPEAKER_03: Kafka working in insurance.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Kafka working in insurance, yeah.
16:14
SPEAKER_03: I mean, he's not a great example.
16:16
SPEAKER_03: He hated it so much.
16:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:17
SPEAKER_03: But, yeah, I mean, I'm just fascinated.
16:21
SPEAKER_03: It's a great window into these people's lives and work,
16:23
SPEAKER_03: too,
16:23
SPEAKER_03: because you can see how much Kafka hating his job was,
16:27
SPEAKER_03: in a weird way,
16:27
SPEAKER_03: part of his project as a writer.
16:30
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like, if he liked his job, would we have these stories, you know?
16:33
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's like...
16:36
And it's a fun knot to try to untangle for me as a writer,
16:39
you know,
16:40
how is it good for them?
16:41
SPEAKER_03: How is it bad for them?
16:42
SPEAKER_03: What else could they have done?
16:43
SPEAKER_03: How did they feel about it?
16:46
SPEAKER_03: And what did it make happen for them creatively?
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Right, right, yeah.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
16:52
SPEAKER_01: the thing is,
16:53
SPEAKER_01: on the other side of it,
16:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
16:55
SPEAKER_01: you have Kafka and people like that who absolutely hated their day jobs,
16:58
and they hated this thing that was nothing to do with what they
17:00
were actually,
17:01
SPEAKER_01: that really set their soul on fire.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: But then you have these other people.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: You have Jeff Koons,
17:05
SPEAKER_01: you have Frank O'Hara,
17:06
SPEAKER_01: who worked at like the Museum of Modern Art,
17:09
SPEAKER_01: and they surrounded themselves.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Tangentially,
17:12
SPEAKER_01: they worked in that same thing,
17:14
and they surrounded themselves with other people's work and
17:16
with these places.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: that people go to, to see and appreciate their work.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: And I guess there is by osmosis,
17:24
SPEAKER_01: there's probably like a nice,
17:26
SPEAKER_01: even though,
17:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:26
SPEAKER_01: they were like right on their break or create,
17:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:29
SPEAKER_01: and come up with ideas on there when they're not working.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: But there are a lot of people I know who do that.
17:35
There are people who work in publishing who are actually
17:37
authors or illustrators.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: There are people who are cartoonists who, you know, will work
17:43
as like an art director or something for an ad agency or,
17:46
you know,
17:47
or work in a gallery.
17:48
Like I know several cartoonists in New York City who work at
17:51
big galleries because
17:51
SPEAKER_01: they're at least in,
17:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:53
SPEAKER_01: peripherally surrounded by the thing they love.
17:57
And it kind of doesn't feel quite like the same drudgery as
18:01
having an insurance job
18:02
SPEAKER_01: or something like that.
18:03
Yeah,
18:04
I mean,
18:04
it's definitely one of the big questions for all of us,
18:07
which is like,
18:08
is it,
18:09
Is it better to work in proximity to the culture you want to be
18:12
a part of,
18:13
SPEAKER_03: the kind of work you want to be doing,
18:15
SPEAKER_03: working in publishing if you're a writer,
18:17
SPEAKER_03: that kind of thing?
18:18
Or is that going to use up the exact kind of brainpower that
18:23
you need to be
18:23
SPEAKER_03: reserving for your creative work?
18:25
SPEAKER_03: And people fall on both sides of that question.
18:28
There are a number of writers who have said the worst thing to
18:30
do if you want to be
18:31
SPEAKER_03: like a novelist.
18:32
SPEAKER_03: or a poet is to go work in journalism or publishing.
18:35
So it's going to take the same brainpower you need for your
18:39
creative work to work
18:40
SPEAKER_03: in those industries.
18:41
And they say you should get a job that's as unrelated from your
18:44
creative work as you can.
18:46
SPEAKER_03: A lot of that advice also,
18:47
SPEAKER_03: though,
18:47
SPEAKER_03: dates from a time when it was,
18:49
SPEAKER_03: I think,
18:49
SPEAKER_03: a little easier to get an undemanding,
18:52
SPEAKER_03: easy day job.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
18:54
that's one frustrating thing about these stories is there are
18:56
people who are like,
18:58
SPEAKER_03: oh,
18:58
I had to work at a stupid temp job for six weeks so that I
19:02
could afford to paint
19:02
SPEAKER_03: for the whole summer.
19:03
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, wait, what?
19:05
SPEAKER_03: That's incredible.
19:06
I mean,
19:07
now people's jobs are just so much more demanding than they
19:10
were 1,500 years ago.
19:11
SPEAKER_03: But again, maybe seeing that
19:15
SPEAKER_03: in history makes us realize the ways in which the current system sucks.
19:24
SPEAKER_03: We need to collectively be aspiring towards a better arrangement.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: Well,
19:29
SPEAKER_01: this brings me to something I've been writing about lately,
19:31
which every now and then I'll do like a guest lecture somewhere
19:34
like FIT or
19:35
SPEAKER_01: Stanford or something like that,
19:36
where there's artists who are coming up into the industry or
19:39
coming out into the
19:40
SPEAKER_01: world.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: And these jobs that I think in the book,
19:43
SPEAKER_01: Grace Hartigan called it like tabulating job for morons.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: Like these just like hemp jobs that are kind of crap.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: They're like filing and just brainless stuff.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: You can listen to a podcast or something while you're doing it.
19:55
those don't exist anymore because of ai and uh that happened
19:59
pretty quickly that
20:00
dried up i mean those jobs really dried up pretty quickly and
20:05
in the same sense
20:07
these sort of getting your foot in the door jobs uh for artists
20:10
and writers they
20:11
kind of don't exist anymore that that first step on the
20:13
stepladder has just been
20:15
SPEAKER_01: kind of pulled up and now they're like what where do i go what do i do
20:19
SPEAKER_01: How do I even get in now?
20:21
SPEAKER_01: So I guess these tabulating jobs for morons,
20:24
SPEAKER_01: as crap as they were,
20:25
SPEAKER_01: they kind of at least fulfilled a...
20:30
purpose you know yeah yeah i mean absolutely and especially the
20:34
entry-level jobs in
20:36
publishing or in the art world those going away i think it's a
20:38
real tragedy i mean
20:39
i got my start working first at the receptionist desk and then
20:43
as a junior editor
20:44
at a small architecture magazine i didn't really intend to go
20:48
into architecture or
20:49
design journalism but it was a great start and i learned a ton
20:52
and i worked with
20:53
SPEAKER_03: older more experienced editors who taught me how to like a
20:57
SPEAKER_03: turn a piece of writing into a better piece of writing.
20:59
SPEAKER_03: And I got to see all the faces of getting something published.
21:02
SPEAKER_03: And, um, it was huge.
21:03
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it was huge, huge, huge for me.
21:05
And just like being part of the world of like putting writing
21:07
out into the world.
21:08
Um,
21:09
and like,
21:10
it's a tragedy that I,
21:12
that me,
21:13
a younger version of me today trying to,
21:14
uh,
21:16
head on the same trajectory most likely won't have access to
21:19
that kind of job
21:19
because you can't learn it all by yourself i mean we all are
21:24
sort of being told we
21:26
can it's like just like point your camera at your face and
21:29
start recording and
21:30
start uploading stuff and start publishing your own stuff and
21:33
it's like you really
21:34
SPEAKER_03: it's i think it's a dangerous um idea that we can all just be independent
21:40
creators working on our own siloed like bubbles it's uh you
21:44
don't get better that
21:45
SPEAKER_03: way and i think we all have to really push ourselves to like
21:48
work with other people,
21:49
do stuff together,
21:50
learn stuff in,
21:53
like,
21:53
collaboration.
21:54
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, I mean, and you do see that, I think, in the book.
21:57
SPEAKER_03: Like,
21:57
SPEAKER_03: you see people really getting help,
21:59
SPEAKER_03: sometimes taking advantage of people,
22:00
SPEAKER_03: but also,
22:01
SPEAKER_03: like,
22:02
SPEAKER_03: none of this work came out of solo,
22:06
SPEAKER_03: just,
22:06
SPEAKER_03: like,
22:07
SPEAKER_03: a genius alone at their,
22:09
SPEAKER_03: like,
22:10
SPEAKER_03: tiny office.
22:10
It's about,
22:11
like,
22:11
interacting and pushing things and having a community that you
22:15
rely on.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: And mentors as well.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's such a big piece of it.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: By the way, we have a lot more people joining us than when we started.
22:23
Just to reset,
22:24
this is Mason Curry,
22:26
author of Making Art and Making a Living.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: New book out today.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: Go grab it.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: You can get it in multiple formats.
22:32
And also his older,
22:35
previous books,
22:37
Daily Rituals,
22:37
which are available in multi-format as well.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: And if anyone, there's a little button up here.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: There's a subscribe button just up here.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't subscribed to Mason just yet,
22:48
SPEAKER_01: hit that button and it'll automatically subscribe you to his sub stack.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: Please support.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Paid subscriptions help,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: speaking of which,
22:56
paid subscriptions really do help us do the thing that we want
22:58
to do without taking
22:59
SPEAKER_01: these drudgery jobs.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: What was the, I'm trying to remember who it was.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: Was it Ann Trudebeck, what do you call it?
23:08
SPEAKER_01: The financial stress is the rule, not the exception.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
23:11
SPEAKER_03: For those who don't know,
23:12
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if Ann Trudebeck knows that I wrote this or quoted her,
23:17
SPEAKER_03: but in the introduction,
23:17
I quoted a line from her really excellent substandard
23:20
newsletter called Notes from
23:21
SPEAKER_03: a Small Press.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: She's a publisher and an author herself,
23:23
SPEAKER_03: and she says,
23:24
SPEAKER_03: she was writing about a writer,
23:26
SPEAKER_03: and she says,
23:26
SPEAKER_03: hmm.
23:27
financial stress is the rule not the exception like for writer
23:30
dance for artists
23:31
historically it's just validating for me to read that because
23:33
it's like no it's
23:34
that's true I mean I think a lot of us have this idea like I
23:37
should be if I'm if
23:39
I'm good you know if I'm doing it right I should be making
23:42
money I should be making
23:43
SPEAKER_03: a living and um
23:45
I am more interested in putting us all into a lineage of
23:49
creative people who like
23:51
really butted their heads up against this and tried to figure
23:55
it out and didn't
23:56
always figure it out or figured it out sometimes and then not
23:59
other times.
24:00
SPEAKER_03: And I just find it validating and rewarding to see what a,
24:04
it really is a real struggle and it takes a lot of creativity
24:08
and resourcefulness
24:09
SPEAKER_03: and tenacity and luck.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah.
24:12
Yeah,
24:13
because not everyone can have kind of the Medici family
24:15
bankrolling them,
24:16
you know.
24:21
But there was an interesting one in the book that I wanted to
24:23
talk to you about.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: Virginia Woolf had this,
24:25
SPEAKER_01: she was living on this,
24:25
SPEAKER_01: I think it was like 400 pound a month interest,
24:29
SPEAKER_01: a year,
24:30
SPEAKER_01: sorry,
24:31
SPEAKER_01: interest income to sort of give her the freedom,
24:34
SPEAKER_01: buy her the time and the freedom,
24:36
SPEAKER_01: mental freedom,
24:38
SPEAKER_01: without that financial stress.
24:41
um to like write she would write what like three four hours a
24:44
day um every every
24:47
morning and uh and actually churn out the work without the
24:51
constant hum in the back
24:52
of her head of like how are you gonna pay rent you know which
24:56
which is another
24:57
SPEAKER_01: which is another side of the spectrum you know
25:00
Yeah,
25:01
I mean,
25:01
Virginia Woolf,
25:01
in a way,
25:02
has huge disadvantages at that moment.
25:05
SPEAKER_03: She can't go to university as a woman.
25:07
SPEAKER_03: Everything she writes is kind of like, oh, woman writing here.
25:11
SPEAKER_03: It's really hard for her to just do this work she wants to do.
25:15
SPEAKER_03: At the same time, she has a really fortunate...
25:20
material underpinning for her career she has this inherited
25:23
income she can live
25:25
almost live off the interest on that um not quite she can she
25:30
she gets about like
25:31
half what she needs to live off of so she works really really
25:33
hard to write
25:35
SPEAKER_03: literary journalism and to start this publishing enterprise um
25:39
I think her and Leonard Wolf said they worked 330 mornings out
25:43
of the year.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: It's like incredible.
25:45
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
25:45
SPEAKER_03: it wasn't like a 10 hour day,
25:46
SPEAKER_03: but it was like every day,
25:47
SPEAKER_03: you know,
25:48
SPEAKER_03: they went and sat down and did their three hours.
25:50
SPEAKER_03: And then every afternoon she was walking,
25:52
SPEAKER_03: thinking about her novels or her journalism,
25:56
SPEAKER_03: working in the press that they founded together.
25:58
SPEAKER_03: I find them really inspiring.
25:59
SPEAKER_03: It's like,
26:00
SPEAKER_03: you know,
26:00
people talk about this live-work balance and I think for them
26:03
it's like there is no
26:05
SPEAKER_03: balance.
26:05
SPEAKER_03: It's all, you know, like living and working are one thing.
26:08
SPEAKER_03: And I think they worked really,
26:10
really hard and they also really enjoyed what they were doing
26:14
and found a lot of
26:14
SPEAKER_03: meaning in it.
26:15
SPEAKER_03: I sort of see them as models.
26:17
And also there's the fact that they're working in the shadow of
26:21
two world wars.
26:22
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of
26:24
like death and difficulty in their circle um in their friends
26:30
their family so yeah
26:31
there's something there's a real i think real essence and
26:34
perseverance and um just
26:36
like drawing on some deep reservoir of like the steep
26:40
commitment to the art um that
26:42
SPEAKER_03: i find very inspiring
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's interesting.
26:47
Part of me when I was reading the book was kind of wondering of
26:50
all the artists
26:50
that we never heard from because they didn't have the capacity
26:54
to work like that.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: They didn't have a leg up.
26:56
They didn't have something kind of sustaining them outside of
27:01
what they were trying to do.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: And
27:04
SPEAKER_01: outside of just circumstantial.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
27:06
SPEAKER_01: it's like free will kind of,
27:07
SPEAKER_01: it's just like,
27:08
it's purely the circumstances that you were dealt and some
27:12
people fought their way
27:13
SPEAKER_01: out of it.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: They hustled their way out of it.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: And some people really struggled.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: There were people who lived in complete,
27:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:17
they were destitute their whole lives and they didn't make any
27:20
money until
27:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, their work didn't make any money until after they died.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Their progeny made all the money.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those strange things where,
27:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:27
SPEAKER_01: you have an image of how artists live and you think,
27:30
SPEAKER_01: oh,
27:30
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
27:30
SPEAKER_01: because,
27:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:31
SPEAKER_01: these amazing artists,
27:32
SPEAKER_01: they must have had such a great,
27:34
SPEAKER_01: amazing life.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: And it was so, you know, glamorous.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: But it's anything but glamorous.
27:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's interesting.
27:44
I don't know if I really thought it was so glamorous,
27:46
but I definitely thought it was...
27:48
a little bit more like the work was making them a little bit
27:51
more money or it's a
27:51
SPEAKER_03: little bit more self-sufficient.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm romanticizing it a bit too.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:56
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it seems to me too.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: I also,
27:58
SPEAKER_03: I want to say like the very first thing,
28:00
the very first story I tell in the introduction is about Arthur
28:03
Schopenhauer.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: Schopenhauer, yeah.
28:04
SPEAKER_03: The philosopher.
28:05
And I kind of started with that because he's this sort of like
28:09
almost didn't
28:10
become himself a story you know like he he kind of had this
28:15
idea of going into a
28:16
literary life as a young person and then his father who was a
28:18
merchant sort of like
28:19
SPEAKER_03: maneuvered him into working in a merchant's office as an apprentice yeah
28:24
schopenhauer hated hated hated it it was so miserable and then
28:28
his father ends up
28:29
SPEAKER_03: dying and he inherits some money and he's able to pursue his real
28:32
SPEAKER_03: calling,
28:33
SPEAKER_03: but it's like,
28:34
SPEAKER_03: I can't read that without thinking,
28:35
SPEAKER_03: well,
28:35
SPEAKER_03: what if he didn't inherit the money?
28:36
SPEAKER_03: Or what if there was no money to inherit?
28:38
This is the only one who people have read and felt deep in
28:42
their bones since,
28:43
SPEAKER_03: you know,
28:44
SPEAKER_03: for 200 years or whatever.
28:45
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, it almost didn't happen.
28:47
And it does pay me how many great things that I know are not
28:53
happening because
28:53
people don't have the money to afford to exploit them and chase
28:58
them down.
28:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it's attractive.
29:02
it's just one of those things like I wish that we were doing
29:05
more this is the site to make that
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that struck me.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: And I like that you opened the book with that too.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: That's a good illustration of this topic.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: By the way,
29:20
anyone who hasn't been watching any previous episodes will not
29:26
know that at about
29:26
SPEAKER_01: halfway through,
29:27
SPEAKER_01: I flip the camera and I draw while I'm talking.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm not...
29:31
SPEAKER_01: paying less attention.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
29:33
I'm paying more attention because I get into kind of a nice
29:36
flow state when I'm
29:37
SPEAKER_01: drawing.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually more concentrated.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to flip the camera.
29:42
Anyone who wants to make any requests in the comments of stuff
29:46
you want me to draw,
29:47
SPEAKER_01: put it in the comments.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: But we're going to continue talking about the book.
29:49
And specifically,
29:50
I wanted to talk to you about,
29:53
and I always screw up the pronunciation.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: His name is Charles Baudelaire.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: Baudelaire?
29:59
SPEAKER_03: Baudelaire?
30:01
SPEAKER_03: Baudelaire?
30:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is my speaker pronunciation.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: He had these letters to his mother about sort of chronic,
30:07
SPEAKER_01: like procrastination and inability to kind of do his duties,
30:10
SPEAKER_01: you know?
30:14
I mean,
30:14
I should admit here that like every profile in the book is also
30:18
a story.
30:20
SPEAKER_03: Or an aspect of my personality.
30:23
SPEAKER_03: So I really, really, I respect
30:26
SPEAKER_03: Time for the summer reading Baudelaire's letters to his mother.
30:30
The Baudelaire story is he inherits like a good chunk of money
30:34
when he's young,
30:35
SPEAKER_03: 21,
30:35
SPEAKER_03: from his father who died when he was,
30:38
SPEAKER_03: meanwhile,
30:39
SPEAKER_03: has remarried this sort of like military.
30:42
SPEAKER_03: Baudelaire proceeds to just like blow all his money.
30:45
SPEAKER_03: He's like living like the dream sort of poet love.
30:49
quarter in Paris and his mother and stepfather are finally like
30:53
we have to put a
30:53
stop to this and they managed to like get the money into trust
30:57
and it turns into an
30:58
allowance instead of just like that he can spend and he spends
31:01
like the rest of his
31:02
SPEAKER_03: life just like you know like yelling at her about it it's
31:10
SPEAKER_03: saying how much he loves her and how much he admires her.
31:13
SPEAKER_03: And also, how could you do this to me?
31:14
SPEAKER_03: And like, please release more of the money or give me a loan.
31:17
SPEAKER_03: Like I'm down to my last two logs to, you know, put in the fireplace.
31:22
And he sort of had run up so much debt that he's forced to like
31:25
dodge creditors and
31:26
SPEAKER_03: continually be moving from place to place.
31:29
And there's a funny way in which this position he did,
31:32
I think,
31:33
suited him as a poet.
31:34
SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, like the desperation and the over-the-top exasperation.
31:39
SPEAKER_03: It was sort of his,
31:40
poetic voice and the letters themselves are so entertaining
31:44
they're they're sort of
31:45
performances you know like and and uh i just found them so
31:48
great and um and he also
31:50
talks a lot about his struggles to get things done and he's
31:54
like a world-class
31:54
procrastinator the way he describes procrastinating really
31:59
resonates with my own uh
32:01
SPEAKER_03: yeah like more uh problematic moments with sort of like
32:06
He talks about he can't make himself do the thing until it's
32:10
like built up so much
32:11
SPEAKER_03: pressure that he finally does it in this like explosion.
32:13
SPEAKER_03: And then he's exhausted.
32:15
SPEAKER_03: And then the cycle starts all over again.
32:16
SPEAKER_03: And I thought, okay, you know, that sounds a little familiar.
32:21
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, I really, yeah, go ahead.
32:23
SPEAKER_03: This is, by the way, a really enjoyable sketch.
32:27
SPEAKER_03: with little air coming together on your screen.
32:29
I'm assuming this is stuff that any French poet has to have a
32:32
beret and probably
32:34
SPEAKER_01: like a stripy shirt,
32:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming,
32:35
SPEAKER_01: or a black,
32:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:37
SPEAKER_01: like skivvy.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: That,
32:39
SPEAKER_01: what you just described,
32:41
leaving something up until the absolute last minute where the
32:44
pressure has built up
32:45
SPEAKER_01: so much or so close to deadline that you then work in a mad panic...
32:50
SPEAKER_01: That's actually a symptom of ADHD.
32:55
It's a thing where a lot of people who suffer with
32:57
procrastination have this.
32:58
It turns out they do have an executive dysfunction where to be
33:02
able to actually
33:03
SPEAKER_01: accomplish anything because of the dopamine dysregulation that they have,
33:07
they do create these stressful environments such that they have
33:12
to have problems.
33:13
this sort of mad panic like they'll leave something to the
33:16
absolute last second so
33:17
that there's more adrenaline there's more dopamine and uh and
33:20
just that's the only
33:21
way they can get anything done is the sort of you know um
33:25
pulling an all-nighter
33:26
the night before an exam or an assignment is due is like it's
33:29
it's a real thing
33:31
it's a real thing yeah and reading i mean everything i've
33:33
written about artists and
33:34
SPEAKER_03: writers i think it's very easy to sort of
33:37
SPEAKER_03: want to apply like contemporary diagnostic criteria to them.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: You're like,
33:41
SPEAKER_03: oh my God,
33:41
this person definitely had ADHD or this person definitely is on
33:44
the spectrum.
33:44
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
33:44
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how useful that is,
33:46
SPEAKER_03: but it is,
33:47
SPEAKER_03: you know,
33:47
we have a lot of language for things that these people were
33:50
just experiencing and
33:52
SPEAKER_03: also their families were experiencing and thinking like,
33:55
SPEAKER_03: this is nuts or this person's out of control.
33:57
SPEAKER_03: So I have empathy for someone like Baudelaire who had sort of like...
34:03
SPEAKER_03: so little self-regulation and just in it.
34:07
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
34:08
SPEAKER_03: He was being like blown around by his moods and by his,
34:12
SPEAKER_03: you know,
34:12
SPEAKER_03: the sort of extreme circumstances he was in,
34:14
SPEAKER_03: but was making great art out of it.
34:16
SPEAKER_03: And it's one of those,
34:18
SPEAKER_03: you know,
34:18
SPEAKER_03: one of those sort of questions that hovers over all artists' lives.
34:22
SPEAKER_03: It's like, well...
34:23
SPEAKER_03: what do you've made,
34:23
what do you've written those poems if he had been in a
34:26
comfortable like self kind
34:28
SPEAKER_03: of lifestyle?
34:29
SPEAKER_03: It's hard to imagine at the same time,
34:31
I don't want to be continually like defending the tortured
34:35
artist stereotype or
34:36
SPEAKER_03: saying people should live like that.
34:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
34:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
34:42
I'm trying to draw an artist who is desperately trying to come
34:48
up with ideas in the
34:51
SPEAKER_01: face of insurmountable self-dysregulation.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: The thing is like, yeah, exactly.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing about that,
35:01
and I guess this is part of what I was talking to you about
35:04
before that struck me,
35:05
SPEAKER_01: was I ended up kind of disliking some of these people.
35:08
I really started to find myself resenting Van Gogh and James
35:15
Joyce and these kind
35:15
SPEAKER_01: of assholes who just treated their...
35:19
SPEAKER_01: Family like shit.
35:20
But then just also had the,
35:22
I guess,
35:23
had the temerity to think,
35:24
no,
35:24
no,
35:24
no,
35:25
I can act like this.
35:27
I can act in such a way that I can just be an asshole to
35:29
someone who loves me.
35:30
Just because,
35:31
you know,
35:31
they have to,
35:32
you know,
35:32
because they have to put up with me.
35:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the Van Gogh one's an interesting one.
35:37
I struggled with that part of the book because I originally
35:40
read this giant
35:41
SPEAKER_03: biography of Van Gogh called Van Gogh A Life.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: It's by two authors and I think it's huge and it was,
35:49
SPEAKER_03: I think,
35:49
SPEAKER_03: on the Pulitzer and it really makes him kind of seem insufferable.
35:53
SPEAKER_03: It really just became this relentlessly sort of negative,
35:57
SPEAKER_03: not negative,
35:58
SPEAKER_03: but it really,
35:59
SPEAKER_03: a lot of his negative traits come out very strongly and particularly his
36:03
SPEAKER_03: kind of mooching off of his brother Theo.
36:06
SPEAKER_03: And then,
36:07
so I sort of wrote a version of that that was really
36:09
emphasizing like what a mooch
36:10
SPEAKER_03: he was.
36:11
And then later I kind of came back around and felt like it
36:14
didn't quite do him justice.
36:15
SPEAKER_03: And I have this great tiny biography of Van Gogh that I recommend.
36:19
It's called Van Gogh,
36:20
A Power Seething,
36:22
Really Slim,
36:23
Slender Biography by a painter named Bel.
36:26
And it's sort of a corrective to this giant doorstop sort of
36:29
negative biography and
36:30
really emphasizes just how incredible it was that Van Gogh
36:35
brought himself from
36:35
nothing to where he brought himself in such a short amount of
36:38
time at the end of
36:39
SPEAKER_03: his life.
36:41
For me,
36:42
Van Gogh is just so interesting because he originally trains to
36:46
work in art sales.
36:48
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
36:49
SPEAKER_03: His family is in the art market.
36:53
SPEAKER_03: They own a business.
36:55
SPEAKER_03: And he flames out at it.
36:57
SPEAKER_03: He's bad at it.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: He's not really good at the normal workaday world.
37:02
SPEAKER_03: So I think it just always aided him.
37:04
SPEAKER_03: He could feel...
37:06
SPEAKER_03: He felt deep in his bones that he was doing something of value,
37:10
SPEAKER_03: not just artistic value,
37:11
SPEAKER_03: but monetary value.
37:13
And he had access to these people who were in charge of getting
37:17
art into people's
37:17
SPEAKER_03: hands and selling it.
37:18
SPEAKER_03: And I think it just drove him crazy.
37:20
SPEAKER_03: And the thing is, he was right.
37:23
He didn't live to see it,
37:25
but he was right that his work had all this value.
37:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:29
So there's something to me so poignant about him and his story
37:33
and the way he wrote
37:35
SPEAKER_03: about it,
37:35
SPEAKER_03: the letters to Theo.
37:37
SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah.
37:38
SPEAKER_03: So I tried to do justice to the way in which it's,
37:41
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
37:41
all of these I hope are doing justice to just like what an
37:45
insoluble dilemma it is
37:48
and how exasperating it can be and how at the same time great
37:53
work can come out of
37:54
SPEAKER_03: it anyway.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
37:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
37:57
SPEAKER_01: the thing that struck me,
38:00
SPEAKER_01: again,
38:00
SPEAKER_01: sort of coming back to that,
38:01
SPEAKER_01: he was peripherally involved,
38:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:06
SPEAKER_01: in that world.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: But then also...
38:11
SPEAKER_01: there was that angst,
38:12
SPEAKER_01: there was that friction,
38:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:15
SPEAKER_01: there was that,
38:17
SPEAKER_01: as you say,
38:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:18
would these creative people have written or created these
38:22
pieces of art had they
38:24
SPEAKER_01: not had that friction,
38:25
SPEAKER_01: had they not had that tension and that anxiety?
38:29
And so I do think about there is something about having
38:33
friction,
38:33
having some kind of
38:35
SPEAKER_01: something to push against that does create.
38:38
It's that,
38:38
what is it,
38:39
the friction creating the pearl inside the oyster shell.
38:44
It does produce,
38:46
not that it's advised to,
38:48
you know,
38:49
to create it artificially necessarily.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: It's just that it does seem to be a correlation across all these lives.
38:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, it does.
38:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think there's a way you can do it.
39:00
you can be pushing yourself really far in your work and not
39:05
hopefully have to be
39:06
SPEAKER_03: pushing yourself so far in your life or your lifestyle.
39:09
SPEAKER_03: So I don't think it's necessary to live so close to the edge.
39:13
SPEAKER_03: But I do think,
39:14
SPEAKER_03: of course,
39:14
it's compelling to read or to absorb work where you can feel
39:19
the person pushing
39:21
SPEAKER_03: themselves kind of past their comfort zone,
39:23
SPEAKER_03: figuring it out on the fly.
39:24
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think that's why work...
39:28
hits us you know because it's like the feeling that the creator
39:31
must have had when
39:33
they finally pulled it off they sort of like made this thing
39:37
cohere when they
39:38
couldn't up until the moment that they did or they finally had
39:41
this insight you
39:41
know it's like I think that carries through so there is a way
39:46
in which I think the
39:47
SPEAKER_03: work at least needs to be
39:49
SPEAKER_03: walking close to some kind of edge,
39:51
even if hopefully you don't have to be doing that to quite the
39:55
same extent.
39:56
Yeah,
39:56
you don't have to sort of create any artifice or like,
39:59
you know,
40:00
make it artificially.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, I guess I was surprised.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm a huge fan of Hunter S. Thompson.
40:06
And I did not realize that he made the majority of his income
40:11
and regular income
40:13
SPEAKER_01: writing about,
40:13
SPEAKER_01: as like a sports writer,
40:14
SPEAKER_01: he just like wrote about
40:16
SPEAKER_01: like sports at Owl Farm.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: He was just sitting there and he just kind of,
40:20
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:21
SPEAKER_01: it's not that he didn't like writing about sports necessarily,
40:23
SPEAKER_01: but it's not the thing,
40:24
SPEAKER_01: not the one thing he was desperately wanting to do all the time.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: He did it to pay the bills.
40:29
SPEAKER_01: And I guess, yeah, in the back of my head, I just had...
40:34
similarly like this romance this romantic idea about this you
40:38
know this gonzo
40:39
journalist writer who's like you know drinking whiskey all day
40:43
and smoking chain
40:44
smoking cigarettes and doing cocaine and he's creating
40:47
artificially almost you know
40:48
through through this um treating his body like crap and and uh
40:52
and trying to escape
40:53
his own brain he creates his own friction in a way um to to
40:58
make these incredible
40:59
SPEAKER_01: you know pieces of writing
41:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: No, well said.
41:03
SPEAKER_03: I think that's true.
41:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:06
SPEAKER_03: But at the same time,
41:07
SPEAKER_03: you have people like,
41:09
SPEAKER_03: you know,
41:09
William Carlos Williams delivering babies and making house
41:12
calls and then writing
41:13
SPEAKER_03: down poems on his blank prescription pads.
41:16
SPEAKER_03: Right.
41:17
Or Wallace Stevens going on a lunch break walk and writing
41:19
poems on little scraps of paper.
41:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think it's like, I often think of it as almost like this
41:26
SPEAKER_03: sort of impossible Venn diagram.
41:28
Like there's all these circles and one of them might be your
41:31
temperament or your personality.
41:32
And one of them might be what kind of work you feel called to
41:35
do,
41:36
what your ambition is.
41:37
And then there are your material circumstances,
41:39
like what kind of resources you can draw on.
41:41
SPEAKER_03: And then you sort of like,
41:42
SPEAKER_03: I don't think that many circles can ever really overlap,
41:46
SPEAKER_03: you know,
41:46
SPEAKER_03: in one thing,
41:47
SPEAKER_03: but it's almost like if you can get them all to line up,
41:51
just right you can sort of do something that you can do it I
41:55
don't know you know
41:56
it's like you sort of get them in this balance or this
41:59
configuration where you're
42:00
able to do this thing or go a little farther or hit some place
42:04
where you're doing
42:05
your best work and then maybe you can't keep them in that
42:08
balance for long but like
42:09
that's the way I think about it sort of this impossible Venn
42:12
diagram yeah yeah no I
42:14
think you're right that's an interesting that seems like the
42:16
kind of thing I would
42:17
SPEAKER_01: see on Austin Kleon's
42:19
SPEAKER_01: writing or something.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: This is why I like you and I like Oliver Berkman and Austin Kleon,
42:29
SPEAKER_01: because you think about these things,
42:30
SPEAKER_01: but then you're able to kind of put them into a form or an idea,
42:33
but give shape to these ideas that makes it a little bit more
42:36
palatable or sort of
42:37
SPEAKER_01: comprehensible.
42:39
There was one story in the book that jumped out at me because
42:42
when I first left
42:43
SPEAKER_01: high school,
42:43
SPEAKER_01: I didn't go to college.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: I started working in newspapers and in printing.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: It was at Pessoa.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: Fernando Pessoa blew his entire inheritance on a printing press.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: How the hell does someone do that?
42:55
SPEAKER_00: I know.
42:57
SPEAKER_03: I know.
42:57
SPEAKER_03: It's amazing.
42:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is a Portuguese writer, Fernando Pessoa.
43:01
SPEAKER_03: Another story inherits money and he's like,
43:03
SPEAKER_03: well,
43:03
SPEAKER_03: I could,
43:04
SPEAKER_03: you know,
43:04
SPEAKER_03: live responsibly off this money,
43:06
SPEAKER_03: you know,
43:07
SPEAKER_03: live off the interest on my investments.
43:08
It would be a modest lifestyle,
43:10
but it would allow me not to have to work.
43:13
SPEAKER_03: Or I could go buy this incredibly expensive printing and have it,
43:18
SPEAKER_03: you know,
43:19
SPEAKER_03: shipped from Spain to Portugal and reassembled and then launch my own
43:24
SPEAKER_03: super like over ambitious publishing enterprise all by myself.
43:28
SPEAKER_03: And it was good.
43:28
SPEAKER_03: He had this huge plan.
43:30
SPEAKER_03: And you know,
43:31
SPEAKER_03: like Baudelaire,
43:32
SPEAKER_03: who I write about in the same chapter,
43:33
SPEAKER_03: he ended up blowing his whole inheritance in like a year and a half.
43:37
SPEAKER_03: And it's like,
43:41
I felt like I had to address inheritances in the book because
43:44
it has underpinned a
43:45
SPEAKER_03: lot of careers.
43:47
SPEAKER_03: I feel like that was a particularly entertaining story about it.
43:50
SPEAKER_03: But again, he sort of then has to step back to a more modest lifestyle.
43:54
SPEAKER_03: He does freelance translating work for different offices in Lisbon.
43:59
SPEAKER_03: He lives in small rented rooms.
44:01
SPEAKER_03: He just kind of like...
44:03
has this sort of like really basic not glamorous daily routine
44:08
and he writes and
44:10
SPEAKER_03: it's like maybe the money was not
44:13
he couldn't,
44:14
like,
44:14
he sort of,
44:14
like,
44:14
couldn't,
44:15
he couldn't have that money.
44:16
He had to,
44:17
like,
44:17
get rid of it in order to sort of embrace the life where he was
44:20
able to write.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: Or that's the way it all played out.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the way it kind of ended up.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: And it's like,
44:26
SPEAKER_01: you know what,
44:26
maybe it was for the best that he blew it all because otherwise
44:29
he might not have
44:31
SPEAKER_01: been able to produce,
44:32
SPEAKER_01: again,
44:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
44:33
SPEAKER_01: produce the thing.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: that we know today.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: They don't teach financial literacy.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of these people didn't study,
44:41
SPEAKER_01: but in high school,
44:45
SPEAKER_01: let alone in art school,
44:46
they don't really teach you how to manage a business or manage
44:49
money or how to save
44:51
SPEAKER_01: and how to apportion your income for paying tax and
44:56
And putting things away for any day for when the famine,
45:01
there's feast and famine periods.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: It's such a big,
45:05
it's a thread in this that I noticed that these people had
45:08
absolutely no financial
45:09
SPEAKER_01: acumen whatsoever.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
45:12
SPEAKER_03: There's a funny way in which it's like, should...
45:15
SPEAKER_03: Should art schools teach that?
45:16
SPEAKER_03: I don't, I don't know.
45:17
SPEAKER_03: Maybe there should be a course on the side.
45:19
SPEAKER_03: I feel like,
45:19
SPEAKER_03: I do like the idea that people still go to art school and,
45:25
SPEAKER_03: like,
45:25
just spend however many years really immersing themselves in
45:30
the possibilities,
45:31
SPEAKER_03: the theory,
45:32
SPEAKER_03: the history,
45:33
SPEAKER_03: like,
45:33
SPEAKER_03: exploring.
45:33
I hate the idea that everything has to have a financial
45:37
literacy component.
45:38
SPEAKER_03: Like,
45:39
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
45:39
that's the great tension of these stories and these lives is
45:42
like there is a way in
45:43
SPEAKER_03: which,
45:43
SPEAKER_03: you know,
45:44
they're trying to do something that is not succeed or fail
45:48
according to the values
45:49
SPEAKER_03: of the marketplace.
45:50
SPEAKER_03: It's about something else.
45:54
SPEAKER_03: And so at the same time,
45:55
you have to like have a roof over your heads and you can't just
46:00
ignore money.
46:01
SPEAKER_03: But you do sort of have to ignore it when you're making the work, maybe.
46:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I agree.
46:08
SPEAKER_03: We could probably all use those classes,
46:10
but I want them to be like kept in a different side of the
46:13
school or like off
46:14
SPEAKER_03: campus or something.
46:15
SPEAKER_03: I still want there to be some kind of pure.
46:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, preserve that.
46:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:21
SPEAKER_03: I was just going to say,
46:24
SPEAKER_01: someone in the chat said that California is going to require,
46:27
SPEAKER_01: because you're in California,
46:28
SPEAKER_01: right?
46:30
I just mentioned it because someone mentioned that California
46:32
is now going to
46:33
SPEAKER_01: require financial literacy in high school.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: So that must be recent, right?
46:38
SPEAKER_03: I guess so.
46:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a great idea.
46:39
SPEAKER_03: I think, yeah.
46:41
My personal financial literacy is probably at the level of a
46:43
high schooler.
46:44
SPEAKER_03: I think most artists can audit a couple of those.
46:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you were about to recommend a book.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: What was that?
46:51
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
46:52
SPEAKER_03: There's a great book called The Gift by Lewis Hyde.
46:55
SPEAKER_03: It's sort of a classic.
46:56
SPEAKER_03: It's at least 20 years old.
46:58
SPEAKER_03: Or maybe 30 years old.
47:01
SPEAKER_03: Anyway,
47:01
he has this thesis that in order for something to really rise
47:06
to the quality of
47:08
SPEAKER_03: art,
47:09
SPEAKER_03: it has to have the quality of a gift.
47:12
SPEAKER_03: And it's a very weird book.
47:13
SPEAKER_03: He sort of goes into these...
47:16
indigenous societies and unpacks how gift giving works in for
47:21
them the way that
47:22
like okay and i think this is pretty universal um you know the
47:26
something is a gift
47:27
because you give it without expecting anything in return even
47:30
though you may get
47:31
something in return you might get a gift in return or you might
47:33
get something else
47:34
but but for it to really be a true gift you have to like be
47:37
giving it away and not
47:38
wanting back and um he says that's the same for art that it's
47:42
some there's
47:42
SPEAKER_03: something to really be art you have to be
47:46
SPEAKER_03: in the making of it,
47:47
you have to sort of put the thought of money or the marketplace
47:51
out of mind.
47:52
And then he goes into the lives of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound
47:55
to kind of unpack
47:56
SPEAKER_03: how this worked.
47:58
SPEAKER_03: It's very compelling and interesting.
47:59
SPEAKER_03: He doesn't say the artist can't think about money or can't want money,
48:03
but he does try to say that you can't let those thoughts
48:07
intrude on the actual
48:08
SPEAKER_03: making of the thing or deciding if it's successful.
48:12
SPEAKER_03: I find that to be pretty persuasive.
48:14
SPEAKER_03: I think...
48:15
It's interesting as it feels like all of our lives get
48:20
financially more precarious
48:21
SPEAKER_03: and unaffordable,
48:22
SPEAKER_03: how much we can,
48:24
SPEAKER_03: anyone can be that pure about it.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: It's something I think about a lot.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: I think about that all the time.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
48:31
SPEAKER_01: I really think,
48:32
SPEAKER_01: okay,
48:32
SPEAKER_01: just say I had some big inheritance or whatever it was,
48:35
SPEAKER_01: and then I was able to spend time making,
48:38
SPEAKER_01: if money was no issue,
48:38
SPEAKER_01: what would I spend my time doing?
48:40
And to what degree would I do things for other people rather
48:44
than trying to build
48:45
SPEAKER_01: some kind of,
48:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
48:46
SPEAKER_01: corpus of,
48:47
SPEAKER_01: some kind of portfolio,
48:48
SPEAKER_01: some kind of body of work to refer back to or to leave behind.
48:52
And I find myself sort of coming back to the fact that I think
48:55
I would just keep
48:56
SPEAKER_01: giving people gifts,
48:57
SPEAKER_01: that I would feel like I'm making something,
48:59
SPEAKER_01: A,
49:00
SPEAKER_01: for the joy of making it and for the joy of making it.
49:02
the recipient for the joy of the feeling of just giving
49:05
something because it feels
49:07
like a cheat code sometimes when you donate things or you you
49:10
um you give to
49:11
charity or you do things for people for absolutely no roi
49:15
there's no there's no
49:17
profit motive there's none of that it's just it feels good to
49:19
do something good and
49:22
sometimes that's a luxury the truth is you know i think we'd
49:25
all love to be able to
49:26
SPEAKER_01: do that all the time but
49:28
SPEAKER_01: Truly, you got to pay rent.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: So there's a cost.
49:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, that's the dilemma that the book is all about.
49:34
I mean,
49:35
I think most writers and artists just want enough money to keep
49:38
doing their thing.
49:39
SPEAKER_03: It's not about being fabulously wealthy, maybe for a few of them.
49:42
SPEAKER_03: Right.
49:43
SPEAKER_03: It's a bad reason.
49:45
SPEAKER_03: I think the funny thing about our moment is it's like, I'm the same way.
49:49
SPEAKER_03: I just want enough money to keep writing these weird little books.
49:52
But it feels more and more like it takes a lot of money to just
49:56
have a normal,
49:57
SPEAKER_03: decent standard life.
49:58
SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh yeah, I just want enough money to keep doing this thing.
50:00
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, oh, but that is like...
50:02
a significant amount of money it has to keep coming so I think
50:05
everyone can relate
50:06
to that it's like yeah I don't know there's no solution that's
50:11
why I keep wanting
50:12
to read about what people did because it's like I don't know
50:15
man it is it is tough
50:18
and I I sense in the way that you write about these things that
50:22
you do have that
50:23
struggle in the back of your head you do have that that sort of
50:29
well there's a
50:29
SPEAKER_01: there's a respect for these people who did you know that
50:33
SPEAKER_01: works the way they work,
50:34
SPEAKER_01: but then about modern day,
50:36
SPEAKER_01: how we're trying to figure this out,
50:38
SPEAKER_01: bringing it all the way back to sort of what Austin said,
50:41
which is that it gives us a wider range of possibilities for
50:47
the future by sort of
50:49
SPEAKER_01: telling the stories of the creative people in the past.
50:52
It gives you a better sense of how to kind of think about where
50:55
we're going.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: I really think this book,
51:00
SPEAKER_01: and again,
51:00
SPEAKER_01: anyone who,
51:02
SPEAKER_01: it's out today,
51:03
SPEAKER_01: anyone who wants to get it,
51:03
SPEAKER_01: it's called Making Art and Making a Living.
51:06
Essential reading,
51:07
truly,
51:07
for anyone who's trying to make a living as an artist in 2026.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: I just, I think...
51:14
SPEAKER_01: It's such an important discussion to have.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: Some people have some real hang-ups about talking about money.
51:20
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a bad... I think that's a...
51:24
it's like a faux pas to talk about money I don't think that's a
51:28
good reflex I think
51:28
we ought to talk about it more because it's important and it
51:31
does have very big and
51:33
real world resounding you know effects on the way that we live
51:37
our lives and the
51:38
way that we create our art and so this book really goes a long
51:42
way into actually
51:43
having that conversation in a very candid very sometimes
51:46
uncomfortable way
51:47
SPEAKER_01: Oh, thanks.
51:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I appreciate it.
51:48
SPEAKER_03: No,
51:49
I think that that sort of like prohibition against talking
51:51
about money feels like
51:52
SPEAKER_03: it's starting to come down more,
51:54
SPEAKER_03: I hope.
51:56
SPEAKER_03: I feel like maybe people aren't quite as skittish about talking about it.
52:02
SPEAKER_03: So I think that would be great.
52:04
I've been enjoying New York Magazine has been doing a whole
52:06
series about like how much
52:08
SPEAKER_03: did people get paid?
52:09
SPEAKER_03: They had a whole issue on it,
52:10
SPEAKER_03: and they were doing,
52:10
SPEAKER_03: like,
52:11
SPEAKER_03: man-on-the-street interviews,
52:12
SPEAKER_03: and they were interviewing people in a cafe,
52:14
SPEAKER_03: and I mean,
52:14
SPEAKER_03: it's fascinating.
52:15
SPEAKER_03: It's like,
52:15
SPEAKER_03: you know,
52:16
SPEAKER_03: this person makes $200,000,
52:17
SPEAKER_03: and this person makes $30,000,
52:19
SPEAKER_03: and I don't know.
52:20
I mean,
52:21
this moment we're in with all this,
52:23
like,
52:24
anxiety about AI,
52:25
it's like...
52:27
it's just hard to know what the future is going to hold for all
52:31
of us like doing
52:33
SPEAKER_03: stuff we find meaningful and also paying the bills.
52:36
SPEAKER_03: But that has been the dilemma for people for a long time.
52:39
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
52:39
SPEAKER_03: it really is like the fundamental dilemma for artists is,
52:42
SPEAKER_03: you know,
52:42
they feel called to do this thing and there's often not any
52:46
income attached.
52:47
SPEAKER_03: So what do you do?
52:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what do you do?
52:50
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
52:50
SPEAKER_03: But I do agree, it seems harder now than ever.
52:53
SPEAKER_03: Someone has been saying that in the comments.
52:55
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think...
52:58
it's a depressing moment for like this the way this is in
53:03
balance or out of balance
53:05
yes maybe these stories will help us to see like we have to
53:08
find a way to like fix
53:10
SPEAKER_03: this
53:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
53:12
I think that's a really,
53:13
really good way to end because I want everyone to buy this
53:17
book.
53:17
SPEAKER_01: I want everyone to read it and have that conversation.
53:20
It is a really important conversation and it's going to be
53:25
essential to continue
53:27
SPEAKER_01: having generations of artists and writers and musicians.
53:30
creative people being able to actually pursue these things that
53:33
they want to do the
53:34
things that set their soul on fire the art that kind of falls
53:37
out of them um it it
53:40
really is essential because if we don't have if they don't have
53:43
the capacity to do
53:44
any of this stuff we're not going to have so many artists in
53:47
this generation that
53:48
are able to leave a legacy to then inspire the following
53:51
generation and ubi
53:53
experiments being what they are some of them work some of them
53:56
don't the one in
53:57
SPEAKER_01: ireland seem to go okay um but
54:00
SPEAKER_01: Again,
54:00
SPEAKER_01: if this is the future,
54:01
if AI means that we're all going to be living on UBI and not
54:03
having necessarily all
54:06
SPEAKER_01: having a reason to wake up in the morning and a purpose,
54:09
SPEAKER_01: like,
54:10
SPEAKER_01: what are we doing?
54:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is the conversation.
54:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
54:14
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I selfishly, my favorite thing are books and movies and music.
54:18
So I also selfishly just want people to be able to afford to
54:21
make cool stuff that I
54:22
can consume because that has always been my best way of
54:28
processing the world and
54:30
SPEAKER_03: being alive.
54:30
SPEAKER_03: So we have to all figure out ways to keep doing it.
54:35
SPEAKER_01: We do.
54:36
SPEAKER_01: And I encourage anyone who hasn't subscribed to Mason's Substack,
54:39
SPEAKER_01: click this little orange button up in the corner.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: Click subscribe,
54:44
SPEAKER_01: subscribe to his work,
54:44
SPEAKER_01: support his work,
54:45
SPEAKER_01: support your favorite artists on Substack.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: And please buy the book and do the thing that you want to do.
54:52
I know that there are financial constraints and it's easier
54:54
said than done.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, sometimes you really do need to live, what is it?
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Not amor fati.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: It's memento mori.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:04
Sometimes I realize,
55:06
you know what,
55:07
we don't have as much time as we think we do.
55:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
55:09
I feel like the secret message of the book is like when you
55:11
have to decide between
55:12
being more pragmatic or being less to err on the side of being
55:16
less pragmatic.
55:16
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
55:18
SPEAKER_03: in favor of like chasing your,
55:21
like following your instincts and seeing where they lead and
55:24
like maybe figuring
55:25
SPEAKER_03: out the money part later,
55:28
SPEAKER_03: if you can deal with it.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: That's what I did.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't recommend it necessarily, but I do.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: It is terrible advice.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: It did work out okay, but I don't know.
55:36
I actually think it,
55:37
for all of its faults,
55:38
it's actually very good advice.
55:40
SPEAKER_01: Mason, thank you for coming on today.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: You know you're one of my favorite writers.
55:44
You and Oliver and Austin and Cal,
55:48
I mean,
55:49
you're like in my pantheon of demigods of writers.
55:51
Truly,
55:52
it's a privilege to get to even know you and let alone speak
55:56
with you today.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much.
55:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you so much, Jason.
55:59
SPEAKER_03: I really appreciate the kind words.
56:00
SPEAKER_03: It's always fun to talk to you.
56:02
SPEAKER_03: Of course.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: And everyone, go out, get the book, and thank you for tuning in.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, everyone.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: All right.
56:10
SPEAKER_01: Thanks again, Mason.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: Okay, bye.