A weekend if you are of the Monday – Friday working class.  Today is full of curious news and ideas to fire up any happy conversation.  A letter from one artist to another encouraging the use of doing bad work.  A couple of practical stories on email and kitchen organization tools, followed by a story by a fellow Substacker on our favorite subject – music.

On a website produced by the artist Boris Injac, a letter was written from Sol LeWitt, an American artist, to Eva Hesse, another artist who was going through a period of self-doubt and creative blocks.  The letter was written in the 60s and is in your face.  If you have studied artists and the media, you have seen thousands of speeches, quotes, posters, and paintings all telling you it's OK and to Keep Going.  LeWitt's letter is different; it is more aggressive, and that's easy to do, but not easy is the depth LeWitt goes on several topics on behalf of supporting Hesse. 

LeWitt doesn't sugarcoat the advice and calls out Hesse when he needs to.  The letter is so well written that even criticisms make you feel better, stronger, and ready to get back up and fight.  One can only imagine how many sentences in this letter have been quoted; it is a battle cry for indie artists and anyone who does creative work.

My favorite part is the third paragraph where LeWitt tells Hesse to go out and do bad work, and not only a lousy job, but the worst work she can think of.  Writers and artists can get lost in thought, but LeWitt will have none of that, go out and do; that's what gets you out of your head, doing, even doing badly.  Before Nike, there was LeWitt in 1965 saying so DO IT.  LeWitt also reminds Hesse that the world is not her responsibility; she is only responsible for her work, does the work, give it to the world, job done. 

While researching this piece, we stumbled a crossed a spoken word YouTube channel.  Here is a link to Benedict Cumberbatch reading Sol LeWitt's letter to Eva Hesse.

The Wall Street Journal has a brief article about email.  The writer Nicole Nguyen describes her email as her personal Everest.  She finds a few ways to scale the email mountain, talk to experts, and try out an application to help manage email.  Adjusting notifications and focused views within email applications can help if you stick with them.  For a fee, Nguyen also suggested an app to analyze and trash old, non-relevant emails.  This is one you can do on your own – in Gmail, send old emails to an archive folder forever; in Outlook, copy the data file and save it.  Then delete everything.  Deleting feels so good.

It is hard to make a story or even a highlight out of tools to organize your kitchen.  Why not add it to the newsletter and make it pop? 

A shelf riser might make sense if you have limited kitchen space or overflowing cabinets.  Or you like showing off kitchen stuff like a person with a big bookshelf in a great room.

If memory serves, every house or apartment we can remember has at least one built-in turntable, usually in a hard-to-reach or corner space.  Spruce Eats says you can use them anywhere, in the fridge or under the sink for cleaning supplies.

For can organizers to work, you need buy-in and a team effort.  It can go rogue; if you have some cans in and some cans out, it will be Anarchy in the Fridge!

Fellow Substacks-man Damon Krukowski who writes Dada Drummer reminds us in the age of Algorithms and A.I., the ultimate curation is YOU!  Krukowski remembers what it was like to walk through a record store; there is a picture on the post of Amoeba Music, one of the largest record stores left in the U.S.  Amoeba Music also has a great YouTube channel called What’s In My Bag?  With interviews from musicians and artists.

Krukowski recommends several websites with great artists, including Bandcamp, and encourages fans to create their own libraries and playlists.  It is an age of abundance when it comes to music.  Especially if you have been listening to music for 30+ years.  In another unique addition, Krukowski offers the selection of music he's listening to under the heading A Year of Shared Listening.  This is not a best-of list, which we respect; the best of is overdone.  Don't be surprised if some of this list ends at the bottom of our newsletter.

I wish I was in Tiajuana.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

O/X