A Notes-Inspired Gardening Playlist

A gardening playlist, Casey Cep on Charles Portis, The Tallest Man on Earth on Food & drink, The Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl, the NYC clubs that "raised Madonna," and more

Substack’s Notes feature launched this week, and I have been interacting with the community a bit. So far it seems much more cozy than what Twitter has become, I look forward to spending more time there.

Virginia Sole-Smith

shared a post that inspired my weekend activity:

The warm weather has me in the backyard, clearing out last year’s vegetable plantings and readying the containers for this year’s crop of vegetables and herbs (containers because our Greenpoint, Brooklyn soil contains a horrifying amount of lead and other heavy metals; and rats, but that’s another story).

largeheartedboy

A post shared by David Gutowski (@largeheartedboy)

During the winter it is easy to forget the value of the outdoors. This past winter has been cold and gray, with much rain. Sitting outside lately while reading or working has been rejuvenating, life-affirming. This weekend will see some flowers planted, tiny tomato plants staked, and herb seeds strewn. This weekend is all about potential, all about the future.

Enjoy this week’s selection of gardening songs, and feel free to recommend additions to the playlist!

This Week’s Themed Playlist:

Largehearted Likes

1. Kumi Yamashita Constellations portrait series

   

   These selected pieces from my Constellation series consists of three simple materials that produce the portraits: a wooden panel painted a solid white, thousands of small galvanized nails, and a single unbroken sewing thread.

2. Bookstore Quest 2021
   
   Jacob Ready is on a quest to visit every bookstore in NYC. Cafe Anne recently interviewed him.

3. Vulture’s profile of artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
   The artist, who is 83, has been deploying symbols of American empire and Native identity in her work for decades, turning oil and acrylic paint, charcoal, prints, installation, and collage into wry political commentaries on post-genocidal existence.

4. The Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl

   Next week, from April 15th through the 22nd, will feature special events and discounts at bookstores throughout the borough.

5. Taylor Syfan on robot dogs at Paris Fashion Week

6. Courtney Maum
   ’s newsletter Before & After the Book Deal
   Courtney Maum shares her experience and wisdom as an author, writing coach, and marketing professional in this essential reading for writers. Also highly recommended: her book of the same name, her novels, and her memoir.

7. WIRED’s profile of Bookshop.org

8. Olive Oil from Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood
   The olives are all grown on Jonny’s farm, harvested by family and friends every year, and pressed locally.

9. Noé No Omise raw vegan chocolate bars

   

   Chocolate bars as flavorful as they are beautiful.

10. Superiority Burger’s new location

    My favorite vegan burger shop has opened its new, bigger location.

11. Grimm is adding a rooftop pizzeria to its taproom
    My favorite brewery is adding a pizzeria above its taproom, not far from my house. Life is definitely good.

Largehearted Links

1. New flash fiction from Aekta Khubchandani

2. An oral history of the Scottish indie band Urusei Yatsura
   This spring saw the re-release of classic indie rock/noise pop album We Are Urusei Yatsura by Urusei Yatsura, including a comprehensive oral history zine documenting the band’s lo-fi journey from 1993 to 2001.

3. Jinwoo Chong interviewed about his debut novel Flux

4. The Tallest Man on Earth’s Kristian Mattson on food and drink

   I’m a fan of gin martinis. They make great, very dry martinis at the Long Island Bar in Brooklyn. Before this tour started, we were able to stop in New York before heading to the West Coast. Jet-lagged, we went straight to the Long Island Bar for martinis and the cheeseburgers, single patties. It felt so great, like being back home.

5. Girls on the Page’s interview with author Madelaine Lucas
   I often tell my students that the relationships you have with your characters are like your relationships with anyone else in that you get to know them the more time you spend with them. I lived with the characters of Thirst for Salt in my head for over a decade, even if I wasn’t always consistently working on this project or conceptualizing it as a novel.

6. Melissa Rich on the NYC clubs that “raised Madonna”

7. Margaret Atwood on some very basics of writing a novel
   WHAT IS A WORK OF ART AS IT RELATES TO A NOVEL?

   All works of art involve patterns, made of repetitions with variations. Novels are works of art made out of words. With repetitions and variations.

8. A conversation between Hidden Cameras’ Joel Gibb and Owen Pallet

9. Casey Cep on the genius of Charles Portis
   Any given page of “The Dog of the South” has as much plot as some novellas.

10. Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s interview with the duo Grandbrother

11. Maggie Smith’s interview with BOMB about her new memoir
    One of the things I write about in the book is that pain is a teacher, that we actually learn a lot about ourselves through pain. Suffering is not a great teacher. Suffering is something different, but I think when something hurts, we learn from it.

Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts

Adele Bertei’s playlist for her memoir Twist

Allegra Hyde’s playlist for her story collection The Last Catastrophe

Daniel Wallace’s playlist for his memoir This Isn’t Going to End Well

Jennifer Maritza McCauley’s playlist for her story collection When Trying to Return Home

Jonathan Garfinkel’s playlist for his novel In a Land without Dogs the Cats Learn to Bark

Maggie Smith’s playlist for her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful

April’s best eBook deals