Austin Kleon's take on John and David Simon at UT

This is pretty crazy self referential but I couldn't resist. As I've posted before, I've become a huge fan of Austin Kleon's blogs since his hilarious cartoon of Tom Perrotta during the Texas Book Fest visit. I find his drawings, musings, recommendations, and references totally interesting. He creates new writing and images while appreciating the old. I like how he writes about the creative process and living a creative life. He is living a creative life! Catching up on his Tumblelog last night, I saw image after image that totally intrigued me. And I've been fascinated by his mind maps and visual notes. I like how tangibly he renders his impressions. I'm even interested in his music taste, and his enthusiasm for his relatively new marriage and hometown.

So he twittered on Facebook about wanting to see David Simon (The Wire) speak at UT. I reached out and invited him as part of John's guest list. It was great fun to finally meet in person. And then it was a total kick to sit next to him while he scribbled these notes. Pretty wild system. (I have to add too - that "Pulitzer Sniff" line by Simon was killer. It was almost an offhand comment from the stage yet it created a palpable buzz in the audience. Totally great line.)

From:

DICKENSIAN CHILDREN AND PULITZER SNIFFS: WRITER DAVID SIMON @ UT

Last night we went over to the Austin City Limits studio to see a Q&A with David Simon, former newspaper reporter and creator of the TV show The Wire. John Pierson was the moderator, and he did a really great job— he asked Simon intelligent questions and then sat and listened while Simon gave intelligent answers.

Discussed topics: the decline of the newspaper industry, journalism and Homer Bigart (“his method: ‘Hi, I’m an idiot and I can’t talk…please help me’”), dumbass editors looking for lame stories about “Dickensian” children (”Pulitzer Sniffing”), Iraq, No Child Left Behind, stealing from Greek Tragedy, the drug war, jury nullification, creative writing students (“my god, you guys are an industry”), books he hasn’t read (Brothers Karamazov), the creative use of profanity, The America That Got Left Behind, and of course, Baltimore (“my favorite character”), and The Wire.

As usual, I doodled and took a lot of notes:

Really cool night, and awesome to finally see the Austin City Limits studio. Thanks to Janet for inviting us!

Links:

• Daily Texan article about the talk
• Believer interview