The Home Repair Theory of Startups

Hi y'all,

• HA! Thought you got rid of me because I missed last week? Think again. Only way to do that is to hit that unsubscribe button....probably. Building a new habit isn't always linear. It's less about getting it right each time and more about getting back on the horse after you fall. Last week I was traveling, had a lot of other work going on, and my early-morning writing window got disrupted enough that the newsletter just didn't happen. The routine I'd built was apparently too rigid to survive interruption. This week I'm traveling again but realized I can't always count on that morning window, so I found other ones - on the flight when the wifi was failing, at night before bed. Progress.
• I set out to write about startups and business this week and instead wrote about my home projects. There's overlap that surprised me. Or maybe I'm just seeing lessons where there aren't any. Up to you.
• I'm going to highlight a song each week to shake up your playlists. It's something I wish I got more of in my own inbox - honestly, please send me and your friends more songs out of the blue - so I'm doing it here. This week: Kevin Morby's new song "Javelin" (Spotify, Apple). If you like Sylvan Esso, keep an ear out for their lead singer Amelia Meath at the end of the track.
• Watching this video of a child asking questions of a 101-year-old woman makes me feel something about the human experience I can't quite put into words. Something about how curiosity doesn't age but everything else does.
• I was in Oklahoma City last week to visit Macy's family. We went to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and it was a genuinely compelling museum experience. Living in Colorado means I often feel inundated with art and culture influenced by the myth of the West. This museum helped me see the topic - and the art that accompanied it - through a fresh set of eyes, which I think is why you go to museums like this. It's a messy topic obviously, but also part of the fabric of the history of those who live west of the Mississippi. I'm excited to go back at some point. I think it's also time to finally start reading Lonesome Dove and rewatch Unforgiven.
• I learned about The Shaggs this week and have the same feeling I had when I heard Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica for the first time in high school - it was completely original to anything I'd heard, I'm not sure I like it, and I can't stop thinking about it. They make simplistic, atonal, weird music that's gained a cult following over the decades (they're from New Hampshire, the state where I grew up). Turns out I also might have missed seeing them live - they opened for Neutral Milk Hotel in 2015, a show I went to twice and both times missed the opener. Bummer.
• We checked Zodiac off the list and really loved it. The idea that a movie can keep me on the edge of my seat when it's purposely a slow burn AND I know they won't catch the killer - that's something. Apparently I'm now in my David Fincher season because we started watching Mindhunter and are enjoying it immensely.

Til next week,

Joey