Reluctant October & Kandinsky
I WAS RELUCTANT TO PUBLISH THIS PIECE. Was this going to be the first issue of a newsletter? Am I taking small steps towards turning into that kind of 30-year old, who needs to compensate for not having a podcast? The return to London after walking on the Via Francigena was what you might expect: 9-degree wet weather, expensive (sometimes mediocre) espresso, wondering why everyone is in such a rush. At least I found finnochiona salami at a local deli. I returned to a new configuration in my life. My part-time coding job pays the bills and the rest of the time, I can focus on improving my writing (currently, my career North Star).
Advice on writing contains the wisdom and brevity of a zen koan: “read loads, write loads”. Then you sit down, open the laptop, turn off the Internet, sip on your coffee and the questions arise. About what? How often to publish? On Substack? The Internet “vibe” seems to encourage writers to turn into a post factory. Post daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly and endless growth is the promise. Write the much-beloved Substack lists of recommendations and fuel the production line of content recommendations. Ford would be proud.
Do I want that? There’s enough people on the Internet whispering “Hey kid, you want a list?” and then lead you into the dimly lit alleyway of dopamine hits. Bad things happen there. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging, condemning or even criticising list-writers or frequent posters. Lists can be great. Subscribe to the right ones and they bring serendipity through albums, books, ideas, interviews and all sorts of media. There are, as a list-writer would point out vehemently, upsides to shipping material at more-than-monthly frequency: discipline and accountability, the positive forcing function to notice and write about what you notice, faster feedback-loops with readers and habit-building practice. I do realise the irony of listing these benefits. I’ve experienced the rewards of daily writing through the Avvisi pop-up newsletter. But is that right for me outside of a temporary walking experiment?
David Lynch comes and asks, are you really going for the big fish?
Shiiiiit. The big fiiiiiish. Oh and believe it or not, at 30 I still don’t own a pair of sunglasses. A caring and health-conscious friend admonishes me every time. “You went walking in Italy for 3 weeks without sunglasses? Crazy. Irresponsible. Mad.” I nod, not daring to respond to the enumeration of ocular issues that will be bestowed upon this careless wanderer.
I’ve had enough anchovies and sardines. I want to get the big kahuna. To do that, I’ve found that I need time, loads of it. To read, to think, to take walks, to chop up ideas, blend them, stretch them, discard some, advance others, let them fester, pick up again, throw against the wall and see what sticks. It’s messy to make a sausage, especially a good one. I don’t want to make Spam.
Damn, this turned into a manifesto. I spent the last few paragraphs doing some mental gymnastics of self-justification for why I only post irregularly. I could have summed it all up in one sentence. But you’re here for the ride, aren’t you?
Only really good things appear irregularly Wassily Kandinsky
I’m aiming for the really good things, as Wassily puts it. The regularity of good things contains a paradox. To elevate quality, one needs the discipline to turn up every day, put in the work and through feedback (in its most loose definition), make it better. Whatever the It is. But it’s rare that any of the daily outputs will take someone’s breath, send shivers up their spine and bring all sorts of unexpected physical sensation upon them. That’s what really good things do to you. So, we’re left with having to work with regularity to get the good irregularity. Is it a law of nature?
What am I coming back to every day? Kandinsky. His work and his life story. He’s been the focus of my work for the past month and will be for a few months, as I’m working on The Blue Rider.
This project is my current-best-answer ode to Kandinsky. The man who spent all of his life advocating for abstract art, despite preferring it to be called “concrete”. The probably-synaesthetic lawyer, ethnographer, painter and writer. It’s a fictional story inspired by his life and illustrated through a selection of his work. The name comes from an almanac that Kandinsky published in 1911, as well as an art collective that he co-founded with Franz Marc. I caught this little fish of an idea while at the Museum of Modern Art Nantes this summer (highly recommend if you’re around). Kandinsky’s work stirred my imagination and hinted at a traveller who wanders from world to world.
The Blue Rider - a retired, neurotic, synaesthetic character, resembling Kandinsky in many ways, but not in others. He is now a reclusive, for life has brought enough suffering on his heart and “all around is an ocean of unconstrained stupidity” (Kandinsky’s words). But one day, someone convinces him to take a trip. What could go wrong?
It’s good to state intentions at the start of any project, malleable as they might be.
Ask yourself whether a work of art has carried you to a world unknown to you before. If you find that it has, what more could you want? Wassily Kandinsky
That’s what we’re setting out to do - the Blue Rider and myself, to take you to a world unknown to you before. Buckle up. Above all, my intention is to introduce you to Kandinsky’s work through a playful, personal lens that incorporates his own life story and character quirks. I will release The Blue Rider as a series. Updates will be intermittent. I believe this could be a physical book, but I’m keeping my mind open to other formats. You’ll hear more about it, as I advance with the research and the story.
What else happened in October? I listened to a conversation with Yancey Strickler, former CEO of Kickstarter. Very intriguing and hopeful thoughts about the future of artists and “creative people”. It inspired me to check out his new company, Metalabel, where I’m thinking of turning the Avvisi archive into a zine. I also read this beautiful piece about language & friendship with a non-human-but-very-human being and bought a vinyl of one of my favourite albums - Through the Looking Glass by Midori Takada. I swear this is not turning into a list newsletter.
Until the next really good irregularity,
Florin