What I learned drawing some goofy-ass Ezra Klein fan art

In defense of drawing things not meant to be drawn

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Hiya Sternal Journalists,

I’ve been talking to a lot of friends recently about the book The Artist’s Way. It’s a self-help book about creativity that I read at the beginning of the pandemic and I enjoyed it a lot.

HOWEVER, it’s woo-woo as all get out and is the type of book that people recommend to you in a way that makes you never want to read the book or talk to the person recommending it every again (“This changed my life. My life is so much better now. You haven’t read it? Your life is awful.”)

So I don’t recommend it to people. I think if they find it in a bookstore and like the first couple pages, or even the back cover, they should keep reading until they stop liking it. And if they don’t like the first page or the back cover, don’t read it! This is actually a great rule for almost any book, by the way.

Pushy recs aside, one of the things the book encourages you to do is to take yourself on an artist’s date. This just means doing something by yourself that involves enjoying art or making it. It’s pretty nice to do those things, and even if you hate the book and all of the terminology in it, you still probably enjoy doing artist date-y type things, whatever you call them.

And today, I let myself!

I was listening to a show that I’ve recommended a few times in the Sternal Journal now, The Ezra Klein Show, a podcast that I talk about way too much now, by the way. At least ten percent of my sentences these days begin with, “I was listening to this Ezra Klein episode and—.” Or when I’m at home with my wonderful partner who has heard me talk about Ezra Klein a bunch, it’s a more familiar, “Mistah Ezra Klein was talkin’ about octopooses’ brains today!”

I’m a joy.

So I was listening to the show and I looked at the podcast art on Spotify. It looks like this:

Pretty straightforward. Title. Face. Logo. Hint of a smile because he’s hopeful-but-confident that you’re going to find his guest as interesting as he does.

But looking at it up close, I thought about how weird it is that our phones are just meant to be pretty pictures to look at when we aren’t actively pressing buttons. Isn’t that the point of design? That something has a function, but also looks nice whether or not it’s actively performing it’s function?

So like the little crescent moon to put the podcast in sleep mode:

That’s a beautiful little moon even when it’s not a button about trying to trick yourself into falling asleep without having to ever think about anything.

And the little “fast forward 15 seconds button?”

I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like that 15 is a rootin and tootin devil whose rip-rarin to lasso you with his tail the first chance he gets!

And then there’s the New York Times logo:

It’s not a button, but it still has utility (branding) and is meant to look pretty beyond that. But does it look pretty? Is that a “T?” That’s supposed to be a T, right?! They’re just telling us that’s a T and we’re letting it slide? Alright, I guess!

So anyway, I’m noticing all this and I had the Artist’s Date muscle itching for a flex, so I thought… I’m gonna draw this whole damn thing.

And I did:

Okay, I’ll let you collect yourself after witnessing this brilliant reconstruction.

Here’s the beautiful moon now:

And the 15 seconds whippin’ his Beelzebub baubles all over the place:

And once again, the T:

Now that you see my version, I think you can see how crazy it is. It’s way closer to a G than a T! What are we doin?

What I’m doin’ is basking in the joy of the really nice time I had drawing it. I thought this was going to be more of a listicle article when I set out writing it, but¹ the thing I’d really like to drive home that I learned is how useful it can be to take back power from something that’s idly consuming you.

Whether it’s the wiliness of designers who are trying to give you as seamless and sleek a user experience as possible so that you never look away from your phone, or the podcasters and podcast producers who are putting legitimate thought and care into their product buuuut would also love to make sure you spend at least two hours a week with them—everybody is in the attention grabbing game these days.

And that’s not the end of the world (could lead to it—that’s a journ for another day), but we do need tools to make sure we’re staying in control of who wins that battle for our attention. And sometimes, as I learned from drawing this janky-ass and honestly I think a little bit hotter Ezra Klein, a good tool is to stop consuming the thing you’re consuming and draw a picture of it.

Or write a story about it!

Or a song!

Or design a new logo for the New York Times because I don’t know what it is, but that ain’t a T.

And that’s the T!

Recommendations

Zola. Film. Epic Floridian stripper ballad based on a story told on Twitter five years ago. A lot of firsts in this one.

Revisionist History U.S. News Series. Podcast. Malcolm Gladwell’s two-part series about the absurdity of U.S. News and World Report’s annual college ranking will have anyone who went to a top 20 school feeling at least a little guilty. But much more importantly, it makes you start to see just how easily things could be different. It’s a downer in some ways, but it gave me hope.

I Saw Her Standing There. Song. I just rediscovered the Little Richard version of this song. I think I’ve recommended it here before, but it is some Monday-morning-breakfast-making-amp-up music if I’ve ever heard some.

And whatever you listen to this morning (or late this night if you’re a Sunday reader), I hope it’s amped up in all the ways you want it to be and none of the ways you don’t.

Much love to all!

Julian

1. (I kind of ran out of time and)