Library Notes: February 17th, 2023
Tour Edition, Workshops, and an unlikely outcome
Earlier this week my friend
published the latest installment of her letter, The Drawing Board. It felt like a behind the scenes VIP tour into her creative space as a painter and it inspired me to do something similar. Though fair warning I don’t have a sunlit studio… and I don’t paint. I have a basement in Idaho, but I feel like I’ve made something of the moody vibe.Onward with the tour.
My Bibliotheca collection were some of the first books I ever purchased when I began making money as a software engineer. As a kid, I loathed the tongue lashings from my elders laden with verses lifted from their context. Even if well earned, I needed the story not the words. For those unfamiliar, The Bibliotheca Project removes the verse and chapter markings that were inserted into the modern day Bibles with the advent of the printing press. Reading these texts in this stripped back format has deepened my discipline to return to the Word often and without agenda. A bit like a date with the divine, I always find myself lingering until the end of the story rather than stopping in for a verse.
The Edmund Morris Theodore Roosevelt Trilogy is the epitome of an epic. I embarked on the trilogy in early 2021 and completed it in January of 2022. I have since listen to the audiobooks of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Colonel Roosevelt (sadly there does not appear to be a recording of Theodore Rex by Mark Deakins) and became so intrigued by the story of this man, I read David McCullough’s Mornings on Horseback, a work solely focus on the early life of Teddy. This trilogy is one I look forward to gifting my son one day and hope he will find these volumes on the 26th President as exciting and inspiring as I have.
These seemingly never find a home. Ever since we embarked on our exile, reading Cicero has been a comfort, a light, and a hope. I was never given a classical education, but since arriving in the wild, it has felt like one of the most important endeavors I could undertake. It seems every great man and woman since the fall of Rome has returned to the works of this contemporary of Caesar. May these words continue to guide those who live in such tenuous times as ours.
When the team at Bibliotheca mentioned the same press their Bibles were printed on would be doing a run of Walden, I said yes please and etched into my spring schedule a return to this seminal work on living simply in the wilderness. On the left you can see the binding of Kissa by Kissa by Craig Mod. To the far right, Mexico From the Inside Out.
I had a thrilling conversation last year with the one and only Michael Dean and as we dove deep and deep down the rabbit hole of the mysteries and the mystics, this work by Schweitzer on The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle came to the table. Pauls deep roots not only into the Roman Empire but his connection to the Greeks through his upbringing at Tarsus leave me at least with more questions than answers but the questions are worth arriving at. Immediate right of Schweitzer is Theresa of Avila’s Interior Castle in English. The Tan Classics translations are very good and I would highly recommend for anyone curious of mysticism and prayer.
My stack of filled Baron Fig Confidant Notebooks. Over a thousand pages across twelve volumes this collection represents roughly five years of near daily journaling. I have since begun daily journaling in my Leuchtturm and have made a video on the switch here. To the right, my Awair element that constantly monitors air quality in five dimensions. Essential for any indoor space one spends extended time in. We have them in most rooms in the house.
Of course there are some secrets to the studio here in the library and while it is best to keep those under wraps, the containers sure make for great tease.
The lens, that for me, has been the money maker lens. Canon’s RF 70-200mm f/2.8 L series USM. Photos that you just can’t get on a phone let alone most cameras, especially in an optical formula of this size. I will take this artifact of glass to my grave, but until then, I hope for many more days to take photos with this lens.
Usually, I light the library with these Aputure MC lights, but I decided to move them around to light each scene you’ve seen so far. I don’t know why these old Miyazaki DVDs are still floating around here, but we bought these when I wanted to first introduce my wife to these films. Many good memories going through the Studio Ghibli films and this reminds me we need to run through them again soon.
As I was photographing the library I took this shot not thinking about it much until post. Center left is Tim Ferriss’s Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. These have been owned since their original release in 2016 & 2017 respectively. On the right you can see the back side of Paul Millerd’s The Pathless Path, arguably the new Four Hour Workweek. Both must reads in my opinion.
Stacks of started journals and fresh pages sit at the bottom of the bookshelves. They’re a reminder to keep going. They remind me I can’t fill the pages with the days that have already gone by, but I can fill the paper with the present.
Finally the Yeti. Many of you have seen him on Zoom calls, FaceTimes, or YouTube videos. Some of you have even asked who or what he is. “Why is he there?” The story goes, that early Lynda.com employees were gathered with Lynda herself when her friend and accomplished designer Stefan Bucher had announced a partnership with Saks Fifth Avenue to design a Yeti to celebrate the holidays. The adorable and abominable beasts enamored Lynda so much she decided one must go to each of her employees. Only heaven knows how much each one of these cost, let alone what they would be worth now. Yet on the palm of every Yeti is embroidered a snowflake unique to each one. In a world full of mass produced and meaningless things, while there are others like him, the pattern in his palm proves he is mine.
Photography for Creatives
This past Wednesday I hosted my first live workshop: Photography for Creatives. It was an electric hour and the feedback has been off the charts.
As I am sending this post, there are only two spots left for next week’s workshop. If you are curious how photography can amplify your efforts online, move fast and sign up here. Whether your camera is your five year old phone or a five thousand dollar camera, this workshop is for you.
A special thank you to
for featuring Photography for Creatives in her newsletter this week. Her accelerator for creators building cohort based courses has been my not-so-secret superpower for pulling together a decade of experience and content across over a hundred YouTube videos into a workshop and course.Already, we have booked a quarter of the seats less than 48 hours after our soft announcement in workshop one. I could not have done it without Alexandra and the incredible people in her community.
Cohort One begins March 20th and runs through the 29th. Reprising what I said in Workshop One, we will never offer this course this cheap ever again. And we still have more world class mentors and partnerships to announce. If you have questions, a reply to this email will make my inbox or say hi on Twitter.
Until next week,
-Steven
dude, these photos of books are unreal. had no idea you could create such a vibe with simple photo of something like this
Beautiful photos! Makes me think about my own personal library on a whole new level.