Thanks to everyone who played along with the first-ever Chit Chat Challenge, a team-up by Rubi McGrory of the awesome Iridescent Ordinary newsletter, and TAoN, encouraging everyone to converse with at least one new person a day for 10 days. Read Rubi’s great wrap-up — “hundreds of convos, thousands of dopamine hits” — here. (Peruse the Chit Chat Chat here.)

Today I’ll shift to a slightly different theme: Conversing with people you already know.

Specifically, I want to pass along and endorse the latest innovation in living a curious life from our friends The Noticers, a “noticing club” in Vienna, Austria. (As a reminder: I wrote about The Noticers, and some of their “sharing attention” tips, last November.1)

One of the group’s founders, Tanja, wrote to tell me of new game she and co-founders Ann and Tomi played at a recent meeting: “We were catching up on how we were,” she explained, “and Tomi asked that we each describe our current state in three adjectives.” Results:

• Ann: dusty, begeistert (she decided she preferred the German word than the English one for describing her feelings), weirdly fresh

• Tanja: fleetingly frustrated, cautiously content, confidently colorful (when Ann decided that it was more accurate to describe her ‘fresh’ feeling with an adverb in front of it, Tanja decided to add adverbs to all of hers)

• Tomi: imbalanced/wobbly, disengaged/discombobulated, centered

I really like this as a kind of group icebreaker. As an exercise, it’s both introspective and communal: a way to notice your self, and connect with others, in one considered gesture. And it’s creative. (It also kind of reminds me of the three-term summaries of shows that Netflix uses: “Dark / Nostalgic / Comedy,” or whatever.)

This puts it in the same realm as the “group bio” exercise that I’ve recommended before (and that is in the TAoN book). As Tanja observed in her note to me, these are similar to icebreakers, but ideal for groups. Which makes me wonder: Do you have an exercise that you use with a group or club you’re part of?

Either way, give this one a try at your next gathering!

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THE NEXT FREE EDITION IN TWO WEEKS!

• Noticing is about other people, too. The Icebreaker series aims to help with that. There’s a central collection spot for all the icebreakers to date, here.

Today’s icebreaker comes from … Rubi! Specifically from her aforementioned wrap-up post on the Chit Chat Challenge:

What’s the best conversation you ever had with a stranger?

As Rubi observed, a highlight of this chit chat caper was collecting so many anecdotes of stranger encounters. “A great conversation starter with strangers,” she observes, “is talking about their best stranger conversations.”

Obviously I had to make that an icebreaker! Thanks for everything, Rubi, let’s do this again!!

Please send your favorite icebreaker (whether you made it up or found it elsewhere) to consumed@robwalker.net.

IN OTHER NEWS

• Friend of TAoN Joe Alterio sent me a copy of his new Risograph book It’s Never Easy, and I love it! A beautiful object that Riso fans will dig, it’s also a thoughtful and seductive exercise in visual meditation and narrative. On sale here.

• “Benches are microcosms of an expansive debate about who belongs in urban public spaces. When they are removed or made uninviting, we lose more than just a place to rest.” Knowledgeable and insightful Places essay by Gabrielle Bruney.

• Aircraft: The Jet As Art, series by Jeffrey Milstein. Via The Neighborhoods.

• Bring back the spontaneous phone call? Gift link. I’d be curious to hear thoughts on that.

• Ask A Sober Oldster: Neda Ulaby.

• Jaša Müller’s pastel portraits. Really nice.

• Your name in satellite images, from NASA.

• In defense of tourist traps (specifically Cafe du Monde). Agree.

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  OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

Share The Art of Noticing

And thanks for reading …
rw

All this by Rob Walker (unless otherwise noted) PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

—> Send me mail! I’ll give a three-month free trial to the Supporter version of TAoN to any current free subscriber who snail-mails me a request (include your email address).

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

Just a quick note to acknowledge that today marks the 10th day of our challenge, announced by Iridescent Ordinary creator Rubi McGrory here:

Here goes: the Great Spring 2026 Chit Chat Challenge. Rob Walker of The Art of Noticing and I triple-dog-dare you talk to a stranger every day for ten days. Easy peasy. Bonus points for sharing your stories.

Starting Thursday April 23 for ten days, you will initiate a conversation with a person unknown to you. About anything. Or nothing.

The results have been a total blast — visit our chat for hundreds of responses, describing all sorts of stranger interactions (and the occasional missed connection).

Join the Chit Chat chat

Leave your own response — even if it’s “late.” This was a 10-day challenge, but we hope it outlasts that and creates new habits.

In fact, I’d love to hear what you think of the idea in general: should we repeat it? What could we do differently? What did you like about it?

Leave a comment

Either way, THANKS for playing along!!

• OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

And thanks for reading …

rw

All this by Rob Walker (unless otherwise noted) PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

Join the Chit Chat chat

Once again it’s time for Savor of the Month!

For newcomers:

At the start of every month I announce one specific thing or theme to look out for, pay attention to, appreciate. The idea is to convert something everyday and taken for granted into something we might, yes, savor.

And every month I create a chat thread where you can share what you are noticing, or enjoy what others have noticed, in connection with the current theme. You can post pictures, drawings, written observations, whatever works for you. Or just browse!

Themes so far:

Rust (results here) * Public Text (results here) * Calm (results here) * Treasure (results here) * Winter (results here) * Mysteries (results here) * Outliers (results here) * Ornamentation (results here) * Everyday Artists (results here) * Reflections (results here) * Contrast (results here) * The Temporary (results here; related audio essay here) * Wind (results here) * Circles (results here) * Small Flowers (results here) * Shadows (results here)

For May, the subject is FLAWS. There’s room for a bit of creativity in interpreting this, but I bet you know a flaw when you see one!

Below, I’ll say a little more, but in short: be attentive to FLAWS as you go about your days in the month ahead.

The thread is open.

This month’s back story:

I spend a lot of time admiring the physical structures of New Orleans — the classic architecture, but also the personal touches.

Along the way, of course I also notice flaws — imperfections, things in need of a fix. For all its aesthetic charm, New Orleans is in many ways a city of flaws. Sometimes one jumps out at me. Flaws can have their own beauty. They can recast or undermine or enhance their surroundings. Some could be easily corrected; others seem likely stay a while.

Maybe there’s even some deeper attraction to flaws. Unflawed thing appear and function as expected; they don’t surprise. Flawed things are distinct, each flawed in its own special way.

And many flaws we tend to ignore, or dismiss, as we attend to the impressive and conventionally attractive. Do the opposite: Give flaws priority. See what this makes you notice

And as reminder, when you’re looking out for any given Savor subject, notice what else you notice.

The FLAWS thread is here. Join in!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

And thanks for reading …
rw

RobWalker.net | NB: I use (some) Amazon Affiliate links

All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032

—> If you enjoy this newsletter, please help spread the word! Or give a friend the gift of attention exercises, ideas, and provocations:

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Or just click the heart button, that’s always very appreciated!

• If someone forwarded you this subscriber-only edition, and you enjoyed it, consider signing on yourself.

Join the Chit Chat chat

Today I want to address the Chit Chat Challenge with a dip into TAoN’s archives. Years ago, I briefly experimented with a series called “Something to Notice,” and one installment was about “familiar strangers.” That’s newly relevant again.

Read more

* Still digging the responses to April’s Savor of the Month prompt: Rust. Join in here!

Today’s post is part of a series. Every year I teach a five-week class on “point of view,” for the School of Visual Arts’ Products of Design program. For Supporters, I’m reprinting a series of posts about the class — the assignments, the thinking behind the class, how it shaped and has since been shaped by TAoN, and other fun behind-the-scenes stuff. The first installment is here, the second is here, the third here, and the fourth here.

For the last entry in this series, I’ll address a very specific point of view: mine.

In short, when I give students the assignment (described last time) to propose a design project that expresses an idea, I have only one serious parameter. But it’s very serious:

The project must transform something previously overlooked into something noticed.

I assume that brief won’t surprise anybody reading this — noticing the overlooked, and arguing for the importance of doing so, is kinda my whole “brand”! But you might be interested to know that this assignment (and this class) actually predates TAoN. In fact the class helped inspire and shape the book (which mentions several examples of student work).

But there’s an extra bit of back story, too. Long before I thought about The Art of Noticing, I made the case for what I called “dancing about ruins.”

Read more

Starting Thursday April 23 for ten days, you will initiate a conversation with a person unknown to you. About anything. Or nothing.

It’s been fun to read the chat thread where people are sharing their Chat Adventures and their Chat Tips, and there’s one comment I want to highlight, from reader Deborah:

Like others, I do this in the normal course of my day. When I do it, it’s usually because I want to connect. In the last two days, since I’ve INTENTIONALLY chatted with a stranger, I have thought more about how the other person responded. And I found that other people want to connect too.

While that could have been obvious to me in my past efforts, it was the INTENTION that helped me realize that there are other people who want to interact, they just need someone to approach them. We could all be doing each other a great service by talking to each other!! DUH!

Regarding the level of complexity of the conversation--I am finding that it doesn’t matter that much how long or involved the contact is, it’s more about being open to any interaction--even eye contact. Looking forward to tomorrow!

Deborah, with her thinking about intentionality, is making a great point here. Chatting is a collaboration! Worth keeping in mind as you go about your chit-chat adventures.

There are many great Chat Stories in the thread to entertain and/or inspire you. Join in, whatever way works for you!

Join the Chit Chat chat

Share

• OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

Leave a comment

And thanks for reading …
rw

All this by Rob Walker (unless otherwise noted) PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

Normally the “big” (numbered) issues of TAoN come out at the start of every other week, but No. 209 is early, because today marks the first day of The Chit Chat Challenge, a team-up brought to you by Rubi McGrory of the awesome Iridescent Ordinary newsletter, and TAoN.

Rubi announced the Challenge on Tuesday:

So here goes: the Great Spring 2026 Chit Chat Challenge. Rob Walker of The Art of Noticing and I triple-dog-dare you talk to a stranger every day for ten days. Easy peasy. Bonus points for sharing your stories.

Starting Thursday April 23 for ten days, you will initiate a conversation with a person unknown to you. About anything. Or nothing. The particulars are totally up to you: fellow dog walkers, plane seatmate, the mail lady; the weather, the footie, the meaning of life.

She’ll be posting in IO (so subscribe!) and on her Substack Notes feed, and I’ll have some Chat posts here on TAoN, plus there’s a chat thread where people are already sharing Chat Tips, and where we hope you’ll share your Chat Stories. Join in as you see fit!

Join the Chit Chat chat

For today, I want to quickly explain how this came about, and share one suggestion that’s been helpful to me, a historically reluctant chatter.

Back in early January, at the end of a thoughtful post about resolutions and rituals, Rubi observed in an aside what a bummer it is that “so many projects/challenges begin on or about January 1.” This is already a busy time, and further cramming the post-holiday-recovery calendar isn’t helpful. “Can we get some read-along-with-me programs or drawing-a-day challenge that starts on July 17 or April 23?,” she asked. “Any random day not overwhelming and already loaded with expectation. <end rant>.”

This stuck with me, and basically I reached out and asked Rubi if she wanted to team up on some kind of challenge project that would start — why not? — on April 23!

I’m a big fan of Rubi’s newsletter (“Your AI-free reminder that you can find or create joy while also feeling fear, rage, despair, and other prickly crap.”) and of Rubi herself, and I knew connecting with strangers and convo in general is part of her jam. Questions and conversations are part of TAoN, too, most notably manifested in the Icebreaker series.

So after a lengthy negotiation — that is, a handful of friendly emails — we agreed on the Chit Chat Challenge! Again, we really hope you’ll join us, and tell others to join in, too!

Share

Okay, so my chat tip. There’s a guy at the pool I go to, who I’ll call KC. KC is a chatterbox. He’s super friendly, and he chats with everyone, about anything.

There was a time in my life (a time that lasted decades) when I would have avoided KC. I’m pretty introverted, and I’m quite adept at dodging or shutting down conversation. I have traditionally preferred my own thoughts to conversations with strangers, even friendly ones.

That has gradually changed. But even once I started to see the value in such connections, I had difficulty initiating them. And some of the early response to the Challenge is from folks with similar hesitations.

So I share with you this: My first step was to just accept others — the KCs of the world, the chatterboxes — starting the interactions for me. I stopped trying to shut them out; I let the chat happen; I participated; I learned to be open. If I got held up for a few minutes, or distracted from my laps, or whatever, I let that go. The chit chat has its own value.

I love chatting with KC. He always makes my day, and I’m vaguely disappointed when he’s not there. But it’s okay: I’ve learned how to chat with others, whether they initiate or I do. I’ll see KC soon enough, and we’ll both have plenty to chat about, I am certain.

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IN OTHER NEWS

• I had a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable conversation with Danylo Zubaryev for his Open Inquiry podcast — particularly of note for those of you who ended up here by way of Waking Up. Thanks, Danylo!

• A triangular stamp caught my eye; Fast Company explains: “The triangle Postcrossing stamp from the U.S. Postal Service commemorates an international pen pal project started in 2005 by Paulo Magalhães, a student in Portugal. The program connects people around the world in a simple but increasingly old-fashioned way: Send a postcard, get one back.”

• More Duchamp.

• “For his series Men in the Cities, Robert Longo set up his camera on the rooftop of his New York apartment, dressed his friends … in business attire and captured their movements as he threw various objects at them.” This isn’t new, of course, but I do love these images.

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  OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

Share The Art of Noticing

And thanks for reading …
rw

All this by Rob Walker (unless otherwise noted) PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

—> Send me mail! I’ll give a three-month free trial to the Supporter version of TAoN to any current free subscriber who snail-mails me a request (include your email address).

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

I am excited to announce a collaboration with the awesome Rubi McGrory of the Iridescent Ordinary newsletter: The Great Spring 2026 CHIT CHAT CHALLENGE! More below but full details here:

Iridescent Ordinary

announcing the CHIT CHAT CHALLENGE

Your AI-free reminder that you can find or create joy while also feeling fear, rage, despair, and other prickly crap…

Read more

14 days ago · 13 likes · 1 comment

Rubi writes:

“We triple-dog-dare you talk to a stranger every day for ten days. Easy peasy. Bonus points for sharing your stories. … Starting Thursday April 23 for ten days, you will initiate a conversation with a person unknown to you, each day. About anything. Or nothing. The particulars are totally up to you.”

For right now I ask you, TAoN readers, to not only join in but please HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! Email, link, share! Tell a popular blogger or Substacker or TED talker or author or social media influencer who might be into it! We want your help to make the Chit Chat Challenge “a thing”! (There will even be stickers!)

“The aim of Chit Chat Challenge is to get us connecting. It’s not enough to read some stats and anecdotes about the power of talking to strangers. You actually have to do it. We’ve created this handy-dandy container to get you started.”

Rubi will be posting more in her newsletter and Notes, so follow Iridescent Ordinary. I’ll be posting more Chit Chat tips here on TAoN, too, and hopefully sharing Chit Chat stories you share with us. Meanwhile there’s a chat thread here, and Rubi’s intro is here.

Chat with your friends about it!

Share

OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

Share The Art of Noticing

And thanks for reading …

rw

All this by Rob Walker (except as noted) PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

Today’s post is part of a series. Every year I teach a five-week class on “point of view,” for the School of Visual Arts’ Products of Design program. For Supporters, I’m reprinting a series of posts about the class — the assignments, the thinking behind the class, how it shaped and has since been shaped by TAoN, and other fun behind-the-scenes stuff. The first installment is here, the second is here, the third here.

The first three posts in this series all dealt with a series of assignments related to writing an individual manifesto.

But in addition to the manifesto undertaking, the students in Point of View also complete a separate set of assignments related to expressing an idea with a design project. That might sound a little fuzzy, so I’ll break it down.

Read more

From Caryn in New Mexico, a delightful Lunar New Year linocut card! (If you’re still out there, Caryn, send me the email address you use for TAoN, consumed@robwalker.net.)

From Alice in Kuala Lumpur (also wishing a happy Year of the Horse).

From friend of TAoN Maria, visiting Porto.

From Gillian, who wrote a great note about making monoprints of leaves, feathers, petals, etc., and how seeking the rights subjects takes observation; the process reveals what the naked eye missed; and that informs the next subject. Says Gillian: “Noticing, I have found, is never complete.”

From Kate, who shared a wonderful story about a conversation with a stranger. Stay tuned for more on that subject, Kate! (And if you’re out there, send me the email address you use for TAoN, consumed@robwalker.net.)

And from our friend Judi K, an assortment of typically fun surprises! We’ll make through, Judi!

Leave a comment

OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

Share The Art of Noticing

And thanks for reading …

rw

RobWalker.net

All this by Rob Walker, except as noted.

PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

—> Send me mail! I’ll give a three-month free trial to the Supporter version of TAoN to any current free subscriber who snail-mails me a request (include your email address).

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

Today’s post is part of a series. Every year I teach a five-week class on “point of view,” for the School of Visual Arts’ Products of Design program. For Supporters, I’m reprinting a series of posts about the class — the assignments, the thinking behind the class, how it shaped and has since been shaped by TAoN, and other fun behind-the-scenes stuff. The first installment is here, the second is here.

Previously I’ve described how I try to prod students to think on and start to articulate what their work is about through a set of preliminary exercises, followed by writing a full-on personal manifesto. The first year I taught my Point of View class at the School of Visual Arts, that’s where the exercise ended — there was some work put into refining the written manifesto, but that was it.

But the second year I changed things up and added a new step. It was inspired, if I recall correctly, by the last line of the Elements of a Manifesto post that I mentioned last time: a good manifesto, in short, should be “poster-like.”

Given that these are design students, why not have them translate their manifesto ideas into an actual poster design?

For example, here’s a design manifesto in “poster-like” form:

Read more

A big Marcel Duchamp retrospective has just opened at the Museum of Modern Art, and that means we can look forward to lots of fresh writing and thinking about Duchamp’s work.

Or at least I hope that’s the case: I’m very pro-Duchamp and always happy to learn more about one of my favorite tricksters. I take it as a good sign that Times critic Holland Carter has already used the exhibition as an excuse to pronounce Duchamp more influential than Picasso! (Or, for a different take, here’s a critic wondering if we’ve become too reverent of the irreverent Duchamp.)

But so far the most pleasing response I’ve encountered is this piece (also in The Times) by Blake Gopnik, with this key passage:

Duchamp helps us understand that “art” shouldn’t be thought of as a noun that picks out certain kinds of objects, but as a verb: We “art” absolutely any object at all by using it to trigger thoughts and conversation. …

When Duchamp “art-ed” the most unlikely, even shocking of objects — a urinal — he was celebrating the power of that verb.

The referenced urinal is of course Duchamp’s famous piece, “Fountain” — an actual urinal that he signed (with a fake name). While this was initially mocked and derided and dismissed, it gradually became recognized as a profound gesture that moved a boundary line between art and the everyday — and example of how trickster figures make culture.

Gopnik reminds us that pre-”Fountain,” Duchamp was already presenting “commonplace objects,” such as a bottle rack and a bicycle wheel, as a category of art he called “readymades.” The first readymade to draw much attention was a store-bought shovel that Duchamp’s studio mate pronounced “the most beautiful object I have ever seen.”

What I did not know about the 1917 First Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, where “Fountain” was meant to be displayed but ultimately kicked out, is that it had an unusual organizing format: The works included were displayed in the alphabetical order of their 1,300 creators’ names. This was apparently Duchamp’s idea, and presumably meant to be a kind of grand leveler, a fully objective schema. But in practice it proved more controversial, at the time, than “Fountain,” Gopnik suggests; critics hated it.

Still, you can see how an alphabetized art show implies the same questioning spirit that animated the readymades — a potential to essentially create art from the everyday, through the shear force of perception, curiosity, consideration. Gopnik quotes philosopher Alva Noë making the point that an art object should prompt us to “look harder, look longer, ask questions, interrogate, try to make something of it.”

And when I say “art object,” I mean any object that’s been art-ed. Gopnik again:

I’d say that “Fountain,” as the capstone to Duchamp’s entire installation of the Independent, celebrates a centuries-old tradition that has got us using anything at all — a marital portrait, a prayerful “Saint Francis,” even in the end a urinal — to spark art’s signature conversations.

I can only add that my interest, of course, isn’t in dragging down or undermining the status of art. It’s in elevating the status of the everyday. So this week, channel your inner Duchamp: Notice something that’s worth a conversation — and art it!

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SUPPORT TAoN

If you enjoy TAoN, please become a paid supporter. You’ll get access to the full archives as well as supporter-only bonus posts and discussion threads. Your support makes this newsletter possible. Thank you!

IN OTHER NEWS

• Thank to a tip from Karla Starr, I’ve tentatively opened a Bookshop.org affiliate account and “shop.” I’ve only listed a few titles so far, but I’ll continue to add relevant books, and if you buy through the shop I get a cut. Bookshop.org also gives a cut to local booksellers. This is another step in my ongoing efforts to make this project financially sustainable, so consider this a mix of full disclosure and news :) Link here. What might be useful with this experiment? Feedback is welcome!

• The latest edition of The Times’ 10-Minute Challenge features a piece from the I Spy picture book series, really interesting!

• “Yoko Ono’s Play it by Trust (1966/2011) is an all-white, interactive chessboard that functions as a metaphor for the futility of war.” There’s now an online chess-bot version.

• 1950s Milwaukee bus tickets.

• “Sidewalk Joy spots are free, curated public galleries, exchanges and displays. .. Examples include Free Little Art Galleries, Puzzle Exchanges, Toy Swaps, year-round and often updated yard displays, Wishing Trees, and more!” Via.

• The “absurdist cartoons and greeting cards” of Glen Baxter. Good stuff!

• Jake Henzler a.k.a. Boy Knits World’s book Knit the City “highlights buildings around the world through a series of building block-like patterns.” Via.

• An A24 movie about liminal space:

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  OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

Share The Art of Noticing

And thanks for reading …
rw

• RobWalker.net | NB: I use (some) Amazon Affiliate links

All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

—> Send me mail! I’ll give a three-month free trial to the Supporter version of TAoN to any current free subscriber who snail-mails me a request (include your email address).

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

Today’s post is part of a series. Every year I teach a five-week class on “point of view,” for the School of Visual Arts’ Products of Design program. For Supporters, I’m reprinting a series of posts about the class — the assignments, the thinking behind the class, how it shaped and has since been shaped by TAoN, and other fun behind-the-scenes stuff. The first installment is here.

Last time, I described the “heroes and villains” and “always/never” exercises I ask students to complete before they take a shot at writing a personal manifesto. But as mentioned, there’s a third preliminary exercise. I call it the “cocktail party manifesto.”

It works like this:

Read more

For more than a decade, I’ve taught an annual mini-class (five sessions over five weeks) for the Products of Design program at the School of Visual Arts. The class is called Point of View. I really love it, mostly because the students are so terrific. But also because I believe in the class’s mission: helping young designers talk about their work, and specifically making sure that there is a why behind their work.

A couple of years ago I shared a series of posts adapting ideas from the class, for paid subscribers. A lot of newcomers have joined the TAoNiverse since then. So with this year’s version of the class just underway, I’ve decided to update and republish that series.

Today is the first post in the series, and I’m sharing it with everyone. The rest of the series will be for Supporters only — and this is a good time to become a Supporter, as there’s a new sale on: 25% off annual subs!

25% Off One Year!

Okay, here goes!

Readers of TAoN will not be surprised to hear that I believe having a strong point of view depends quite a bit on noticing what others have overlooked or ignored. As I’m always saying, the things you pay attention to and engage with that others missed are precisely the things that make you you.

And of course I think this isn’t just an issue for designers, but in all sorts of professions and pursuits, and life in general. So there’s a very direct connection between the class and this project.

To help students explore, flesh out, and articulate their point of view, I make them write a personal manifesto. That can sound a little intimidating, so the assignment is broken up into stages.

The first step entails a few mini-prompts that students have 24 hours to answer. I’ll share two of those mini-prompts here. (The third one is too much to explain now, but I’ll return to it later.)

• Heroes & Villains: Name three personal heroes — and three personal villains. Each set should include at least one designer (or, for those of you playing along at home, one member of whatever your profession/vocation is). No lazy answers: avoid naming a relative as a hero unless you have a really good reason; and don’t pick easy villains like historical dictators or comic-book bad guys or whatever.

• Always/Never: Declare a set of rules, including two or three things your work must always do, and two or three things your work must never do. Avoid platitudes: Try to come up with answers that are as unique to you as possible.

(An important side note: I emphasize to students that these are not forever-binding declarations. Today’s hero may be tomorrow’s villain. Today’s never may be tomorrow’s sometimes. That’s fine. Pretty much every worthwhile manifesto ever written is eventually disavowed by its author(s)! So just give your best honest answers right now. Don’t try to second-guess the future. Be genuine in the moment.)

We discuss their responses as a group. Often, someone’s hero is someone else’s villain. And students invariably seem to surprise each other with unexpected answers. Everyone learns from each other’s heroes lists. And everyone learns from each other’s villain thoughts, too. (Students are often reluctant to talk about villains at first, but after some coaxing and being reassured that there will be no negative consequences, they open up.)

Ideally, as we talk about why this hero and why that villain and why those rules, a pattern emerges for each student that helps tease out the core of a good personal manifesto. While it’s my job to help make that happen, really it’s the students doing all the work — because the work is very individual.

The broader point is to demystify the idea of figuring out what one’s work (or point of view) is about. Again, writing a manifesto sounds potentially intimidating, whether you’re at the start of a career or deep into an established practice or even defining goals for a new phase of life. That’s why I make this the first step, and I find it has helped students in the past.

I hope it works again with this year’s class! Give these prompts some thought, and I’ll share the next phase of the manifesto process this Friday!

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OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

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Once again it’s time for Savor of the Month!

For newcomers:

At the start of every month I announce one specific thing or theme to look out for, pay attention to, appreciate. The idea is to convert something everyday and taken for granted into something we might, yes, savor.

And every month I create a chat thread where you can share what you are noticing, or enjoy what others have noticed, in connection with the current theme. You can post pictures, drawings, written observations, whatever works for you. Or just browse!

Themes so far:

Public Text (results here) * Calm (results here) * Treasure (results here) * Winter (results here) * Mysteries (results here) * Outliers (results here) * Ornamentation (results here) * Everyday Artists (results here) * Reflections (results here) * Contrast (results here) * The Temporary (results here; related audio essay here) * Wind (results here) * Circles (results here) * Small Flowers (results here) * Shadows (results here)

For April, the subject is RUST. This is less abstract than some recent subjects, so it doesn’t require much explanation — it’s, you know, rust. (I’m pretty sure a reader suggested this but I’ve last track of who that was; if it was you, speak up!)

Below, I’ll say a little more (including an example of how this simple attention practice can make you notice other interesting things you’ve previously missed), but in short: hunt for RUST while you go about your days in the month ahead.

The thread is open.

This month’s back story:

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I got a nice surprise gift the other day: a copy of This Is for You: Gift-Giving As a Way of Life, by writer/artist Lea Redmond, billed as a “jubilant manifesto” on giving (and receiving). I love gifts as a subject, possibly because I have a very mixed record as a gifter, and I always want to get better. So I was excited to explore Redmond’s thoughtful and helpful take on the subject.

Greedily, I even asked Lea if she’d suggest a prompt for TAoN readerse, and she agreed. Another gift! And seriously, this is a great “gift guide” alternative, any time of year:

Think Beyond the Shopping Cart

As a gift opportunity approaches, visit a few stores you love and you imagine your recipient would love — but with no intention of buying anything.

Instead, treat the store like a museum, a source of inspiration and sensorial prompts to get you started. As you browse, dream up alternatives to the lovely items you imagine your recipient would like, transforming them into other gift ideas: objects, experiences, or gifts of words that are free, cheaper, homemade, found, borrowed, etc.

The hope here is that the alternatives you dream up prove more meaningful and personal. For example: a color combination in a florist shop might lead you to a particular public park for a picnic. A scented candle might spark the idea for a beach bonfire and s’mores. A too-expensive handmade wooden spoon might inspire a trip to the woods to whittle some chopsticks together. A necklace featuring a spiral could transform into a spiraling seashell found while beachcombing, poetically passed from palm to palm.

Pay close attention to what is before you, then let your imagination carry you beyond it.

So good! I love the way Redmond combines careful attention withh creative imagination.

The book very much addresses similar themes throughout (there’s a chapter on the Art of Attention). And it’s charmingly illustrated by Redmond herself:

Here’s a passage that ties in to her prompt, and gives a taste of the book’s overall spirit and style:

To be clear, I am not saying that all good gifts are handmade or cheap, found or free. A gold necklace for a grandmother, with one sparkling birthstone symbolizing each of her grandchildren, might be a home run gift. What the gold necklace and [something like a simple snail-shell necklace from a high school sweetheart] have in common is thoughtfulness, which includes thinking critically and creatively about the role of money in our gestures of care. We can call industrial capitalism’s bluff even while participating in monetary exchange, reining in consumerism-run- amok and the way it eclipses the world’s true offerings. Swapping in richness for riches, we can reclaim our attention and our agency at once. The amount on the price tag is far from the full story. A good gift is always priceless, at least to the recipient.

A gift can leave a recipient feeling flush because it references a shared memory or inside joke, sparks their intellect, attends to beauty, makes them feel safe, honors their past, encourages their future, celebrates their present — or for many other reasons. When I am dreaming up a gift for someone, I don’t assume stores are the only places to find ingredients to activate such a rich experience for my recipient. Indeed, many of the most wonderful phenomena are too big or too small — too fleeting or too slow, too alive or too wild — to pin down, package up, and sell. “Thank God for the things that I do not own,” in the words of St. Teresa of Ávila. A great gift might be borrowed instead of bought. It could merely be pointed at, wandered through, or gazed into. It might be hiding up in the night sky or a grandmother’s attic.

Nicely said. I’m particularly taken with the idea of a gift that could “merely be pointed at.” Naturally I remain curious to hear about your best gift experiences, as giver or receiver.

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“If anyone wants to buy an autographed copy of my book or take a Zoom gift design workshop with me,” Lea says, “my online shop’s a great place to send ‘em.” She has a lot of other cool projects and books and products, so there is much more at LeaRedmond.com. Thank you Lea!

SUPPORT TAoN

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IN OTHER NEWS

• Speaking of notable books, I am so excited to read Mason Currey’s Making Art and Making a Living: Adventures in Funding a Creative Life. This book speaks to such a need; it’s going to be a smash! (Here’s a Mason TAoN guest prompt from back in the day.) More at his great newsletter! I really admire Mason and his work and you should, too!

• Oh wow, these lowrider stamps are hot!

• “38 Days of ICE,” in New Orleans; very interesting read from friend of TAoN Daniel Brook in Harper’s.

• Study finds texting a random stranger is better for loneliness than “talking” to an AI chatbot.

• I just learned about the Buffalo Pothole Bandit, who has evidently visited New Orleans; nice work, more info here.

• Barometers on Television. Never gets old

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  OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

Share The Art of Noticing

And thanks for reading …
rw

• RobWalker.net | NB: I use (some) Amazon Affiliate links

All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

—> Send me mail! I’ll give a three-month free trial to the Supporter version of TAoN to any current free subscriber who snail-mails me a request (include your email address).

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

Audio Archive

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We’re getting a new refrigerator today, which is not something I’d normally write about. I’m not even looking forward to it, really. But it’s got me thinking about objects (as I sometimes do), specifically about a material-culture category I’ve never really considered before: the object as enemy.

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In a recent short essay on small talk, writer Roger Rosenblatt claims that he tries to “let at least five people a day know that I’m thinking of them.” Mostly he does so via email, and some recipients are regulars he reaches out to frequently. The notes are brief, he writes: “Thinking of you. Hope you’re thriving. That sort of thing.”

This sounds almost excessive to me. (And I should disclose that I’m not exactly a fan of Rosenblatt, whose work often strikes me as a little just-so.) But I’m interested in the spirit of it. And it reminded me of a somewhat related practice that I heard about on friend of TAoN Lynn Borton’s wonderful Choose To Be Curious show and podcast. It was in the episode featuring Ashley Kirsner, founder of Skip the Small Talk, which hosts conversation-focused get-togethers.

Kirsner had a lot to say about getting beyond small talk, and having deeper conversations, even with strangers. But her idea that caught my attention and stuck with me was a simple prompt to encourage basic human interaction at a time when feelings of loneliness and isolation are widespread:

Get out at least once a day, and at least exchange a few words with three people or more.

I think about this all the time. I don’t always make the goal, but the prompt has encouraged me to be a bit chattier out in the wild — and to be aware of it when I’m not having enough basic human interaction.

One thing I’ve learned is that just a few words can change the day. And whatever my reservations about Rosenblatt, his essay is useful in making me realize that this can be true with an old friend as well as a random stranger. Either way, the underlying message and spirit is the same: “They do not need to earn your attention. They receive it simply by existing.”

So I’m going to keep following Kirsner’s prompt, and add a Rosenblatt Addendum to reach out to friends more often, remembering that a few words can be much better than none.

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Dictionary of Missing Words is an exercise in paying attention to phenomena you encounter — sensations, concepts, states between states, feelings, slippery things — that could be named, but don’t seem to be. More here and here.

This week’s missing word — the first in a while! — is from me:

For most of my adult life, my mom called me on Sunday at 10 a.m. Central. After she died, my dad took that role (though pretty quickly I became the one making the call). After he died, I continued have some sense or pang or low-key tingle at 10 a.m. Sunday, before remembering there would be no call — a feeling something like a phantom limb, perhaps. It’s a sensation that has no name that I’m aware of, though I assume many people have felt something similar. But what is even more profound (and yet unnamed) is the abrupt realization one day that this phantom feeling has passed, and Sunday at 10 a.m. has become just another time of day.

Describe your Missing Words in the comments, or send them to my email below.

SUPPORT TAoN

If you enjoy TAoN, please become a paid supporter. You’ll get access to the full archives as well as supporter-only bonus posts and discussion threads. Your support makes this newsletter possible. Thank you!

IN OTHER NEWS

• I could not be more excited to announce that The Art of Noticing book has (finally!) been translated into Spanish! El arte de ver lo que te rodea is available now from Ediciones Menguantes. I love the design and I’m just thrilled to have my first Spanish translation at long last!

• Over at Lou Reed’s Nephew, writer and friend of TAoN Jim Hanas reflects on how he got into collage. What do you notice when you turn from words to images?

• The Pleasures of Poor Product Design. Hero of Noticing Paul Lukas interviews Katerina Kamprani, who specializes in designing “deliberately inconvenient everyday objects.”

• Ray Davies opines on Revolver in 1966.

• I generally avoid anything that leans hard on the word “flâneur,” but this Public Domain Review illustrated essay on the urban wandering of Franz Hessel in 1920s Berlin is fascinating.

• The art of Liz Nielsen.

• “500 cardboard portraits is a series of faces which are cut or torn into corrugated board, but these are pencil drawings — not photos.” Present & Correct

• 18 doors in Mexico City. Fantastic! Should “doors” be a Savor theme? Present & Correct again

• Now this is how to answer an author Q&A. A+ for Wayne Koestenbaum

OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

Share The Art of Noticing

And thanks for reading …
rw

• RobWalker.net | NB: I use (some) Amazon Affiliate links

All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

—> Send me mail! I’ll give a three-month free trial to the Supporter version of TAoN to any current free subscriber who snail-mails me a request (include your email address).

To unsubscribe see the bottom of the email, or go here.

This Tedx talk on making cities more walkable — the “general theory of walkability” — is perfectly reasonable, making lots of great walking points from a city planning perspective. I saw it via Kottke, who highlighted this passage:

In the typical American city, in which most people own cars and the temptation is to drive them all the time, if you’re going to get them to walk, then you have to offer a walk that’s as good as a drive or better. What does that mean? It means you need to offer four things simultaneously: there needs to be a proper reason to walk, the walk has to be safe and feel safe, the walk has to be comfortable, and the walk has to be interesting.

These four rules certainly make sense, and I don’t disagree. I endorse them all! Kottke writes that they help explain “why every time I get to walkable city (Tokyo, Rome, NYC, Paris), I am instantly like, yes!! This! This is a walk.”

Fair enough.

And yet …

I couldn’t help thinking about how I kinda enjoy bad walks.

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