Extra! Extra!

December 2023

August marked three years of Ten Times. I started mid-pandemic, something light amidst the dark. And I liked it and you liked it and here we are.

Three years, quietly making my best work.
I do think it’s my best work.
Something I’ve been reaching towards for a long time.
A practice.

I still don’t quite know how to describe this newsletter. I just know that it feels special to me. As a third anniversary gift, would you write and tell me how you’d explain it to a friend?

This month, I have something special to share. Again, it’s hard to describe the genre. Stories in a new format, just for this month.

I made a newspaper! It is $10, to cover printing and shipping costs, and a teeny bit of profit. It is one of the best things I’ve made recently.

This whole thing is a labor of love, but the vocational kind of labor that feeds you, not the kind that shrivels you up. I think you will like it a lot.

Inside, you’ll find:

• A dramatic local news story about the zoo taxidermy collection that’s been living rent-free in my head since August

• Lore from my childhood paper route, where papers were delivered exactly as meant: by exhausted small children willing to do anything to rake in spending money

• Classified ads for things you might not want

• A restaurant review (of my kitchen)

• A quartet of paintings from my Midwest Visual Language project

• Jokes

• Thoughtful observations

And because I’m extra (Extra! EXTRA!) I’m also tucking a shiny special Ten Times sticker in with the first 50 papers sold. Beautiful things to hold in your hands.

I hope you are finding meaningful work.
I hope your strange, searching self feels seen.
Thank you for seeing me, as I make these things.

It is a gift to be witnessed.

You can purchase the Ten Times on Etsy right here:

Thanks for being here.
🧡, Ten

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Elsewhere

Writing from me: a list of medieval books that takes a detour into ‘00s evangelical modesty culture. And some Invitations.

“But what becomes possible if we admit that facilitation is humiliating? That none of this is easy, and most of us are not born good at it but we will all have to become brave in trying it?” I loved this look at the weirdness (& generous necessity) of facilitating from

Elise Granata

.

You could own the world’s largest pheasant. Some backstory here. (I can’t quit weird local news!!)

This piece by

Sara Hendren

on artists co-creating art with individuals with intellectual disabilities is refreshing: “In the sensory workshop, a person at the far edge of the social contract encounters all the joyous, necessary inefficiencies of relationship and all the useless, urgent vitality of art."

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