Listen to the chapter here!
Neil:
Hey everybody, this is Neil Pasricha and welcome, or welcome back, to 3 Books. It is the Wolf Moon. We are kicking off 2025 with an incredible, rare, unique, unusual conversation with the muralist, the graffiti spray painter extraordinaire, Nick Sweetman.
If you want to jump ahead straight to the interview, feel free. I do that in podcasts sometimes too. But if you want to hang out a little bit at the beginning, we always like to read a letter or a comment that came in about the show.
I always check out all your reviews, your letters. I read one every single time if I read your letter on there. You get a free book.
Drop me a line and I will mail you a signed book. And of course, I'd like to talk about one of the values. We have a series of values on the show.
We bring them to life a little bit in our openings. So before we get into Nick, I'm very excited to tell you about, I want to quickly read a letter. Again, leave your letters, your reviews anywhere, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you want to drop us some feedback.
This one came in via email. Hi Neil, I just finished listening to Chapter 24 with Jonathan Fields. And I was literally moved to tears when he started talking about when breath becomes air.
I've had that book on my TBR for quite some time. And after listening to this episode, I'm going to pull it out and start reading it right away. I always listen to the end of the podcast.
It's my favorite part. And you said not to be nervous about calling the phone number, but I didn't trust myself to call and not break down in tears or just start babbling without making sense. So I decided to take a chance and write you a letter instead.
I didn't know who you were until I listened to an episode of another podcast called What Should I Read Next by Ann Bogle. Your story of how you started your blog, which led to your writing books and doing TED Talks made quite an impression on me. And I knew I had to check out your podcast immediately.
I was not disappointed. It has now become my favorite and I listen to it whenever I can, especially when I'm out on my morning walks in the Arizona desert. Anyway, I just want to thank you for your podcast and create something so amazing and wonderful and positive and uplifting.
It's introduced me to many new people, authors, writers that I would never have discovered on my own. For that, I am truly grateful. Sincerely, Barbie Wells from Goodyear, Arizona.
Okay, thank you so much, Barbie, for your letter. And I like your last point there. People I may never have otherwise known.
That's the thing on the value I want to talk about today, which is about interesting over notable. That's one of our values, interesting over notable. When you start a podcast, there is a lot of pressure to have notable people on, of course, because they're notable.
And when they have big names, they get more downloads and they get more people listening. And of course, if you are like me and you listen to podcasts, you are attracted to the names you recognize. But it's this healthy tension because in my life, as I'm sure in yours, most of the most interesting conversations I've ever had are not with anybody who's famous in any way.
They're not notable in any way. They're the people we meet on the street, the people with the interesting heart connections, the soul connections. And so I wanted to find that balance on the show.
And I think it's also a metaphor for reading books. It is interesting over notable. That's why in Chapter 7, we had a long conversation with Vishwas Agarwal.
That's why we've had Shirley the nurse on the show. We've had Robin the bartender, Robin Goodfellow. We want to go for people that maybe have never been on a podcast before, but in a deep and interesting conversation, we can kind of get some interesting stuff out of them.
Chris Smalls was our last chapter in December. I know David Sedaris, we dropped in between as a classic. He is very notable.
But Nick Sweetman, Nick Sweetman is not as notable. So who is Nick Sweetman? Well, to tell you a little bit about Nick, I got to tell you a story first.
I was walking down the street in Toronto on Lansdowne with a friend of mine named Michael Bungay Stanier, who was our guest back in Chapter 48. He's the author of The Coaching Habit. And as we were walking under this bridge on Lansdowne Avenue, there was this giant look like a photo.
It wasn't a photo. It was a spray painted huge image of a hooded merganser. For all the bird lovers out there, a hooded merganser is a spectacular bird with a giant hood, like it's a big, huge, extravagant head.
And at the very bottom corner of the picture was a signature that just said Sweetman. Sweetman. I was like, what's Sweetman?
Text a bunch of friends, look a little bit online. And I discovered that there's this Toronto mural artist named Nick Sweetman. As I start combing through his website at nicksweetman.ca, I want to make sure I got the URL right, and his Instagram at Nick underscore Sweetman, that's N-I-C-K underscore S-W-E-E-T-M-A-N. I realized I've seen this guy's stuff all over the place. He paints pollinators, giant, huge sweat bees, they're called. He paints birds.
I love birds. He paints insects. He painted a whale shark that I've ridden by on my bike for years and I didn't know it was him.
So I reach out to Nick Sweetman and I ask him about maybe doing a partnership with Three Books somehow. And guess what? We found a 750 square foot wall.
750 square foot 10 feet high, 75 feet long behind a subway station in Toronto, Dupont subway station. He started painting it on my birthday, September 17th, 2024. He finished it on November the 1st for the next month and a half.
While he was there, I pulled out my recorder a number of times and I asked Nick Sweetman questions about mural painting, graffiti, street art, what it means to a world where humans overtake everything, but he's celebrating the non-humans, the insects, the birds. He painted a giant mural of 16 local native birds, including scarlet tanager, ruby-throated hummingbirds, common grackles. It's an incredible wall.
And so what we've done on this chapter of 3 Books is there is, of course, the audio component. Maybe you're listening to this on audio, but we've also partnered with an incredible filmographer, videographer named Scott Baker, who's put together a video, a video as well. So if you go over to YouTube, maybe you're watching me on YouTube right now, you will see Nick in the process of making this magical wall in Toronto.
Nick Sweetman, everybody, one of Toronto's most prominent graffiti artists. The stuff he does is unbelievable. If you haven't checked out nicksweetman.ca or nick underscore sweetman on Instagram, do, do check it out. This is a a very special, creative flair for life, for everything. Interesting, over-notable, although he's pretty notable too. Welcome to the conversation with the one and only Nick Sweetman.
Let's flip the page in the chapter 144 now.
Nick:
These birds are lined up, ready to go.
Neil:
Wow. Look at these things. Now what are you doing, Nick?
Tell us.
Nick:
I'm adding that same glow to the blue jay eye, just to kind of, uh, you know, harmonize all this light together. The blue jay right now sort of looks like he's sitting on top of the background instead of, instead of in that world. So now he's going to be in that world.
Neil:
Wow. How many colors are you using for the blue jay's eyeballs? Like how many different shades is that?
Nick:
Like 10 or so.
Neil:
Wow. 10 different shades for an eyeball.
What colors do you have in the blue jay's eye?
Nick:
You need a lot of colors to make it look full color. Otherwise, like it, it looks kind of, um, so how many colors, like what are the names of the colors in this eyeball?
Okay. Pick a color. I'll tell you.
Neil:
Uh the red.
Nick:
The dark red is called fire rose. The medium red is called lollipop. Then I went in with a light, uh, sort of like a pinker red with a, that's called a bazooka Joe.
And then I went over that with that light pink orange. That's called Mr. Crab.
Neil:
Mr. Crab.
Nick:
The shines up top are blue velvet and ice blue and then white for the highlight.
Neil:
Wow. You are crushing this wall. Like you are crushing.
Let me see what you're looking at. So I am, I am squatting. I am squatting on a patch of two foot wide dirt with like, I mean, there's been needles here.
You said, you said someone dropped a dookie. So we can call it an unclean. We can call it an unclean corner.
There's lots of cigarette butts all over the place. Newspapers, broken bottles. Um, but you're doing something to this wall, Nick.
It's a 10 foot by 75 foot curved concrete wall. So a 750 square foot fucking wall and you're painting 15 hyper realistic local birds on it.
Nick:
16 16 16 baby. We upped it. We got the grackle in there.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. This is unbelievable. So, so I don't know. Do you call yourself a muralist and a graffiti artist?
Uh, uh, what do you, what are you?
Nick:
I call myself An artist. And if other people want to call me other things that categorize me more narrowly than that, that's okay with me.
Yeah.
Neil:
It's a bright, sunny Friday afternoon in October. You've been at this wall for a month.
Nick:
That is a fact.
Neil:
A month. I saw a hooded Merganza. Your painting on Lansdowne.
I took a picture of me and my kid in front of like the, the pinks bees on Bloor street, like seven, eight years ago, before I knew who you were before I knew that was you. I I've seen your art all over the city. So for me, it'll be walking by and see Nick Sweetman, the graffiti muralist spray paint, like hyper real, like no one in the city could do what you're doing.
And there's a new 750 square foot wall featuring a black and white warbler, a blue Jay, a white breasted nut hatch, a Cedar waxwing, a Northern flicker. I'm looking above my head, a giant Rose breasted gross speak by the way, my spark bird, a white throated Sparrow, a Scarlet Tanger, a Ruby throated hummingbird, a European starling, a red tailed hawk. And I'm standing up a giant house Finch.
What's over there? A Ruby crown Kinglet way down there is a Turkey vulture. Oh my God.
The head of that thing is like speckled is perfect. A black Bernie and warblers might be one of my favorite birds and a common grackle, man. People got to see this thing.
It's at DuPont station at DuPont and Spadina in downtown Toronto. There's the Castle Loma castle right above us. There's a shoppers drama or a subway here.
There's a bus going by. There's the subway running underneath. It's just North of Spadina station, man.
This corner has been like, there's people look at the garbage right there. People just dump their bags of garbage here. There's pigeons there.
There's shit everywhere. Human feces.
Nick:
Somebody left a, somebody left three cans of tuna and a, and a little like, I don't know what's in that cardboard box, but a little plastic bag that a little package for a cat or something, hopefully for a cat. You know, it's funny when you are passing this little alcove, how little of it you really see unless you're really staring at it. I find like when I drive by, unless it's at night at night, it's really lit up and it's one of the only things lit up over here.
But I find in the daytime, even though there's just the two trees, well, I guess three, but it really is tucked in.
Neil:
So you got to be in your late thirties, right?
Nick:
Yep.
I'm actually turning 39 in four weeks.
Neil:
Okay. So you've been spray painting murals and graffiti and walls for how many years full time?
Nick:
10 years.
Neil:
And so what, I get that you are now doing it as a vocation, as a profession, as a like, this is like your job, which not many people can say, but what drew you to doing this?
Why do you do this?
Nick:
I started my art career in galleries, like making paintings, you know, in a studio and hanging them in galleries and, you know, going to the gallery on the opening night and, you know, whatever, having wine with everybody and talking about my paintings and um, the whole gallery world. Um, it felt for me a bit, uh, disconnected from like regular people. And I don't want to, I realized I don't want to make art.
I come from like academic art. So I got my master's of fine art from OCAD, uh, Ontario College of Art and Design.
Neil:
And you went to an art high school, right?
Nick:
And I went to an art high school. Yeah. But I, in between there...
Neil:
In Toronto, public school.
Nick:
Etobicoke School of the Arts. I did an undergrad degree at University of Toronto. That was in semiotics and communication theory with a minor in, uh, geography.
And then I did my master's of fine art after that.
Neil:
Wow.
Nick:
After teaching English in Korea for one year.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Nick:
Yeah. It was awesome.
Neil:
Wow. So how does someone go from fine art to spray painting walls?
Nick:
I, I had already been spray painting walls since I was like 20.
Neil:
Like illegally.
Nick:
Illegally and legally, uh, you know, doing some murals for people I knew and some, um, rascal stuff.
Neil:
Were you ever in the tagging business?
Nick:
Yeah. I think, uh, I started out for, for a, for a couple of years, I was running around, uh, painting my name on things and, you know, uh, biking up the next day to take pictures of it and kind of feeling like, eh, that's sort of like mediocre.
Neil:
What age, what age did you spray paint your first wall?
Nick:
What age? Um...
Neil:
Take me into that scene.
Nick:
The first time I ever did a graffiti piece, uh, I think was... Oh my God. What year would that have been?
It would have been, I would say 2004-ish, 2004 or 5.
Neil:
You're like 18 years old.
Nick:
Yeah.
Neighborhood Child:
It's unbelievable.
Neighborhood Dad:
Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. The artist is incredible.
We live around the neighborhood and it's just very nice to have this wall here by our house.
Neighborhood Child:
It's so pretty.
Neil:
What do you notice?
Neighborhood Dad:
All the detail, like, it takes a lot of, like, especially in the eyes. The eyes give a lot of... All Canadian birds.
Of course. The idea, the execution, amazing.
Neil:
I saw a woman here one night at like midnight, I was walking by her and someone was just like, you know, two girls are here, first year universities at the University of Toronto, you know, um, taking pictures of it. Like, people love this. It's cool.
But I'm curious about a little bit about you too. Like, I'm curious about your three most formative books. Nick Sweetman, 39 years old in four weeks, street artist, Toronto.
His first most formative book everybody is, drum roll please, Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. Published in 1955 by Harper and Brothers. This is a dark burgundy brown cover with a purple scribble.
The purple scribble comes from a drawing from a young boy in blue footie pajamas holding a purple crayon on the bottom right of the cover. On the top half of the cover it says Harold and the Purple Crayon in light purple. Below that to the left it says by Crockett Johnson in white italics.
Crockett Johnson, of course, born in 1906 in New York, died 1975 in Connecticut, age 68. Studied art like you at Cooper Union at NYU. And basically this is a crazy book for those that have not read it.
This little boy starts drawing and then he's out of his bedroom. He's on the deep seas. He's in a boat.
He's on a desert island. Then he can't figure out how to get home so he climbs a cliff. And then he realizes, oh yeah, my window was right here.
So then he draws his window, draws his bed and goes to sleep. And the crayon falls to the floor. That's the whole book.
So Nick, tell us about your relationship with Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.
Nick:
Uh, okay. Well, this was the third book that I chose as my three most formative books. And it was the one that took me the longest to select because I just couldn't think of my third book. I don't know.
It was really hard to come up with something that felt authentic. And so actually your wife, Leslie, was the one who said, you know, it could be like a book from your childhood. And when I said Harold and the Purple Crayon, she was like, that's such a perfect selection because of that.
But yeah, we went to go feed the ducks and we would see this one duck that was different. It's like, wait, does this duck think it's a mallard? So we always liked it.
We called it Hoodie.
Neil:
You called it Hoodie?
Nick:
We called it Hoodie.
Neil:
And there was no formative book in your life around this time, was there, Nick?
Nick:
Formative book.
Nick:
Maybe some book about a duck.
Neil:
I really haven't been thinking about this for like months, man. Like I can't think of what the third one would be.
Nick:
A good book, even like a kid's book that's something you read growing up that showed you art or showed you, you know, something like that. Developed some value that you had.
Neil:
I mean, one kid's book that I think is really important to talk about is Harold and the Purple Crayon. But is that too typical?
Neil:
Never. No, no, no.
Nick:
What's so hard is like, I want to say things like Hundred Years of Solitude, Lord of the Rings.
Nick:
No, no, no, no, no. Harold and the Purple Crayon is perfect.
Nick:
But really like books that I just couldn't put down, read again and again, you know, but those are like classics and they have the big silver seal on them. It's like, you can't just choose Oprah Winfrey's top three books as your top three books, you know, like it's a cop out in a way. So if you're saying children's books, I think Harold and the Purple Crayon because that really is about like defining your world, taking creativity out into the world and defining your reality with it and like making your own vision come to life and living inside it.
You know, that was a really special thing to see, I think, for me and a lot of kids.
Nick:
A hundred percent. And sometimes I feel like people think like that book is about imagination, but it actually is really about the fact that you can create your own world.
Nick:
Yes.
Nick:
Yeah. That you can actually, like art and reality can intermix and imagination and truth.
Nick:
I think that's got to be it then. The core, I think, idea of the book, which is that through art, through drawing, Harold can kind of like create his world and he can create it however he wants. He sometimes creates things even that scare him or, you know, that like get him into dangerous situations.
But he he sort of like draws the solution that he needs. And yeah, when he's tired, he just draws himself a bed and goes, yeah, rest. I don't know.
It's like there's a metaphor there for what art can make possible. I think a lot of my favorite artists talk about art as sort of like a bridge to what's possible, like between between like reality and sort of an imagined reality that maybe doesn't seem possible without seeing it in images.
Neil:
So like what's beauty, what's art, what can art make possible?
Nick:
I think like one of the things I like to do when I'm, for example, painting bees is showing somebody that creature large on a wall. That's a way that most people will never look at a bee. But it can kind of inspire them to see real bees in a new way.
And just personally, since I started research, painting and researching bees, I look way more closely at bees myself. And they are actually bananas. When you see a bee that's not like a honeybee, not like a bumblebee, not like a bee you see all the time, one of these like green metallic ones or, you know, one of these like tiny, tiny golden ones that's like smaller than you can possibly imagine.
I don't know. It really like fills me with a different level of wonder that I think is like a really important thing for people to feel. And regular life doesn't really afford that many chances to feel that.
So if I can create an opportunity for somebody to feel that and maybe even change in a sort of lasting way their relationship with bees or whatever it is, foxes. I think that's like making something possible that, you know, only through that art was that person's relationship maybe going to change with that thing.
Neil:
When I approached you about doing this podcast and I reached out to you once I saw your Hooded Merganser on Lansdowne, I started realizing how many pieces of art you've done around the city and you've done the bee you're talking about, Sweat Bee, I think it's called.
Nick:
Yep.
Neil:
And you've done a whale shark.
Nick:
I have.
Neil:
Right. So my kids and I have been seeing that whale shark all over the place.
That's you.
Nick:
Yep.
Neil:
So it's animals only that you do or is it all animals?
Nick:
I'm really only interested in painting animals and sort of like, you know, that's where I ground things. And then what I love to do is paint light. Animals sort of are the structure around which I do what I really enjoy, which is pushing color around and, you know, expressing the beauty of light and the beauty of sort of my way of seeing reality, which is, I think, informed by a lot of different things, art that I'm inspired by.
Yeah.
Neil:
Well, what do you mean light? What do you mean painting light? What is drawing you to light?
I see the sun reflecting off the greenhouse-domed DuPont station behind you. We're in the speckly shadows right now with light coming through the trees. I see the shadow of a rock pigeon.
Oh, actually, that was a hawk. I think it was a hawk that was whipping down the street right there.
Nick:
There's definitely some hawks that fly around here.
Neil:
Yeah. So I think it was a hawk that just went by, a red-tailed hawk. I see the shadow of that.
I see light bouncing on your wall. In your birds, you've got like, you're using eight, nine, ten colors for the eyeballs. You've got like light reflecting up.
You've got like, you know, all kinds of light going off the feathers. But what is this? Open that up for me.
I'm trying to paint light.
Nick:
Well, we see everything because light bounces off that thing into our eyes. And there are different ways that painters over the years have learned to trick our eyes into thinking it's seeing something that it's not. Like a really obvious example would be like painting a shadow and a highlight on something so that it looks three-dimensional to the eye.
I think what I really like to do is explore, you know, through a lot of the time through photography, how light can be like expressed in paint. You know, looking at the piece right here, how, for example, right now that branch beside the blue jay looks a little bit flat. It's like really only a couple of medium to dark browns right now that are filling that silhouette.
What I need to do is start adding lighter browns to that top side so that it will start to look a little bit more three-dimensional. It will look like there's a space at the top of that that curves away from us and thus light from above is hitting it. Wow, right?
So we have all these tricks that you and I as viewers of art just take for granted that artists have learned to take advantage of because our eyes can be tricked. And so our brains can have this like crazy understanding of what we're seeing that actually isn't there. You know, it's like really not a blue jay, obviously, but because of the lights and darks, the patterns of lights and darks I've put on the wall with these cans, that's all you're going to see.
You're never going to look at that wall and not see a blue jay. Now it's like, yeah, that light from below is like bouncing up into it.
Neil:
Wow. Now what color are you doing?
Nick:
It's called pink panther.
Neil:
Whoa. So you're picking up those pinks and purples from down here.
Nick:
So now I want to get a little bit warmer as I get lighter, which is one of my tricks for making that glow that you know from all my shit.
Neil:
So how do you do that?
Nick:
Well, to do a glow, you're basically moving from dark to light and getting smaller as you go inwards. So you go from like a dark blue to a slightly lighter blue to a slightly lighter blue to a slightly lighter blue to a slightly lighter blue until you're at white. White's in the middle, right?
Well, when you do a glow like I do, you're not only moving up in lightness, you're moving down the hue spectrum. So you're going lighter, but also closer to warm. So you're going from dark blue, which is that really dark color to a slightly lighter purple to a slightly lighter purple to a slightly lighter pink.
Neil:
Okay, okay. I can't, I can't believe this. This is amazing how deep you're like, how much you look, how much you see out of that.
Nick:
I read this book in as part of my master's thesis that was all about the biology of seeing like how really like the brain and I work together to produce vision. And I think vision, you need to understand vision as like those two things always working together. You are never seeing without your understanding coming into play.
And that's like a pre-conscious thing that happens.
Neil:
Wow.
Nick:
Right?
You could never like, we could never look at that object without our understanding of bicycles and, um, you know, um, uh, vehicles for moving children around, you know, our culture, uh, will always speak to, uh, speak to us through that object because of our understanding of, does that make sense?
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the pre-cognitive idea of vision being something that is a lens through which we filter the entire world without perception is amazing.
Uh, you know, um, and so to play with that and toy with that and to give people like, like any book, like Harold and the Purple Crayon, the Purple Crayon is transporting Harold from where he is to where he wants to be endlessly through like peril and intrigue and adventure. And then back in his bed and he goes to sleep as like, whoa, for what that can do to stimulate and provoke your imagination and what you do in your art. Like I can, I can think of no better formative book.
Like the, the lie, the throughput to what you do now is so clear. Did that make you want to pick up a can of spray paint? Like what, what, what drew you to the form?
Nick:
No, you know, it's funny. Like he does, he's sort of like drawing on the walls, right? Like it's a bit of a, like, it's a reference to like that, that trope, you know, Calvin and Hobbes and like so many others of like the kid gets a hold of the crayons and doesn't want to color on the paper.
They want to color on the walls. Um, I never really put Harold and graffiti together. Uh, as much as they do have a kind of resonance now, I see, but like, it never was that for me.
Um, when I, when I got into graffiti, I was never thinking, oh, just like Harold, you know, and, and, and thinking about Harold as an adult, uh, and the meaning behind that I never put it with graffiti, which to me was sort of like always, uh, always sort of an act of defiance.
Neil:
Yeah.
Nick:
Like Harold, to me, isn't about defiance. He's about creation. Yeah.
Neil:
He's not about defiance. It's about creation.
Nick:
Harold isn't trying to reject a reality and use the crayon to select a new reality. Harold is given no reality. He starts with a blank page and starts from scratch.
Like he builds everything from the ground up. Um, I don't really see graffiti that way. Graffiti requires something to reject, to fight against.
Uh, I think graffiti requires the city walls on which it is painted, um, to, you know, close in on the graffiti artists and make them feel like, ah, I need to like act out against this, uh, this imposing force of like capitalism and, and, uh, whatever message corporate messaging. Yeah.
Neil:
So this is the back of the house finch, which I think is the largest bird on the wall.
Nick:
It is definitely the largest bird.
Neil:
You made the house finch, the smallest bird bigger than the red-tailed hawk and the turkey vulture. How did you decide to do that? What was your, what was your goal?
Nick:
Uh, I don't know when I was laying it out, it just looked good coming way up high like that. I thought I don't want to do this small. I want it to be very prominent.
Neil:
What do you picture him saying?
Nick:
Uh, he's kind of like, hey, what's, what's going on over here? What are you doing over there? He's Italian. Hey, what's going on over there? What's going on over there?
Neil:
Yeah. Oh, go, please keep doing this. Tell me what the birds are saying.
Neighborhood Dad:
Yeah. This beak's fucking disgusting. Yeah.
You disgust me too. That's the first thing he says. Yeah.
You fucking disgust me.
Neil:
What's the starling saying, Nick?
Nick:
I don't know. I'm not a performing monkey right now.
Neil:
Okay. Okay. So now we're going to a book that I think you read in high school, which is, okay, it is The Day of the Triffids, T-R-I-F-F-I-D-S by John Wyndham.
The original cover of this book is insane. It's a giant bright yellow book with a pen and ink drawing of like a, like a, like a Georgian European square with like a fountain and like, you know, three, four story tall, like kind of mid 1800s buildings. And then, but in the foreground is like, is like an animal.
It's like a, it's like a tiny Brachiosaurus made out of leaves.
Nick:
It's not an animal, actually.
Neil:
This book is published in 1951 by Michael Joseph Publishing.
And basically it's about, it's a novel. Our second John Wyndham book ever on the top 1000, by the way, number 975 on our countdown is The Chrysalids given to us in chapter 10 by Ilan Masai.
Nick:
Great book.
Great book.
Neil:
That's a great book. So this is written by John Wyndham.
He lived from 1903 to 1969 in England.
Nick:
I'm going to get a little close to you.
Neil:
Yeah, I can move over.
He's known for writing post-apocalyptic science fiction. And basically what happens is there's this interstellar event, like the equivalent of like a comet or like something going by. Everybody looks at it.
But our protagonist is talking about how he's in a hospital getting eye surgery that day. And he's so sad and upset that he misses this thing. But then he takes the bandages off the next day and everyone else in the world has gone blind.
Because when looking at this thing, it makes you blind the next day. He's one of the very few people left on Earth that can see. And then it's this post-apocalyptic thing with these plants that have always existed.
They start wandering around and like killing people.
Nick:
Right. So basically, one of the things you sort of have to accept in this book is that the Earth is populated by these plants called triffids, which are carnivorous plants. They have a whip-like sting that they deploy to catch prey.
And they essentially are these sightless dangers wherever they grow. And so humanity sort of, as they do with all things that are a danger to them, have sort of tamed them. And so the book starts in this world where humanity has realized, oh, damn, these triffids have a super valuable oil that they produce.
And so they've made farms where they farm triffids. They grow them. And those farms are really dangerous places to work because of the stings of these triffids.
So this guy, the main character, is working at a triffids farm. And a juvenile triffids stings his protective mask. And so some of the venom from the triffids stings him in the eye.
And so that's why he's in the hospital when this whatever astronomical event occurs that blinds everyone else in the world. And yeah, so the triffids, once everyone is blinded, are suddenly no longer at a disadvantage in our world. Humanity can't see, can't avoid them anymore.
And so they sort of take over society and prey on these blind humans that are everywhere trying to live their lives without sight for the first time ever.
Neil:
This is a crazy book. I mean, it's a crazy 75 year old. It's a post-apocalyptic, like scary as hell.
Nick:
Yeah.
Neil:
And you're in high school. You're reading this.
So how is this thing formative to you?
Nick:
Well, I think what it really showed me was literature could be really wild and wacky. This to me is sort of like a precursor to the zombie genre.
Neil:
Yeah. You're outline the ruby throated hummingbird's tail with purple as you do this.
Nick:
Yeah. I'm punching some color into this background because this was all raw concrete.
And so it's a little bit thin in some places. The color just looks like not as robust. So I'm just trying to robustify it.
Got to robustify wherever you can. I need one more color. So maybe think of a really nice wordy question starting right now.
Neil:
Okay. Well, wait, I still want to. So I get why the book is like a big deal to you.
The zombie genre, I still want to hear more about how it was shaping you. Like you're a high school kid. You're reading this for fun.
This isn't an assigned book, right? This is like a fun book. So Nick, the high school student is picking up John Wyndham on the side because you were probably assigned the chrysalids or something.
Nick:
Yes.
Neil:
Why was it? Why formative?
How did this change you, shape you, affect you, change your mind? But what did this do for you?
Nick:
I think it just was sort of outside of the normal literature that I thought.
Neil:
So you're like books can do this.
Nick:
Books can do this. It was when I reread it later in life, like after high school. I can't remember when.
Probably in university. When I reread it, I realized, oh, it really is like a beautiful, a beautifully written sort of piece about almost morality. Like I think the main character's sense of duty to his fellow man is very strong in the beginning of the story.
Neil:
Do you think we have obligations to others? Isn't that what society is? Isn't that what community is?
Nick:
I think we absolutely do. I think those people who have, have a duty to the people who do not have. And in general, I think society largely fails to look after the people who don't have because most people don't think it's their problem to look after anyone but themselves.
Neil:
Well, it's kind of like democratic capitalism.
Nick:
Yeah, I think capitalism is a huge problem.
Neil:
What's your vote for?
Nick:
Who's my vote for?
Neil:
Yeah, what system do you vote for?
Nick:
Well, we don't have a better one, unfortunately, right now. So I don't really know what to vote for other than the person who is doing the least shitty things.
Neil:
Yeah.
Nick:
Well, I don't have a lot of faith in our current system of government, to be honest with you. It doesn't seem to really produce good leaders and the people who do seem to be good people don't seem to succeed in the same way as the corrupt. It just feels like the system is stacked against good people and in favor of those willing to uphold the status quo.
Neil:
Yeah.
Nick:
Maintain corporate power and just like destruction of the environment.
Neil:
And it's that capitalistic power that also is, I'm assuming in a lot of senses, paying for your livelihood. Corporations are what buys your murals most, right?
Nick:
That's one really difficult thing for me, ethically, about what I do is the fact that without TD Bank, there would be no Bump Festival. Bump Festival was what saved me this summer, got me out of the debt that I was in. It was a really great experience.
It was a chance to see Calgary and paint a huge mural about climate change. But it was funded by TD Bank and TD Bank has all kinds of investments in the oil and gas sector and probably in countries that we're going to war with.
Neil:
They just got busted, actually, for doing all this Colombian drug funneling through the U.S. They got a huge billion dollar fine.
Nick:
TD is fucked. TD are horrible.
Neil:
Yeah, but we take their money. We'll take their money.
Nick:
I have to get the paychecks that come my way. Would I want to paint a mural on a fucking oil field to make that oil field look better to the community? Hell no.
Would I want to greenwash some corporation with my art? No. But I guess that's sort of like arguably in some ways what I am already doing, you know, by like making the Bump Festival look good.
You could argue making Bump look good is making TD look good is supporting the status quo. I don't know. It's a really hard thing.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. Well, the fact that you're willing to let your mind go there and hang out there and kind of weigh these moral back and forth is a big, in some sense, a big reflection of this book. I mean, that's quite a pull from this book.
You're thinking about it in a lot of different perspectives.
Nick:
I mean, one thing that's cool about Day of the Triffids is, and I think the zombie genre really like gets away with not doing this because it's so much more fun to have all the characters die at the end of a zombie movie than it is to go, OK, so how are we going to move forward and like live as a society? And Day of the Triffids really tries to answer that. It goes, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who's going to read it, but, you know, they try and establish a way of life that is protected from the Triffids and allows them to, you know, still have a sense of community altogether.
And I don't remember where I was.
Neil:
Well, this is interesting to me because like humans are the king of the planet right now. Like there was 100 million of us 100 years ago. Now there's 9 billion of us.
Like we took over. We eat other things. We kill other things.
Nick:
Right.
Neil:
We rule the planet. Like we eat other things for breakfast.
Literally, you know, like we are the bosses here. We took over.
Nick:
And what you're describing is the most problematic attitude that humanity has.
Neil:
Right. And then your book, The Day of the Triffids and your next book, which is even more goes down this path
Nick:
This is a really good segue, I see where you're going here and bravo
Neil:
which is a nonfiction book.
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.
Nick:
This is a masterclass in segues, guys. That was an absolute masterclass in segues.
Neil:
2007 Saint Martins. That's a white background. There's a city skyline.
I got New York City here. It's like the Empire State Building. But in the foreground are like deer, broken concrete, broken buildings, grass growing out of the sidewalks.
It's like called The World Without Us. Basically, this journalist took a look at like what would happen to the earth if humans suddenly disappeared? Follows on a 3-0-4 point to social sciences, sociology, anthropology, social behavior, human ecology.
Like what would happen to the earth if humans suddenly disappeared? Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservationists, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders, paleontologists.
Nick:
My favorite nonfiction book ever.
Neil:
Why are you so drawn to the idea of like what would happen to the world without us?
Nick:
It gives me hope that the damage we're doing is not permanent. I know that lots of things are permanent. If you've read the book, you know that lots of changes that we've made to the planet will be around for thousands of years.
Neil:
Plastics, like millions.
Nick:
Plastics, millions, yeah. Nuclear waste in the millions.
Our radio signals will be like traveling outside the planet for a super long time. I think that's the longest. But yeah, nuclear waste and plastic are the two big things that we've really added to the planet that are not going to go anywhere anytime soon.
There's a lot of stuff we've added that's killed a lot of things too. Yeah. So I don't know if you...
You said you didn't read it?
Neil:
I have read the whole book.
Nick:
You've read it?
Neil:
I love it.
Amazing.
Nick:
So that chapter on storing nuclear waste, how our solution is basically dig a giant hole and then lock it up and put every language on Earth, never open this. That's the solution.
Neil:
That's what we got to, yeah.
Nick:
And when we fill that up, we make another one. That's our fucking solution to like a major, major environmental hazard.
Neil:
Oh my God. That chapter hit me hard.
Nick:
You know, and we're making more nuclear power all the time. Nuclear capacity is increasing all over the planet. And all of those reactors are creating nuclear waste every day.
That is going to have to go somewhere.
Neil:
And that's just one chapter. The book is chapter by chapter by chapter. You're drawing a mural here of local birds.
So the two chapters on birds, just the idea that the domestic cat, it's a new thing. One in three families now have a domestic cat. 50 years ago, no one had one.
Nick:
So that's another one of the irreparable changes we've made in the world.
Neil:
It kills 290 million birds per year just in rural Wisconsin.
Nick:
Crazy.
Neil:
Just in one half of one state where they've checked it.
Nick:
Yeah. This has become a really widely known fact since I started reading or first read this book.
Neil:
Well, 2007, yeah. 15 years. Now everyone knows. Now everybody knows this.
They let their cats out.
Nick:
But I was one of the first people in my circles saying cats are murderers, you guys. Cats are murderers. They are beautiful, intelligent, fascinating animals.
They are murderers.
Neil:
They're domestic, killing wild. That's a big thing.
Nick:
They love to kill. The fact is we used weasels to protect our crops before we used cats. And we switched to cats because cats are more enthusiastic about killing.
They will kill way after they're hungry. They just want to kill.
Neil:
Well, and that's the thing.
Nick:
That's what makes them way better for protecting the crop.
Neil:
In Canada, I looked it up, they kill 100 million songbirds a year just in Canada. 100 million songbirds a year.
Nick:
We've brought cats to every part of the globe where the reptiles, rodents, and small birds have never evolved next to cats. They have never faced a predator this small and agile and thirsty for death.
Neil:
And they show that the domestic cats are the same species as jungle cats.
Nick:
Yeah.
Neil:
They're the same species. You've got a ruby-throated hummingbird, like you are about six feet tall. You've got a ruby-throated hummingbird behind you that's like five feet tall, like a huge one, right?
This is a three-ounce bird. It loses half of its body weight flying over the Gulf of Mexico. And you know what it finds on the other half of the Gulf of Mexico, Nick?
Feral cats that just fucking murder them as soon as they land.
Nick:
So sad.
Neil:
It's unbelievable.
Nick:
Cruel, guys. Yeah. You know, cats will just be a whole new kind of creature, I guess, when humans disappear.
They'll all go feral, and they'll interbreed until they're sort of an amalgam of all the breeds. And there will be a North American wildcat. There will be a South American wildcat.
These things will just pour out of cities and go into the woods and just wreak havoc.
Neil:
And this book— It'll be insane. And when you talk like that, it's like, this book gives me not hope, but this book gives you hope.
Nick:
Well, what it shows you is in not that much time when you sort of think on a geological scale. I think in the book, it's like it's about 200 years, and every city on earth would be gone without a trace.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah.
Nick:
That is exciting to me. That makes me feel like— That's exciting to me. That makes me feel like all the trees were cutting down, all the animals were making go extinct, all the waterways were poisoning with industry and transportation.
All the creeks of Toronto are buried. They're on the roads. They'll come back up.
All these things that we've done to damage what was there before us are not irreversible.
Neil:
Yeah, irreparable or whatever, yeah.
Nick:
Are not like this death of things. It's just sort of like a reorganizing of things, a reshuffling of certain things.
Neil:
Well, geological time scale is kind of a hard place for most people to live. Like, you know, our lives are 30,000 days long. They feel very long.
Obviously, they're very short. Yet, if you put humans back to back 100 years after 100 years, you know, our species is only really evolved for like, whatever it is, like 100 lifetimes or something like it's— Like all of modern antiquity is only like something like 60 to 100 lifetimes old. If you multiply it by 100 years to 100 years.
Nick:
That's crazy.
Neil:
Like 6,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago. And our species in general is only 300,000 years old. Like birds.
There's birds that are like 90 million, like owls are 90 million years old. There's loons that are 100 million years old. There's birds that are dinosaurs.
They are dinosaurs. Like loons don't even have hollow bones because their bones have not evolved to be hollow yet.
Nick:
I did know that the loon is the oldest bird on Earth.
Neil:
They take a quarter mile of water to take off. Unchanged the longest. You know what kills loons, by the way?
Wet parking lots of big superstores that from the sky look like lakes. So they land on them and then they have no water to take off again. And they just wander around till they die because loons— They can't walk.
Well, they migrate. They breed on freshwater lakes like all the whole Minnesota, Ontario. But then they live on the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean the other half of the year.
They're like totally black birds. So they have to migrate from— So they go from like here to New Jersey and you got to make a flight. You know how many malls you pass?
You land. You can't get back up again. They say if you ever see a loon walking around, transport it to water.
Nick:
Yeah.
Neil:
Because it can't get to water. It needs water to take off.
Nick:
That's really tough.
Neil:
And we're going to— Like I said, we're going to— If you're not watching this on YouTube, go to YouTube, 3 Books, Nick Sweetman, Neil Pasricha. And we're going to put a time-lapse video of him drawing this thing because it's the visual that's really crazy.
But to talk to the muralist behind it and get his formative books is real eye-opening. I read this book. I love this book.
I got a dog ear. I got flapped. I got papers everywhere.
I mean, look, I want to tell you about this. Page 55 in this book, it says this. In New York, the European starling, which again, you have a seven-foot European starling over your left shoulder.
Now a ubiquitous avian pest from Alaska to Mexico was introduced because someone thought the city, New York, would be more cultured if Central Park were home to every bird ever mentioned in Shakespeare. So they're like, oh, starlings were in Shakespeare. Let's bring some starlings.
They took over. You ever see a bluebird in Toronto? No, but they used to be here.
But guess who stole all their nests? The European starling. But now I talked to J.
Drew Lamb about this. He's like, okay, non-native species, what's your problem? It sounds a lot like— He said it sounds like slavery to him.
You say, oh, a non-native species comes here, you decry that. Well, he's like, there's nothing against the Eurasian collared dove. So maybe that's just the way things work.
But we have these pests that take over, like house sparrows have taken over. Cats are taken over. I love the fact that on page 86 of this book, it asks you why this question.
Why aren't Africa's big mammals extinct? Because we've made all the big mammals extinct in Australia. We've made all the big mammals extinct in South America.
We've made all the big mammals extinct in North America. We've made all the big mammals extinct in Asia. So why are the big mammals not extinct in Africa?
Because we're from Africa, and we co-evolved with them. Here, humans and megafauna evolved together. Unlike unsuspecting American, Australia, Polynesian, and Caribbean herbivores, who had no inkling of how dangerous we were when we arrived, African animals had the chance to adjust as our presence increased.
So that's why big game only exists in Africa still. Because they got used to us. We didn't just show up on rafts and kill it all.
Nick:
Another answer to that question is, big game in Africa produce a ton of wealth for the countries that have been able to preserve their habitat. My sister lives in Tanzania, and her husband is Maasai. And they've told me that basically, the reason there are so many national parks in Tanzania is there are so many wealthy people that want to come and shoot these animals and also look at them.
Neil:
You mean hunting them is still a thing?
Nick:
They make a ton of money selling hunting licenses for big game. And so it's actually the killing of big game in a controlled manner that it makes it possible for us to still see giraffes and animals, giraffes and lions and elephants in these game preserves.
Because part of the game preserve is set up for hunting, and part of the game preserve is set up for viewing animals. And so, you know, is it awful that these beautiful animals are still being shot by snipers in a totally legal way? Yes, of course.
And it's horrible, too, how many indigenous tribes are being kicked off their land by the government so that rich sheiks can come and just shoot whatever animals they want. It's, like, disgusting. But at the same time, those tourist dollars fund a lot of the conservation and research that leads to preserving those animals.
So it's, like, a really tough kind of, like, question. Like, is that a good or a bad thing? I think as long as it's done in a controlled way and we don't lose those species, you know, I guess that's the way.
Neil:
But we are losing species.
Nick:
But we are losing species.
Neil:
There's 11,000 species of birds.
We've lost, like, 100 of them already. We shot the passenger pigeon to death just out of the sky and ate it.
Nick:
Sorry, bud.
Neil:
You know, into the 1920s, 30s. You know, we're just murdering. We're cats.
Nick:
We're the worst.
Neil:
We're the domestic cats.
Nick:
Humans are the worst. And I don't mean, you know, the indigenous tribes that have learned to coexist with nature in a sustainable way. I don't mean all the amazing, you know, new technologies and cultures that are developing to deal with the situations that we're in.
But for the most part, I think people don't really live in a sustainable way. If you look at history, one of the books I didn't select, but A Short History of Progress is a great one.
Neil:
Oh, I love that book.
Nick:
Yeah. And what they talk about in there is like, really, humans have never lived within our limits. Mesopotamia was like a beautiful, rich, you know, what's now Afghanistan was this beautiful, rich jungle.
And we cut all the fucking trees down. And then the river brought all the, like, silt. And, you know, we couldn't grow things anymore.
I don't remember exactly how it all happened. But we basically like we don't we don't listen to the the Earth's carrying capacity ever. We never have.
Neil:
To that point, on page 185 of this book, it says that we have taken over 3% of the Earth for where we live, like towns, cities and stuff. That's 3% of the land. But we've cultivated 12% of the land.
Like we've four times the space of where we live. We've also taken over just to like make things, you know, 12% of the total landmass. That's a lot.
Nick:
Keep talking.
Neil:
That's a lot. This is partly why I love that.
This is you painting this on like a concrete jungle like this is you're painting this somewhere where there isn't much nature around. Yet all these birds are seen within the vicinity.
Nick:
And I mean, like, yeah, I think if I can change anything about people's understanding of their place in the world, it would be. Well, just because we're in a city doesn't mean we're not in the environment. The environment is the word that we use to mean things other than we built, other than what we built.
But everything that exists is part of the environment. Like this pavement is part of the environment. You wouldn't believe how many things come fucking running out of the wall when you start spray painting a wall.
All over the place. Things live in these little holes. Things live in the cracks.
Things live in the like underbrush at the base of the wall. I feel bad. Like sometimes a spider will walk by and it's clear.
I just like doused him in color.
Neil:
Oh no.
Nick:
And, you know, like I just have to kill those spiders because they're not gonna clean themselves. That toxic, you know, paint is all over them. I feel bad a lot of the time.
Sometimes, you know, a big nice spider just has a horrible end because, you know, I'm painting this wall. A parking lot has wildlife in it. You know, it has caterpillars or butterflies or weird beetles or potato bugs.
You know, a potato bug is a crustacean. Did you know there's a crustacean walking around your parking lot? You know, like I just think when people are given a chance, and it has to be a chance that they give themselves, but also an opportunity that's maybe presented to them by someone else.
When they give themselves a chance to become fascinated by the local nature around them, there is really like you can have that sense of wonder that you get looking at elephants, giraffes, jungles, whales. I think, you know, like it really is spectacular. One of the things that I think as an adult, I appreciate in a totally different way than when I was a kid and learned about these things.
You know, as a child, you learn that giraffes have long necks and elephants have trunks and whales are mammals and caterpillars eat leaves until they make a freaking house around themselves and then grow wings.
Neil:
And completely dissolve.
Nick:
Dissolve, turn into a winged creature that then, like in the case of the monarch butterfly, flies almost all the way from where we are right now to Mexico. You know, like that is insane to me. And it's sort of like just something that we all take for granted.
Like this little worm thing becomes a butterfly. Yep. I don't know.
When you look at the way a butterfly's wing moves, it's this stock that just goes up and down. And this membrane creates a ripple that pushes it through the air. Like it's the most amazing.
It doesn't look like it knows what it's doing, but it knows exactly what it's doing. It's the most amazing feat, you know, of evolution. And I think we all just sort of go, yeah, like, yeah, butterflies are around there.
Of course, they're around. I just love, I love drawing attention to these things that are kind of basic, maybe. You know, I did a painting of a tick this year.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Nick:
I tried to make the tick so majestic and like beautiful. When I went to Australia, their version of a raccoon is this type of ibis that they call a bin chicken.
They're kind of ugly. They have this like vulture-y like skin.
Neil:
Yeah.
Nick:
And they look all beat up, and they're like rooting through the garbage. But like I painted one there, and I gave it a crown, and I tried to make it look really majestic. And people were like, oh, this bin chicken's beautiful.
Like, you know, I like to like give those animals that are maybe scowled upon.
Neil:
That's why you got the turkey vulture in there. Yeah, you're not just picking beautiful birds, right? You're picking all the birds.
Nick:
I like painting the possum, you know, painting the like jellyfish, or like the weird gross thing that doesn't have a face. That's all cute and cuddly. I like to paint cute, cuddly things too.
And like, depending on what it is, I'll paint like beautiful animals that get painted all the time, like a tiger or a cheetah or something.
Neil:
But you like bringing beauty to the things that are not inherently thought of as beautiful.
Nick:
Yes.
Neil:
What do you think of this painting, man? This is the painter right here. Yeah.
Yeah. You've been watching? Come say something on the microphone.
We're talking right now. Give us your view.
Nick:
This guy has a sick fit on right now. What do you, what's his outfit?
Neil:
It's like a cheetah. It's like a cheetah outfit, like a purple cheetah.
Nick:
Damn. This is Nick, Nick Sweetman.
Neil:
He's made of this. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you.
It's called 3 Books. I'm interviewing about what books change his life. What do you think of the wall?
Neighborhood Man:
Man, it's amazing. I mean, we went from blah and blank.
Neil:
Yeah.
Neighborhood Man:
Like now it looks like somebody lives here, you know?
Neil:
Yeah. We live here. Birds live here. There's no pigeons anymore. The birds are scaring them off. But you know.
Nick:
That's the Blue Jay. Yeah. No, there's no cardinal.
That's a hawk. Yeah. There's a red-tailed hawk.
Yep.
Neil:
Tell me which one. Give us. They're all found in Toronto.
Do you want? They're all locals. Is there one of them you want to talk about?
We can talk to you about one of them or two of them. Which one are you interested in?
Nick:
That was really cool.
Neil:
This is a woodpecker here. Northern flicker. Yeah.
This is a rose-breasted gross beak. That's a migrating bird. It comes from Belize.
Nick:
This is like the third time that people listening to this podcast are going to listen to Neil.
Neil:
Well, it's okay. This is a scarlet tanager. By the way, some people call it a red-winged blackbird.
Some people call that a black-winged redbird. It's just kind of a reversi. Yeah.
Well, Nick's thinking about getting a legend here or something. But thanks for saying all that. Changes the neighborhood.
I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Respect.
Nick:
In conclusion.
Neil:
In conclusion. From big to small, from high to low, from legal to illegal, from.
Nick:
From red to blue.
Neil:
From on the street to in the wild.
Nick:
From yellow to purple.
Neil:
To sort of examining our existence at the biggest and smallest scales. Nick Sweetman, it's a real pleasure, a delight. The stuff you add to the city.
I'm worried this thing's going to get painted over. That's my worry. What if someone comes and tags it, then what happens?
Nick:
I don't think it's going to get tagged. But as with anything, it could be ruined tomorrow.
Neil:
Well, the thing about the world without us, you know, like nothing lasts. This is a bit of a tribute to impermanence.
Nick:
Art form is ephemeral. Mural art is sort of. It's like it sort of plays this game of being permanent, like murals are always sort of like, oh, yeah, we're going to put this mural up and then it'll be there forever.
No, murals are just like any other thing. Painting on a wall there, you know, they're subject to the elements and the building falling down or getting destroyed or other people painting over it. You know, we can hope.
Neil:
I think it'll last a long time, but I think it'll last a long time. Nick Sweetman, a joy, a pleasure. The delight, the vibrancy, the art you bring to the city, to the world.
Thank you so much for coming on 3 Books. It's been a real pleasure.
Nick:
If I can quote one of the leaves on this wall. Thanks, Neil P.
Neil:
Thank you. Hey, everybody, it's just me, just Neil again, hanging out in my basement, not on the brown couch like I usually am, but this time in my office because I'm recording video for this one as well. You can't have Nick's incredible graffiti wall on a video and just be audio.
So I figured I got to be on video, too. It's the least I could do to kind of match where he's at. The wall is stunning, beautiful, fills me with joy.
It's one of the best pieces of public art, I think, in the entire city. And, you know, there's so many lessons to take away from here. I pulled out some quotes like I always do.
Nick says, art is a bridge to what's possible. You know, as cities change, I don't know what your city is like, but Toronto is changing fast. There are skyscrapers.
There are more cranes in Toronto than any other city in North America by a factor of more than two to one. So the city is going kind of from a small, condensed, concentrated city to like a world of Shanghai level kind of skyscrapers quickly. And as that happens, you know, we lose public space.
We lose art. We lose nature. But we can build it back.
That's kind of what Nick's teaching me. He makes it feel like we live in a natural landscape. And he creates these beautiful picturesque places that you can completely fall into and that can act like sacred spaces in a lot of ways.
Art really is a bridge to what's possible. This quote was funny. Nick said, you got to robustify it however you can.
I watched Nick say on that mural, I'm done. Then the next day, he'd come back and say, oh, you know what? The blue jay, its stomach is a little too wide.
Let me fix that up. I don't think the eye on the cedar wax has enough attitude. So I got to work on the colors.
He'd kind of repaint the eye. Then he'd come back the next day and say, you know what? I think the color behind the hummingbird should be a little lighter so that the hummingbird pops.
This went on day after day. He's like, I think we're done. But he was never done.
He kept wanting to make it better. And there is something about striving for continuous improvement there that I just personally am attracted to. We got to be careful.
I know Leslie and I always worry about pushing our kids too hard. You want to avoid that. But you got to robustify it however you can.
If you can make something better, go for it. Nick Sweetman, a pleasure and a privilege to have you on 3 Books. And thank you for adding three more books to our top 1,000, all three of which I've read and loved, including number 580, Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.
So metaphorically perfect for a muralist, for a spray paint artist. Basically, Harold spray paints a new reality, as kind of Nick is doing in his own life. Number 579, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.
That was a new book on our top 1,000. But for those that have listened to chapter 10 with Elan Mastai, The Chrysalids coming in at number 975 was our first John Wyndham. So now we have two John Wyndham books on the list.
And number 578, The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. I can't recommend this book enough. Didn't get enough press and coverage.
It's 10 years old, but one that's scientific, but journalistically written. So it's really fun and entertaining to read. What would happen to the world if humans disappeared?
But it's told in a way that is less of a thought experiment and more of a fascinating kind of pro-nature way of looking at the world. As Nick said, it gives him hope that the damage that we're doing here is not permanent. Thank you so much to all of you for listening.
And thank you so much to Nick Sweetman for coming on 3 Books. And now, if you made it past the three-second pause, I want to welcome you back to the end of the podcast club. This is one of three clubs that we have for Three Books listeners, including the cover to cover club.
Sorry, not the chapter to chapter club. The cover to cover club. People listening to every single chapter of the show from 2018 to 2040.
No small feat. 22 years of attempting to listen to every single chapter. And of course, The Secret Club, which I can't tell you more about.
But you can listen for clues. The best way to find the clue is to call our phone number 1-833-READALOT and to get a ticket into our analog only fan club. But of course, let's kick off the end of the podcast club, as we always do, by going to the phones.
Mary:
Hi, Neil. I am Mary from Belgium. I wanted to drop you a message to thank you for your podcast.
3 Books is like a literary treasure hunt, and I'm loving every chapter. It's the perfect blend of wisdom and wit, like having a book club with the world's most interesting people. I'm a mother of two young children and working full time, so it's not always easy to find time to read.
But listening to you and your guests always reignites my motivation to do so. I'm lucky because I grew up in a house full of books, and I was one of these kids who would compulsively re-read Harry Potter novels until the next one in the series came out. My best friend is a librarian.
I'm a bit jealous of her job, I must admit. But with you, I am reminded that I belong to this exclusive club of book lovers. So thanks again, especially for turning my to-be-read pile into a mountain.
I'm looking forward to the next chapters of the 3 Book journey and hope to follow along for many new moons. Bye.
Neil:
Most interesting people and a perfect combination of wisdom and wit. I could listen to you all day. Thank you so much for calling.
And of course, as always, if I play your voicemail, that means you get a free book. Drop me a line. Let me know your address and I will drop one in the mail.
You get to pick the book. I've got about 10 to choose from. There's a pile in the basement just outside this little door that I'm recording from, and my wife, Leslie, will be happy to have one less on the shelf.
All right. So we've done that. Do you want to do a letter of the chapter?
I guess we did a letter at the beginning. Should we do another one? Well, actually, you know what?
I'll do a sequel for the letter that we got from Barbie Wells from Goodyear, Arizona. I wrote back to her, and then she wrote back again and said, guess what? Today I listened to the conversation you had with Mark Manson.
And I have to say, it blew my mind in a good way and gave me so much to think about. I have seen his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And I must admit, I prejudged him as being full of himself.
And I thought, oh, geez, here we go again with another slick marketing ploy. But that wasn't the case whatsoever. I found him to be a truly humble and very articulate and authentic person who really cares about the craft of writing and does not want to be another one of those self-help gurus.
What an amazing conversation. I might have to listen to one of that one again. Thanks so much, Barbie.
Mark Manson, by the way, was our guest back on chapter 28. At that time, I think it was probably 2018, 2019, he didn't have his follow-up book, Everything is Fucked, out. That's the name of the book.
Part of my language, but that's the name of the book. Nor had he launched his YouTube channel, which has just done gangbusters. So I'm like a little videophobic, right?
Like I'm sitting here right now recording video like, oh my gosh, does my hair look okay? Oh, my face is shiny. Oh my gosh, I have to record.
He's the opposite. Mark is videophilic. He is just like, bam.
If you haven't checked out his YouTube channel, do check it out. He's putting all of his wisdom, of which he has much, into this new medium. And it's just wonderful.
I think he's already got something like 2 million people following him on YouTube. So if you don't follow Mark on YouTube, that is a good place to kind of find him these days. All right.
And now it is time for our word of the chapter. For this chapter's word, let's, of course, go back to Mr. Nick Sweetman. Graffiti requires something to reject.
Yes, indeed. The word is graffiti. Usually the unauthorized writing or drawing on a public surface, Miriam Webster, come on, we can do a little better than that.
Wikipedia has got a little more fulsome definition. Graffiti is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. I like those two little add-ins.
Usually without permission, not always. In the case of the DuPont subway station in downtown Toronto, there was permission. In fact, it took us six months to get permission.
It took us six months to get permission from the TTC, the Toronto Transit Commission that owns that wall, who was kind and supportive and generous, by the way. Shout out to the construction crew that's been there. Five guys, three of whom were named Tony, by the way, who helped out Nick along the way and the TTC.
They've been really, really supportive. And within public view, that's a key thing. Where did it come from?
By the way, a couple of interesting things about graffiti. First of all, did you know graffiti is actually a plural? The singular form of graffiti is graffito.
Graffito. G-R-A-F-F-I-T-O. Not used very often, but it is graffito.
Both words come from Italian, which means to write. In Italian, the word graffito, or the Italian graffito, is singular, graffiti is plural, means to write. That's all it is.
It comes from Italy. But wait, modern graffiti is a controversial subject. And because in most countries, marking or painting property without permission is vandalism.
Modern graffiti began in the New York City subway station, subway system, and Philadelphia in the early 1970s. How cool is that? That it started 55 years ago in the New York City subway system.
And now here we are today with the latest addition to the city of Toronto, a 750 square foot wall at the corner of DuPont Spadina, also in the subway system. Very cool. Comes from the Italian word for writing.
But did you know, did you know most, most megalithic graffiti symbols date, old ancient ones date between 40,000 and 10,000 years old. The oldest being the cave paintings in Australia. Paintings in the Chauvet Cave were made 35,000 years ago.
But little is known about who made them and why. There is ancient graffiti. Ancient Rome has graffiti 2,400, 2,500 years ago.
Most graffiti from the time boasts about sexual experiences, but also includes word games, such as the in Satur Square, I was here type markings. That's kind of continued to today. Graffiti in ancient Rome was a form of communication and generally was not considered vandalism.
Certain graffiti that was blasphemous was removed, such as the Alexemenos graffiti, which may contain one of the earliest depictions of Jesus. It features a human with the head of a donkey on a cross with the text. Now, medieval graffiti, ancient graffiti, all the way up to today's graffiti.
What a wonderful way to open up a word and talk about it from many different standpoints. It was really interesting to hear Nick's perspective. And he told me off, off recording, that he maintains a strong relationship with both the legal graffiti artists and the illegal graffiti artists of the city, to the point where he doesn't paint over anyone else's graffiti, even if it's a tag or whatever, because he doesn't want to offend anybody and he won't kind of cover their name and they won't cover his kind of thing.
Nick Sweetman, Chapter 144, a pleasure and an honor to share space with you and to create a piece of art together. The very first piece of public art co-created by this three books podcast. Thank you everybody for listening.
We'll be back with another classic chapter on the new moon and of course, a brand new chapter on the next full moon. Until next time, remember everybody that you are what you eat and you are what you read. Keep turning that page and I'll talk to you soon.
Take care.