Woody Guthrie's New Year's Resolutions 1942

(Thanks, Lou!)

• [Brainspore]

  Years later his son Arlo wrote a list of things he wanted to do but it only had one goal. (Hint: not a pickle.)

  • [millie fink]

    Something to do with a motorcy . . . cle?

    (If so, I thought that was a list of things he DIDN’T want to do. . . )

• [HOTDAMN]

  WAKE UP AND FIGHT!

• [darnY]

  Wake up and fight.

• [Mitchell Glaser]

  What terrific penmanship! I would never have guessed.

• [teufelsdrochk]

  Mate, simply put: this is why I come here. 

  Love Guthrie, and here’s a pic which illuminates both the everyday live of Woody, and the everyday life of me. 

• [legotech]

  Arlo likes to tell stories about his dad writing, they have TONS of stuff he’s written that they are starting to set to music…from Arlo’s stories, I think “write a song a day” is something he didn’t have to work on…Arlo likes to say that Woody would write constantly, papers, notebooks, placemats, napkins, tablecloths, pillowcases, people if they didn’t move fast enough :)

  Is this from a cache of Woody’s writings posted someplace?

• [captainjesse]

  I think his penmanship could be influenced by his occupation as a sign painter.

• [Manoj Nair]

  The list has some funny and some thought provoking items. Good collection.

• [millie fink]

  “Learn people better.” 

  Damn straight.

• [bill barminski]

  penmanship is a lost art.  When you see his note book you see this type of perfect art form. 

  and “don’t get lonesome”  well, that makes you feel lonesome just to read it.

• [justinfwest]

  i love “wake up and fight”

• [parrotboy]

  Somehow ‘bed clothes’ just sounds so much cooler than ‘sheets’.

• [carlos benjamin walker]

  reminds me of monk’s rules, my favorites being:

  - what should we wear? sharp as possible!
  - make the drummer sound good

  and of course

  - dont play the piano part, im playing that.
  - they tried to get me to hate white poeple, but someone always would always come along and spoil it!

• [BijouxBoy]

  You Guthrie fans will know this, but is Mary his ex missus? Way down at #24?

  • [Monica]

    Yes, Mary Esta Jennings was his first wife.

• [Hunter Peress]

  Finally. An interesting, cute tidbit that’s not ultra-weird counter culture, ultra heady literary stuff, or Doctorow pimpin’ his book.

  • [dculberson]

    Wow, I think you have perfected the art of the back-handed compliment.  Congrats, you must be a huge hit at parties.

• [Bruce Liles]

  http://ghostofwoodyguthrie.blogspot.com

• [SteveKiwi]

  I’m going to use this list for 2012.

• [Nash Rambler]

  I’m wondering if #30, “Love Pete,” refers to Pete Seeger?  They both would have been in the Almanac Singers around that time.  #33, “Wake Up and Fight,” is probably a direct reference to WWII – the bombing of Pearl Harbor would have occured just a few weeks before this was penned.

• [GP]

  work more and better, work by a schedule, eat healthy, look good, read loads, write a song a day… All this sounds very familiar. I never realized to-do lists could come with 75% of the tasks already pre-printed. 

  Now that I do perhaps I can tick off  my own # 61: invent something that will make me rich…

• [Tommer Peterson]

   Mark. Can you share the source of this?  I am interested in chasing down rights to publish it elsewhere. Thanks!

  • [Becky Wilson]

    According to Lists of Note (
    http://www.listsofnote.com/2011/12/new-years-rulins.html), it’s from The Woody Guthrie Foundation.

• [psulli]

  He even wrote lists that read lyrical.

• [Marko Raos]

  “wash teeth if any”
  wonderful!

• [jimh]

  KEEP HOPING MACHINE RUNNING

  I also like
  MID DLE
  OF
  BO OK
  at the top

• [usuallyconfused]

  Posts like these are the reason that Boing Boing continues to be ” A Directory of Wonderful Things”
   
  Thanks.

• [HogeyeGrex]

  Hmm. Cuts off right before the infamous New Years Rulin’ 34.

• [hcovitz]

  Slightly bigger jpg http://hannamade.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/tumblr_lgbl39omaf1qclnauo1_1280.jpg