Friday Inspiration 483 This is a year old, but WOW, building a scale model of the timeline of the history of the universe in the Mojave Desert—in a day. (video) Anton Krupicka doesn’t write very often on his Substack, but the last piece he wrote about why his dad continues to shovel snow into his mid-70s, and about his longtime friend Joe Grant, and about singlespeed bikes, was a great read. I had a nice chat last week with Tyler Dempsey for his Another Fucking Writing Podcast show, and after...
8 days ago • 1 min read
A Regular Person's Guide To Surviving An Ultramarathon By the time I toed the starting line of my last trail race, I should have run about 500 miles over the course of the past 16 weeks—if I were following one of several online training plans created by respected running coaches. I had run about 320 miles. At dinner the previous evening, my sister-in-law had asked if I felt “ready” for the race, and I laughed, then sighed. I mean, kind of? I wasn’t really “toeing the starting line”—I had...
9 days ago • 11 min read
Friday Inspiration 482 This movie is of course not playing where I live but I am really excited to watch it when it becomes available. I love imagining them bouncing ideas for a title around, and eventually saying, “Eh, let’s just call it ’Secret Mall Apartment.’” (video) I don’t know what exactly to write to recommend this 45-second video of two NBA players (Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson) hugging each other before a playoff game (and after Love had just lost his father), but if you’ve had...
15 days ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 481 Music recommendation: This performance by Gallowstreet, a Dutch band composed of seven horn players and one drummer. (video) You really only need the headline of this story to know that these two ladies are rad, but the story is kind of touching too. Headline: Two women have sent each other the same weathered birthday card for 81 years (gift link) To balance out the many links to actual poetry that I seem to have been including in this newsletter lately, may I present...
22 days ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 480 I bring this up in so many conversations about the idea of “adventure,” and I’m excited that it’s finally becoming a series of short videos: Several years ago, Alastair Humphreys and Tom Kevill-Davies decided to try to go to London restaurants from around the world, from A to Z—Afghanistan, Bolivia, Cambodia, and so on. This is the first in the series. (video) I signed up for the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day email a few weeks ago and I have zero regrets,...
29 days ago • 2 min read
Maybe Next Time. Maybe Not This is a photo of the southeast ridge of a mountain called Sentinel Peak, at the north end of Lake Hawea in New Zealand: The guy in the photo is my friend Martin. I took this photo on March 6 on our way down from the summit of Sentinel Peak, because, I mean, look at it. This is a photo of my brother-in-law, Tim: He’s Australian but has been living in New Zealand for eight years now, after he and my sister-in-law, Whitney, got married. When I got back to his house...
30 days ago • 6 min read
Friday Inspiration 479 Perhaps you heard that Jasmin Paris became the first woman ever to finish the notoriously difficult Barkley Marathons in 2024. Even if you already know that information, I think this video is worth watching—I was still anxious watching the final lap of her race, and still got a lump in my throat at the finish. But maybe that’s just me. (Just kidding, it’s not just me, according to the number of YouTube views and comments). (video) This story has come up in conversation...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 478 As a fan of How to With John Wilson (and a fan who was saddened there were only three seasons), I was excited to see this MOMA video about his creative process, and also about the paper mache E.T. he is building, for some reason (video) Val Kilmer died this past week, and of course there were many obituaries and tribute articles written, but I think this was my favorite of all those things: Val Kilmer’s response to someone asking him (on a Reddit AMA, I think?) about...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Update: I Don't Actually Hate Running Now My book I Hate Running and You Can Too recently celebrated its fourth birthday, and I have for a while now felt like I needed to get something off my chest: I don’t really hate running. I did write that book, but the title was supposed to have a heart in place of the “a” in “hate,” which it did, on the book cover: But you can’t put the heart into book title databases, and you can’t actually pronounce the word “h♡te,” so if you googled the book, or...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
