Writer, artist, filmmaker, columnist for Outside Magazine. My newsletter about creativity, adventure, and enthusiasm goes out to 15,000+ subscribers every week.
Friday Inspiration 452
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This is from 2015,but as a fan of old sports photos, I was definitely interested in why they all (at least the indoor ones of basketball and boxing) had a bluish haze, and photos taken nowadays don’t have the same haze. I laughed when I found out it basically has nothing to do with photography. (via Kottke.org)
Someone in the comments of this post on the Things Cut In Half Porn subreddit reminded me that I saw so many illustrations like this when I was growing up (and wow did I love them), but it seems like it’s kind of a thing we don’t do anymore. But I wish we would.
I love Marty Brodsky’s Substack, and when I saw the headline of this post, “Hitting the Doomsday Prepper Convention,” I knew he would write something interesting about it, while still holding on to empathy, and give me something to think about.
My friend Kevin sent me a copy of Delinquents and Other Escape Attempts by Nick Rees Gardner, the latest book he edited and published through Madrona Books, and I am happy to say I really enjoyed it. It’s a collection of linked short stories around addiction and recovery, and the easiest comparison is Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, another book of short stories with a substance misuse theme (and also set in the Midwest). People say short story collections are a tough sell, but I’m a sucker for them, especially when they work well together. It's not in the public library but you can buy copies here (and your local indie bookstore can order it too):
Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble
A few weeks ago at The Rut Mountain Runs, I delivered the presentation I made for my Ultra-Something book tour for the last time (I’m pretty sure). I did shows in DC, Chicago, Boulder, Seattle, and Portland, in April and May, and afterward, I recorded a video version of the presentation (titled “30 Questions You May (Or May Not) Have About Ultrarunning”) for Patreon supporters who couldn’t make it to one of those five cities. I just made it public on YouTube this week, sort of as an afterthought, but it seems like it’s getting a lot of views and interaction, so if you’d like to watch it, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyT8wkbMbLE
This is maybe a little more cynical than the usual stuff I put in this newsletter, and I kind of considered not including it, but then I laughed so hard at it, I felt like I should keep it.
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Semi-Rad
Writer, artist, filmmaker, columnist for Outside Magazine. My newsletter about creativity, adventure, and enthusiasm goes out to 15,000+ subscribers every week.
Friday Inspiration 458 If you click on this video, make sure you have 14 minutes to watch it uninterrupted. It’s slow, but I think it needs to be slow to help you feel what it’s really like to live in Forrest, Australia, population 2. I absolutely love the shot of the bicycles on the runway. (via Kottke.org)(video) NOTE: I have a bunch of new stuff I’ve made for the holidays this year, and I’ll be sharing it at the bottom of the next few Friday newsletters so this doesn’t turn into *yet...
Somebody Should Do Something About This It was a couple years ago, probably eightish miles up the Stuart Peak trail, when I first started thinking about it. A small tree had fallen perpendicular across the trail, no more than four inches in diameter. I had to slow my already-not-that-fast uphill running trot to almost a complete stop to step over the tree. Of course I thought for a half-second, like you always do, that my day would be a tiny bit more pleasant if that tree had not fallen...
Friday Inspiration 457 This film takes its time letting this guy Beneke de Wet drop some bits of wisdom, but it’s worth the wait (video)(thanks, Nate) I’m pretty sure I shared an article a couple years ago about the special secret mud that gets rubbed on every ball used in a Major League Baseball game, but this is kind of a summary of that same story with a new twist: University of Pennsylvania researchers conducted a study to figure out that yes, the mud has unique properties that can’t be...