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​Friday Inspiration 552​

If I had to guess by the southern Utah scenery, I’d say this dreamy edit was shot when these folks were in the area just before or just after last year’s Red Bull Rampage? (video)​

A FAVOR TO ASK: I don't have a new My Favorite Things podcast this week (putting together next week's!), but if you've been listening to the podcast and have a few minutes and would like to help me out, would you be able to write a quick review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify? I'm coming up on the one-year mark, and I'm hoping to start reaching out to interviewees outside of my immediate circle, and I think they'd be more apt to say yes if the show had a few dozen reviews.

As a person who jumps between writing, illustration, and video (and spends probably way too much time thinking about which is appropriate), this Substack piece, Maybe You Haven't Found Your Creative Medium Yet, really hit home. Especially this pull quote: “Skill is what you can do, and your medium is where your ideas arrive whole. They are not always the same place. ”

I did not know I needed a 65-second video of a guy covering Michael Jackson's "Beat It" using a ruler, a chair, a comb, a calculator, a kazoo, a piece of paper, a blown-up plastic bag, badminton rackets (I believe?), a whisk, a keyboard, and I think some sort of takeout container cup (?), but thankfully, it arrived in my life this past week.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was going to talk about some newer products from newsletter sponsor PATH Projects, so: This past couple months I have been loving their Sentinel Half Tight, despite not being much of a tights-wearer. BUT, since almost all my running shorts don’t have liners, I’ve been wearing the Sentinel Half Tights underneath because a) compression I am so excited about the pockets on the thighs, which hold my phone and several gels without any detectable movement. Also: If you click over to the PATH Projects website right now and sign up for their newsletter, you’ll get a gift card worth 20% of your first order’s value (sent after your purchase).

This is a really cool idea: A website cataloguing industry standards, “items so entrenched that they’ve become the de facto tool that nearly everyone in that trade uses.” I think it’s interesting even though I don’t work in any of these industries, but found plenty of items I own in the categories of Backpacking & Camping, Climbing & Rigging, Coffee & Cafes, and Construction & Carpentry. Oh, and Bike Shops. (via Kottke)

For whatever nefarious algorithmic reason, my feeds seem to be full of videos of fans catching baseballs in the stands of Major League Baseball games, and then handing those baseballs to kids, who are overjoyed, and I’ll tell you what, there are worse things to have populating your feed nowadays.

OK, so I’m not saying it was funny when Heath Ledger died, or when Nancy Sinatra died, or when Burt Reynolds died, or when anyone dies, but the fact this lady and her friend from college have kept their relationship going for 18 years solely with text messages announcing people have died? That’s funny.

Eater put out a list, with a map, of Chicago’s best deep dish pizzas, and I’m not saying I can vouch for the accuracy of the list, nor would I endorse anyone’s list, but I am saying that I have eaten at five of the 17 restaurants on this list and was not mad about any of them.

Books I’m Currently Reading:

• ​Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson

I missed the boat on Andrea Gibson’s poetry during their lifetime, only discovering them through the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light this year. When I told Hilary about the movie, she of course said, “Oh, I have one of their books in my office,” and grabbed Lord of the Butterflies for me. Which I am now reading at the rate of one or two poems per night, and loving it.

• ​Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives by Darby Saxbe PhD

My friend Sally recommended this brand-new book to us, and I of course was interested because of the big change in my life that has caused a thousand other little changes (including, presumably, how my brain works). I’m only one chapter into it so far but I am already impressed and grateful for Saxby’s engaging writing style.

• ​Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel

Hilary was reading this for months and absolutely gushing over it, and there’s only so much you can hear about one book before you just say “I’ll go ahead and borrow that whenever you’re finished.” And I am happy to say it’s as good as she said it was (although I would be terrified of taking on the challenge of writing about five different [famous] artists all in the same book like Mary Gabriel did).

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