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​Friday Inspiration 554

I just remembered this Taylor Mali video from 14 years ago when I was reading a poetry book and he was thanked in the acknowledgements. I’m sure most teachers have been back in school for a few weeks now, but if you know a teacher who maybe hasn’t watched this one yet, you might send it their way. (video)

IF YOU MISSED IT YESTERDAY: My new book came out yesterday. It’s called So Far, So Good: 40 Dads Talk About Becoming Parents and How They Figured It Out. Here’s a link to the newsletter I wrote about it yesterday, including 10 quotes from some of the dads I interviewed.

I am in awe of the brilliance of this piece of satire about our current situation with AI development, and was literally crying laughing reading some of the lines in the kitchen with Hilary the other night: We Must Create The Shit Machine (via Kottke)

I love these “A Short History of” articles that newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration puts together, including this one, "A short history of sports nutrition (and how carbs became king)," which contains this line about an ancient Greek Olympic athlete (not the guy who ate 20 pounds of bread, 20 pounds of meat, and 18 pints of wine every day—the other guy): “If you’re thinking that this is not very scientific, trust your instincts.” [<—reminder that this link will give you 15% off your first 2026 purchase of PFH products]

​This short video + story about “the worst guard dog,” who was home when a guy broke into his house, and basically did nothing but wag his tail and bring the guy a stuffed dog toy, well, it’s a golden retriever, which tracks with my experience (and is also probably not in the top 10 breeds people think of when they’re looking for a “guard dog”?). Good boy, Nash.

I subscribe to Jay Clouse’s Creator Science newsletter mostly because every once in a while there’s something in there that helps me think about how to keep making creative work and also making a living (kind of) doing it. One of his recent newsletters really hit home for me when he talked about two types of creators, Attention Maximizers (who do really well creating things for social media and other short-shelf-life things) and Trust Maximizers (who are more excited about making longer-form media that has more depth). It made me feel better about, uh, not being very good at Instagram Reels and TikTok and all that.

​Sarah Lavender Smith wrote a great piece this week about spiraling into a panic familiar to many of us during times like these *gestures at everything*, waking up and having to force herself to run the Imogene Pass Run, and why it’s important to just get out there and do something even when it feels like the last thing you want to do.

My friend Nick’s mom passed away back in March and he wrote an obituary of sorts for her back then but I loved this piece he wrote this past week about how we deal in our own ways after the people we love are gone—sometimes by just texting them about tennis.

This is my favorite new Instagram account: This guy Kyle posts one video every week about the Fast and the Furious (ex. 10 Coolest Ways Anyone’s Held Cash in The Fast and the Furious, 9 Best Insulting Nicknames in The Fast and the Furious, etc.) with the same caption: "My 2026 Art Installation is a weekly avant garde audio/visual essay about The Fast and the Furious films created In the hopes that this type of fine art can help calm the unrest all over the globe."

Books I’m Currently Reading:

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

I'm almost done with this one and the second half is really blowing my mind (!). 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.

• ​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.

• ​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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