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​Friday Inspiration 559

A couple weeks ago, a tweet by some tech guy claiming to have “solved” “infinite personalized music” with some sort of AI music invention was flying around social media. As someone who has lived their entire life relentlessly searching for new music and will hopefully be discovering new artists in my final years of life, I am not sure I understand the problem, and this week I found this 89-minute video of this real-live human being making the most chill music in his living room with his trumpet(s) and guitar and sharing it with us. (video)​

I’m not sure if this incredible interactive website that allows you to customize your own waffle batterworks for non-Norwegian waffle makers, but my friend Anna sent it to me and I am just overjoyed that someone had the enthusiasm and capability to build it for the rest of us to enjoy.

​This thread begins, “When my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she made her own funeral arrangements. This included asking us to put together a playlist of the “most inappropriate funeral songs imaginable” to play as people entered and exited. We did.” And then there’s a screenshot of the playlist, and several comments, one of which is a guy claiming that “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” is the #1 requested funeral song in the UK (which apparently was true at least in 2014 and 2019, according to a quick search).

If you really, really want to nerd out about movies, and probably take with you some really interesting bits of trivia, please allow me to recommend this wonderfully detailed and explained piece about how many shots are in the average movie. (DID YOU KNOW: "Top Gun: Maverick’s editor, Eddie Hamilton, told Deadline that he was handed ‘800 to 814 hours’ of footage, and that on one day in March 2019 there were 27 cameras running at once. Yikes!”) (via Kottke)

If you watched the Yung Lean/Gener8ion video for “Storm,” or watched the recent Video Music Awards performance of the song (if you’re not sure, it’s the one with THE CHOREOGRAPHY), you might be interested in this interview with the choreographer, Damien Jalet—especially if you are not sure if you understood what it’s about, and would like to hear from the person who designed the dancing. [GIFT LINK]

I am cautiously getting a few more running miles in this week, and wanted to shout out the new-ish PATH Projects Century Shorts that I’ve been wearing since I got them in July. I was intrigued when Flo from PATH told me that the waistband is basically an integrated storage belt, since I have owned a couple running belts and never quite fallen in love with them. Whatever these guys are doing has worked for me, as I can carry a 500ml soft flask full of water in the back and not have it bounce around.

If you are in Denver or the Front Range tonight: My friend Malik Martin (aka MalikThaMartian) is premiering his new film, Outside Ain’t Free, about his experiences straddling the two worlds of the mountains of the western U.S. and his hometown of South Memphis, at the Department of Creative Pursuits in Denver. Tickets are $10 and there’s space for 100 people. (Yes, same Malik that I interviewed on the newest episode of My Favorite Things!)

You're either going to laugh out loud or roll your eyes back in your head at this Sisyphus joke (it's not that new—I saw it via someone's screenshot of someone who copied it, and I tracked down what I believe is the original(?)).

My new book, So Far, So Good: 40 Dads Talk About Becoming Parents and How They Figured It Out, sold 1,000 copies in its first month (just barely, but still!). I had wanted to do this before it came out, but I didn’t get my stuff together in time. We made “Aspiring #1 Dad” coffee mugs that match the mug on the cover of the book, and they launched this week, as a bundle with a signed copy of the book—maybe handy for a dad on your holiday shopping list? (You can also just buy the mug or a signed copy of the book separately).

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Books I’m Currently Reading:

• ​Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game by Dan Barry ​

I don't remember where I heard about this book, or where I bought it, but I do know I have a paperback copy of it, and I'm into it so far: A 1981 minor league baseball game that went into the wee hours of the morning, and that included future MLB superstars Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken Jr.

• ​The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

I had only heard of Alison Bechdel through her fame as the namesake of the Bechdel Test, the pass/fail test for representation of women in fiction and films, in which a work has to feature two or more women having at least one conversation about something other than men. And then Zoë, my co-host on The Trailhead, mentioned this graphic novel about Bechdel's lifelong obsession with fitness and movement, so I bought it. I've just started it and I'm really into 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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