Friday Inspiration, Vol. 84

NYC + skateboards + jazz horn:

Ben Folds composes a song for the National Symphony Orchestra (with lyrics read from a program) in 10 minutes. (video)

My friend Dan writes about losing his friend Ueli Steck.

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“How much longer can we possibly unpack this Matryoshka nesting doll family until we realize that there’s nothing inside but more pretty, empty figures we don’t remember buying to display on our collective cultural mantle, for reasons we can no longer recall? Why did we do this in the first place? Why do we keep doing it? How much longer can we keep this up?

Here, climb The Nose with a couple guys who are really stoked to be there. (video)

“One of the great fights of the 21st century will be the fight for privacy and self-ownership, which is also, to my mind, the struggle for literature as distinct from the dark babble of social media. Writers thrive on privacy, not on Twitter, and so do readers when the lights are low.”

Gary Vaynerchuk: “I’m going for the greatest impact, not the most subscribers on YouTube or the most followers on Instagram.”