Friday Inspiration 367

Well, there was the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” in 1994, Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” in 2001, Young Thug’s “Wyclef Jean” in 2017, and in 2023, this one. (video)

A couple of personal/business updates:

We’re announcing the dates/location for my Freeflow Institute writing and creativity workshop soon, so email me at brendan@semi-rad.com (or just reply to this email) if you’d like to be notified when it goes live. This year is going to be 6 days of guided trail running (instead of a raft or sea kayak trip), and it’s going to be in Montana, in August.

There’s a long story behind this that I won’t bore you with, but the gist is that I have a bunch of signed copies of my books in a warehouse on the east coast, and they need to not be in that warehouse anymore, so I’m having a sort of liquidation sale on them. They’re all $9.99, and although I’m technically losing money on these, it’s better than paying to ship them all to myself so I can re-sell them. You can buy as many as you want here on the Books page in the shop. (A couple have sold out already because I announced the sale on Patreon on Wednesday)

Also, all of my greeting cards and postcard sets are $4.99 until they sell out.

I always thought it was partly because I grew up running around the aisles of a closed grocery store with my dad when he went in to catch up on work stuff on Sundays, and partly that I love food and love hanging out with my wife, but apparently Hilary and I are not the only people who are huge fans of, and also use the term “grocery store date.” (Thanks, Jayson)

Has anyone else read Ross Gay’s new book Inciting Joy yet? Quite a bit different from The Book of Delights but I loved it, and it reinforces my belief that he is a hero and national treasure.

“I acquired her in the, uh, usual way about 15 months ago (no paid advertorial here!). She’s the second model of this product in my gear shed now, the first being almost 4 years old and still running strong. Running faster, stronger, much louder even, than when she was brand new. But this review will focus on the newer, shinier model.”
—Adventure Journal’s Justin Housman reviewing his toddler, as far as her utility as a piece of outdoor gear

OK, “Want to see what shenanigans some wild raccoons are up to? Watch ‘Racoon Saloon,’ 24/7 live feeds of an abandoned house in an undisclosed location where some of these critters have taken up residence.”

I haven’t been much of a watching-sports-on-TV person for quite a while, but I somehow ended up reading this post about the value of spectator sports last week and really thinking about a lot of the points made in it—especially “It’s a good replacement for harboring actual hatreds.”

I don’t have a really deep explanation for why I like these collages. They just make me feel good.

I had a quick chat with Colin True for his Rock Fight podcast, about the idea of “adventure.”