Friday Inspiration 407

Maybe you don’t care that much about baseball, but what about the evolution of urban architecture? Still no? OK, no one’s going to force you to watch this 18-minute video of an architect breaking down iconic baseball stadiums from the 1800s to the present. (video)

screen capture from Architect Breaks Down Iconic Baseball Stadiums

 

I am pretty familiar with most of the great Kurt Vonnegut quotes, and several of them are in this piece about him and his dogs (including one of the quotes we had read at our wedding), but the one about the apocalypse at the end was new to me, and I think it’s great.

It’s fun to see someone taking portraits of NYC marathon runners after they finish running, and that they look surprisingly good compared to, say, the photos I’ve seen of myself finishing that same race a few hundred feet from where these were taken. (via DumbRunner)

My friend Anna wrote a great piece about messiness and creativity. I did not respond to her survey, but I also feel like I go back and forth between 1) a creative space that is total chaos with one tiny spot of clear surface to set my laptop and iPad on, and 2) when I can’t take it anymore and I frantically clean up everything, giving it a hard reset for a few days.

What is it we love about someone visiting every restaurant in a chain? OK, maybe you don’t, but I sure do. Especially when the story is told well: “In summer 2021, Taco Time put out an all-call looking for Taco Time super fans, and every coworker I’d ever had tagged me on Twitter. My reaction was: First of all, how dare you. Second of all, here’s a map of every Taco Time I’ve ever been to — at that point I had been to 66 of the 79.” (Thanks, Skander and Abigail)

I missed the Elle piece Abby Levene refers to here, in her response essay titled, No, Strava Is Not The New Dating App. But it is funny, and it made me wonder about polling people who use Strava and seeing how many of them think it could function as a dating app for them. My gut is it would be a pretty low number, or at least not a majority of users?

These sweaters are literally one-of-a-kind, and as you might imagine, are pretty expensive. But they’re also irreplaceable. So as far as sweaters go, expensive. As far as art pieces go, not so bad. But fun to look at either way.

If you are shopping for the holidays: There are still a few 2024 Semi-Rad Dog Calendars left (for people who like dogs), and a few 2024 Grand Canyon Groovers Calendars left (for people who like, um, photos of toilets in beautiful places?) as of this week (but orders must be in by Dec. 8th!):

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