Friday Inspiration 428

BOOK TOUR UPDATE: I will be signing and selling copies of my new book, Ultra-Something, at the Arc’teryx store in Boulder next week at 6 p.m. April 24. It’s full, but so were the events in Seattle and Portland, and we still had room for people who just showed up the night of the event. More info here.

I’ll also be in Washington DC and Chicago, and if you can make either of those events, RSVP here:
Washington DC: May 6 
Chicago: May 8

The book goes on sale in mid-May, and if you want to have a sample chapter of it emailed to you and a notification when it comes out, here’s the info for that.

Jared Campbell, who holds the record for most finishes of the Barkley Marathons, also started this cool thing called Running Up For Air, and this is a great video about it (video)

thumbnail from Running Up For Air

Rosenberg’s Bagels in Denver did this years ago (2019 I think?) but now these folks are doing what sounds like the same idea—re-creating the chemistry of New York City’s water—but for pizza, in Los Angeles.

I am sure I have recommended this Substack before, but I think it’s worth a mention again: Toonstack, a group of cartoonists (most of whom make at least some of their cartoons for the New Yorker) who publish a selection of cartoons around the same topic every Sunday, with some fun commentary.

So, “A family of beavers in Canada has built a dam that’s twice as wide as the Hoover Dam.

Another not-just-typed-text Substack that my friend Mike just introduced me to: Kent Peterson types a one-page story or idea on a vintage typewriter every day, scans it and uploads it to his Substack. I really liked this one, which is kind of about bicycles.

I was kind of on the fence about putting this piece in this week’s newsletter, because I think it is at times a bit condescending to some of the people in it, and it’s an enormously long read (which makes it very much like another extremely famous travelogue about a cruise ship, David Foster Wallace’s 1996 Harper’s piece “Shipping Out.” But then, near the end, the writer seems to kind of deal with it, and honestly, I think you could argue that he’s looking down his nose at his fellow cruise ship passengers far less than David Foster Wallace did. And also making fun of himself probably more than the passengers. Plus, it’s extremely funny. So: Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever (thanks, Alex)

This one’s not for everyone, but maybe has some potential for the right entrepreneur?