Friday Inspiration 441

Friday Inspiration 44 I always wonder how filmmakers are going to pull off telling a story in which most people already know the ending, so I was curious about this piece on Courtney Dauwalter winning three of the biggest ultramarathons in the world in 2023. I’d say the team behind it nailed this one. (video)

As you’re reading this, I’m out teaching my Running to Stand Still writing + trail running workshop in Whitefish, Montana, talking about writing and creativity all day with a break each day to go for a trail run. We of course borrowed the title from a U2 song (which is not about running—it’s about heroin!), because I think the stillness we get from being out in nature and/or exercising is very fertile for creativity and generating ideas. Which reminds me of these two recent pieces: 16 Writers On How Running Helps Them Write and 8 Ways Running Is Like The Creative Process

I have not listened to an episode of Talk Easy in a while, but my friend Forest promised me this Ethan Hawke interview was worth my time, so I committed, and he was right. I’ve seen a couple of interview clips of Ethan Hawke talking about the value of art and they really hit home for me, and this interview, which also delves into family, work, and the idea of a legacy, did too. If you listen to the whole thing, you’ll be rewarded by this moment just as they’re saying goodbye, when Sam Fragoso thanks Ethan Hawke for being on the show and opening up, and Ethan Hawke totally deflects it and thanks Sam Fragoso for the work he put into the interview, to draw out the stories.

If you’re interested in creating, you should probably subscribe to my friend Anna Brones’s newsletter, Creative Fuel, and if you need one post to sell you on it, please allow me to recommend this one, in which she dives into the idea of The Taste Gap, and why we experience it as beginners, and as people who have been creating things for years.

I don’t know who wrote this list of The Greatest Grand Canyon Speed Runs, Ranked (not by speed), but it’s a super-fun look at people trying to go fast down the Colorado River since 1951.

I can’t tell you why I clicked on this story about one company owning 97% of the market share when it comes to equipping ice cream trucks with music boxes, but I can tell you I did not expect RZA to show up nine-tenths of the way through the article. But then again, I wasn’t surprised either.

This cloud is something out of a science fiction movie, and I am glad someone recorded a video of it.

You might think that creating a program that spits out random numbers would be pretty simple, but you would be wrong. This BBC piece on how random numbers are generated is WILD, and if you read it, I promise you will have several interesting facts to share at the next party you attend.

ALSO: I did a little photo shoot of the books I’m either currently reading or looking forward to taking out of my “to-read” pile sometime in the next couple months. Here they all are—I linked to each title if you’d like to read more: