Seek The Substantial

1. I love the ocean.

2. A terrific story from The Ringer on Indiana Jones’ fedora.

The director, who had worked with Landis on 1941, showed her a colored-pencil sketch, an elementary-style portrait of the archaeologist complete with a fedora, brown jacket, and boots. The idea for the character was further sharpened after the pair watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Secret of the Incas, and The Greatest Show on Earth, movies whose leading men, Humphrey Bogart and Charlton Heston, all sported classic, midcentury fedoras. Eventually, everyone in production had a clear vision for Indiana Jones. “If you look at Charlton Heston [in Incas], he had the three or four days’ stubble beard and the same look,” executive producer Howard Kazanjian says. “We weren’t copying that, but there was very little in [our] picture that was new.”

3. From almost a year ago via OutsideOnline, how Shenandoah National Park is dealing with its racist past:

In the summer of 1937, J. Ralph Lassiter, Shenandoah’s first superintendent, received a distraught letter from a staff member at the Department of the Interior. “There is a growing demand for picnic areas for colored people,” wrote the Interior staff member. “Two bus loads are going up tomorrow and they have to be fitted into camping places for white people. This is not a good condition.”

Park employees agreed. And so the Park Service settled upon a controversial plan: It would create Lewis Mountain, an area with campsites, cabins, and concession facilities, for African Americans. It would simultaneously designate Pinnacles, a popular picnic area, as an officially integrated facility. While never officially stated, it was nonetheless understood that the rest of the park would remain the sole purview of white visitors.

4. Via Sports Illustrated, how Kelly Agnew tried to cheat his way into enurance racing lore by, well, stopping in the port-a-potty. Turns out that Agnew may also be a horrible human being to-boot.

5. What a Roman city would have looked like, including temples, markets, shops, monuments, and theatres, via Gizmodo.

1. Via Statesider is the story of Crane Creek and how in the 1920’s that creek was stocked with McCloud trout, which is supposedly only supposed to be found in California:

Legend has it that in the 1800s a railcar was carrying a load of rainbow trout from the McCloud River in California to the east coast. The train broke down on the tracks that ran through Crane. Panicked, the railway workers knew they had to get the trout to colder water or they would soon die, costing not only the company money, but also costing nature a very precious commodity. They decided to transport as many trout as possible to Crane Creek for their best chance of survival. It was at this point that the creek became home to a wild species of trout that anglers dedicate their lives to catching.

Now, some quick research will tell you that the Missouri Department of Conservation stocked this creek with the McClouds until the early 1920s. What is astonishing is that these trout have survived here since that time. Most rainbow trout’s ideal water temperature is between 45 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, but Crane Creek can exceed 70 degrees during the warmer parts of the Missouri summer. Despite the overwhelming odds against them, the McCloud rainbows have thrived in this small, too-warm creek, far from home, and they are some of the strongest, smartest fish that an angler may catch in their life.

2. Via New Yorker, the actual moment the dinosaurs died:

n August 5, 2013, I received an e-mail from a graduate student named Robert DePalma. I had never met DePalma, but we had corresponded on paleontological matters for years, ever since he had read a novel I’d written that centered on the discovery of a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex killed by the KT impact. “I have made an incredible and unprecedented discovery,” he wrote me, from a truck stop in Bowman, North Dakota. “It is extremely confidential and only three others know of it at the moment, all of them close colleagues.” He went on, “It is far more unique and far rarer than any simple dinosaur discovery. I would prefer not outlining the details via e-mail, if possible.” He gave me his cell-phone number and a time to call.

I called, and he told me that he had discovered a site like the one I’d imagined in my novel, which contained, among other things, direct victims of the catastrophe. At first, I was skeptical. DePalma was a scientific nobody, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kansas, and he said that he had found the site with no institutional backing and no collaborators. I thought that he was likely exaggerating, or that he might even be crazy. (Paleontology has more than its share of unusual people.) But I was intrigued enough to get on a plane to North Dakota to see for myself.

3. This is more fun history stuff, via Smithsonian Mag, 4,000 people living in a town/city in Scotland in the 3rd century:

Radiocarbon dating indicates that the fort, known as Tap O’ Noth (also the name of the hill on which it stands), was constructed between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., according to a University of Aberdeen statement. Settlement on the hill itself dates back to the third century, meaning its early inhabitants were likely the Picts, a group of skilled farmers whose military and artistic accomplishments have been obfuscated by their lack of written records.

Drawn from a combination of drone surveys, laser-generated topographical maps and radiocarbon dating, the findings upend “the narrative of this whole time period,” says archaeologist and lead researcher Gordon Noble in the statement. “If each of the [800] huts we identified had four or five people living in them then that means there was a population of upwards of 4,000 people living on the hill.”

4.

5. Usually finding something for the 5th item is pretty easy. It’s been a bad week. Maybe it is a good week. I don’t know. I wrote on Staking The Plains that basically if you are friends with me or align with me then we’re making a deal to look after each other (and our kids) and to speak up when people are not being treated appropriately. That’s the deal that we’re making and that’s the deal I’m making with you. That is at the very least you could do. There’s a huge part of me that feels guilty for not speaking up more. I’ve had multiple conversations with my kids and I think it starts there. Love you all.

1. Be Thankful. We’ve got to learn to love each other. Learn to love each other.

2. Three farmers on their way to the dance – 1914.

The relentless unforeseen.

We are in the middle of history and how I imagine the world, really matters.

What are we walking towards?

3. Via Mental Floss. Sergeant Henry Johnson was an African-American in World War I and an American hero.

Still conscious, Roberts handed Johnson grenades to toss. When those ran out, Johnson began firing his rifle while being hit by bullets in his side, hand, and head. Quickly, Johnson shoved an American cartridge into his French rifle, but the ammunition and the weapon were incompatible. The rifle jammed. As the Germans swarmed him, Johnson began using the rifle like a club, smashing it over their heads and into their faces.

After the butt of the rifle finally fell apart, Johnson went down with a blow to the head. But he climbed back up, drew his bolo knife, and charged forward. The blade went deep into the first German he encountered, killing the man. More gruesome work with the weapon followed, with Johnson hacking and stabbing bodies even as bullets continued to strike him.

Johnson’s Wikipedia is a peek into our soul.

In 1918, racism against African Americans was common among white U.S. soldiers in the U.S. military, but French attitudes differed. Johnson was recognized by the French with a Croix de guerre with star and bronze palm, and was the first U.S. soldier in World War I to receive that honor.

Johnson died, poor and in obscurity, in 1929. From 1919 on, Henry Johnson’s story has been part of wider consideration of treatment of African Americans in the Great War. There was a long struggle to achieve awards for him from the U.S. military. He was finally awarded the Purple Heart in 1996. In 2002, the U.S. military awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross. Previous efforts to secure the Medal of Honor failed, but in 2015 he was posthumously honored with the award.

And this.

Returning home, now Sergeant Johnson participated (with his regiment) in a victory parade on Fifth Avenue in New York City in February 1919. Johnson was then paid to take part in a series of lecture tours. He appeared one evening in St. Louis, and instead of delivering the expected tale of racial harmony in the trenches, he instead revealed the abuse that black soldiers had suffered, such as white soldiers refusing to share trenches with blacks. Soon after this a warrant was issued for Johnson’s arrest for wearing his uniform beyond the prescribed date of his commission and paid lecturing engagements dried up.

4. The Forest of Argonne.

5. I have a client. She’s African American. Her father died and he had amassed a significant estate before he died. He came from a dirt floor house in West Texas. When we first met, she noticed pictures of my kids. She gets who I am. Even though she knows who I am and that my boys are brown and that I kiss them goodbye every morning and goodnight every night she has told me numerous times that I cannot be part of her world. From the outside looking in, I’m a white attorney and the distrust level is high (I think she really likes and respects me because I’ve earned it). Despite who I am, she reminds me that I have to earn trust. It is not given, nor should it be. It should be earned.

1. Do you have a lot of old or slightly used tennis shoes? Me too. Way too many. A while back I found this site, Soles4Souls and they take your old tennis shoes and turn them into opportunities for people who live in extreme poverty. The best part about it is that can find a place to drop off shoes or Zappos will cover the shipping in the U.S. for anything under 50 pounds.

2. How cool is Morton Castle in Scotland? This is a place I want to go.

It would be nice to say that Morton castle has the presence, the architecture, or the history to do justice to its setting. The truth is that there’s actually not all that much to see here beyond the stone walls of a roughly rectangular range and parts of two towers. But don’t let that put you off: this really is Undiscovered Scotland and you should come simply to enjoy the location and listen to the wind.

3. FakeTeams posted these terrific redesigns and this Dallas Mavericks jersey.

View this post on Instagram

 

mavericks jersey redesign – taking it back to the retro colors & giving the jersey some texas love

A post shared by Pete Rogers (@petemrogers) on Mar 25, 2020 at 12:55pm PDT

4. Beastie Boys remastered.

5.

1. This was pretty great. Beau Miles, this dude in Australia, decided to just eat his body weight in beans. As he states it, 191 tins of beans over 40 days. Nothing but beans. And even better, he took the labeling off of the tins so he never knew what he was going to get. The culmination of this was Miles running an ultramarathon powered by beans. Beans.

2. I won’t post this after this week unless something absolutely gets my attention. Marc Rebillet is a musician. A really talented musician, but not in the traditional sense. I gather he can play the piano, but he sits in his apartment with a keyboard and some other things (I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to this stuff, so I’m calling them things). He’s originally from Dallas, but became famous recently as he takes his one-man show on the road and he’s insanely popular. He’s wild-assed and is prone to say unnecessary curse words (or maybe they are totally necessary), but he’s also incredibly touching. This ain’t for everyone, but it is for me in doses for sure. And maybe the part that I appreciate more than anything else is how talented you have to be to be able to do this on the fly.

3. What happens when you just want to go run in the mountains, but you’re told that it’s private property? I don’t have this problem, and this is something that is somewhat unique to the U.S. where there are no “right to roam” laws, that allow people to just go roam or hike (of course there’s a trust involved with the people who go walk your land, they are just walking or running and don’t mess with anything). OutsideOnline’s Jonathan Severy details the issues his neighbors take with his trail running. Of course, there’s also the thought that private property is private property for a reason and the potential for litigation is the driving factor (and maybe just not wanting people on your land) for keeping people off of your property.

4. I am a sucker for this sort of stuff. Every time. Via Sidetracked – Guardians of Ua Huka. What a beautiful corner of the planet.

5. Foo Fighter’s Dave Grohl in The Atlantic is a good read.

Not to brag, but I think I’ve had the best seat in the house for 25 years. Because I do see you. I see you pressed against the cold front rails. I see you air-drumming along to your favorite songs in the distant rafters. I see you lifted above the crowd and carried to the stage for a glorious swan dive back into its sweaty embrace. I see your homemade signs and your vintage T-shirts. I hear your laughter and your screams and I see your tears. I have seen you yawn (yeah, you), and I’ve watched you pass out drunk in your seat. I’ve seen you in hurricane-force winds, in 100-degree heat, in subzero temperatures. I have even seen some of you grow older and become parents, now with your children’s Day-Glo protective headphones bouncing on your shoulders. And each night when I tell our lighting engineer to “Light ’em up!,” I do so because I need that room to shrink, and to join with you as one under the harsh, fluorescent glow.

In today’s world of fear and unease and social distancing, it’s hard to imagine sharing experiences like these ever again. I don’t know when it will be safe to return to singing arm in arm at the top of our lungs, hearts racing, bodies moving, souls bursting with life. But I do know that we will do it again, because we have to. It’s not a choice. We’re human. We need moments that reassure us that we are not alone. That we are understood. That we are imperfect. And, most important, that we need each other. I have shared my music, my words, my life with the people who come to our shows. And they have shared their voices with me. Without that audience—that screaming, sweating audience—my songs would only be sound. But together, we are instruments in a sonic cathedral, one that we build together night after night. And one that we will surely build again.

1. How are you doing? No, really. How are you doing? I think I’m doing okay. Business could be better, but it is not horrible. I want it to be better, but I am okay right now. I hope you are doing okay as well. This has been a weird time and I’ve tried to take advantage of this weird time. I can honestly say that my relationship with my wife is better than it has ever been. We talk more than we’ve ever talked before. Or maybe before kids. I don’t think that’s because of the pandemic, but we are making more of an effort to just talk. While making dinner. After dinner and sitting out on the porch.

I’m also taking that very famous course on happiness and much to your dismay, this is not secret about being happy, but the psychology about what makes people happy. The three things that I’ve figured that I need to do better is to savor, to show gratitude, and to show kindness. I’ve made a concerted effort to do those things and I’ve tracked it, and I can tell you that being conscious of those things (because these are real things that I am doing with my wife and my kids) have made me happier in a time when I maybe shouldn’t be that happy. If you have a couple of hours to spare during the course of a week, I’d recommend taking Yale’s The Science of Well-Being. Plus, you can now say that you’re a Yalie.

2. How to funk in 2 minutes. Always remember, it’s not funk until bass hits that sweet ass.

3. I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark and the entire Raiders of the Lost Ark series (who didn’t?) and Atlas Obscura has the six places that may have contained the Holy Grail.

4. Outside Online’s Brendan Leonard on the Hellbender 100:

I ran into the Colbert Creek aid station at mile 48, just as the last light of the day was disappearing at around 8:20 P.M., feeling good after jogging some big sections of the trail over the previous five miles, as opposed to walking. Although it had been slow going (the slowest 50-mile split I’ve ever recorded), I reminded myself that these things always take way longer than I assume they’re going to. I changed my socks and packed a wind jacket, rainjacket, and liner gloves into my vest for the next 24 miles into the night. A guy I ran with a little bit on the last section had said the second half of the course was easier, and the lady parked next to Hilary said it was “more runnable,” but I was not counting my chickens before they hatched. Even if it was all flat terrain for the second half of the race, I was pretty sure I would find a way to feel like shit at some point. Hilary walked me partway down the road to the next section of trail, another 3,000-foot climb up the Buncombe Horse Trail.

In the thick trees, under the clouds, without many stars visible, I settled into an almost complete darkness, pacing myself uphill, not knowing where the top of the climb would actually be. I didn’t see another headlamp for over an hour on the way up, then finally started catching a few folks on a set of switchbacks. One guy asked as I passed, “That next aid station’s gotta be coming up pretty soon, doesn’t it?” I told him I couldn’t say, and I tried to keep myself thinking the same thing he’d asked. I could drive myself crazy straining to locate signs of an aid station up the trail: the tiny dots of headlamps, the faint din of music, maybe the glow of a fire if they had one going. It was best not to think about it, because if I started wishing it was there, I’d start wishing every minute, then feeling sorry for myself.

5. I love this so much.

1. Portofino, Italy, is in the norther region, just south of Genoa along the coast on the west side of the boot. It’s one of those places that seems it was created out of CGI and it can’t possibly be real. The way the small town of Portofino is set up is that the land mass protects this cove that leads to breathtaking views. I can’t wait to go there when this is all done.

2. Via OutsideOnline, Michael Shattuck is running a marathon a day, starting by running a marathon for 26 days leading up to Christmas one year and then just didn’t quit. Shattuck runs to live it seems.

She’s tried all sorts of things to temper her son’s enthusiasm. Last winter, during a particularly frigid polar vortex, Ellen texted him photos of people with severe frostbite. He blocked her. “We had a really bad winter. Mikey was impossible. He knew he shouldn’t be out in that weather,” she says. “I wish this would be over. If he decided at the end of this year that this is good enough, I’d be elated.”

Shattuck, who has changed his T-shirt and joined us in the garden with his smoothie, emphatically shakes his head in the negative.

“Do you know how many shoes he goes through?” Ellen asks. “He changes every 700 miles! The calories he puts away? Six thousand per day! He doesn’t have health insurance! And if he doesn’t run, he should be on medication. He should be able to hold a job, run five or six miles a day, throw in a marathon on occasion, and be on medication. That would work.”

“People shouldn’t be afraid of being bipolar,” Shattuck interjects. He starts to cry. “I don’t want to get a job. Why the hell would I want to do something that makes me feel awful and wouldn’t end well? I just want a couple of sponsorships and to live the Never Quit mindset.”

Ellen puts up her hand as if to say, No more. Shattuck dons a sun hat with stars and stripes, gives his mom a hug, and we set off once again.

“I’m sorry to get so emotional,” he says, “but I am so committed to this.” Then, like clouds parting to let a ray of sunshine through, his mood seems to lift, and he says, “The best thing Marcus Lutrell ever said is, ‘Don’t let people’s perception of you become your reality.’”

3. This SB Nation piece about refugees playing soccer when they come over to the US and it took me to the moment that we figured out that Youssouf knew what he was doing when it came to soccer (it didn’t take very long). It was clearly evident that Yoyo knew what he was doing and playing soccer was something he knew how to do that didn’t require much communication other than to go score, which he did, very often.

4. Dirk Nowitzki and Ernie Johnson are national treasures.

5. This MEL Magazine piece on the timeline of Ferris Bueller’s day off is one of the funnest things I’ve read in a long time.

1. Orta San Giulio is in northern Italy and is on Lake d’Orta and it’s pretty amazing. It is surrounded by large foothills and there is a small island, Isola San Giulio (pictured), that has a restaurant, a basilica, and a there’s probably a hotel there as well. I hope to go there when this is all done.

2. If you’d like to see what picture the Hubble Space Telescope took a picture of on your birthday, then click away.

3. Writer Bill Donahue goes to visit his uncle who lives in Montastruc and spends his days translating the History of the Peloponnesian War from Greek into Latin:

Ultimately, most of us will shake off the fantasy. But it really is possible to vanish into the French countryside. I know this because in 1980, my uncle bought a crumbling, centuries-old house at the northern edge of the Pyrenees, an hour from the Spanish border, and never returned to American life. William Joseph Donahue was a Catholic cleric—both a monk and a priest—as well as a sensitive poet who in middle age came to regard his Benedictine order in Washington, D.C., as hidebound and archaic. After writing a pained 28-page letter to the pope, beseeching His Holiness for “release from my religious vows,” and following a brief stint as a newspaperman in Canada, my uncle moved to Montastruc-de-Salies, a small village where the church bells toll hourly and sleekly clad cycling squads spin through in springtime, mixing with tractors and stray dogs wandering the road. The Tour passed through Montastruc in 2008, and this year, on July 24, Stage 16 will wend 1,300 feet up and down the Col de Portet-d’Aspet, about 15 miles from the village.

4. I had no idea that the Patagonman was a thing, but the video is stunning and Patagonia looks like another place I’d love to visit when it is all said and done. For refernece purposes, the Patagonman is a triathlon in well, Patagonia.

5. Kendrick Lamar talks about sampling and it is genius.

1. Lake Lugano is right on the border between Switzerland and Italy, just north of Milan. This part is in Switzerland, but you could rent a boat, go from Switzerland to Italy and back again, all the while drinking win and eating good food. I hope to go there when it is all over.

2. Via Futurism, a very intriguing Earth-like planet:

The exoplanet, called Kepler -1649c, orbits its small red dwarf star within the system’s habitable zone, a distance at which rocky planets receive enough star radiation to allow for liquid water to exist. It’s almost precisely the same size as large as Earth and receives 75 percent of the amount of light Earth receives from the Sun.

In other words, it’s a distant world that’s likelier than many others to support life. At 300 light-years from Earth, it’s the most similar to Earth in size and estimated temperature out of the thousands of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope, according to the researchers.

3. Do you know what the Wainwrights are? I didn’t know about them either, but they are set of fells (a fell is in-between a mountain and a hill, but probably more of a hill) that are in the Lake District, which is in Cumbria in northwest England. Alfred Wainwright wrote the book on the fells (literally), which is why they are called the “Wainwrights” and there are 214 of them and the highest one is 3,209 feet and the smallest is 951 feet. In England it is a thing to go run up the fells and it’s called fell running. This guy, Paul Tierney set the record for running up all 214 Wainwrights and you can watch him do it here.

4. DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith did a Zoom concert.

5. GQ talked with famed travel TV-guy Rick Steves and he talks about quarantining as well as now having to buy his own weed now:

You’re also a weed enthusiast. Has that been part of your quarantine lifestyle?

Not yet, but it’s going to be. For the first time in my life, I actually bought marijuana. Because of my notoriety in helping legalize marijuana, I’ve never had to buy marijuana in my life. People just give me marijuana. Perfect strangers come up to me and they put a joint in my shirt pocket and they say, “Thank you.”

1. Three Peaks Nature Park is in Northern Italy in the Dolomites almost in Austria and it looks amazing. I’d like to visit there when all of this is over.

2. I have a sister that lives near San Diego and these two wall murals are in a town called Encinitas. One of these is outside a liquor store and I can’t remember where the other one is.

3. My family and I were supposed to go see the redwoods this summer. For whatever reason, I feel that it is incredibly important to go see these massive trees and show them to my boys. I found this virtual hike of Redwood National Park and found it really nice.

4. I can’t say that I know very much about Beau Miles, but he’s an Aussie and he does interesting things and he ran the entire length of the Australian Alps, 650 kilometers.

5. Podium Runner with what happens to your brain when you run (it’s like using CBD!):

One reason for running’s therapeutic effect is the cocktail of zenning neurochemicals it releases. This includes those sensationalized mild opiates, endorphins, which result in that runner’s high phenomenon. (Evidence for which was officially demonstrated in 2008.)

“It’s a pain killer, so that alone is going to give you a little bit of feel-good,” says Aimee Daramus, Psy.D., a Chicago-based psychotherapist, referring to endorphins. She also points out that the adrenaline released by a run gives a runner an enhanced sensation of strength and speed, which can be calming. Additionally, by raising your heart rate, running changes brain chemistry by increasing the availability of other anti-anxiety neurotransmitters like serotonin, gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and endocannabinoid levels—substances that latch onto the same neurological receptors as THC, producing the calming high one gets from consuming cannabis.