Stan Lee tells the totally under-assuming\/unlikely story<\/strong> of how he came up with the idea of Spider-Man, all the while coming off as the most humble, chill guy in the world (video<\/strong><\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I thought this was going to be one of those \u201clook how badly humans behave on airplanes\u201d videos, which I guess it kind of is at the beginning, but how this musician ended up using it<\/strong><\/a> had me laughing and clapping at the end.<\/p>\n PATH Projects is sponsoring this week\u2019s newsletter, and I\u2019ve been running in a couple items from them that I\u2019ll be mentioning in future newsletters, but this week I thought I would mention the shorts that I\u2019ve been wearing the longest: the Sykes PX, which I wear because a) they\u2019re comfortable b) they\u2019re durable and c) they have three external pockets in the back, the middle of which is big enough to hold a phone. And they\u2019re available in 5\u201d and 7\u201d inseams. I am not sure how many miles I\u2019ve put on the six pairs I own, but I know I bought the first pair in early 2024 and haven\u2019t worn them out yet. They\u2019re on sale now at the PATH site (along with a bunch other apparel), and you can check them out with this link<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Thanks to Marty Brodsky, whose writing I have mentioned many times in this newsletter<\/strong><\/a>, I melted away 20 minutes poking around this website, Read The Places<\/strong><\/a>, an open atlas of literature, which maps locations of novels, and allows you to add map locations in novels. (I had a blast poking around the map of all the locations<\/strong><\/a> that have been added so far)<\/p>\n I have just discovered The Ocho subreddit, and have scrolled through several videos of activities I had no ideas were sports, and I don\u2019t know that this game\/sport actually has a name<\/strong><\/a> (somebody let me know if it does?) but wow does it look strenuous.<\/p>\n This essay about someone using AI to read The Last of the Mohicans<\/em>, and I wouldn\u2019t say I care much about someone using AI to read a book, but I really enjoyed the writer Albert Burneko\u2019s very salty explanation of What Reading Is And Why We Do It, which contained sentences like these: \u2018When you read a book, the stuff in the book goes into your mind, and your mind assembles all of the stuff into imagery and thoughts and feelings, and alchemizes meaning from it. A person reasonably could consider this \u201cwhat\u2019s good about reading,\u201d or \u201cthe point of reading,\u201d or \u201cbuddy that\u2019s actually just \u2026 what reading is<\/i>,\u201d but that all assumes that your reason for reading anything is that you want to learn something from it, even if it\u2019s only at the level of, like, what ultimately happens to the Whos down in Whoville.\u2019 [GIFT LINK<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n I met Derik Penny when he was working behind the counter at the Denver Bicycle Cafe in 2013 or 2014, and we have stayed in touch through the years thanks to a mutual love of baseball, art, and making things out of wood (something he is 3 to 4,000 times better at than I am). We were messaging about something a few weeks back when I thought, \u201cI bet Derik would be a great guest to have on My Favorite Things,\u201d and I am happy to say I was not wrong. We talked about Jeff Lemire\u2019s trilogy of Essex County graphic novels, BadBadNotGood\u2019s album Sour Soul<\/em>, the YouTube channel Ishitani Furniture, and Andrew Forbes\u2019 book of baseball essays The Utility of Boredom<\/em>, and you can listen to it here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n I am pretty sure I still have the glasses I wore to watch the 2017 solar eclipse, and I now want to go digging for them after seeing this collection of eclipse glasses from 1793-2019<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Speaking of that eclipse, I was chatting with a friend about the most recent eclipse and remembered I had shot a short video of the one in 2017, when Hilary and I drove to western Nebraska to check it out. I turned the camera on us instead of the sun, so you can watch the fields behind us go completely dark and then light back up again in about 3.5 minutes<\/strong><\/a>. (I re-uploaded it yesterday)<\/p>\n Books I\u2019m Currently Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n I picked up this meditative book on, you guessed it, how to wash dishes, at our local bookstore, noting that the \u201cStaff Picks\u201d card inside it was from the owner, Garth, with the simple note \u201cthis should settle some arguments.\u201d I\u2019m only a third of the way through it, and we don\u2019t have any arguments about dishwashing at our house, but I\u2019m enjoying it so far.<\/em><\/p>\n Totally forgot how I found out about this book of poetry or when I ordered it, but it showed up in the mail a few weeks ago. I had been enjoying reading a few poems every night when I finally read the back cover out loud to Hilary: \u201cFor every woman who\u2019s ever held joy and sorrow in the same breath\u2014this debut is a tender, powerful reminder that you are not alone.\u201d So I guess I\u2019m not the primary target market\u2014but I\u2019m still loving the book!<\/em><\/p>\n Hilary was reading this for months and absolutely gushing over it, and there\u2019s only so much you can hear about one book before you just say \u201cI\u2019ll go ahead and borrow that whenever you\u2019re finished.\u201d And I am happy to say it\u2019s as good as she said it was (although I would be terrified of taking on the challenge of writing about five different [famous] artists all in the same book like Mary Gabriel did).<\/em><\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n![\"thumbnail](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/semi-rad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/thumbnail-from-What-if-it-actually-works-out.jpg?w=1500&ssl=1)
Related<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n