ilanarama | Reading

Posted by brendan

https://semi-rad.com/2026/04/my-favorite-things-episode-13-jono-hey/

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

The concept for the My Favorite Things podcast is simple: Each guest compiles a list of five books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 12 is Jono Hey, designer, writer, illustrator, creator of Sketchplanations, and author of Big Ideas, Little Pictures: Explaining the World One Sketch at a Time.

Jono’s favorite things are:

Calvin and Hobbes
Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks
“Le Onde” by Ludovic Einaudi
The Harry Potter series
The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin

https://semi-rad.com/2026/04/my-favorite-things-episode-13-jono-hey/

https://semi-rad.com/?p=49255

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Posted by the_exile

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19088-happy-birthday-e5n1.html

Today is E5N1's 19th birthday. I chose a photo from each year - within a few weeks of his birthday.

Here is zero:

Here is one through nine:

and ten through eighteen:

This is nineteen:

We'll see him for a birthday celebration at the weekend.

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19088-happy-birthday-e5n1.html

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Posted by AKA Darkwave, AKA Anarcha, AKA Cris.

http://wellimtryingtorun.blogspot.com/2026/04/training-log-week-ending-452026.html

This week was 43 miles of running, 16 "miles" of pool-running and 1500 yards of swimming.

After last week's long run, I decided I was still a bit worried about my right leg/hamstring. It felt mostly fine, and I was able to run on it fine, but it felt like there was something still lurking there. Not painful or sore, just...lurking.

I reviewed my running log, and the last time I had this feeling was in early 2020. Then, everything blew up (technical term) right before my marathon, and I ended up dropping out of the marathon early. I struggled with it for a few weeks after, and then got prolotherapy to tighten up loose ligaments in the SI joint and back. Once I did that, everything cleared up within a week.

So...I called the doctor who did the 2020 prolotherapy, and he had an opening on Wednesday afternoon. I played things carefully until that appointment, where he confirmed that I was again loose and unstable in my right SI joint.

He offered to schedule me in a few weeks, but then generously fit me in immediately when I explained that I had an important marathon in 2 weeks (all marathons are important, but Boston is really important to me). And once again, everything cleared up within a few days. No more sense of lurking right leg doom. (Some would argue that this was a placebo effect. Perhaps so. I don't care. I got the result I wanted.)

Since I had missed the tempo workout planned for the middle of the week, I substituted it in for Sunday's planned 16 mile long run (I had also previously considered racing on Sunday but decided not to). Of the various options, I felt like the tempo would benefit me the most and was also the least stress on my body.

Sunday morning was more like summer than March - I ran the tempo in 73 degrees with a 21 mph wind blasting at me. This was not quite as bad as it sounds - the wind basically meant that half of each lap of the track was effortless, while the other half was hard work, but into a strong cooling fan.

I once again ran this one completely ignorant of my watch - since the weather was not great I wanted to ensure I stuck to the proper effort and didn't tense up in response to slow splits. And I was once again pleasantly surprised by my splits when I reviewed the watch later. A 37:32 8K tempo indicates ~3:30 marathon fitness on a good weather day, and Sunday was unquestionably not great weather for fast running (though my muscles do seem to work better and be less rigid when it is warm).

Two weeks to go. Time for bubble wrap!

Dailies:

Monday: 7 miles very easy (10:12), upperbody weights/core in afternoon; foam rolling in the evening.

Tuesday: 7.5 miles very easy outside (10:01) with 4 short hill sprints, followed by leg strengthwork. 2.5 miles very easy (10:00) in the afternoon. Sports massage in evening.

Wednesday: 9 "miles" pool-running in the morning, including a workout of 20x70 seconds hard/20 seconds rest. Followed with 500 yards swimming. Prolotherapy injections in the afternoon.

Thursday: Upper body weights/core + PT exercises in the morning (no running or aquatic exercise the day after the prolo). Foam rolling at night.

Friday: 7 miles very easy (9:59) in the morning; 500 yards of swimming and PT exercises in afternoon. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 9 miles (9:30) mostly very easy but with a brief fartlek (3:00 at tempo, 4x0:30 faster, 4x0:10 strides). Followed with 500 yards of swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 10 miles, including an 8K track tempo in 37:32 (7:48/7:32/7:27/7:24/7:21). Followed with leg strengthwork and 7 "miles" pool-running. Foam rolling at night.

http://wellimtryingtorun.blogspot.com/2026/04/training-log-week-ending-452026.html

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rimrunner

Back in the autumn of 2024 I flew to Namibia for the first time to take part in a Tracking the Kalahari expedition. That link has more details, but in brief, it’s a group trip to visit and stay with a Ju/’hoansi community in northeastern Namibia. The primary incentive for me was to study tracking with teachers who had been doing it for almost their entire lives, as part of a hunting protocol that, until quite recently, they relied on to feed their families and communities. If you’re a tracker, learning from these people is basically a dream come true.

TTK 2026 crew. Photo from Marcus Reynerson.

Last month, I went back and did it again. Several times during the trip, especially the four-country magical mystery tour of getting there due to the Lufthansa pilots’ strike (I’m very grateful for the heads-up about tight connections at the Addis Ababa airport), I contemplated why.

At home I try to incorporate tracking into my daily life. I go to my sit spot—not as often as I feel I should—take notice of the sign I see when out and about, pay attention when hiking or checking my trail cameras, every so often take a special trip to somewhere like the Oregon Dunes for deep-dive practice. But it’s an activity not intrinsic to my daily life, not the way it’s been to our expedition hosts until very recently. So admittedly part of the appeal is learning from people for whom tracking is an inextricable cultural element, one they are currently making considerable effort to preserve.

Master trackers KXao, #Oma, Dam, and /Ui Kunta, along with translator Cali and Marcus.

But that was just as true last time I went, so what more was I looking for this time?

Tracking is sometimes described as a form of reading the landscape. It’s a reconstruction of a story that has already occurred; that, depending on the freshness of the trail, may be ongoing. One of my principal motivations for doing it is to gain a deeper understanding of the world around me, to bridge that persistent sense of separation from what we commonly call the natural world, as though we existed separately from it.

Just lion things. Etosha National Park, Namibia. Photo from Marcus Reynerson.

We don’t, but we spend a lot of time, effort, and money living as though we do. And then, some of us spend even more time, effort, and money reconnecting. Some of us go to other continents.

That reconnection was part of what I was seeking to renew with the return journey, but it wasn’t only that. Equally important, maybe more important, was reconnecting with the community I met last time, and getting to know the people in it better. Tracking was my entrance into connecting with this community, but sustaining that connection is about other things that make us human. Where I live now, I often struggle to feel as though I’m connecting with people and the landscape around me in meaningful ways. If I can do that in a landscape unfamiliar to me, with people of a culture, language, and way of life very different from my own, maybe I can do it at home too.

So many ungulates. So many.

(Originally posted at Following Curiosity. You can comment here or there.)

Current Mood: contemplative

exilesme_feed

Posted by the_exile

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19087-snow.html

This happened this morning:

Both the remote Exiles reported snow at their locations too.

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19087-snow.html

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Posted by the_exile

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19084-saturday-morning-birding.html

Our first stop on Saturday was to meet with our nature group. We visited four places at Biddeford Pool and observed birds and trees. Here are some of the birds we saw:

House sparrow

Piping plover (first of the year)

Eastern phoebe

Great blue heron

Northern flicker

Northern cardinal

Great blue heron on the mudflats of the Pool

Song sparrow

Surf scoter (front)

Long-tailed ducks

Brant (second lifetime record and first of the year)

Common loon

Brant

American black duck

Mallard

Red-winged blackbird

Gadwalls

Hooded merganser

Red-breasted merganser

Song sparrow

American wigeon

Belted kingfisher

Eastern bluebird

Double-crested cormorants (arriving in the area in numbers after their winter absence)

Common grackle

Common grackle (same bird - amazing color change when it turned around)

Great black-backed gull

Black scoters

Common eiders

Great blue heron

Brown-headed cowbirds

Northern flicker

House finch

Also notably seen but not photographed: golden-crowned kinglet and tree swallow (both the first records of the year for me).

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19084-saturday-morning-birding.html

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rimrunner

I’ve just returned from Namibia, where I once again had the privilege of learning wildlife track and sign from master trackers of the Ju/’hoansi as part of the Tracking the Kalahari project. I’m still going through my photos but this is an early favorite; a quick snapshot where I accidentally got great composition and lighting.

This was my second trip and a special opportunity to deepen my connection with tracking, with the land I was visiting, and the people I met there. I’m sure I’ll have more to share in coming days.

(Originally posted at Following Curiosity. You can comment here or there.)

Current Mood: contemplative

exilesme_feed

Posted by the_exile

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19085-exile-2s-sunday-column-548.html

Exile #2 writes...

After a fun and busy Easter service this morning, we had an unexpected visitor! E5N1 came home to hang out with us for the afternoon. There was much sharing of music, including a choral piece he’s been working on, and we also called Exile #4, who is getting very close to the end of their time at college!

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19085-exile-2s-sunday-column-548.html

philipbrewer_feed

Posted by Philip Brewer

https://www.philipbrewer.net/2026/04/05/fencing-mask/

https://www.philipbrewer.net/?p=20189

Most members of my HEMA club have painted their fencing masks in some way that’s meaningful to them.

I had long wanted to do so, but the thing I wanted to paint—the face of a sloth—was going to require at least three shades of brown, which I feared might be difficult to find. But when I finally went and looked on Amazon for acrylic paint markers, I found a set of acrylic markers in 12 different shades of brown!

I ordered them, they arrived yesterday, and I have painted my mask:

My brother confirms that I have met my goal:

https://www.philipbrewer.net/2026/04/05/fencing-mask/

https://www.philipbrewer.net/?p=20189

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Posted by the_exile

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19084-madison-cunningham-ace-tour.html

After a day that included our nature group visiting four separate birding spots and then decorating the church for Easter, Exile #2 and I rounded it off with a drive into the theater district in Boston to see Madison Cunningham’s Ace Tour at The Wilbur. It was spectacularly good and made the drive and parking - both of which were more eventful that we might have liked - very much worthwhile.

Madison Cunningham and Jesse Chandler

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19084-madison-cunningham-ace-tour.html

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Posted by the_exile

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19083-phoebe-and-turkeys.html

This morning I had a visitor just outside my office window. The first eastern phoebe of the year pumping its tail in classic fashion. I did my best to document it with my phone.

And then, at lunchtime, we had turkeys getting in the springtime mood - at least the male was, the two females were either unimpressed or playing it cool.

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19083-phoebe-and-turkeys.html

semi_rad_feed

Posted by brendan

https://semi-rad.com/2026/04/friday-inspiration-530/

https://semi-rad.com/?p=49252

I think I know probably a dozen people who will be VERY excited reading the words “Hey, there’s a documentary about Mary Oliver coming out soon,” and I hope I am the one to deliver this news to them (video)

As I understand it, this guy was replacing the stairs in his multi-floor townhouse, took out the spiral staircase, and then realized that his passport was on the top floor, which was bad because he was leaving the next weekend for a cruise. So he put an ad on Craigslist in search of a couple rock climbers to retrieve it for him (with a very detailed ad that makes me think he’s done some climbing himself). Which seems like one of those “only in New York” things, but also enjoyable for everyone. (Thanks, Beth!)

I share a lot of links to the r/cassettefuturism subreddit in this newsletter because it’s a thing I like—which I have always assumed is because of a sort of nostalgia for the time when computers seemed to hold a lot of promise and potential, but before I hated the fact that “checking my phone” was near the top of my list of “Things I Do Right Away After I Wake Up.” So when someone writes a piece titled “A love letter to cassette futurism,” I of course click on it hoping to understand why, and this one delivered for me. Basically, if you’ve noticed the aesthetic in movies like Blade Runner, Alien, the original Star Wars, or Andor, you might enjoy reading more about it. (Also if you think a 6-minute YouTube video titled “Alien but just the tech” sounds fun, that’s in the article too)

Blake Boles has one of the most unique lives of anyone I know, bouncing around the globe doing cool stuff while pursuing his passion for educating kids in non-classroom environments. Also, I have to admit that the title of his new book, “Dirtbag Rich,” is one of those “I wish I’d thought of that” titles. Anyway, it came out last week, and it’s a really thoughtful read on different ways of looking at the idea of being “rich.” I know this because I read the whole thing a few months ago when Blake asked me to create a handful of illustrations for it. Here’s a link to check it out on Bookshop, or if you prefer audiobooks, on Audible.

I know nothing about this website, but it makes me happy that someone compiled a list titled “A list of chain restaurants whose names contain unusual structures, presented in decreasing order of how appealing it would be to eat in such a structure” (via Kottke)

Last week, if I can believe the statistics, the My Favorite Things podcast passed 10,000 downloads. I have no idea if that’s impressive or not but I am psyched that some people are listening to it. For the most recent episode, I chatted with my friend Jonathan Ellsworth, who you might recognize as the founder of Blister Review, which, among other things, puts together insanely detailed reviews of skis and other gear. Jonathan also has a Ph.D in philosophy, and is always an interesting conversation, so I was excited to see what he had on his list of favorite creative works (which included Pulp Fiction, Old Man and the Sea, Picasso’s Don Quixote, a later-era Bob Dylan song, and a philosophy book that retails at $58).

I resisted buying a Defector subscription until I found out I could use gift links to send people to Defector articles, and I’m so happy I did, not necessarily because I read a lot of stories about sports, but because of stories like this one, titled “We Asked The Mayor Of Ottawa Why He Keeps Posting Such Grim Photos,” which you can enjoy without any prior knowledge of Ottawa, Ottawa’s mayor, or the grim photos referenced in the headline. [GIFT LINK]

If you want to geek out about music production for a few minutes, specifically how small but noticeable recording mistakes made it into final versions of songs (such as the phone ringing during the Beatles “A Day in the Life,” or Bill Withers repeating “I know” 26 times during “Ain’t No Sunshine,” or the fake crowd noise in Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” etc.), this video is a fun watch/listen.

Finally: Last weekend I wrote + illustrated a piece breaking down where my “creative income” comes from with a detailed pie chart, because a) I thought it might be interesting for folks to see the mix of stuff I juggle to make it work each year and b) it’s tax season in the U.S., so I had the spreadsheets handy anyway. If you’re a Patreon supporter you can see it here, and if you’re a paid Substack subscriber you can see it here. (and if you’re not a paid supporter and would like to change that, you can do so via either of those links)

—

https://semi-rad.com/2026/04/friday-inspiration-530/

https://semi-rad.com/?p=49252

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Posted by the_exile

http://exilesme.blogspot.com/2026/04/day-19082-wisconsin-birding.html

As I mentioned, I managed two short pre-breakfast walks with my camera half a mile down the road to some water and marsh habitat. The morning light was still a bit murky, but this is some of what I (and my camera) saw