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philipbrewer_feedJackie and I started baking sourdough long before the pandemic, baking a loaf pretty much every week since the early 1990s.
Today’s loaf: citric acid, ascetic acid, salt, diastatic malt powder, olive oil, honey, oats, bread flour, prairie gold whole wheat flour.
philipbrewer_feedThis is exactly right, and we’re all going to suffer for it (along with all the other things we’re going to suffer for because of Trump).
The best summary of Trump’s trade “philosophy” comes from Trashfuture’s November Kelly, who said that Trump is flipping over the table in a poker game that’s rigged in his favor because he resents having to pretend to play the game at all.
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philipbrewer_feedOkay, I’m going to tag this “allegedly funny,” because that’s the tag I’ve got for this sorta stuff. But this is legit funny:
Instead, FEMA staff have been encouraged to use terms like “freezing rain” in their public messaging, the sources said.
Source: Don’t say ‘Watch out for ice’: FEMA warned storm announcements could invite memes | CNN Politics
philipbrewer_feedLet me just say, I am 100% down with taking a snow day, but calling it a general strike.
semi_rad_feedI didn’t know that much about Tara Dower before watching this film, but I particularly like how she would rather introduce herself as “trail folk” instead of “ultrarunner,” and that one of her biggest talents seems to be inspiring an entire squad of friends to help her achieve her insane goals (and they all seem to be having so much fun doing it)(video)
Apparently a huge swath of the northern United States could see the northern lights this past week. I missed them, and maybe you did too, but this commercial airline pilot sure saw them from the cockpit of a Boeing 787 flying from Calgary to London and WOW did he get some wild photos of them.
I got really excited when I saw this video pop up on YouTube, listened to it like ten times, and announced to Hilary, “Hey, new José González album dropping soon,” and then realized that the album is not coming until March 27th. So, “Hey, new José González song available now” if you’re into that sort of thing, and if you’re not, let me just say that I have asked my music industry friend if José González is indeed the very nice guy he seems to be, and have received confirmation. He’s just one of those musicians who could keep writing music that’s 70-90% the same as his old stuff for the next 20 years and I’d keep eating it up.
I have feelings of great validation whenever I hear that someone smarter/more successful/faster than me espouses some sort of trick I’ve been doing for a long time without knowing that it’s actually a thing. Like when I read that author David Epstein sleeps in his workout clothes to eliminate that small bit of friction when he needs to get out and exercise the next morning. Or when sports scientist and CEO of newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration Andy Blow says to spend two minutes the night before thinking about what training you’re going to do the next day as one of his tips of How to motivate yourself to train this winter. (<—This link will give you 15% off your first 2026 order on the PFH website, but you might also have to enter the code SEMIRAD26 when you check out)
This is the second time in two weeks that I’ve shared a link from the r/FoundPaper subreddit but I particularly enjoy this definition of art, and the photo of the room in the school basement where it was found.
This poem, “Occasional Poem,” by Jacqueline Woodson, simultaneously feels so effortless and so powerful, which is probably why she’s written more than 30 books and won a whole bunch of awards.
This photo gallery of the “snow monsters” that appear during winter conditions at Japan’s Mount Zao ski resort is so cool. I don’t know what else to say but it’s worth scrolling through on a screen, probably the bigger the better. [GIFT LINK]
I loved this short piece on Geographic Geoff’s substack, which answers a question that, like me, maybe you’ve asked before but maybe just in your own head, and maybe you, like me, were not in a place to google it, and then forgot about it, but now, please enjoy the answer to that question, “Lots of countries end with ’-stan’ but why?”
On our most recent Trailhead podcast episode, Zoë and I interviewed our mutual friend Doug Mayer, who started the tour company Run The Alps, and who has also run the 330-kilometer Tor des Geants not once, but three times, and wrote a graphic novel about the race. I probably say this a lot because I try to have fun in most things I do, but this episode was really fun to record, and I hope if you listen to it, you laugh as much as we did.
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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Kevin and I were running on the trail, chugging along, talking about why people write. Because if you ask a writer, they’ll tell you it’s often essentially a form of self-torture. Yet, we—writers—are compelled to keep doing it. But why?
We were on the fire road that cuts across the face of Mt. Sentinel about 800 feet above town, a double-track of dirt that goes for almost two miles of wide-open views and is a fantastic place to go if you enjoy talking while you run, because you’re right next to each other the whole time, minus one or two spots where you might have to step aside for another runner/hiker/dog walker.
I had a couple things to say about why it’s hard for people to write, because I am technically a writer, which just means I have figured out ways to publish enough words and make enough money for the IRS to not contest it when I put “writer” in the appropriate box on my tax forms.
On the day that Kevin and I went on this trail run, I was about 60 percent finished building a set of shelves in my garage, mostly out of materials I’d salvaged from the old shelves someone had built in our garage a few decades ago and didn’t work for us anymore.
Kevin had recently finished building something very similar and had sent me a photo of it, so here we were, two runners, who were also amateur carpenters and people who want to write, talking about all that stuff as we jogged along.
I note all this because I said to Kevin something like,
Well, it can be hard to justify spending several hours trying to write something, because at the end of all those hours, you might not think what you wrote is any good. If you spent that same amount of time and a bit of money buying some wood and trying to build a table or a set of shelves, and you didn’t quite get it right and the table or the shelves wasn’t the greatest thing ever, it would probably still be usable in some way.
Maybe you mess it up somehow and have to start over once or twice. And if you cut a piece of wood an inch or two too short, you might have to go buy some more wood so you could try it again. Sure, you fuck up some wood, but you end up making something, in your hours as a novice woodworker.
And that’s considered a normal hobby—compared to writing—because at least you’re making something that has a purpose, if only for the people who live in your house. Very different from, say, writing poetry, or short fiction, which may never get published or even get read by anyone else.
But look: We both know that you can go to a home improvement store and buy a set of those wire rack shelves, or a set of plastic ones, and they’ll work just fine to hold your stuff.
But you didn’t do that. You took three or five or eight hours or whatever and penciled out a sketch and went and bought some wood and some screws or nails, and you measured the wood and cut it and clamped it together and tried to get all the angles right and cut more wood and drove in screws or nails and got some sawdust all over yourself and maybe a couple splinters in one or more fingers, and you made something yourself, and it maybe didn’t turn out exactly like you thought it would, and maybe you didn’t end up saving any money after all, but it works, and it fits in the space better than something from the store, and now you can say, Sure it’s not perfect, and sure, plenty of other people could do better, but I made this one.
I guess I think that’s why we write.
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The early-registration discount for my Running To Stand Still writing + trail running workshop this June in Montana ends January 31. More information and an application link can be found here.
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Here’s a video version of the above essay:
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exilesme_feed - Day 19.017: Aftermathelectoral_vote_feed - Wed, Jan. 28 Electoral Vote Predictorelectoral_vote_feed - Tue, Jan. 27 Electoral Vote Predictorexilesme_feed - Day 19.016: Stormphilipbrewer_feed - 2026-01-26 12:16philipbrewer_feed - 2026-01-26 09:24electoral_vote_feed - Mon, Jan. 26 Electoral Vote Predictorexilesme_feed - Day 19.015: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #540electoral_vote_feed - Sun, Jan. 25 Electoral Vote Predictorexilesme_feed - Day 19.014: Cold at the cemeteryelectoral_vote_feed - Sat, Jan. 24 Electoral Vote Predictorexilesme_feed - Day 19.013: Florida mammalsphilipbrewer_feed - 2026-01-23 16:01philipbrewer_feed - 2026-01-23 08:10electoral_vote_feed - Fri, Jan. 23 Electoral Vote Predictorsemi_rad_feed - Friday Inspiration 520exilesme_feed - Day 19.012: Mixed messageselectoral_vote_feed - Thu, Jan. 22 Electoral Vote Predictorsemi_rad_feed - Sometimes You Just Gotta Cut Up Some Woodexilesme_feed - Day 19.011: Steinbrenner Field![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}