Friday Faves 9/20: Succession, Long Runs, and Keebler Cookies

Best Activity

Long Runs: I remember as a kid hating to run. It was something my dad loved to do and he’d push me to run in order to get ready for soccer season. It was a miserable activity, and I’d push back at every turn. Now here I am training for my fourth marathon, with a fifth one coming in April. While the long runs are starting to stretch out to 18 and 20 miles, I enjoy the time outside and I feel very lucky to have the Charles River running trails so close.

I was speaking to a friend that is a much faster runner than I am. He had a bad accident recently and couldn’t run for a couple months. He said it was really tough, both mentally and physically when he couldn’t run. Running has turned into that for me, too. If I go a few days without running, I can start to feel stir crazy and irritable. I love starting my weekend with a Saturday run. It clears the decks for the rest of the weekend and puts me in the right mindset.

Best Listen

Lumineers “III”: I can’t quite put my finger on what I like about this group. They’re somewhat generic, they aren’t super interesting as a whole, and a lot of their stuff sounds the same (what a sales pitch, right?). Typically, though, a few songs on their album rope me in, and then I just find myself letting the album play all the way through as I read or do work. The first song on this album is one of those songs, it’s called “Donna” and it’s a great start to a good album.

Zach Lowe Podcast: The self-proclaimed niche NBA podcaster will every now and then dip into other fields. He recently interviewed David Epstein, the author of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialize World. They discuss Epstein’s research for the book and the conclusions he makes. It’s a great listen for parents, educators, and folks who might feel like they’re on a long, windy path that doesn’t seem to be leading to what they truly want.

Best Watch

Succession: Following the first four episodes of this series, Tiff and I would look at each other unconvinced. The slow, plodding plot with unlikeable characters just wasn’t sticking, but we decided to give it another couple weeks. Boy am I glad we did because it took off. It’s now one of our favorite shows, and one of the few shows that we watch on a weekly basis (usually on Monday evening). The plot is simple, a massive media company led by Logan Roy (played by Brian Cox) is thrown into turmoil when Roy has a serious and sudden medical scare. His children would all like to be the heir-apparent, but they are all fatally flawed. In my mind, the company Waystar Royco is analogous to Fox, even down to the conservative news arm called ATN. This season has a great plot arch where Waystar is trying to acquire another huge media company, which is pretty much a CNN/NYTimes combo called Pierce. The dynamic of dumb, entitled Waystar employees who can’t even name a book they’ve read against the well-read, doctorate chasing folks at Pierce is really well done.

If you’re not watching Succession on HBO, do yourself a favor and watch it.

Audrie and Daisy: I was sucked into this documentary because a chunk of it happened in the town of Saratoga, CA, where I lived for five years as a kid. The movie covers two girls that were sexually assaulted at high school parties. One lived in Saratoga, Audrie, and the other girl, Daisy, lived in Maryville, Missouri. Again, it’s a sad statement on how society handles these cases, but important for people to watch. A lot of victim blaming and “boys will be boys” nonsense. The Missouri sheriff even made a very Trumpian statement, blaming both boys and girls for these types of encounters. When he was pushed and told that the boys were the ones that were found guilty in this case he scoffed and said, “were they?”

Best Read

There’s More to Antonio Brown’s Story (Sports Illustrated): It has been a strange two weeks for New England Patriots fans. They signed Antonio Brown on September 7. One day before their Week 1 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yes, he shot his way out of Oakland and had showed signs that he wasn’t the best guy during the summer. On Monday, September 9 news of a civil suit centered on sexual assault hit the news. The Pats decided to play Brown anyway in their Week 2 win over the Miami Dolphins. Then this past Monday, Sports Illustrated released an article with some more stories about Brown’s behavior, some of it is icky and other parts are confusing and other parts pure, concentrated entitlement. I found myself reading some of it aloud to Tiff because it was so ludicrous. On Thursday night, more news dropped about Brown; one of his accusers in this article released text messages that Brown sent her after the article came out. They are a bit intimidating, and said she was chasing money. He even included pictures of the woman’s children in the text exchange. Hard to believe he’ll be playing this Sunday…

Best Eat

Keebler Fudge Stripe Cookies: Last week it was Tim Tams, this week is another delightful partner to a cup of tea. I picked these up on a nostalgic whim this week and don’t regret it at all. Just be careful, you might find yourself eating two or three rows in a sitting. I’ve heard this from people.