Friday Playlist

Several repeats of artists I’ve played recently who have more solid, new music out. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4s8rTf2kcdLGrtXrnzYNxt?si=146f44ed92674909) “Sleep All Summer” - Crooked Fingers Hey, our freshman-to-be’s theme song! “Angelus” - The Berries Before we get to the repeats, here’s a new song from a new artist that is crazy good. “Call You Back” - TTSSFU Even if you don’t listen to the words, just from the tone you can tell this song is about desperate, late night interactions when a relationship is doomed but one person hasn’t gotten the message yet.

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Reader's Notebook, 8/7/25

The Happy Isles of Oceania - Paul Theroux The latest re-read - for the fifth, sixth time? - of my all time favorite, non-fiction book. I actually meant to take it when we traveled to Hawaii four years ago but couldn’t find it. It turned up a year or two later and has been sitting on my shelf, waiting for the right moment. I decided I will continue to read it once every ten years or so as long as I am able.

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Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 114

Chart Week: August 5, 1978 Song: “Love Will Find A Way” - Pablo Cruise Chart Position: #9, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #6 the week of August 26. There are many factors that go into determining my favorite musical years. Clearly the songs are the biggest factor. It is a huge bonus if most of the best tracks of a given year were hits during the summer months.

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July Media

Movies, Shows, etc Arrested Development, season one I figured “Why not watch this again?” the week of July 4th. Never disappoints. A Long Way Home This is Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s fourth series about riding motorcycles long distances. I watched the first, 20 years ago, and then didn’t realize the others existed. Luckily this one landed on Apple TV+ and the visuals are fabulous, although the actual travel insights are often rather banal.

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Weekend Notes

A very busy weekend, at least the front half. A Wedding Friday evening we all went to the wedding of O, the oldest daughter of our neighbors at our old house. M was a bridesmaid, her first of many I’m sure, so it was an extra big deal for her. It was a very nice ceremony and reception; the bride and groom seemed to be having an awesome time which is most important.

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Friday Playlist

Another big, eclectic mix of music this week. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50aIgpY3rbMCVTaKnjpU0V?si=3f8a7e3addea46c2) “Summer Drive” - Dragon Turtle For those moody, nighttime drives when summer’s hold begins to slip. “mangetout” - Wet Leg It took a minute, but a song from the new WL album finally jumped out at me. This track has all the cheek of their first album - so many sly lyrics! - with a slight edge that, to my ear, recalls the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

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Thursday Links

Too late to implement this idea for the summer of ’25, but something for parents to keep in mind for next year. Just like the 1890s and the 2020s, they’ll play with the unvaccinated kids down the street and drink raw milk until dark. Then at daybreak, I’ll hand my children their metal lunch pails, button their fifty-button shoes, and they’ll shuffle off to their factory jobs, because in the Gilded Age, and southern states in the 2020s, no snowflake child labor laws exist.

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Jayhawk Talk: Can't Take The Heat?

I probably should have included this in my Weekend Notes post, but was also debating how deep to go on the latest health scare for KU coach Bill Self. Without knowing much about what actually happened, I didn’t want to turn it into 3000 words about the future of the program. That’s always a possibility when I start writing about KU hoops, though. What we know for sure is that Self suffered “concerning symptoms” while playing golf last week, was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Lawrence, and received two stents.

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Weekend Notes

The clock is starting to run out on academic summer. There are actually a couple public districts around here that started last week. The one we live in starts this Thursday. L returns on August 7. It goes by fast. Some notes from one of the last weekends before we start worrying about school schedules again. A Big Birthday M turned 21 on Friday. She’s all growns up! She had a bash with friends in Cincinnati that night.

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Friday Playlist

Back to extra-stuffed this week. So stuffed that I’ll only include one summer song. And apologies to Chuck Mangione, but there’s no room to honor his passing with more than these words. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/35X5UYCMtCeOZsTTLDDBv3?si=8ba6894dbcc7486e) “Summer Nights” - Van Halen Perfect late July song. “Touch Myself” - The Beaches Not a remake of that song, but definitely about the same subject. And a strong Song of the Summer contender. “Cowbella” - bar italia I’m not sure if they were going for this, but every time I hear this song I think of Elastica.

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Fitness Update

A belated review of my fitness activity in April-through-June. You can read about the first quarter of the year (and L’s ED visit) here. I exercised 73% of the days in those three months, which I was hoping to beat in Q2. Which I did. Barely. Officially I was at 73.3% in Q1. This past quarter I was at 73.6%. May was my best month of the year, but then a couple travel weekends, pool issues, and a heat wave in June made that my worst month of the year.

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On Malcolm

Celebrity deaths that are somehow connected to your childhood always hit a little harder. But, man, the news that Malcom-Jamal Warner drowned while on vacation in Costa Rica had an extra big wallop to it. Part of it was the circumstances. Pretty much every person who reads this has been on a vacation with a loved one and gone for a swim. Thus while incredibly tragic, Warner’s death had an everyday quality to it.

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Weekend Notes

Once again this weekend notes piece will involve more than what went on from Friday to Sunday. I’ll start with a focus on the actual weekend, though. WNBA All Star Game The best players in the league were all in Indy over the weekend for Saturday’s All Star Game. While that was exciting, it was tempered a bit by Caitlin Clark getting injured again Tuesday and not participating in either the 3-point contest Friday or playing in the All Star Game Saturday.

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Friday Playlist

This week’s playlist is dominated by the ladies. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5SzWq3O8UnsqRly0vDE73x?si=a65c0e29779d40ac) “Pool Hopping” - illuminati hotties Yeah, pool hopping sounds great and all, until every pool you jump into is 95°. “Jealous Boy” - The Bug Club A suggestion from brother-in-music E$. I’ve been trying to figure out who this group sounds like for a couple weeks but can’t quite pin it down. So I stopped worrying about it and focus on enjoying the song.

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Reader's Notebook, 7/17/25

This week has gone a little off the rails. We are expecting a contractor at the house shortly, which was planned. Had another very much unplanned visit on Tuesday that ended up costing us the equivalent of a nice vacation. More about those next week, probably. I had planned on saving my latest RN post for after I finish my current book. I’ll go ahead and post what I have to get some content up for my loyal readers.

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Tuesday Links

Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II set came out a few weeks ago. I’m not a big enough fan to wade through all the songs, but I did sample the ones highlighted in the various articles that dropped at the same time. Naturally, Steven Hyden had the best of the bunch. Another Side of Bruce Springsteen At some point I lost touch with Joe Posnanski, I believe it was when he took all his posts behind a paywall and stopped writing regularly for any commercial sites.

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Weekend Notes

We had a great weekend highlighted by some visitors, both local and from KC, and lots of basketball. But first we need to jump back and review C’s trip to Bloomington for orientation. Orientation We got up bright and early to make check-in at 9:00 AM last Monday. Thank goodness the I–69 extension is finally complete after a decade of work. Once you get out of the Indy construction it is a breeze to get to B-town.

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Friday Playlist

Between the holiday weekend and me spending mornings watching the Tour de France, I’ve been a little slower on getting through the music this week. I think I can still come up with a few decent ones to share with y’all. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CnJg251LFrvr1Hk0tvFuX?si=cb590b13eee140f3) “Summertime” - The Sundays Pure pop genius. “Paint A Picture” - The Hives Yes, it is those Hives, back for more nonsense. “Stay Out Of Place” - Idlewild Speaking of bands that first broke out in the early part of the new millennium, these Scots are also back with new music.

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Greatest Songs Of The Century (So Far)

It’s been 12 years since I’ve updated my Favorite Songs of All Time list. Which seems like a crime for someone like me: a music freak with lots of free time and a blog. I’ve thought about it a lot, trust me. I’ve reached the point in my life, though, where the return on that process doesn’t seem to justify the effort that would go into it. Streaming has messed with my head too, and I just don’t listen to the old songs as often as I used to, so I think I’m worried I would need to scrap big parts of the 2013 list if I ever jumped back into it.

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Holiday Weekend Notes

C and I are off to Bloomington early Monday morning for her IU orientation, thus the Sunday evening post. Our holiday weekend was a little less chaotic than in recent years, so I’ll throw in some other stuff that happened over the past week as well. Holiday Weekend Our Fourth was fairly laid back, at least compared to recent years. We only had 15 relatives over, and just two of the young nephews were here so the pool was all theirs.

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