1. RIP James Earl Jones and Michaela Mabinty DePrince. James Earl Jones, revered actor and voice of Star Wars’ Darth Vader, dies aged 93 and Actor, and beloved baritone James Earl Jones dies at 93, and Trailblazing ballerina Michaela Mabinty DePrince dies at 29, and Pioneering ballerina Michaela DePrince dies at 29, and Michaela Mabinty DePrince: a life in pictures.

2. A new start after 60: it took 70 years to find my inner artist. At 82, I’m in my studio every day. “Former nurse Norma Geddes took a 10-day stained-glass course on a whim and found her passion. Now she exhibits widely and her work sells out.”

3. There’s an underreported health crisis among veterinarians. 4 reasons why they need help.

4. ‘Rez Ball’ is a story for everyone. “The Netflix film directed by Sydney Freeland and co-written by Sterlin Harjo is a story centered on a Native American basketball team fighting to be recognized as the champions they are.”

5. “Will & Harper”: Will Ferrell embarks on a unique road trip with his best friend.

6. Kamala won by being all the things. A reflection on the debate. In related news, a reflection on the same debate from Frederick Joseph, Trump Babbles His Way To Defeat.

7. All This Witnessing: A Review of Laura Pritchett’s Playing with Wildfire. 

8. The Interview: Demi Moore Is Done With the Male Gaze on The New York Times. (gift link) In related news, ‘We can be violent to ourselves. Brutal’: Demi Moore on body image, reinvention and her most shocking role yet. “After a lifetime of scrutiny, the actor has returned for a ‘grotesque’ feminist body horror about recapturing lost youth. She talks about no longer ‘chasing perfection’, living alone, and feeling truly free at 61.”

9. USPS’ long-awaited new mail truck makes its debut to rave reviews from carriers.

10. An Apology, 3 Years Later. “It’s a bitter pill to swallow for our children when they realize how imperfect we are. I believe, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children after they learn this truth is found in the embracing of our imperfections, giving them permission to do the same. Acknowledging our own shortcomings gives them space to make their own mistakes and live authentically while also offering them an example of how to seek and acceptance forgiveness even (and especially) when it’s hard.”

11. 5 Daily Habits That Are Causing 90% Of Your Pain from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. Also from Courtney, Feel Happier Daily with 7 Simple Habits.

12. ‘The fact that I’m still here is amazing’: Noel Fielding on Bake Off, booze and the Boosh. “He has gone from cult niche to smash hit and he still can’t believe it. As Bake Off returns, the comic talks about his ‘feral’ upbringing, his party years – and the day Hammond fell out of a hammock.”

13. I’ve Been To Over 20 Homeschool Conferences. The Things I’ve Witnessed At Them Shocked Me. 

14. Artist Creates Intricate Land Installations as a Meditation on Letting Go.

15. The Heartbreak and Hazards of Alzheimer’s Caregiving. “Most caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s find themselves behaving in ways they know are counterproductive. The disease affects their brains, too.”

16. What to watch this fall: Here are the TV shows we’re looking forward to.

17. 17 Novels You Need to Read This Fall.

18. Recipes I want to try: One Pot Lasagna, and Easy Peasy Chicken Pot Pie, and Chicken Spinach Pasta Bake, and Chicken Cobbler, and French bread pizza, and Maple Sweet Potatoes, and Sweet and Savory Maple Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Walnuts and Thyme, and “World’s Best” Macaroni & Cheese, and Chicken Stuffing Casserole, and One Pan Creamy Orzo Dinner. As I think ahead about cooking for my mom in a few weeks, I’ve been collecting recipes I think she’d like, so now 60% of my Facebook feed is recipes!

19. Watch a Sneak Peek of America’s Test Kitchen’s 25th Anniversary Special. In related news, America’s Test Kitchen 25th Anniversary Bloopers!

20. Baby Walrus Rescued in Alaska. (video) “ABC’s Danny New TV spoke with the animal care specialist helping raise an adorable walrus calf found abandoned in a remote corner of Alaska.”

21. You Can Do 5 Things.

22. zinnias, hummingbirds, and grace. 

23. A Pep Talk on Perspective from Maggie Smith. Also from Maggie, On Your One Wild and Precious Life.

24. Awestruck: 52 Experiments to Find Wonder, Joy, and Meaning in Everyday Life A Yearlong Journal, Alexandra Franzen’s new book.

25. Good stuff from Seth Godin: The hierarchy of insight and When did we lose consciousness?

26. On This Day Twenty Years After You Were Born, a poem from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

27. I Totally Missed Summer this Year from Stacy Morrison. “Not complaining, just observing. Because observing is the only way to actually slow down and live time, turns out.”

28. The Art of Finishing from Patti Digh. “When good enough is good enough.”

29. Don’t ask my daughter if she’s going to be a writer. “One of the most healing acts we can offer ourself and our parents, whether they are alive or not, is to reclaim our own story, while honoring their story and the gifts they gave us.”

30. Kiss All Frogs from Danny Gregory.

31. The Mother Tree from Jamie Attenberg. “Write for yourself. Write the story you want to tell. Write because it will bring you joy or at the very least a fulfilled feeling. I am telling you that if you keep digging in the dirt you’re going to find something that feels like a solution, even if it’s a temporary one. Anyway all of this is temporary. This is the ongoing struggle to make our art and satisfy our creative and intellectual and emotional needs. But still we keep digging.”

32. Kindness and sorrow on Short Reads.

33. My social experiment of when I joined Tiktok.

34. Invest in the Children, “Our annual effort to support students navigating economic hardship.” An annual project through Frederick Joseph’s non-profit, We Have Stories, in which “we provide 100 children with backpacks, notebooks, pens, pencils, stress balls, books, and gift cards to support their parents.”

35. Amends to the Crows, a poem from Julie Barton on Out With Lanterns, a daily poetry practice.

36. Finding Permission to Mourn 22 Years After 9/11.

37. Boar’s Head indefinitely closes Virginia plant tied to deadly listeria outbreak, discontinues liverwurst.

38. Man paralyzed in tragic accident changes lives through his gym: “They have a purpose.”

39. The Average American Eats 42 Pounds of Cheese a Year, and That Number Could Go Up.

40. Chris Judge’s Daily Cloud Interpretations.

41. A salad recipe is causing a cucumber shortage in Iceland. I knew this would happen somewhere, eventually.

42. Mushroom Color Atlas, “a resource and reference for everyone curious about mushrooms and the beautiful and subtle colors derived from dyeing with mushrooms.”

43. And finally, these random saves from this past week.

P.S. I almost forgot! It’s my 13th Blogiversary! To date, I’ve published 2,567 posts. No wonder I’m so tired all the time. 🙂

1. The Secret Life of Librarians. “In partnership with the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, Carnegie Corporation of New York celebrates ten exceptional librarians every year with the I Love My Librarian Award…The Secret Life of Librarians explores their unexpected stories and contributions as civic heroes who improve lives and bring communities together.”

2. Tim Dowling: we bit the bullet and got a new puppy. Dear God, what have we done? “The new addition to our house is howling, taking over my bed and alienating our other pets – and she hasn’t even got a name yet.”

3. Casa Bonita documentary to debut in Denver. “Those around Colorado have probably heard of Casa Bonita at some point. The famed Mexican restaurant features an indoor waterfall, cliff divers and haunted caves. Created in 1974, the restaurant became a must-visit stop for locals and out-of-state visitors and has been described as the ‘Disneyland of Mexican restaurants.'”

4. Insects Metamorphose from Bamboo in Noriyuki Saitoh’s Meticulous Sculptures.

5. “Toward Meanings Beyond What Words Can Hold”: An Interview with Jane Hirshfield.

6. Jamaican Doctor of Dance. (Facebook reel)

7. Everything is Connected, Everything Changes from Upaya Online Programs. “Rebecca Solnit offers a fresh and poetic narrative of hope, in which we e are urged to view our burning world in way that acknowledges the deep and well tended seeds of peace that have been planted in various spiritual and political arenas for many years. She calls us to express the vow of the bodhisattva, to free all beings from suffering, and to return again and again to the difficulties of practice until we have completed the work at hand.”

8. 5 Signs You’ve Already Had A Stroke and Didn’t Know It. Pretty sure my mom’s stroke last year wasn’t her first, especially considering these five signs.

9. Tiny forests are popping up across Australia. (Facebook reel) “Dr Grey Coupland is planting these tiny forests in schools, following the Miyawaki method, and says they bring biodiversity, cooling and nature to our suburbs.” More of this, please.

10. Happy Reunion. (Facebook reel) “There were tears of joy at an animal shelter in South Carolina recently, when a woman was finally reunited with her cat, 11 years after it had gone missing.” If you haven’t already, microchip your pets!

11. So many recipes I want to try: Bacon and Cheddar Zucchini Bread, and Roasted Vegetable and Chickpea Bowl with Maple Dijon Tahini, and Bean Smash Tacos (Facebook reel), and Pasta With Roasted Garlic & Cauliflower, and Peach Skillet Cake, and Lemon Sweet Rolls, and Beef and Cheese Chimichangas, and Secret Ingredient in Fluffy Diner Pancakes. 

12. Staying fit as you age isn’t just about exercise. Experts say to prioritize these 4 habits. 

13. Manatee mum and calf charm wildlife photo judges.

14. SNL Mashed Up Lord of the Rings and The Office in This Brilliant Sketch.

15. First Look at Burning Man 2024: Exploring Curiouser & Curiouser Art Installations. I have no interest in ever attending Burning Man, and yet the art that gets installed there is pretty cool.

16. The multi-faceted Natasha Lyonne on CBS Sunday Morning. “Actress, writer, director and producer Natasha Lyonne, who earned Emmy nominations for ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ ‘Russian Doll’ and ‘Poker Face,’ has been an infectious presence on-screen for decades, playing characters who tend to be funny, perceptive, and a little weird. Lyonne talked with ‘Sunday Morning’ contributor Kelefa Sanneh about bringing her magnetic talent to the new film ‘His Three Daughters,’ and about how her chaotic childhood may have prepared her for a life being, as Time magazine put it, ‘the coolest person in the room.'”

17. Award-winning Native star quilt maker opens South Dakota storefront. “Bonnie LeBeau’s shop is one of a handful of Native-owned businesses in Rapid City and one of the only Native-owned stores offering Indigenous print fabric and quilting supplies in the Black Hills.”

18. The hardest thing about moving is not the people you leave behind – it’s the paths you’ll never walk again. “I have walked and run along this path thousands of times – sometimes alone, sometimes with my dog, husband, friends or neighbours. While the route remains constant, the experience never is. My outer cargo has included a raincoat, head torch, wellies, sunglasses, binoculars, backpack. My internal baggage, contentment and sadness, joy and anxiety, irritation and uncertainty. I’ve felt everything – as well as nothing at all – as I’ve added each new layer of footsteps to those that have gone before.” This is why I love our morning walks, so much.

19. We Ripen to Be Consumed.

20. From Seth Godin: Write for someone and Your audiobook.

21. Sometimes a Wild God, a poem by Tom Hirons.

22. How to Apologize by Patti Digh.

23. Good stuff from Britshida: How to fix a “bad habit” and being good is a scam.

24. Lion’s Roar Podcast | How to Overcome Othering and the Root of Conflict with Tara Brach.

25. Freezing the Peaches, a poem from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

26. The Good Stuff: Joy is absolutely a strategy from Maggie Smith.

27. To All My Friends Who Struggle with Loving Their Bodies from Laurie Wagner.

28. GLP-1s and Eating Disorders – Part 2 from Ragen Chastain. 

29. Potential Voice Loss: A Side Effect Of New Chemo from Andrea Gibson. “Making peach with this as a SPOKEN word poet.”

30. Embody the Ecotone from Abigail Rose Clarke. I love this graphic she uses in her latest newsletter.

31. This Job Will Kill Me If I Let It. “No one told me a work-life imbalance could make me sick.”

32. 7 Essential Time Boundaries That Will Transform Your Life on Be More With Less from Courtney Carver.

33. Navigating Grief with Marisa Lee: Four Essential Strategies and Three Ways to Support the Bereaved on The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet podcast. “We talk about the experience of grief, the truth of how it impacts a person that no one ever teaches us, and how transformation is waiting on the other side of it. She also shares some very practical tools to support someone going through loss and gives us a sneak peek at what she’s up to next.”

34. Back Again & an update from The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

35. Spring cleaning and new year’s intentions on Rootsie from Rita Ott Ramstad. “Because you can make fresh starts any time of the year.”

36. Instead of Bringing People Closer, Religions are Dividing Them and Diminishing their Joy on The Gurdeep Magazine.

37. Amy B. Scher: Releasing Emotional Blockages on Sounds True podcast. “Enjoy this experiential conversation exploring: how to identify the ways in which we hold ourselves back from our authenticity, relieving the unnecessary pressure we put on ourselves, perfectionism, the debilitating consequences of unresolved emotional blocks, energy psychology and EFT, using your intuition, the tapping technique, the role of the thymus gland, releasing stored nervousness, installing positive emotions as an adjunct to self-healing, avoiding the pitfall of toxic positivity, having patience with the process, the power of levity on the healing journey, and more.”

38. Resisting interpretation, “Experiencing the event, not the story of the event” on Poetry Unbound.

39. Writing the Truth is a Radical Act, “and sometimes it’s terrifying to share” on Writing at Red Lights.

40. Chris La Tray Answers the Orion Questionnaire, “Montana’s Poet Laureate Chris La Tray is a Métis storyteller and the author of Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home. He loves librarians, teachers, and booksellers, and can do a convincing peacock shriek. He also understands why you should never turn your back on an ornery Chihuahua, and how silence is sometimes better than song.”

41. Catherine Prowse Invokes Joy, Comfort, and Community in a New Animation for Palliative Care Queensland.

42. A New Book Branches Out Across 3,500 Years to Explore Our Enchantment with Trees.

43. 75 Nice Things To Do For Yourself.

44. Chappell Roan Confronts The Sickness Of Modern Fandom.

45. 25 Bizarre But Amazing Airbnb Rentals You Should Book Now.

46. Typewriter interview with Elisa Gabbert, from Austin Kleon. “On writing, having interests instead of hobbies, and good midlife crisis books.”

47. Feeling Tired & Stuck? Blame It On “Functional Freeze.”

48. If Slow Living Isn’t Your Thing, Try Slower Living.

49. Can You Spot These Mini Canvases Hidden Around Brooklyn? “Steve Wasterval stashes his tiny paintings of Greenpoint locales in traffic cones, behind telephone pole flyers, and even at Citi Bike stations.”

50. And finally, this set of random things.