The Next Instagram

 

New York Times – "Are Disposables the Future of Photo Sharing?"

By Taylor Lorenz

"Dispo, a new photo-sharing app that mimics the experience of using a disposable camera, is taking off. People are clamoring for invites to test the beta version. Early adopters are praising its social features. And investors are betting big on its future.

In the app, users frame photographs through a small rectangular viewfinder. There are no editing tools or captions; when the images “develop” — i.e. show up on your phone at 9 a.m. the next day — you get what you get. Multiple people can take photos on the same roll, as might happen with a real disposable camera at a party."

Protocol – "No editing, no hashtags: Dispo wants you to live in the moment"

25th Anniversary of Pokémon

 

CNN – "Pokémon at 25: How 151 fictional species took over the world"

Polygon – "How Japan’s Lost Decade created Pokémon" 

Polygon – "How Nintendo introduced the Game Boy, Tetris, and Pokémon to the West" 

Polygon – "The Game Boy was a brief vacation from life in a big family" 

Polygon – "The 30 greatest Game Boy games" 

Engadget – "Pokémon at 25 is stronger than ever"

The Verge – "Pokémon is a huge hit because it's cooperative"

BBC – "Pokémon at 25: Rare cards trade for big money"

Hypebeast – "Watch Logan Paul Open a $1 Million USD Pokémon First Edition Base Set Booster Box"

Podcast Boom

 

New York Times – "Podcasting Is Booming. Will Hollywood Help or Hurt Its Future?"

"Once seen as a marginal forum for comedy, tech talk and public radio programming, podcasting is one of the hottest corners in media. Yet its formats and business practices are still developing, leading producers, executives and talent to view the medium as akin to television circa 1949: lucrative and uncharted territory with plenty of room for experimentation and flag-planting."

Kids Don't Love Watching Sports

 

The Atlantic – "America Didn’t Need Sports After All"

By Jemele Hill

"Plenty of evidence suggests that sports broadcasts aren’t resonating as well with Generation Z—Americans born after 1996—as they did with previous generations. According to a recent poll, only 53 percent of Gen Zers identify as sports fans. And more troubling for networks that have invested heavily in live sports, Gen Zers are half as likely as Millennials to watch live sports regularly, and twice as likely to never watch."

Pickleball

 

Axios – "Hot pandemic-era sport: Pickleball"

SNL – "Mirror Workout"

Kind of related,

The collective well-being of Silicon Valley’s most elite executives rests in the hands of 2-3 Peloton instructors.

— Alexis Gay (@yayalexisgay) February 27, 2021

Secrets of the Whales

 

Coming to Disney+ on Earth Day, April 22.

National Geographic – "Epic Four-Part Series Will Be Marquee Event Premiere of National Geographic’s 2021 Earth Day Celebration"

NBA Top Shot, non-fungible tokens, and digital ownership

 

NBA.com – "What is NBA Top Shot? Explaining the Blockchain NBA highlight collectables"

"In a joint venture that began in July of 2019 between the National Basketball Association, the NBA Players Association and Dapper Labs have come together to create NBA Top Shot, a "revolutionary new experience in which jaw-dropping plays and unforgettable highlights become collectibles that you can own forever," per Dapper Labs Chief Executive Officer Roham Gharegozlou.

In plain terms: think of the future of the sports trading card market mixed with similar principles of cryptocurrency, but it's virtual cards that contain individual NBA highlights.

How it works: the NBA cuts the highlights and then Dapper Labs decides how many of each highlight they are going to sell and number them. They place each highlight into digital packs, just like regular trading cards, and sell the packs on the official NBA Top Shot website for prices ranging from $9 to $230. The pack prices depend on the quality of highlight, the stardom level of the player and the exclusiveness of the card. Once you purchase a pack, those highlights go into your encrypted, secure highlight wallet to be "showcased" or re-sold on the NBA Top Shot Marketplace.

According to Action Network, there have already been five sales on the global, open, peer-to-peer, always-on marketplace worth over $20,000 U.S. dollars, including a specific LeBron James highlight that recently sold for over $71,000."

Action Network – "NBA Top Shot CEO Responds to Concerns, Addresses What’s Next for Digital Card Company"

By Darren Rovell

"Despite aggressive growth plans, the company has been surprised by the response. Collectors have been so eager to buy packs, which have ranged from $7 to $999, that the website has crashed consistently, forcing the company to be open to the community about performing stress tests. A release of 50,000 packs at $14 each on Monday was delayed twice, as 40,000 people waited in line, because of the demand.

...

Among the issues users have complained about is withdrawing money. That comes down to the company growing so fast. It’s why, despite growing to more than 50,000 users, the company is still technically in beta stage.

“People are not patient, but I get it,” Gharegozlou said. “This is people’s money. We respect that…We are doing our best in terms of messaging.”

Gharegozlou told The Action Network this week that Dapper’s head of product was also in charge of executing the company’s fraud checks, which has to be done when money is withdrawn. Now, the fraud department consists of five people.

Other growing pains include pressure on Gharegozlou to answer questions about why he owns so many highlights that are now worth approximately $5 million on the open market.

Gharegozlou responds by saying there’s no intention to deceive – his username is Roham. But he, as well as all the company executives, had to use the product in order to make sure it worked. While packs today sell out immediately, a couple months ago, packs would remain on the site for days, he said. His response on the value of what he has or concerns about giving himself loaded packs, is that he is willing to make a promise to collectors.

“I consider it like Satoshi’s wallet,” said Gharegozlou, referring to the pseudonym used by the person who invented bitcoin.” I don’t plan on selling anything ever.

While the blockchain promises to be around forever and therefore concerns about how long the deal is with the NBA might not be material to some, Gharegozlou understands the want for transparency.

“I want to work with the league to announce it,” Gharegozlou said of the deal terms, which are currently confidential. “I think it’s totally valid for people to know…But the point of them being on the blockchain is that worst case, let’s say Dapper Labs says next year ‘We’re just gonna work with the NFL, we don’t want to do basketball.’ Well, then the NBA can spin off an NBA Top Shot by themselves or go with another developer and they can essentially honor the past collectors assets.”"

VICE – "People Are Spending Millions on JPEGs, Tweets, And Other Crypto Collectibles"

"As cryptocurrency prices skyrocket, celebrities from actress Lindsay Lohan to Youtuber Logan Paul are creating digital collectibles called non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These collectibles often include JPEGs or GIFs, although they can also be attached to tweets, MP3s, or any other type of digital file. The file is associated with an Ethereum token, kind of like a serial number, to prove ownership of the file.

...

Some people are making a living with these Ethereum-based NFTs, whether that means creating and selling them or trading them like baseball cards. One such artist, Daniella Attfield in South Africa, uses an NFT site called SuperRare to sell her illustrations. She’s been tinkering with NFTs since 2018, but started really focusing on it as a sales mechanism in July 2020. These days, NFT sales are her primary income.

“My artworks come with a history which is recorded on the blockchain and can be proven to be authentic. They also have the knowledge that they are supporting an artist,” Attfield said. “The demand is constantly growing as more people join the space.”

Celebrities, like Dallas Mavericks owner and Silicon Valley investor Mark Cuban, frequently sell NFTs for upwards of $81,000. Artworks regularly go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. On February 8, 2021, two video game fans set a new record by spending $1.5 million worth of crypto to buy an NFT for digital land plots in the game Axie Infinity. Meanwhile, less famous artists may offer NFTs for just a few dollars each.

...

Someone not deep into NFTs already would probably wonder why anyone would pay as much as a house for something that anyone can simply take a screenshot of and save for free. This is fair, but still, thousands of people are still buying the unique tokens that represent these images in order to support the artist and prove ownership. NFT sellers like Venezuelan illustrator Alejandra Her say the blockchain aspect fosters a stronger sense of ownership for the intangible assets.

“People can also shoot a photo of any artwork in a museum and print it out. But they know they don't own the artwork. It's the same with NFTs,” Her said. “I think that my NFTs have been bought by different kinds of collectors: those who buy to resell later, those who buy my art because they like it, and those who are artists and like support each other.” "

SNL - Drivers License

The Future of Video Meetings

 

New York Times – "The Race to Fix Virtual Meetings"

By Yiren Lu

"It’s possible that some of this dislocation that Levine is talking about will slowly dissipate as technology evolves — hardware in particular. For all the advances in software and platforms over the past year, most remote workers are still largely limited by their laptop cameras and audio inputs, which are not usually state-of-the-art. Audio lags. Video is overexposed. It’s hard to suspend disbelief and feel as though you’re in the same room as someone who looks like a shadow half the time and sounds like a gremlin.

Virtual reality, which might have been expected to get one of the biggest boosts from the move to work-from-home, has actually been the focus of few new start-ups so far — most consumers simply don’t have the hardware to enable V.R. But that is likely to change. Right now we can reach only two senses — sight and sound — through the computer, but eventually we will be able to, if not actually get to the other three, produce proxies that are convincing enough. Having a drink with someone virtually could be as intoxicating as in the physical world.

By then, humans will have most likely progressed as well. The societal conditioning that currently tells us that meeting in person is superior, somehow more “real” than meeting online, is already fading. Boufarhat points out that the Hopin team has always been remote, and yet when he does meet employees in person for the first time, “I feel like I already know them.” The intensity of being in a fast-growing start-up together, whether virtually or physically, has a way of strengthening bonds. “Humans are extremely adaptable, and people have adapted to a cloud-first world,” says Garg, the investor. “In person is just a different way to get to the same end place of deep emotional connection.”"

King Richard

 

November 19, 2021

HBO Max

Premise: "A look at how tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams became who they are after the coaching from their father Richard Williams."

Written by Zach Baylin

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green

Starring Will Smith

NHL's Outdoor Lake Tahoe Game Delayed Due to 30 Degree Sun

 

Associated Press – "Bright sun, poor ice delay outdoor NHL game at Lake Tahoe"

"“We’ve done over 30 outdoor games,” Commissioner Gary Bettman told broadcaster NBC. “This has been the most difficult weather circumstance we’ve had, and it’s a beautiful day. But if you look up at the sun, the cloud cover is everywhere but where the sun is, and it did a number on the ice.”"

VHS the New Vinyl

 

New York Times – "Who Is Still Buying VHS Tapes?"

Previously,

The Last Blockbuster in the World (March 2019)

Mortal Kombat

April 16, 2021

HBO Max

Promising Young Woman

Available now on demand

Written & Directed by Emerald Fennell 

Starring Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Connie Britton

Facebook's Oversight Board

 

New Yorker – "Inside the Making of Facebook’s Supreme Court"

By Kate Klonick 

Framing Britney Spears

Streaming on Hulu.

The Atlantic – "Why Were We So Cruel to Britney Spears?"

Los Angeles Times – "I was an MTV VJ during peak Britney. ‘Framing Britney Spears’ made me ashamed ... and hopeful"

By Dave Holmes

Revisiting The Score

 

The Ringer – "In ‘The Score,’ the Fugees Made Refugees the Heroes of an Epic Tale"

"One notable thing about that track and the rest of their seminal second LP, The Score, was that it sounded old. Really old. I was long used to listening to artists who invoked the spirit of previous eras, such as Jay-Z and the Wu-Tang Clan, but the utterly haunting chords and drums on The Score sounded like they had been recorded at the dawn of time. This album sounded Old Testament old, as if it could have been the soundtrack for the Jews when they left Egypt, led by Moses and pursued by a vengeful Pharaoh."

"It is poignant to remember that, even at the height of the supposed Cold War between the East Coast and the West Coast, rappers from both of those areas hung out with each other—Pras, a friend of Tupac’s, was in touch with him shortly before the rapper was murdered. That the Fugees managed to fight their way through that toxic fog, and to show the world that their style of hip-hop was commercially viable—it sold 22 million copies worldwide—is an understated part of their legacy." 

"By several accounts, their personalities were destined to be in perfect balance for only the briefest time. Yet what personalities they were: Wyclef, the dreamer; Lauryn, the warrior; Pras, the guardian. And what skills they had; their lyrics blessed with the deceptive simplicity of Aesop’s Fables, and Lauryn’s flow so elegant that it was seemingly engineered by Mercedes-Benz. Hill’s masterful singing sent the Fugees into the stratosphere, allowing her group to soar beyond the reaches of rival rap crews who could not hit the same notes as she could. Decades before the ubiquity of the MC who could also croon, she could channel the greatness of Nina Simone and Rakim in the same set."

The Finances of FC Barcelona

 

New York Times – "Barcelona and the Crippling Cost of Success"

"One former board member believes the pandemic will eventually cost the team more than half a billion dollars in revenue. Its salary bill is the highest in Europe. It has already broken debt covenants it agreed to with its creditors, which will almost certainly mean higher interest costs in the future.

The result is that the club that brings in more money than any other in world soccer now faces a crisis: not only a crushing financial squeeze, but a contentious presidential election and potentially even the loss of its crown jewel, Messi. Its hurried pursuit of Dembélé, among others, is only one part of how it got here."

Gatorade Shower

 

Wikipedia – Gatorade shower

Odds Shark – "Super Bowl Gatorade Color Odds: Prop Bet Guide and History "

According to Wikipedia, "The tradition began with the New York Giants football team in the mid-1980s. According to several sources, including Jim Burt of the Giants, it began on October 28, 1984, when the Giants beat the Washington Redskins 37–13, and Burt performed the action on Bill Parcells after being angry over the coach's treatment of him that week. Burt insisted that Harry Carson dumped the Gatorade on Parcells, because Carson was a favorite and wouldn't get in trouble." 

"Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers was reported to be the first NBA coach to receive a Gatorade shower when his team won the 2008 NBA Finals.[7] Paul Pierce dumped a cooler of red Gatorade over Rivers as the Celtics closed out Game 6 to clinch their first NBA title in 22 years."

The Creation of the Marvel Universe

 

New Yorker – "Who Really Created the Marvel Universe?"

"If Lee’s life deteriorated into fraud and feud, his legacy has come to seem only more enduring. The cast of characters that Lee and a clique of almost entirely white guys created has gained cultural and commercial superpower, animating stories and authors and fans in ways that they could never have foreseen.

In Lee’s X-Men, Jean Grey was The Girl, the fairer sex, the weakest link (many of the women in Lee’s books were, alas, The Girl); but in Chris Claremont’s X-books she became the cosmic center of the Dark Phoenix saga, burning down a patriarchal world. Kirby and Lee introduced Black Panther in Fantastic Four, in 1966, but he could not come close to the T’Challa of Chadwick Boseman’s screen portrayal until others (especially Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze, beginning in 2016) wrote and drew him. Peter Parker’s teen angst laid the groundwork for the internal divisions of such later young heroes as Kamala Khan, the current Ms. Marvel, defender of Jersey City, committed both to her Muslim faith and to the role models that older heroes provide (she writes fan fiction about the Avengers). Notably, neither the Black Panther nor the Ms. Marvel character was reinvented by white men. The writer G. Willow Wilson, the artist Adrian Alphona, and the editor Sana Amanat modelled Kamala partly on Amanat’s immigrant childhood.

These figures, too, live in the latticework that Lee and Kirby and the rest began, seesawing between personal dramas and cosmic dilemmas. Something big and scary is always on the horizon in a well-made Marvel comic, new or old. If the power fantasies, the high stakes, and the uncertainty about what comes next brand superhero plots as quintessentially adolescent, perhaps—with our tenuous futures, our need for new forms of community, our day-to-day fears about climate and justice and medicine—we are all adolescent now.

Today, new comic books featuring Marvel (and DC) superheroes make up a niche market. It’s unlikely that any staple-bound comic will ever approach the eight million-plus copies that an X-Men relaunch sold in 1991. But as modern superheroes—not just at Marvel, but in part thanks to Marvel—have become more complicated, and sometimes more profound, the culture around them has, too. Newsletters and fan clubs of the Silver Age have grown into specialized venues for critics, from Gary Groth’s The Comics Journal to sites like WWAC and ComicsXF (for which I write). Academic attention has followed. The pioneering monograph about superhero comics, Richard Reynolds’s “Superheroes: A Modern Mythology,” appeared in 1992. Now there are several each year.

The popular podcast “Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men,” whose existence testifies to the scope of the fandom that Lee helped inspire, calls X-Men “comics’ greatest superhero soap opera.” That soap-operatic aura—not one hero’s journey but the arc of a whole universe—might be credited to Lee and Kirby or, better yet, to their entire sixties stable of writers, pencillers, inkers, and colorists, and to their fans, who wrote in to letter columns, praising or denouncing the latest plot twists. It’s an effect that the Marvel Universe, more than any other modern intellectual property, embodies. Like Troy or Rome, every new Marvel story exists on layers of foundations laid by various hands. Incredibly, Douglas Wolk has chosen to excavate them all: this year, Penguin Press will publish his book about reading every Marvel comic issued between 1961 and 2017, a kind of peak for the highbrow attention that Marvel comics can now attract—not just cultural commentary but appreciative archeology.

Today’s X-Men, chronicled in ongoing comics, are citizens of a sentient island nation, Krakoa, with its own ecosystem, its own foreign policy, its own space colony, diplomats, and privateers. Mutants move there for safety and community, find long-lost friends and same-sex lovers, and resurrect the dead. It’s a far cry from the original X-men roster, five white-bread teens at a Westchester County school. And it’s a lot more like Marvel fandom—a found family, an imagined community, no longer all white, and frequently disabled, devoted to unlikely stories about people who may look odd, or lack social graces, but who can read minds, or teleport, or fly. That mutant nation could never have been created—or even anticipated—by the fast-talking, smug, sometimes generous, and surprisingly conventional Lee. But it could never have happened without him."

Wikipedia – Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 4

KAWS

 

New York Times – "The Surprising Ascent of KAWS"

"According to the auction catalog, “The KAWS Album” not only is Donnelly’s “most accomplished work on canvas” but also displays a “prescient vision and affectionate irreverence for our times, manifesting as an iconic apotheosis of KAWS’s entire artistic and cultural lexicon.” Once the auction opened, a bidding war drove the price to nearly 15 times its valuation. An unknown bidder — some believe it was Justin Bieber — paid $14.8 million for it.

Donnelly, who started out as a graffiti artist in the ’90s, often appropriates recognizable cartoon figures from pop culture, including “Sesame Street” characters, Mickey Mouse and SpongeBob SquarePants. In the last decade, his work has become an increasingly recognizable sight at major art institutions, though his embrace of popular media like streetwear and children’s entertainment have also marked him as a perpetual outsider within the elitist art industry. “The KAWS Album,” however, sold for so much money that it was no longer possible for the industry to dismiss him."

KAWS: WHAT PARTY

Brooklyn Museum

February 26-September 5, 2021

Previously,

KAWS LES Basketball Courts (November 2016)
KAWS at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (October 2013)
KAWS's MTV VMA Moonman (July 2013)
CBS Sunday Morning - "Street artist KAWS reaches new heights" (November 2012)
KAWS - Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Float (November 2012)
KAWS - Passing Through (June 2011)

Covid and Post-Covid Homes

The Atlantic – "Superstar Cities Are in Trouble"

By Derek Thompson 

The Atlantic – "Welcome to the Post-pandemic Dream Home"

By Joe Pinsker

The Big Ticket

 

New York Times – "Kevin Garnett Isn’t Sure His Generation Could Play in Today’s N.B.A."

"Q: As far as your legacy, there’s your big Minnesota contract, there’s proving that players could successfully go pro at 18 and there’s the way you played. But what do you believe is your contribution to the story of basketball? 

Kevin Garnett: It’s a sense of pride, a work ethic. I would be out there and be so energetic that I didn’t even know what to do. So I would Rahhh! I would roar or scream after something tremendous because that’s how I felt. When it comes to expression, I gave the league that monster face, you know what I’m saying? I used to play with so much tenacity that you felt it from your seat — every night. I brought excitement to the game. You don’t get a nickname like the Ticket — you don’t sell tickets — unless you’re doing something to make ’em all remember you. They didn’t call me the Freebie. They called me the Ticket. 

Previously,

Recruiting Kevin Garnett (May 2020) 

The Making of the Safdie Brothers's Uncut Gems (December 2019)

I'm a Dragon (July 2019)

The Career Arc of Kevin Garnett (March 2019)

Kevin Garnett and Randy Moss (January 2017)

Healthy & Ready to Go (September 2009)

Movies in Production

 

"Don’t Look Up tells the story of two low-level astronomers, who must go on a giant media tour to warn humankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth."

Netflix

2021

Written & Directed by Adam McKay (Anchorman, Step Brothers, The Big Short, Vice)

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, Rob Morgan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Himesh Patel, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi), Matthew Perry, Tyler Perry, Ron Perlman, Chris Evans

"Soggy Bottom is an upcoming American drama depicting a high school student who becomes a famous child actor in the 1970s"

TBD release date

Written & Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Inherent Vice, Phantom Thread)

Starring Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman), Bradley Cooper, Alana Haim, Benny Safdie 

"Nightmare Alley is an upcoming American psychological thriller film based on the novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham. Premise: An ambitious carny (Cooper) with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist (Blanchett) who is even more dangerous than he is."

December 3, 2021

Written & Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Rooney Mara, David Strathairn 

"Bullet Train is an upcoming American action thriller film based on the novel Maria Beetle by Kōtarō Isaka. Premise: Five assassins find themselves on a Japanese bullet train, realizing that their individual assignments are not unrelated to the others.

TBD release date

Written by Zak Olkewicz 

Directed by David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde) 

Starring Brad Pitt, Joey King, Bad Bunny, Andrew Koji, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Zazie Beetz, Masi Oka, Michael Shannon, Lady Gaga, Logan Lerman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Karen Fukuhara

President Barack Obama Player Exclusive Nike Hyperdunk

 

Starting at $25,000 in a Sothebys auction on February 12, 2021.

Description

These deadstock Nike Hyperdunks are considered one of only two pairs in existence, with the other made for President Obama in 2009. They were designed exclusively for the 44th President of the United States. This particular pair was Nike’s only confirmation sample and have been kept in incredible condition over the last 12 years.

With President Obama’s well-known love for the game, a basketball shoe was the natural choice and the Hyperdunk was a fitting model as it was created for and worn by players on Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. The style was part of the ‘United We Rise’ collection of USA Olympic sneakers.

Obama’s personalized Hyperdunk resembles the ‘United We Rise’ version with white leather uppers, blue Swooshes and visible Flywire technology. Custom details include the official Presidential Seal and embroidered ‘44’s to commemorate the 44th President of the United States of America. The insoles are printed with patriotic graphics including bald eagles with the date ‘1776,’ the year of America's founding.

The former President’s history with Nike dates back to his days on the J.V. and Varsity basketball teams at Hawaii’s Punahou School, where he won the state championship in 1979 wearing his Nike Blazers. Obama and Nike partnered in many ways, from political initiatives during Obama’s presidency, to last year’s $5 million donation by Nike to the Obama Foundation for the creation of a public space to promote physical activity at the planned Obama Presidential Center on the south side of Chicago.

Nike’s only confirmation sample of the Hyperdunks created exclusively for former President Barack Obama. Only two pairs in existence, the other made for Barack Obama in 2009.

The design is influenced by the ‘United We Rise’ Hyperdunk created for Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Official Presidential Seals on tongues.

‘44’ is embroidered in blue and red on the medial side of both toes representing the 44th President of the United States of America.

Insoles feature patriotic design motifs including bald eagles and the date ‘1776.’

White leather uppers, dark blue Swooshes outlined in silver, and dark blue accents.

Visible Flywire technology, inspired by the engineering of suspension bridges.

Date of production coding on interior label reads ‘20091022’ for October 22, 2009.

This item is final sale and not eligible for return.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier

March 19, 2021

Disney+

Starring Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan 

Related,

Avengers: End Game (November 2020)

WandaVision (September 2020)

Old Goat - Tom Brady

Tied 17-17 with 1:21 to go. Every play from the final drive that led to @TomBrady’s first ring 💍 #SBXXXVI (Feb. 3, 2002)

📺: #SBLV -- Sunday 6:30pm ET on CBS
📱: NFL app // Yahoo Sports app pic.twitter.com/OvKlkjY5W8

— NFL Throwback (@nflthrowback) February 1, 2021

 

Men's Health – "Here's What Tom Brady Eats Every Day, and on Game Day"

"In his 2017 book, Brady explained that he was focused on eating “alkalizing” foods, or foods meant to decrease inflammation in your body. For lunch, Brady would eat fish and vegetables, and his personal chef revealed that 80 percent of what the Brady household eats is vegetables.

However, Brady says that he now gives himself some breathing room when it comes to his diet. "I have a friend who freaks out if it’s not the most organic this or that, and I’m like, 'That stress is going to harm you way more than eating that chip is,'" he explained.

That said, Brady does favor routine: berry-and-banana smoothies pre-workout; avocado and eggs for breakfast; salads with nuts and fish for lunch; hummus, guacamole, or mixed nuts for snacks; and roasted vegetables and chicken for dinner.

And in his gym and fridge tour, Brady revealed a fridge full of fruits like grapes, blueberries, apples, pears, bananas, and veggies like cucumbers, kale, and spinach. He likes to add TB12 electrolytes to his water, and he's a fan of recovery fluids.

On gamedays, his meals are simple: a smoothie and an almond butter and jelly sandwich.

Brady doesn't mind treating himself, but if he does, it has to be worth it.

"If I’m craving bacon, I have a piece. Same with pizza. You should never restrict what you really want. We’re humans, here for one life," the quarterback told Men's Health. "What’s changed as I’ve gotten older is now if I want pizza, I want the best pizza. I don’t eat a slice that tastes like shit and then wonder, 'Why am I eating shit pizza?'""

----

USA Today – "Tom Brady found his pre-NFL résumé and it's spectacular"

----

----

Related,

Lionel Messi the 🐐 (June 2018)

Baby Goat - Patrick Mahomes II

Fly like a butterfly, sting like a Wasp. @PatrickMahomes believed in himself, this play call, and the @Cheetah on the #SBLIV's Turning Point. @Chiefs pic.twitter.com/xTTU7AL6OQ

— NFL Films (@NFLFilms) February 6, 2020

Pioneer Press – "The story behind how baseball — and the Minnesota Twins — helped mold superstar QB Patrick Mahomes"

"At TwinsFest on Friday night at Target Field, Pat Mahomes spoke with a palpable sense of optimism about his son’s future.

As though he knew this was only the beginning.

After all, Patrick Mahomes is still on an upward trajectory, his star rising with each sidearm throw and no-look pass, that looks more like video game sequence than real life.

Those types of plays might have more to do with his background in baseball than one might realize.

“It played a big role,” Pat Mahomes said. “Just being able to throw off different platforms and make different throws. Most people don’t try it in a game. He isn’t afraid to try that stuff.”

That’s where the legend of Patrick Mahomes begins, on the baseball diamond.

Not the football field.

Originally chosen in the sixth round of the 1988 major league baseball draft, Pat Mahomes broke in as a pitcher with the Twins in 1992 and carved out a decade-long career in the big leagues.

That meant Little Patrick Mahomes spent most of his childhood inside clubhouses. His first taste of the major leagues came when he could be found bopping around the New York Mets’ clubhouse.

Little did Patrick Mahomes know, those experiences, no matter how inconsequential they seemed at the time, were molding him into the leader he’d become nearly two decades later.

“No doubt,” Pat Mahomes said. “He got to see what it was like to be a professional. Just sucking it all in. He was with me in the World Series in 2000, and there was 65,000 people in the stands. Now when he goes out and there’s big crowds like that, it’s not a big deal to him. It’s like he’s just playing a game.”"

----

GQ – "How Patrick Mahomes Became the Superstar the NFL Needs Right Now"

"... His pandemic routine keeps him steady. Though he flourishes in chaos on the field, off it Mahomes adheres to a strict regimen. He's up at 7 a.m., often with no alarm. He flips on TV, usually ESPN—where occasionally he'll find that he's the topic of discussion—drinks his coffee, then drinks a pre-workout supplement concoction, in that order. At 9 a.m., a workout: an hour for arms, an hour and a half for legs. Then he eats lunch, after which some days he has a virtual meeting with teammates and coaches or he plays video games. Only in this narrow noon-to-2 p.m. window, though. He doesn't “want to get lost in playing video games all day.” During the season he swears them off. 

He's become an avid golfer, and 3 p.m. is tee time, if COVID-19 restrictions allow him to play. If not, that's when he hits the Peloton, using the screen name 2PM, a nod to his fascination with time and a reference to his full name, Patrick Mahomes II. He's as fierce on a stationary bike as he is on the field. “I'm so damn competitive that I kill myself,” he tells me. “I see the leaderboard, and I see that, like, Brian from North Carolina is catching me, and I'm like: ‘There's no way.’” Better, he's found, to ride alone, where he opts for 30-minute scenic routes, riding to sunsets. By 5 p.m. he's hanging out with Brittany and their two dogs. Then dinner and TV. Bedtime is 9:30, 10 at the latest."

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The Salish Sea Orcas

 

The Atlantic – "A Group of Orca Outcasts Is Now Dominating an Entire Sea"

"For many people, the relationship with the whales verges on the spiritual. “It’s hard to describe—it’s like meeting God,” said Balcomb-Bartok, who grew up on the islands and works in communications for whale-watching companies while compiling memoirs and sketches related to the orcas. “They’re so amazing and intelligent and powerful, and yet they are so gentle and so matriarchal and caring and compassionate. There is nothing quite like … the southern residents—the most playful and loving population that you’ll ever meet.”"

Previously,

Justice League of the Sea (July 2020)

The Future of Our Ocean (April 2020)

Whale Watching (October 2015)

Zhuhai Jinwan Civic Art Centre by Zaha Hadid Architects

 

Design Boom – "zhuhai jinwan civic art centre by zaha hadid architects takes shape in china"

Previously,

Zaha Hadid Architects' Wooden Stadium for Forest Green Rovers (February 2017) 

Zaha Hadid's Yacht Design (October 2013) 

Architect - Zaha Hadid (January 2012) 

Guangzhou Opera House (July 2011)