Finkel's Fast Five - Issue #2

February 9th, 2018

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While I've always considered myself a matcha man, I took this online tea quiz and it turns out I should be consuming a tea called Iron Goddess of Mercy - Ti Kuan Yin - and I've been questioning my masculinity ever since. Not really, but well, yeah... I've been on the tea train for a long time and I've mostly stuck with loose leaf green tea, Sencha and sometimes white tea. This quiz on Art of Tea's website (takes one minute) asks you all kinds of questions about your lifestyle, when you drink tea and why and then spits out the kind of tea that fits your lifestyle best. Evidently, I'm in dire need of the Iron Goddess of Mercy. I'll let you know how it tastes in a future issue of FF5.

The brilliant director who made O.J.: Made in America is going to do a biopic of Roberto Clemente as his next project and it's about time someone tackled this. I've always been fascinated with the baseball legend/humanitarian/philanthropist/leader that Clemente was and I can't recommend David Maraniss' (@davidmaraniss) incredible biography of him enough. You can get it on Amazon here. And for a glimpse of his athletic greatness, check out this absolutely insane throw from right field to third base. Maybe the strongest arm in the history of baseball.

I'm not gonna lie here... This article called A Kingdom from Dust by Mark Arax is a mountain of words (I read it in three parts). But it is a mountain of words worth climbing. If you've ever wondered where your POM Wonderful purple pomegranate juice or your mini-orange Cuties or your Wonderful almonds or pistachios or dozens of other wildly popular family-friendly grocery items come from and who grows them, packages them and invents the marketing campaigns behind the brands, then this article is for you (Hint: It's ONE GUY). If you've ever driven up through the interior of California and wondered how there was seemingly hundreds of miles of desert filled with endless green vegetation during a water shortage, this feature is for you. If you simply love tremendous writing and research and storytelling, this is also for you. California Sunday Magazine dedicated almost their whole issue to this piece and it was worth it.

Good Will Hunting is one of my all-time favorite movies and this episode of The Rewatchables podcast does a deep dive on everything from Will's lifelong beef with Carmine Scarpaglia to what Skylar might say when Will shows up in California in his beat-up car after the movie ends to whether in the famous bar scene debate with Clark (ponytail guy) Ben Affleck and Cole Hauser would have cold-cocked ponytail in the face before a discussion about Gordon Wood could even take place. The attention to detail in this podcast is great and if you've watched this movie or parts of it more than twice you will love it. And if you don't listen to the podcast, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault... Actually, it is, but you get the joke.

I have a framed poster of Teddy Roosevelt with this famous 'Man in the Arena" speech on the wall in my gym that I bought from one of my favorite blogs, ArtofManliness.com. I don't read it every day or every week even, but I definitely read it more than once a month. I'm considering my next book/project right now and as a writer, there's nothing more daunting than staring at the blank page of the first outline of a new project idea...because you know that once you commit, there are thousands of more pages that will need to be filled, edited, thrown away, rewritten and refined. Anyway, I read this quote again this week and it motivated me to get moving. Maybe it'll do the same for you:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in the worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat." - Teddy Roosevelt

Have a great weekend and don't be a cold and timid soul!

- Jon