Finkel's Fast Five - Issue #31

August 31st, 2018

BIG BOOK NEWS!!! Next Tuesday, September 4th, the paperback version of my book The Athlete: Greatness, Grace and the Unprecedented Life of Charlie Ward, hits stores and if you haven't read it yet, or know a die hard Florida State, New York Knicks, NBA, college football or Heisman Trophy fan out there, you should grab it. Or if you know someone who doesn't care about any of those things, but loves biographies of fascinating people who are in a club of one when it comes to their accomplishments, get it for them. Don't listen to me, listen to legendary NFL coach Tony Dungy who said, "Charlie Ward is not only a once in a lifetime athlete, he's a once in a lifetime person. The Athlete is the remarkable, page-turning biography his story deserves." You can PREORDER IT HERE. Now onto the FF5:  It is the 30th anniversary of an all-time favorite comedy of mine, Naked Gun, and this is a funny oral history of the film: The piece focuses heavily on the third act, which as you remember, takes place at a baseball game, with Leslie Nielsen undercover as the home plate umpire (OK here's the incredible sequence if you haven't seen it in a while). From how the producers chose the setting for the finale, to which MLB teams rejected being involved (c'mon Dodgers) and the genesis of now-classic jokes, you'll enjoy reading this article by Jason Foster for The Sporting News.  A fascinating throwback Instagram account I've been following: Maybe it's because society is so obsessed with technology and we're all largely familiar with living in the suburbs or the city or on a farm or beach or in the country, but the idea of a modern family living totally off the grid in the forest is intriguing. That's exactly what this couple is doing in a 300 square foot tent with two kids. This is their place and they stay all winter and summer and hunt and fish and the whole lifestyle is counter culture and awesome. The account is Den For Our Cubs.   New Yorkers know nothing about BBQ. I hear this all the time in Texas. These New Yorkers are different: I had fun reading this piece on how a software engineer and a chef from the Northeast went toe-to-toe with the Southern "legacy" BBQ pit masters and came out on top a few times. Also, you'll learn about "meat glue". Click here to read the piece.  Army ants are terrifying and also sort of brilliant (collectively, at least): Not saying I'm Charles Darwin or anything but I've spent a fair amount of time watching Nat Geo so we're essentially colleagues. This short, 24-second time lapse video of ants constructing a bridge with their bodies after it collapses without tools or instruction manuals or a how-to YouTube video or anything humans would need is freaky. Check out the video here.   Ted Williams would have turned 100 this week and here is the tremendous opening few sentences from John Updike's legendary 1960 profile, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: "Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man’s Euclidean determinations and Nature’s beguiling irregularities." - John Updike (you can read the entire, iconic piece, right here)  Have a great weekend and may you offer your own compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities!  YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME! So many of you with friends recently and I want to say 'hello' to all the new FF5 readers. You're one of us now. Welcome!  If you haven't shared it, all I ask is that you send this next link to two people who you think would like it. It would mean a ton. THANK YOU:

- Jon