The Grey NATO – Ep 104 – Isolation Tapes // TGN Bookclub

Published on Thu, 26 Mar 2020 06:00:20 -0400

Synopsis

Jason Heaton and James Stacey discuss their recent experiences during isolation, including household projects and outdoor activities they've been able to do. They share the watches they're wearing - Jason with a vintage Doxa and James with a Rolex Explorer II. The main segment is a "book club" where each recommends three books: Jason suggests The Snow Leopard by Peter Mathiessen, The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger, and Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer. James recommends No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs, The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, and Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know by Ranulph Fiennes. They also plug the Hodinkee Shop and smaller watch brands like Monta and Everest. For "homework", Jason suggests going on a photo hike around the neighborhood, while James recommends listening to a full album start-to-finish with intent.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of The Gray Nado, a Hodinkee podcast. It's a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 104, and we thank you for listening. This is also volume two of our weekly isolation tapes that we're doing. And a quick note up top is that this episode is kindly brought to you by our friends and colleagues over at the Hodinkee shop, and we will talk about them a little bit later. James, how's it going up there? Isolating there in Toronto?
James Stacey Yeah, you know, it's okay. The weather's kind of all over the map the last few days. But otherwise, getting to a few household projects I've put off, well, as long as I've lived here. And yeah, other than that, just kind of staying in the mix. You know, our work can be done very easily from bed or a couch as it can, you know, an airplane or otherwise. And I haven't felt too stir-crazy yet. So, you know, all told, really positive. And I think a lot of that comes down to, um, the response we've had from listeners and other people offering support. Uh, so yeah, I think we're all into this together and so far it seems to be going roughly. Okay.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. We got good, good feedback on the, on the weekly episodes and, uh, our work from home episode, um, seemed to be well received as well. So I'm real pleased about that. We, this, uh, improve improving weather has really made a difference here too. I mean, we've had up and down, we had snow on the ground yesterday morning, which quickly melted and, and, uh, Kashani and I went for a walk in the afternoon and it was close to 50 Fahrenheit. So, you know, it's, uh, we're getting there slowly. Can't wait to get the bike out and get a little more exercise, but, uh, well, inquiring, inquiring ones.
James Stacey I don't want to waste any more time, Jason. I don't want to waste any more time. Uh, inquiring minds want to know what is the Land Rover fog light scenario? How many lights now light up on the front of that?
Jason Heaton We have four lights. We have four, two headlamps and two, two functioning fog lamps. Yeah. I feel very proud of that. I, uh, awesome. as a bit of an all thumbs kind of shade tree mechanic. It was a good triumph last week. And it turns out, as many have told me, and especially those with longer histories with Land Rovers than myself, when in doubt it is almost always a bad ground. And indeed, that's what it was. My non-functioning headlamp was the result of a severed ground wire that comes out of the back of the the headlamp and goes to a ground spot on the frame. And then I must have, maybe I just didn't ground the, the fog lamps correctly. So I just, I went through all the wiring again and I just regrounded it, uh, moved some ground wires to different locations and, and man, was that satisfying to flick the switch and have all four lights come on. So, um, the, the irony is I do very little night driving in general and even less with the Land Rover, um, simply because, I don't know. I mean, we're getting longer days here. I mean, it's light till 730. So there's just isn't a lot of after after dark driving, but I did manage a dusk drive. And boy, did that make a difference, though, the OEM headlamps on that truck are pretty, pretty yellow and dim and pathetic. And this really made a difference to have four good, good lights burning away there. I like it. That's awesome. Yeah, really, really pleased with that. So and as somebody said, it's good to be well grounded. And I agree. So yeah, I've got I've got another lot of other little fiddly rover tasks that I can do out here in the driveway and still maintain my responsible citizen, isolated citizen status here. You know, little, little bits and bobs that I can do. So I'll trickle that out and give updates on future episodes. So there you go. Yeah.
James Stacey All's well there. Yeah. I got not so much a rude awakening as much as a suggestion of priorities from Amazon. I had a handful of, I'm gonna be honest, not really upgrades if you wanna call them, but just things to tack on to the Jeep that I was mostly going for just to learn, learn how to do the wiring, learn how to deal with this new vehicle and that sort of thing. And then Amazon changed their thing, so the non-essential items such as LED bulbs for the interior of my truck now are the better part of a month away. So that's okay. A nice lesson from Amazon. It made me think of Kevin Rose always had this thing where he said he wouldn't buy anything immediately on Amazon, he'd put it in his cart. Yeah. but it had to sit there for more than 24 hours. And he said that cut him off of buying a lot of stuff that he didn't actually require. Yeah. Because the need or the want may only present once. Right. And that's probably the case here. I probably don't need more things. I mostly just wanted the project, I think, more than the actual item. Yeah. So yeah, maybe there might be a few mechanical things I could work on the Jeep. I need to learn about the the functionality of the parking brake, as this one won't hold itself alone on the hill, which is apparently from internet searches super common with these Jeeps. So I leave it in gear, obviously, but I should be able to find a way to make that. I do understand the basic structure for most vehicles, but there's a weird sort of cam system in the handle.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey or next to the handle. So it's not really a direct connection to the line itself. Yeah. It's a weird thing with a big circular spring. If I pull the interior apart successfully, I'll take a picture and put it up. So that's probably the next thing. And that way, there's probably not even any parts. I might have to manufacture a little bracket or something to fix that. I've seen some solutions online.
Jason Heaton Yeah. YouTube is so great for, for learning about this kind of stuff. We talked about this last time, but it's been such a savior. And, um, you know, like you're right. I mean, there are a lot of little fiddly things, improvements and fixes you can do without having to buy stuff. But I find myself, um, even needing the smallest things, you know, like there's a bit of a corroded fastener that holds the rear bench seat on and the Land Rover. And it's like, somebody suggested, Oh, you should add some, some rubber washers that'll isolate the steel bolt from the aluminum Tub so that which is smart, you know corrosion like okay. Well, I I don't have any rubber washers So like this like 10 cent object like i'm gonna need that from somewhere, but you know, i'm kind of stuck without it So we'll we'll see how that goes. But uh, yeah if speaking of parking brakes That was actually the very first repair I had to do on the land rover is I parked in front of my house like the week I got it Then I went out to go meet somebody for coffee one morning and I could not get it on Sorry, I could not get it released. And, you know, it's like, oh, what a pain, you know? So I started researching, called a friend, et cetera. And, you know, fortunately underneath the seats of this thing, which are very, just come right out, you can lift these panels off and basically the drivetrain is exposed. And the Land Rover doesn't use a cable that actually pulls tight on shoes that actuate the rear brake or anything like that. It's actually a mechanical linkage that actually pulls, closes two shoes around the drive shaft. The actual driveshaft out of the back of the engine and it clamps onto that. Wow. Um, yeah, it's really weird. And what I had done is I had pulled up on the parking brake too much, you know, like you do, you just crank on it. Um, and with cars that have like a cable, the cable starts to slacken and you have to pull it harder and harder. And I thought, well, that probably should just give it a good, good pull. And I had pulled it too much. And this sort of ratchet got just wedged up too high and I couldn't get I couldn't release it. And so all I had to do was kind of loosen, take the seats out and just sort of loosen this bolt to kind of loosen it up. But good, good lesson learned. Now, you know, if anybody else drives it or parks it, I'm like, you know, just be careful with the parking brake. Uh, so yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey All these little things. Yeah. And, um, and the, yeah. And then the only other side of this I'd say is, uh, in, in attempting to not, you know, just buy a bunch of led light bars and, everything else for the Jeep. I have found quite a few pretty solid Jeep YouTube channels, which is which is a pretty good outlet. And it's also like it's kind of like it's a bit like watch spotting like, oh, what bulb is that? What like what bumper scenarios going on there? Yeah, they are. They are so kind of modular. Yeah. As far as like a vehicle, maybe more so than any vehicle ever. And it's it's super fun. And I would say, like, if there's anyone listening, I know we got a couple other Jeep guys you know, in the listenership. But if there's something that, you know, a source that you really like online, be it a blog or a YouTube channel or whatever, for your kind of Jeep information slash fascination, you know, please drop me a line, thegrenadoatgmail.com. I'd love to be able to get a little bit deeper into this and especially onto the sides of like practical upkeep and, you know, modifications to fix some things from the factory.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and I noticed that one of our listeners wrote in to the Granado email box with some suggestions for overlanding references as well. I think it was the Overland Journal website. Yeah. The guy who maintains that, so we certainly appreciate that, both of us. It was very cool, for sure. You know, just kind of switching gears here, listeners might have noticed or seen Ben Clymer's post on Hodinkee.com, which went up yesterday. We're recording this on a Tuesday. He put up an open letter to the watch community about how Hodinkee intends to just help the watch industry overall. And he had a number of points from giving more exposure to watch brands, to retailers, potentially helping out with distribution via the Hodinkee shop and the warehouse, giving access to Watchville, the aggregator that puts out news from the other watch blogs around the world. Um, and you know, it was incredibly well received, really, um, a heartfelt and, um, nice gesture from, from arguably the leader of, of watch journalism these days in Ben and Hodinkee. Um, well, and, and we at TGN, we want to do our part too. And you know, our, our way is small, but you know, going to weekly episodes is one gesture, but we also want to just start giving a little more attention to those, the smaller brands that, you know, maybe we've discussed in the past, many of whom are run by friends of ours or, uh, you know, these brands are ones that have supported us either individually over the years or as a actual sponsors of TGN. So we thought that, you know, weekly, uh, as we're doing these isolation tapes, we'd just take a different brand each week and, um, just give them a shout out and remind people to, uh, keep them in mind if they're looking for a new watch or a strap or whatever it may be that, that they sell. Um, And so this week we thought we'd kick it off with our friends over at Manta Watches and their strap company that they run as well called Everest Straps. So, you know, Manta is a brand we've known about for many years and Everest even before that. I remember getting an Everest rubber strap for my sub, gosh, probably five years ago or something like that. So, you know, just top-notch guys, great, great products based in St. Louis here in the US. Definitely give them a look if you're looking to upgrade your strap or add a strap to your sports Rolex.
James Stacey Yeah, I think that's a great thing to keep in mind is there are these small companies. And the other thing I think that people are going to realize, maybe not with this episode, maybe not in another week with 105, but in the coming weeks, we are going to lose a few companies that we love. Um, everybody will remember a company that maybe didn't make it through this, whether they were in a, you know, kind of a very low margin, high, uh, overhead business. And this will change the kind of landscape as far as a retail goes. And as far as a lot of these internet brands that we're used to, this would be a really tough time and a great time to say, buy a gift card. And I think you could probably follow the same metric through some of these kinds of small family run businesses, something like a Monta watches or an Everest straps. is a great starting point and will certainly highlight more in the coming weeks.
Jason Heaton And I think a lot of these brands are open to working with people during this tough time. I mean, a lot of people don't necessarily want to be pulling the trigger on a big watch purchase right now with the uncertainty going on. But, you know, maybe it is buy a gift card or, you know, buy a couple of straps or something to get you by. Just reach out to these folks at these companies and Uh, you know, see what, what, what they've got going on. Um, even, even if you don't buy something, just show your support, just drop them a line, post up on Instagram or something. If you own one of their products and give them a little bit of support. So that's, that's all we're trying to do here. Um, cause we, we liked that. We liked little guys.
James Stacey Yeah, absolutely. And, and be sure to check out Ben's post, which gives you a pretty good overview of what's going on in the industry and how there are ways that we can all be addressing it. And, uh, and obviously there are. big concerns and small concerns all over the world, but it's always important to keep actual people in mind in these times.
Jason Heaton Well, today we've got a, for our main topic, we're, we're doing book club, which was something that was requested and something we've talked about. But before we jump into that, why don't we do our, our risk check. James, James, what have you got on today?
James Stacey Today I actually have, have moved back into the realm of the mechanical watch. You know, I've been, I've been wearing my Garmin literally for the last week, every day, if I needed a watch, that's what I grabbed. And then you and I were chatting about some of these smaller brands, including Manta and Everest. And I realized I hadn't put my Everest strap on my Explorer in some time. So I'm wearing my 16570 Explorer II. It's a white dial example, and it's on a really lovely kind of blue, almost navy blue rubber strap from Everest. And it's a combination that I've always kind of associated with summer. And it's really started, it's really just kind of fitting my mood today because I keep glancing out the window, hoping to see just like full sunlight. I've been doing workouts at home inside, which is fine, but I am, there's a big side of me that's just waiting for that sunny day where I can go out and really enjoy a run with the sun on my face. I know I could run on a normal day like today in Toronto, but it's something special on a sunny day. And that's what this, I don't know, this combination, the white dial, the blue rubber, it's kind of sailing. Yeah. Out on the water, uh, you know, elegant, but still kind of sporty. Uh, and it's also just like, they're just insanely comfortable straps. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I think on a, on a Rolex sports watch like yours, like the old school, smaller case size, um, that strap, it lightens and sort of makes the watch even more wearable, even than it does on a, on the bracelet or even on a NATO. I mean, it's just the way it conforms to your wrist. And it's such a slim lightweight watch to begin with that, uh, you can actually use it for more things. Like if you, I know you'd wear your garment for running, but like putting a rubber strap on it just makes it that much more versatile. So absolutely. Uh, what do you got on wrist? Yeah. So yesterday I switched over to my old T graph, the sea rambler, the silver dial Doxa from the late sixties. Um, I had been wearing a Seiko for awhile and a Bremont. And then, uh, yesterday I pulled this out and admittedly I put it on because, um, the date was, was close to the, The actual date, you know, these old watches with dates, they're a bit of a chore to advance. And I'm not someone who can stand not having the date correct on a watch. Oh, man. You know, you get like an old sub or an old something without a quick set. This has sort of a quick set, but you got to like spin it around between like six different hours. So it's time consuming. And this one was within a day or two of the correct date. So I quickly set it and wound it up and put it on. And I've got it on the old beads of rice bracelet. And it's a lot of fun.
James Stacey I picked up this Explorer 2 and it was on the 5th, and of course we're recording this on the 24th of March. And for the Explorer 2, it has quick set, but you have to advance the hour hand in jumping sets. So you do have to kind of sit there. It's not as bad as a traditional mechanical, you know, old school style that doesn't have any sort of quick set and you actually would have to rotate. for every day, but it is somewhere between that and your normal, like normal quick set functionality. And I'll be honest, I picked it up, it was on the 5th, I made it to the 9th and quit. So it's March 9th for me.
Jason Heaton Or April 9th. Or April 9th, yeah.
James Stacey June 9th, whatever.
Jason Heaton Yeah, exactly. On the blue strap, it's July.
James Stacey Yeah, it's July 9th. It's been a lovely summer. Yeah, right, right. But yeah, well, a couple of great watches. Glad to see we're sticking with a nice mechanical steel sporty theme. So yeah, I'm excited. I think a book club is a fantastic idea. A listener named Jack, Jack, I'm sure you know who you are, wrote in when we passed 100 episodes. And he said, congrats. And he said, you know, since your film clubs have been so good, have you ever thought about doing one for books? And it's funny because I think in my mind, We talk about books a lot. We do, yeah. But then in... The funny thing is in getting to make the show notes for today's episode, I realized we don't talk about books as much as I thought we did. We just talk about maybe 5 or 10 books a lot. Right. So we're not gonna focus on those books, these ones that we've talked about so many times. That would be And if you haven't read any of these, you should get to all of them. So also, I'm just going to listen quickly, Touching the Void, The Right Stuff, Into the Wild, The English Peasant, Blue Meridian, Daniel Lenihan's Submerged, and of course, Robert Kersen's Shadow Divers, probably Shadow Divers is the most frequently referenced piece of anything on TGN. And those are all books that you should be reading. But today we are going to present six books, three a piece, that we don't commonly talk about on the show. Some maybe have been referenced before, but it's not something that, uh, that we've talked about or reviewed in the past. So, uh, six brand new books on top of those ones that I just listed. If you can't remember any of the ones I just listed, they are in the show notes. I will make sure that is done as well. So, uh, Jason, how about you kick it off with, uh, with our first.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So, um, you know, it's well known that, uh, one of our favorite books mutually is Blue Meridian, which was written by Peter Matheson. Matheson was an interesting author. He has a history, sort of a shadowy history prior to becoming a full-time author. I believe he was in the CIA. He worked as some sort of a commercial fisherman or charter boat captain, I believe. And then, you know, he started in journalism and started writing books and Blue Meridian came out in like 1971 or thereabouts. But it was after that that he wrote perhaps his most famous book, and that's the one I'm going to talk about here, and that is called The Snow Leopard, for which I guess he won two National Book Awards, which I didn't even know that was possible, but I'm guessing it was in different categories. The Snow Leopard is a book that I haven't read in many years, probably 15 years, but it's on my shelf and it's one of those books that I hold very dear and that made a real impact on me. many years ago and it's kind of a mix of spirituality and naturalism and adventure travel which is such a great combination. He was a practicing Zen Buddhist around the time that he wrote this. This was in the early 70s that he did this trip to the high Himalaya over in Tibet with a naturalist named George Schaller and Schaller was there to kind of study and take inventory of a certain type of mountain sheep that is endemic to that area of the world. And Matheson's interest in going along with Schaller was to hope to get a glimpse of the elusive snow leopard, this incredibly beautiful big cat that lives in the high mountains over there. And at around the same time that he did this trip, it was shortly after his wife had died of cancer. And so he sort of has this heaviness to him, the sort of melancholy that he's carrying with him. And he's grappling with that. And then he's weaving in this bit of his meditation practice and tenets of Zen Buddhism with this quest to see this incredibly rare animal. And, you know, it's funny because if you look at our favorite Blue Meridian book, it was also about chasing or trying to find an elusive animal in the great white shark. This one, it's definitely a little different. The book actually was published in 1978, but I believe he did the trip in the early 70s, like 73. And it's not a terribly long book, but it's a book you sort of just savor and read very slowly. And it just kind of has something for everyone. And I always recommend this book as one to, you know, take camping or take to a cabin and kind of just sink into and read a little bit at a time and think about. So Matheson's just a spectacular writer. his, his descriptions and his sort of his way of weaving his inner world with what's going on around him is, is just tremendous. So, uh, definitely, um, definitely a keeper, definitely one that, that I'll always have on my shelf. And I highly recommend as my, my first book here.
James Stacey It really is a lovely book. My dad has, has my copy currently, uh, definitely one I should reread at some point over the summer. And yeah, a good pick if you're out camping or something like that, for sure. Yeah. Um, well, I mean, what a writer, goodness. Yeah. Yeah. So my first comes from a mountaineering expert, alpinist extraordinaire, Ed Visters, and the book is called No Shortcuts to the Top, Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks. This is one that I've definitely referenced at some point on the show in the past. He also mentions in the story itself as being connected with Rolex and then eventually getting a white dial Uh, Rolex that does a two time zones. And of course, this is eventually what would lead me to my love of the 16, five 70, uh, you know, if Easter's is a Pacific Northwestern man, uh, he was one of the first people ever to do, um, all 14 of the world's 8,000 meter peaks. And it's an absolutely incredible, really easy to digest, um, telling of, of his experience, making those, uh, making those 14 climbs and his life at the time. And he's, um, he's, he's incredible. I mean, he was the, uh, the first, um, and, and I don't know if he still is, but he was the first American to send all 14 of these 8,000 meter peaks without some supplemental oxygen. Uh, which is insane. Uh, that's, that's, uh, that's quite a thing. And, uh, he's very pragmatic. He's funny. And I, uh, I absolutely adore this book. I think if you've been through, you know, some that we've mentioned before, like a touching the void, like into the wild, I think this is kind of your next step is some of these ones that kind of border between a climbing story and a personality story, an autobiography of sorts. And I think this is an absolutely excellent one. And, you know, Ed is a dream TGN guest for us. So yeah, that's no shortcuts to the top. climbing the world's 14 highest peaks by Ed Veesters and that's on paperback on Amazon. It's not that expensive, so a solid pick.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it is a good pick. I'm surprised I've never read that book. I really need to pick it up. I like it a lot. I wonder if there's an audiobook version. I'd love to hear him read it because I've heard him interviewed and he has a nice voice and he's a very humble, kind of soft-spoken guy. Yeah, he is. He doesn't have that sort of swagger that a lot of you know, big mountain climbers have.
James Stacey Seems pretty, pretty internal, super thoughtful. And I mean, you see that in his whole, the whole thing that you learn in the book is he always, he says, and continues to say, you know, going up is optional, coming down is mandatory. So he has this, he has this kind of like calmness to him that you almost can't imagine him doing anything for the rush of it. Yeah. Uh, which I find really fascinating. And yet, um, uh, at least Amazon is saying that there's an audio book at some point, this is going to sound like an Amazon ad, but I think Amazon is now connected with audible in some way, maybe one, maybe they own audible. I didn't realize that, but there is an audio book. Um, so if you're, if you're an audible type, uh, I bet you, that'd be great. I don't know who reads it. It doesn't say that here.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Nice. Well, my next book is by another sort of giant literary figure and one who had a profound impact on me when I was getting into writing. And that is Sebastian Younger, who, um, his most famous book is the one that I'm, uh, adding to my list here. And that is the perfect storm, which was released in 1997. And, and, you know, this is a book that whose title has made its way into, uh, you know, sort of common parlance. I mean, people just use that phrase all the time to reference anything. Um, and he certainly wasn't the first to coin it, but it was, sort of meteorological phrase that he made very, very famous through this book. And it was about a hurricane, actually, in the early 90s that sunk a sword fishing boat out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, out on the Atlantic seaboard there. And, you know, Junger was someone who, I believe the background to this was that, you know, he was He was a tree climber. He was a guy who worked for like a tree company, you know, topping trees and trimming trees and taking down trees and that sort of thing. And he was kind of a struggling writer, really wanted to make his way and do this full time. And he had pitched an article or a series of articles about people that did hazardous jobs. And so he was going to look at firefighters and tree climbers and whatever, just kind of everyday people that were doing dangerous jobs. And one of those was the sword fisherman. that went out into the wild blue yonder there in the Atlantic to go out and troll for swordfish and other big catches. And as he was researching the story, this hurricane blew up and sunk this boat with the entire crew, lost without a trace. And this story that he, I believe, originally wrote for Outside Magazine just blew up into this huge thing and he turned it into the book. It just took off. Of course, they made the movie about it with George Clooney, which was a decent movie, but the book is tremendous. And Junger certainly wasn't the first to embrace this notion of, I believe they called it the new journalism style back in the 70s when Tom Wolfe was writing The Right Stuff, where you sort of interject I wouldn't say fictional elements, but you sort of conjecture and imagine what certain conversations or scenarios would have been like when you weren't there as the writer. And Younger does that in this book where he looks at the accident and since the boat sank, the Andrea Gale sank without a trace and they've never found it or any of the crew, he had to sort of guess at what the final moments were like. what it's like to drown and what, what are the, what were the conversations like and what actually happened to the boat. Um, and he does that really well in the book along with some really in depth analysis of, you know, what, what happens to the body when you drown and what, what causes a hurricane and what was going on with, um, the coast guard search and rescue. And, and he talks about the rescue of another boat that was having trouble during that same storm and, um, pieced it all together and just a fantastic read. And, uh, you know, I, I got to meet him at a book signing for one of his later books and it was a little intimidating. I mean, the guy's always occupied this space in my mind as kind of this preeminent, not even adventure travel journalist. I mean, he's written about war and he's written about tragedy and just, I just love his stuff and I love his style and I love his professionalism. And so, you know, he's certainly written some other great books, but, You got to start at the beginning. And if you haven't read the perfect storm, it's, it's high time to do that.
James Stacey Absolutely. Uh, that's one I've not read. I've certainly seen the movie. I remember going to the movie theaters to see that. Um, but, uh, I haven't, uh, I haven't been through the book. That sounds fascinating. And I didn't, you know, that's one I didn't realize also came from a, uh, an outside online post or an outside magazine post. Yeah. Fascinating. Yeah. Uh, so my second one is, is an absolute, uh, left turn from, um, the normal sort of adventure diving, climbing sort of books. And this one is, uh, is one that I think could be great anytime, but certainly now, and it's called the obstacle is the way the timeless art of turning trials into triumph. It's, uh, it's from a fascinating guy who, um, I'll leave it to you to Google him and learn a little bit more about Ryan holiday. He's written, I think a couple of other books since this one, at least one more, I know of. Um, and what this is, is a very practical, short, digestible look at stoic philosophy for a modern time. So it's removing a lot of the, um, kind of standardized, uh, inscrutable texts, uh, that eventually you may get to the point of wanting to read meditations. uh, by Marcus Aurelius. But if you want a starting point on the concept of basically not letting everything that happens to you ruin your life and learning that there's a difference between responding and reacting, uh, this is a fantastic starting point. It's a book I bought for several other people. It's one that came to me through the kind of Tim Ferriss universe where Ryan, uh, the author Ryan Holiday also exists. And again, that is the obstacle is the way the timeless art of turning trials into triumph. It's, um, I think it's absolutely essential reading. Um, when, uh, when my kids are old enough to appreciate it, I think it will be considered a suggested text, uh, within my family. And I think it's, uh, I think it's an absolutely fantastic book. Huh?
Jason Heaton Great. I'll, uh, I'll have to look for that one too. I mean, I think, um, we're, we're also exposing each other to these, uh, to these new books too. I like that.
James Stacey Absolutely. As soon as we step outside the world of the, like we said, those six or seven books at the top that we talk about constantly.
Jason Heaton Yeah, right. Hey, what do you say before we jump into our final book picks? We talk a little bit about the Hodinkee Shop.
James Stacey Absolutely. So what we'd like to convey with this ad read is simply that there's kind of an overarching structure to how TGN even exists, let alone our ability to go to weekly episodes. So whether that's Hodinkee.com, Hodinkee Radio, The Graynado, or even just like a singular post that Heaton or I wrote, the ability to make that happen from a supporting everybody's lifestyle and work perspective is the Hodinkee Shop. They're quite literally responsible for keeping the lights on, especially now when times are legitimately tough for everyone. So if you're in the market for a new strap, maybe a great book about watches or even a watch full stop, consider the Hodinkee Shop. It would be directly supporting what Heaton and I do along with that of the entire Hodinkee team. Heaton and I thought it might be fun just to offer a suggestion. So for me, in this episode, we're talking books, and there's actually a pretty solid library of books on the Hodinkee Shop. So I'm going to go with one that was co-written by our colleague, Steven. and I'm suggesting picking up The Watch Thoroughly Revised. It's $50. Domestic shipping is free from the shop and this is a great overview of what makes watches special and a lovely addition to like any coffee table collection.
Jason Heaton Yeah and for me, you know, I realize that it's kind of a tough time to be justifying buying a new watch these days and a new strap is kind of a nicer way to give one of your own watches a new look and straps are really where the Hodinkee shop got its start years ago. And I'm still a massive fan of the original Italian leather, what they call vintage style straps that they kind of kicked it all off with. And, you know, on the Hodinkee shop site, there's just any number of combinations of colors and textures and stitching that you can find in different widths for any number of watches that you might have. And, you know, currently I have one that I wear a lot on my old Tudor sub. Um, I wear one on a Speedmaster quite regularly and, um, you know, I just think, you know, when, when you can't necessarily pull the trigger on a, on a big watch purchase, a strap is the easiest way to make a difference. And, and the Houdinki shop has just grown from just a handful of straps to just so many of them. But, uh, but that, that original Italian vintage style is still my favorite.
James Stacey Yeah. I love the straps. I had a really good experience with a few of them before I was in any way involved with Houdinki and certainly I haven't gotten my hands on a handful since then, and they're always a great choice. Solid leather, really nicely made. And, you know, they come right from us. So if this is something that you feel you might need, whether it's a strap or a book or something else, visit shop.honiki.com. And don't forget that the shop is currently offering a 15% discount on any order of two or more items from the library. So if you need a book, or maybe you need to buy a gift, or maybe you want to send something to a friend to kind of cheer them up during this time, you can get a deal. There's free domestic shipping within the US. and it's a great way to pass some time and strengthen your watch knowledge. So again, that's shop.hodinkey.com and we appreciate any and all support in that endeavor. Jason, you've got one more book for us?
Jason Heaton I do. Yeah. Another one of our favorite authors, John Krakauer. The best. Yeah. I mean, he's up there with Younger and certainly with Matheson in terms of just a legend. And this book is one of his early ones. It's actually from 1990. Krakauer, of course, is well known for Into Thin Air, his book about the 1996 Everest disaster, and Into the Wild, which was also made into a movie. But this is a book that collects some essays that he wrote, largely for Outside Magazine again, back in the late 80s. The book's called Eiger Dreams, and the name of the book actually comes from one of the essays in the book. And this is a collection of stories and essays about his experiences in mountaineering and climbing and the different people that he ran across. You know, some legendary, some unknown. A lot of the mentors that he had when he was just getting into climbing and some of the adventures and misadventures that he had during that time. And, you know, Krakauer is just a proper journalist. I mean, his writing is just meticulously researched and chooses his words really well. I mean, if you've ever read Under the Banner of Heaven or Into the Wild or, you know, any of his books, I mean, you know that his writing is just stellar. And to read his early stuff where it's very personal, I mean, this is stuff about him and the things that he did and how he was getting into climbing back when he was a bit more of a, you know, long-haired, reckless young guy who just wanted to get out in the mountains and be alone and do stuff. Um, there's one story in there and I think it's the story about trying to climb the moose's tooth up in, it's either, uh, uh, Northern Canada or Alaska. I don't remember which. Um, and he talks about just, just going there by himself just because he wanted to do this. And at the time I first read this, it really resonated with me. I just, I wanted to do stuff like that. I wanted to go out and just do a solo, even just a solo camping trip was kind of intimidating and, and to read about him and going and doing these dangerous things and some of it by himself. um, when he was a younger guy, um, just, uh, it really spoke to me at that time in my life. And I haven't read the book in a number of years, but, uh, it's always one to pick up and dust off. And because it's a series of sort of shorter essays and, and compiled magazine articles, they're easily digestible. You don't have to kind of slog through a whole book and read it over days and days. You can just pick it up and read a, one of the essays over like a lunch hour or something.
James Stacey That's rad. I, uh, I, Yeah, if you hadn't picked this book, I would have. I think it's the hidden kind of gem, the one that maybe people don't talk a lot about because obviously Into the Wild became a hugely successful film and is a great book and really doesn't focus specifically on things like climbing, like there's a lot of general interest in Into the Wild. Then, of course, Into Thin Air has also now become a big film and is a huge book in the mountaineering community. Um, with Eiger dreams, the thing that stands out for me is all I've, and I've read the book through a couple of times, but I bet you I've read the final essay, which is called the devil's thumb.
Jason Heaton Oh, devil's thumb. Sorry. Not the moose's tooth. The devil's close.
James Stacey I mean, moose's tooth. What's the, what's the one in, in Antarctica? Um, the wolf's fang. Um, anyways, but, uh, I I've read the devil's thumb. It's a fantastic work of about, about the, the, kind of trials and tribulations and isolation of doing these sorts of very remote things alone. Yeah. He's so fantastic. Yeah. Devil's Thumb is great. This whole book is incredible. It's all worth your time. And this is a book that... This is the kind of book that I occasionally see for $2. Yeah. Just outside of some store and on the street. Uh, yeah, this is a, this is a great one. Great pick. Definitely one I would have, uh, would have had in there. And, uh, really you could pick up anything that has his name on it and, and you're going to be pretty blown away by it. Um, but I go dreams is so approachable because it's an essay format. Yeah. All right. Shoot. What's your number three. So my last one is, uh, the Randall finds autobiography mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I absolutely adore this book. I've been through it a couple times, which for an autobiography would be very rare for me. And then it was recently updated, end of 2019-ish, for Fein's 75th birthday. So they did an updated and revised version. So that's the one you can actually buy now. And I mean, Randolph Fein's is... I mean, he's just entirely something else. It's such a... It's such a wonderful look at his life and these kind of varied adventures that he went on, something of a Renaissance man. And, uh, you'll recognize his last name from, um, a few, uh, very famous, uh, cousins, I guess. And, uh, and then of course, uh, he's a British explorer, um, and endurance athlete, uh, in his time. Uh, it's really to, to start listing the stuff that he had done is, is pretty incredible, but, uh, you know, he, he served in the British army for quite some time, um, in Oman and then everything from North pole to South pole. Uh, he crossed Antarctica on foot. Um, and then he climbed at the age of 65 in 2009, um, to the summit of Mount Everest. Uh, so the guy gets around, uh, he's tough as nails. Uh, there's a pretty good story involving some fingernails in the book. Uh, it's, uh, I, I absolutely love this guy. I think he's fantastic. I love the way the book is written very much in his voice with his perspective. He doesn't sugarcoat a lot of it. I mean, I believe I could have this attribution slightly off, but I believe, um, his father-in-law or a possible father of a suitor in the book is who is who coined mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Jason Heaton I think you're right.
James Stacey So that would give you an idea like he's not he's not. This isn't necessarily about how adventurous and amazing he is, but just is. And it's also not really a story of calamity, but just more his the way that he kind of mentally went through all of these stages of his life. I found it fascinating. I you know, I absolutely adore this book and its writing and the author and his stories.
Jason Heaton Yeah, he's quite the character. It's almost like you're reading it and you're like, is this for real? Is this guy for real? His wit is very dry and he's just so funny and just this rollicking adventure in a very old school kind of way that you just don't see much anymore. He takes these chances on things that are just, it's like, I can't believe somebody did that. Yeah, that's a good one.
James Stacey Yeah. Super readable. It's super funny. I think anyone listening to this show would absolutely adore it. And I think it rounds off a pretty solid list of six books. So Jason had picked The Snow Leopard by Peter Matheson, The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger, and Eiger Dreams by John Krakauer. A fantastic list of three books there for you.
Jason Heaton Yeah. James picked No Shortcut to the Top by Ed Wiesters, The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, And Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know by Ranulph Fiennes.
James Stacey So there you go. You've got six new books to worry about and to dig out of your closet or your shelf if you happen to have any of them laying around that you haven't gotten to. And we would love to know what you think of these picks. So that's thegraynadoatgmail.com. And I would expect a Q&A episode pretty soon. So anyone who might be sitting on a Q&A question, you know, say it directly into your voice memo app and then send us that file. We'll be getting to those. probably in the next episode or maybe the one after that. So keep in touch if you'd like. Jason, what do you say we bounce into final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, let's do that. I mean, last time you introduced the concept that we're starting up here called homework, and this is specific to our isolation time. It's some maybe little projects or tasks that we're hoping to send out to our listeners that require a little bit more time than just reading an article or buying something or watching a video. Um, and that is, uh, you know, just, just something slightly more thoughtful, maybe a little deeper. And, uh, James, why don't you, why don't you jump in? What's your first?
James Stacey Uh, my first is, uh, what I've been enjoying doing in my evenings is, is to try and find, like we, we talked about this in the last episode, the work from home is you have to kind of build your day into phases. Yeah. And, uh, and I, what I like to do is when I, when I transition out of when I'm actually done work, I like to try and put on an album of music. Um, and actually just sit and listen to it. My family's around, that sort of thing, so you're not staring at the speakers. But I'm not sitting on my phone as much as possible, I'm not reading another book while the music is on. Make the music kind of the point. Yeah. And it's hard to recommend an album, so my suggestion would be maybe go find a list of the top 50 or top 500 albums and scroll to one that you've never heard before and put it on. Give it a try. Maybe start high up in the list so your chances of success are very high. Try something new. Try a band, an album from a band that you love, but maybe you don't know that one album so well. And if you really just want my suggestions of albums that work really well as single units where all the songs kind of work together, then I would say Rumors by Fleetwood Mac is one of the best albums ever made for that reason. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd might as well be one song. The self-titled or, you know, internally titled The Band by The Band is an absolutely immense album. I cannot recommend that enough. Or Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys, I mean, in some ways considered the finest album of all time, depending on the level of Beatles fandom in the person you're speaking to. You know, certainly one of my father's favorite albums and one that absolutely stands up sonically and otherwise. So there's a few picks, but the world is full of albums. Just pick one maybe you haven't learned, or listen to, or pick one where you know one song, you know the hit. Listen to it all the way through. See where it takes you. But try and listen with some level of intent. Like I might ask you why you thought it was good, or what makes it special, or what parts of it made you feel something. That's what's kind of special about having a little bit of time that you might have otherwise used to be outside and and seeing friends and family and stuff. Sit down, enjoy an album, and if you're missing someone, have them play the same album in their house. Yeah, that's a good idea. And then chat about it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's a really good bit of homework. I think, maybe I'm showing my age here, but I'm partial to the album format, and I think it's become a bit of a lost art since the days of vinyl when you had a limited amount of space on each side of an LP. you know, vinyl record where you had to choose a set number of songs. Uh, and, and the idea was to kind of make all those songs work cohesively and kind of work together. And there was an art to even the order of the songs and, and you know, the, the album art and that sort of thing. And so I think, uh, if you take your suggestion even a step further, if you do have access to a turntable and you have some vinyl, um, it's, it's, it, it even adds that really tangible tactical element to, to what you suggested and that you actually have to get up and flip the album over midway through, um, which is kind of neat too. So. Yeah, that's a good one.
James Stacey Man, do you know what I was thinking about the other day? Hidden tracks. Do you remember that?
Jason Heaton Vaguely, yeah.
James Stacey I remember I was coming up, when I came up listening to music, this is before I got into, let's say when I was in my 13 to 16 window, you would buy some pop punk album. I'm trying to think, I bet you, I think it was probably an album from a band called Mill and Colin, who I'm sure there's some people in the audience who would know. um and and you would get like there'd be 13 tracks right but if you let if you let the final track play oh sure it would eventually like there'd be like 40 seconds of silence and then there'd be some talking and then another song would happen yeah right right you don't you can't you can't really do hidden tracks when everything is a file now i mean i guess you could hide it inside a file but what you can see how long all the files are yeah right i remember that being i remember that being i i remember that and i remember really enjoying the the leaflet in a cd pack Yeah, right. And being impressed by, you know, bands' visual creativity in how they packaged and told that story. Yeah. And there are just two things that, you know, that came to my mind. The hidden track thing was bugging me. I was having a sleepless night, and I was thinking about something that stupid, but yeah.
Jason Heaton We could do a TGN hidden tracks after the final music fades away. We could wait for...
James Stacey That's where I always leave our like mitigative speech. I package it all into one, you know, three minute bundle of ums and ahs. Yeah, right. Throat clears. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So bring us home, Jason. What do you got?
Jason Heaton All right. So I've got an idea for something that I mentioned on the last show as part of this sort of micro adventure idea, you know, camping in the backyard or going for a hike in your neighborhood park or whatever. Um, but I wanted to expand on a little bit and that is to go on a photo hike. Uh, you know, take, take your camera, take your phone and just, you know, uh, hike, hike with some intent, some, uh, goal to maybe, you know, this time you're going to photograph the flowers that are poking up through the, through the mud, uh, in this early spring weather we're having, or, um, you know, look at angles of buildings that you pass. Uh, you know, certainly even in these times of isolation, people are still being Encouraged to get out and get fresh air go for walks and it kind of turns it into a little project if you kind of look at it with a photographer's eye and I've started enjoying doing that. I've got a Nikon DF SLR that that takes SD cards and you had recommended last year picking up one of these card readers that I could plug into my iPhone and just transfer directly from from the the camera to my phone since it doesn't the camera doesn't have a Wi-Fi connection and So I've enjoyed doing that, but you know, you could just take your phone. I mean, phones have great cameras. Um, just, just seek out, maybe it's a derelict cars or maybe it's a interesting trash you find in the street. You know, you shoot it before you pick it up with a glove on and put it in a bag or whatever you're doing. Um, but you know, I'd love to see what, what people come up with. And if you feel so inclined, uh, go do that. Go on a photo hike around the neighborhood or in a park. Um, and tag us at the, at the gray NATO on Instagram and we'll, uh, We'll either repost or comment next time around or just, you know, just for the fun of it. I'd love to see what people are up to.
James Stacey I think it's a great idea. So yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Get outside, take a few pictures, give us a tag.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So now we'll move on to our kind of more conventional final notes. Uh, this is one that, um, somebody had sent me and I don't remember who, but it was in regard to that Dyatlov mystery story that we talked about a while back. Which is very cool. This was a, this is a, a, story called Frozen in Time that was actually on CNN's website a couple of weeks ago and it was about a team of female Russian climbers that got lost on a Soviet named mountain called Peak Lenin and they were lost during a storm and there was some rescue attempts and the story, it's one of those great interactive long form posts that we're used to seeing on outside or even on the New York Times. you know, that has this sort of mix of interactive maps and great visuals and just some long form great writing with a very compelling story. So I'm not going to go into much more detail about it other than just to point people to it and give it a go. I'm not used to seeing this kind of stuff on CNN.com. In fact, I never visit CNN.com, but this drove me over there and I thank whoever sent that in for providing that. So check that out. It's called Frozen in Time.
James Stacey Super. That's a great pick. And yeah, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have necessarily, I was a little surprised when I saw a CNN link, um, in, uh, in the listing, but that's great. Good work, uh, CNN. And, uh, certainly another one of those kind of wild stories. Right. Right. And, uh, for mine, I actually, it's a, you, we're going varied here today. Mine is a YouTube channel called true facts and, uh, true facts. They have 44 videos. Uh, they're pushing up on 26 million views. I'm sure that many of you have seen these before. The one thing I would say at the top, um, is, uh, is the, um, sometimes the content in these is a little bit on the adult side. Um, I don't think it's anything that people would find specifically offensive. It just might be something that you would have to then explain, uh, to a younger human in your midst. Uh, so it is a humor based channel. Um, the overall channel is Ze Frank one. If you've been around. internet comedy videos like pre-YouTube, then you'll remember Ze Frank. This is a guy that did things like some really funny videos like the Human Olympics, where it was all body-based motions that were kind of nonsensical. Like he would... One of the things you had to be a clock and actually keep accurate time. It was just some really weird stuff. He used to do this series with like rubber ducks that I remember from, oh man, 15 years ago or something like that, that was super funny. Anyways, these are, um, nature videos, basically that, that talk about actual true facts about weird animals. So this could be everything from the most recent one was nudibranchs. Um, it could be the mating dance of the peacock spider, skeleton shrimp, um, could be even more conventional things like ostriches. Um, it, it's a, it's a big list of, of interesting and funny animals. And he basically does a really funny voiceover to various kind of stock photography clips of these animals. And it's about, you know, like 99% true stuff. And then there's little joke facts in there too. Uh, I really enjoy these. They can be, uh, a little, little bit on the raunchy side, like I said, but there's, there's super funny and you learn a bunch and, and you get a lot of these animals are really crazy. Like it's, uh, these are super entertaining, uh, videos. So my final note for this week is, uh, Ze Frank's, uh, YouTube series, true facts. I hope people enjoy them. And if not, just move on. But they make me laugh really hard. So I get a kick out of them. They're really silly and, you know, borderline educational.
Jason Heaton Nice. Yeah. A little humor is good these days. Oh, for sure. Yeah. So that wraps up Isolation Tapes Volume 2, which is AKA TGN Episode 104. As always, thanks so much for listening. Hit the show notes via Hodinkee.com or the feed for more details. And thanks to Hodinkee Shop for supporting this and all of our episodes, really. You can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J.E. Stacey and follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, please write thegraynado at gmail.com and please keep sending those voice memos. Please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music Throughout a Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
James Stacey And we leave you with this quote from Franz Kafka, who said, I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.