Inspiring obsessions
(I love stories about people who really love the things they love)
My latest installation of favorite things/bright spots features a podcast (about bird stories) and a short film (about a particular New York City treasure) that introduce you to colorful people who draw joy from things they fell in love with early in life.
Reliable delight
This American Life
Episode 754: Spark Bird
I’ve been listening to old episodes of This American Life, the radio show-now-podcast, over the past few years. I often find myself bowled over or amused or moved (or all of those things) and immediately think of specific people I want to send the link to right away. Wanting specific people in my life to experience something I loved is a sure sign of great storytelling for me.
Spark Bird was one of those episodes. This American Life episodes usually consist of several segments that tie to a theme; sometimes I love all segments equally, and other times I have favorite segments.
With this one, there were two stories that were my favorites, but I’ll just describe the one that inspired the title — in the prologue, host Ira Glass interviews a young “birder” named Noah Stryker about his spark bird (“the bird that changed his life”). In a later segment the two go for a walk in the woods, and Strycker shares a pet peeve that plagues his bird-loving soul; I love quirky trivia, so this bit of knowledge delighted me and has stuck with me.
“Don’t Chicken Out,” the other segment I loved, is hilarious and surprising and sweet. Five out of five stars.
I’ll be recommending other This American Life episodes in future posts because (per my subhead above) its archive of hundreds of episodes really is a reliable source of delight.
Here’s where you can listen to Spark Bird:
The archived episode on This American Life's website (free to listen)
The episode on the Apple Podcast app, where you have to be a New York Times subscriber to listen, as This American Life is now owned by the NYT. (I’m sure it can be found on Spotify and other podcast apps, but the subscriber issue will still apply.)
The episode on the New York Times Audio App … you also have to be a subscriber, but if you already have this app and use it often, you may want to go this route.
Cheers to the archivists – of all kinds of things
Who Saves New York’s Lost Signs?
Short (just under 10 minutes) film about David Barnett, co-founder of Noble Signs + the New York Sign Museum
Directed and shot by Joshua Charow (@joshuacharow on Instagram)
Edited by Abraham C. Howard
Story discovered via Instagram
From the Instagram post:
“For the past decade, Barnett and his crew have been rescuing iconic signage whenever a business shuts down. Together, they've built New York City's very first sign museum.”
I love signs, too, so this post caught my eye. I wonder if there was a particular sign that Barnett saw when he was growing up that was his version of a Spark Bird?
If reading this description caught your imagination, I think you’ll consider the 9-plus-minute film worth your time.
You can read more here:
Noble Signs
The New York Sign Museum