The Sunday Digest 087
A few deep breaths can change a lot if you let it.
Welcome to The Sunday Digest — a free Sunday newsletter featuring long (and some short) reads, original columns, things I’ve saved over the last week, relaxing playlists, episodes releases, exclusive product drops, and more. Yes, you can reply to this email. I’d love to hear from you. Or, if podcasts are more your speed on Sundays, we’ve got that too.
Sunday Read: Bill Walton’s Long, Special Relationship With the Grateful Dead
by Marc Tracy for The New York Times
“Wow, another Grateful Dead article as The Sunday Read,” you’re thinking. And that’s probably fair. But with Bill Walton’s passing this week, it only seemed right to allocate the spot to him.
Whether you watched him play basketball, enjoyed him on broadcasts, or saw him above the crowd at a Dead show, there was no shortage of reasons to love Bill Walton. When asked what his favorite Grateful Dead show was, Bill would often reply with “the next one” which is a mentality I’ve tried to adopt in other facets of life aside from listening to music. He truly enjoyed the ride.
Here’s an excerpt:
“If you asked him about his relationship with the Dead, it would be this flow of admiration, feeling that he was in touch with something larger than just himself,” Dennis McNally, the band’s biographer and former spokesman, said in an interview. “Which has to be pretty big, to be bigger than Bill.”
Walton attended his first Dead show in 1971, before starting at U.C.L.A. At a 1976 concert in Portland, Ore., the band and its crew spotted Walton — a center who was listed as 6-foot-11 — standing near the front of the house, and invited him to sit onstage rather than block so many sightlines. At a break in the set, he went up and befriended the band.
If you haven’t already, I also highly recommend his ESPN 30 for 30 mini-series, The Luckiest Guy in the World.
Read in full here.
The Sunday Haiku: Especially when you ordered online beforehand.
Five minutes feels like
an eternity when you’re
in line for coffee.
New Episode › Retail Therapy 077: Merch, Jazz Bros, and Luggage Wealth
Taking a hard look at GQ's recent "The End of Merch" piece, the possible rise of Jazz Bros (and why we may be okay with it), Aime Leon Luggage and the generational wealth that needs to go along with it, cigarette cases, tzatzikitinis, jean sweatpants, a possible Sex and the City rewatch, wishlist items, and more.
Listen to Retail Therapy on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube (see above), and anywhere else podcasts are found. And a reminder to follow Retail Therapy on Substack!
Things I Saved This Week
I haven’t done a dump of Tumblr saves in a while so here are some favorites linked back to where they were found. If you deserve credit for any of these images, please let me know!
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