The Sunday Digest 153
"Don't get offended if I seem absent minded."
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.
Sunday Read: The quest for every Gap store playlist ever
by Mia Sato for The Verge
Tom Hanks once said, “Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies.” For me, however, fall makes me want to buy something adjacent to school supplies: back-to-school clothing.
Every year in late August, my family would drive downstate to the Somerset Mall in Troy, Michigan to do our back-to-school shopping and visit relatives. After eating a BBQ chicken pizza at California Pizza Kitchen, we’d walk past the dark green Ford Explorer (LL Bean Edition) parked in the middle of the mall and stroll right into The Gap — the store where the heaviest of lifting would get done.
Back-to-school shopping was one of my favorite activities, and one I look back on fondly due to the pure 90s nostalgia. Especially in The Gap. While I don’t specifically remember their music or playlists, I do think the following passage from this week’s read is a wonderful way to not only look at old Gap playlists, but also playlists in our very own collections:
Playlists are both ephemeral and enduring. They capture a time in your past, encapsulated by what songs you chose and what order you put them in. They also serve as a backdrop to your life, the real-life soundtrack of driving home from school or working in a Gap store. A playlist exists suspended in a moment in time, and if you have a copy of it, it is also a time machine. In an era of endless data, it’s funny to think that Gap apparently didn’t archive its own sounds, or if it did, nobody knows where they are.
Read in full here.
The Sunday Haiku: Inbox (4,682)
The unread emails
will remain unread until
probably Tuesday.
New Episode › Retail Therapy 130: Freaking with Babygirl Halloween
Austin City Limits has officially taken over our city, a look at some potential ‘babygirl’ Halloween costumes, a new edition of ‘Freak or Don’t Freak,’ a discussion about belts and high-end golf clothing, and more.
Listen to Retail Therapy on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and anywhere else podcasts are found. You can also follow Retail Therapy on Substack.
Things I Saved This Week
My Sunday To-Do List
There’s a blueberry scone with an iced americano in my future.
I have some garden rehabbing to do after being negligent while I was out of town. It’s not insurmountable but I’d love some rain in the Central Texas area.
Yesterday, I transferred a new plant into a our hanging basket in place of our dying fern. Today, I need to make sure I’m setting it up for success unlike the aforementioned fern.
It probably won’t happen today, but I very much want to try the Sunday Roast at my favorite place in Austin, Kelly’s Irish Pub.
With the Premier League on an international break and the Lions playing tonight, it may be a relatively sports-free Sunday for me which excites me.
Honestly, just want to acquire some ice cream in some way, shape, or form.
I hope your Sunday is just swell,
Will
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I was recently telling someone about these back to school shopping trips and how dad would say, "well, it's not my favorite" and at that point you KNEW you weren't getting those cool pants or trendy top.