Episode 37: Ben Guest
I had a great conversation with Ben Guest, author of "Zen and the Art of Coaching Basketball: Memoir of a Namibian Odyssey". We talked about his adventure coaching a high school basketball team in Namibia, his philosophy on coaching, reading, writing, and other subjects. We also talked a lot about the business of self-publishing, the channel through which Ben brought his book into the world.
Ben joined me from his home in New York City (though he's planning a move soon to L.A.) Check out Ben's Substack page here, where you can also find a link to his excellent podcast, “Conversations about Creativity”.
Please enjoy and let me know what you think.
What I've been reading
If a story has a John Branch byline on it, I read it. You might remember Chloe Kim, who won the gold in the women's snowboard halfpipe at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Well, she's back, and Branch wrote this terrific story about what she's been up to the last four years. It hasn't all been easy.
Nobody played basketball like we did
WickedLocal-dot-com
Next week's podcast guest, Noah Perkins, writes about the horrible racism Patrick Ewing and the rest of his Cambridge (Mass.) Rindge and Latin School basketball teammates had to endure in the early 1980s.
I hate Christmas. And you should be okay with that
I hate neither Christmas nor the holiday season, but there are certain aspects of it I find appalling, such as how much money people spend on sh*t neither they nor their loved ones need. Here, Brian Broome writes in the Washington Post about growing up poor and the difficulty as an adult "to balance the awful things we see happening the rest of the year with the joy I’m supposed to drum up near the end of it.
"Vaccine Holdouts in Army and Navy Will Be Dismissed, Military Says
By Jennifer Steinhauer
Honestly I didn't really read this article — I just skimmed it, looking for a specific fact that I'd suspected to be true but needed confirmation. I found it in the last sentence:
Vaccines are a standard part of the job for those who serve in the military. Beginning with boot camp, troops are required to get inoculated against roughly a dozen diseases.
I just find it baffling that anyone would join the military voluntarily, agree to receive a number of vaccinations, then balk at getting one more. Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter.