Good morning! Have I ever mentioned how much I love fall? I can’t remember.

Sure, I could wax poetic about all the classic perks of the greatest season, but one of my sleeper favorites is the obligatory ski film premieres that always make their way through Denver. Example? Last week, I went to the premier of A Hundred Words For Wind on Tuesday night and the premier of Girl Climber on Wednesday night (more on both of those in a bit).

It’s pretty hard to walk away from any outdoors/athletic film not feeling inspired, so naturally, I’ve been pushing pedal-to-the-metal on my own creative endeavors. Instead of a long form story, I’ll give you a rundown of the things I’ve been listening to, inspired by, consumed with, so on and so forth, while I’ve been in the colored-pencil-cave.

Listening to: this Spotify playlist to set the tone every single time I’ve worked on the above drawing. For the last week: all windows in the apartment are open, the temperature is finally dipping below 60°F, and this playlist blasting through my TV.

Reading: based on my recent reads, the Denver Library recommended Reading Lolita in Tehran to me. The author gathered a group of women at her apartment every Thursday morning throughout the Iran-Iraq war to talk about forbidden Western literature. They were all shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being ask to speak their minds, but soon they began to speak more freely—not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams, and disappointments. Their stories are intertwined with the stories they were reading: Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller, and of course, Lolita—and their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. It’s probably the best prose I’ve read in my entire life. Before that, I ripped through an oldie-but-goodie: The Psychology of Money (Katie, if you’re reading this, I’ll give it back soon - I promise!). Shot; chaser, I suppose.

Watching: this short film from La Sportiva about Anton Krupicka and his journey of climbing Longs Peak over the years. If I said this blew me away, it would be the understatement of the century. I don’t know what floored me more: the amount of times he’s climbed the peak, the fact that he ran the entire downhill in 45 minutes, or that he had the thought to resole a brand new pair of shoes.

Also watched: A Hundred Words For Wind and Girl Climber. Although neither of them are available online yet, I’ve linked previews for both. Think: dirtbag film and Oscar-worthy-multi-year-spanning-documentary, respectively. Both equally enjoyable in their own ways. One film was made with iPhones and GoPros, and one was professionally produced by multiple production houses deemed good enough for a North Face sponsored professional athlete—so naturally, there’s a touch of different vibes to each.

Chewing on (proverbially): the idea that marketing serves as a mirror for the accepted cultural temperature. I think the clearest example of it I’ve observed is the way we’ve seen masculinity talked about over the last few years. Take, for example, this Jake Gyllenhaal feature back in October of 2021.

This is just one example, but in hindsight it feels like a period of deference, albeit performative, where any man with access to a microphone would use it to talk about how incredible he thought women were. After that? We got the manosphere. We got endless op-eds on the male loneliness epidemic. At worst, we got Andrew Tate. And now we’ve landed somewhere in no man’s land with GQ’s state of masculinity. Maybe the pendulum is just swinging like it always has and always will; maybe it’s in my best interest to stop thinking about this so much. Like I said, lots to chew on.

Keeping an eye on: the permutations and iterations of the ever-evolving new age nostalgia trend. It’s been on the rise for the last few years, and I’m really loving a lot of the traditional resurgences that are coming along with it, like: the Hermes drawing school pop-up, the Warby Parker x McNally Jackson collaboration, or Prada’s Spring/Summer 2025 campaign (more on that in a sec). Historically, luxury fashion definitely serves as more of a creator of trends vs. follower of them, but I can’t stop thinking about the idea of that creator vs. follower role changing based on the trend itself. Luxury brands tapping into the era of new age nostalgia feels more on the follower side to me, though I’d love to be proved wrong.

More on that Prada stuff: I can’t say I’m much of a luxury/fashion person, though it’s a category I’ve kept my eye on over the last year because I think it says so much about where we are culturally (ie: Did you know when there’s war happening in the world, we historically see more militaristic motifs, subdued colors, and utilitarian designs at Fashion Week shows? Now you do.) Anyways, Prada’s Spring/Summer 2025 campaign involved a book launch (!!) called Ten Protagonists. Officially? it’s a reflection of “our concurrent realities, a multiplicitious vision of women, an ever-shifting perception of Prada. The campaign explores the notion of plurality, simultaneously celebrating individuality and the ceaseless facets that comprise the complex individual of Prada.” The non-buzzword-salad description? Prada made a book; the nostalgia train is rolling, y’all.

One last note on luxury: I stumbled across this article about what luxury means today and was so pleasantly surprised by how wholesome some of the answers were. The idea is rooted in the idea of luxury fashion, although it’s interesting how quickly it turns to escapism and the actual things we all crave and consider modern day luxuries. It says a lot about where we are, and most importantly, what we want as a society.

Anyone hear anything about Jimmy Kimmel lately? I kid. Jokes aside, I read this article about the state of journalism back in February and think about it at least once a week. It feels more resonant than ever today (which is a tad scary, though I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that). Here’s a block quote in case you need further convincing that out of all links in this newsletter, this one is the most worthy of your click:

Cue the Eras Tour intro: it’s been a loooong tiiiime cooominnnnn. After three months of blood, sweat, and tears (no blood on the page though, thankfully) I finally wrapped up this Gu drawing. Stoked with how it came together. Onward!

This section is outdoors-related news only this week, because I feel like I gypped you in this edition and I’m nothing if not a woman of my word.

⛷️ Backcountry Mag is back to paper editions in October and I’m oh so fired up. In the meantime, they’ve been putting out heater-after-heater with their web content, like this story about Vermont Ski Hills.

⛰️ There’s a handful of things on my “yeah, no, will never f*cking do that” list and Satan’s Ridge might be at the top of that list.

🥾 This just in: did you know you can wind up serving jail time for cutting switchbacks on a hiking trail? In reality, probably not, but someone had to be the example.

“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful it’s ordinary, mundane, and routine. Breathe in the amazing. Hold on through the awful and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.” - L.R. Knost

- McCall 🌻

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