Reading (and listening): Sports Illustrated

For the past two years, Sports Illustrated has been my favorite magazine. I started my subscription for the photography. I keep it for the writing.

The way I use my iPhone has evolved over time. There was a time, if I were to listen to anything, I would listen to music. I still listen to music, but at the gym or doing chores, I’m much more likely to listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I’ll also do this in the car, though gas-powered transportation tends toward music.

Many of the audiobooks I’ve completed have been about basketball or baseball, with one on football, and a couple of Sports Illustrated collections, including, right now, Fifty Years of Great Sports Writing.

Back-to-back, I’ve listened to a couple of great pieces:

Snakes Alive!

Rattlesnakes are cold-blooded but not murderous, and they prefer the stealthy escape to the lethal confrontation–unless they’re peckish and you’re a hamster. Stand real still when you meet one and it’ll slither off, thinking you’re just a rock or at least a thing too large to eat. Of course, if you surprise one by stepping on it, sitting on it (heard this several times; still not over it) or putting your hands where they don’t belong (i.e., under rocks, into holes…), you’re likely to end up snakebit and off to the hospital, there to experience the complex multisymptomatic wonders of a venom that works at once as a neurotoxin, cytotoxin, hemorrhagic agent and digestive acid. Meaning you’ll most likely suffer some pain, swelling, pain, pain, discoloration, pain, bleeding, pain, blistering, nausea, pain, light-headedness, pain and further, persistent acute pain. Statistically speaking, you probably won’t die–you’ll just want to.

Mirror of My Mood (Google Books link and I can’t copy and paste from it).

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