Hazy & Unfiltered

The lake is looking a little different than it did in June and July and August. 

It was somewhere in there, July I believe, that I came across perhaps the best description of summer that I ever read: "Hazy and Unfiltered." Now, I was reading the label of my beer bottle at the time: a fine wheat with a wedge of homegrown lemon crammed down the neck.

"Hazy and unfiltered," of course, was describing the cloudy nature of the Bavarian-style wheat beer inside. But I'll be damned if it didn't nail the essence of summer too. Especially right then: Boat adrift. Sun and skin. Music shimmery and alive.

The boat (and the sun and the skin) have all been put into storage for the winter. But the music? I held on to that. Give this mix a try if the weather's got you down these days. It's a mellow mix of a thing. It might make you happy. It might make you sleepy. It's the dank nug of playlists.

The Endless Summer

Sometimes I find myself missing places I've never been during eras I've never lived. Such as? Key West in the 30s. NYC in the 70s (alright I was alive but not of the recommended age for doing 70s NYC things). And California in the mid 60s. 

That last one is where The Endless Summer comes in. If you're not familiar (and you should be, friend-o), the film follows several surfers to Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Tahiti and Hawaii. Because "On any given day of the year, it's summer somewhere in the world." (Some decades later, the philosopher Jimmy Buffett would further parse this seminal theory to conclude: "It's 5 o'clock somewhere.") 

Despite the worldwide locations, though, The Endless Summer couldn't be more 60s Californian if it tried. It's the perfect tale of care-free wanderlust and adventure: beautifully shot, wonderfully narrated, and set to a killer soundtrack. In my mind, when I think about escape plans, they look exactly like this.

You can watch the whole thing right here: