It is peak summer at Three Point Four Media Ann Arbor HQ. Check out that haul! I’ll look at this photo longingly come February when there is nothing but root vegetables at the market. August is an ideal time to reset for the rest of the year and an opportunity to think big and strategic about 2026 (we are nothing but forward thinking here at TPF). I’m in a big messaging and strategy headspace right now—for current clients, potential clients, and Three Point Four. That means crafting a tight story that supports business needs and goals, something I think we’re very good at.
The links!
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A book
I have not been moved by a book in quite some time. Liked a book? Yes! Recommended a book in this very newsletter? All the time. But a book has not made me feel things in a minute. Until I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer, which completely rewired my relationship with the natural world. Birds sounded different. Bugs took on a higher purpose. My garden called.
Yes, it helps that I like birds and bugs and spending extended time in the greater outdoors. But Kingsolver’s intertwined story of three different people navigating a summer in Appalachia has it all: Soapy drama, catty in-laws, death, sex, coyotes, an old man obsessing over chestnut trees. It made me want to spend more time in my garden and also never harm a worm. Read if you like: Birdsong, family farms, cranky old men, flowers, goats, outside-the-box small business ideas.
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Some songs
I was doing yard work last week (thank you, Barbara Kingsolver for putting me back in touch with my withering garden) and searching for music that captured the “I’m 16, summer is fading, and I can feel time slipping away as the sun sets and the world is a big beautiful place and everything I do is both dramatic and important” vibe. Thankfully there is just the sequence for that: The A-side of Third Eye Blind’s self-titled record, which is basically all hits. (I don’t particularly care for the second half.) All our Gen X subscribers who were too cool for school to listen to this when it came out in 1997 because they were at Pavement shows or whatever will find the light someday—it’s all bangers.
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A movie
Saw Thelma & Louise on the big screen this week. A true “10 of 10 no notes.” The Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor got their hands on an original 35mm print from the summer it came out. It felt warm and lived in with tiny imperfections and there was a small thrill thinking about the people who saw that exact same print in the summer of 1991. The actual film has its own story. I like to read old press coverage after I see an old movie and Janet Maslin’s Times piece is a nice capsule. This line really resonated: “Their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives is something anyone in the audience will understand.”
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A shoe
We are huge advocates of the Saucony Endorphin Speed 2 here at Three Point Four Media. Noah even wrote about it for
. Take it away, partner:…the Speed 2 was the perfect shoe: durable enough for longer runs; supportive enough for everyday use; responsive enough for speed work and fartleks. It’s a workhorse of a shoe…
Ever since I ran out of (literally!) the four pairs of dead stock Endorphin 2s I stowed away in my basement, I’ve been running through the shoe wilderness. Nothing quite works for me. I tried the Asics Magic Speed (fine, had a nice little snap to it for faster days). The New Balance 880 (a good daily trainer but a bit too cushy for my tastes). Various Hokas (I don’t want to run on clouds). Everything paled in comparison to the Endorphin Speed 2 and I don’t quite like Endorphin Speed 3 and 4. Friend of the newsletter and Runner’s World runner-in-chief Jeff Dengate suggested I try the Adidas Adizero Evo SL, which he called “the shoe of the year.” And reader: it delivered! It’s cushy, but not overly cloud-like. It’s snappy, but not too stiff for daily training. It’s a workhorse.
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A run
Turkey Trot training began in earnest last week: 6x20 seconds hard with two minutes float, followed up by five minutes at threshold. Probably not the best idea to do it in the middle of the day during a heatwave with Canadian wildfire smoke parked over Michigan, but it will make that crisp and cold November air that much sweeter.
“Good work is what drives signups”
Dan Frommer stays ahead of media trends. He was Business Insider’s second employee—“There, I did a bit of everything: Reporting (5,700 posts)”—before serving as technology editor of Quartz and editor in chief of Recode. In 2019, he went out on his own, launching
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