Fave 5

1. Undulating Coasters and Slide Complexes Loom in Alex Hutton’s Paintings. Plus, gorgeous book end papers.

2. Take The New York Times quiz, How Cultured Are You? And, To See or Not to See? Every Single Shakespeare Play Ranked by The Guardian.

3. The Accursèd Alphabetical Clock. “This clock displays the current time alphabetically.”

4. Stunning photos of a humpback whale eye. From the vault, Which Year, guess the date of photographs.

5. David Byrne performs the Talking Heads’ classic “Life During Wartime” at Coachella.

1. Sperm Whales’ Communication Closely Parallels Human Language, Study Finds (watch the short video). Also in science, The Self Balancing Monorail. Fascinating history.

2. In photos, God Sleeps in the Minerals. Plus, the unsettling mineral art of David Altmejd.

3. In illustration, 1950s Milwaukee bus tickets from the always wonderful Present & Correct and graph paper transformed into 3D art.

4. Train Jazz. Each train in NYC is a note, together they make a real-time jazz combo. Super cool.

5. Trailer for American Masters’ documentary, Mary Oliver: Saved by the World. Mark your calendars for April 28.

1. Artemis II wallpapers for your phone and some larger ones for your desktop. Plus, every iPhone ever made.

2. Speaking of space, The Cosmic Odometer. Enter your birthday and see how far you’ve traveled.

3. From the great Kevin Kelly, Some Contemporary Heresies

4. In ephemera, Pan American Luggage Labels. Plus, Designing in the Glitch, collages by Anton Elfilter (IG).

5. Robert Plants reinvents “Ramble On,” from The Late Show. A must watch.

1. It’s Apple’s 50th Anniversary. “Verge readers ranked the 50 Apple products on this list, and here are the final results.” And Macs of Unusual Size.

2. A short video, No One Knows How Planes Can Fly. Also in science videos, Scientists Filmed a Whale Birth. The Surprise: Mom Had Many Helpers.

3. How to Read A Book Per Week (Even If You’re Busy). Plus, Movie Release Radar, a calendar of upcoming movies.

4. In photos, Extreme Macro Photos of Insect Wings by Chris Peran

5. Letters to Young Creators and Start a Band, Even if You’re Terrible

1. A gallery of obsolete sounds. Plus, Web Rewind.

2. An infographic that shows how much land is required to produce various foods. Plus, micro photography of sand from around the world.

3. Translate plain English into LinkedIn speak. And, A Japanese Glossary of Chopsticks Faux Pas.

4. From The Wirecutter, It’s Time to Clean Your Books

5. A poem for spring by Philip Larkin, The Trees.

Short and to teh point this week. Happy spring.

1. Riding the Subway to Coney Island in 1987

2. US Job Market Visualizer

3. Reuters set out to find the elusive Banksy.

4. The 20 Best Food Scenes in Movies

5. I Couldn’t Stop Worrying – Until I Learned about the 6.30PM Rule

1. In photos, Dani Guindo’s Dramatic Aerial Photos Reveal the Ghostly Outline of an Icelandic Glacier. Plus, It’s Their Mona Lisa – What institutions besides the Louvre consider to be their “Mona Lisa.”

2. A Miraculous Escape, a hare outsmarts two chasing dogs. Plus, Inside America’s Most Remote & Forgotten Islands. A really interesting edit, too.

3. Discover Music Through Samples, search the database to see which songs use the same samples.

4. I love this: Tiny Toolkits. See the toolkits others are packing.

5. How to reach an actual person on the phone at dozens of companies.

1. Estimated Iran War Cost Tracker

2. Here’s What American Homes Looked Like the Year You Were Born

3. Watch: A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator. Feeling this one.

4. Games: List Animals Until Failure. Harder than it looks. And, How Far Back in Time Can You Understand English?

5. The Internet is Beautiful: 1 Dataset 100 Visualizations. Plus, Real-Time 3D Flight Tracking. Zoom in, scroll around.,

1. From The Atlantic, Different Views of the Winter Olympics

2. Author Oliver Burkeman on “unclenching.” And Austin Kleon’s How I Get Into Something New.

3. Walkman Land. And some more lo-fi gear on Instagram.

4. Jimi Hendrix’s Analog Wizardry Explained

5. Kung Fu Grandpa in the Food Lion Parking Lot. Brilliant Narration. Plus, from McSweeney’s, Is It a Red Flag? Wuthering Heights Edition

1. As I wrote on Instagram last week, Tom Noonan, my friend, teacher snd mentor for nearly three decades passed away last weekend. I saw his masterpiece “What Happened Was…” in 1994 while living in Cambridge, MA and then sought him out when I moved to NYC 4 years later. Though I already had an MFA, Tom taught me how to write. He taught me how to have a creative life. And every thing I wrote, produced or directed since was influenced by him. He was a singular talent. He will be dearly missed by me and all the actors and writers whom he loved and nurtured through his theater, Paradise Factory. What an enormous loss. Rest easy, Tom. May his name always be a blessing.

2. Jesse Jackson’s brilliant SNL rendition of Green Eggs and Ham from 1991. Plus, reading the poem I Am–Somebody on Sesame Street. Rest in Peace.

3. The great Robert Duvall also left us. Here he is in one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies, 1983’s Tender Mercies.

4. A nice reminder that “Everyone’s living a life you know nothing about. Be kind.”

5. People are terrible at remembering color. Don’t believe me, try this game. Plus, from The New York Times. Future Cringe, things we’ll look back on and cringe.

1. From The New York Times, The Super Bowl Ads, Ranked.

2. From Melissa Lyttle’s great newsletter, Drone-A-Rama! The Best Drone Shots of the Milan Cortina Olympics. Also in photography, Martin Roemers captures people and their cars. And some more information on the series.

3. What is a molly-guard?

4. Oldest Cave Painting of Red Claw Hand Could Rewrite Human Creativity Timeline

5. This New Pyramid Theory Explains the Missing Evidence. A fascinating watch.

1. Steven Soderbergh’s 2025 media intake. Plus, The 50 Most Underappreciated Movies of the 21st Century.

2. A question I’ve often asked, “What’s With That Voice People Use When Reciting Poetry?”

3. Birth Lottery. “If you were one of the 251 people born this minute, where would you land?” Just spin the globe. Plus, make free minimal map posters with Map to Poster.

4. Live from Minneapolis, Tom Morello plays a wild version of Killing In the Name Of, with the crowd singing vocals. His introduction is chilling. And the power of that song.

5. Check to see: Is that post designed to make you angry?

1. A collection of historical tangible media.

2. My Analogue Month: Would Ditching My Smartphone Make Me Healthier, Happier – Or More Stressed? Plus, 12 Distractions to Leave Behind in 2026.

3. Typography on Pencils and The Best Book Covers of the Last Decade.

4. 10 Google Search Hacks Everyone Should Know

5. In politics: Aside From That, Mr. Cook, What Did You Think of the Movie? and from Mr. Springsteen, a new song of protest, Streets of Minneapolis.

I edited two videos for The Council on Foreign Relations that were released last week, The 10 Best and Worst U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions. You can watch both here.

1. The Internet is Beautiful: Isometric New York. (Use your arrow and plus/minus keys and ASCII clouds.

2. Koyaanisqatsi In Five Minutes and The 25 Best Films Of 2025: A Video Countdown

3. ‘Her time has come’: Did Mondrian Owe his Success to a Cross-Dressing Lesbian Artist Who Lived in a Cornish Cove?

4. In photos: Photos Capture the Breathtaking Scale of China’s Wind and Solar Buildout and At Last, A Name for the Murderous Face in a Holocaust Photo

5. A brilliant analysis of a coffee meme. Don’t miss it.

Thank you to everyone who donated towards the production of my short film That Picture of You. There’s still time to help out and we really could use your help. Thanks ever so much.

1. In video, the gorgeous Divers. Also, I loved this unique take on true crime docs, Zodiac Killer Project. The director lost rights to the source the material but found a way to make the movie anyway.

2. In photos, Lunchtime by Charles H. Traub. Speaking of lunch, The Sandwich Alignment Game.

3. ‘I fell in love with him on the spot’: Alan Rickman remembered, 10 years after his death.

4. From Ryan Holiday, 37 Pieces of Career Advice I Wish I’d Known Earlier. Plus, The Two-Minute Burnout Checkup.

5. Competency porn: is there any greater escapism than watching a capable person on TV?

Well, today is my 30th birthday, again. If you enjoy this newsletter please consider a small birthday donation to help us make our film, That Picture of You. Every dollar counts and every dollar you give is tax deductible. Thank you.

1. What You’re Watching Isn’t What You’re Really Watching

2. From The New York Times, The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026. Plus, The Most Beautiful Home Libraries T Magazine Has Covered.

3. Do It Anyway. What a legend. And Loop, a powerful and sweet animated short about resistance.

4. Take the survey: Will Robots Take My Job? My job is at 65%.

5. From Austin Kleon, 100 Things That Made My Year (2025)

In May of last year I staged That Picture of You, a one-act play starring Sean Patrick Folster and Katie Moore. It is, I believe, the most realized personal work I’ve ever done.

We’re hoping to film a movie version this summer. You can learn more about the project at Fractured Atlas and all donations are tax deductible. Thank you for your consideration.

I’m going full minimalist this week.

1. From The New York Times, 10 Predictions for Life in 2026

2. Thin Desires Are Eating Your Life

3. The 52 Best Breakup Lines (Said in Real Life)

4. The Best Coming of Age Movies of The 21st Century

5. If Stayin’ Alive Had Been Written in 16th Century

If you’ve enjoyed my newsletter this year please consider a small donation to the ASPCA. They do good work.

1. 40 Questions to Ask Yourself Every Year

2. Artists We Lost in 2025, in Their Words. Plus, The 2025 Faces Quiz. I failed at all sports and most musicians.

3. Video: Underneath a Breaching Humpback Whale and Rock Paper Scissors Strategies

4. 30 Authors on the Books They Give to Everyone. Plus, 100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025

5. Classical guitarist Andrew York performs the Linus & Lucy theme song by Vince Guaraldi. I can’t think of a better way to end the year.

1. Words of the Year 2025. From Nature, The Best Science Images Of 2025.

2. We Put an AI Vending Machine in Our Office. It Gave Away Everything.

3. The Books Times Readers Were Most Excited About This Year. Plus, 600 Readers Told Us About the Best Gifts They Ever Got. These Are the Top 13. And, The Most Scathing Book Reviews of 2025.

4. “Freakpages is a community-curated directory of esoteric articles across the internet, primarily from Wikipedia.”

5. RIP to this mensch. Plus, Yo La Tengo Pay Tribute to Spinal Tap Creator Rob Reiner. A deep cut.

Need a book gift? Check out my 2025 reading list.

1. From Neal.fun: Size of Life

2. Sight and Sound’s 50 Best Films of 2025 and a similar list from The New York Times.

3. For my wife: Beautiful Drone Videos of Iceland’s Black Sand Beaches

4. In photos: 31 Jaw-Dropping Space Photos that Will Change How You See the Universe and Time’s Top 100 Photos of 2025.

5. Frank Gehry’s Most Iconic Work. RIP.