Why Beautiful Things Make Us Happier

In collaboration with creative agency Sagmeister & Walsh, Kurzgesagt explores what beauty is and how it makes peop

Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki

After he retired from making feature length films in 2013, legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki started work on a short f

A Robot that Draws Algorithmically-Generated Portraits

Samer Dabra uses a drawing machine called the AxiDraw and a custom program to generate Impressionistic line drawings o

Psst. Fast Food Secret Menus Are Rare Spots of Fun in Assembly-Line Dining

For Literary Hub, Alison Pearlman writes about how secret menus at fast food joints like In-N-Out (4x4, animal style) a

Powerful Photos of School Shooting Survivors

For New York magazine, Michael Avedon took photos of 27 survivors of school shootings, including Parkland’s Anthony Bor

Mister Rogers’ “Look for the Helpers” Was Not Meant for Adults

In a piece for The Atlantic, Ian Bogost argues that Mister Rogers’ “look for the helpers” advice for tragic events was

Republican Extremism and the Myth of “Both Sides” in American Politics

In this video, Carlos Maza talks about how the Republican Party has become more extremist than the Democrats, which has

Live Stream of a Norwegian Train

If you need a moment of relaxation today, check out this live feed of a Norwegian train making its journey through the

Protective Custody in Nazi Germany - Who Was Being Protected?

Another thing I learned on my visit to Topographie Des Terrors in Berlin was how the Nazis subtly twisted the meaning o

A Joyous Cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart Again?

New Orleans’ Hot 8 Brass Band somehow reimagines Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart Again as an upbeat jazzy tune.

Revisiting the Cursed Dreams of Hayao Miyazaki

For the most recent issue of the kottke.org weekly newsletter, Tim wrote about watching almost all of legendary directo

Stochastic Terrorism

In 2011, an anonymous blogger defined the term “stochastic terrorism”. Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communi

German Remembrance of the Holocaust and Growing US Anti-Semitism

I spent a few days in Berlin last week.1 One of things you notice as a visitor to Berlin is the remembrance of the Holo

Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie, may not be good but it doesn’t matter

I cannot wait to see the new Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s out in wide release on November 2 after a

The complicated world of weed in LA

Amanda Chicago Lewis is the best weed reporter. Los Angeles is widely agreed to be the biggest and most important cann

Shirley Jackson knew the real Vermont

You probably know Shirley Jackson as the author of The Haunting of Hill House but you should know her because of the br

Quick podcast recommendations

Here’s a quick roundup of podcasts I’ve been into lately: 30 for 30: BikramBeware how you talk about this show if you h

The quirky coif comedy of Wobble Palace

For fans of High Maintenance (don’t miss the original HM web series), Broad City (the final season starts in January),

Haptic Labs now makes wearables

I’m a sucker for maps so I’ve been into Haptic Labs quilts since we found out about them nine years ago (thanks Kelsey!

Time travel through words with Merriam-Webster

This is much more satisfying than browsing Google Trends, and just as illuminating about cultural shifts. Merriam-Webst

Robyn’s new album, Honey

It’s been eight years since Robyn’s last release, which seems like a Donna Tartt-esque wait in the pop music world. Her

Apple on the “radical” use of humans to edit the news

This is an interesting look at how Apple News approaches curating their product, which reaches 90 million people. Unlik

Heather Havrilesky teaches us many lessons via the music of Yes

I think we can all agree that Heather Havrilesky is brilliant as Ask Polly, but I’d like to point your attention to her

The woman who invented Abstractionism

The Hilma af Klint retrospective at the Guggenheim is by far the trippiest thing I’ve seen within the confines of an es

PSA shows a woman publicly detoxing from opioids

Since we don’t often see the treatment side of the opioid crisis, a new campaign from 72andsunny and M SS NG P ECES st

A debate over eminent domain in Texas

Will Texas, with five of the 15 largest cities in the U.S., have the first bullet train in the country? Curbed partnere

Mondrian’s flowers

I somehow didn’t know until recently that Piet Mondrian created a whole series of flowers, including charcoals and wate

The perfect right angles of a tabular iceberg

NASA released this photo of a tabular iceberg. It’s thought to have just split from the Larsen C ice shelf in the east

On the history of lavender

Edith’s post on the long history of lavender as a relaxant reminded me that you can now vape herbs just as you’ve alway

Pierre Cardin’s Le Palais Bulles

I’ve been taking refuge from the news in music (WQXR or Spacemen 3, lately), art (more on that here soon), novels (this

Barbara Kruger asks

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Questions) (1990/2018) Nine big questions by Barbara Kruger are now on display at MOCA in Lo

Harvard’s Pigment Collection

As the daughter of a trained art conservationist, I find this endlessly fascinating. Edward Forbes, the former directo

The Cloud Appreciation Society takes a field trip

Well, this sounds dreamy. The Cloud Appreciation Society (exactly what it sounds like) is hosting a gathering on the is

The quotable Ursula Le Guin

Brain Pickings is surfacing some gems from their archives in honor of what would have been Ursula Le Guin’s 89th birthd

What mainstream yoga imagery leaves out

I See You, the new short from Jacob Krupnick, is shot on 35mm film and it is beautiful. It features the inclusive yoga

Jet Li Turned Down The Matrix Because He Didn’t Want CGI Versions Of His Moves

In an interview with Chinese anchor Chen Luyu, actor and martial artist Jet Li revealed that he turned down the role o

The Library of Congress’s Collection of Early Films

National Screening Room, a project by the Library of Congress, is a collection of early films (from the late 19th to mo

How Precision Engineering Made Modernity Possible

Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman, has a new book out called The Perfectionists: How Precision

In Praise of Oscar the Grouch

Sesame Street puppeteer Caroll Spinney is retiring after almost 50 years, and everybody is leading with the fact that

The Chicago Tylenol Murders of 1982

I don’t know how many people under the age of 35 know about the Chicago Tylenol murders, but for a few weeks in 1982, i

The World Needs More Moral Heroism Like This

For the NY Times, rabbi David Wolpe writes about the moral courage of Chiune Sugihara, The Japanese Man Who Saved 6,000

Stephen Hawking’s Brief Answers to the Big Questions

Stephen Hawking passed away back in March, but left us with a final book that just came out this week: Brief Answers to

Vermont Foliage 2018

It’s snowing right now in Vermont, but fall was extra lovely this year, so I’m sharing some foliage shots I’ve taken ov

How Do You Help a Grieving Friend?

One answer to the question of “How do I help a grieving friend?” is to acknowledge their circumstances…to “join them i