Ed Sheeran tried to stay neutral on a moving train. “If [celebrities] remain neutral (silent), they won’t offend anyone and they will, hopefully, appeal to everyone. They use the facade of neutrality as shelter, as a place to take refuge.”

Monopoly as a metaphor for racial inequity. “During the first half of the game, we said that Cas and I could buy property, but you could not, then halfway through the game, we say, ‘Now the rules are even. Now the rules are the same for everybody.’”

Relationships are key to human happiness. “The top five [determinants of subjective well-being], ranked in order of impact, were romantic and familial relationships, financial situation, work, community and friends, and health.”

In the 70s, photographer Langdon Clay took photos of cars parked on NYC streets at night and compiled them into a project: Cars, New York City | 1974-1976. Using his Leica CL, Kodachrome 25, and a 40 millimeter lens, Clay traversed the streets of 1970’s Manhattan fi...

The Film Experience is a free online course from MIT about movies & cinema. “This course concentrates on close analysis and criticism of a wide range of films, from the early silent period, classic Hollywood genres including musicals, thrillers…”

I didn’t know Beehiiv had a program to support independent journalists. Members get access to tools, a health insurance stipend, legal protection, and waived hosting fees. Oh, and they don’t proudly host Nazis like Substack. ✌️

Imagine playing chess against a seven-year-old who’s dancing around and barely paying attention to the board (bc it’s all in her head) and she just casually checkmates you like this. Oof.

Oh my goodness, I love the look of these cups. They were made by Indonesian potter Nabila Nareswari using the nerikomi technique. From her about page: Nerikomi is a technique in pottery that creates decorative patterns by stacking, rolling, and slicing colored clay. ...

In Prison, White Supremacist Literature Is Required Reading. “White supremacy welcomed his rage, and that made it irresistible.” Excerpted from Cast Out: A Call for a Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration by Joseph Margulies.

“Starring Genden Phuntsok, Tom Hiddleston, and Willem Dafoe, Tenzing follows the true story of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary’s historic first summit of Mount Everest. History remembers the summit, but not always the man who made it possible.”

I believe I have featured login.jp_ here before — they pair electronic music with different locations around Japan to highlight the Japanese experience. For their latest video, they had English DJ & producer Bonobo play some downtempo ambient electronica in a Shinjuku ...

This story, about a dressage trainer who shot his female student and got away with it, is completely bonkers. “Largely through the medium of Facebook, Kanarek had driven Barisone mad.”

I am stunned that we are still finding new species of cat in 2026. “The analysis revealed that the sanctuary cat belonged to a previously unrecognized species whose lineage split from its relatives about 1.4 million years ago.”

Cole Escola’s Broadway smash Oh, Mary! is coming to HBO in 2027. Excited for this…I’ve never seen the play.

Amazing piece by Nikole Hannah-Jones about the betrayal her child felt at her school choice. “So you had money to send me to one of the best schools, and you chose not to? Because other kids are disadvantaged, you didn’t want to put me in a great school?”

New novel from Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven): Exit Party. “Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted.”

Wes Anderson steps into the mobile Criterion Closet to select some films that he enjoys. One unsurprising thing about this video: Anderson says he has his own Criterion closet at home with all of the Criterion films. That’s maybe a $40-50K investment? (He probably gets th...

“The clan of predators currently in charge of the U.S. federal government” are striving to make the world safe for grift, corruption, and theft, with their mob boss president leading the way.

Artist Maya Barkai assembled a collection of pedestrian traffic signals from around the world: Walking Men Worldwide. I love all of these little people. The Warsaw one reminds me somewhat of Rocky from Project Hail Mary. Some of the ones from smaller places have more personality, but I feel like the New York and Boston ones are my favorites aesthetically. Weirdly, the iconic German Ampelmännchen isn’t among the crowd here. A screenprint of the collected pedestrian people is available on the Walking Men Worldwide website. (via @jessicabrillhart) Tags: art · cities · design · Maya Barkai · walking

Instant click for me: how NYC street signs are made. “The sign shop…has a staff of 46 workers, including seven letterers who lay out signs by hand and a blacksmith who makes custom brackets to securely attach signs to traffic poles.”

The History of Concrete, a new documentary film by John Wilson, who one review called “the Werner Herzog of the mundane”. This looks great!

Review of a new book on Stephen Hawking. “The uncomfortable truth is that Hawking’s overweening ambition and self-promotion, his repeated failure to acknowledge the work of others, his sexism and controlling behaviour were largely ignored…”

Uruguayan birder Juan Pablo Culasso, who was born blind, has been recording and collecting bird songs for more than two decades. I think that because I’m blind, I enjoy birds differently. Bird songs are my way of appreciating and understanding this world. Culasso is aide...

From our own Edith Zimmerman for the New Yorker, some Updated Jane Austen Titles like Dead-Ass Karen and Red-Flag Baddie and Brain-Rot Third Space.

“Szilveszter Makó’s surreal portraits have become nearly as recognisable as the celebrities he photographs.” But: “Artists who become successful for a signature style are then accused of monotony for being hired to reproduce it.”

New book from Ed Yong! Life Beyond Measure: Nature’s Hidden Wonders at Every Scale. “A bristlecone pine rounds the corner of its fifth millennium; shorebirds fly without stopping across the world’s largest ocean…” Out in April, pre-order now.

Yes, this summer really was as hot as you think it was. This summer “was the hottest on record for the contiguous U.S., beating the previous champions of 1936 and 2021 by 0.4°F. Compared to the average over the 20th century, this summer was 3° hotter.”

By taking a camera, pointing it out the window of a train, and keeping track of how fast the train is moving, you can create very wide panoramic scans of the scenery.

It’s a little more complicated than that — all the details are here — but you’re essentially using the train (or ferry) as a massive flatbed scanner.

I knew from the start that I’d need to measure the speed somehow, but I was naïvely hoping that I wouldn’t need to measure it that well and could simply fudge it. This image, however, shows that even small variations of speed matter. This was my first glimpse into how much of a pain dealing with speed would turn out to be.

I love little hacky projects like these.

Tags: photography · remix · trains

Japanese architect Tadao Ando designed a floating children’s library and donated it to Kagawa prefecture. “We created reading spaces throughout the ship. A large circular bench was placed on the rear deck, and children can even lie under the sun.”

The Rumpus Book Club event for this month is a conversation between Debbie Millman, Roxane Gay, and Emily Wilson about Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey. Sept 25th at 7pm ET on Zoom, free for all.