To view this email as a webpage, click here On December 19th, 2001, The Fellowship of the Ring hit theaters and nerd culture was forever changed. If you’re like me, you associate these movies with the holidays and are about to rewatch all three films (extended editions obviously). I was rewatching the Fellowship recently, and I had a funny thought. While they’re in the Mines of Moria, Gandalf is reading the final entry in the Book of Mazarbul, the diary of Balin and his fellow dwarves and...
14 days ago • 3 min read
To view this email as a webpage, click here A few years back, I attended my friend Nick’s blowout 40th birthday party. As part of the celebration, he hired an improv comic, and we all had to participate in learning improv comedy. (I just felt the collective shiver of all the introverts reading this newsletter). We started tossing out fun scenarios and scenes to participate in, and we learned about the most important rule of Improv:“Yes and.” Two simple words, and the foundation for all of...
21 days ago • 2 min read
To view this email as a webpage, click here I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I’ve read the whole Dark Tower Series, It, The Shining, Doctor Sleep, and my favorite movie ever is based on his novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. So, at the behest of multiple friends who told me it’s their favorite book, I finally started reading 11/22/63. Here’s the head-exploding premise: On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
To view this email as a webpage, click here Last December, I sheepishly admitted there was a huge hole in my Nerd cred. I grew up drawing cartoons, took AP art in high school, and was always fascinated by hand-drawn animation… But I had never seen a single second of any Studio Ghibli cartoon! Studio Ghibli is the Japanese equivalent of Disney, with Hayao Miyazaki as the Japanese Walt: the studio has won multiple Academy Awards for their beautifully hand-drawn animated films, and Miyazaki has...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
To view this email as a webpage, click here In 1933, an overwhelmed and frustrated woman named Frau sent a letter to psychologist Carl Jung, asking “how to live.” (She didn’t have any Instagram influencers to yell motivational platitudes at her, I guess) Jung replied: “Your questions are unanswerable, because you want to know how one ought to live. One lives as one can. …if you do with conviction the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful and intended by...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
To view this email as a webpage, click here I’m currently reading The Tainted Cup, a fantasy detective novel. Think “Sherlock Holmes set in Westeros.” The main character has this augmentation that allows him to absorb every single detail of every interaction, crime scene, and then recite back these exact details at a later date. I remember a horrifying Black Mirror episode about this very thing: being able to recall every fact of every interaction in the past. Here’s the thing: in all of...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
To view this email as a webpage, click here I remember racing up the down escalator in Macy’s at the Cape Cod Mall. My mom, calmly riding the Up escalator like a regular human, would say I was going to hurt myself (possible) or I was making a scene (correct) or interrupting the people trying to get down the escalation (also correct). Sometimes I would be able to get to the top, exhausted and out of breath, while my mom would arrive at the same time laughing at how hard I had to work. Spend...
2 months ago • 2 min read
To view this email as a webpage, click here Have you ever heard of “Blue Zones”? These pockets of the world are known for having citizens who live exceptionally long, healthy lives. Some of these locations may sound familiar: Okinawa, Japan (home of Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid!). Sardinia, Italy. Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. Icaria, Greece. These locations have a higher percentage of people who live longer due to their local-whole foods diet, high vegetable consumption, low instances of...
2 months ago • 3 min read
To view this email as a webpage, click here It’s been a while since I’ve felt this uncomfortable. I had an empty afternoon last week and saw Speak No Evil (trailer here), a horror/suspense film about a family who goes to visit another couple they met on vacation. And shockingly, things don't go as expected. If you saw the “Dinner Party” episode of The Office where Jim and Pam go to Michael and Jan’s house for the most uncomfortable house party ever, and thought to yourself… “What if this was...
3 months ago • 4 min read