1. Waxahatchee: Tiny Desk Concert. “Crutchfield is cool and cozy behind the Desk; she sways with an easy smile as she kicks off the set with her latest single, ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ alongside a five-piece band. She performs one of NPR Music’s best songs of 2024, ‘Right Back to It,’ as well as Tigers Blood’s title track and an album standout, ‘Crowbar.’ She and the band end with ‘Fire,’ a song that, as the first single from 2020’s Saint Cloud, marked the beginning of a beautiful transformation of Waxahatchee’s music.”
2. The 10 Best Science Fiction Books of 2024.
3. Snoop Dogg narrates Animal Planet Documentary. (video) This is six years old now, but it never fails to make me laugh. It’s a classic.
4. Big Bird is soon to be homeless as the cancellation of ‘Sesame Street’ is likely imminent. “While ‘Sesame Street’ is currently without a permanent home, there seems to be something that can be done that is within the power of regular citizens—contact members of Congress to ensure they fight to keep funding the CPB and increase the funding provided and donate to PBS and Sesame Workshop, which is the nonprofit that funds ‘Sesame Street.'”
5. Tropical Birds Burst to Life in the Intricate Paper Cutouts of ‘The Parrot Project.’
6. New to me music: Shine Through · Goldford. (video)
7. Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley Illuminate Queer Love and Mortality in New Documentary. I predict this is going to wreck me.
8. Celebrating the winter solstice with a puppet procession in Minneapolis. In related news, here’s a short video about the event. Puppets lit from inside with golden light — so gorgeous.
9. Favorite Books of the Year: Art, Science, Poetry, Psychology, Children’s, and More from Maria Popova on The Marginalian.
10. The art of Thomas Deininger on Instagram. “Making things to observe and process the curious, perverse and sublime beauty of our world.” Sculptures “that from one perspective looks like a jumble of bits and pieces, and then, moved slightly, the sculpture takes on a new life of its own,” (as described by Patti Digh).
11. 10 empowering ways to manage your media diet this Christmas.
12. Piano duets with mysterious neighbour by Giorgio Lo Porto. (Facebook reel) Even though I’d seen this before, rewatching it made me cry.
13. Everything You Need To Know About Weight Training … According To Experts. This is presented as “for weight loss” but what I liked is the three simple workouts included.
14. ‘Bluey’ Movie Set for 2027 Theatrical Release From Disney and BBC Studios.
15. The stories we tell ourselves from Seth Godin.
16. Poetry: After Wendy Pulls the Fool for Me and Before Winter Solstice, I Remember from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and The Amazon of Avignon from Julie Barton, and Wintering by James A Pearson.
17. The 39 Most Anticipated Books of 2025. In related news, the must-see films for 2025 you can’t miss.
18. My Brain Is Goldfish (But Here Are Some Things I Liked In 2024) from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds. He also invites readers to share their favorites in the comment section.
19. A Happier You in 2025: Gentle Vows. “Your gentle guide to change in the New Year & beyond” from Satya Robyn on Going Gently.
20. Pine Tree Time-lapse 300 Days. (video) “Last Christmas they sold these stone pine cones in the supermarket so I bought one to try to see if I could grow something from the seeds.” There’s also a follow-up video, Pinecone to Pine tree time-lapse. “653 days. The tree is doing well but i think it’s time soon to switch to a bigger pot.”
21. Reclaiming the ability to People from Patti Digh. “This experience of reentering the world is a journey marked by a mixture of resilience, hesitation, and profound change. The pandemic altered the rhythm of daily life, forcing many of us into isolation, reimagining our routines, and rethinking our relationships with one another and the world around us. Now, as we step back into shared spaces, workplaces, and community settings, we carry the imprints of those experiences with us. Or at least I do.”
23. A Fun One-Rule Game for the Holidays.
24. ‘Just do something you enjoy!’ Have official targets made exercise a chore – and happiness more elusive? “We all know roughly how many minutes we should be spending getting sweaty every week, thanks to repeated messages from national governments and the World Health Organization. When it comes to mental health, the picture is a lot less clear.”
25. No, You Can’t Just ‘Bank’ All Your Rest During Vacations and Breaks. “Experts say you need to make downtime part of your everyday life for it to work.”
26. A simple, 2-minute solution to friendship distancing. “The “Wednesday Waffle” has become a weekly tradition for friend groups around the world.”
27. Trust your timing. I needed this reminder: “I suppose I wanted to write all of this to say that in the process of healing, in the process of bringing fragmented parts together, in the process of building whatever you want—there are times of progress and there are times of slowness and it is so important to trust your own timing. To believe in an inner wisdom that knows better than you do what you need to do now, what you need to do next. To believe and trust that there is growth happening even when you can’t see it. And sometimes in order for growth and healing to happen there must be slow times. It is required.”
28. And finally, this collection of random things I saved to my phone this week.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 