I was at the library last weekend with my two boys and we were playing a board game with pieces of all different colors. My 7 year old son picked a purple piece, and another boy who was a little older than him and at the same table as us said, “Why did you pick purple? That’s a girl color.”
This has happened many times over the years, coming from boys and girls. And every time it happens, including this time, I told him, “There’s no such thing as boy or girl colors. All colors are for everyone.” I also said purple was one of my favorite colors, which is true because purple is an incredible color.
Parents: please make it extremely clear to your kids, both boys and girls, that all colors are for all people. There are no boy colors or girl colors. There used to be, but that time is gone.
Color is one of the most incredible phenomena in existence. It is extremely dumb and self-defeating to segregate specific colors by gender when there are literally millions of variations of colors detectable by human eyes and available for our enjoyment.
Category: Posts
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Color commentary
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The Kenny Rogers principle of dead websites
Thanks to Chris Coyler for spotlighting the Internet Archive’s new book Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record (available in print and as a free e-book). Going right to the top of my to-read list.
Chris reflects on the report’s findings about how many websites have and have not been preserved by the Wayback Machine, and the ethics of letting websites “go dark” rather than “static-izing a site and putting it somewhere inexpensive to live as a viewable time capsule”.
It’s a good question, and one I wrestle with a lot, both as a history lover who understands the value of preservation and as a person who is and has been responsible for the fates of various websites. I don’t plan on ever retiring from this website, but if I do a static-ized approach paired with a Wayback Machine snapshot and offline duplicate would probably be its ideal fate.
And yet, I totally understand the impulse to just totally nuke a site. There is a weight to managing them that’s partly financial but mostly psychological. When you’re in the midst of it, you have enough energy to shoulder it. But over time, that weight can turn into a burden as you slowly (or quickly) accumulate more to deal with in life, and just casting it off can sometimes be the best decision. In the words of preeminent philosopher Kenny Rogers, “you got to know when to hold ‘em / know when to fold ‘em”.
Perhaps this is a controversial opinion, but you can’t—and shouldn’t—preserve everything. I wrote about this back in 2013 in response to an article arguing for the right to be forgotten and the ethics of being able to delete digital memories or other assets. No matter the medium humans have used for communication over millennia—oral, cuneiform, paper, electronic—most of it doesn’t survive. We can mourn that loss for all of the illuminating history it would have contained; we can also acknowledge that’s just how it goes. Memento mori.
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Stupid questions
I’ve worked in libraries for a decade, much of that time at a public info desk answering people’s questions. And do you know what drives me absolutely crazy? Whenever someone starts their question with “This might be a stupid question, but…”
You know why? Because there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
To be clear, I’m not at all annoyed by the person or by their question. I’m annoyed by the internalized shame that has caused them to think that their lack of knowledge about something means that asking someone about it is a display of stupidity.
And I don’t care what your question is or how simple it supposedly is. Curiosity and humility should be rewarded, not condescended to. So ask away.
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Links of the moment
Love this deep dive on the color theory behind why so many control rooms were seafoam green.
What happened to movie taglines?
I cannot believe the leaf sheep slug is a real animal. What a world.
The Extrapolated Futures Archive maps real-world scenarios to the sci-fi stories that explore them.
A clock that displays the current time… alphabetically.
Worried about teens today? So were adults in the 1920s.
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Paging The Falconer
Yesterday I took the boys to a community cleanup event tied in with Earth Day and one of the exhibitors was a local raptor conservation group that brought live birds.
Two key takeaways:
1. The turkey vulture was ugly AF but had an insane wingspan. The falconers were also impressed by all the turkey vulture facts and terms the 7 year old knew. (Thanks, Wild Kratts!)
2. The Aplomado falcon was a cute lil thing that also looked like he could completely ruin your life:
(This is awkwardly zoomed in and cropped because we weren’t about to get too close to it.)
They also had taxidermied wings and talons from owls and other falcons. I pity all the poor mice, birds, and other creatures that did get their lives ruined by those natural razor blades.
The 7 year old completely lit up seeing these birds in person, as did I. We’ve seen owls up close before and red-tailed hawks from afar in our neighborhood, but there’s nothing like the live experience.
(Requisite reference to Will Forte’s The Falconer series of sketches on Saturday Night Live, which originally aired between 2002-2006—i.e. the exact years I was in high school and thus the perfect age to appreciate.)
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Fancy Earth Day
Occasionally the 7 year old will for fun write a word or phrase in “fancy” letters as a way to give it a special emphasis. I can’t think of something more deserving of such an honor than good ol’ Planet Earth:
Long may Earth (and the bonus Moon Earth) remain in all of our hearts (and the bonus little heart). (Plus some tic-tac-toe games randomly.)
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My sons’ media of the moment
A spinoff of an ongoing series
A Real Bug’s Life. This National Geographic miniseries on Disney+ uses macrophotography to capture tiny insects in dramatized settings, supplemented by Awkwafina’s affable narration.
Monsters, Inc. Before ever even seeing the movie, the two year old got absolutely transfixed by a figurine of Mike Wazowski (or as he calls him: “Mike Kadowki”), so we had to watch this and Monsters University. Good stuff!
The Book with No Pictures. The seven year old is back into this great (non)picture book in a big way, something that keeps happening.
Daniel Tiger. Still the toddler’s go-to, to the point where the “Brush Your Teeth with Daniel Tiger” video became part of his bedtime routine to distract him enough to let us brush his teeth.
Ada Twist, Scientist. As kids shows go, this Netflix one based on the “Questioneers” book series by Andrea Beaty is better than the average if only because of its emphasis on science, imagination, and teamwork. The seven year old recently said he wants to be a scientist when he grows up, and books/shows like this are probably a big part why.
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Don’t read the book before the movie
I say this as both a librarian who loves books and a cinephile who loves movies: Do not read the book before seeing the movie.
I cannot emphasize this enough.
Whenever there’s a new movie coming out that’s based on a book, people will think “Oh, I gotta read that so I’m ready for the movie.”
Why? Ready for what? Knowing all the characters and important story beats and plot twists ahead of time doesn’t make you ready for anything except disappointment.
The movie is never the same as the book. Whether it’s better or worse or something in between, either way it’s a completely different art form that did not get your full attention because you were constantly comparing it to the book.
When you save the book for after the movie, it’s like getting an extended director’s cut that includes so much more material, and lets you dive into that world even deeper with characters and details that weren’t captured on screen. Sometimes that experience will cause some whiplash or dissonance with what you saw in the movie, but remember: it’s different by design. Embrace that and lean in!
Ultimately, you should read and watch whatever you want, whenever you want. Period. Just beware of what you gain and lose with these book-to-movie adaptations.
Update: turned this take into a Reel, which people had *thoughts* about:
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Links of the moment
Love this deep dive on the origins of The Beatles’ “I Feel Fine”.
Certified musical legend Alan Mencken breaks down his ‘90s Disney movie hits.
Lots of fun and goofy designs in this 1956 Fun With Your Typewriter book.
Really cool online tool to generate slipcovers for VHS, Blockbuster cases, and other physical media.
The Song of LinkedIn.
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Recent Views
More photography here.
A trace fossil of a leaf in winter:
Are those lights in the sky UFOs? Mufasa? Reflections of the lamppost light from my camera? We’ll never know:
A brief respite between snowball fights:
One of their favorite chores is cleaning the windows:
The entrance overhang at a nearby library is very edgy:
Finding his place among the pines:
My view while fetching the ball during driveway soccer:
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Always time for ‘Sleepytime’
We had time for one Bluey episode before bed, and the first one that popped up on YouTube was Sleepytime.
“This is one of my favorite Bluey episodes,” my seven year old said. Dude, same, I thought. It’s not only one of the best episodes of Bluey but also one of the finest shortform stories of the decade. (Not a surprise that as of this writing it has nearly 53 million views on YouTube.)
It’s apparent why the physical humor and distinct visual style would appeal to a seven and two year old (they particularly loved the kids kicking Bandit in their sleep). For parents, though, it’s an absolute heart-punch. And the heavy use of Gustav Holst’s “Jupiter” theme throughout makes it all the more epic.
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Favorite Films of 2025
Forget the Oscars—this is the ultimate resource for the best movies of 2025. Here are the 20 films that stuck with me from the last year.
(Check JustWatch to see if and where they are available to stream, or your local library for the DVD/Blu-ray. See this list on Letterboxd.)
20. An Autumn Summer
There’s just no way I wasn’t gonna go for this, a sincere coming-of-age story with timeless and universal themes at its center like friendship, love, and taking the next step at the precipice of adulthood. Kudos to director Jared Isaac and cinematographer Brandon Somerhalder for so lovingly capturing summer in the Northwoods of the upper Midwest, where the lakes and forests and sand dunes play host to the kind of playful and probing conversations that only a group of eighteen year olds untainted by cynicism can hold.
19. Blue Moon
Ethan Hawke is an all-time talker, whether as a podcast guest, motivational speaker, or at the helm of a Richard Linklater movie as he’s been many times—including here in one of his best performances as the renowned Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart. More of a filmed play than cinematic achievement, this is a showcase of great writing and great actors who bring it to life.
18. Eephus
On top of being a great fall movie, baseball movie, and hangout movie, Carson Lund’s indie about the last game being played at a rec stadium by an amateur league before its destruction is a touching tribute to the things we hold onto. I know Interstellar already beat it to death, but the Dylan Thomas poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” is an excellent readalike.
17. Bugonia
Essentially a two-hander between Emma Stone as a pharma executive who may or may not be an alien and Jesse Plemons as a conspiracy theorist who kidnaps her, Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest has a few images/moments I’ll be thinking about for a long time. And while I’m eager for Stone and Lanthimos to find new creative partners after four straight movies together, there’s no denying their complete commitment to a kind of acidic absurdity that’s unique in contemporary cinema.
16. Presence
Steven Soderbergh described the conceit of this low-budget haunted-house thriller—one of two films he released this year—as “the camera is the ghost.” It’s a high-concept, solid-execution kind of movie, which I’ll take any day of the week. Also a great double feature with Here, another unjustly maligned single-house story.
15. Marty Supreme
Basically a sports movie (in a good way) set in 1950s New York City with ‘80s music, Josh Safdie’s electrifying, quasi-nonfictional saga of table tennis hustler Marty Mauser triggered the disconcerting feeling of half-hating and half-rooting for a narcissist who creates a lot of wreckage on his quest—but also a lot of fist-pump moments.
14. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
We’re in a rather challenging phase of parenthood at the moment, so this visceral, Safdie-esque anxiety dream of a movie from writer-director Mary Bronstein (who’s married to Marty Supreme co-writer Ronald Bronstein) starring Rose Byrne as a beleaguered mother really spoke to me. (As did the various men featured throughout, but in a “well, at least I’m not that bad” kind of way.)
13. Wake Up Dead Man
Rian Johnson’s latest Benoit Blanc mystery returns to the gothic roots of Knives Out with another elaborate whodunit, this time with Josh O’Connor as a former boxer turned Catholic priest at the center. During the press tour Johnson revealed insights from his evangelical past that not only made me appreciate him even more as a writer and filmmaker, but also explain why this was a shoo-in for my Best 21st Century Religion Movies list.
12. It Was Just An Accident
In this Jafar Panahi film that’s part morality play, part screwball comedy, part skin-tingling thriller, a makeshift group of former Iranian political prisoners wrestle with whether to exact revenge on their captor. How each ensnared person deals with this dilemma is how all of us would. Somehow this was my first Panahi picture, but it won’t be the last.
11. The Assessment
It’s been a minute since a movie gave me as many belly laughs of recognition as chills up my spine like this one did. Set in a dystopian near-future when reproduction is strictly regulated by the state and prospective parents must pass an immersive seven-day assessment, Fleur Fortuné’s directorial debut establishes a rather Villeneuvean tone and aesthetic early on—sleek, serious, slightly sci-fi—only to puncture it with very relatable vignettes depicting the harsh realities of child-rearing, while also addressing the pain of wanting to raise a child but being unable to do so.
10. A Little Prayer
Twenty years after his feature debut Junebug scored an Oscar nomination for Amy Adams, writer/director Angus MacLachlan revisits similar ground here with a quiet, unpretentious dramedy tightly focused on the domestic travails of a small-town family reckoning with each other and themselves. Jane Levy gives a quiet knockout of a performance as the unassuming daughter-in-law, whose endearing relationship with David Strathairn’s patriarch forms the emotional anchor of the film.
9. The Naked Gun
Cheers to a movie that knows exactly what it is and how to be that for just the right amount of time—in this case a joke-a-minute reboot of the classic Leslie Nielsen spoof from Lonely Islander Akiva Schaffer. Casting Liam Neeson was an inspired choice given his ability to blend gruff gravitas with solid comedy chops. I still giggle about random bits months later.
8. The Summer Book
Writer-director Charlie McDowell beautifully captures the spirit of Swedish-Finnish author (and Moomin creator) Tove Jansson’s autobiographical novel, which is not an easy feat given the book’s languorous vibe and sparse plot. If you’re willing to dive in and surrender to its gentle, deliberately paced wavelength, you’ll be rewarded with a moving, nature-drenched meditation on loss, parenting, and coming of age before you’re ready to.
7. Sinners
This has several A+, capital-C Cinematic sequences that had me thinking “Here we go, hell yeah.” It’s always a pleasure to watch an exciting original story told within genre traditions by a talented auteur with a point of view and brought to vibrant life with visual panache by a kickass cast and crew. How blessed we are to be alive at the same exact time stories like this are channeled through conjurers of the cinematic arts like Ryan Coogler.
6. The Testament of Ann Lee
A biopic has to try really hard to avoid the pitfalls of the genre for me to enjoy it. While this technically does fit the bill as a cradle-to-grave story of the founder of the Shakers movement, any stumble it makes just subsumes itself into an ecstatic communal dance of a film—the likes of which I’ve just never seen (or heard) before. Amanda Seyfried FTW.
5. The Condor Daughter
A discovery from the Chicago International Film Festival, this story of an Andean midwife’s apprentice caught between following her indigenous traditions and pursuing her dreams in the big city knocked with me out with its stunning natural-light cinematography, incisive cultural commentary, and captivating stillness.
4. Weapons
I’m typically a matinee guy but I stayed up past my bedtime to go see this in a theater, and I’m glad I did because we were all in this thing together. (I’ll never forget experiencing that nighttime car scene. IYKYK.) The confidence with which writer-director Zach Cregger both establishes a world and propels us through it is such a thrill to behold. And it’s why this former horror scaredy cat now has season tickets to whatever screwed-up stories Cregger comes up with next.
3. Black Bag
“Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in a Steven Soderbergh spy thriller” is all I needed to know before wanting to see Black Bag, which not only lives up to the potential of that combination but elevates beyond it thanks to its stylistic choices and delightfully twisty story. It’s a dinner-party-worthy meal of a movie with delicious, edge-of-your-seat drama.
2. Train Dreams
My word if this kaleidoscopic fable of the life of an early 20th century logger isn’t a gosh-darn movie. There’s just nothing like seeing real humans walking amongst real trees with real sunlight and firelight on their faces, experiencing real joys and tragedies and the fleeting moments in between of feeling connected to it all. Shame it’s destined for the Netflix abyss and not the biggest screens possible.
1. One Battle After Another
The more I think about Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest saga the more I love it. Synthesizing the ambitious scope of There Will Be Blood with the propulsive dramedy of Punch-Drunk Love—the two other PTA films I love that also have crazy-good scores, lead performances, and supporting casts among other things—One Battle After Another feels both set out of time and fiercely of the current moment. To quote Bob: Life, man. Life! (Double feature that comes to mind: Anora, a similarly ambitious, distinctively three-act saga with chases and violence and slapstick comedy and a scrappy rebel just trying to survive against brutal systemic forces. “American Girl” indeed.)
Still haven’t seen: Sentimental Value, Hamnet, Frankenstein, The Secret Agent
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Papa with his quotes
These days our two year old has taken to saying, “What you say, papa?” To which I reply: “I say that what you say… is what I say.” Which is, of course, from the iconic ’90s masterpiece Newsies.
This is just one of countless examples of me dropping quotes and cultural references my boys (and usually my wife) don’t understand. It’s to the point where once my seven year old realizes I’ve quoted something yet again, he’ll roll his eyes and say, “Papa with his quotes…” Such is the plight of a movie-addled dad. Though I prefer to think of this skill less as brainrot and more as brainripe.
(Bonus: When the two year old grabs a banana I call him Mr. Bananagrabber.)
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Links of the moment
Been loving Marcin Winchary’s thoughtful design takes lately, like Flickr’s inspiring URL scheme and the software versions of molly guards and Moylan Arrows.
Times New Resistance is a Times New Roman impersonator font that “autocorrects the autocrats.”
These 11th-century paper flowers, sealed in a Chinese cave, are a marvel of preservation.
Speaking of beautiful old art: check out this 3,500-year-old drawing of a sparrow.
Speaking of more beautiful art: an Indonesian cave painting from 67,000 years ago.
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Complexity at scale
Alan Jacobs wrote about his admiration for two “enormously complex projects that only became possible after the Industrial Revolution”: the manufacturing and logistical challenges the Allies faced in World War II leading up to D-Day and the studio system in the classic Hollywood era:
It’s hard for me to imagine how D-Day did not end in utter catastrophe — I struggle to comprehend how it even got underway; and I still can’t quite believe that movies come together the way they do. …
Maybe my fascination has something to do with the fact that these large collaborative projects are so completely unlike what I do. I once said to a film director I know that I don’t see how movies ever get made, and he replied that in making a movie he has “so much help” from smart and skilled people — he doesn’t understand how I can just sit in a room and write books. But when I’m sitting in a room writing a book I am not accountable to or answerable to anyone else: I only have to manage Me.
He cites two anecdotes about General Dwight Eisenhower and director Sidney Lumet that encapsulate the seemingly impossible complexity of these jobs and show how some people are just better fit for them than others. Read the whole post.
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The grammar of filmmaking
Steven Soderbergh in an interview talking about the grammar of filmmaking:
There’s a certain way you put a sentence together to get the idea across; you can fuck with that, but at a certain point you fuck with it so much the idea is lost. That applies to almost any form.
When I’m on set or thinking about a story, making sure that the audience is engaged and that I’m also excited, I have to fight through the sensation of, “Oh my god, another fucking over-the-shoulder shot.” I have to push through that and go, “You’re building a sentence. Getting upset when you have to shoot an over-the-shoulder shot is like getting upset at using the word ‘and’ or ‘the’ in a sentence. It has to be done. It’s part of the grammar.”
