I’ve lost my receipt for 2025, but at this point I’ll take store credit.

So far this year, we’ve lost close to 200,000 jobs, most of our international allies, the bulk of our legacy media, D’Wayne Wiggins, Roy Ayers, and Roberta Flack. I’d prefer to have my money back for this year, but in lieu of a refund, restarting this very occasional check-in will have to do.

I’m doing this for myself as much as I am for anyone else. I was listening to the futurist Amy Webb, and she said that in times of uncertainty and great technological change, people tend to turn to therapy, astrology, and religion. Right now, she added, the numbers on all three are going up. (And as a number of thinkers have noted, notably Hannah Arendt, these are also the times when people turn to authoritarian figures.)

That resonated with me. There is so much uncertainty in all aspects of life right now, why wouldn’t we want to turn to systems that ensured us it’s all going to be okay, as long as we just do X, Y, and Z?

In my own life, my best antidote for anxiety is taking action, preferably creative action, even if it’s small. So that’s why I’m back in your inbox, and why no AI was used in the making of this letter.

Signs of the Times

A few interesting photos from Q1

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Recommendations

1.) McSweeney’s Issue 77. Totally biased on this one as I have a letter in the issue. It’s all about about riding in Waymo driverless cars. We had a blast launching it, too.

2.) Severance, the show and Severance, the subReddit.

I regret to inform you that the crown jewel of AppleTV+ is indeed worth the cost of at least a temporary subscription. (And if you’re new to Severance, you’re actually at an advantage, since you can binge Season 1 before immediately moving on to Season 2 right now.) The beloved series is so acclaimed that the inevitable thought-piece-backlash-in-search-of-clicks has begun, but no matter: It’s the most ambitious show on TV right now in terms of production, acting and concept, and if you’ve ever had the Sunday scaries, you owe it to yourself to watch.

As grand as the show is, the rabbit holes that have opened up around it truly, erm, deepen the experience of watching it. (Groan.) The Severance subReddit is celebrated by the show’s cast and crew, and for good reason. It’s a heavily populated stew of communal conspiracy yarn-spinning, collective therapy, and a soul-expanding space to grieve about our lives under capitalism. (This post on Milchik, a character I’ll never stop thinking about, is a good reflection of how deep the Severance army on Reddit will happily go on an average Tuesday.)

3.) Paul Krugman and Margaret Sullivan on Substack.

Substack has a Nazi-platforming problem (see below for why I chose Beehiiv and take the poll to give your feedback) so this is more about Paul and Margaret and how beautiful it is that they were able to escape the shackles of an increasingly hapless American media in order to freely share their informed and unmediated takes, and how the rest of us are better off for it in these terrible times. Their clarity about the costs of what’s going on in Washington as well as the degradation of the media that purports to report on it, is bracing and necessary. Pair your subscriptions with your plan based on the Tesla Takedown site for maximum impact.

A word on this newsletter and an ask of you

With the death of TinyLetter last year, I had to select a new newsletter platform. After following Substack’s Nazi debacle I opted for Beehiiv. I’m still getting used to it and love the new functionalities but have learned that I must be one of maybe three people left in America writing a newsletter who doesn’t have a product to sell. Since I don’t have a product to sell, I thought I’d take a little poll instead: What would you like me to share with you?

Talk soon. In the meantime, keep joy in your heart and sense in your head.