Hello! It’s been a while.

The recent federal holidays, some personal time off and other stories roundup prompted me to pause these columns.

I always feel like I’m catching up with an old friend when I write these irreverent musings. Even though we’ve likely never met in person, they’re an opportunity to share what I find interesting—and that changes every given week based on what’s happening in the world, what I find on the interwebs and even what I have the bandwidth for.

In the past four or so years of writing these, I have written many variations about the fact that we are imperfectly human, not productive robots. That continues to be true, but sometimes that feels like a radical admission.

A few weeks ago, a friend came to visit. We went to see a fabulous art exhibition, Manet and Morisot, that featured dozens of works from the two French Impressionistic artists. As we, and scores of others stopped to admire the pieces, I was reminded of the power of art. There’s something so restorative and powerful about the ability to imbue and evoke meaning from paint strokes on a canvas.

It’s all too easy to go through the motions, or be numb or desensitized to what’s happening around us. It takes courage to feel and be moved to action or emotion. I was reminded of this when I saw a clip of the esteemed Julia Child crying after enjoying a bite of Nancy Silvertone’s brioche tart with white secret sauce.

I hope you can find something that compels you. Perhaps these below articles are a helpful start. Until next time, stay well, be safe and be kind!

AI Slop

Merriam-Webster recognized the commoditization of artificial intelligence (AI) generated content in its choice for the 2025 word of the year: slop. And while it may seem like there’s been a proliferation of slop since GhatGPT debuted in November 2022, the slops has been around for much longer, though it may have gone by different names.

Jill Lepore, historian and national treasure, offers a fascinating look at previous attempts to let machines write. For example, in the 1960s, the Auto-Beatnik produced lyrical poetry such as “Was Milo mewling thrilling radishes? / So, our anchovies are sad but green.”

As a writer, it’s not exactly comforting to hear that by the fall of 2024, machines were writing about half of the articles being published on the internet, according to the digital marketing agency Graphite.

But from a historical perspective, it is a little comforting to learn that large language models are a new iteration of an old concept. What’s old is new again.

This time is different. I’m no historian, so I can only speculate why: ease, access, encouragement from businesses. But I appreciate what Lepore cites Leif Weatherby, New York University’s director of digital humanities, for what may come next: “a theory of meaning in the absence of intelligence.”

I think that explains why some AI-generated text looks and reads convincing, until you realize it doesn’t actually say anything of substance. Lepore’s essay in The New Yorker is substantial; it will challenge you and inspire you to learn more about her many, many references. It’s the opposite of slop, and a reminder of humanity’s unique ability to think critically—something we need more of in an era of AI-generated words, such as “Harry Potter by Balenciaga.”

Touching Grass

Last month, The New York Times launched a summer challenge: to go outside and touch grass. The premise, as personal health reporter Jancee Dunn explains, is to put down your phone and reconnect with your surroundings.

It’s simple, but too few of us actually do it. Physician and author John La Puma describes the hours we spend on our phone as “ultraprocessed time” because these devices are like engineered ultraprocessed food that delights our tastebuds but leaves us just as, if not more, hungry than before we opened that bag of cheese puffs. What a sobering thought.

Each week of the challenge has a different focus. The first is to spend 20 minutes outdoors. At first glance, it seems like another thing to add to the schedule—if you can find the time. Dunn gently reminds us that we probably do have the time; we only need to look at our devices to see how many hours a day we’re actually spending on them.

Marc Berman, an environmental neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, puts it another way: “You very rarely hear somebody say, ‘You know, I really regret going for that walk in nature,’” he said.

Nature has all sorts of healing and restorative powers, but only if we actually look for and appreciate them. The challenge also recommends leaving your phone inside if you can, so your brain is fully able to relax.

Of course, the challenge is not all or nothing. Even five minutes spent outside watering flowers and vegetables are a chance for your subconscious to slow down enough to appreciate the wonders of nature.

I encourage you to read the article here and to spend some time today or tomorrow outside.

Orange Cats

I know orange cats have a reputation for having one brain cell, but I love them anyway. I don’t fully understand the genetic or biological processes that determine fur color, so this article caught my attention. And yes, there are plenty of cute pictures of cats.

As it turns out, scientists were puzzled by domestic orange cats until recently. A group of researchers were able to identify—and understand—the specific DNA mutation that is responsible for orange yellow fur, which is not found in any other animal but could nonetheless offer a greater understanding of genetics.

Part of the mystery is that the majority of orange cats are male, while most female cats with orange fur have patchy patterns that can include black and white, such as calicos and tortoiseshells. Researchers gathered and sequenced a lot of feline DNA and found a small, 5,076-base pair deletion that removed about 0.005% of the X chromosome in a region that didn’t appear to code for a particular protein.

“We see the same mutation in all orange cats that we’ve looked at over a wide geographic area, so there’s a single mutation that occurred,” said lead study author Christopher Kaelin, a senior scientist in genetics at Stanford University to CNN. “We know that mutation is quite old because there are depictions of calico cats in Chinese art that dates to the 12th century.”

Kaelin added that their findings might help specialists in prehistoric DNA might to determine when and where the mutation originally arose.

Even if you’re not a feline fanatic, I encourage you to read the article here and learn a little more about the wonders of nature.