Another post featuring something I’ve read, listened to, and drawn.

Building

Guessing 5-letter words is my favorite puzzle activity. You can do it at the NYTimes (Wordle1), Volkskrant (Het Woord), and NRC (Vorto). The downside is that I need my phone to guess the word. It’s not very social at the dinner table, and I have to be careful not to spend another hour on that five-letter “Trump.”

With the help of Claude, I built 5letters. A website where you can create your own printable word puzzles, including a code table2 to solve them. So now we can guess the word offline on paper, without a phone. It’s already a hit at our breakfast table.

What else is fun to do offline?

Reading

In *Raising Hare*, Chloe Dalton finds a baby hare in her garden. She takes the animal inside and discovers she’s done exactly the wrong thing. A captured hare is rejected by its mother. She suddenly finds herself with a wild animal she wants to keep alive, while she can barely find any resources on how to do so.

She succeeds, but she tries to keep her distance. She doesn’t give the hare a name, and it’s free to leave. But the hare doesn’t do that; it keeps coming back. Meanwhile, she observes the animal and its behavior in a way that wouldn’t normally be possible. For a moment, the hare seems to be gone for good, then she suddenly finds new baby hares. They hide behind the curtain of her study for days on end.

Walruses, bears, Tasmanian tigers, pangolins. I have a soft spot for books that focus on a single species. You get to know the species better and realize that there is something special to write about every animal in terms of behavior and intelligence. We often know far too little about species that are disappearing or under pressure. Even the hare.

Listen

Among the list of American indie rock bands like Ratboys, Wednesday, and boygenius, you’ll also find Snail Mail. She has a new album.

See you next week!