1. Old but I just found it (I was looking for a German word for “the comfort of doing familiar things”–still looking): On Repeat: Why People Watch Movies and Shows Over and Over.

One of the nice things about old movies is that they can’t surprise us. We know how they end, and we know how we’ll feel when they end. This makes the re-consumption of entertainment a bit like “emotional regulation,” Russell and Levy write. New books, movies, and TV shows can deliver spectacular thrills, but they can also waste our time and disappoint us. Old movies never disappoint us: We get older, they stay the same age. Returning to familiar entertainment is, to be perfectly stiff about this sort of thing, emotionally efficient. We’ll get exactly the emotional payoff we’re looking for—no surprises.

2. Funny! Maddening! But funny! If You’re Not Sure How a Male Author Would Describe You, Use Our Handy Chart

1. This profile of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has an excess of good pull quotes, but I like this one:

“I have a little different definition of evil than most people. When you have the opportunity and the ability to do good and you do nothing, that’s evil. Evil doesn’t always have to be an overt act. It can be merely the absence of good.”

2. Much like Dune, I don’t talk about my love for the J. Peterman catalog of the early 90s much because it’s just too hard to explain. But I am absolutely convinced Peterman is why I got into advertising, so I was happy to see a little piece on the illustrations over at Racked:

The original J. Peterman illustrator and art director was “a true artist”: Bob Hagel, who died in 2013. “If you look at the early art in the catalog,” Peterman says, “it was very, very artsy.” Hagel’s style set the tone for the Owner’s Manual; his paintings “didn’t always give you all the details of the product,” but they made sense alongside the stories of rebellious women in silky georgette and wickerwork pedicabs that take you to your seaplane.

1. Would you like your mind blown today? Read this longer piece in The New Yorker about “virtual embodiment.” It sounds like some amazing opportunities for learning and healing with this–so I bet we’re going to make it commercial and destructive instead. Regardless, the most interesting thing I’ve read all week.

“I need you to think of a personal problem that is causing a bit of distress in your life,” Neyret said, while I went through a few embodiment exercises. “You will explain the problem to Freud. Then, when you finish speaking, you will press this button”—she guided my hand to a controller—“and you will enter Freud’s body. Listen carefully to yourself, and try to give yourself some advice.”

The virtual world shifted. I was sitting at a desk in an expansive, glass-walled house. Outside, wildflowers punctuated a sunlit lawn. Across from me, behind his own desk, sat Sigmund Freud. There was a large red light on my desk. It turned green.

I paused, uncertain how to begin. “My mother is in a nursing home, and when I get updates from people who visit her I feel guilty,” I said.

I pushed the button, and the world shifted again. Now I was Freud. I looked down at myself—white shirt, gray suit—and, in a nearby mirror, inspected my beard. Across from me, behind a desk, sat my avatar, wearing a blue shirt, gray jeans, and brown boots. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He settled his hands in his lap and looked at them.

2. This is old but I have been thinking of it again, along with the handy chart: How Not To Say The Wrong Thing.

“Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, ‘Life is unfair’ and ‘Why me?’ That’s the one payoff for being in the center ring.

Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings.”