Shortly after I learned to knit, a friend suggested I find the 1983 book Fox & Geese & Fences: A Collection of Traditional Maine Mittens, by Robin Hansen, and make her a pair. I did, it was a wonderful experience, and I have been knitting mittens from the book ever since (some pictured above). They are exceptionally warm and durable. A bonus is that the patterns are written with a kind of common sense that for me at least made a few steps feel like fun puzzles. (What does she mean by “K both colors, gray then red, into the st that should have been gray”?? … ohhHHhhh!!!)

I found the book used on Amazon, but other books of Hansen’s are available on her website. My favorite pattern to make is “Sawtooth” (various above and below), but the best are maybe the “Safe Home” ones (center left), found elsewhere online. [thx Cecilia!] Oh also: Pair with Maine’s Bartlett Yarns – perfection.

Okay one more shot, these are my everyday mittens, I think I’ve been wearing these for the past five winters (Sawtooth pattern). Glorious!

• accessories
• knitting
• maine
• mittens
• robin hansen

Hello, I’m Edith! I love this site, and I’m excited to be here. (Thanks, Jason!) I haven’t blogged like this for more than a decade, so I hope I’m not too rusty. Please feel free to email me any tips; I would be delighted to get them.

As Jason mentioned, since 2019 I’ve been sending a comics newsletter called Drawing Links, although it’s been on hiatus since last fall. However, I’m going to try running some old comics here – see below – in the hopes of working up momentum to bring my newsletter back. We’ll see how it goes!

More about me?? I’m originally from Cambridge, MA, and although I lived for 16 years in Brooklyn, a couple years ago my husband and I moved to a small town in upstate New York, not too far from Albany. We are now expecting our second daughter, due in a few weeks.

Thanks for reading!

…Okay, I was hoping to hide these comics behind a “read more” page-break button, but it seems Jason’s interface doesn’t have that option, so I guess I’ll be really taking over the main page.

And so, to kick this off, here is a little story about the first time I saw a bear (from 2022):

• bears
• comics
• greetings

Hello everyone. I’m going to be traveling for a few weeks and have invited my friend Edith Zimmerman to guest edit kottke.org while I am gone. Edith was the founding editor of The Hairpin (RIP), wrote a profile of Chris Evans that broke the internet a little bit, and most recently was Drawing Links (on hiatus). You can buy greeting cards featuring her drawings on Etsy. She starts tomorrow — I’m very excited to see what she’s going to do with the site. Welcome, Edith!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to complete an item from my bucket list: going on a walk with Craig Mod and Kevin Kelly. I will see you back here in mid-December. 👋

• Edith Zimmerman
• kottke.org

Itttt’s baaack… After not happening for the past three years, the Kottke Holiday Gift Guide has returned. I’ve scoured the internet and dozens of other gift guides for the best (and sometimes weirdest) stuff out there — it’s a curated meta-guide for your holiday giving. This list is US-centric, link-heavy, and you might see some tried-and-true items that have been featured in previous years. Ok, let’s get to it.

Charitable Giving

First thing’s first: charitable giving should be top-of-mind every holiday season if you can afford it. Giving locally is key. I support our area food shelf year-round, with an extra gift for Thanksgiving and the December holiday; giving money instead of food is best. The kids and I also support Toys for Tots by heading to the local toy store to get some things — they like it because they get to pick out toys and games (they’re thoughtful about deciding which ones would be best).

For national/international giving, do your research. GiveWell has a list of their top charities and Vox has more tips here. Read up on big charities like Red Cross and Salvation Army…they are often not great places to give to. GiveDirectly sends money to people living in extreme poverty around the world. You could contribute to Casey McIntyre’s Memorial & Debt Jubilee — each $1 donated cancels $100 in medical debt for someone in need. I ran across Transanta recently: “Deliver gifts to trans youth in need, safely and anonymously.” I personally give to several organizations, including the National Network of Abortion Funds.

Won’t Someone Think of the Children

Some kids and some ages are really easy to shop for. But for those that aren’t, here are some good gifts for the young and young at heart.

Give the gift of sitting at a table for a few hours, listening to quiet music, and sipping on a mug of tea: the JIGGY Puzzle Club. Remember the Babysitter’s Club books from the 80s & 90s? They’re back in the form of graphic novels…my daughter really liked these when she was younger.

I’ve heard some mixed things about the Tidbyt, but I still kinda want one. I definitely want one of these cute Tiny Arcade Pac-Man Arcade Games. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that you could buy climbing holds and just make your own climbing/bouldering wall at home with some plywood.

When our kids were really young, we gave them crayons and they snapped them into a million pieces — these Crayola Palm-Grip Crayons seem like a much better idea. Pencils with Marimekko patterns? Yes, please.

And here’s a great gift for kids that doesn’t require shopping: holiday coupons (like “stay up 20 minutes past bedtime” and “one minute of saying bad words”).

Guides consulted: The Kid Should See This, Youngna Park, The Verge, The Strategist, Cup of Jo

Stuff I Swear By

This is the section where you’re going to see a lot of repeats from past years because this is stuff that I regularly use and love. You’re probably getting tired of me talking about the 2nd-gen Apple AirPods Pro but I use mine every day and they are great. Almost every book I read, I read on the Kindle Paperwhite — it’s light, waterproof, and very travel-friendly.

When cooking, I wear the Headley & Bennett crossback apron and use this 8” chef’s knife from MAC. (I used to use a cheaper knife that got the job done, but the MAC knife is so much better that I’m thinking of getting one of these as well.) The best meal kits I’ve found are the hand-pulled noodles from Xi’an Famous Foods — the price is resonable, thwacking your own noodles is fun, and it tastes exactly like when you get it at the restaurant. And I love my rice cooker — “advanced Neuro Fuzzy logic technology” FTW!

Apple AirTags are super useful for traveling and keeping track of my keys and bags. When I need some art for my walls, I go to 20x200, run by my pal Jen Bekman. For a pleasant atmosphere while working, I often burn a Keap Wood Cabin candle.

See more: The Strategist, The Verge, Wirecutter

Now We’re Cooking

Here are a few things to help your loved ones outfit their kitchens this holiday season. I got a wok recently and it’s been fun cooking with it — this Joyce Chen carbon steel wok is a great one. (And it pairs well with Kenji López-Alt’s The Wok cookbook). I love this gorgeous Japanese whale butter dish, but this butter crock looks neat as well. I love my Ernest Wright kitchen scissors — and this pair looks equally amazing.

The Ooni Volt electric pizza oven (Amazon) doesn’t give you the smoky flavor of their wood & pellet ovens, but it is unbelievably easy to use and cranks out delicious pies. For smaller savory round foodstuffs, try this Dash Mini Waffle Maker. This tortilla press from Masienda is awfully tempting…it’s hard to find good tortillas here in VT.

Guides consulted: New Yorker, Serious Eats, The Verge, Spoon & Tamago

Various Kottke T-shirts

The Process Tee (aka the Design Squiggle Tee) is available in dark and light fabrics. And what’s this? I’ve reopened ordering on the Kottke Hypertext Tee for the holidays. Huzzah!

Ready to Wear

It gets cold here in Vermont and instead of wearing slippers in the house all day, I wear a thick pair of wool socks because they are unbelievably warm and comfortable. I got mine from a local place, but you can find alternate options on Etsy. Speaking of VT, I thought Darn Tough socks were a local secret, but I found them on multiple gift guides — they’re great for any outdoor activities.

Native-owned OXDX makes a great Native Americans Discovered Columbus t-shirt. My pal Dan sells type- & design-related shirts at Simplebits.

And I give up: everyone loves Crocs. They are comfortable and you can get all sorts of jibbitz to fancy them up — Star Wars, Minecraft, Pokemon, sports, Starbucks, Pixar, Marvel, etc, etc, etc.

Guides consulted: Wirecutter, The Strategist

The Kottke Cinematic Universe

Every year, I feature goods and services by people I know, folks who read the site, and from kindred online spirits. My friend Aaron runs an ice cream shop in Somerville called Gracie’s and pays extra attention to the merch. Wondermade sells marshmallows in all sorts of different flavors. Robin Sloan and his partner make extra virgin olive oil in California. My pals at Hella Cocktail Co. have grown quite a bit in the past few years: in addition to bitters, they now sell mixers and bitters & soda in a can.

I’ve been buying art from 20x200 for almost as long as it’s been around. Edith Zimmerman has an Etsy shop with greeting cards featuring her drawings. My friend Jodi Ettenberg sells food maps from various countries in her Legal Nomads shop. My pal Yen sells prints of her art on 20x200. Christoph Niemann is selling a calendar of images called On the Road II. (to be continued below…)

Some Truly Absurd Gifts

You know what time it is: it’s 55-gallon drum of personal lubricant time! One of these years, someone is going to buy one of these off the list and it’s going to make me so happy (for some reason). Maybe you can buy this 80-qt mixing bowl to hold some of it. I bought some Goodr sunglasses for an upcoming trip and noticed they were selling a pair of their sunnies for $10,000 (they came with a custom bike + assorted goodies) but sadly they are out of stock. And perhaps weirdest of all is this $4200 umbilical charing cable for the iPhone. What in the actual f?

Guides consulted: Gizmodo, New Yorker

Richard Scarry Temporary Tattoos!

I had to break this out into its own thing because when I saw these, I audibly yelped: Richard Scarry temporary tattoos from Tattly. GOLDBUG TATTOOS?! From one of my all-time favorite children’s books? Are you kidding me? Sign me all the way up.

A Guide to Gift Guides

Ok, I’ve mentioned the various gift guides I’ve consulted along the way, but I wanted to list them all because they’re worth checking out — no duds here. The favorite is always The Kid Should See This Gift Guide; hands down the best place to find gifts for curious kids. Another excellent guide for kids is the INSPIRE Engineering Gift Guide from Purdue University. The Verge does a great job with their tech-oriented gift guides. The Wirecutter has tons of lists and I place a lot of trust in their recommendations. The Strategist is great too with a lot of lists and a Gift Scout tool.

For more tech and tech/culture gifts, check out Engadget, Wired, and Tools & Toys. Gizmodo’s gift guides are delightfully offbeat this year.

For food, check out guides from Serious Eats, Food52, and Helen Rosner at the New Yorker.

I always read the gift lists from my pals quite closely: Cup of Jo (+ her new newsletter gift guide), Robin Sloan’s yearly guide, and Youngna Park’s excellent picks for kids, children’s books, and grown-ups.

And finally, here are some guides that don’t quite fit into any of the above categories: Bookriot’s Best Gifts for Readers, Spoon & Tamago’s gift guide of neat things from Japan, Pow Wow’s Native American Holiday Gift Guide, a Google Doc of independent map sellers (one of each from all of these cartographers please), and Evan Applegate’s guide to map-related gifts.

Grab Bag

It wouldn’t be kottke.org without a bunch of stuff that’s difficult to categorize. Get your favorite nature lover a 1-year National Parks Pass.. Whoa, check out this intricate maze drawn as a side project over a period of 7 years — now available as a full-scale art print. This gorgeous blanket was designed by Addie Roanhorse, a member of the Osage Nation who worked on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Nikolas Bentel makes cool things like the pasta box handbag and computer folder wallets. Moo’s Hardcover Notebook is perfect for lefties because it lies flat. Someone you know will love this McDonald’s Happy Meal Box Figural Crossbody Bag. Ponder imperfection and think about the acceptance of defects while you sip your tea with this Kintsugi Cup and Saucer.

This Japanese nail clipper is supposed to be great. This book is right up my alley: The 100 Greatest Retro Videogames: The Inside Stories Behind the Best Games Ever Made. I’d never seen this before: tiny sheets of paper soap for washing your hands while you’re traveling or camping or whatever.

Guides consulted: Tools & Toys, Pow Wows, Spoon & Tamago, Gizmodo, The Strategist, Engadget, New Yorker,

Full STEAM Ahead

Some gifts with a strong science, math, and engineering basis, including How to Explain Coding to a Grown-Up by Ruth Spiro & Teresa Martinez, National Geographic Magnetic Marble Run, Turning Machine strategy game, and ButterflyEdufields 40-in-1 STEM Robotics Projects for Kids 8-12 Years.

Guides consulted: The Kid Should See This, Purdue Engineering

For the Bookish

I haven’t had time to compile my EOY books list yet (and may not get around to it), but books are always the most popular items under our tree. Rapid-fire-style, here are a few titles that caught my gifter’s eye over the past year:

• The Iliad translated by Emily Wilson (Bookshop)
• Real Self-Care by Pooja Lakshmin (Bookshop)
• The Fraud by Zadie Smith (Bookshop)
• Engineering in Plain Sight by Grady Hillhouse (Bookshop)
• The Talk by Darrin Bell (Bookshop)
• Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson (Bookshop)
• Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond (Bookshop)
• Apollo Remastered: The Ultimate Photographic Record by Andy Saunders (Bookshop)
• The Wager by David Grann (Bookshop)
• North Woods by Daniel Mason (Bookshop)
• Doppelganger by Naomi Klein (Bookshop)
• The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk (Bookshop)
• Monica by Daniel Clowes (Bookshop)
• Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant (Bookshop)
• The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Bookshop)

Too Polite to Eat the Last Piece of Cake

Food is always a great gift. I’m gonna lead with the Xi’an Famous Foods hand-pulled noodle meal kits, which I’ve also mentioned in the Stuff I Swear By section. Legendary NYC shop Murray’s Cheese has a Mac and Cheese Club (monthly delivery of different kinds of mac & cheese). These milk chocolate sardines are fun stocking stuffers. Momofuku’s Chili Crunch will liven up any meal (try it on avocado toast). Finally, I’ve never had this trio of smoked tinned fish, but it sure sounds amazing.

Guides consulted: Cup of Jo, Serious Eats

The Kottke Cinematic Universe, Phase Two

More goods and services from pals in my little corner of the internet. Moss & Fog and Spoon & Tamago both have shops filled with well-designed products. Andre Torrez makes bags (products here go quickly and may not be in stock). Fitz sells custom-fitted eyeglasses and was inspired in part by a post on kottke.org. Craig Mod’s new book just came out: Things Become Other Things.

During his cancer treatment, Hank Green designed some socks; they’re now for sale, with profits going to help people get access to cancer treatment. OG web designer Dan Cederholm sells fonts and shirts, prints, and other type-related products at Simplebits. Field Notes makes some of the best notebooks around. Ami Baio makes “sweet, kind games to connect people” at Pink Tiger Games. Storyworth helps you compile a book of stories told by a loved one.

Things I Would Like

In the course of compiling these guides, I always run across some stuff I’d like to have, even though I have relatively simple everyday needs. This year, I’ve got my eye on Super Mario Bros. Wonder (while also hoping for a new console from Nintendo soonish) and the Analogue Pocket (alas, sold out). A few years back, I replaced my 27-inch iMac with an M1 MacBook Air & a 24” LG monitor. I love the Air but miss the bigger monitor, so I wouldn’t complain if I found Apple’s Studio Display (or, better yet, the truly bonkers 32” Pro Display XDR) under the tree. But I’d settle for the cheaper LG 27MD5KL-B 27 Inch UltraFine 5K.

Guides consulted: The Verge, The Strategist

Leggo My Legos

Lego sets are always a huge holiday hit. I’ve had my eye on Hokusai’s The Great Wave set (Amazon) for awhile but I hadn’t seen this NASA Mars Rover Perseverance set (Amazon) with the Ingenuity helicopter — wow. If your household already has too many Legos, check out The Lego Engineer by expert builder Jeff Friesen — he guides you through 30 builds of engineering marvels like bullet trains and skyscrapers.

Guides consulted: Purdue Engineering, The Kid Should See This

Thermometers Are So Hot Right Now

When I’m cooking (like the Thanksgiving turkey for example), I use a couple of different thermometers to make sure nothing gets overcooked: the Thermapen ONE and Combustion’s Predictive Thermometer.

Guide consulted: Serious Eats

Give the Gift of Gift Cards

Let’s destigmatize the gift card: there is no shame in not knowing what to get someone for a gift, even if you know them really well. This is actually the gift of getting someone exactly what they want, even if it’s something practical & lame like razor blade refills, HDMI adapters, or laundry detergent. There’s the obvious Amazon gift card but you can also get cards for Apple (use it for Fitness+ or Apple TV+?), Audible, Fortnite, Snapchat, Airbnb, Disney+, Spotify, Netflix, and Roblox.

Days Gone By

Ok, that’s quite enough to get you started. I’ve got more recommendations that I’ll add in the next few days. If you’re interested, you can also check out my past gift guides from 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

• kottke.org

I listened to Ministry of Sound’s The Annual - Millennium Edition on heavy repeat in my mid 20s. What a treat it is to rediscover it on Soundcloud:

It’s an unofficial upload so who knows how long it will last. The three song mix by Judge Jules at the beginning of the first disc is still one of my all-time favorite mixes — I’m dancing in my chair to it right now.

• Judge Jules
• Ministry of Sound
• music
• remix

The Ministry of Sound did a show back in September at the Royal Albert Hall where they re-imagined classic 90s dance music (Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, etc.) backed by a 50-piece orchestra and vocalists. I found out about this via organist Anna Lapwood’s Instagram, where she posted a clip of her participation in the show: playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor as a lead-in to Insomnia by Faithless. I enjoyed the captions but the sound on her video is not great; I found this video on YouTube with much better sound (relevant part starts at the 4:15 mark):

I would love to have seen this live…I’d have lost my mind at this part. Sometimes I think I love remixes, mashups, and covers more than the original versions.

• Anna Lapwood
• Faithless
• Ministry of Sound
• music
• remix

This entire article is a delight from start to finish, full of laugh-out-loud moments. I couldn’t decide which part to quote for you, so here are more than a few particularly delightful paragraphs.

The flight to Rome is sentient; it knows exactly where I’m going and what to provide. At my gate, I find myself sitting next to a guy eating a massive perfect panini. He smells like ten men, perhaps because of the additional paninis he is smuggling on his person. On the phone to his mother, he utters the immortal words: ‘And my sanweeches’.

Hope and I have, we have calculated, exactly 72 hours to be tourists. But the elements are against us — it’s 35°C, it’ll be 38°C tomorrow, and I forgot to bring deodorant to meet the pope. So we head to the farmacia, first things first, and buy me an Italian one that somehow makes me wetter than I have ever been in my life.

From there, we head to the Capuchin crypt. My Tyrolean mountain climbing outfit is judged too revealing, so I am asked to tie a sort of barber’s cape around my waist. ‘Just the waist!’ the man yelps, when I try to put it around my whole body; I’m not going to cheat him out of an arm view. Downstairs, I start my period immediately while looking at an illumination of Christ as a sausage, coming violently uncased. I contemplate the bloodstained sheets of the stigmatic Padre Pio.

Those six words every girl wants to hear: an Irish bishop is sponsoring me. He finds us at the welcome party on the second night at the Vatican Museums. Afterwards he takes us out to dinner, where I somehow, and to his grave disappointment (he had recommended the pasta), order the deepest salad in the world. There is literally no bottom to it, like mercy.

Before leaving that morning, we stuffed my bag with all sorts of objects, reasoning that if the pope blessed me, anything on my person would be blessed as well. It now has to go through the metal detector, a tense moment. I wonder what security will make of it — a jumble of legs, jaws, little girls, torsos and precious stones, all awaiting the gesture. How far does the principle of a blessing extend? Because there’s a tampon in there that going forward I will hesitate to use.

See also Highlights from Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This.

• Patricia Lockwood
• Pope Francis
• religion

I linked to this in the recent David Bowie post, but it’s worth pulling out separately: the 100 greatest BBC musical performances. This is an incredible trove of late 20th and early 21st century musical greatness. Some selections just off the top of my head:

Blondie – Atomic/Heart of Glass (The Old Grey Whistle Test, 1979):

Talking Heads – Psycho Killer (OGWT, 1978):

Daft Punk – Essential Mix (Radio 1, 1997):

Hole – Doll Parts/He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)/Violet (Later, 1995):

Joy Division – Transmission (Something Else, 1979):

Radiohead - Paranoid Android (Later Archive 1997):

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Sunshine of Your Love (Happening for Lulu, 1969):

Patti Smith Group – Because the Night (OGWT, 1978):

Arlo Parks and Phoebe Bridgers – Fake Plastic Trees (Radio 1 Piano session, 2020):

Bob Dylan – live at BBC studios (BBC One, 1965), apparently Dylan’s last acoustic concert:

Dizzy Gillespie – Chega de Saudade (Jazz 625, 1965). Don’t miss the musician intro at the ~13:15 mark:

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit (TOTP, 1991):

And Rihanna (Umbrella, 2008) and Prince (1993) and Lorde (Royals, 2013) and and and… If you’re anything like me, this list will keep you busy for a few hours.

• Arlo Parks
• best of
• Blondie
• Bob Dylan
• Daft Punk
• Dizzy Gillespie
• Jimi Hendrix
• Joy Division
• music
• Nirvana
• Patti Smith
• Phoebe Bridgers
• Radiohead
• Talking Heads
• video

Climate scientist Kate Marvel is done warning people about the problems with our climate and has moved on to highlighting our success in combatting it.

The reason is that now, we have a better story to tell. The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now.

Eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions will make our air and water cleaner, our economy stronger and our quality of life better. It could save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives across the country through air quality benefits alone. Using land more wisely can both limit climate change and protect biodiversity. Climate change most strongly affects communities that get a raw deal in our society: people with low incomes, people of color, children and the elderly. And climate action can be an opportunity to redress legacies of racism, neglect and injustice.

I could still tell you scary stories about a future ravaged by climate change, and they’d be true, at least on the trajectory we’re currently on. But it’s also true that we have a once-in-human-history chance not only to prevent the worst effects but also to make the world better right now. It would be a shame to squander this opportunity. So I don’t just want to talk about the problems anymore. I want to talk about the solutions. Consider this your last warning from me.

Here’s the report that Marvel refers to in her piece: The Fifth National Climate Assessment and a Vox article about what’s in it.

See also Rebecca Solnit’s We can’t afford to be climate doomers:

Many things that were once true — that we didn’t have adequate solutions, that the general public wasn’t aware or engaged — no longer are. Outdated information is misinformation, and the climate situation has changed a lot in recent years. The physical condition of the planet — as this summer’s unprecedented extreme heat and flooding and Canada’s and Greece’s colossal fires demonstrate — has continued to get worse; the solutions have continued to get better; the public is far more engaged; the climate movement has grown, though of course it needs to grow far more; and there have been some significant victories as well as the incremental change of a shifting energy landscape.

• climate crisis
• Kate Marvel
• Rebecca Solnit

I love these depictions of famous moments in psychology and cognitive science via @tomerullman. From top to bottom: the Stanford prison experiment, the marshmallow test, and the selective attention test.

These didn’t track as AI-generated at first…and then I tried to read the text — THE STANFORD PRESERIBENT. You can see the whole set on Bluesky (if you have access).

• artificial intelligence
• Lego
• psychology
• science