For nearly fourteen years now, I’ve written a post every weekday at Open Culture, usually to do with literature, film, music, art, architecture, television, radio, or language. Here are ten of my favorites from the more than 250 I wrote in 2025:
- 21 Rules for Living from Miyamoto Musashi, Japan’s Samurai Philosopher (1584–1645)
- A Man Read 3,599 Books Over 60 Years, and Now His Family Has Shared the Entire List Online
- Celebrate Halloween with Michael Jackson’s Horrifically Entertaining “Thriller” Music Video—and a Behind-the-Scenes Documentary
- How Chinese Characters Work: The Evolution of a Three-Millennia-Old Writing System
- How the Fairlight CMI Synthesizer Revolutionized Music
- Revisit One of the Most Polarizing Albums in Rock History: Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, Which Came Out 50 Years Ago
- Revisit Pop-Up Video: The VH1 Series That Reinvented Music Videos & Pop Culture
- Tomorrow Never Knows: How the Beatles Invented the Future With Studio Magic, Tape Loops & LSD
- When David Bowie Starred in—and Created Music for—a Dystopian Cyberpunk Video Game: Discover Omikron: The Nomad Soul (1999)
- Where The Simpsons Began: Discover the Original Shorts That Appeared on The Tracey Ullman Show (1987–1989)
See also my ten favorite Open Culture posts of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.