Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. An interesting interview with the cartoonist and musician James Kochalka on being creative. Here's the video and my takeaways from watching it.

2. As well as being tiny, some viruses are rather scary looking!

3. Another fascinating episode of the After-On podcast where Rob Reid interviews George Church. They talk about DNA sequencing and editing, clean meat, anti-ageing research and much more.

4. Derek Sivers on goals: Detailed dreams blind you to new means

5. A magical musical moment from the Rock School I'm running this week. We get to work with some fantastic kids, so inspiring!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

I had two main takeaways from watching this interview with the cartoonist and musician James Kochalka.

The first:

"If you are a creative person and you're good at one thing you're probably good at another thing"

Creativity compounds (knowledge builds on knowledge) so you'll probably find that some ways of thinking or skills overlap between the different activities.

And the second:

If you want to get better at something, do it every day, and work hard at getting better at it. That last bit is really important, simply repeating an activity isn't enough — you have to focus on improving to get better.

Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. I hadn't listened to Adam Buxton's podcast in quite a while (silly me) so this rambling chat with film directors Wes Anderson and Garth Jennings was a good reminder of what I'd been missing!

2. This quote from a recent Austin Kleon post really jumped out at me: "if you really want to explore ideas in an environment conducive to good thinking, you should consider hanging out with 'people who are not so much like-minded as like-hearted,' people who are 'temperamentally disposed to openness and have habits of listening.'"

3. What an incredible man: Johan van Hulst, Who Helped Save 600 Children From the Nazis, Dies at 107

4. An interesting TED talk about how we experience and process emotions by Lisa Feldman Barrett.

5. 🎶 I'm really enjoying Poppy Ackroyd's latest album Resolve.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. What makes the music for the Mario games sound so fun? 8-bit Music Theory explains...

2. This piece is fantastic. I love this bit in particular: “While working ... I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him that I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish.”

3. I hope they never grow up! A game of tag that’s been going for 20+ years.

4. The behind-the-scenes video of Spike Jonze's HomePod advert is well worth a watch. I totally agree with this: "It’s a delight, in the end, that the magicians decided to reveal their tricks like this—a worthy companion piece to one of the year’s most enchanting productions."

5. 🎶 Sirimiri — More ambient goodness from the prolific Rafael Anton Irisarri.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. I finished reading Tara Westover's memoir Educated last week and somehow forgot to include it. Her story is incredible. It's one of the best things I've read in ages.

2. BBC Radio 4's In Our Time podcast recently explored the life of Beethoven. I didn't know much about him beyond knowing he went deaf and you know, made some pretty famous music! This was a good introduction to the man behind the music.

3. Rhythmic displacement is a great tool in the toolkit of any musician. This video shows how Harry Connick Jr. masterfully put it to use to get his audience clapping in the right place. Really impressive!

4. A great post by Austin Kleon on the importance and role of copying in the learning process.

5. All eight hours of Max Richter's album Sleep are now on Spotify! Sweet dreams 😴🎶

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.