If you find Recomendo useful, you’ll definitely enjoy Rambull — a newsletter that profiles a different person each week and shares 6+ recommendations for living, buying, experiencing, and more. I had the pleasure of being profiled last week, and I was truly impressed by the thoughtfulness and care Rob, the creator, invests in crafting an issue. A few of the things I shared were ones I had intended to recommend here, making this a bonus Recomendo! — CD

Genius Wisdom is a daily newsletter I don’t mind invading my inbox. Each issue highlights a “legendary thinker” with practical tips and tasks for applying their genius vision to your own life. It’s a good daily motivator. — CD

I don’t know whether chiropractic care is effective or not, but just watching this animal chiropractor adjust the skeletal system of dogs makes me feel better. Known as Der Knochenknacker (“The Bone Cracker”), Murat Colak is an animal osteopath from Germany who has TikTok and Instagram channels with videos of him loudly cracking the joints of dogs. His love for animals shines through in the clips. — MF

Watch sidewalk artists in Waikiki draw extreme caricatures of customers, and their customer’s hysterical reactions. The drawings are much more exaggerated than typical caricatures yet they look uncannily like the subjects. I was laughing along with the people who bravely sat for the drawings. A guaranteed mood lifter. — MF

Generative AI art is particularly suited for architecture. My favorite AI Instagram follow right now is Midjourney Architecture. It features the best examples from diverse creative AI co-artists who generate ultra imaginative buildings and unexpected interiors. It doesn’t matter if these won’t ever be built. (There is a set of multiple images behind each image on the home page.) — KK

Noted is a weekly newsletter on the art of note-taking that focuses on the personal notebooks of creative and historical figures. I’m always amazed at the in-depth research and insights by English professor and literary historian Jillian Hess. Her passion and curiosity for note-taking are evident and very inspiring. Peeking inside personal notebooks offers an intimate glimpse into someone’s inner space and this newsletter has influenced the way I organize my own thoughts. Highly fascinating and highly recommended. — CD 

I try to limit my subscriptions to daily newsletters, but the 1-min Daily Question newsletter cannot be snoozed or ignored. Each question is a prompt to reflect on my life and goals (like what patterns am I stuck in? or what does success look like for me?). Every email redirects me to a 60-second timer that acts as a timeout from the busyness in my head. It's a short respite, but its peaceful and I appreciate the gift of clarity. — CD 

Structural Failures on Twitter is a collection of fascinating videos of collapses of buildings and towers, showing the catastrophic consequences that can result from engineering and construction mistakes. (There's no gore, but some of the videos show workers in peril.) — MF

One of my favorite living artists is Tauba Auerbach. I first encountered her work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she had a solo show at the age of 40. There is a nerd appeal to her work. She enjoys knots, new materials, geometry, calligraphy, camouflage, glass blowing, weaving patterns, all in service of beautiful surprises. She is a good follow on Instagram, and is worth a trip out of your way to see her exhibits. — KK

Here’s a list of the top 50 Substack newsletters with the most number of subscribers. I am not subscribed to any of these, but I did check out all their archives and the only one I was interested in was Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant’s newsletter Granted. Most of the newsletters I noticed were political. This list made me realize that the number of subscribers does not at all reflect a newsletter’s usefulness or personal value. Here’s a list of my top 5 favorite newsletters on Substack right now:

• Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter — I’ve been reading his horoscopes since I was a teenager. He’s a spiritual outlaw and a poet and his newsletters are not just horoscopes — they’re always inspirational and artful and joy-filled.

• Rusty’s Electric Dreams — described as, “one of the most inspiring, weird and off-kilter collections of curated kitschy ephemera for the big-brained” and as “the New Yorker for the weirdos.”

• Burning Shore — Author Erik Davis’ newsletter exploring the “cultures of consciousness.” He describes his work as dancing around “the intersection of alternative religion, media, the popular imagination, and the cultural history of California.”

• deepculture — a weekly digest of 10 interesting things every Tuesday. (Sometimes I discover Recomendos here!)

• The Most Creative — This newsletter is about balancing and prioritizing the creative life. Elliott Fienberg’s musings are insightful and encouraging and a beacon of light in my inbox.

For an outstanding example of what generative AI artists can do, check out Joann’s brilliant instagram series on the Inflatable Wonders of the World. Click through all 10. — KK

Probably the most personal recommendation I’ll ever make is La Cuenta, a weekly newsletter that explores the financial and personal costs of undocumented living in the U.S. As the first born child of two immigrant teenagers from Mexico, I experienced the mental and emotional toll firsthand, but this newsletter has been vital in my own cultural understanding and in challenging the stereotypes perpetuated by media and politics. The creators behind it are Antero Garcia, an associate professor at Stanford and Alix Dick, a filmmaker and human rights activist from LA. — CD

Web Curios is a roundup of the most “interesting” links curated by Matt Muir —who covers everything from technology, culture and economics to sex, art and death. He’s been doing this for 10+ years and describes it as an absolute smorgasbord of links and words and ephemeral miscellanea. I always find something cool and fascinating (or sometimes terrifying) when I read it. — CD

Claudia is too modest to mention it, but every night she records her dreams and uses the summary of her dream as a prompt to help an AI paint her daily dream. She calls it her Dream Stream on Instagram. I think this combination is a brilliant new genre, and a fabulous use of the new tools. Plus her summary dreams are sometimes profound. — KK

Machine Pix is an Instagram account with mesmerizing videos of different machinery performing automated tasks, such as making nails, tying knots, loading pallets, pulling weeds, and peeling fruit. — MF

In addition to Recomendo, I write a newsletter called The Magnet. It’s difficult to describe because each issue is different. Sometimes I interview an interesting person like Jude Stewart, who wrote a catalog of smells. Sometimes I post photos and comments of unusual things I come across when travel. In one issue I wrote about the time I worked on a traveling carnival and met a remarkable man called The Human Blockhead. If you are looking for a last minute gift (even for yourself), consider getting them a gift subscription to The Magnet. — MF

There are few newsletters I read as soon as they arrive in my inbox. Coco’s Variety is one of them. It chronicles the obsessions of a Los Angeles used bicycle shop owner. He writes about collecting antiques, restoring old cars, cooking, garage sales, flea markets, good books, good music, and good living. His perspective is inspiring. — MF

We think you’ll like our newest newsletter, Tools for Possibilities. Every Monday we’ll send you a one-pager with the best parts of my Cool Tools book, which is now out of print. This oversized book rounded up the best tools we knew about in 2013 and presented them by category. I called it a Catalog of Possibilities. Our succinct newsletter takes each category and selects the reviews for 2 to 4 tools in that category. It is basically a way to distill and re-distribute the deep, deep archive of the Cool Tools website, which has been reviewing tools daily since 2003. The information about the tools, whether they are still available or even still the very best, has NOT been updated. (They are just a search away.) We present this stream of tools – defined in its broadest sense as anything handy for an individual or small group – as an easy way to see what possibilities there exist if you want to make things happen. It’s brief and free. Sign up for Tools for Possibilities here. — KK

The instagram account Welcome.jpeg calls itself a digital museum. It’s kinda art, kinda meme, kinda kitsch, kinda weirdo. It collects oddball, strange, unorthodox, found images and delivers these misfits as little visual collections. It’s my guilty pleasure. — KK

This is a series of photos of WWII Polish resistance fighters who battled the Germans in a Warsaw ghetto for 27 days. On the left of each image is how they appeared in 1940. On the right are photos of the same surviving men and woman taken in 2021. Follow historyphotographed for the most fascinating photos from the past. — MF