So others don’t die quietly.

That phrase, "Recover loudly so people don't die quietly" was unknown to me until I saw it on a bumper sticker last week. I didn't know what it was supposed to mean, but I definitely knew what it meant to me.

When I got home, I looked it up and found out that it's a motto of an anti-addiction group--and I love that--but to me, in the 20-odd minutes I was following that car and pondering the sentiment, it referred to mental illness…

I have a new favorite movie. I know what's you're saying: "But Rob, On The Waterfront has been your favorite movie since you were 21!"

And you're right. It took a lot to bump my favorite movie out of its number one spot, but man, Interstellar just has really hit me. It didn't the first time I watched it, or even the second, but when it became available on Netflix I watched it over and over (I watch movies while I work, so I watch a lot of movies) and it has so much depth. It's scientific depth and plot depth, but especially emotional depth….

…Is not what I thought it was.

I'm a writer and an artist, and I've been listening to Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim's musical about the creation of art, for at least 35 years, and I had thought that I knew what it was saying.

I obviously can't recount the whole thing here, but there is an artist in the second act who creates giant light-and-laser machines called Chromolumes, and he sings a well-known song called "Putting It Together."..

This newsletter is not about Star Wars.

So Andor: amazing. Here are spoilers, but read it anyway.

If you haven't been watching the show, it's all of the lead-up in the five years before Star Wars Ep IV: A New Hope. It's all about the Rebellion forming and the sacrifices that people made so that, in A New Hope, Luke Skywalker could blow up the Death Star.

The show is amazing. Dare I say: it's my favorite Star Wars ever? Better than Empire Strikes Back? It is….

Mr. Universe: Can't stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere.

So, the world is really tough right now, something which I don't need to tell any of you. Everyday the news seems to bring not just one, but a whole bevy of new issues we have to care about. (This is part of the plan: overload us with issues; we can't possibly care about everything all of the time.)