Now Playing: May 2025

Our May 2025 edition of Now Playing features shows that go bonkers, habitual creation, and chillingly poignant music, all from our contributors!

Cindy House

I've been reading The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for An Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad and there's a chapter by Michael Beirut. He wrote about assigning his students the task of creating something every day for 100 days and as an example, he wrote about Ely Kim, who made a video called Boombox, which is seven minutes of 100 days of dancing to 100 different songs. I've committed myself to a project of making one drawing a day for the entirety of this current administration and so this 100 day project pulled me right in. I looked up Boombox and I am happy to say this video that went viral sixteen years ago is still online. I had no idea that this was the exact joy I needed in my life these days. Go watch it right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2DLNLTTjvM

Josh Denslow

For each of the last five or six years, billy woods has landed in my five most listened to artists in those year-end music lists created by our streaming services. His new album, Golliwog, is based on a horror story he wrote as a child that he recently rediscovered, but also dives directly into the horrors of our current world. Using film samples and an alternating mix of thumping beats and off-kilter production, it’s the rap album of the year and perhaps of the decade.

John Jodzio

I'm currently watching/loving "The Rehearsal". I've been a huge fan of Nathan Fielder since "Nathan For You" and the current season of "The Rehearsal" is wonderfully bananas -- his ability to awkwardly push limits in both the show's production and its scope is amazing and I can't believe that HBO is letting him get away and paying for the bizarre world he's created!