Five Things Curator's Cut: August 2025

It's time for another Curator's Cut!

Hello and welcome to the Five Things Curator’s Cut for August 2025 in which you can read five great articles that didn’t make it into the weekly cut. These articles were so good, I had to save them for my most esteemed readers, the ones that pay to read Five Things. If you haven’t subscribed yet, now would be a good time!

I just realized that I didn’t send out the Curator’s Cut for a few months now. Oopsies. Sorry about that. But it’s summer and now I finally found the time to put together five articles that didn’t make it into the weekly Five Things.

European leaders finally figured out Trump just wants everyone chanting the same words loudly, ideally “tariffs” instead of “sanctions” while still not actually ending any wars. Kindness is apparently contagious (who knew?), so feel free to pass that on before your collective apathy goes viral. Nuclear deterrence is now a game of AI hide-and-seek, so if you miss Cold War anxiety, you’re in luck. Maybe we should all rewatch War Games to get into the right mood. Meanwhile, your old trashed L.L.Bean tote is this summer’s must-have and I’m so in style, finally. And those Walkman days when headphones meant you were “disconnected”? Retro is back, except now your kids have noise-canceling and a total lack of guilt.

Enjoy!