Keeping it short today.

I guess I’m pretty fond of train travel, so I really enjoyed this Nathaniel Rich piece from last week’s New York Times Magazine. “How to Spend 47 Hours on a Train and Not Go Crazy” is phenomenal in its storytelling and portraits of the characters you meet on trains. (If you read any portion of this article, PLEASE read the part about Final Destination-obsessed, wandering airbrush artist Michelle Love. I need her to write a memoir, ASAP.)

Speaking of storytelling, here’s 22 Rules of Storytelling by a Pixar Storyboard Artist. I want to start reading this list on the reg and see if I get any better at telling stories.

This post on the Awl includes the following sentences:

“All of these things, in the end, mean nothing. You will die, and everything you’ve learned will be blown by the wind until it is as if you never knew it.”

But somehow, I found the whole thing oddly reassuring. So that’s what I’ve been like this week, I guess.

Also, for fun, here are three songs I’ve listened to today.

[h/t Bailey]

I’ve been listening to the new Waxahatchee album all week, along with the rest of the internet, it seems. (It’s good!)

And finally, I can’t complain about this new Laura Marling song. (It’s good! But it sounds like all of her other good songs.)