The products of mass culture have learned to speak a new language: the language of the occult. Come in, an app pleads, and listen to an algorithmically curated playlist of songs that “fit the vibe.” “We caught a vibe!” yelps a voice in one of those songs; it isn’t immediately clear whether this means caught as in brass ring or caught as in disease. It’s hard, a marketing email laments, to build an organization filled with people whose “energies align.” An AI-generated horoscope ascribes to today’s events a total “Taurus full moon during Scorpio season mood.” From every corner you are buffeted by vibrations and waves, moods and intensities.

THIS WEEK’S décor inspiration is the Paris apartment of Diego Delgado-Elias, a Peruvian architect who lives in Paris. After ten years working on major hospitality and private projects at large international agencies, Delgado-Elias founded his own agency in Paris in 2014 …

They’re delicious, too, but there’s good food everywhere. Destination meals are different. They whisk travelers from their cooking routines and familiar takeout spots, drawing them out with flavors that can’t be replicated, service that can’t be matched, and most of all, a story that can’t be told elsewhere. The cities, islands, neighborhoods, and regions that top the list of places we want to eat in 2022 span the globe, from Guadalajara to Markham, Saint-Martin to Orange County — yes, that O.C. — and their cuisines range from nasi lemak to puffy tacos to conche Creole. But every single one offers a captivating narrative, a reason to visit right now. These stories are told by a diverse cast of chefs, home cooks, street hawkers, and restaurateurs, all people who make us excited to travel, cooking the foods that make us excited to eat.

THIS INSTALMENT OF 10 IMAGES features the quietly chic photos of Juliane Diesner (@styleshiver) There are coffees in Parisian restaurants and velvet chairs in pools of light, drinks on the beach, a ride on the Orient Express, and plates of spaghetti alle vongole. The photos are strangely nostalgic, evocative of times gone by …

It is hard to imagine humans spending their lives in virtual reality when the experience amounts to waving your arms about in the middle of the lounge with a device the size of a house brick strapped to your face. But this is where humanity is heading, says the philosopher David Chalmers, who argues for embracing the fate. Advances in technology will deliver virtual worlds that rival and then surpass the physical realm. And with limitless, convincing experiences on tap, the material world may lose its allure, he says.

THIS WEEKEND, finally ordered a new Mac Mini to replace my iMac, which has been running on the slow side for a little while now. Also ordered a fancy new white (non-Mac) monitor as well as a Lacie external drive and have been spending the first two weeks of this new year sorting through hundreds of files and folders and photos and taking stock, both literally and figuratively …