THIS INSTALMENT of 10 IMAGES features @marcovalmarana‘s life in Japan. These images evoke an internet long gone, when you could wander onto someone’s Instagram page and get lost in their world.

Before social networks became the de-facto place for logging mundane moments from our lives, Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch incorporated a feature that let users send footage they’d filmed directly to YouTube. The uploads were all assigned the same generic file names—IMG_0000, IMG_0001, IMG_0002, etc. The straight-to-YouTube button existed for only a few years, beginning in 2009, but that stretch of time coincided with the popularization of both iPhones and user-generated multimedia online, prompting an explosion of self-documentation.

WE SENT our Holiday Wishes to subscribers before Christmas and shared a quick update of life lately on Christmas Eve. While this note was meant for Christmas Day itself, we think the warmth of the season still lingers enough for a day-late greeting.

Explore our December discoveries, from museum wanderings to French château histories, perfume reviews to holiday mood boards—a curated collection of winter musings and festive inspirations.

The Virtuous Circle of a Happy Personality
A few weeks ago, I wrote about happiness and music but didn’t mention perhaps the most famously joyful work ever written: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, composed in 1824, which ends with the famous anthem “Ode to Joy,” based on Friedrich Schiller’s poem “An die Freude.”

He is from a wealthy and prominent Maryland family, the valedictorian of a prestigious private school, an Ivy League graduate. His family and friends speak of him fondly, and they worried about him when he fell off the grid, some months ago.