What’s Good Wednesday: April 1st, 2026

See: “Raphael: Sublime Poetry at the Met.” The first Raphael retrospective ever mounted in the US is running through June 28 at the Met Museum. This is the kind of show that only comes around once in a generation. It traces his entire career, from his early days in Urbino to rivaling Leonardo and Michelangelo in Florence, to becoming the papal court's go-to artist in Rome, all before dying at just 37. Perhaps most striking is the show's focus on Raphael's revolutionary depictions of women, and what modern science is only now revealing about how he made them. For those outside New York, the Met's illustrated catalog and metmuseum.org offer a worthy consolation prize. – Hélène

Find: The rituals you lack. The modern world, with its relentless focus on progress, work, individualism, and production! production! production! has robbed us of the rituals, play, and communal connections that give us meaning in this life. That’s the argument of Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han, whose short, intense book The Disappearance of Rituals traces this deracinating fixation with “production” into everything from James Bond films, to drone wars, to selfie culture, to the resurgence of nationalism, and the problems with pornography. In all, he writes, we have become a society of "communication without community.”A bracing book from Han, who made his name with the 2010 manifesto The Burnout Society. -Alex K

Play: Outside. The war is over (no, not that one, but the one against winter in the North East). Go frolick. – Riley