Once a month, I share the best of what I’ve been reading, watching, and exploring. Enjoy! Books Making Movies by Sidney Lumet. I wrote my first feature film and I m planning to direct it, so I picked up this book for research. It reads more like a memoir than a manual. Lumet directed films like [ ] The post The best of what I m reading, watching, and exploring (August 2026) appeared first on Ozan…
A scratchy throat. The first faint shimmer of a fever. That s all it takes. At that first sign of possible illness, an ancient feeling kicks in. Not just worry. A full-body alarm that feels wildly disproportionate to a sore throat—like everything I ve built is about to collapse, like I m going to miss out on something [ ] The post I can t think my way out of this appeared first on Ozan Varol .
Once a month, I share the best of what I’ve been reading, watching, and exploring. Enjoy! Books A World Appears by Michael Pollan. Pollan wrote about food, then psychedelics, and has now arrived at consciousness itself. The premise: nobody actually knows where consciousness comes from, and Pollan sets out to ask everyone who claims to. [ ] The post The best of what I m reading, watching, and…
My wife Kathy and I were at a retreat recently. A woman I d just met came up to me between sessions. “It s amazing watching you watch Kathy talk,” she said. “Your face lights up. You hang on every word like it s the most interesting thing in the world.” “Because it is,” I said. People ask [ ] The post People keep asking about our marriage appeared first on Ozan Varol .
Once a month, I share the best of what I’ve been reading, watching, and exploring. Enjoy! Books Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz (1977). A love letter to 1970s Los Angeles, written by a woman who lived it more than almost anyone. She dated Jim Morrison, Harrison Ford, and Steve Martin, and turned all [ ] The post The best of what I m reading, watching, and exploring (June 2026) appeared first…
Earlier this year, a fully formed opening scene dropped into my head—the way you d see one in a movie theater. I could see the faces. I could hear the dialogue. I knew exactly how the scene would play. I ve learned to follow these whispers when they come. I didn t sit down and decide to write [ ] The post I didn t plan this. It planned me. appeared first on Ozan Varol .
Once a month, I share the best of what I’ve been reading, watching, and exploring. Enjoy! The post The best of what I m reading, watching, and exploring (May 2026) appeared first on Ozan Varol .
I shaved my head last month. My hair had been thinning for a while. I d looked into the alternatives: transplant, pills, the whole industry built to keep you exactly as you were. But each option felt like performing CPR on something that was clearly dying. So I picked up the clippers. The next morning, I [ ] The post Why I shaved my head appeared first on Ozan Varol .
Once a month, I share the best of what I ve been reading, watching, and exploring. Enjoy! Films Project Hail Mary (2026). This one lives up to the hype. Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, is back with another lone-scientist-in-space story. A man wakes up alone in a spacecraft with no memory of how he got [ ] The post The best of what I m reading, watching, and exploring (April 2026) appeared first…
I was feeling a little off the other week. So I did what I usually do: I went to the ocean. I put my feet in the sand and sat near the water. The waves came in. Went out. A few joggers. A man with a metal detector. Children running around further up the sand. [ ] The post The best mentor I ve never had appeared first on Ozan Varol .