I used to be all "Pshaw!" about art as therapy, but in my old age I might be coming around. This new site by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong claims that "the point of art in general is to offer therapeutic assistance," and while I'm not quite there yet—I do not think of art as pretty pictures to make us feel better—therapeutic is certainly something art can be. At the very least, after clicking through Art as Therapy I will concede I landed on some things that have lightly reordered my brain for the day. First I clicked on "Love," and within that I clicked on "Does sex have to define me?" (what? Seemed interesting! Shush!) and stumbled onto a glorious Nan Goldin photo I've never seen before, accompanied by unexpected text. Then I clicked on "I want to break up," even though I currently have no one to break up with (just curious about the advice it would dispense), and discovered a lovely bowl of 18th-century strawberries accompanied by, again, persuasive, counterintuitive text. (By the way, 18th century? You had some weird-looking strawberries.) Finally I clicked through "Free Time," starting with "I can't bear the rain" (Seattle, represent!) and my eyes landed on a David Hockney I plan to come back and look at many times in the coming months.

And what about the "Politics" section? Can anything there help me "offer therapeutic assistance" vis-a-vis this rage I'm feeling toward Washington, D.C.? Haha, nope. I clicked on them all and none of them helped. These authors are not Americans, clearly.