Hi ,It's only been a slightly less busy week this past week, and yesterday went by before I wrote this, slight delay to the scheduling, as it were!I've been working on writing a bucket list of all the things I want to do in Chicago before I leave next month, only a mere few weeks left. Most items on the list are places to eat, drink, comedy shows, and a little bit of live music. And looking through the show lists at the major theaters like The Second City, the iO, and The Annoyance, it dawned on me that I've been meaning to take improv comedy classes while I'm here and still haven't done that! I signed up for a 3h introductory workshop to stand up comedy at The Second City, and it looks like The Annoyance is offering a week long intensive training the last week of this month that I can probably just about make work in my schedule.I went to see several shows: Felt (improvised puppet show, amazing), Critic (stand up comedians improvising film reviews), Dick Wolf Special Improv Unit (great idea but they weren't on form, I'd check it out again though), and the Fire & Beer improv ensemble (they were fantastic!)I went back to my new outstanding pizza spot right by the iO: Pizzeria Bebu - check it out before or after a show if you happen to be in Chicago!I also went to see Rocketman, the Elton John musical fantasy biopic - it's fantastic you should totally go see it! And I ended the week with a Cubs baseball game at Wrigley Fields with friends. The Cubs won against the Cardinals, 2 bats broke, there was a home run, as usual I didn't know much of what was going on and it was great fun to be there.So yeah a few things last week, and I did manage to publish a new episode of the podcast, a brilliant conversation I had with Jess Greenwood, Chief Strategy Officer at R/GA US, based in New York. We talk about the importance of learning journalism skills for strategists in the creative communications industry, board games, her stories as a journalist and writer before moving to her current career. She is full of enthusiasm and I really appreciate she made time for our chat, please check it out.That's about it for the news, on to our stories for the week. Share with a friend if you enjoyed the newsletter!Cheers,Willem

 Weekly Combo Two or three flavours, interesting separately, fascinating together 

Trump's tariffs could ruin the American board game industry (Polygon, 12 min read) If you're interested in a good background on what tariffs and trade wars are, how they work, and then going into more details about how it impacts many industries, this is a fantastic piece. And of course even better if you're interested in the board games industry. 

The Child in the Basement (NY Times, 4 min read)