For The Play Issue, we spent the weekend with 17,000 furries. “He is my everyday personality turned up to 11,” says Shackle Ram, who’s been a furry since 2001. "He is everything that I would like to be at my nine-to-five job or around my family." bit.ly/4rY2jVQ

Inside Issue Sixty-One, we explore five ways to rethink rice–including recipes for drinks, dinner and dessert. Like a sticky rice and mango cocktail or nam pla oysters served with rice milk granita. bit.ly/4dBE7mp

Toy designer Cas Holman on the value of open-ended play: "We don’t need to control it. We need to support exploration. Children’s brains are so different from ours. If we try to understand what they are learning only in our own terms, we limit them." bit.ly/3TXPv5l

Entering his 10th NBA season, Milwaukee Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma already has a championship ring to his name. But he’s far from finished. “I love the game too much to not play. We’ve gotta have fun, guys, we’ve gotta play the game that we’ve always loved.” bit.ly/4zniaQk

John Outram has never followed convention. Built in 1999, Sphinx Hill embodies his playful postmodern approach to architecture and the “less is a bore” philosophy. Twenty-five years later, it became the youngest building in England to receive listed status bit.ly/4e7pSFV

In Issue Sixty-One, we go behind the scenes with Pina Bausch’s original Kontakthof dancers, now in their 70s and 80s, as they reunite with former colleagues—and their younger selves—through projections of archival footage. bit.ly/47v6OxM

The best massages are a conversation: a call and response attentive to a patch of warmth, a knot slow to yield or a breath that catches. Experience our visual guide to giving a massage in Issue Sixty-One. bit.ly/4z1D2fE

Faye Toogood has long resisted the rigid categories of design. Today, she’s making exactly what she wants. “I’ve always been interested in blurring the boundaries between art and design.” bit.ly/4d9Yc31

Author Beatrice Alemagna believes that in every good children’s book there’s a great story for adults, too. "It’s an act of respect toward the child to tell things as they are. I don’t want to overprotect or overexplain." bit.ly/3TXPv5l

In 1991, Carsten Höller was studying insects in Texas and spending weekends visiting art sites like Marfa. Frustrated by science’s “false certainties,” he turned to art—and mushrooms. “Mushrooms are monuments to incomprehensibility,” he says. bit.ly/4d1PjbE

In Issue Sixty-One, we take play seriously. As Mia Sundstrom, who leads the National Institute for Play, tells us: “We have seen that a lack of play can lead to susceptibility for anxiety and depression. And then there’s social incompetence." bit.ly/4xrBgDm

“We want Balming Tiger to be its own genre,” says Omega Sapien of the Seoul collective, which brings together singers, rappers, producers, photographers, directors and DJs, making music that moves between hip-hop, old Korean pop, EDM and psychedelic rock. bit.ly/479lDFX

Not everything worth doing needs a purpose. Issue Sixty-One takes play seriously, with five games from Carsten Höller, five playful takes on rice, a tour of John Outram’s masterpiece Sphinx Hill, K-pop’s Balming Tiger and a trip to Furry Weekend Atlanta. On sale now.

Not everything worth doing needs a purpose. Issue Sixty-One takes play seriously, with five games from Carsten Höller, five playful takes on rice, a tour of John Outram’s masterpiece Sphinx Hill, K-pop’s Balming Tiger and a trip to Furry Weekend Atlanta. On sale now.

La Galcante is a Parisian store packed with millions of vintage newspapers. “I’ve been surprised by the young people. A lot are engaging with print for the first time," says owner Jacques Kuzma. "They stop, leaf through, ask questions. It’s reassuring.” bit.ly/3UNlOnw

In 1793, revolutionary leaders of France’s National Convention adopted (then abandoned) the French Republican calendar to free the flow of time itself from the church's shackles. 10-day weeks comprised 10-hour days, 100-minute hours and 100-second minutes. bit.ly/4gPv9Uk

Eyal Weizman on architecture as forensic evidence: "When I talk about aesthetics, I refer to the original Greek meaning: what is in the realm of the senses. We are attentive to visuals, to images, to spaces, to faint traces that others cannot see." bit.ly/4ztYLy8

Psychologists John Gottman and Julie Schwartz approach couples therapy by focusing on the emotional connection. “Learning to communicate well in a relationship is like learning to play a new instrument. You’ve got to practice and correct your mistakes." bit.ly/45OXO5J

Artist John Zabawa's philosophy on life: "You would think that reminding yourself you’re this tiny, insignificant grain of sand would create anxiety, but it gives me a purpose. Knowing how small and temporary we are makes me want to make the best of life." bit.ly/4x5bDZA

Marshall Johnson comes from a long line of scientists. His great-grandfather is credited with being the first to discover oil. Today, Johnson searches for exoplanets. “We’ve both made our careers studying the imprint of unseen things on what we can see." bit.ly/44ib2HB