CULTURE

Footer Column 2

Footer Legal

Footer Main

Nav Bar

OTHER

SPORTS

Subscribe, at any level, to play

Thanks for your interest in Defector Crosswords!

Become a subscriber today to get unlimited access

Thanks for reading!

Plans start at $8/month.

Subscribers enjoy unlimited, ad-free browsing.

Register to continue

Or click here to subscribe for unlimited, ad-free access!

Our gift to you: This year's post is unlocked. Register your email to get even more free articles.

Welcome to the 2025 Hater's Guide!

Just register your email:

This blog is free to read.

This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

Defector

Sarah Borus

France Europe French Paris 7th arrondissement Muse Rodin Museum art sculpture hands

Arts And Culture

You’ve Got To Hand It To Rodin

charismatic megafauna (they/them)

Sabrina Imbler

Creaturefector

This 17th-Century Flemish Painting Held A Gnarly Bat Secret

Corey Atad is a freelancer writer based in Toronto with an unhealthy Air Bud obsession.

Corey Atad

Interviews

Steven Soderbergh And Ed Solomon Talk About Their Best Collaboration Yet

A self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci in which he looks displeased, perhaps making the face he would make if he learned that scientists were trying to grind up some ancient hair to unlock a supervision gene

Leonardo da Vinci’s Legacy Won’t Be Found In His DNA

Defector Staff

Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) experimenting with the first motion picture machine. B/W photo,1905.

Year In Review

The Best Things We Saw In 2025

David Roth

A crop of four images of people kind of partying and hanging out from Ken Ohara's "Contacts" show at The Whitney, with the relevant Whitney credit language superimposed at lower right.

Make Yourself At Home

Albert Burneko

A pure black field. Nothing whatsoever is visible.

What’s ‘Mönch’ Thinking?

Rachelle Hampton

An orange cat sits in front of two framed Henri Rousseau prints.

Finding Henri Rousseau

Lauren Theisen

Helen Frankenthaler Is A Reason To Go To Rochester

Patrick Redford

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 26: Mikal Bridges #25 of the New York Knicks shoots against the Philadelphia 76ers during their game at Madison Square Garden on February 26, 2025 in New York City. User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

How To Watch Basketball

Soraya Roberts

What The Beads Can Tell You

Lindsey Adler is a writer based in Brooklyn. She exclusively covered sports for a decade but has other interests, too.

Lindsey Adler

A woman stands in front of the Yoko Ono, »Cut Piece«, 1965, during a press preview at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Duesseldorf, western Germany on September 26, 2024. In cooperation with the Tate Modern, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is presenting the influential work of artist and activist Yoko Ono in a comprehensive solo exhibition taking place from September 28, 2024 to March 6, 2025.

My Weekend With Yoko

Dan McQuade was a founding member of Defector. He died in January 2026.

Dan McQuade

Washington Crossing the Delaware but it's Joe Paterno

College Football

Becoming A Penn State Fan Again Means Remembering How To Hate Notre Dame

Visitors examine the exhibition as The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City presents the groundbreaking exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transtlantic Modernism which includes some 160 works of painting, sculpture, photography, film, and ephemera in New York, United States on February 20, 2024.The exhibition opens in Black History Month, is honoring the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history.

Girl, Uninterrupted

Mary Cassatt's "In The Loge" - a woman in the late 1800s uses opera glasses to look at something from a theater box, while a man looks at her from a distance

Who’s Allowed To Look?

What Makes Hockey Hockey?

Barry Petchesky

What’s In A Frame?

Kelsey McKinney

artistic rendering of color palates using flowers

Only You Can Find Your Best Color

A screenshot of a guy playing Mario 64 on the drums

Video Games

This Guy Beats Video Games Using A Drum Kit As A Controller

hanging sculptures by Ruth Asawa in the tower of the de young museum

In The Shadows Of Ruth Asawa

black and white photo of a man photographing a family

What Can Another Photo App Give Us?

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.

Nicholas Russell

A collection of triangular shapes in Michael Heizer's City installation

Art In The Middle Of Nowhere Is Still Somewhere

Zillowing Out

A 1,475,000 Kroner Home Where We Can Be A Weirdo Of Our Own Choosing

MONACO - FEBRUARY 14: Fernando Botero in Monaco on February 14, 2001 (Photo by Alain BENAINOUS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Fernando Botero Was Larger Than Life

Justin Ellis

A handout file photo dated 17 October 2013 made available by the Groninger Museum shows the painting "Spring Garden", the rectory garden in Nuenen in the spring by the painter Vincent van Gogh in Groningen, Netherlands. Van Gogh's work was stolen from the Singer Laren museum on 30 March 2020. The painting was on loan from the Groninger Museum. Vincent van Gogh's work "Spring Garden" stolen from the Singer Laren museum, Groningen, Netherlands - 17 Oct 2013

art