I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, ad-free, non-partisan politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from the right and left on the news of the day.

I’m on my honeymoon this week, so I’ve scheduled a few posts for you while I’m gone.

Today’s newsletter is a brief look back at five of the most popular Tangle editions that had nothing (or little) to do with politics. I have gauged “popular” by a mixture of data and personal experience: the editions that drove the most responses, comments, shares, social media interactions, and also the ones that seemed to drive the strongest emotions.

— Rest in Peace, Arthur. In this Tangle edition, I wrote about my fish, Arthur, who died during quarantine. I can honestly say I did not know what the response would be when we published this piece, but it generated more replies than just about anything I’ve ever written in Tangle — and almost all of them were positive (there were a few folks who did not appreciate the deviation from politics!)

— It’s morning in New York (subscribers only). In this Tangle edition, I wrote about a random morning I had in New York City in the middle of the pandemic. It came at a time when the virus seemed to be receding, and when the city was — in a sense — waking back up. It was May 22 of 2020, and we did not yet know what we were in for.

— UFOs are here, so buckle up. In this Tangle edition, I wrote about the history of UFOs, the government’s involvement in that history, and what we can expect going forward. Not only did this edition draw a ton of positive responses, it also drew a lot of sign-ups for a potential new weekly newsletter that would focus exclusively on UFOs.

— So, I quit my job today… In this Tangle edition, I announced that I was quitting my job as an editor to pursue Tangle full-time. I can’t believe it’s only been three months since I published this, but it has been some of the best three months of my life.

— The People vs. Wall Street. In this Tangle edition, I wrote about the meme stock craze and how a bunch of people on Reddit managed to send our stock market into a total chaotic tailspin. Some of this has aged well, some less-so, but at the time I wrote it it was one of the most shared pieces I’d ever published. Of course, this one has a touch of politics, but the focus really was on my own experience in this bizarre, unbelievable week of stock market chaos (that has continued to this day).

If you enjoyed these pieces, or want to unlock newsletters that you can’t access, please consider becoming a subscriber. If you’re not yet ready to subscribe, you can still help us out by emailing Tangle to a friend — which you can do by clicking here.