The New Year's Project: "My Year of Shakespeare"

Sam Binder

01 Jan 2026 — 3 min read

Some people like to try to change, fix, or better themselves for a new years resolution. This seems to end in disappointment for a lot of people; maybe that's not surprising, changing a habit is hard.

What I've done since 2023, though, is a New Year's Project.

It feels extremely different than a resolution — I'm not trying to stop doing something, I'm not trying to change my life, I'm just working through something big.

In 2023,

I ate through the entire menu at Maru, the (sadly now-defunct) sushi joint near my house. It took roughly eight months. It was my tuesday/thursday go-to for a quick dinner. One time, I got home from work, took an edible (#1), putzed around for 40 minutes waiting for the edible to kick in; when it didn't, I took another edible (#2) then went to take a shower. During the shower, I completely forgot I took the two previous edibles and decided I was going to take an edible before treating myself to Maru for dinner. So I get out the shower, take a third edible (#3), and walk over to Maru. I order the yellowtail sashimi with jalapenos appetizer as an entree — I guess it's a riff on the Nobu appetizer? — and Chef passes me a seaweed/squid salad. As I finish the salad, as the waitress brings out the appetizer, all three edibles kick in simultaneously. I take a bite of the hamachi, dripping with the imported ponzu, the good stuff, and it's delicious in a way I've never experienced before. It's so good I start crying. I don't remember much after that — paying the bill? getting home? — but I do remember both Chef and the waitress teasing me for crying.

You can see the art I made in 2023 here

In 2024,

I decided I was going to try branching out into new mediums and substrates, like acrylic paint, jackets, and vinyl; dip my toe in on a couple different styles; and start properly cataloging my art. This produced the CityPop series as well as this website.

You can see the art I made in 2024 here

In 2025,

I was a little more ambitious, I tried to do a Pokémon drawing project, three per week. I ended up running out of steam in May (which to me says the project was too close to a change/fix/better style resolution) but I'll be adding those here as members-only posts on Sundays in 2026.

You can see the art I made in 2025 here

This year,

the project is building back a writing habit that has lapsed since I was in undergrad, while addressing a cultural blind-spot: Shakespeare. I've seen and read some of his work before, required reading and such in high school, but I've never really dug in. Each month I'll decide on which adaptations to cover for the subsequent but generally each month will have its own theme/play to cover. I'm aiming for there to be a mix of faithful and transformative adaptations. There'll be a couple non-adaptations thrown in also. January, I'll be covering The Taming of the Shrew.