besieged with orders". Rees released a book entitled How to Sharpen Pencils in April 2012. The New York Times called it a methodical, deliberate and gleeful subversion and satire that "capture[s] the inherently joyless tedium of conveying specialized instructional information, while tipping off the reader that the cod liver oil is laced with laughing gas." It noted the book contains sections such as a list of common and uncommon children’s names, a comparison of the taste of certain wines versus the taste of certain pencils, and a guide to impressions of Sean Connery and Robert De Niro, but the review also noted that you can actually use the book to learn how to sharpen pencils. In 2016 he announced that he would be raising his price per pencil to $500 and said he did not know if anyone would accept the new price. Television and podcasting In July 2014 the TV show Going Deep with David Rees launched on the National Geographic Channel. The show featured Rees humorously investigating the science and process behind very basic tasks such as making ice, lighting matches and the tying of shoelaces. For the second season, the show moved to the Esquire Network. Rees hosts the weekly podcast Election Profit Makers with his childhood friend Jon Kimball and Starlee Kine in which they discuss the prediction market website PredictIt.org. The podcast first appeared as a series of 17 episodes before the 2016 U.S. presidential election and returned in the months before the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Rees co-created the animated television series Dicktown with John Hodgman, and starred as the character David Purefoy. It was released in 2020. Dicktown was renewed for a second season, which premiered in 2022. Music In late 2014 via his SoundCloud page, Rees released Aphex Swift, a collection of eight songs that combined the vocals of Taylor Swift and the electronic music of Aphex Twin. The collection received positive mentions ranging from The Verge, which called it "bizarrely good", to The A.V. Club and Time. In 2021, Rees released his first album of original noise music titled, YOU AINT GOIN NOWHERE, on the flower sounds music label. Writing and blogging Over his career Rees has written for a variety of publications. Since May 2005, Rees has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. In 2013, Rees began writing for Wired's first scripted web series Codefellas. Personal life Rees