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Give A Little Love

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February 7, 2020
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Oh, Valentine’s Day. Heralded as a holiday for romance when really, it’s a chance to celebrate all the love in our lives! No matter who you’re sending valentines to this February 14, we’ve got the perfect way to say I love you.

Invoke a little nostalgia: For all the 80s and 90s kids now grown-up, this 8-bit heart tee is sure to bring back memories of their first love—video games.

Remind them it’s what’s on the inside that counts: Nothing’s more attractive than intellect; it’s why you fell in love with them in the first place! Say it with a bright, colorful tee or an elegant tote.

Make science romantic: This pretty pink print reflects what we all know to be true: Love is at the center of everything.

Wear your heart on your sleeve: The human heart is a work of art. Show off the true beauty of your heart with our anatomical tees.

Tell them you’re thinking of them, no matter how far away you are from home: Give Mom and Dad another handwritten note for the scrapbook with our “favorite” line of greeting cards. (Psst. Find another print you want to send as a card? No problem! All prints can be customized as greeting cards right here.)

Let love shine: Love is worth its weight in gold. Make your sweetheart stand out from the crowd in this gold-foil tee.

Show up for your friends: Who’s to say friendship isn’t true love? Difficult times may come and go, but true friendship lasts forever. Tell them you’ll always be there with this stellar lunar print.

Treat yourself: Self-love is as important as any other kind of love! Love yourself absolutely with our absolute love tote.

And last but not least, the thing everyone needs on Valentine’s Day:

Because it’s a possessive, not a plural! It’s the day of Saint Valentine himself, and proper grammar is the best way to show you care. ?

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A Beginner’s Guide to Reading Poetry

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February 20, 2019
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When was the last time you read any poetry? Let me guess, years ago, and it was for some sort of assignment, am I right?

Poetry is as rich and diverse a genre as any other, so if you’re not reading it, you’re missing out. And, just like with other genres, while not every author (or poet, in this case) is for everyone, for everyone there is a poet.

But poetry, as a whole, can be…intimidating. Or at the very least, elusive. How do you even go about reading it? Where do you start? (If there aren’t any chapters, where do you stop?) When your experience with poetry is reading the odd, singular poem every once in a while so you could write an essay about it, the transition to reading a whole book of them for fun can be hard to navigate.

Luckily for you, I’ve broke it down into five simple steps:

  • Step 1. Read what you like.

This is always my number one rule for reading anything: Read what appeals to you, what interests you. If you’re into the classics—Yeats, Whitman, Wordsworth, Frost, Dickinson, Keats—then read the classics. But don’t pick up Shakespeare’s sonnets because you think you should. (Or because it’s the only name you know.)

Instagram is a great place to find more modern poetry and current authors (check out #poetry, #poet, #poetryofinstagram, and #poetrycommunity), or just go to your local library or favorite bookstore’s poetry section and start pulling books off the shelf. You’ll be able to tell at a glance (one of the benefits of short form) if it suits you.

  • Step 2. Skip the massive volumes.

If the poet you want to read has more than one published collection, you’ve got a decision to make: which one? It might seem like the easiest, most sensible answer is to go with their entire collected works—or, if they’re still living and writing, their collected works from a certain decade or their most popular volumes all-in-one—but don’t do it.

It’s exciting at first maybe, but eventually, it’ll become overwhelming. Endless. Time consuming and tedious in a way that sucks all the enjoyment out of it. Besides, if nothing else, it’s just way too much book to carry around.

Choose a single collection. Want to know what their early work was like? Pick up their first book; read from the beginning. Google your poet. Which book is their most popular, most revered? Many books of poetry are broken into parts; check out the section headings, get an idea of the collection’s themes. Is there one volume that fits your mood better than the others? Start anywhere, but start small.

  • Step 3. Remember: It’s not school.

You open the book, read a poem—and then what?

You keep reading. It’s that simple.

You don’t need to pick it apart, map out its rhyme scheme, or analyze its use of literary devices on a word, sound, and sentence level. Just read it. If it really strikes a chord with you, read it again; otherwise, onto the next.

  • Step 4. Relax. It’s not a novel; so what?

Don’t worry about reading too many poems in one sitting. You don’t need to commit them to memory, to remember each individual poem when you’re done. And it’s easy to feel like you should. I mean, if you can recall the plot after you read a book, shouldn’t you be able to recall the poems?

Well, no. Because poems are not plot, and poetry is not a novel. It’s a completely different form. What you take away from it will be different, too. The things it made you think about; the new insights into yourself, people you know, people you don’t know; the way it made you feel—those things will stick with you even when the specific words don’t.

So just read it. Let it wash over you. Enjoy it. And then—

  • Step 5. Go read some more.
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The Punisher Season 2: Brutal But Good

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January 31, 2019
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Considering that three of the five Netflix Marvel shows have been canceled in the last six months, I suppose it’s not really much of a competition anymore, but since the fate of The Punisher is still up in the air, it’s worth saying: If the first season made it a contender, then the second season settles it. The Punisher is the best show in the Marvel Netflix Universe.

Season 2 picks up a year after the events of season 1 and finds Frank—having untangled the conspiracy that led to the murder of his wife and kids—on the road in the Midwest, new, squeaky-clean identity in tow, trying his hand at an everyman existence. It almost seems like he might be able to make it work, too, until Frank crosses paths with Amy, a teenager caught in the middle of something bad, something much bigger than her, and Frank can’t help but get involved. Despite the distance and his best intentions, he can’t seem to leave his alter ego behind; it’s an itch that needs to be scratched. He’s still haunted by the death of his family and what it revealed: He’s good at putting people down, and he likes doing it.

Frank isn’t the only one being haunted this season. Curtis’s old life keeps getting in the way as he tries to build a new one; Billy is tormented by his shattered memories; and Dinah by Billy himself, by their past relationship and the lies and trauma she suffered at his hands.

The sophomore outing feels less like a second season and more like a second chapter, the harsh reality of what comes next after a seemingly tidy ending. Because of course—there are no endings. The hardest part is to keep going. Too often shows skip past this—the messy aftermath—willing to subject their characters to trauma, but preferring to gloss over the fallout, the healing process, the ways trauma changes you. The show has plenty of shots to take—at the religious right, Russian colluders, homophobia, pedophilia, Nazis, people who use their money to buy Congress—but amidst the violence you’d expect from a show called The Punisher, it gives its characters room to breathe. To grieve, mourn, struggle. To feel fear, to act out, to ask themselves who they want to be. It’s the kind of thoughtful, nuanced writing that made the show shine in its first season, and it’s still on display here.

Notably absent from season 2 is Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s charismatic David Lieberman, but the show makes up for it by showcasing the dynamic between Frank and Curtis and giving more screen time to the excellent Jason R. Moore, who plays Curtis with the perfect combination of compassion, frustration, pragmatism, humor, pain, and sadness that makes him the show’s true moral compass. The lack of Karen Page this season is a loss, but the scenes between Deborah Ann Woll and Jon Bernthal remain some of the most captivating, compelling, and emotionally rich scenes on the show, and the connection that we do get to see develop, between Frank and Amy—funny, smart, and sarcastic in her own right, all while remaining believably young and naïve—is a worthy, heartbreaking addition, a stark reminder of the father Frank was and never got the chance to be.

Without the singular purpose of taking out the people responsible for murdering his family, the second season feels slightly unmoored. But then again, so is Frank. The more he feels like he’s the only one capable of stopping the people hunting Amy, of bringing a final end to Billy, the more he pushes people away. Cuts himself off from his humanity, resigned to live as a weapon. The question this season seems to be: What kind of future does Frank want? If an undeniable part of him is the Punisher, is there a way for him to live with both sides of himself?

By the end of the season, Frank’s answer is definitively “no,” but there’s something unfinished about it. His answer may be “never,” but the showrunners seems to be saying not right now, or even perhaps—hopefully, tentatively—not yet. It’s as painful a conclusion for Frank to come to as it is to watch, but not in a way that makes you want to look away. If anything, it draws you in, makes you root for him and keeps you wanting more, longing for the next chapter where maybe, finally, Frank can get it right.

Seasons 1 and 2 of The Punisher are now streaming on Netflix.

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Let’s Get Loud*

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January 13, 2019
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A few months ago, I wrote a review for the true crime novel Born to Lose (check it out here), but what I didn’t mention was that I read the entire novel out loud. All four hundred pages of it.

And I don’t mean I read it out loud to myself. I had an audience (of one)—my mother.

She was with me when I picked the book up from the library. Since she loves true crime even more than I do, and it was a book neither of us had previously heard of, I read the summary on the back of the book to her. It apparently was enough to pique her interest because when I opened the book to start reading it—silently, to myself, as one would do normally—she said, “You can read it out loud if you want.”

We read the first five chapters that day.

By the time you’ve read five chapters out loud, you’ve committed.

After that first day, we read about twenty pages per day (I was on a time table to finish it by my Battle of the Books tournament). Sometimes while my mom was cooking or crocheting; sometimes while we just sat in the living room together, doing nothing but reading and listening. The last book my mom and I had read out loud together was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone while I was still in elementary school, but we enjoyed reading Born to Lose together so much, we did it again, a few months later. (That time with Killers of the Flower Moon, another true crime novel I highly recommend.)

The days of reading aloud seem to disappear as we get older, which makes sense—we become confident individual readers; we develop varied interests. It’s also a consequence of the reality of adult life. Our schedules are busier, harder to coordinate; we have more responsibilities. It’s harder to carve out time to read at all.

But if you can swing it, it’s worth making it happen. Reading a book out loud with another person is another way to share a story—every plot twist, every reveal, every reaction—that doesn’t involve a screen. It’s your monthly book club, in real time. It’s different than listening to a podcast and less polished than listening to an audiobook. (Laughing at butchered mispronunciations is half the fun.) It takes a solitary activity and turns it into an experience you share. It makes you the storyteller.

As the weather gets colder and we head into the dreary dead of winter, it’s the perfect time to curl up with a good book, but you don’t have to do it alone. Grab your roommate, your best friend, your partner, your parents or your kids, and dive right in.

*If this song is now stuck in your head, I’m not sorry.

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Your New Year’s Reading Resolution

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December 30, 2018
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I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. They’ve always felt like goals that set us up for failure rather than success. That run away from us and get way too ambitious. Admirable, but not practical.

But last year, I made one anyway, a New Year’s resolution to read a certain number of books by the end of 2018.

With one day left on the calendar, I’m not going to make it. By more than one book. More than a couple of books. I realized this over a month ago, that given how slowly I read and how busy the end of the year always is (no matter how much I try to get done ahead of time) that there was no way I was going to reach my goal.

I’ve talked before on this blog about how reading should be fun and absolutely NOT a chore, and I know—the idea of setting a goal to read x number of books in y amount of time sounds completely antithesis to that. I mean, doesn’t it take the joy out of reading to make it something you can fail at?

But here’s the thing about a reading goal: Even if you don’t read the number of books you set out to, you’ll still have read however many books you did read. My goal wasn’t there to stress me out, it was there to keep me reading. It encouraged me to pick up a book instead of turning on the TV or scrolling through social media. And with that goal in mind, I probably read more in the last year than I would have otherwise.

I’m not saying we should only set goals we know we can achieve or that we should avoid challenging ourselves just so we don’t fail, but too often, New Year’s resolutions can become twisted ways to be mean to ourselves, to pick apart all the things we don’t like and set about trying to fix them, all in one swoop.

This year, do yourself a kindness. Set a reading goal. You deserve something that will be good for you, no matter what the outcome.

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Ho Merry Ho: The Best in Christmas TV

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December 14, 2018
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You know the old saying: so much TV, so little time.

With only two weekends left until Christmas, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to watch all the Christmas episodes TV has to offer (plus, you know, do all the other things on your holiday to-do list).

Luckily for you, I’ve narrowed it down to the three most essential Christmas TV episodes. If you’ve only got time to press play on a few, make it these three:

#3. “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” Grey’s Anatomy, season 2, episode 12

Meredith, Christina,George, and Izzie playing patient for Alex. Christina and Burke battling it out over Santa Claus. George finally getting to tell the most annoying family in America to shut the hell up. Bailey’s unglamorized portrayal of pregnancy. 
The longing between Meredith and Derek, the hurt between Alex and Izzie, the unbreakable kinship between the interns. “Because it’s what Jesus would FREAKING do!”

Pick any one of the plotlines in this episode, and it would be enough to earn it a spot on this list. (Honestly, the soundtrack alone ranks it in the top three. Don’t believe me? Check out this cover of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.)

But it’s that ineffable Grey’s quality that really makes this episode stand out—the way that, even though on paper we might have nothing in common with these characters, they seem to speak some truth about our own lives. It’s an episode that reflects back what the holidays really feel like—stressful and exhausting, overburdened by emotional baggage—and still leaves us believing in the possibility of magic, even if it’s just the twinkling of colored lights on the Christmas tree.

#2. “Classy Christmas, Parts 1 & 2” The Office, season 7, episodes 11-12

Over the course of its nine seasons, The Office produced more than one great Christmas episode, but this two-parter is by far its greatest.

The epic snowball fight between Dwight and Jim—which starts with one innocent snowball (“it’s only a dusting”) and ends with a crazed Jim smashing snowmen in the parking lot—is one of the best series of pranks the show has ever done. Dwight leaping out of the very first snowman? The wigs? The first time I watched this episode, I laughed so hard I woke up my roommate.

As with any truly excellent episode of The Office, it’s not just the hijinks that make it so worth watching. It’s the show’s heart, the way this group of misfits genuinely cares for each other—Erin’s defense of Michael, Pam and Andy’s attempts to help Darryl salvage Christmas with his daughter, the annual gift exchange and further proof that Pam and Jim belong together. The way Michael pulls himself out of his emotional upheaval over Holly’s return to re-don his Santa costume so Darryl’s daughter can tell Santa what she wants for Christmas.

If you’ve got the holiday blues, this is the only episode you need to cheer you up.

#1. “The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee” Sports Night, season 1, episode 11

You might have missed the short-lived Aaron Sorkin workplace comedy about a nightly sports news broadcast when it first aired in the late 90s, but it’s worth tracking it down and catching up.

The main story of this episode is that of Roland Shepherd, a black college athlete who is suspended from his team after he refuses to play as long as the school flies the Confederate flag outside the football stadium. It’s more than just his starting position at risk: If he doesn’t play, he loses his scholarship, and if he loses his scholarship, he’ll be forced to drop out of college, the first person in his family ever able to attend. Roland Shepherd may be a fictional character, but his story—of racism and protest in the context of sports—is not, and the episode is sadly as relevant as ever.

Deftly written and superbly acted, the episode’s shining moment is the editorial comment delivered on air by the broadcast’s managing editor (the phenomenal Robert Guillaume) in which he calls for the network’s owner—a distinguished alumni of the school in question, a man with the privilege and influence to make a difference—to stand with Roland. To do what is right and demand the flag be taken down and Roland reinstated.

Over twenty years later, it’s a powerful reminder of how much the world hasn’t changed and how much we have left to do. If there’s one episode of television that truly captures the Christmas spirit, it’s this one.

So, what do you think? Total blasphemy to quote Riverdale in the title but not include it on the list? Which Christmas episodes are your must-watch every year?

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What Is Your Etymology, Heather?*

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November 29, 2018
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Change is in the air: Winter is coming, the new year approaches, and here at Grammatical Art, we’ve got new colors for all our v-neck and crew neck tees.

Of course, change doesn’t happen without a little elbow grease, so a couple of weeks ago, we rolled up our sleeves and revamped our shop with all our new offerings: heathered red, heathered pink, heathered blush, heathered blue, heathered green, heathered purple, heathered navy, heathered gray, heathered slate… (Plus a few solid colors.)

You know when you say a word so many times it loses all meaning?

I typed the word “heathered” so many times that I skipped right past the meaningless stage and wandered into where-the-hell-did-this-word-even-come-from territory.

It should come as a surprise to no one that my innocent query eventually led to me hunched over the fine print of my dictionary. (That’s right, friends, I went old school for this one.)

Heathered comes from the adjective heathery, first used in 1535 to describe anything that resembled—yep, you guessed it—heather. Heather (noun) refers to heath (scientific name Calluna vulgaris), a plant native to northern and western Europe. Small and shrub-like, its skyward-facing stems are covered in small flowers that range from purple to pink, the two colors often bleeding into one another on the same petal.

And so heathery came not only to describe anything that resembled heath, but also those things that had flecks of various colors in them, particularly—drumroll please—fabrics.

The more you know.

You can check out all our flecked fabrics and the rest of our new colors for both our v-neck and crew neck styles below. Which one is your new fave?

*Title credit: Winona Ryder, c. 1989. Obviously.

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Your 2018 Holiday Shopping Guide!

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November 19, 2018
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The countdown to Christmas has officially begun. Believe it or not, we’re only five weeks away.

If you’re anything like me and still wondering where October went, you might be a little behind on your holiday prep. But don’t worry, just in time for the biggest shopping weekend of the year, we’ve put together our first ever holiday shopping guide. Here at Grammatical Art, we’ve got you covered—no matter who’s on your Christmas list.

The Chef:  Skip the cookbook this year. Our kitchen towels are the perfect blend of art and science, guaranteed to be a unique addition to any cook’s kitchen. Check out all the fruits and veggies to choose from here.

The Activist:  The midterms may be over, but the fight rages on. Choose from our line of activism apparel and give the gift of resistance. My favorite? Our Stand Up. Speak Up. Resist. Repeat. hoodie, perfect for keeping warm during those winter marches.

The Book Lover:  Okay, so maybe this isn’t limited to just one person on your list. Starting Thursday, all apparel and totes are buy-two-get-one-free through Monday, so get one for the whole gang! Good thing the library never goes out of style.

The Coffee Fiend:  This silver foil mug will keep the coffee flowing and double as a warning on those dreary Monday mornings. Don’t send them to work without it.

The friend constantly begging you to listen to Serial and My Favorite Murder:  Chances are they’re also addicted to Making a Murderer, The Keepers, and The Staircase. It’s okay. The first step is admitting there’s a problem. The second step is getting them this t-shirt.

Your niece, the Future Astronaut, who asked for a telescope $300 out of your price range:  You can’t buy her land on the moon or a ticket to mars, but you can let her know that she’s got what it takes. Support your favorite STEM girl with a print, a tee, or a tote.

Your nephew, who’s going through an intense dinosaur phase:  Be the cool one this Christmas. Our dino prints are sure to brighten up any room and spark the imagination. (Real dinosaurs not included.)

Your mom, who can’t help but correct your grammar mid-sentence while you’re catching up on the phone:  You know it. She knows it. Make the title official with this Grammar Queen tote bag. Long may she reign.

Your friend’s new baby because you can’t not get them something for their very first Christmas:  Proper grammar starts young. Our signature WHOM owl is available in sizes newborn through 24 months and looks even cuter printed on a onesie.

Your BFF, to let them know they’re more than they give themselves credit for:  Remind your bestie just how amazing they are and send them off into 2019 with good vibes in this gold foil tee designed to stand out.

Your teacher/your kid’s teacher/your friend The Teacher:  Tis the season to show our educators a little extra love. Our 2019 calendar is the educational gift that keeps on giving and makes for colorful classroom art even after the year is up.

And something for you!  Because you deserve a little something, too, after all this hard work, treat yourself to your own personalized tote! Hey, you’re gonna need something to carry all these presents, anyway. It’s only practical.

Happy shopping!

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Why We (Still) Love Hocus Pocus

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October 31, 2018
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At first glance, Hocus Pocus is filled with the kind of elements that make your favorite childhood movie cringeworthy as you—and the movie—get older: over-the-top theatrics, 90s-era special effects, a live-action talking cat, a musical number for no explicit reason other than Bette Midler is the one singing, and a cast of protagonists made up of then-unknown child actors. No way anyone predicts this movie ages well, let alone spends the next 25 years garnering the almost cult-like obsession of an entire generation.

But that’s exactly what it did.

And so you have to ask: Why Hocus Pocus? What’s so special about it that it earned the status of pop culture icon? How in the hell did this movie become the premier Halloween family film—over It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and Garfield’s Halloween—with its own 24-hour movie marathon? Is it simply the power of nostalgic devotion? Is it the joy of watching A-list stars abandon their serious acting chops for the opportunity to let loose and have fun? Maybe it’s that there’s never been another movie quite like it, or that it goes all-in on its premise and makes no apologies for doing so.

Sure. It’s all of those things. But there are other movies (other Halloween movies) that fit that bill that don’t have the massive, widespread staying power of Hocus Pocus. Because here’s the real magic of Hocus Pocus: It’s—gasp!—actually a good movie.

Before you go laughing me out of town, hear me out: I’m not saying it was robbed of an award for Best Picture; I’m just saying—it holds up.

Because, yes, it is anchored by A-list stars, and the unknowns went on to have substantial acting careers. (Don’t believe me? Look up Jay and Ernie on IMDB. And Billy? You probably most recently saw Doug Jones as the fish god in The Shape of Water.) In grand 90s children’s movie tradition, it is both way too dark for its intended audience (the movie starts with a hanging, includes an attempt to burn people alive in an oven, and—oh yeah—its central premise revolves around eating children) and way too inappropriate (at least half the jokes go over your head as a kid), which means watching it as an adult is like seeing a whole new movie.

You have to give credit where credit is due. As a “film,” it hits so many beats so right: a lively, scarier-the-more-you-think-about-it story, totally unique characters, redemptive plot arcs, and a stronger sense of place, mood, tone, and myth than any ten movies you might list off the top of your head. It’s legitimately funny, surprisingly clever, and infinitely quotable. And it isn’t all spooky ridiculousness. As much as we root for the fledgling romance between Max and Allison, at its core, Hocus Pocus is about the deep and binding love between siblings. Max ultimately sacrifices himself for Dani—not Allison—saving his younger sister where Thackery Binx couldn’t, and Binx spends 300 years as a cat waiting for the day he can finally get revenge for his sister’s death and be reunited with her in the afterlife.

That’s a lot of heart for a movie that coined the term “yabos.” It’s no wonder the Hocus Pocus phenomenon lives on.

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In Defense of the Thesaurus

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October 22, 2018
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I’m calling it. It’s time to confront our bias against the thesaurus.

It doesn’t matter if what’s keeping you from picking up a thesaurus is that you think “real” writers don’t need them or that using one makes you a bad writer; it’s two sides of the same coin, really. And it’s no mystery where the distaste comes from: We all remember that obnoxious kid in our high school English class who never met a four-syllable word they weren’t immediately desperate to use to prove once and for all how worldly and intellectual they were now that they’d turned fifteen. You know who I’m talking about. The kid who called it a “conflagration simulation” instead of a fire drill.

Nobody wants to be that kid. There’s a reason “sounds like somebody was reading the dictionary again” is an insult.

But most of us are way past the days of five paragraph essays and the PSATs. You’re not in any danger of becoming that kid. It’s time to revisit the thesaurus.

For one thing, I can almost guarantee your vocabulary is much improved since high school. Your primary motive in looking up a synonym probably isn’t going to be to show off or score a better grade. It’s way more likely that you’re thinking of a particular word, and it’s like this word, but not that word exactly.

Go to your thesaurus. Chances are it’s gonna be listed under that word that’s close but not quite it.

But the real magic of the thesaurus is that it’s the perfect brainstorming tool when you know what you want to say, but you don’t know how you want to say it.

We’re all taught when we’re younger that the dictionary is the holy grail of writing resources. Not to knock the dictionary—I mean, there’s no thesaurus without a dictionary, and you can’t know if you’ve found the right word if you don’t know what it means—but just like it’s kind of hard to look up a word you don’t know how to spell, it’s hard to look up a word when you don’t even know what word you’re looking for.

With a thesaurus, you don’t need to. Pick a word in the general vicinity of what you think you want to say, and go from there. Think of it like wiki hopping, but for words: You start looking up synonyms of synonyms, and four or five rounds later, you might be nowhere near where you started, but you’ve probably landed somewhere way more interesting. With a better, more precise, more vivid word than whatever you were going to use as a substitute.