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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.

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American Vandal: Criminally Good

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September 29, 2018
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Here at Grammatical Art, we love true crime stories in their many forms: TV miniseries, books, podcasts, and Emmy-nominated, Peabody-award-winning documentary parodies.

The first season of American Vandal followed aspiring filmmaker and amateur documentarian Peter Maldonado and his best friend Sam Ecklund as they attempted to exonerate fellow classmate Dylan Maxwell—falsely accused of spray painting 27 dicks on cars in the faculty parking lot—and uncover the identity of the real dick drawer. Season 2 premiered earlier this month, and in a move exemplary of the kind of simple yet genius comedy that makes American Vandal so hilarious, its central mystery revolves around nothing more and nothing less than no. 2.

Fresh off the viral-video fame of their first investigation and now backed by a Netflix production team (yes, they incorporated the show’s Netflix sensation into the premise), Sam and Peter are called in to unmask the anonymous vandal known as the Turd Burglar, responsible for terrorizing a Catholic high school in Bellevue, Washington with not one, but three poop-related crimes, including spiking the cafeteria lemonade with laxatives, leading to a massive, school-wide pooping incident dubbed “the brownout.”

To reveal much more of this season’s plot would be to ruin the delight of watching the mystery unfold because what makes American Vandal so excellent is that—despite (or maybe even because of) its bathroom humor and parody premise—it actually holds up as a compelling entry in the very genre it’s making fun of. Each of the seven episodes leading up to the final eighth episode ends on a cliffhanger that gives you no choice but to press play on the next one. And if season 1 was a scathing indictment of the way the public education system cuts corners and prejudges students, labeling them as worthy or unworthy just so they can promptly give up on them, then season 2 is a hard look at cover-ups, conspiracies, the preferential treatment of athletes as money makers, and the cost of coming of age in the age of social media.

Investigating the poop crimes at a different school where Peter and Sam are outsiders to the social structures of the faculty and student body lends the season more red herrings, more false assumptions, and more plot twists than the show’s first outing. Season 2 could use more of the filmmakers themselves—arguably the strongest and funniest parts of both seasons are the behind-the-scenes moments of Peter and Sam tracking down leads, discussing strategy, and piecing together clues and motives on their crime boards—but when we do see them, the duo shines and the show is as ridiculous and clever as ever.

Is season 2 as funny as season 1? Close, but not quite. At the end of the day, dick drawing just may be inherently funnier than poop pranks, which is not to say season 2 is some kind of sophomore slump. It’s still laugh-out-loud funny, and just like with season 1, when all was revealed and the Turd Burglar was finally unmasked, I was left wanting more. Not because the solve wasn’t satisfying, but because it was just that damn good.

Seasons 1 and 2 of American Vandal are now streaming on Netflix.

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Book Review: Born to Lose

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September 14, 2018
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Stanley B. Hoss doesn’t have the same name recognition as, say, Ted Bundy, and unlike The Stranger Beside Me, you’ve probably never heard of Born to Lose: Stanley B. Hoss and the Crime Spree That Gripped a Nation. But if you’re a fan of true crime, historical nonfiction, edge-of-your-seat thrillers, or all of the above, then it should be next on your to-read list.

Hoss, a burglar and thief from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated to the national stage when he landed himself on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list in the fall of 1969. His crimes—including rape, murder, kidnapping, and breaking out of prison—eventually earned him a life sentence. Four years into that sentence, with the help of two other inmates, Hoss murdered a correctional officer at Western Penitentiary and as a result, was sent to an isolation facility in Philadelphia, where he hanged himself another five years later, in 1978.

Despite the nationwide manhunt, Hoss’s story is very much a small-town one, as much a product of the local social and political climates as his own violent crimes. What makes Born to Lose so fascinating is the way in which completely external factors and seemingly inconsequential details determined the progress of Hoss’s crimes and the outcomes of his arrests, trials, and detainment. The author, James G. Hollock, a Pittsburgher himself, streamlines Hoss’s chaotic, near-senseless actions into a specific—albeit dizzying—timeline, pieced together from previously sealed state and federal documents, police transcripts, court proceedings, and first-hand accounts. Judges, police officers, prison guards, inmates, Hoss’s wife, his mistress—all on-record for the first time, drawing an intimate, chilling portrait of the evil behind the man.

Worried I’ve given too much away? You shouldn’t be. Born to Lose is filled with the kind of insane circumstances and unbelievable coincidences (Edgar Snyder, the Edgar Snyder was Hoss’s public defender) that make reality so much stranger than fiction.

Check it out now.

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Your Guide to: Back-to-School TV

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August 30, 2018
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Whether you’re already in the middle of your second week of classes or counting down the last precious days of summer; whether you’re putting the finishing touches on your classroom or just finding it difficult to resist the allure of the school supplies section of Target, it’s undeniable—that back-to-school feeling is in the air.

And it’s got me thinking—what better way to ring in the new school year than with a mini-marathon of the best in back-to-school episodes TV has to offer?

So sharpen your pencils and take note because we’re counting down the top three in first-day-of-school TV:

#3. “Pilot” Veronica Mars, season 1, episode 1

Between her missing mom, her murdered best friend, the loss of her reputation, and a list of enemies that includes the wealthiest families in town, as well as their extremely popular children, you’d think Veronica Mars would be too beholden to its twentieth-century take on film noir to find any time for levity or laughs. But in an episode that addresses classism, date rape, and the abuse of power by authority, there’s still time for an Ocean’s–11­-worthy heist that all hinges on a custom-made bong and mandatory locker checks. The heist is enough to seal the deal on Veronica’s series’ long friendship with Wallace, score her a whole motorcycle gang of allies, and make you wish you had the connections and savvy to start off your junior year by embarrassing both the jack ass who makes your high school days a living hell and the local sheriff’s department all in one go.

There’s a reason Veronica Mars—both the show and the character—is a fan favorite. Veronica is everything you want in a female lead—clever, gutsy, funny, witty, tough, determined, principled, vulnerable, emotional—and this first episode is the perfect introduction.

#2. “The Lorelais’ First Day at Yale” Gilmore Girls, season 4, episode 2

The transition from high school to college isn’t an easy one to make—in real life or on TV—and yet that’s exactly how the Gilmore girls make it look, transitioning seamlessly (minus an extra mattress or two) from Stars Hollow to Yale, all while maintaining their signature blend of grace, humor, and mother-daughter devotion.

Any one of a dozen different bits could have qualified this episode to make the cut—the absurd hilarity of Paris showing up as Rory’s roommate, Terrence the life coach and craft corner in tow; Lorelai and Luke’s endless (and rather domestic) bickering over the use of his truck; the coining of Copper boom! as the only acceptable way of ending a conversation in a hurry—but what really secures its place on the list is its honest portrayal of the genuine heartache of being separated. Because despite however excited Rory and Lorelai may be for Rory to start Yale, it also means saying goodbye. It doesn’t matter how many years it’s been since you first left home or whether you ever have—watching Rory stand alone in her empty dorm room and Lorelai come home to an empty house is enough to make anyone homesick.

#1. “Pilot” Pretty Little Liars, season 1, episode 1

How could an episode where the guy from the steamy bar bathroom make-out on the last day of summer is revealed to be the hot new English teacher on the first day of school not top the list of best back-to-school episodes?

And that’s all before the opening credits.

There are enough juicy secrets in this first episode of Pretty Little Liars to fill a blog post all on their own, and that’s precisely what makes it so delicious. PLL is everything you wish high school was and everything you’re so grateful it isn’t: Everyone is way more attractive, way more fashionable, and has way less homework, but everyone is also way more deceitful, way more vindictive, and way more suspected of murder.

But it isn’t just the scandal and the now-iconic mystery stalker A that earns Pretty Little Liars the #1 spot on our list; it’s the ride-or-die friendship between the liars themselves: Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily. It doesn’t matter that they start the episode more estranged than ever, driven apart by Allison’s disappearance. When the police find (at least what they think is) Allison’s body, the distance all but evaporates and they pick up right where they left off, bonded by the secrets they’ve sworn to keep, the ones they share, and even the ones they don’t. For friends like that, all the drama seems almost worth it. Almost.

So, what do you think? Too much murder, not enough comedy? Which shows make you think back-to-school?

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You Can Leave That Book Behind

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August 9, 2018
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Consider this the permission you’ve been waiting for: You can stop reading that book you hate.

Maybe you’ve been reading it the last few weeks—or months—but you’re having trouble finishing it because every time you pick it up it puts you to sleep after three paragraphs. Maybe the writing is too dense—or too simple. Maybe you find the main character obnoxious or the point of view is all wrong. Maybe it’s not a genre that interests you.

Maybe you just don’t like it.

At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters. The “why” is irrelevant. You don’t like it. Stop reading it.

And I get it. It can be hard enough admitting that we don’t like a book, let alone putting it down and walking away. Could be a leftover habit from high school, when we didn’t really get a say in what we read or whether we liked it, when we had to finish books. (Although, let’s be honest, anyone who says they never took advantage of SparkNotes or CliffsNotes is obviously lying.) Could be that we feel guilty for not liking it, for so clearly not enjoying someone’s work that we don’t even want to finish it. But we don’t seem to have the same problem turning off a movie or changing the channel to a different TV show.

So what is it about books?

For one thing, books require more of a time commitment than a two-hour movie or a 45-minute TV show, so there’s the mentality that if we don’t finish a book, all the time we already spent reading it was wasted. (The solution to this one, though, is actually a no-brainer. If you already feel like you’re wasting time, don’t waste any more.) And because books are more of a commitment, our reluctance to step away from them could be as easy to explain as the age-old adage: Nobody likes a quitter.

But here’s the thing—books shouldn’t be a commitment. Outside of reading for work or for school, reading shouldn’t be an accomplishment or a task or a chore. It sounds lame and cliché, but reading should be fun.

Should your opinion really change and you find yourself regretting the decision to move on from a book, you can always go back to it. But until then, leave books unfinished—guilt free—and read whatever the hell you want. Whatever genre, whatever style, whatever author you like, so long as it’s just that: something you like.

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Ode to the Mix CD

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July 30, 2018
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My career making mix CDs dates back to the heyday of LimeWire popularity—remember the dark times before iTunes and streaming services—and continues to live on in 2018 because dammit, it’s an art form I believe in.

Before you start, yes, I know playlists exist, and yes, I am aware that playlists are the iPod and post-iPod era answers to the mix CD, much like the mix CD was the post-cassette tape era’s answer to the mix tape. I love a good playlist. I lived through Windows Media Player hell; don’t think I don’t appreciate the ease and simplicity of a playlist, or the fact that any mix CD I make now starts first in that format and then usually ends up back in that same format in someone’s iTunes library or Spotify account.

But mix CDs have something that playlists don’t: constraints.

And while that is a beautiful thing—who wants to be limited to 80 minutes of music—the loss of constraint in many ways has meant a loss of the craft.

Think about it! Think about the way you make a playlist versus the way you slaved over a mix CD. You don’t have to be as particular when you’re making a playlist—you’ve got all the space in the world, and you can always add more songs or delete them. Order doesn’t matter, either, because you’re probably going to throw it on shuffle and call it a day.

The mix CD is finite. You only had room for 18 or 19 songs, 20 max. You had to pick and choose, keep a specific mood or theme or occasion in mind. 8th Grade Dance Mix. Last Mix of ’05. Travel Mix 2007. Totally Kick Ass Mix. 18th Birthday Mix. Camp Pickle Mix.* Order mattered when half the time you couldn’t figure out to work the shuffle function on your discman anyway, and you had to be sure about it: Once burned, it was burned forever.

I’ll concede that technically you can make a playlist while operating under the mix CD mindset, but even so, you’re missing one other thing: the time capsule effect.

It’s true that a playlist can transport you to a time gone by just like an old mix CD can. After all, it’s the music that brings forth the nostalgia more than anything else. But a time capsule doesn’t just make us think of the past, it is the past, unknown contents unearthed in the present. A playlist, on the other hand, is just that: a list. You know what’s on it before you listen.

But mix CDs? With unhelpful titles like Uber Hawt Mix scrawled across them in our 13-year-old, 17-year-old, 21-year-old handwriting? The magic of the mix CD is that they are relics, antiquated technology that somehow survived into the digital age, and a complete mystery, a total surprise, until you load them up and press play.

 

*All real, actual titles of mix CDs currently in my possession.

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Hi! My Name is Natalie, and I am a True Crime Junkie.

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July 23, 2018
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If you follow me on Goodreads or social media, you already know that I’m a lover of everything related to true crime. I love mysteries, and I love a good murder story. If you’re not into murder, you probably think I’m a weirdo; if you’re into murder, you’re nodding your head in agreement because you are a fellow Murderino who understands what I’m saying.

Murder is awful. I do not wish it upon anyone. However, sadly it happens every day, and I want to know how and why it happened. I’m not sure what exactly draws me into these stories, but I think it started at a young age.

When I was younger, I absolutely devoured all of the Nancy Drew books I could find. I actually read all 56 of them! I enjoyed Nancy’s adventures and the tight little bow that wrapped up each investigation into that particular book’s mystery. Once I outgrew the formulaic structure and sophomoric storylines of those books, I graduated to R.L. Stine.

I’m sure I read all of the Goosebumps books, but at the ripe old age of 9, those were much too immature for me. I was drawn to Fear Street. My library had a wonderful wall of Fear Street books, and it called to me.

I spent that entire summer reading every single Fear Street book in the collection. Then I graduated to the Super Chillers and Cheerleader series. I could not get enough of them! Sure, these were fictitious books, but I think this is where my fascination with mysteries and true crime began. I loved losing myself in the story while trying to figure out who the culprit was and what makes him/her tick. I could not get enough of them.

Now that I’m an adult with my own mini-library, the majority of my collection is now of the mystery or true crime genres. I still enjoy losing myself in the puzzle of the story, following the twists and turns the author throws at you. Discovering its pieces throughout the book absolutely feeds my inquisitive, problem solving nature; that’s probably why I love these types of stories so much.

While reading about murder is still my favorite pastime, I’ve also added podcasts to the mix. If you are also into true crime or murder like I am and haven’t checked out My Favorite Murder yet, you should. Georgia Hardstark and Karen Gilgariff do a great job of sharing new murders with you in an entertaining (yet not disrespectful) way. They are true crime junkies, just like us, and they’re not afraid of wearing it on their sleeves.

P.S. You can read Jess’s review of Up and Vanished. Her blog got me hooked on it immediately.

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Adaptation Meloncholia

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July 14, 2018
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As an avid consumer of all things movies, books, TV, and music, I tend to keep myself fairly up-to-date on entertainment news—which of my shows are canceled or renewed or brought back from the dead; when a favorite author or artist is dropping a new book or album; which summer blockbuster hits the big screen when—so imagine my surprise when I click over to YouTube last week and I see Netflix’s new trailer for its small-screen adaptation of Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

Not a press release announcing Netflix had optioned the movie rights, not a casting announcement or even a filming notice—the two-minute-long official trailer, complete with release date. And this was the first I was hearing about it.

Even more to my surprise, I didn’t feel excited. It wasn’t just concern about the quality of the adaptation; I felt disappointed, maybe even a little bit sad. (Maybe more than a little bit sad.)

I read To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, the first in a trilogy, last summer. At the center of the book is 16-year-old Lara Jean, who’s loved exactly five boys in her life. Every time she fell out of love with one of them, she wrote them a letter, expressing her love and why she’d moved on. She sealed it, addressed it, and tucked it away for no one to find—until someone does and mistakenly sends all five out with the mail, delivering her private letters to the very people who were never supposed to read them. What follows is a sweetly romantic, wonderfully heartfelt comedy of errors that would only ever take place within the pages of fiction but is all the more magical because of it.

I liked it enough to run out and buy the sequel as soon as I finished it. It was sugar-spun YA fun, a perfect summer read, and Lara Jean—so patently human, endearingly genuine, and almost painfully earnest—was a narrator I loved spending time with.

So why wasn’t I thrilled to see her brought to life? As much as I loved reading about Lara Jean and her romantic mishaps, I wasn’t anywhere near as attached to her story as I was to, say, Harry Potter or the Hunger Games, and I was over the moon about the announcements of those adaptations.

But a book doesn’t have to be a favorite for us to feel connected to it, and unlike the Hunger Games and Harry Potter, no one in my immediate social circle had read To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. I experienced it entirely alone, and Lara Jean’s journey—a very personal one—became personal to me as I read it.

Seeing that trailer on YouTube, a promo for the movie’s wide release, robbed me a little of that feeling.

Reading is, after all, an individual activity, even when we talk about it with our friends and family. What we imagine when we read—the way we imagine it, the way we react to it—all belongs solely to us, in that moment and after we close the book. Sometimes that experience runs so deep, so true, that we want it to stay that way—between us and the page—forever.