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How to Become a Puzzle Lover

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June 24, 2018
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Say the word puzzle, and I feel like most people conjure up images of a group of octogenarians, dressed in beige, sitting around a table in a drab nursing home, working on a nature scene of a lake. There’s some tall reeds and usually a duck. Or maybe they picture a group of children, ages 7-10, who’d rather be anywhere else doing literally anything else, moping their way through a jigsaw puzzle of brightly colored fish because it’s raining outside. Also, at least three pieces are missing, so they can’t even finish it.

Be honest, is that what popped into your head when you first read the title of this post?

Well, today, I’m here to set the record straight: Puzzles aren’t just for old people or rainy days. They don’t have to be boring, and if you store the pieces in a plastic bag and then put that bag in the box, you’re much less likely to lose them.

Let me tell you what puzzles are: Puzzles are Frosted Flakes. They’re GREAT.

First, disabuse yourself of the notion that all puzzles look like suitable cover copies of a Henry David Thoreau novel. It’s 2018. You can make your puzzle experience look like anything you want. Marvel, Disney, maps, spot-the-difference pictures, nature scenes you actually want to look at—the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, volcanoes erupting in the Hawaiian Islands. I even have a custom, Band of Brothers-themed puzzle. (A Christmas gift from a friend; I have a well-known puzzle obsession, which I’m sure you never would have guessed.)

And sure, puzzles are great at occupying your time when it’s raining outside and you want to be on the beach or by the pool, but they’re also perfect for those days that you just want to stay inside because global warming is real and it’s hotter than hell.

Need some quiet, meditative time? Break out a puzzle. Need something to do with your hands while you listen to the latest episode of your favorite podcast? Puzzle. Too tired to read before bed, but don’t want to risk that blue light from your phone or your TV screwing up your REM cycle? Sift through a few pieces of that puzzle. Early morning and you’re still waking up with that Folgers in your cup? P-U-Z-Z-L-E.

Because if the first secret to loving puzzles is finding the right subject, then the second is to plan to not do it all at once. Puzzling is great any time, but it’s not so great when it’s all the time. Unlike both seasons of Stranger Things, puzzling is not best when binged. That’s why they invented puzzle mats. Feeling frustrated? Not getting anywhere? Drop the puzzle piece. Walk away. Come back when you’re feeling it again. There’s something so immensely satisfying about suddenly finding that one piece the next time you drop by to look for it. Trust me.

Which brings us to secret #3: Embrace the simple.

Puzzling has a ton of benefits—it exercises both sides of the brain, improves our memory, produces dopamine, reduces stress—but the real draw is much less complicated than that. Puzzles give us the rules we don’t get in life but wish for: Here’s the big picture before you start. Trial and error? Ultimately the only way to succeed. All the pieces will fit. Guaranteed.

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Review: Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger

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June 10, 2018
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To say that I’ve been eagerly anticipating the premiere of Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger since the series’ order was first announced in April 2016 would be a massive understatement. In fact, you could say that it’s impossible for my excitement for this show to be overstated.

Maybe this calls the objectivity of my review into question, but I would argue it actually makes me a tougher critic. I’m hopelessly terrible at keeping my expectations in check, so my hype for this show? It was high. Way high. Almost alarmingly so.

Boy was I ever not let down.

In case, unlike me, you haven’t watched the trailer a dozen times (lowball estimate) on YouTube, here’s what you need to know: Cloak & Dagger follows Tyrone Johnson (spoiler alert: cloak) and Tandy Bowen (hint: dagger), two teenagers living in New Orleans who first meet as children the night they each suffer a traumatic loss that alters the course of their lives. Eight years later, they bump into each other again—at a party, innocuously enough—a reunion that sparks the discovery of their powers: Tyrone can teleport, and Tandy can turn light into daggers.

Come for the bomb ass set of powers; stay for literally everything else.

Aubrey Joseph and Olivia Holt are perfectly cast as Tyrone and Tandy—young enough to be believable as teenagers; old enough to pull off dynamic, emotional performances. The look on each of their faces as they recognize the other from a night they weren’t entirely certain was real is enough to break anyone’s heart.

The smartest move the show makes, however, is in keeping its stars separated. Tandy and Tyrone spend most of the first two episodes apart, their lives paralleled as we watch them live the same hours of each day—giving the show a chance to establish their two main characters individually, and the audience a chance to become invested in each of them independent of the other.

Which is not to say the chemistry between the two of them isn’t enough to have you on the edge of your seat until they meet again.

Without the ABC Family logo in the corner, Freeform seems more than ready to address our 2018 reality: racism; rape culture; prescription drug abuse; police corruption and police violence, especially against the black community. The show’s coverage of these topics is neither gratuitous nor exploitative; it isn’t in-depth enough to derail its plot, and it’s never in danger of becoming an after-school special. But it grounds an unreal situation in a harsh reality, willing to face up to our issues rather than deny they exist.

The pacing is tight, the secondary characters interesting, and the special effects way better than you’d expect this side of cable TV. It has an amazing soundtrack, which we all know is the mark of a truly great show, and enough surrounding mysteries to keep you on your toes without distracting you from why we’re all really here: the connection between Tandy and Tyrone; their new powers and the link between them—and all the ways we don’t even know they need each other yet.

If you’re looking for a new summer obsession, congratulations. You’ve found it.*

 

*Cloak & Dagger airs Thursdays at 8 pm EST on Freeform.

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Get Ready to Battle

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June 1, 2018
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Growing up with a librarian for a mom means attending 90 percent of the library programming for your age group (not that I’m complaining). Growing up with a best friend whose mom is also a librarian means spending a lot of time at those programs together.

So when that friend becomes a librarian herself and finds out the main city library is hosting one of your favorite programs from when you were kids but for adults, she signs you up without even asking.

Which is how, last summer, I came to participate in the first ever adult Battle of the Books in my area.

Not familiar with Battle of the Books? Take your basic bar trivia night and add a reading list.

Teams of 3-5 sign up to read a list of 6-10 books, then meet a few months later for the main event. The battle is usually three themed rounds—people, places, and events—during which you’re asked multiple questions about each of the books. The team with the most points at the end of all three rounds—and usually a bonus round—wins.

(Pro tip: No one is ever able to read the whole list and keep all of the books straight, so don’t even try. How you split up the books is up to you, but it’s a smart move to double up on readers for each of the titles.)

My team competed in another battle this spring, and we’re getting ready to sign up for a third in a couple of weeks. Between the two tournaments, I was responsible for reading five books I wouldn’t have otherwise read—two on my to-read list I had never gotten around to, and three I never would have picked up on my own. I’ve made three new friends (aside from my BFF, I didn’t know the other members of my team before we became teammates) and even taken home a third-place prize. (Humble brag.)

It’s not really about the points or the prizes, of course, so much as it’s about reading new books and—as corny as it sounds—having fun. It’s another way to interact with books that’s different from your average book club.

If you’re looking to challenge yourself to read more this summer—or you just can’t decide what to read—check out your local library and see what they have to offer.

After all, we may be done with grade school and book reports, but we’re never too old for summer reading.

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Books Were Made to Be Broken

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May 21, 2018
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When I was younger, I worried a lot about keeping my books in pristine condition. No bent spines, no wrinkled pages, no folded corners, and no torn dust jackets. I wanted my books to look nice, as if how nice they looked was a direct reflection of how well I took care of them, and in turn, how much I cared about them.

The first book I properly trashed as an adult was my hardcover copy of The Hunger Games. I bought it for myself on a weekend shopping trip a few weeks into my freshman year of college. It was a story I could read over and over again without losing interest, which is how I ended up carrying it in my backpack every day for the entire fall semester a year later. Because you know what couldn’t hold my interest? Anthropology. The Hunger Games was my cure for perpetual narcolepsy during the six hours I spent in two anthropology classes each week—in a class of thirty students in a lecture hall with seats for a hundred, there’s nowhere you can fall sleep where the professor won’t see you.

A semester spent at the bottom of my backpack wasn’t enough to ruin it, but it took the shine off. Scuffed the edges, dirtied the pages, ripped the jacket. And I was upset about it. This book I loved—that helped me survive the consequences of my misguided thinking that anthropology was the major for me—and I wrecked it.

I ended up carting that copy of The Hunger Games to and from school all four years of undergrad. And somewhere along the way, I stopped lamenting its sorry state. It wasn’t a wreck; it was a reminder. Not of a crappy semester when I took a couple of classes I hated, but of a semester when that book went everywhere with me. Because it saved me.

Use isn’t destruction. It’s a memory: The greasy sunblock stains in my copy of Persuasion a testament to the week I spent reading it at the beach; the chocolate smudge in my copy of The Fault in Our Stars evidence of the days I spent reading it on my lunch break. The broken binding in my favorite Eloisa James novel proof of the number of times my sister and I traded it back and forth to reread it.

My books hold a lot of value, but they aren’t valuables. They aren’t precious because they look pretty on a shelf and wearing them out doesn’t mean that I don’t love them.

It just means that I do.

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The Moms Have It

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May 13, 2018
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I studied biology in school for the same reason I studied writing, though I doubt anyone would have believed me: because I love stories. And biology has some of the best stories to tell, the kind that are too strange and too unlikely to be anything but true.

Today, in honor of Mother’s Day, I want to tell you a story about mitochondria, which is really a story about moms.

Here’s what you need to know about the mitochondria: You have as many as one thousand of them in each of your cells. They’re shaped like a kidney bean and produce all the energy your cells need to function. They have their own DNA expressly for this purpose, and that’s where our story begins.

Not to invoke any traumatic flashbacks to seventh grade sex ed or anything, but: egg + sperm = embryo. Embryo divides and becomes fetus; fetus grows and becomes baby.

But here’s the thing about sperm: They’re really just a DNA transportation system. They deliver one full copy of the genome to the egg—egg is fertilized; egg divides—but that’s all they bring. So every other part of the cell—the Golgi body, the endoplasmic reticulum (yes, these are real names), and the mitochondria—comes from mom.

Point being: Dad’s mitochondria? Never passed down. So the DNA inside his mitochondria? Also not passed down. And because the DNA in our mitochondria hangs out there instead of in the nucleus, it never mixes with any of dad’s other DNA, either.

We inherit an exact copy of our mother’s mitochondrial DNA, and our mother’s only. Which means we share that exact copy with all of our relatives connected to us through our mothers. This is called maternal inheritance, and here’s what it means:

I have the same mitochondrial DNA as my mother and all of her siblings, and also both of my siblings. My nephews also have the same copy, and so does my grandmother. And her mother. My great-great-grandmother’s siblings, my great-great-great-grandmother, and my great-great-great-great grandmother. All the same.

Still with me?

The other piece of this giant DNA puzzle is that mitochondrial DNA—like all DNA—mutates, and the mutations that don’t cause any trouble, the ones that are stable enough to stick around, do just that: They stick around, and they become associated with family lineages. Most famously, this is how the remains of Tsar Nicholas II and his family were identified, by matching their mitochondrial DNA to maternal relatives within the royal blood lines.

But on a much larger scale, these mutations can be used to track our evolution as a species, to reconstruct our migration patterns across time and continents, all the way back to our single, common maternal ancestor. One long, unbroken chain of motherhood, mapping the history of us all.

Talk about a family tree.

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Movie Novelizations: A Rogue Obsession

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May 4, 2018
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A few weeks back, Jess covered the page-to-screen adaptations that don’t get enough credit—the ones that measure up to the source material and the ones that exceed it—but there’s another kind of adaptation that doesn’t receive much fanfare: movie novelizations.

I myself had never even read one until this winter, when I picked up my copy of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Alexander Freed, in honor of the movie’s one-year anniversary.

I’ve been a lifelong Star Wars fan, raised by parents who saw A New Hope in theaters half a dozen times, but I’d never dived into the wealth of Star Wars material that existed alongside the original three—then six, now eight—episodic films.

Until now.

Who’s to say why we become obsessed with the things we do? How to explain why certain things take hold of us and others don’t, why the attachment runs so deep? Maybe there is no explanation. Maybe it’s just a feeling. Maybe the wand chooses the wizard. Maybe you’re born with it; maybe it’s Maybelline.

Any way you slice it, my Rogue One obsession? Very real.

So I did what any sane (if you can be considered sane while more than mildly obsessed) person would do: I went looking for more content. Official Spotify playlists, fanart (gasp!), fanfiction (double gasp!), and last but not least, its novel companion.

Reading the book version of the movie was, in many ways, exactly what I expected. I knew the entire plot, after all, when I started reading: the characters, the worlds, the circumstances, the consequences. I also knew there would be differences—scenes described in greater detail than I saw on screen; new ones added to give the reader more background, more context.

But the best part—and what I didn’t see coming, although I should have, because too often it’s exactly what gets sacrificed first when adapting in the opposite direction—was the depth of the characterization, caring and empathetic portrayals of each of the characters that matched the movie but improved upon it. Strengthened it. Their pasts, their emotions, their interactions and relationships with each other all richer and more meaningful. And because of that, the stakes even higher.

Rogue One—maybe more than any other Star Wars movie; don’t hate me—is a true ensemble film, so maybe it was particularly well suited for novelization, for following the different points of view of characters I already loved and loved even more by the time I finished reading.

I can’t speak to all movie novelizations, obviously, having read just the one, but this one might have been enough to convince me to try others. The interest has to be there, of course; I don’t think I’ll ever feel inclined to read hundreds of pages of a story I only feel lukewarm about. But the next time the credits roll and you find yourself wanting more, my advice? Look to the shelves.

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Should I Spoil The Thing?

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April 30, 2018
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It’s the end of April, which means two things for us pop culture fanatics:

1) It’s every *NSYNC fan’s favorite holiday.

2) We have officially entered Spoiler Season.

If you weren’t lucky enough to snag a ticket to Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War this weekend, and if you have some semblance of a life that keeps you from watching the season finale of each of your shows live—or enough shows that watching them all live is impossible—you’re now in the difficult position of choosing between dodging every spoiler until you can get yourself to a theater or press play on your DVR, and resigning yourself to knowing every plot twist and cliffhanger before you have the chance to see it firsthand.

In the age of leaked footage and within-the-hour online recaps, there are just too many ways to be spoiled to avoid them all. So how do you prioritize? Which surprises do you sacrifice? Which spoilers do you read, and which spoilers do you leave?

You’ve come to the right place, my friends, because I, your over emotionally invested consumer of media, have put my years of TV, book, and movie consumption to good use and compiled The Definitive Guide to Spoilerdom.

Read on and go confidently in the direction of summer blockbusters. Curate the entertainment experience you’ve always imagined.

*Warning: Reading spoilers is not a guarantee and may not actually prepare you.

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Graduation Station

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April 20, 2018
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Finals and freedom. Polyester robes and ill-fitting caps. Tassels, yearbooks, and Vitamin C’s seminal 1999 classic.

Yep, you guessed it, it’s graduation time.

Commencement may be a few weeks away, but now’s the time to start shopping for that perfect graduation gift. You can check out our entire line of “graduated cylinder” products here, and to help you get in the matriculation spirit, I’ve put together a list of my Top Three TV Graduation Moments. Without further ado:

#3. “What a Difference a Day Makes” Grey’s Anatomy, season 5, episode 22

Technically, it’s a wedding episode, but the case of the week is a car full of kids brought into the ER after their SUV gets hit by a semi—on the day of their college graduation. It’s Grey’s at its finest: Devastating yet somehow life affirming, with enough signature snark to make the whole episode worth the dizzying trip through the emotional wringer.

The shining moment—even more so than Alex and Izzie’s surprise wedding—and the reason it makes the list, is the speech Becca, the only one to survive, recites to Alex before she goes under for surgery. Unlike many written-for-TV valedictory addresses, this feels like one you might actually hear at a graduation ceremony. It’s equal parts hopeful and sincere; a reminder of just how young we still are when we graduate from college made all the more tragic as Becca’s voice plays over the faces of her friends who didn’t make it. I dare you not to cry.

#2. “Those Are Strings, Pinocchio” Gilmore Girls, season 3, episode 22

There are two Gilmore graduations that could have made this list, but as much as we are all proud of Rory for graduating from Yale, this one is a no-brainer: Rory’s Chilton graduation is the clear winner.

Where do I even start? Luke and Jackson’s reverent discussion of Chilton’s centuries-old architecture? (“Wow, look at the gargoyles.”) Sookie bumping her way in and out of her row at least four times? Brad’s musical farewell? (“Bong, bong!”) Lorelai and Rory sticking their tongues out in celebration? I regret my standard, smiling graduation photo every time.

My favorite, though, has got to be Luke—that old softie—crying during the ceremony. (“I’m blubbering; you’re freaks!”) And who can blame him? Rory’s sweet, heartfelt tribute to Emily, Richard, and Lorelai still makes me shed a tear.

#1. “Pilot” Felicity, season 1, episode 1

Has there ever been a graduation moment more enduringly swoonworthy than Ben writing in Felicity’s yearbook? A graduation moment more life-altering or with such great hair?

I think not.

Is Felicity’s decision to abandon her parents’ Stanford plans and follow Ben 3,000 miles to New York City impulsive? Sure. Reckless? Maybe. But it’s a decision that sparks the next four seasons of quintessential late-90s television, and I mean, after reading a note like that, who wouldn’t? Ben is a total heartthrob. (Have I mentioned the hair?)

But this moment tops the list because it isn’t really about the boy or even the next four years. It’s about Felicity taking a risk for the first time, making a decision and choosing the life she wants—the life she can create—even if it’s a life her parents don’t understand. It perfectly captures that feeling of stepping out into the world on your own: terrifying and thrilling—because anything can happen. After all, aren’t the best endings the ones that feel like beginnings?

So, how’d I do? Too much sappy, not enough funny? What’d I miss? Was my vote for Felicity swayed by my love for Peter Gabriel?

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This Dope Planet

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April 14, 2018
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My first official weekend as a college student, when most of my dormmates were on their way out to their first bonafide frat party, I was settling in—for a night of watching Planet Earth. (The BBC docuseries, you know the one.)

Yes, I owned the DVD, and yes, I’d brought it with me to school, but give me some credit: I wasn’t locking myself in a room to watch it by myself. I was watching with my new roommate and a couple of girls we’d become friends with down the hall. So, somewhat social.

To be fair, we’d also invited anyone who was interested to join us. Shockingly, we didn’t get any takers, but that was their loss.

Have you ever watched a stranded baby elephant reunite with its family? It is a party.

So imagine my delight when I discovered the BBC’s 6-part sequel, Planet Earth II, is now on Netflix. I’d somehow missed it when it originally aired back in 2016 (blasphemous), so I immediately pressed play.

Planet Earth II has a 9.6/10 rating on IMDB and a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. It’s won British Academy Television Awards and Primetime Creative Arts Emmys. It basically recommends itself, but I’ll give you my review anyway: Go watch it.

Obviously I’m a biased viewer, having chosen the first Planet Earth as a happy alternative to a party of my peers, but believe me when I say: Every second of it is fascinating. If you think you aren’t a fan of documentaries, watch it anyway. Still narrated in David Attenborough’s charming British timbre, it’s never dull and never boring. It’s dramatic and colorful, mesmerizing and unbelievable. It’s tense at times, comical at others, and perhaps the best argument ever made for saving our planet.

If there’s one difference that stands out between the original and part II (other than length; the original was a massive 11 episodes), it’s the frank explanation of how much climate change is affecting our planet. How much wildlife has been lost; how rapidly natural habitats are shrinking. The first episode, “Islands,” should be enough to get you hooked, but if you only have time to watch one, skip ahead to the end, to “Cities.” It’s a close look at the remarkable ways some animals have adapted to urban living, and a heartbreaking portrait of how others have not.

The final episode ends on a hopeful note, as most of the episodes do, but at the end of the day, the producers don’t have to try very hard to make their case. In an age when special effects teams can so convincingly transport us to another galaxy in another world, the series’ greatest asset is that—from a sudden avalanche in the North American mountains to a plague of locusts in Madagascar; from lightning bolts cracking against the desert sky to the migration of a population of crabs large enough to cover an entire island—all 360 minutes of astonishing, captivating footage are entirely real.

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To Reread or Not to Reread?

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April 5, 2018
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That’s my question.

Because last weekend I found myself picking up a book I hadn’t read in ages—I got my copy at Borders, to give you an idea of just how long we’re talking—but that I must have read at least two or three times in the first couple of years after I bought it. It was on my mind because my best friend and I had just been talking about how much we loved it way back when—and still do.

There’s something about picking up an old book. It’s like putting on your favorite sweater. It’s cozy and comfortable; familiar. It’s worn in all the right places, and you know exactly how it’s going to fit.

But I—like many of you, I’m sure—have a reading list about 8,000 miles long, and there have been days when I’ve looked around at all the unread books on my shelves (my mother, sister, and best friend are all librarians; are we surprised I have a sizable collection?) and thought, “There is no way I’m going to be able to read all of these in my lifetime.”

That’s not even counting all the books I want to read that I don’t own. Or all the new books coming out every year!

Too many books, too little time.

So I can’t help but think: Should I feel guilty about rereading a book I’ve already read more than once? Granted, it’s been so long that reading it feels new, or at the very least, like a series of “Oh yeah!” moments, and as my mother says, reading is never a waste. But am I doing myself a disservice by choosing an old book over a new one? By leaving those unread books waiting even longer?

Hard to say.

All I know is, when I was curled up with that creased paperback Friday night (hot weekend plans, I know), reading the end of chapter one—a cliffhanger I already knew was coming—grinning like a fool and practically giddy with excitement, I just couldn’t bring myself to regret it.

Because what more can you ask for from reading a book?