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"content": "\u003cp>One of the worst movie sins is when a comedy fails to at least match the natural charisma of its stars. Not all actors are capable of being effortlessly witty without a tightly crafted script and some excellent direction and editing. But Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt seem, at least from afar, adept at that game. Just look at their charming press tour for \u003cem>The Fall Guy\u003c/em>. Theirs is the kind of fun banter that can be a little worrisome — what if their riffing is better than the movie?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955729']It comes as a great relief, then, that \u003cem>The Fall Guy\u003c/em> lives up to its promise. Here is a delightful blend of action, comedy and romance that will make the audience feel like a Hollywood insider for a few hours (although there are perhaps one too many jokes about Comic-Con and Hall H).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Loosely based on the 1980s Lee Majors television series about a stuntman who made some extra cash on the side bounty hunting, Gosling takes up the mantle of said stunt guy, Colt Seavers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colt is a workaday stunt performer and longtime go-to for a major movie star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Tom is the kind of deeply egotistical and self-conscious A-lister who tells everyone he does his own stunts and worries out loud about Colt’s jawline being distractingly softer than his. I think the word “potato” is thrown around as a descriptor. Taylor-Johnson has quite a bit of fun playing up all his eccentricities that you hope, and fear, are at least somewhat inspired by real horror stories of stars behaving badly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7jPnwVGdZ8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film comes from director David Leitch, the Brad Pitt stuntman and stunt coordinator who helped bring \u003cem>John Wick\u003c/em> to the world and directed \u003cem>Atomic Blonde\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Bullet Train\u003c/em>. He’s a guy who not only has the vision and know-how to bring the best in stunts to films and make them pop, but also has a vested interest in putting them in the spotlight. Forget the Oscar, how about just any acknowledgement? Perhaps \u003cem>The Fall Guy\u003c/em> is just one tiny step on the path to making audiences more aware of some of the behind-the-scenes people who really make movies better and risk it all to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s revealing that the movie starts with Colt suffering a terrible injury on a set. The stunt that goes wrong is one he’s just done and doesn’t seem remotely nervous about. The film cuts to his recovery and semi-reclusive retirement until he gets a call from Tom’s producer Gail (a delightfully over-the-top Hannah Waddingham) begging Colt to come back for a new film. They need him, she pleads, as does his longtime crush Jody (Blunt), who is making her directorial debut. She waits to inform him that Tom is missing and he’s the one who has to find him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the quest, Colt encounters tough-guy goons, enablers, a sword-wielding actress, and a dead body on ice that all lead up to something big and rotten. And like a selfless stunt guy, he does it all out of sight of Jody — trying his best to save her movie without giving her something extra to worry about. Nothing about it is particularly plausible, but it’s not hard to get on board for the ride, and much of that is because of Gosling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13956512']While he’s not quite underappreciated for his comedic timing, especially after \u003cem>Barbie\u003c/em>, it’s fun to get to see him really embrace and lean into the goofiness — whether it’s crying and singing along to Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” or quoting movie lines to his stunt coordinator pal (Winston Duke, always a good addition) in the midst of an actual fight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is something very juvenile and sweet about Jody and Colt’s will-they-won’t-they romance, with its mix of attraction, banter, misunderstandings and hurt feelings. It was a genius stroke to cast these two opposite each other and it leaves you wanting more scenes with the two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Working with a script from Drew Pearce (\u003cem>Hobbs & Shaw\u003c/em>), Leitch packs the film with wall-to-wall action, in both the film’s movie sets and its real world. And with the self-referential humor, the industry jokes and the promise of a little romance, it feels like one of those movies we all complain they don’t make anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Fall Guy’ is released nationwide on May 3, 2024.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film comes from director David Leitch, the Brad Pitt stuntman and stunt coordinator who helped bring \u003cem>John Wick\u003c/em> to the world and directed \u003cem>Atomic Blonde\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Bullet Train\u003c/em>. He’s a guy who not only has the vision and know-how to bring the best in stunts to films and make them pop, but also has a vested interest in putting them in the spotlight. Forget the Oscar, how about just any acknowledgement? Perhaps \u003cem>The Fall Guy\u003c/em> is just one tiny step on the path to making audiences more aware of some of the behind-the-scenes people who really make movies better and risk it all to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s revealing that the movie starts with Colt suffering a terrible injury on a set. The stunt that goes wrong is one he’s just done and doesn’t seem remotely nervous about. The film cuts to his recovery and semi-reclusive retirement until he gets a call from Tom’s producer Gail (a delightfully over-the-top Hannah Waddingham) begging Colt to come back for a new film. They need him, she pleads, as does his longtime crush Jody (Blunt), who is making her directorial debut. She waits to inform him that Tom is missing and he’s the one who has to find him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the quest, Colt encounters tough-guy goons, enablers, a sword-wielding actress, and a dead body on ice that all lead up to something big and rotten. And like a selfless stunt guy, he does it all out of sight of Jody — trying his best to save her movie without giving her something extra to worry about. Nothing about it is particularly plausible, but it’s not hard to get on board for the ride, and much of that is because of Gosling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While he’s not quite underappreciated for his comedic timing, especially after \u003cem>Barbie\u003c/em>, it’s fun to get to see him really embrace and lean into the goofiness — whether it’s crying and singing along to Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” or quoting movie lines to his stunt coordinator pal (Winston Duke, always a good addition) in the midst of an actual fight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is something very juvenile and sweet about Jody and Colt’s will-they-won’t-they romance, with its mix of attraction, banter, misunderstandings and hurt feelings. It was a genius stroke to cast these two opposite each other and it leaves you wanting more scenes with the two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Working with a script from Drew Pearce (\u003cem>Hobbs & Shaw\u003c/em>), Leitch packs the film with wall-to-wall action, in both the film’s movie sets and its real world. And with the self-referential humor, the industry jokes and the promise of a little romance, it feels like one of those movies we all complain they don’t make anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Fall Guy’ is released nationwide on May 3, 2024.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Naked and frail, a shaggy-haired man films himself as he endures solitude in a tiny room for months, and months more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Contestant\u003c/em>, directed by Clair Titley, explores the story behind the late 1990s hit reality TV show from Japan, \u003cem>A Life in Prizes\u003c/em>, in which a comedian nicknamed Nasubi is forced to survive on whatever he can redeem from mail-in coupons, as he is denied contact with the outside world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955948']The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023 and will stream on Hulu from May 2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomoaki Hamatsu — whose nickname “Nasubi,” meaning eggplant in Japanese, refers jokingly to his long chin — never manages to clothe himself and remains naked throughout the show. But he dances to celebrate the things he does obtain, especially food, even if it’s just a pot of kimchi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Canada’s \u003cem>National Post\u003c/em>, in a review of Titley’s documentary, described the TV show as “\u003cem>The Truman Show\u003c/em> meets \u003cem>OldBoy\u003c/em>,” referring to the 1998 American film starring Jim Carrey about a man who unwittingly stars in a reality TV show about his own life and the 2003 Cannes-winning Korean film about an imprisoned man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The British director Titley said she chanced upon the reality show and reached out to Nasubi because she felt no one had ever told his side of the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt that they were kind of dismissive and even derogatory to an extent about, you know, look at those crazy Japanese. And I really wanted to know Nasubi’s story. I really wanted to know what had happened to him, why he’d stayed in there,” she said in a recent Zoom interview with The Associated Press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13951078']What makes her documentary more than a just-for-laughs, big-in-Japan satire are the interviews Titley conducts with Hamatsu’s mother, sister and friend, who express outrage, sorrow, pride and a mix of other emotions as the show grew into a prime-time hit. They said they felt sorry for what he endured, including his nudity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film also explores Hamatsu’s childhood experience of being bullied because of his long chin and how he turned to laughter to protect himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamatsu says the hardest part of the show was the solitude, although being without clothing — and very little food — for a year and three months also took a toll on him. The comedian was moved to tears when he received a standing ovation at a New York screening of the documentary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel I was able to relay a positive message through the documentary,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSJWxOn2pi0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Contestant\u003c/em> raises serious questions about how far society might go for entertainment, and the big audiences and money it represents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show’s producer said in the documentary he just wanted to “capture the moment” and did not mention any reservations about producing the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think to an extent we are all complicit in these narratives. I think that’s something to be aware of. It’s very easy to stand back and look at all of this, and sort of think, ‘Oh, look at what those producers did.’ But, you know, as viewers we need to take some responsibility,” Titley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film explores the various emotions of being trapped in different ways, including in relationships, hardships or just feelings of meaninglessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13954702']Hamatsu is from Fukushima in northeastern Japan, which was hit by the March 2011 triple disaster, when a giant tsunami followed a 9.0 magnitude quake and devastated the coastline, setting off the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamatsu, who still works as an actor, also devotes his time to the reconstruction of Fukushima and raising awareness about the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want everyone to know the people of Fukushima are working hard,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Life is gradually returning to what used to be in the exclusion zones. Of course, I realize the road to decommissioning the nuclear plants is still a long battle. But I would like people to know the Fukushima of today, feel hope by visiting Fukushima and watch Fukushima rebuild.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a vindication of sorts at the end of the documentary, Hamatsu becomes a climber and conquers Mount Everest, a feat he dedicates to Fukushima.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people think the famous show 25 years ago was the high point of Hamatsu’s life, since he is not on TV much anymore, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But it’s just the opposite. That was the worst point in my life. I overcame that. And now I am free to do what I want.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>What makes her documentary more than a just-for-laughs, big-in-Japan satire are the interviews Titley conducts with Hamatsu’s mother, sister and friend, who express outrage, sorrow, pride and a mix of other emotions as the show grew into a prime-time hit. They said they felt sorry for what he endured, including his nudity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film also explores Hamatsu’s childhood experience of being bullied because of his long chin and how he turned to laughter to protect himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamatsu says the hardest part of the show was the solitude, although being without clothing — and very little food — for a year and three months also took a toll on him. The comedian was moved to tears when he received a standing ovation at a New York screening of the documentary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel I was able to relay a positive message through the documentary,” he said.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/wSJWxOn2pi0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/wSJWxOn2pi0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The Contestant\u003c/em> raises serious questions about how far society might go for entertainment, and the big audiences and money it represents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show’s producer said in the documentary he just wanted to “capture the moment” and did not mention any reservations about producing the show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think to an extent we are all complicit in these narratives. I think that’s something to be aware of. It’s very easy to stand back and look at all of this, and sort of think, ‘Oh, look at what those producers did.’ But, you know, as viewers we need to take some responsibility,” Titley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film explores the various emotions of being trapped in different ways, including in relationships, hardships or just feelings of meaninglessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Hamatsu is from Fukushima in northeastern Japan, which was hit by the March 2011 triple disaster, when a giant tsunami followed a 9.0 magnitude quake and devastated the coastline, setting off the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamatsu, who still works as an actor, also devotes his time to the reconstruction of Fukushima and raising awareness about the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want everyone to know the people of Fukushima are working hard,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Life is gradually returning to what used to be in the exclusion zones. Of course, I realize the road to decommissioning the nuclear plants is still a long battle. But I would like people to know the Fukushima of today, feel hope by visiting Fukushima and watch Fukushima rebuild.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a vindication of sorts at the end of the documentary, Hamatsu becomes a climber and conquers Mount Everest, a feat he dedicates to Fukushima.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people think the famous show 25 years ago was the high point of Hamatsu’s life, since he is not on TV much anymore, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But it’s just the opposite. That was the worst point in my life. I overcame that. And now I am free to do what I want.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "‘The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed’ Announces An Exciting New Voice",
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"content": "\u003cp>In writer-director-star Joanna Arnow’s \u003cem>The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed\u003c/em>, Ann (Arnow), a 30-something New Yorker, lies naked in bed with an older man, Allen (Scott Cohen), with whom she has a yearslong BDSM relationship. She tells him she’s grateful he only cares about his own pleasure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like I don’t even exist,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13956480']Much is just out of reach in Arnow’s shrewdly perceptive and very funny new film. Love, certainly, is nowhere near Ann’s life despite a series of romantic encounters. Music is talked about — from Andrew Lloyd Webber showtunes to the team cheer from \u003cem>A League of Their Own\u003c/em> — but seldom heard. In one scene during a tryst with a composer, Ann says her favorite soundtrack is \u003cem>In the Act of Wishing for Love\u003c/em>, but she means \u003cem>In the Mood for Love\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even Ann’s existential crisis doesn’t quite materialize in this unwaveringly sardonic portrait of millennial malaise. Her life plays out in a series of brief, crispy edited vignettes that jump between her drab work life and her extreme but equally drab sex life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVacS6T7jxs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obedience is pushed on her in both places, as are labels, most of which Ann quietly but not necessarily apathetically accepts. One partner (Parish Bradley) who instructs her to communicate in “a series of oinks” writes the lewd name he’s given her across her belly in marker. At work, an unseen HR gives her a new job title: “Clinical Media E-learning Specialist.” Which is worse is hard to say. After three years on the job, she’s given a one-year anniversary trophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How Ann feels about all of this isn’t always obvious, possibly even to her. Arnow portrays her much as she directs and edits the film, with a detached deadpan. Sometimes Ann pushes back. She tells her older lover that she’s not an internet window he can open and close. But there’s also something in Ann that recoils against more sentimental encounters. Later in the film, she begins dating someone sweetly if naively romantic (Babak Tafti) who’s unfamiliar with the kind of bondage role-playing Ann is accustomed to. But his sweetness is more of a strike against him. Ann may be a victim of her modern, alienating environment, but she’s also a product of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13956512']Arnow, who also made the 2013 film \u003cem>I hate myself 🙂\u003c/em> has often been compared to Lena Dunham as a generation-representing voice, for her willingness to bear all on screen and for her proclivity for autobiography. (Ann’s parents in the film are played by Arnow’s real-life mother and father, Barbara Weiserbs and David Arnow.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Arnow’s sensibility is much dryer and more satirical. Whether Ann can free herself of her circumstance is one thing, but Arnow, as a keenly insightful filmmaker, proves again and again that she has. How else can you explain the trenchant absurdity of the poem-worthy dialogue that runs through the film? A sexual partner whose first line is: “Thank you for forgiving me for mansplaining about L.A.” A boss who announces: “If you’re not on Spotify, you’re behind the times.” And Ann, who after debasing herself with her older lover, says, “The candles were nice,” only for him to reply: “There was just one candle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed’ opens nationwide on April 26, 2024. The film \u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/the-feeling-that-the-time-for-doing-something-has-passed/\">begins playing at the Roxie Theater\u003c/a> on May 10.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Much is just out of reach in Arnow’s shrewdly perceptive and very funny new film. Love, certainly, is nowhere near Ann’s life despite a series of romantic encounters. Music is talked about — from Andrew Lloyd Webber showtunes to the team cheer from \u003cem>A League of Their Own\u003c/em> — but seldom heard. In one scene during a tryst with a composer, Ann says her favorite soundtrack is \u003cem>In the Act of Wishing for Love\u003c/em>, but she means \u003cem>In the Mood for Love\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even Ann’s existential crisis doesn’t quite materialize in this unwaveringly sardonic portrait of millennial malaise. Her life plays out in a series of brief, crispy edited vignettes that jump between her drab work life and her extreme but equally drab sex life.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/KVacS6T7jxs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/KVacS6T7jxs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obedience is pushed on her in both places, as are labels, most of which Ann quietly but not necessarily apathetically accepts. One partner (Parish Bradley) who instructs her to communicate in “a series of oinks” writes the lewd name he’s given her across her belly in marker. At work, an unseen HR gives her a new job title: “Clinical Media E-learning Specialist.” Which is worse is hard to say. After three years on the job, she’s given a one-year anniversary trophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How Ann feels about all of this isn’t always obvious, possibly even to her. Arnow portrays her much as she directs and edits the film, with a detached deadpan. Sometimes Ann pushes back. She tells her older lover that she’s not an internet window he can open and close. But there’s also something in Ann that recoils against more sentimental encounters. Later in the film, she begins dating someone sweetly if naively romantic (Babak Tafti) who’s unfamiliar with the kind of bondage role-playing Ann is accustomed to. But his sweetness is more of a strike against him. Ann may be a victim of her modern, alienating environment, but she’s also a product of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Arnow, who also made the 2013 film \u003cem>I hate myself 🙂\u003c/em> has often been compared to Lena Dunham as a generation-representing voice, for her willingness to bear all on screen and for her proclivity for autobiography. (Ann’s parents in the film are played by Arnow’s real-life mother and father, Barbara Weiserbs and David Arnow.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Arnow’s sensibility is much dryer and more satirical. Whether Ann can free herself of her circumstance is one thing, but Arnow, as a keenly insightful filmmaker, proves again and again that she has. How else can you explain the trenchant absurdity of the poem-worthy dialogue that runs through the film? A sexual partner whose first line is: “Thank you for forgiving me for mansplaining about L.A.” A boss who announces: “If you’re not on Spotify, you’re behind the times.” And Ann, who after debasing herself with her older lover, says, “The candles were nice,” only for him to reply: “There was just one candle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed’ opens nationwide on April 26, 2024. The film \u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/the-feeling-that-the-time-for-doing-something-has-passed/\">begins playing at the Roxie Theater\u003c/a> on May 10.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Netflix’s ‘Baby Reindeer’: A Dark, Haunting Story Bungles its Depiction of Queerness",
"headTitle": "Netflix’s ‘Baby Reindeer’: A Dark, Haunting Story Bungles its Depiction of Queerness | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Note: You can’t really talk about this series without discussing a major revelation that occurs in episode four of its seven-episode season. So be warned: Spoilers ahead. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a reason that the first scene in the first episode of \u003cem>Baby Reindeer,\u003c/em> now streaming on Netflix, plays like it’s a classic setup to a joke: \u003cem>Woman walks into a bar.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Creator and star Richard Gadd is setting our expectations exactly where he wants them set; he needs us to think that the story he’ll tell us over the next seven episodes will conform to the narrative contours of dark comedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955549']He’s already tipped us off that the comedy in question will be dark indeed, via a framing device that opens the show: We see his character Donny Dunn filing a police report that he’s being stalked by a woman named Martha (Jessica Gunning).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cut to six months earlier: Martha enters the pub where Donny tends bar. Everything that follows is meant to place us inside Donny’s head. As he tells us about her, we can’t help but see her as he does: A sad, fat, pitiable middle-aged woman who’s clearly lying about her life. She’s not the high-powered lawyer she says she is — if she were, surely she could afford to buy a drink. And why would she spend all those potentially billable hours bellied up at Donny’s bar whenever he’s working a shift? And why would she proceed to send him thousands of unhinged text messages and stalk him, his girlfriend, and his family?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right, we think. We know what we’re in for: \u003cem>Baby Reindeer \u003c/em>is the story of one hapless young man getting cruelly stalked by a mentally ill woman, who, it turns out, has a history, and a criminal record, for doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eafm1gB6SCM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, it’s a true story. True-ish, anyway, as \u003cem>Baby Reindee\u003c/em>r is based on Gadd’s autobiographical one-man show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13954225']But Gadd soon complicates our understanding of events. It turns out Donny is a struggling would-be comedian; we watch a series of his cringeworthy sets before sparse, stone-faced audiences. He seems depressed and friendless — his work colleagues at the bar are hostile louts; he’s living with his ex-girlfriend’s mother on the outskirts of London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus there’s the nagging fact that while Donny may not actively \u003cem>encourage \u003c/em>Martha’s fawning attention, he is awfully passive about shutting down her determination that they could get together, even as she grows more insistent, and more threatening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, as the cop asks him at the start of the first episode. Why did he let it all go on for six months before filing a formal complaint?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/25/br_101_unit_00683_rt.jpg-br_101_unit_00683_rt-1--9d5299c1b3002fe7610a6ea4c77f371792b6bd3f.jpg?s=1200&c=75&f=jpeg\" alt=\"A smiling white woman sits at the edge of a pub bar.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jessica Gunning as Martha.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>The rug-pull\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The answer to that question is what \u003cem>Baby Reindeer \u003c/em>is truly about. It’s where the conventional and familiar trappings of dark comedy and psychological thriller fall away to reveal the show’s true, beating heart: Sexual abuse, and its lingering aftermath.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It isn’t until episode four that we learn that five years before Martha entered his life, Donny met a successful television writer named Darrien (Tom Goodman-Hill) who gave him career advice, promised to set him up with opportunities, and supplied him with drugs. During those sessions, while Donny was helpless to stop him, Darrien would sexually abuse him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13954702']This, the series proceeds to argue — far too tidily — is the answer to everything. It’s why Donny became the depressed, self-loathing man we’ve come to know. It’s why his comedy career stalled. It’s why he’s since chosen to degrade himself by having meaningless sex with both men and women, doing more drugs, and by developing an interest in “extreme” pornography.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also, of course — or so the show would have us believe — why he was so disarmed and flattered by the attention Martha gave him, which seems (compared to the drug-filled sexual cesspits he once frequented) pure and wholesome and, not for nothing, reassuringly straight. At one point Donny guiltily admits to us that, at his very lowest point, he even started to find Martha — imagine that! a \u003cem>fat \u003c/em>woman! — sexually arousing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"npr-pull-quote\">\n\u003ch2>The series repeatedly and clumsily conflates the horror of abuse with the simple fact of queer sexuality.\u003c/h2>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>It’s this aspect of \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em> — Gadd/Donny’s ultimate willingness to confront his abuse and explore its aftereffects — which has earned the show its most fulsome praise from critics and audiences. But in practice, the series repeatedly and clumsily conflates the horror of abuse with the simple fact of queer sexuality. Purely for dramatic purposes, \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em> implies that Donny’s sexuality conforms to the laws of cause (the abuse) and effect (queerness). Worse, it does so in a way that seems specifically designed to reassure those audiences who believe queerness is something that happens \u003cem>to \u003c/em>people, something that can be triggered from the outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Catching queerness like a cold\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Let me be clear: \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em> is not making any kind of broad sexual/political case that same-sex abuse leads its victims to experience same-sex desire. Neither is it saying that all putatively straight men who get sexually abused by other men will henceforth be attracted to trans women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13953601']But it does want us to believe — in fact it entirely \u003cem>depends \u003c/em>upon us believing — that \u003cem>Donny\u003c/em>, for one, experienced same-sex desire only after his abuse — desire it goes out of its way to depict as filthy and degrading. It does, too, want us to believe that \u003cem>Donny \u003c/em>failed to make any romantic connections with women or men after his abuse — until he met Teri (Nava Mau) on a trans dating site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gadd himself identifies as bisexual, which makes it all the more puzzling and frustrating that, again and again, the series takes absurd pains to present Donny as someone who is not at all like the kinds of queer folk who (shudder!) willingly have sex with each other and (shock horror!) use recreational drugs and (gasp!) watch porn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rest assured, straight audiences: Donny’s queer sexuality was something forced upon him — a fact that his stoic father (Mark Lewis Jones) understands and underscores because, as he tearfully explains to his son, “I grew up in the Catholic Church.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a jaw-dropping scene, but not for the reason it wants to be. It’s meant as a moment of startling honesty and searing empathy between father and son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It plays like a tasteless, homophobic joke.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Sticking the dismount\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For all its queasy discomfort with, and prissy diffidence about queer sexuality, there is one thing \u003cem>Baby Reindee\u003c/em>r gets absolutely, hauntingly right: Its ending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the series concludes, Martha has been jailed for stalking Donny. In a thinner, less resonant series, our hero would take this as an unalloyed victory, as vindication. But smartly, Gadd shows us a Donny who has acknowledged his abuse but has only begun to effectively deal with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Donny, instead, wallows. He walks the streets, playing Martha’s tender/terrifying voicemails in his headphones. He sets out to confront his abuser, only to cave and accept a job working for him. He shambles through his life alone, until he enters a pub (\u003cem>Man walks into a bar\u003c/em>) and realizes he can’t pay for his drink. The handsome bartender comps him out of pity, just as Donny did to Martha in the first episode. The end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… OK, that pity-drink callback at the very end is a bit on-the-nose, but the series’ refusal to afford Donny a clear, uncomplicated, once-and-for-all victory is a smart one. Had the series ended with a sense of triumph and finality, it would have been dramatically satisfying but emotionally dishonest. Human psychology is more complex than that, and the damage done by abuse more insidious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13953497']When we leave him, Donny is still trapped by his past, because he hasn’t yet done the work he needs to do. He still believes he deserves to be trapped, defined, by what happened to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the series plants the seeds for the change that we know is coming: When he’s alone in that room of his, he’s turning his experience into the one-man show that will become \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em>. It’s that process of transmutation and creation that will ultimately allow him to process his abuse and turn it into something that engages with the wider world, and grant him the ability, finally, to heal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe, in the process, he will manage to move past finding other queer folk and fat people disgusting. \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em> suggests that Richard Gadd hasn’t quite managed to do that, yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I’m holding out hope for Donny.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Note: You can’t really talk about this series without discussing a major revelation that occurs in episode four of its seven-episode season. So be warned: Spoilers ahead. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a reason that the first scene in the first episode of \u003cem>Baby Reindeer,\u003c/em> now streaming on Netflix, plays like it’s a classic setup to a joke: \u003cem>Woman walks into a bar.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Creator and star Richard Gadd is setting our expectations exactly where he wants them set; he needs us to think that the story he’ll tell us over the next seven episodes will conform to the narrative contours of dark comedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>He’s already tipped us off that the comedy in question will be dark indeed, via a framing device that opens the show: We see his character Donny Dunn filing a police report that he’s being stalked by a woman named Martha (Jessica Gunning).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cut to six months earlier: Martha enters the pub where Donny tends bar. Everything that follows is meant to place us inside Donny’s head. As he tells us about her, we can’t help but see her as he does: A sad, fat, pitiable middle-aged woman who’s clearly lying about her life. She’s not the high-powered lawyer she says she is — if she were, surely she could afford to buy a drink. And why would she spend all those potentially billable hours bellied up at Donny’s bar whenever he’s working a shift? And why would she proceed to send him thousands of unhinged text messages and stalk him, his girlfriend, and his family?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right, we think. We know what we’re in for: \u003cem>Baby Reindeer \u003c/em>is the story of one hapless young man getting cruelly stalked by a mentally ill woman, who, it turns out, has a history, and a criminal record, for doing so.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/eafm1gB6SCM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/eafm1gB6SCM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Moreover, it’s a true story. True-ish, anyway, as \u003cem>Baby Reindee\u003c/em>r is based on Gadd’s autobiographical one-man show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But Gadd soon complicates our understanding of events. It turns out Donny is a struggling would-be comedian; we watch a series of his cringeworthy sets before sparse, stone-faced audiences. He seems depressed and friendless — his work colleagues at the bar are hostile louts; he’s living with his ex-girlfriend’s mother on the outskirts of London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus there’s the nagging fact that while Donny may not actively \u003cem>encourage \u003c/em>Martha’s fawning attention, he is awfully passive about shutting down her determination that they could get together, even as she grows more insistent, and more threatening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, as the cop asks him at the start of the first episode. Why did he let it all go on for six months before filing a formal complaint?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/25/br_101_unit_00683_rt.jpg-br_101_unit_00683_rt-1--9d5299c1b3002fe7610a6ea4c77f371792b6bd3f.jpg?s=1200&c=75&f=jpeg\" alt=\"A smiling white woman sits at the edge of a pub bar.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jessica Gunning as Martha.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>The rug-pull\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The answer to that question is what \u003cem>Baby Reindeer \u003c/em>is truly about. It’s where the conventional and familiar trappings of dark comedy and psychological thriller fall away to reveal the show’s true, beating heart: Sexual abuse, and its lingering aftermath.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It isn’t until episode four that we learn that five years before Martha entered his life, Donny met a successful television writer named Darrien (Tom Goodman-Hill) who gave him career advice, promised to set him up with opportunities, and supplied him with drugs. During those sessions, while Donny was helpless to stop him, Darrien would sexually abuse him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This, the series proceeds to argue — far too tidily — is the answer to everything. It’s why Donny became the depressed, self-loathing man we’ve come to know. It’s why his comedy career stalled. It’s why he’s since chosen to degrade himself by having meaningless sex with both men and women, doing more drugs, and by developing an interest in “extreme” pornography.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also, of course — or so the show would have us believe — why he was so disarmed and flattered by the attention Martha gave him, which seems (compared to the drug-filled sexual cesspits he once frequented) pure and wholesome and, not for nothing, reassuringly straight. At one point Donny guiltily admits to us that, at his very lowest point, he even started to find Martha — imagine that! a \u003cem>fat \u003c/em>woman! — sexually arousing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"npr-pull-quote\">\n\u003ch2>The series repeatedly and clumsily conflates the horror of abuse with the simple fact of queer sexuality.\u003c/h2>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>It’s this aspect of \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em> — Gadd/Donny’s ultimate willingness to confront his abuse and explore its aftereffects — which has earned the show its most fulsome praise from critics and audiences. But in practice, the series repeatedly and clumsily conflates the horror of abuse with the simple fact of queer sexuality. Purely for dramatic purposes, \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em> implies that Donny’s sexuality conforms to the laws of cause (the abuse) and effect (queerness). Worse, it does so in a way that seems specifically designed to reassure those audiences who believe queerness is something that happens \u003cem>to \u003c/em>people, something that can be triggered from the outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Catching queerness like a cold\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Let me be clear: \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em> is not making any kind of broad sexual/political case that same-sex abuse leads its victims to experience same-sex desire. Neither is it saying that all putatively straight men who get sexually abused by other men will henceforth be attracted to trans women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But it does want us to believe — in fact it entirely \u003cem>depends \u003c/em>upon us believing — that \u003cem>Donny\u003c/em>, for one, experienced same-sex desire only after his abuse — desire it goes out of its way to depict as filthy and degrading. It does, too, want us to believe that \u003cem>Donny \u003c/em>failed to make any romantic connections with women or men after his abuse — until he met Teri (Nava Mau) on a trans dating site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gadd himself identifies as bisexual, which makes it all the more puzzling and frustrating that, again and again, the series takes absurd pains to present Donny as someone who is not at all like the kinds of queer folk who (shudder!) willingly have sex with each other and (shock horror!) use recreational drugs and (gasp!) watch porn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rest assured, straight audiences: Donny’s queer sexuality was something forced upon him — a fact that his stoic father (Mark Lewis Jones) understands and underscores because, as he tearfully explains to his son, “I grew up in the Catholic Church.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a jaw-dropping scene, but not for the reason it wants to be. It’s meant as a moment of startling honesty and searing empathy between father and son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It plays like a tasteless, homophobic joke.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Sticking the dismount\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For all its queasy discomfort with, and prissy diffidence about queer sexuality, there is one thing \u003cem>Baby Reindee\u003c/em>r gets absolutely, hauntingly right: Its ending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the series concludes, Martha has been jailed for stalking Donny. In a thinner, less resonant series, our hero would take this as an unalloyed victory, as vindication. But smartly, Gadd shows us a Donny who has acknowledged his abuse but has only begun to effectively deal with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Donny, instead, wallows. He walks the streets, playing Martha’s tender/terrifying voicemails in his headphones. He sets out to confront his abuser, only to cave and accept a job working for him. He shambles through his life alone, until he enters a pub (\u003cem>Man walks into a bar\u003c/em>) and realizes he can’t pay for his drink. The handsome bartender comps him out of pity, just as Donny did to Martha in the first episode. The end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… OK, that pity-drink callback at the very end is a bit on-the-nose, but the series’ refusal to afford Donny a clear, uncomplicated, once-and-for-all victory is a smart one. Had the series ended with a sense of triumph and finality, it would have been dramatically satisfying but emotionally dishonest. Human psychology is more complex than that, and the damage done by abuse more insidious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When we leave him, Donny is still trapped by his past, because he hasn’t yet done the work he needs to do. He still believes he deserves to be trapped, defined, by what happened to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the series plants the seeds for the change that we know is coming: When he’s alone in that room of his, he’s turning his experience into the one-man show that will become \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em>. It’s that process of transmutation and creation that will ultimately allow him to process his abuse and turn it into something that engages with the wider world, and grant him the ability, finally, to heal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe, in the process, he will manage to move past finding other queer folk and fat people disgusting. \u003cem>Baby Reindeer\u003c/em> suggests that Richard Gadd hasn’t quite managed to do that, yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I’m holding out hope for Donny.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Olympian Kristi Yamaguchi Is ‘Tickled Pink’ to Inspire a Barbie Doll",
"headTitle": "Olympian Kristi Yamaguchi Is ‘Tickled Pink’ to Inspire a Barbie Doll | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Like many little girls, a young Kristi Yamaguchi loved playing with Barbie. With a schedule packed with ice skating practices, her Barbie dolls became her “best friends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, it’s surreal for the decorated Olympian figure skater to now be a Barbie girl herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13956584\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 794px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13956584\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.54.50-AM.png\" alt=\"A doll of an ice skater stands, one leg stretched out and arms raised on the ice. The doll is wearing a black lace and chiffon costume. \" width=\"794\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.54.50-AM.png 794w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.54.50-AM-160x193.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.54.50-AM-768x929.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 794px) 100vw, 794px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This image provided by Mattel in April 2024 shows the company’s Kristi Yamaguchi Barbie doll. \u003ccite>(Mattel via AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s a huge, huge honor. I think a lot of pride comes along with it, not just recognizing the Olympic achievement, but also being recognized during AAPI Month and following in the footsteps of some incredible women that I idolize — Anna May Wong, Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks,” Yamaguchi told The Associated Press. “It’s hard to see me put in the category with them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13933011']Yamaguchi, who became the first Asian American to win an individual figure skating gold medal, at the 1992 Winter Olympics, has been immortalized as a doll for Barbie’s “Inspiring Women Series,” Mattel announced Wednesday. The release is timed for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This isn’t Yamaguchi’s first doll depiction. In the ‘90s, touring show Stars on Ice put out a line of dolls modeled after notable skaters. The Barbie version is a lot more detailed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mattel duplicated everything the then 20-year-old medalist wore at the Olympics in Albertville, France: the sparkling black-and-gold brocade outfit designed by Lauren Sheehan, the gold hair ribbon and even a red-and-white bouquet like Yamaguchi held atop the podium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yamaguchi said both she and Sheehan are “just so tickled pink.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also is happy with the doll’s visage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13926336']“It looks like me for sure. You know, the eyes and just the shape of the face. And then, of course, the hair, for sure. I mean, it has the bangs that are the ’90s,” Yamaguchi said, chuckling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She appreciates that the doll’s release comes on the high heels of the blockbuster \u003cem>Barbie\u003c/em> movie last year. Her daughters, ages 18 and 20, are fans of the Oscar-nominated film. Their initial reaction to their mother being a Barbie? Disbelief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When they found out I was getting a doll, they were kind of flabbergasted and being like, ‘What? Like Mom, like how do you qualify? But that’s way too cool for you,’” Yamaguchi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Yamaguchi became a household name in the ’90s, most Asian American children were growing up feeling like toys-aren’t-us kids. If you were an Asian parent looking for an Asian doll in the U.S., you likely turned to independent mail-order companies or waited until you were visiting your country of heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13956586\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1066px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13956586\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM.png\" alt=\"Close up of a smiling doll's face with impeccably styled hair, wearing earrings.\" width=\"1066\" height=\"1058\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM.png 1066w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM-800x794.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM-1020x1012.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM-160x159.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM-768x762.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1066px) 100vw, 1066px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This image provided by Mattel in April 2024 shows the company’s Kristi Yamaguchi Barbie doll. \u003ccite>(Mattel via AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since then, the toy market has evolved somewhat with big companies like Mattel diversifying and independent entrepreneurs filling the void. Two Asian doll lines — Jilly Bing and Joeydolls — launched within the last year, one by an Asian American mother and the other by an Asian Canadian mother. Both could not find dolls that looked like their daughters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sapna Cheryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington who served a year on Mattel’s Barbie Global Advisory Council in 2018, said Asian Americans have long dealt with two stereotypes: the model-minority whiz kid or the perpetual foreigner. Toys can help dispel those myths, and instead signal acceptance and inclusivity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dolls modeled after real people can get people talking about their human counterparts. Cheryan applauded Barbie’s choice of Yamaguchi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are so many Asian American athletes but they’re just not propped up in a way that athletes of other racial groups are,” said Cheryan, who researches cultural stereotypes and their impact on race and gender disparities. “Having a match in terms of racial identification or gender or both,” she said, is important in creating effective role models for kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955020']Mattel has mostly garnered praise for its diversity efforts but it’s had some missteps along the way. In 2021, the toy maker said it “fell short” by failing to include an Asian doll in a line of Tokyo Olympics-themed Barbies. In January, there was some backlash to Asian “You Can Be Anything” Barbies that seemed stereotypical. One was a violinist and the other a doctor in panda scrubs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tying Yamaguchi to Barbie, a symbol of American pop culture, is especially remarkable considering what she and her family have dealt with as Japanese Americans. The Fremont-raised skater has spoken about how her maternal and paternal grandparents were forced into U.S. incarceration camps in response to Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she captured the gold over 50 years later, media coverage partially focused on why she didn’t seem to have many endorsement deals. In an AP article from 1992, a sports advertising executive blamed her Japanese heritage, citing an economic climate that was anti-Japan. “It’s wrong, wrong, wrong, but that is the way it is,” the executive said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while Barbie may seem like just a toy, it’s so much more for Yamaguchi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When kids see themselves or see someone who inspires them, then it just opens up their world and their imagination to what’s possible,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The Bay Area ice skating champ is thrilled that the new doll is coming out in time for AAPI Month.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Like many little girls, a young Kristi Yamaguchi loved playing with Barbie. With a schedule packed with ice skating practices, her Barbie dolls became her “best friends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, it’s surreal for the decorated Olympian figure skater to now be a Barbie girl herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13956584\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 794px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13956584\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.54.50-AM.png\" alt=\"A doll of an ice skater stands, one leg stretched out and arms raised on the ice. The doll is wearing a black lace and chiffon costume. \" width=\"794\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.54.50-AM.png 794w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.54.50-AM-160x193.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.54.50-AM-768x929.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 794px) 100vw, 794px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This image provided by Mattel in April 2024 shows the company’s Kristi Yamaguchi Barbie doll. \u003ccite>(Mattel via AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s a huge, huge honor. I think a lot of pride comes along with it, not just recognizing the Olympic achievement, but also being recognized during AAPI Month and following in the footsteps of some incredible women that I idolize — Anna May Wong, Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks,” Yamaguchi told The Associated Press. “It’s hard to see me put in the category with them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Yamaguchi, who became the first Asian American to win an individual figure skating gold medal, at the 1992 Winter Olympics, has been immortalized as a doll for Barbie’s “Inspiring Women Series,” Mattel announced Wednesday. The release is timed for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This isn’t Yamaguchi’s first doll depiction. In the ‘90s, touring show Stars on Ice put out a line of dolls modeled after notable skaters. The Barbie version is a lot more detailed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mattel duplicated everything the then 20-year-old medalist wore at the Olympics in Albertville, France: the sparkling black-and-gold brocade outfit designed by Lauren Sheehan, the gold hair ribbon and even a red-and-white bouquet like Yamaguchi held atop the podium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yamaguchi said both she and Sheehan are “just so tickled pink.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also is happy with the doll’s visage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It looks like me for sure. You know, the eyes and just the shape of the face. And then, of course, the hair, for sure. I mean, it has the bangs that are the ’90s,” Yamaguchi said, chuckling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She appreciates that the doll’s release comes on the high heels of the blockbuster \u003cem>Barbie\u003c/em> movie last year. Her daughters, ages 18 and 20, are fans of the Oscar-nominated film. Their initial reaction to their mother being a Barbie? Disbelief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When they found out I was getting a doll, they were kind of flabbergasted and being like, ‘What? Like Mom, like how do you qualify? But that’s way too cool for you,’” Yamaguchi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Yamaguchi became a household name in the ’90s, most Asian American children were growing up feeling like toys-aren’t-us kids. If you were an Asian parent looking for an Asian doll in the U.S., you likely turned to independent mail-order companies or waited until you were visiting your country of heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13956586\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1066px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13956586\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM.png\" alt=\"Close up of a smiling doll's face with impeccably styled hair, wearing earrings.\" width=\"1066\" height=\"1058\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM.png 1066w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM-800x794.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM-1020x1012.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM-160x159.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-24-at-10.57.38-AM-768x762.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1066px) 100vw, 1066px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This image provided by Mattel in April 2024 shows the company’s Kristi Yamaguchi Barbie doll. \u003ccite>(Mattel via AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since then, the toy market has evolved somewhat with big companies like Mattel diversifying and independent entrepreneurs filling the void. Two Asian doll lines — Jilly Bing and Joeydolls — launched within the last year, one by an Asian American mother and the other by an Asian Canadian mother. Both could not find dolls that looked like their daughters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sapna Cheryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington who served a year on Mattel’s Barbie Global Advisory Council in 2018, said Asian Americans have long dealt with two stereotypes: the model-minority whiz kid or the perpetual foreigner. Toys can help dispel those myths, and instead signal acceptance and inclusivity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dolls modeled after real people can get people talking about their human counterparts. Cheryan applauded Barbie’s choice of Yamaguchi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are so many Asian American athletes but they’re just not propped up in a way that athletes of other racial groups are,” said Cheryan, who researches cultural stereotypes and their impact on race and gender disparities. “Having a match in terms of racial identification or gender or both,” she said, is important in creating effective role models for kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mattel has mostly garnered praise for its diversity efforts but it’s had some missteps along the way. In 2021, the toy maker said it “fell short” by failing to include an Asian doll in a line of Tokyo Olympics-themed Barbies. In January, there was some backlash to Asian “You Can Be Anything” Barbies that seemed stereotypical. One was a violinist and the other a doctor in panda scrubs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tying Yamaguchi to Barbie, a symbol of American pop culture, is especially remarkable considering what she and her family have dealt with as Japanese Americans. The Fremont-raised skater has spoken about how her maternal and paternal grandparents were forced into U.S. incarceration camps in response to Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she captured the gold over 50 years later, media coverage partially focused on why she didn’t seem to have many endorsement deals. In an AP article from 1992, a sports advertising executive blamed her Japanese heritage, citing an economic climate that was anti-Japan. “It’s wrong, wrong, wrong, but that is the way it is,” the executive said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while Barbie may seem like just a toy, it’s so much more for Yamaguchi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When kids see themselves or see someone who inspires them, then it just opens up their world and their imagination to what’s possible,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Prepare to Get Hot and Bothered With Stylish, Synthy Tennis Drama ‘Challengers’",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em> is a bit of a tease. That’s what makes it fun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is plenty of skin, sweat, close-ups of muscly thighs and smoldering looks of lust and hate in this deliriously over-the-top psychodrama. But get that image of Josh O’Connor, Zendaya and Mike Faist sitting together on the bed out of your mind. Most of this action takes place on the tennis court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955948']It’s still a sexy tennis movie about friendship, love, competition and sport set to a synth-y score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross — it just might not contain exactly what you think it does. But remember, Luca Guadagnino is the one who filmed Timothée Chalamet with that peach, perhaps more memorable than any actual sex scene from the past decade. Manage expectations, but also trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And like \u003cem>Call Me By Your Name\u003c/em> did for Chalamet, \u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em> is one of those rare original big-screen delights that firmly announces the arrival of a new generation of movie stars. Zendaya and Faist already had a bit of a leg up. She has played significant supporting roles in some of the biggest movies of the past few years, from \u003cem>Spider-Man\u003c/em> to \u003cem>Dune\u003c/em>, and he had had his big cinematic breakthrough as Riff in Steven Spielberg’s \u003cem>West Side Story\u003c/em>. But it’s O’Connor who really comes out on top, effectively shedding any lingering image of him as a whiny, dweeby Prince Charles in seasons three and four of \u003cem>The Crown\u003c/em>. In \u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em>, his Patrick Zweig is the cocky, flirty, slightly mean, slightly dirty and slightly broken bad boyfriend of our fictional dreams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2N3hmRmwHQ\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Written by playwright Justin Kuritzkes (who is married to \u003cem>Past Lives\u003c/em> filmmaker Celine Song), \u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em> is a prickly treat, about fractured relationships, egos, infidelity and ambition. Set during a qualifying match at the New Rochelle Tennis Club, outside New York City, the intricately woven story reveals itself through flashbacks that build to a crescendo in the present-day match.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955729']O’Connor’s Patrick and Faist’s Art are old boarding school roommates turned tennis teammates. It’s a relationship that’s at turns brotherly, erotic and competitive. Whatever it is, they are definitely too close and not remotely prepared for Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan to enter the mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tashi, in high school, is well on her way to becoming the next big tennis superstar. Art and Patrick watch her play, mouths agape at her technical form and physical beauty. Later, they both ask for her number, leading to a revealing night in a grungy hotel room. She promises her number to the one who wins the singles match the next day. Tashi just wants to see some good tennis, she says, but she also knows how to motivate and manipulate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the fractured timeline, we know that Tashi in the present day does not play tennis anymore. She was injured at some point and never recovered, unlike her husband, Art, who is now one of the most famous players in the world. The two of them are wildly wealthy, living in a ritzy hotel and fronting Aston Martin ad campaigns. At night, Tashi uses Augustinus Bader cream to moisturize her legs. Guadagnino, who likes to wink at and luxuriate in wealth signifiers, enlisted JW Anderson designer Jonathan Anderson to do the costumes, which will surely populate summer style inspiration boards the way his \u003cem>A Bigger Splash\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Call Me By Your Name\u003c/em> have in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13956480']But while they are technically at the top, Art is also on a losing streak, so Tashi sends him to a low-stakes tournament where he can get his confidence back. That’s where they encounter Patrick, who has not been so fortunate over the years and who has fallen out with his old friends. Of course, it’s all building to Patrick and Art playing one another in the final match, a part of which is so wildly and comically drawn out that you can almost envision the \u003cem>Saturday Night Live\u003c/em> spoof.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em> is a drama, but a funny and self-aware one. It doesn’t take itself very seriously and has a lot of fun with its characters, all three of which are anti-heroes in a way. You might have a favorite, but you’re probably not rooting for anyone exactly — just glued to the screen to see how it all plays out on and off the court.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Challengers’ is released nationwide on April 26, 2024. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It’s still a sexy tennis movie about friendship, love, competition and sport set to a synth-y score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross — it just might not contain exactly what you think it does. But remember, Luca Guadagnino is the one who filmed Timothée Chalamet with that peach, perhaps more memorable than any actual sex scene from the past decade. Manage expectations, but also trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And like \u003cem>Call Me By Your Name\u003c/em> did for Chalamet, \u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em> is one of those rare original big-screen delights that firmly announces the arrival of a new generation of movie stars. Zendaya and Faist already had a bit of a leg up. She has played significant supporting roles in some of the biggest movies of the past few years, from \u003cem>Spider-Man\u003c/em> to \u003cem>Dune\u003c/em>, and he had had his big cinematic breakthrough as Riff in Steven Spielberg’s \u003cem>West Side Story\u003c/em>. But it’s O’Connor who really comes out on top, effectively shedding any lingering image of him as a whiny, dweeby Prince Charles in seasons three and four of \u003cem>The Crown\u003c/em>. In \u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em>, his Patrick Zweig is the cocky, flirty, slightly mean, slightly dirty and slightly broken bad boyfriend of our fictional dreams.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/-2N3hmRmwHQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/-2N3hmRmwHQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Written by playwright Justin Kuritzkes (who is married to \u003cem>Past Lives\u003c/em> filmmaker Celine Song), \u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em> is a prickly treat, about fractured relationships, egos, infidelity and ambition. Set during a qualifying match at the New Rochelle Tennis Club, outside New York City, the intricately woven story reveals itself through flashbacks that build to a crescendo in the present-day match.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>O’Connor’s Patrick and Faist’s Art are old boarding school roommates turned tennis teammates. It’s a relationship that’s at turns brotherly, erotic and competitive. Whatever it is, they are definitely too close and not remotely prepared for Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan to enter the mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tashi, in high school, is well on her way to becoming the next big tennis superstar. Art and Patrick watch her play, mouths agape at her technical form and physical beauty. Later, they both ask for her number, leading to a revealing night in a grungy hotel room. She promises her number to the one who wins the singles match the next day. Tashi just wants to see some good tennis, she says, but she also knows how to motivate and manipulate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the fractured timeline, we know that Tashi in the present day does not play tennis anymore. She was injured at some point and never recovered, unlike her husband, Art, who is now one of the most famous players in the world. The two of them are wildly wealthy, living in a ritzy hotel and fronting Aston Martin ad campaigns. At night, Tashi uses Augustinus Bader cream to moisturize her legs. Guadagnino, who likes to wink at and luxuriate in wealth signifiers, enlisted JW Anderson designer Jonathan Anderson to do the costumes, which will surely populate summer style inspiration boards the way his \u003cem>A Bigger Splash\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Call Me By Your Name\u003c/em> have in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But while they are technically at the top, Art is also on a losing streak, so Tashi sends him to a low-stakes tournament where he can get his confidence back. That’s where they encounter Patrick, who has not been so fortunate over the years and who has fallen out with his old friends. Of course, it’s all building to Patrick and Art playing one another in the final match, a part of which is so wildly and comically drawn out that you can almost envision the \u003cem>Saturday Night Live\u003c/em> spoof.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Challengers\u003c/em> is a drama, but a funny and self-aware one. It doesn’t take itself very seriously and has a lot of fun with its characters, all three of which are anti-heroes in a way. You might have a favorite, but you’re probably not rooting for anyone exactly — just glued to the screen to see how it all plays out on and off the court.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Challengers’ is released nationwide on April 26, 2024. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>HBO’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2015/03/18/376989647/the-jinx-and-the-challenges-of-public-curiosity\">\u003cem>The Jinx\u003c/em>,\u003c/a> which aired in 2015 (yes, nine years ago), was a huge contributor to the true-crime boom in television and audio. It came out the same year as Netflix’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/461908092/over-10-years-two-filmmakers-documented-the-making-a-murderer\">\u003cem>Making a Murderer\u003c/em> \u003c/a>and only a few months after the first season of the podcast \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2014/12/18/371636304/sarah-koenig-on-serial-i-think-something-went-wrong-with-this-case\">\u003cem>Serial\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. Few later attempts have been as successful, though, because they lack \u003cem>The Jinx\u003c/em>‘s secret weapon: the participation of the extraordinarily strange, compulsively talkative, and now deceased subject, Robert Durst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story of the docuseries goes like this: Durst had long been suspected in both the disappearance of his wife, Kathie, in 1982 and the shooting death of his best friend, Susan Berman, in 2000. He had admitted shooting his neighbor, Morris Black, in 2001 but was acquitted by a jury on a theory of self-defense. For reasons known only to himself, Durst chose to live out his life as an ultrawealthy real estate tycoon, but also to sit for long interviews with director Andrew Jarecki for \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>to discuss the alleged crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_11299066']These interviews were what made \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>so compelling. Durst could not stop himself from talking, even when staying silent was obviously in his best interests. This extended to a hot-mic incident that Jarecki treated as a bombshell confession, even though it turned out to be a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/arts/television/robert-durst-the-jinx.html\">bit more complicated than that\u003c/a>. The day before the finale aired, Durst was arrested for the murder of Berman, based in part on evidence that the documentarians had uncovered and provided to law enforcement. This follow-up series essentially covers his trial and the time leading up to it. But it, too, lacks the punch that Durst’s presence offered the original.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShYl5K8Nlq8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some things about the self-referential nature of this second chapter that are a little unpleasant. \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>is now part of the story of Durst’s life after his arrest. The filmmakers show some footage of the series finale viewing party they held in 2015 for (among others) the family of the disappeared first wife Durst is suspected of having killed. We watch their (apparent) relief and gratitude when the “confession” is played. Not shown: the incident \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/arts/television/robert-durst-the-jinx.html\">reported in \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a> in which another guest at the same party (Rosie O’Donnell, for whatever reason) immediately demanded to know why the filmmakers would have withheld this evidence from law enforcement to use it as the kicker to the show, a question that played out in the press as well, along with some \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2015/03/18/376989647/the-jinx-and-the-challenges-of-public-curiosity\">other tough questions about the making of\u003c/a> \u003cem>The Jinx\u003c/em>. But the way the viewing party is shown in \u003cem>Part Two\u003c/em>, nobody felt anything but vindicated and thankful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It seems questionable to set up a viewing party for a putative victim’s family and film their reaction to your big reveal about her murder, and a bit sketchy to omit parts where people weren’t sure you were doing the good deed you think you were doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ethically, those things raise some questions. But as television, the biggest problem with the episodes HBO provided to critics (four out of what will eventually be six) is that they’re pretty boring. Without Durst’s involvement (it seems that he finally stopped participating in documentary-making after he was arrested and died shortly after his conviction), the series often seems to be grasping for revelations. It’s also heavily reliant on reenactments, which aren’t particularly visually interesting and look a lot like every other true-crime reenactment on TV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955854']The third episode is the best of the four; without spoiling it, it sheds a bit of additional light on the back story, if you’re still looking for it. But what \u003cem>The Jinx — Part Two\u003c/em> reveals is that \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>was interesting because while Durst might be a murderer, he was also a gruesomely fascinating interview subject. While there’s tape here of phone calls from when he was incarcerated, and sometimes you get those “Bob being Bob” moments, the mesmerizing aspects of the original are not there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no telling what might come in the final two episodes; perhaps they have more to say, and that’s why they were held back from critics. The big revelations in \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>came in the last two episodes, after all. But in the meantime, this feels like a mystery show in search of a mystery, a true crime series with limited truths to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture\">\u003cem>Sign up for the newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xNgYt9\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3ELR3n6\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=So+far%2C+the+biggest+mystery+of+the+new+%27Jinx%27+is%3A+What%27s+the+mystery%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>HBO’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2015/03/18/376989647/the-jinx-and-the-challenges-of-public-curiosity\">\u003cem>The Jinx\u003c/em>,\u003c/a> which aired in 2015 (yes, nine years ago), was a huge contributor to the true-crime boom in television and audio. It came out the same year as Netflix’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/461908092/over-10-years-two-filmmakers-documented-the-making-a-murderer\">\u003cem>Making a Murderer\u003c/em> \u003c/a>and only a few months after the first season of the podcast \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2014/12/18/371636304/sarah-koenig-on-serial-i-think-something-went-wrong-with-this-case\">\u003cem>Serial\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. Few later attempts have been as successful, though, because they lack \u003cem>The Jinx\u003c/em>‘s secret weapon: the participation of the extraordinarily strange, compulsively talkative, and now deceased subject, Robert Durst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story of the docuseries goes like this: Durst had long been suspected in both the disappearance of his wife, Kathie, in 1982 and the shooting death of his best friend, Susan Berman, in 2000. He had admitted shooting his neighbor, Morris Black, in 2001 but was acquitted by a jury on a theory of self-defense. For reasons known only to himself, Durst chose to live out his life as an ultrawealthy real estate tycoon, but also to sit for long interviews with director Andrew Jarecki for \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>to discuss the alleged crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>These interviews were what made \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>so compelling. Durst could not stop himself from talking, even when staying silent was obviously in his best interests. This extended to a hot-mic incident that Jarecki treated as a bombshell confession, even though it turned out to be a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/arts/television/robert-durst-the-jinx.html\">bit more complicated than that\u003c/a>. The day before the finale aired, Durst was arrested for the murder of Berman, based in part on evidence that the documentarians had uncovered and provided to law enforcement. This follow-up series essentially covers his trial and the time leading up to it. But it, too, lacks the punch that Durst’s presence offered the original.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/ShYl5K8Nlq8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/ShYl5K8Nlq8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>There are some things about the self-referential nature of this second chapter that are a little unpleasant. \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>is now part of the story of Durst’s life after his arrest. The filmmakers show some footage of the series finale viewing party they held in 2015 for (among others) the family of the disappeared first wife Durst is suspected of having killed. We watch their (apparent) relief and gratitude when the “confession” is played. Not shown: the incident \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/arts/television/robert-durst-the-jinx.html\">reported in \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/a> in which another guest at the same party (Rosie O’Donnell, for whatever reason) immediately demanded to know why the filmmakers would have withheld this evidence from law enforcement to use it as the kicker to the show, a question that played out in the press as well, along with some \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2015/03/18/376989647/the-jinx-and-the-challenges-of-public-curiosity\">other tough questions about the making of\u003c/a> \u003cem>The Jinx\u003c/em>. But the way the viewing party is shown in \u003cem>Part Two\u003c/em>, nobody felt anything but vindicated and thankful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It seems questionable to set up a viewing party for a putative victim’s family and film their reaction to your big reveal about her murder, and a bit sketchy to omit parts where people weren’t sure you were doing the good deed you think you were doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ethically, those things raise some questions. But as television, the biggest problem with the episodes HBO provided to critics (four out of what will eventually be six) is that they’re pretty boring. Without Durst’s involvement (it seems that he finally stopped participating in documentary-making after he was arrested and died shortly after his conviction), the series often seems to be grasping for revelations. It’s also heavily reliant on reenactments, which aren’t particularly visually interesting and look a lot like every other true-crime reenactment on TV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The third episode is the best of the four; without spoiling it, it sheds a bit of additional light on the back story, if you’re still looking for it. But what \u003cem>The Jinx — Part Two\u003c/em> reveals is that \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>was interesting because while Durst might be a murderer, he was also a gruesomely fascinating interview subject. While there’s tape here of phone calls from when he was incarcerated, and sometimes you get those “Bob being Bob” moments, the mesmerizing aspects of the original are not there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no telling what might come in the final two episodes; perhaps they have more to say, and that’s why they were held back from critics. The big revelations in \u003cem>The Jinx \u003c/em>came in the last two episodes, after all. But in the meantime, this feels like a mystery show in search of a mystery, a true crime series with limited truths to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture\">\u003cem>Sign up for the newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xNgYt9\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3ELR3n6\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=So+far%2C+the+biggest+mystery+of+the+new+%27Jinx%27+is%3A+What%27s+the+mystery%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13956051\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 990px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13956051\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/better_custom-24ff7930367c23dfeb72232bab46653f4ce87f14.jpg\" alt=\"A book cover depicts a red sunset flipped upside down with land rising on both sides of a road.\" width=\"990\" height=\"1494\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/better_custom-24ff7930367c23dfeb72232bab46653f4ce87f14.jpg 990w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/better_custom-24ff7930367c23dfeb72232bab46653f4ce87f14-800x1207.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/better_custom-24ff7930367c23dfeb72232bab46653f4ce87f14-160x241.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/better_custom-24ff7930367c23dfeb72232bab46653f4ce87f14-768x1159.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 990px) 100vw, 990px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘A Better World’ by Sarah Langan. \u003ccite>(Atria Books)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sarah Langan’s \u003cem>A Better World\u003c/em> is one of those novels that burrow under your skin a little deeper with each chapter until you feel profoundly unsettled but also incapable of turning away. A very sinister thriller with a dash of science-fiction and full of inscrutabilities, this novel about a mother trying to save her family from a dying world is as entreating and creepy as it is timely and humane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955954']The Farmer-Bowens are struggling. Russell, the family’s father and Linda’s husband has lost his job, and they’re quickly running out of money and options. Linda, a pediatrician, can’t get enough hours to keep them afloat. Their kids, twins Hip and Josie, have somewhat normal lives, but Linda knows they deserve better than the polluted, dying world New York has to offer them. That’s why an invitation to visit Plymouth Valley, a walled-off company town with a good school where food is free, there’s no crime, and the air is clean is such a great opportunity. If Russell can get the job, Linda’s career will suffer, but the whole family will live in a much better, cleaner place, and they won’t have to worry about becoming homeless. When Russell is offered the job, the family jumps at the chance of a better life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plymouth Valley is as clean and organized as they said, but there’s something right below the surface that feels off. The locals have some strange customs, the sum of which they call the Hollow, and they seem to hate outsiders. After the initial shock of their move wears off, the Farmer-Bowens begin to feel ostracized and struggle to adapt. No one talks to them or invites them to their events. The kids at school shun Hip and Josie. Russell’s coworkers refuse to help him achieve his goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955156']Luckily, things change when Linda starts volunteering as a doctor for ActHollow, a small charity run by some of the most powerful and influential people in town. Finally, the family has the perfect life. Except they don’t. Plymouth Valley is more than strange, and it’s full of secrets and populated by folks with hidden agendas, bizarre birds, and maybe something monstrous hiding in the nuclear shelter tunnels that run under the entire town. The Farmer-Bowens have no clue what they’re surrounded by, and the towns biggest and most ominous yearly event, the Plymouth Valley Winter Festival, is approaching. Linda might be asking too many questions, but maybe Plymouth Valley is very different than how it pretends to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A Better World\u003c/em> is relentlessly creepy. Langan presents a controlled community where some things might seem off, but where the quality of life makes any weirdness worth it. Then, she quickly lifts the veil to reveal an increasingly odd, incredibly hostile, and extremely secretive world where people will do anything to get a “golden ticket” to stay in Plymouth Valley, there’s a horrible hazing process for all newcomers, mental health is on shaky grounds, alcoholism runs rampant, and where almost every smile and flash of “prayer hands” is fake and hides some ulterior motive. The outside world is dystopia that’s slowly killing all humans, but the perfect life of Plymouth Valley is just a facade that hides a community that’s rotten at its core. And Langan doesn’t just show a rotten world; she uses Plymouth Valley to explore wealth, the social effects of living in constant competition, and the evil sides of power and privilege.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The social critique is always there, but it never gets in the way of the action or interferes with Langan’s storytelling, which here is full of strangeness that borders on horror. Also, there are plenty of elements that add eerie layers to this narrative. Two worth mentioning are the strange form of cancer some kids have in Plymouth Valley, which is called “aplastic anemia,” and the “caladrius,” strange flightless birds that were genetically engineered. The birds are all over the place, live next to the houses, and serve as occasional food or as sacrifice while also occasionally feeding on food made from their own. These two elements, along with some others, start out as relatively simple things that, while strange, are not disturbing. But that slowly changes until the mere presence of the big birds manages to convey a sense of unease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955903']In \u003cem>A Better World\u003c/em>, everyone is hiding something, and getting to the bottom of things is a very entertaining ride full of bumps, bad vibes, and hidden dangers. Certain books rely mostly on atmosphere to deliver their story — Ira Levin’s \u003cem>Rosemary’s Baby\u003c/em> and Shirley Jackson’s \u003cem>The Haunting of Hill House\u003c/em>, for example — and Langan does that here. This is a story about survival where a woman is caught between two bad places with nowhere to go, but we want her to triumph. The darkness and critiques here make for a great read, but it’s the humanity with which Langan portrays Linda that makes this dark thriller a must read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Gabino Iglesias is an author, book reviewer and professor living in Austin, Texas. Find him on X, formerly Twitter, at \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Gabino_Iglesias\">@Gabino_Iglesias\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=It%27s+a+wild+ride+to+get+to+the+bottom+of+what+everyone%27s+hiding+in+%27A+Better+World%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Luckily, things change when Linda starts volunteering as a doctor for ActHollow, a small charity run by some of the most powerful and influential people in town. Finally, the family has the perfect life. Except they don’t. Plymouth Valley is more than strange, and it’s full of secrets and populated by folks with hidden agendas, bizarre birds, and maybe something monstrous hiding in the nuclear shelter tunnels that run under the entire town. The Farmer-Bowens have no clue what they’re surrounded by, and the towns biggest and most ominous yearly event, the Plymouth Valley Winter Festival, is approaching. Linda might be asking too many questions, but maybe Plymouth Valley is very different than how it pretends to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A Better World\u003c/em> is relentlessly creepy. Langan presents a controlled community where some things might seem off, but where the quality of life makes any weirdness worth it. Then, she quickly lifts the veil to reveal an increasingly odd, incredibly hostile, and extremely secretive world where people will do anything to get a “golden ticket” to stay in Plymouth Valley, there’s a horrible hazing process for all newcomers, mental health is on shaky grounds, alcoholism runs rampant, and where almost every smile and flash of “prayer hands” is fake and hides some ulterior motive. The outside world is dystopia that’s slowly killing all humans, but the perfect life of Plymouth Valley is just a facade that hides a community that’s rotten at its core. And Langan doesn’t just show a rotten world; she uses Plymouth Valley to explore wealth, the social effects of living in constant competition, and the evil sides of power and privilege.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In \u003cem>A Better World\u003c/em>, everyone is hiding something, and getting to the bottom of things is a very entertaining ride full of bumps, bad vibes, and hidden dangers. Certain books rely mostly on atmosphere to deliver their story — Ira Levin’s \u003cem>Rosemary’s Baby\u003c/em> and Shirley Jackson’s \u003cem>The Haunting of Hill House\u003c/em>, for example — and Langan does that here. This is a story about survival where a woman is caught between two bad places with nowhere to go, but we want her to triumph. The darkness and critiques here make for a great read, but it’s the humanity with which Langan portrays Linda that makes this dark thriller a must read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Gabino Iglesias is an author, book reviewer and professor living in Austin, Texas. Find him on X, formerly Twitter, at \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Gabino_Iglesias\">@Gabino_Iglesias\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=It%27s+a+wild+ride+to+get+to+the+bottom+of+what+everyone%27s+hiding+in+%27A+Better+World%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Californian Two-Spot Octopus Named Terrance Is a TikTok Sensation",
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"content": "\u003cp>The one thing 9-year-old Cal Clifford wanted more than anything since he was a toddler was a pet octopus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The boy’s family in rural Edmond, Oklahoma, humored him with toy versions of an eight-legged mollusk, but as Cal got older it became clear that only the real thing would do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13951961']The child’s father, 36-year-old dentist Cameron Clifford, researched the possibility with a local aquarium store and before long Terrance the California two-spot octopus, also known as a bimac, was living in a watery enclosure at the family home southwest of Oklahoma City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really like to encourage our children’s interests,” said the older Clifford. “It’s magical to see a kid embrace their dreams and bring them to fruition. Cal has been infatuated with the natural world and with marine biology since he was very little.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus\">popular TikTok saga\u003c/a> was launched with the father narrating the tale of Terrance the cephalopod, using a faux British accent generated by the social media app. Eventually, hundreds of thousands of people were following.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus/video/7347009867028270382\" data-video-id=\"7347009867028270382\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@doctoktopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@doctoktopus\u003c/a> AW SHUCKS. \u003ca title=\"marinebiology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/marinebiology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#marinebiology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"octopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"shrimpdaddy\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/shrimpdaddy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#shrimpdaddy\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwateraquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwateraquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwateraquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwater\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwater?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwater\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"aquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/aquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#aquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"fyp\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"petoctopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/petoctopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#petoctopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"clambake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/clambake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#clambake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"♬ Reggae Relaxante Base - Dance Comercial Music\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/Reggae-Relaxante-Base-7146231087398668290?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ Reggae Relaxante Base – Dance Comercial Music\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>[tiktok]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within weeks, the tale took a surprise turn when it was learned Terrance was actually a female as she laid some 50 eggs that the family initially assumed were unfertilized. Several weeks after that, teeny near-transparent octopus babies began hatching and were given names like Rocket Larry, Squid Cudi, Swim Shady, Jay-Sea and Sea-Yoncé.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus/video/7353825745661250862\" data-video-id=\"7353825745661250862\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@doctoktopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@doctoktopus\u003c/a> AN OCTOPOSSE \u003ca title=\"octopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"marinebiology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/marinebiology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#marinebiology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"shrimpdaddy\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/shrimpdaddy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#shrimpdaddy\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwateraquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwateraquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwateraquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"fyp\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"petoctopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/petoctopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#petoctopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwatertank\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwatertank?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwatertank\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwatertank\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwatertank?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwatertank\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"mom\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/mom?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#mom\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"crabcake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/crabcake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#crabcake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"clambake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/clambake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#clambake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"octomom\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octomom?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octomom\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"biology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/biology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#biology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"carpetcleaners\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/carpetcleaners?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#carpetcleaners\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"♬ original sound - Shoptopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7353825857968540462?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ original sound – Shoptopus\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>[tiktok]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal had burst into tears at the family dinner table when his father first announced that the local aquarium store had told him adopting an octopus would be possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Father and son together researched what was needed, deciding on a saltwater tank and water cycling system and ensuring they would be able to source food for the soft-bodied sea creature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family’s younger son Lyle and mom Kari also joined the project in their own ways. A family friend who is a reptile scientist has provided support and advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While female octopuses usually die soon after laying their eggs, Clifford said Terrance remains alive four months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus/video/7355098970932153646\" data-video-id=\"7355098970932153646\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@doctoktopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@doctoktopus\u003c/a> FB Marketplace IYKYK \u003ca title=\"octopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"marinebiology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/marinebiology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#marinebiology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"shrimpdaddy\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/shrimpdaddy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#shrimpdaddy\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwateraquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwateraquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwateraquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"fyp\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwatertank\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwatertank?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwatertank\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"aquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/aquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#aquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"mom\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/mom?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#mom\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"clambake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/clambake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#clambake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"petoctopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/petoctopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#petoctopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"crabcake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/crabcake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#crabcake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"♬ original sound - Shoptopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7355099371962583851?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ original sound – Shoptopus\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>[tiktok]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clifford said the family has gained much from the experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955125']“Aside from the physical, financial and emotional requirements of owning a species such as a bimac, you will learn a lot about yourself in the process,” the Arizona-born Clifford told TikTok followers in his app-generated accent. “There’s always some valve or seal that’s not completely closed, and your storm resistant carpet isn’t rated for gallons and gallons of seawater. You’ll learn that seawater and electricity don’t always get along.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You will learn new things and meet incredible people and will learn that wildlife is magnificent,” he added. “But most of all, you’ll learn to love a not-so-tiny octopus like Terrance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus/video/7356635947531849002\" data-video-id=\"7356635947531849002\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@doctoktopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@doctoktopus\u003c/a> THANK YOU OCTO-NATION 🐙 ❤️ \u003ca title=\"octopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"marinebiology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/marinebiology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#marinebiology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"shrimpdaddy\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/shrimpdaddy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#shrimpdaddy\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwateraquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwateraquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwateraquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"fyp\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwatertank\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwatertank?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwatertank\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"mom\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/mom?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#mom\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"crabcake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/crabcake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#crabcake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"biology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/biology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#biology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"carpetcleaners\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/carpetcleaners?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#carpetcleaners\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"♬ Elevator Music (Music Background) - Music Background & Easy Listening Background Music & Haruto Nakamori\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/Elevator-Music-Music-Background-6841973391990212610?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ Elevator Music (Music Background) – Music Background & Easy Listening Background Music & Haruto Nakamori\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[tiktok]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The child’s father, 36-year-old dentist Cameron Clifford, researched the possibility with a local aquarium store and before long Terrance the California two-spot octopus, also known as a bimac, was living in a watery enclosure at the family home southwest of Oklahoma City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really like to encourage our children’s interests,” said the older Clifford. “It’s magical to see a kid embrace their dreams and bring them to fruition. Cal has been infatuated with the natural world and with marine biology since he was very little.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus\">popular TikTok saga\u003c/a> was launched with the father narrating the tale of Terrance the cephalopod, using a faux British accent generated by the social media app. Eventually, hundreds of thousands of people were following.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus/video/7347009867028270382\" data-video-id=\"7347009867028270382\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@doctoktopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@doctoktopus\u003c/a> AW SHUCKS. \u003ca title=\"marinebiology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/marinebiology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#marinebiology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"octopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"shrimpdaddy\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/shrimpdaddy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#shrimpdaddy\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwateraquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwateraquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwateraquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwater\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwater?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwater\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"aquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/aquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#aquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"fyp\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"petoctopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/petoctopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#petoctopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"clambake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/clambake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#clambake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"♬ Reggae Relaxante Base - Dance Comercial Music\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/Reggae-Relaxante-Base-7146231087398668290?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ Reggae Relaxante Base – Dance Comercial Music\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within weeks, the tale took a surprise turn when it was learned Terrance was actually a female as she laid some 50 eggs that the family initially assumed were unfertilized. Several weeks after that, teeny near-transparent octopus babies began hatching and were given names like Rocket Larry, Squid Cudi, Swim Shady, Jay-Sea and Sea-Yoncé.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus/video/7353825745661250862\" data-video-id=\"7353825745661250862\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@doctoktopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@doctoktopus\u003c/a> AN OCTOPOSSE \u003ca title=\"octopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"marinebiology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/marinebiology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#marinebiology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"shrimpdaddy\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/shrimpdaddy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#shrimpdaddy\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwateraquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwateraquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwateraquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"fyp\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"petoctopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/petoctopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#petoctopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwatertank\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwatertank?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwatertank\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwatertank\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwatertank?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwatertank\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"mom\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/mom?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#mom\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"crabcake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/crabcake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#crabcake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"clambake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/clambake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#clambake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"octomom\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octomom?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octomom\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"biology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/biology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#biology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"carpetcleaners\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/carpetcleaners?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#carpetcleaners\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"♬ original sound - Shoptopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7353825857968540462?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ original sound – Shoptopus\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Father and son together researched what was needed, deciding on a saltwater tank and water cycling system and ensuring they would be able to source food for the soft-bodied sea creature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family’s younger son Lyle and mom Kari also joined the project in their own ways. A family friend who is a reptile scientist has provided support and advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While female octopuses usually die soon after laying their eggs, Clifford said Terrance remains alive four months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus/video/7355098970932153646\" data-video-id=\"7355098970932153646\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@doctoktopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@doctoktopus\u003c/a> FB Marketplace IYKYK \u003ca title=\"octopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"marinebiology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/marinebiology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#marinebiology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"shrimpdaddy\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/shrimpdaddy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#shrimpdaddy\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwateraquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwateraquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwateraquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"fyp\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwatertank\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwatertank?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwatertank\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"aquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/aquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#aquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"mom\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/mom?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#mom\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"clambake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/clambake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#clambake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"petoctopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/petoctopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#petoctopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"crabcake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/crabcake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#crabcake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"♬ original sound - Shoptopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7355099371962583851?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ original sound – Shoptopus\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clifford said the family has gained much from the experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Aside from the physical, financial and emotional requirements of owning a species such as a bimac, you will learn a lot about yourself in the process,” the Arizona-born Clifford told TikTok followers in his app-generated accent. “There’s always some valve or seal that’s not completely closed, and your storm resistant carpet isn’t rated for gallons and gallons of seawater. You’ll learn that seawater and electricity don’t always get along.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You will learn new things and meet incredible people and will learn that wildlife is magnificent,” he added. “But most of all, you’ll learn to love a not-so-tiny octopus like Terrance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus/video/7356635947531849002\" data-video-id=\"7356635947531849002\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@doctoktopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@doctoktopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@doctoktopus\u003c/a> THANK YOU OCTO-NATION 🐙 ❤️ \u003ca title=\"octopus\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/octopus?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#octopus\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"marinebiology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/marinebiology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#marinebiology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"shrimpdaddy\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/shrimpdaddy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#shrimpdaddy\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwateraquarium\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwateraquarium?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwateraquarium\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"fyp\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"saltwatertank\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/saltwatertank?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#saltwatertank\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"mom\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/mom?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#mom\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"crabcake\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/crabcake?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#crabcake\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"cephalopod\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cephalopod?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#cephalopod\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"biology\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/biology?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#biology\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"carpetcleaners\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/tag/carpetcleaners?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#carpetcleaners\u003c/a> \u003ca title=\"♬ Elevator Music (Music Background) - Music Background & Easy Listening Background Music & Haruto Nakamori\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/Elevator-Music-Music-Background-6841973391990212610?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ Elevator Music (Music Background) – Music Background & Easy Listening Background Music & Haruto Nakamori\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>True crime docs, scammer docs, serious docs … one of the most notable developments of the streaming era of television is that there are new documentary films and series coming out \u003cem>constantly\u003c/em>. The difficulty for someone who might want to check some of them out is that they go by in a blur, and a lot of them have similar-looking titles and promotion. There are still big-ticket entries — on April 21, HBO will premiere a follow-up series to its huge true-crime hit \u003cem>The Jinx\u003c/em> — but there are also a lot of lower-profile projects flying by, so let’s take a moment to check in with a few current ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/watch/81586385\">What Jennifer Did\u003c/a>’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-ppnYEAqSE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A feature-length film about a 2010 home invasion that killed a woman and left her husband in a coma, \u003cem>What Jennifer Did \u003c/em>is mostly told from the point of view of the police who gradually zeroed in on the couple’s daughter, who was home at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police-side crime documentaries tend to be the least interesting to me, and in this case, it feels like there’s a tremendous amount of context missing about the family in favor of a fairly simple “she wanted to be with her boyfriend” narrative. But I say that in part because I have read \u003ca href=\"https://torontolife.com/city/jennifer-pan-revenge/\">the 2015 piece by Karen Ho\u003c/a> in \u003cem>Toronto Life\u003c/em> that considers more broadly what led to this bizarre act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Netflix, available now.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘\u003ca href=\"https://play.max.com/video/watch/f0ec4d4e-1b22-431e-8f3d-229103287d3a/511cde7d-1801-4af3-b2dc-d372eaf84791\">Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion\u003c/a>’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1pONvsrBEo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can honestly tell you I was not very familiar with the Brandy Melville brand before I watched this film, which tells the story of how social media helped make a juggernaut out of a whole lot of nondescript tiny shirts. (It’s more complicated than that, and … also not.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story of the gross in-store culture (which reminded me a \u003cem>lot\u003c/em> of parts of \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81323741\">the Netflix film \u003cem>White Hot\u003c/em>, about Abercrombie & Fitch\u003c/a>) is interesting and pretty lively, but I would have preferred a little more time spent on the fast-fashion element, which I do think is ripe for more documentary work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Max, available now.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘\u003ca href=\"https://play.max.com/show/a27b5e0a-68eb-48e2-baa6-2b0f01d5b8be\">The Synanon Fix\u003c/a>’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Z8xMmly1M\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, it feels like documentaries are their own expanded universe. I was just watching \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81579761\">an entirely different show\u003c/a> about the “troubled teen” industry and its dark history, and it mentioned how Synanon, which began in California as a program to treat addiction, influenced much of what became the “we will grab your badly behaved teenager from their bed, take them to some secluded location, allow them no contact with anybody, and turn them around” model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now, Synanon has its own docuseries, which considers whether and when Synanon turned into what you would call a cult. (Was it the head-shaving? The mass weddings? The dictates about reproduction?) But what stands out the most is the consideration of how a program and a community can change shape, and it takes a while for people inside and outside it to register those changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Max, airing now.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13954796']We’re only scratching the surface of what’s out there — Netflix’s #1 show as I write this is their \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=81476420\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Unlocked: A Jail Experiment\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, about a “program” that gives incarcerated men more freedom. And I am 100% committed to finding time before it expires on April 20 to watch \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/video/menus-plaisirs-les-troisgros-rbfnou/\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the latest from the great documentarian Frederick Wiseman, which is available on PBS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture\">\u003cem>Sign up for the newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xNgYt9\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3ELR3n6\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. 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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>True crime docs, scammer docs, serious docs … one of the most notable developments of the streaming era of television is that there are new documentary films and series coming out \u003cem>constantly\u003c/em>. The difficulty for someone who might want to check some of them out is that they go by in a blur, and a lot of them have similar-looking titles and promotion. There are still big-ticket entries — on April 21, HBO will premiere a follow-up series to its huge true-crime hit \u003cem>The Jinx\u003c/em> — but there are also a lot of lower-profile projects flying by, so let’s take a moment to check in with a few current ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/watch/81586385\">What Jennifer Did\u003c/a>’\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/M-ppnYEAqSE'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/M-ppnYEAqSE'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>A feature-length film about a 2010 home invasion that killed a woman and left her husband in a coma, \u003cem>What Jennifer Did \u003c/em>is mostly told from the point of view of the police who gradually zeroed in on the couple’s daughter, who was home at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police-side crime documentaries tend to be the least interesting to me, and in this case, it feels like there’s a tremendous amount of context missing about the family in favor of a fairly simple “she wanted to be with her boyfriend” narrative. But I say that in part because I have read \u003ca href=\"https://torontolife.com/city/jennifer-pan-revenge/\">the 2015 piece by Karen Ho\u003c/a> in \u003cem>Toronto Life\u003c/em> that considers more broadly what led to this bizarre act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Netflix, available now.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘\u003ca href=\"https://play.max.com/video/watch/f0ec4d4e-1b22-431e-8f3d-229103287d3a/511cde7d-1801-4af3-b2dc-d372eaf84791\">Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion\u003c/a>’\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/p1pONvsrBEo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/p1pONvsrBEo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can honestly tell you I was not very familiar with the Brandy Melville brand before I watched this film, which tells the story of how social media helped make a juggernaut out of a whole lot of nondescript tiny shirts. (It’s more complicated than that, and … also not.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story of the gross in-store culture (which reminded me a \u003cem>lot\u003c/em> of parts of \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81323741\">the Netflix film \u003cem>White Hot\u003c/em>, about Abercrombie & Fitch\u003c/a>) is interesting and pretty lively, but I would have preferred a little more time spent on the fast-fashion element, which I do think is ripe for more documentary work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Max, available now.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘\u003ca href=\"https://play.max.com/show/a27b5e0a-68eb-48e2-baa6-2b0f01d5b8be\">The Synanon Fix\u003c/a>’\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Y8Z8xMmly1M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Y8Z8xMmly1M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Sometimes, it feels like documentaries are their own expanded universe. I was just watching \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/81579761\">an entirely different show\u003c/a> about the “troubled teen” industry and its dark history, and it mentioned how Synanon, which began in California as a program to treat addiction, influenced much of what became the “we will grab your badly behaved teenager from their bed, take them to some secluded location, allow them no contact with anybody, and turn them around” model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now, Synanon has its own docuseries, which considers whether and when Synanon turned into what you would call a cult. (Was it the head-shaving? The mass weddings? The dictates about reproduction?) But what stands out the most is the consideration of how a program and a community can change shape, and it takes a while for people inside and outside it to register those changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Max, airing now.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>We’re only scratching the surface of what’s out there — Netflix’s #1 show as I write this is their \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=81476420\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Unlocked: A Jail Experiment\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, about a “program” that gives incarcerated men more freedom. And I am 100% committed to finding time before it expires on April 20 to watch \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/video/menus-plaisirs-les-troisgros-rbfnou/\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the latest from the great documentarian Frederick Wiseman, which is available on PBS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture\">\u003cem>Sign up for the newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xNgYt9\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3ELR3n6\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Three+eye-opening+documentaries+you+can+stream+right+now&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Is Conan O’Brien the Most Perfect ‘Hot Ones’ Guest Ever?",
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"content": "\u003cp>By now, someone’s probably sent you the clip of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FALlhXl6CmA\">Conan O’Brien on the internet series \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, going full chaos gremlin: red-cheeked, sweating, drooling, his face smeared with hot sauce and bellowing about seizing the moment (“This isn’t a bit! This is LIIIIIFE!”). He looks crazed. If you haven’t yet seen that clip, sit tight. It’s going viral, as the kids used to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s not the first time. You know that Paul Rudd meme, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yd3lQVbkYc\">he grins widely, radiating warmth and camaraderie\u003c/a> (“Hey. Look at us.”)? That’s from \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em>, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13955916\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/giphy.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ditto \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ntwS9EbaQ8\">Jennifer Lawrence panicking and laugh-sobbing\u003c/a> (“What do you mean? What do you MEAN?”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13955917\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/giphy-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"318\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now it’s Conan’s turn. He turned up on the show to promote\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDFFY6swDY0\"> his new Max travel series \u003c/a>and wasted no time seizing control of the interview and the premise itself. O’Brien is known as a performer who can’t help but be “on” all the time, no matter the size of his audience. When he wrote on \u003cem>The Simpsons\u003c/em>, he and his colleagues in the writers’ room would be sitting around a table; they’d be pitching jokes, and he’d be miming an elaborate routine in which he was an astronaut strapping himself into a rocket ship — all for the benefit of the guys across the table from him. On his podcast,\u003cem> Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend\u003c/em>, he tosses out an incessant series of bits to the delight (mostly) of his producer and assistant. There’s a restless, needy quality to his comedy that would be worrisome if his instincts weren’t so sharp if he wasn’t funny as he is.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The perfect guest?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>But before we unpack how and why O’Brien just became the best \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> guest ever, we need to consider the show itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first time you heard the premise of \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em>, the YouTube series on which celebrities are interviewed by the affable and scrupulously well-prepared host Sean Evans as they consume a series of increasingly spicy buffalo wings, you probably thought it sounded like a dumb gimmick. Then you probably started poking around to see if any of your favorite celebrities had been a guest. Then you watched one episode. And then, it was all over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13952823']There are entire Reddit forums dedicated to ranking which \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> guests are “the best,” but determining that involves a very subjective calculus. Some want to see guests melt down; others want them to power through without breaking a sweat. Some watch in the hope that they’ll gain new insights into the personality of a given celebrity as the various hot sauces start to dissolve their pat, media-trained soundbites like the blood of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEqHJ1tomnk\">Xenomorph eats through the Nostromo\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news is that there’s a \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> episode for whatever you’re looking for. Different guests react very differently, and your favorite episode may not be anyone else’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For me, a great guest has to come in with hubris — the excessive pride of tragic heroes — because they bring their own narrative arc to the endeavor. Because Idris Elba approached the challenge with dismissive bravado, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYRS0aXaBC8\">his downfall — coughing, sweating, swearing, mock-threatening a producer\u003c/a> — was all the more satisfying. Ditto \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9DyHthJ6LA\">Gordon Ramsay\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ClNliCW0w\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s also delightful when an episode seems to confirm your pre-existing impression of a guest. Padma Lakshmi \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-P5-7eV9GE\">stayed cool in every sense of the word \u003c/a>as she answered Evans’ questions and commented insightfully on the flavor profiles of the various sauces (even the infamous Da Bomb, which clocks in at 119,700 Scoville units and reportedly tastes as if kerosene were angry at you).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-cQ_Wtv0sQ\">Elijah Wood\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxGmGGmvFD8\">Tom Holland\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBJq-XCP27c\">Michael Cera\u003c/a> demonstrated a deep knowledge of the show, endearing them to fans. Alton Brown brought a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1-k7VYwsHg\">know-it-all diffidence\u003c/a>, which was not particularly endearing. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_9v-7rtVDk\">Key & Peele \u003c/a>belong to that cohort of guests who turn on the host hilariously (see also: \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sZH-psg9yE\">Shaq\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lvrikv6oPs\">Bill Burr\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdje6vlVXuA\">Lizzo\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4lxK6EU04k\">Michael Rapaport\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5YxwFgRRCI\">Ed Helms\u003c/a>). \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaoEyTZpv18\">Lorde\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGuC6wunr-I&t=1s\">Jenna Ortega\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgQMW4eVrzw\">Charlize Theron\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t69oHRPb4E8\">Rachael Ray\u003c/a> weren’t bothered by the heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SuBAKIHdLU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many guests have raved about interviewer Sean Evans over the years. Specifically, they’ve marveled at his questions, which are both deeply researched and novel. It’s fun to watch celebrities who have repeatedly spent their careers answering the same questions on press junkets realize that they’ve just been asked a question about something they dearly love and no one else has ever asked them about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s true — Evans is a good interviewer. But as a host myself, I’d love to hear him give his researchers some of the love he gets from guests. And if I have any quibble with the show, it’s that Evans is so thoroughly prepared that his questions always sound more like written English than spoken English; there’s a formality in the wording that doesn’t quite jibe with the looseness of the chemistry the show aims for.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Now, about that Conan episode.\u003c/h3>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@firstwefeast/video/7356962983794314539\" data-video-id=\"7356962983794314539\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@firstwefeast\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@firstwefeast?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@firstwefeast\u003c/a> @Team Coco \u003ca title=\"♬ original sound - Firstwefeast\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7356963250321230634?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ original sound – Firstwefeast\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>[tiktok]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conan has catapulted himself to the top of the list of \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> All-Stars because he knew exactly what he was getting into and what he had to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1. He came prepared\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Conan brought along a human bit. He introduced us to his personal doctor (actually longtime writer and producer José Arroyo). It felt like an old-school show-biz gag, something you could picture Johnny Carson or Steve Allen doing. O’Brien’s ability to genuflect to his comedy forbears while striking out and doing something ridiculous on his own has endeared him to millions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>2. He came to conquer\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Conan not only demonstrated a breezy familiarity with the show, but he also wasted little time ridiculing its premise (“What’s WRONG with you people? You don’t know what real danger looks like anymore!”).\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>3. He was, predictably, nuts\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> fans talk admiringly about the Padmas and the Charlizes – celebrities who run the show’s gauntlet without being bothered by the heat. Conan decided that he wouldn’t just mock the show’s premise; he’d put every previous guest who shrugged off the sauces’ spiciness to shame. He used his innate comic sensibility — that artisanal mix of restless/needy — to achieve icon status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He didn’t merely dab the wings with hot sauce; he doused them with it. He loaded them up and smeared them across the table until they were laden with every stray drop. He licked them — lovingly, yet somehow angrily at the same time. He spread them across his face like woad; he slathered them around his nipples. He guzzled Da Bomb straight from the bottle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ll say that again:\u003cem> He guzzled Da Bomb straight from the bottle! \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More importantly, He committed to the bit. Completely. Consummately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He kept up the show of not being bothered, even as his face began to redden and his brow began to sweat. He kept it up, even as he started to drool, guzzle milk, pant, and give increasingly abstruse, rambling answers to Evans’ questions. And all that red sauce around his mouth made him look like an extra from \u003cem>Cannibal Holocaust\u003c/em> if it had been set in County Cork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955884']Even those of us who delighted in, say, an Aubrey Plaza managing to maintain her too-cool-for-school composure even as \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS68LmqFVeA\">she snorted milk up her nose\u003c/a> to cool the burn had never seen anything like this. We likely never will again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conan was so clearly suffering, and he’d done it to himself. We knew that because A. we have eyes, and B. because he began the interview by joking that, growing up as he did in an Irish household, “I never saw a spice until I was about 52 years old.” And yet here he’d joyously hurled himself into a swirling miasma of extreme pain and gastric distress, all for a lousy YouTube show bit, just to be an idiot capering for our delight in the global village.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We watched in helpless confusion and wonder (and a bit of fear) as he strapped himself into that rocket and took off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fans of \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> refer to those celebrities who make it through the sauces without complaint as Spice Lords.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, Conan O’Brien went them all one better. Not because he could endure the spice but because he gave himself over to it. He became a Spice Legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Is+Conan+O%27Brien+the+best+%27Hot+Ones%27+guest+ever%3F+Discuss.&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>By now, someone’s probably sent you the clip of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FALlhXl6CmA\">Conan O’Brien on the internet series \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, going full chaos gremlin: red-cheeked, sweating, drooling, his face smeared with hot sauce and bellowing about seizing the moment (“This isn’t a bit! This is LIIIIIFE!”). He looks crazed. If you haven’t yet seen that clip, sit tight. It’s going viral, as the kids used to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s not the first time. You know that Paul Rudd meme, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yd3lQVbkYc\">he grins widely, radiating warmth and camaraderie\u003c/a> (“Hey. Look at us.”)? That’s from \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em>, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13955916\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/giphy.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ditto \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ntwS9EbaQ8\">Jennifer Lawrence panicking and laugh-sobbing\u003c/a> (“What do you mean? What do you MEAN?”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13955917\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/giphy-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"318\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now it’s Conan’s turn. He turned up on the show to promote\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDFFY6swDY0\"> his new Max travel series \u003c/a>and wasted no time seizing control of the interview and the premise itself. O’Brien is known as a performer who can’t help but be “on” all the time, no matter the size of his audience. When he wrote on \u003cem>The Simpsons\u003c/em>, he and his colleagues in the writers’ room would be sitting around a table; they’d be pitching jokes, and he’d be miming an elaborate routine in which he was an astronaut strapping himself into a rocket ship — all for the benefit of the guys across the table from him. On his podcast,\u003cem> Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend\u003c/em>, he tosses out an incessant series of bits to the delight (mostly) of his producer and assistant. There’s a restless, needy quality to his comedy that would be worrisome if his instincts weren’t so sharp if he wasn’t funny as he is.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The perfect guest?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>But before we unpack how and why O’Brien just became the best \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> guest ever, we need to consider the show itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first time you heard the premise of \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em>, the YouTube series on which celebrities are interviewed by the affable and scrupulously well-prepared host Sean Evans as they consume a series of increasingly spicy buffalo wings, you probably thought it sounded like a dumb gimmick. Then you probably started poking around to see if any of your favorite celebrities had been a guest. Then you watched one episode. And then, it was all over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There are entire Reddit forums dedicated to ranking which \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> guests are “the best,” but determining that involves a very subjective calculus. Some want to see guests melt down; others want them to power through without breaking a sweat. Some watch in the hope that they’ll gain new insights into the personality of a given celebrity as the various hot sauces start to dissolve their pat, media-trained soundbites like the blood of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEqHJ1tomnk\">Xenomorph eats through the Nostromo\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news is that there’s a \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> episode for whatever you’re looking for. Different guests react very differently, and your favorite episode may not be anyone else’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For me, a great guest has to come in with hubris — the excessive pride of tragic heroes — because they bring their own narrative arc to the endeavor. Because Idris Elba approached the challenge with dismissive bravado, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYRS0aXaBC8\">his downfall — coughing, sweating, swearing, mock-threatening a producer\u003c/a> — was all the more satisfying. Ditto \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9DyHthJ6LA\">Gordon Ramsay\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/A7ClNliCW0w'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/A7ClNliCW0w'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>But it’s also delightful when an episode seems to confirm your pre-existing impression of a guest. Padma Lakshmi \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-P5-7eV9GE\">stayed cool in every sense of the word \u003c/a>as she answered Evans’ questions and commented insightfully on the flavor profiles of the various sauces (even the infamous Da Bomb, which clocks in at 119,700 Scoville units and reportedly tastes as if kerosene were angry at you).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-cQ_Wtv0sQ\">Elijah Wood\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxGmGGmvFD8\">Tom Holland\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBJq-XCP27c\">Michael Cera\u003c/a> demonstrated a deep knowledge of the show, endearing them to fans. Alton Brown brought a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1-k7VYwsHg\">know-it-all diffidence\u003c/a>, which was not particularly endearing. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_9v-7rtVDk\">Key & Peele \u003c/a>belong to that cohort of guests who turn on the host hilariously (see also: \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sZH-psg9yE\">Shaq\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lvrikv6oPs\">Bill Burr\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdje6vlVXuA\">Lizzo\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4lxK6EU04k\">Michael Rapaport\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5YxwFgRRCI\">Ed Helms\u003c/a>). \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaoEyTZpv18\">Lorde\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGuC6wunr-I&t=1s\">Jenna Ortega\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgQMW4eVrzw\">Charlize Theron\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t69oHRPb4E8\">Rachael Ray\u003c/a> weren’t bothered by the heat.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/7SuBAKIHdLU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/7SuBAKIHdLU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Many guests have raved about interviewer Sean Evans over the years. Specifically, they’ve marveled at his questions, which are both deeply researched and novel. It’s fun to watch celebrities who have repeatedly spent their careers answering the same questions on press junkets realize that they’ve just been asked a question about something they dearly love and no one else has ever asked them about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s true — Evans is a good interviewer. But as a host myself, I’d love to hear him give his researchers some of the love he gets from guests. And if I have any quibble with the show, it’s that Evans is so thoroughly prepared that his questions always sound more like written English than spoken English; there’s a formality in the wording that doesn’t quite jibe with the looseness of the chemistry the show aims for.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Now, about that Conan episode.\u003c/h3>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@firstwefeast/video/7356962983794314539\" data-video-id=\"7356962983794314539\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@firstwefeast\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@firstwefeast?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@firstwefeast\u003c/a> @Team Coco \u003ca title=\"♬ original sound - Firstwefeast\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7356963250321230634?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ original sound – Firstwefeast\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conan has catapulted himself to the top of the list of \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> All-Stars because he knew exactly what he was getting into and what he had to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>1. He came prepared\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Conan brought along a human bit. He introduced us to his personal doctor (actually longtime writer and producer José Arroyo). It felt like an old-school show-biz gag, something you could picture Johnny Carson or Steve Allen doing. O’Brien’s ability to genuflect to his comedy forbears while striking out and doing something ridiculous on his own has endeared him to millions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>2. He came to conquer\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Conan not only demonstrated a breezy familiarity with the show, but he also wasted little time ridiculing its premise (“What’s WRONG with you people? You don’t know what real danger looks like anymore!”).\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>3. He was, predictably, nuts\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> fans talk admiringly about the Padmas and the Charlizes – celebrities who run the show’s gauntlet without being bothered by the heat. Conan decided that he wouldn’t just mock the show’s premise; he’d put every previous guest who shrugged off the sauces’ spiciness to shame. He used his innate comic sensibility — that artisanal mix of restless/needy — to achieve icon status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He didn’t merely dab the wings with hot sauce; he doused them with it. He loaded them up and smeared them across the table until they were laden with every stray drop. He licked them — lovingly, yet somehow angrily at the same time. He spread them across his face like woad; he slathered them around his nipples. He guzzled Da Bomb straight from the bottle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ll say that again:\u003cem> He guzzled Da Bomb straight from the bottle! \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More importantly, He committed to the bit. Completely. Consummately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He kept up the show of not being bothered, even as his face began to redden and his brow began to sweat. He kept it up, even as he started to drool, guzzle milk, pant, and give increasingly abstruse, rambling answers to Evans’ questions. And all that red sauce around his mouth made him look like an extra from \u003cem>Cannibal Holocaust\u003c/em> if it had been set in County Cork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Even those of us who delighted in, say, an Aubrey Plaza managing to maintain her too-cool-for-school composure even as \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS68LmqFVeA\">she snorted milk up her nose\u003c/a> to cool the burn had never seen anything like this. We likely never will again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conan was so clearly suffering, and he’d done it to himself. We knew that because A. we have eyes, and B. because he began the interview by joking that, growing up as he did in an Irish household, “I never saw a spice until I was about 52 years old.” And yet here he’d joyously hurled himself into a swirling miasma of extreme pain and gastric distress, all for a lousy YouTube show bit, just to be an idiot capering for our delight in the global village.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We watched in helpless confusion and wonder (and a bit of fear) as he strapped himself into that rocket and took off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fans of \u003cem>Hot Ones\u003c/em> refer to those celebrities who make it through the sauces without complaint as Spice Lords.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, Conan O’Brien went them all one better. Not because he could endure the spice but because he gave himself over to it. He became a Spice Legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Is+Conan+O%27Brien+the+best+%27Hot+Ones%27+guest+ever%3F+Discuss.&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13955906\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 826px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13955906\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM.png\" alt=\"A book cover features a collage that combines a city skyline and tree foliage.\" width=\"826\" height=\"1216\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM.png 826w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM-800x1178.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM-160x236.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM-768x1131.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 826px) 100vw, 826px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Like Happiness: A Novel’ by Ursula Villarreal-Moura. \u003ccite>(Celadon Books)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When Tatum Vega gets a call from a \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> journalist asking about famous author M. Domínguez, it’s as if a ghost has appeared in the comfortable home she shares with her partner, Vera, in Chile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three years have passed since her last interaction with M., whom she had the privilege of knowing as Mateo, and she thought she’d finally shaken off the remnants of their relationship. But when the journalist tells her that a young woman has accused M. of sexual assault, Tatum is both surprised and not. “You weren’t that person with me, not exactly,” she writes to Mateo, “but the fingerprints of our stories are strikingly similar.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955214']So begins Ursula Villarreal-Moura’s debut novel, \u003cem>Like Happiness, \u003c/em>which movingly portrays its protagonist coming to terms with the imbalanced, difficult, and sometimes harmful friendship with Mateo that was, at the same time, an essential, and at times euphoric, part of her life for many years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short chapters set in Tatum’s present-day, 2015, she narrates the process of deciding whether to talk to the NYT journalist investigating Mateo’s misdeeds, and how much she should divulge. Most of the novel, however, addresses Mateo directly, as Tatum tries to untangle the story of their decade-long unequal friendship, to understand how early its painful patterns began, and to acknowledge her own role within their dynamic, which kept her trapped within a life smaller than the one she wanted and deserved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raised by working-class parents in Texas, Tatum fell in love with books early, finding in them a way to “counter the loneliness and boredom of being an only child.” When she goes to Williams College, she feels like she doesn’t fit in, believes she might be the only Latina on campus, and admits that in the early days she was “too proud to say that perhaps Massachusetts—home of Plath and Sexton—wasn’t for [her].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When, in her senior year, she comes across M. Domínguez’s short story collection, \u003cem>Happiness\u003c/em>, she’s enraptured, and reads it over and over again. Finally, she decides to write to M., care of his publisher. In part, her letter reads: “Although I’m Chicana, not Boricua like you or your characters, I identify with the Latino culture in your work and have found your book to be affirming. It’s not often that I see myself reflected in literature, TV, or music… I find your book so indispensable. Your work legitimizes Latino culture and quietly celebrates it. I apologize for placing so much responsibility upon your writing. My intention isn’t to overwhelm you, but to thank you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13954709']Unexpectedly, Mateo responds, and soon he and Tatum are exchanging emails, phone calls, and the intimacies of their daily lives, the music they enjoy, the books they revere, and more. Mateo even comes to stay with Tatum on Cape Cod when she gets a housesitting gig there for the summer after she graduates. Is this inappropriate? Tatum is 22 or so at this point, clearly an adult; she knows her own mind and can certainly foster a friendship with an older man if she wishes. But Mateo is 30, a renowned if tokenized author, with more money, power, and status than his young admirer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of the following decade, Tatum becomes more and more intertwined with Mateo’s life. She travels with him to reading gigs all over the country; she tends to his insecurities and soothes his ego; she nurses both romantic and platonic feelings for him, sometimes reciprocated yet often not; and, perhaps most importantly, she allows her preoccupation with both his brilliance and his confessed brokenness to undermine her own desires, aspirations, and difficulties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://www.triquarterly.org/interviews/conversation-ursula-villarreal-moura\">2022 interview\u003c/a> with the literary magazine \u003cem>TriQuarterly\u003c/em>, Villarreal-Moura said, “Everyone assumes my fiction is autobiographical. That probably has to do with my being a woman. People always assume women are writing about their lives.” Back then, \u003cem>Like Happiness\u003c/em> had only recently sold, and all potential readers knew then was that it was about a lengthy relationship between a famous Puerto Rican writer and a young Mexican American college student that begins when she writes him a fan letter. Villarreal-Moura shared that based on the mere premise, people began asking whether the novel was autobiographical, to which she replied, “No. It’s a product of my imagination.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The author is correct in her assessment that writers who are women and/or queer are far too often assumed to be writing autobiographically. In the case of this novel in particular, however, it’s easy to see why some contemporary readers would assume some basis in reality; the story of someone like Mateo taking advantage of younger women is all too common, and various literary luminaries have been accused of abusive behavior during the last decade (and many more are spoken about in the hushed tones and private messages of the whisper network).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13955683']Which is to say that while her novel isn’t based on anyone in particular, Villarreal-Moura has tapped into something as resonant as it is recognizable, and in \u003cem>Like Happiness \u003c/em>has given us a beautiful work of fiction that dwells in the gray areas between celebrity and fan, victim and victimizer, absolution and blame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ilana Masad is a fiction writer, book critic, and author of the novel ‘All My Mother’s Lovers.’\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more,\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\"> visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=In+%27Like+Happiness%2C%27+a+woman+struggles+to+define+a+past%2C+destructive+relationship+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13955906\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 826px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13955906\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM.png\" alt=\"A book cover features a collage that combines a city skyline and tree foliage.\" width=\"826\" height=\"1216\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM.png 826w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM-800x1178.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM-160x236.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/Screen-Shot-2024-04-12-at-10.03.05-AM-768x1131.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 826px) 100vw, 826px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Like Happiness: A Novel’ by Ursula Villarreal-Moura. \u003ccite>(Celadon Books)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When Tatum Vega gets a call from a \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> journalist asking about famous author M. Domínguez, it’s as if a ghost has appeared in the comfortable home she shares with her partner, Vera, in Chile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three years have passed since her last interaction with M., whom she had the privilege of knowing as Mateo, and she thought she’d finally shaken off the remnants of their relationship. But when the journalist tells her that a young woman has accused M. of sexual assault, Tatum is both surprised and not. “You weren’t that person with me, not exactly,” she writes to Mateo, “but the fingerprints of our stories are strikingly similar.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When, in her senior year, she comes across M. Domínguez’s short story collection, \u003cem>Happiness\u003c/em>, she’s enraptured, and reads it over and over again. Finally, she decides to write to M., care of his publisher. In part, her letter reads: “Although I’m Chicana, not Boricua like you or your characters, I identify with the Latino culture in your work and have found your book to be affirming. It’s not often that I see myself reflected in literature, TV, or music… I find your book so indispensable. Your work legitimizes Latino culture and quietly celebrates it. I apologize for placing so much responsibility upon your writing. My intention isn’t to overwhelm you, but to thank you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Unexpectedly, Mateo responds, and soon he and Tatum are exchanging emails, phone calls, and the intimacies of their daily lives, the music they enjoy, the books they revere, and more. Mateo even comes to stay with Tatum on Cape Cod when she gets a housesitting gig there for the summer after she graduates. Is this inappropriate? Tatum is 22 or so at this point, clearly an adult; she knows her own mind and can certainly foster a friendship with an older man if she wishes. But Mateo is 30, a renowned if tokenized author, with more money, power, and status than his young admirer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of the following decade, Tatum becomes more and more intertwined with Mateo’s life. She travels with him to reading gigs all over the country; she tends to his insecurities and soothes his ego; she nurses both romantic and platonic feelings for him, sometimes reciprocated yet often not; and, perhaps most importantly, she allows her preoccupation with both his brilliance and his confessed brokenness to undermine her own desires, aspirations, and difficulties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://www.triquarterly.org/interviews/conversation-ursula-villarreal-moura\">2022 interview\u003c/a> with the literary magazine \u003cem>TriQuarterly\u003c/em>, Villarreal-Moura said, “Everyone assumes my fiction is autobiographical. That probably has to do with my being a woman. People always assume women are writing about their lives.” Back then, \u003cem>Like Happiness\u003c/em> had only recently sold, and all potential readers knew then was that it was about a lengthy relationship between a famous Puerto Rican writer and a young Mexican American college student that begins when she writes him a fan letter. Villarreal-Moura shared that based on the mere premise, people began asking whether the novel was autobiographical, to which she replied, “No. It’s a product of my imagination.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The author is correct in her assessment that writers who are women and/or queer are far too often assumed to be writing autobiographically. In the case of this novel in particular, however, it’s easy to see why some contemporary readers would assume some basis in reality; the story of someone like Mateo taking advantage of younger women is all too common, and various literary luminaries have been accused of abusive behavior during the last decade (and many more are spoken about in the hushed tones and private messages of the whisper network).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Which is to say that while her novel isn’t based on anyone in particular, Villarreal-Moura has tapped into something as resonant as it is recognizable, and in \u003cem>Like Happiness \u003c/em>has given us a beautiful work of fiction that dwells in the gray areas between celebrity and fan, victim and victimizer, absolution and blame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ilana Masad is a fiction writer, book critic, and author of the novel ‘All My Mother’s Lovers.’\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more,\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\"> visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=In+%27Like+Happiness%2C%27+a+woman+struggles+to+define+a+past%2C+destructive+relationship+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"soldout": {
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"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
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