Featured Bookstore: The Twig, San Antonio, Texas

August 23, 2018 Mary

Mary talks about The Twig, a local bookstore in San Antonio, Texas, for this month’s featured bookstore!

The Best True Crime Podcast You're Not Listening To

August 21, 2018 Susan

Wrong Skin, new podcast from Richard Baker at The Age, Melbourne, tells the dark story of the fates of two forbidden lovers in the Australian Outback. In 1994, Julie Buck (age 23) and her boyfriend Richard Milgin (age 24) were defying the elders of their community by dating while Julie was promised in marriage to a much older man. During the wet season of that year, Julie and Richard disappeared.

Are You The One S7|E1&2: I'm The Bottle & She's The Club. She Needs Me.

August 20, 2018 Emily

Move over, Love Island and Bachelor in Paradise. The true star of summer reality dating shows has arrived, and it's not here to make friends. After all, it's Are You the One, not Are You My Friend? (Did you like that? I just came up with that). Mtv's Are You the One? is back for the summer, back in Hawaii, back with TWO EPISODES in the first night, and most notably, back with some big changes.

Phew. My head is spinning. Let's just get the party started.

The Radium Girls and the Believability of Women's Pain

August 17, 2018 Gabriella Geisinger

As a child, losing teeth was a common occurrence.

There was a distinctly unusual feeling, I'm sure you remember, of a tooth coming loose. Held on by a string of nerve or sinew (not a dentist, here). You could wiggle your tongue in the space between your gum and the tooth, pushing it out of its gap.

Then, one day — snap. It would come loose. And for a split second, there was that feeling of panic. Yes, you knew losing your baby-tooth was just a normal process, but for the briefest of moments your mind went: this is not supposed to be here.

For anyone who had that feeling, or can imagine remembering that feeling, that panic when you think something is wrong with you followed by the swift relief remembering it isn't, The Radium Girls will be a tough read.

In fact, it is flat out impossible to read The Radium Girls without crying.

So You Think You Can Dance: And Then There Were Eight

August 16, 2018 Emily

It’s the second week of the live show, and I’m still unsure of what’s going on with this new format, not gonna lie. So we got rid of two people this week, and at this rate, how many live shows will we have? Like, two more? Are we almost to the finals? I miss the good old days of the Top 20. I know there are probably financial and logistical reasons for this shift, but I would give up, like, ALL of the audition episodes if we could just get more of these live shows. I just don’t get it.

Anyhow, on with the show. Obviously, there will be spoilers about who left the show after the cut.

Tiny Jane is a Tiny Problem for The Bold Type

August 14, 2018 Mary

Freeform’s television show about three young women tackling life and love in New York City has just finished its second season to little fanfare. Sure, the premise of the show sounds familiar enough (comparisons to Sex in the City are built into the plot and referenced by the characters themselves), but what it lacks in original plot it makes up for in the way it handles the tricky position of being of being a former “family” channel. Where The Bold Type pushes boundaries in many ways--it has a lesbian couple! A woman in a hijab!--it sometimes ventures into the realm of afterschool specials, with special episodes on pregnancy, gun control, and sexual harassment. Still, these themes are handled in new, and somewhat realistic ways; the pregnancy episode centers on one characters decision to freeze her eggs because of her cancer risk, while the gun control episode frames the gun debate in light of recent mass shootings.

While I do have some personal attachment to the show, I objectively think that it--at the very least--attempts to discuss issues that are important to real young people in a respectful way. It has a diverse cast (and acknowledges when it’s lacking diversity), and it features a group of young women who genuinely support each other--no catty backhanded compliments, no gossip.

But there’s one problem. Jane. Tiny Jane, as they call her.

BSG #18: Soooorrrrrryyyyyyyyy / The Leftovers

August 13, 2018 The Squad

Click through for table of contents and show notes!

So You Think You Can Dance: Meet the Top 10 Dancers, America!

August 8, 2018 Emily

The live shows are here! We’re finally through the extremely long process of auditions that lasts as many weeks as the live shows themselves for some reason. So here I am, attempting to recap this show for the first time.

There is so much I love about this show, which is why I enthusiastically watch it every summer. I love how unlike most reality television, SYTYCD seems like a genuinely supportive environment. Sure, there is some emphasis on character storylines because that’s how you get people to pick up the phone and vote for their favorite dancers; however, the main focus of the show isn’t about creating manufactured drama. It’s about dancing and genuinely fostering an environment where these talented people can push themselves to become even better. The judging, for all of its faults (which I will get into a lot this season, probably), is constructive. These judges really want to see these dancers improve and grow from this experience. What’s more, it seems like a good majority of the people who get on this show go on to have successful careers in dance following this process. That’s a lot more than I can say for many other reality TV shows (-cough- ANTM -cough-).

But there’s also a lot that annoys me about this show…