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Grandparents can be a wealth of history and knowledge. But one TikTok user, Reagan Jones, was blown away by her grandmother’s ability to write in shorthand, so she did what a lot of people do in this century—uploaded it to TikTok. Not surprisingly, most people who viewed the video had no idea what shorthand was and some thought the whole thing was made up. The reaction to it certainly makes you question if it’s more than a lost art, but a forgotten part of history.

Shorthand is a method of quickly writing that has been around for a centuries. The first recorded history of a form of shorthand being used was in the 4th century B.C.. In the 1800s, two different types of shorthand became popular, Pitman in 1837 and Gregg in 1888. Looking at the shorthand alphabet may make you furrow your eyebrows because a lot of the symbols look ridiculously similar. It’s full of lines that are straight, slightly curled or partially looped and some that just look like a squiggle. It’s something to behold and resembles a super secret language.

Judging by the comments on the video, other people feel the same way. One commenter, Jamie wrote, “I’ve heard the term shorthand but I think my brain always took it as abbreviations not this 😳😅”

Another commenter, Samantha said, “Nah this has to be a glitch in the timeline I’ve never heard of this from any of my family member.”

@reaganjones176

This is called “short hand” and its a real form of old-style note-taking. She uses this to write herself notes daily. 😂#coolgrandma #funwithgrandma #grandparents #handwriting #shorthand

In a reply to a commenter, Jones revealed, “My grandma was a legal secretary for the railroad 🙂 She won a lot of awards for her work and shorthand in school.”

Now, that’s just cool. Sure there are still professions like court reporters and such that use shorthand, but it’s not as common as it was back when most people’s grandparents and great-grandparents were young adults. This was such a neat blast from the past. It’s clear that Jones’ grandma could probably still take home some awards for her unique skill.

This article originally appeared on 09.13.22

If there’s one thing a determined parent will do, it’s make sure their kid is getting their needs met. Even if that means they have to reinvent the wheel to do it. Rachel Griffin Accurso, or as parents across TikTok and YouTube know her, Ms. Rachel, found herself without any real options for additional resources to help her toddler who was diagnosed with a speech delay.

Accurso was looking for a developmentally appropriate show for her son but she wasn’t having any luck. That’s when she decided to take her teaching degree and get to work on creating her own show. It became a family business when she teamed up with her husband, Broadway composer Aron Accurso, who has been there every step of the way. He’s even in the episodes singing along.

“Songs for Littles” has infiltrated homes across America. If you have a toddler and internet access, you’ve likely heard of it. The show has more than a billion views on YouTube. Yes, that’s billion, with a “B.” Ms. Rachel also has more than 19 million likes on TikTok and has speech pathologists everywhere singing her praises.

Accurso is intentional with all of her videos, doing close-ups on her mouth when introducing new words and pausing to “hear” responses from her viewers after asking a question. In her interview with Today, Accurso admitted, “A lot of things I teach are things I wish I had known for my son.” She explained that everything she does is backed by research and is recorded in her small apartment in front of a green screen.

Parents on TikTok often upload videos thanking Accurso or showing off the skill their child learned from watching her show. The journalist who interviewed “Ms. Rachel” for Today even got to record an episode of “Songs for Littles” with her.

Check out the cute video below:

This article originally appeared on 01.10.23

As if things couldn’t get any stranger, Stranger Things is veering into animated territory. The hit Netflix show will be getting its own animated spinoff series, with the Duffer Brothers back to executive produce via their company Upside Down Pictures. Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps will also produce.

“We’ve always dreamed of an animated Stranger Things in the vein of the Saturday morning cartoons that we grew up loving, and to see this dream realized has been absolutely thrilling,” the Duffer Brothers said in a statement, per Variety. “We couldn’t be more blown away by what Eric Robles and his team have come up with — the scripts and artwork are incredible, and we can’t wait to share more with you! The adventure continues…”

Stranger Things has been a monster hit for Netflix, so it was only a matter of time before they made a spinoff show (or two or three). In typical Stranger fashion, no plot details have been released, though even if they were, they probably wouldn’t be true anyway. Those folks love their mysteries! But hey, they sure do seem excited.

The fifth and final season of the sci-fi series was ordered last year after the fourth season dominated Netflix for almost the entire summer. Production on that season is expected to begin later this year. It will only have to compete with nearly every single other show that’s slated for a 2024 release. Peak TV is back! But next year, probably.

(Via Variety)

BTS announced their indefinite hiatus last October — though 2025 is loosely pegged for a return — and each member of the historic K-pop group is getting a taste of life as a solo artist. In February, Suga announced dates for his first-ever solo tour, which will support his forthcoming debut solo album, D-Day, under the pseudonym Agust D.

Last week, BigHit Music and Suga confirmed that D-Day will release on April 21. The rollout was boosted by Suga’s single “People Pt. 2” with IU last Friday, April 7. And by the end of the weekend, Suga revealed the rest of his D-Day tracklist.

BTS fans likely were immediately drawn to the inclusion of BTS’ J-Hope as a featured artist on “HUH?!” The album also features Ryuichi Sakamoto and Woosung of The Rose.

J-Hope’s feature comes days after it was announced that he will be the next BTS member to complete South Korea’s mandatory military service, which was cited among the primary reasons for BTS’ hiatus in October. Jin enlisted toward the end of last year and is currently serving.

See the D-Day tracklist below.

1. “Haegeum”
2. “People Pt.2” with IU
3. “D-Day”
4. “HUH?!” featuring j-hope
5. “AMYGDALA”
6. “SDL”
7. “Polar Night”
8. “Interlude : Dawn”
9. “Snooze” featuring Ryuichi Sakamoto, Woosung of The Rose
10. “Life Goes On”

D-Day is out 04/21 via BigHit. Find more information here.

Tory Lanez’s attempt to get a new trial after being found guilty of assault has been delayed. According to court reporter Meghann Cuniff, who was affectionately nicknamed “Meghann Thee Reporter” for her coverage of the original Tory Lanez assault trial, the hearing on Lanez’s motion for a new trial has been rescheduled to next Monday, April 17, at his legal team’s request.

The reason they’re looking for more time likely owes to the stiff opposition put forth by Los Angeles prosecutors. According to Vulture, prosecutors filed a 16-page opposition against Lanez’s motion reading, “The defendant’s brief is replete with colorful rhetoric and conclusory statements, but it lacks substance. Despite being nearly 80 pages long, the defendant has failed to cite a single instance of error in the trial court.”

Lanez’s motion for a new trial rests on his defense’s insistence that evidence was admitted mid-trial, denying them the time to mount an adequate response. The evidence in question appears to be an Instagram comment posted from Tory’s account in response to a post on The Shade Room claiming, “People saying Kelsey shot her.” Tory’s account replied, “That’s not true,” undercutting the defense’s alternate shooter defense. However, it was Tory’s defense’s star witness who kneecapped that defense, admitting that it appeared Tory was the one who fired the shots that injured Megan Thee Stallion. Tory plans to appeal his conviction if his motion for a new trial is denied.

You can find more information about the case here.

The power of Christ compels a bunch of ticked-off exorcists to publicly condemn Russell Crowe‘s new movie.

In The Pope’s Exorcist, the Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World actor plays Father Gabriele Amorth, who served as the chief exorcist of the Vatican. He also helped found the International Association of Exorcists, which has criticized the title of the film for being “pretentious.”

In a statement, the group wrote that “watching the film’s trailer confirms, if anything were needed, not only its splatter cinema quality, a real sub-genre of horror cinema, but its unreliability on such a delicate and relevant topic.” The exorcism depicted in the film “becomes a show aimed at arousing strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects such as to arouse only anxiety, restlessness and fear in the spectator.”

The end result of The Pope’s Exorcist, the IAE concluded, is “to instill the conviction that exorcism is an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon, whose only protagonist is the devil, whose violent reactions can be faced with great difficulty; which is the exact opposite of what occurs in the context of exorcism celebrated in the Catholic Church in obedience to the directives imparted by it.”

“The Pope’s Exorcist: an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon” is a good pull quote. I’m now more excited than ever to see it.

The Pope’s Exorcist opens on April 14.

(Via the Guardian)

SPOILERS from this week’s Succession will be found below.

Succession managed to shock viewers to the core in multiple ways this week, including the timing of Logan Roy’s death and the sheer fact that Connor actually came out ahead of his siblings. Beyond that, something not so fantastic happened to Gerri because Logan made good on his previously expressed disgust and decided that she should be fired. Not only that, but Logan decided that his new Dark Side recruit, Roman, should do the honors.

And Tom got in this too, gamely pestering Roman to fire Gerri fast (under the guise of Logan being disappointed in how the DOJ mess was handled), and this went down without Roman even needing to articulate the initial words because Gerri knew that Roman was being shifty for a reason. Yet Gerri and Roman (who surely will regret not shutting his dad down) both knew that Logan was really doing this because he’s a terrible person. This was further fallout from that that d*ck pic disaster, which Gerri never asked for and which was clearly Roman’s misstep.

In other words, Gerri was fired for a few apparent reasons: (1) Logan wanted to test Roman’s loyalty, but that loyalty probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway (even if Logan hadn’t died) because Logan never keeps his word to his children; (2) Logan was simply being a sadistic a**hole for the hell of it because he knew that Roman would never dare push back at Dad.

In light of Roman’s passing, is Gerri still fired? That remains to be seen, but towards the end of the episode, she made it clear that she’s no longer here to support Roman. Also, don’t you wish that she’d gotten on the phone in Logan’s ear, too? It would go something like this:

HBO’s Succession airs on Sunday nights at 9:00pm EST.

Jane Fonda shared on The Drew Barrymore Show last month that Jennifer Lopez accidentally cut her eyebrow with her diamond ring during the slap scene in Monster-In-Law — an entry in the Early 2000s J. Lo Romantic Comedies canon.

Lopez looks capable of doing much more than that in the official posters for The Mother, her forthcoming Netflix film. The photos were shot by Annie Leibovitz.

“Happy Monday!!! Here are the new posters for my upcoming film THE MOTHER. Only on @Netflix May 12. (PS trailer drops tomorrow!!!!),” Lopez tweeted today, April 10.

Directed by Niki Caro, The Mother‘s official teaser dropped last September. “A deadly female assassin comes out of hiding to protect the daughter that she gave up years before, while on the run from dangerous men,” the description teases.

The intense one-minute clip finds Lopez training in the snowy woods, driving with reckless abandon down a crowded street, and shooting guns. “You saw what was out there,” she says, presumably to her on-screen daughter. “It’s gonna keep coming. If there’s trouble, come find me.”

The Mother also stars Joseph Fiennes, Lucy Paez, Omari Hardwick, Paul Raci, and Gael Garcia Bernal and will stream on Netflix beginning on 5/12.

Watch the teaser above.

UK rapper Little Simz is finally coming (back) to America after financial issues derailed her last planned tour, forcing her to reschedule it. Simz had planned to tour North America last spring after releasing her critically acclaimed album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, but as an independent artist, the tour would have left her in debt. “As much as this pains me to not see you at this time, I’m just not able to put myself through that mental stress,” she wrote at the time.

In the year since, the Mercury Prize winner put out another critically hailed project, No Thank You, and toured Europe, resulting in the On Stage Off Stage short film. Apparently, that’s put her in a better space, allowing her to announce a 10-date slate kicking off in Chicago on September 20 and hitting Atlanta, LA, and New York. Tickets go on sale beginning Thursday, April 13 at 10 am local time. Find more information here.

09/20 – Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre
09/24 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade (Heaven)
09/27 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
09/28 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
09/29 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
10/3 – Los Angeles, CA @ The NOVO
10/8 – Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
10/9 – Montreal, QC @ MTELUS
10/11 – Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore Silver Spring
10/13 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5

As the WNBA and women’s basketball in general grow in stature, the areas in which the league’s business operations need to make sizable leaps become increasingly apparent.

Travel is among the biggest, as teams still fly commercial from game to game, with players having to pay for any upgrades they want for increased leg room and space. Recently, Joe Tsai paid for the New York Liberty to have charter flights to games, and was subsequently fined $500,000, leading to quite the uproar from players and fans wondering why teams were being punished for wanting to spend to create better conditions for their players.

Most recently, the Sparks spent a night in the airport after a game in D.C. after a flight was cancelled and there were not open hotel rooms, leading to further outcry over the travel situations players are often put in. The WNBA heard that and will be taking on the cost as a league to charter flights for teams that play on back-to-backs during the regular season, and throughout the playoffs in 2023. That is a positive step, but one that might not be replicable for the future, as this year there are only five back-to-backs on the schedule. The 2024 season will be much more condensed due to the Paris Olympics, with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert telling the Associated Press that “next year, we can’t do all of them,” with regards to back-to-backs.

Englebert hopes a new media deal can eventually cover the cost of chartering flights, but the current cost for the full season would be $25 million, per the AP, which the league can’t cover. What is maybe most frustrating is the cost per team to charter flights for a full season would be $2 million, which for most any professional sports franchise would be a drop in the buckets and explains why owners like Tsai and Mark Davis, who came to the WNBA having already owned men’s sports teams, have pushed to pay for the charter flights themselves.

To charter for the whole season the estimated cost per franchise would be approximately $2 million. Air travel expenses currently for each team is about $150,000, according to two people familiar with the costs. The people spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly address the issue.

Finding a way to meet that cost, plus paying players more as top stars in college make more now in NIL than they would in a rookie salary in the WNBA, has to be a top priority for the league in coming years if they are to continue this growth. A lot of the onus falls on owners being willing to spend more in the short-term, recognizing how that will benefit their long-term investment. Some see that already, but it’s clear the league as a whole is not ready to make that leap.

For now, we’ll get a half measure in the form of playoff charters and a handful for back-to-backs this season. It’s a start, but one the league has to be able to build on for 2024, because taking a step back in terms of travel conditions would only look worse.