As a self-proclaimed workaholic, Charli XCX needed to channel her creative energy somewhere at the onset of quarantine earlier this year. She began by chronicling her life and mental health through a series of quarantine diary entries before pivoting to write and record an entire album in just two months. Now, Charli has returned to her digital diary to summarize an entire year in pop culture trends with her final entry.
Penning the reflection for Dazed, Charli’s diary touched on some of the more upsetting events of the past few months. “Well, let’s just start by saying that 2020 proved to us what we knew all along: the world is a terrible place,” she wrote. “We live in a world that is burning, a world bent out of shape by a virus, a world of job losses and health scares, a world where an orange-hued madman advises us to inject bleach into our skin, a world where JK Rowling is no longer your favourite children’s author but the internet’s most outspoken transphobic troll, a world of real bullets, rubber bullets, and violent police. An unjust world filled with racism, corruption, and pain. Hasn’t it always been this way for some?”
The singer continued to say that she thinks of 2020 as the year of “WAP“:
“2020, in my eyes at least, is the year of ‘WAP’, the year of Kamala Harris, the year of Michaela Coel. It’s the year I finally saw Hugh Grant in a different light (if you know, you know). It’s the year I really experienced Paris, via Netflix, with my infuriating friend Emily. 2020 brought us Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, and the super-weird and creepy Doc Antle. This year was the year of the pop-star open letter, from Lorde to Lana (controversial). The Lakers did it for Kobe in 2020, and I was introduced to the wonderful budding bromance between LeBron James and Anthony Davis (it’s so cute, I can’t even). Face mask fashion boomed out of face mask necessity, and everybody forgot about phone calls and FaceTime, instead choosing to communicate exclusively on Zoom. 2020 is the year of dancing in your bedroom while your favourite artist performs at their own virtual concert. It’s the year that Taylor went to the woods, Dua went to the 70s, and Ariana went to the White House. It’s the year of the puzzle, the spontaneous marriage, the inevitable break-up. 2020 is the year we finally celebrate frontline workers and all that they do for us. It’s the year we edge towards discussing our mental health more openly. It’s the year of the family group chat and trying our best to stay in touch with friends. It’s the year our communities come together – virtually, of course.
Taika Waititi’s time as an executive producer on What We Do in the Shadows will soon lead down another rather intriguing road. FX has announced that the eclectic auteur will take on more duties at the network, this time for a comedy series that he co-wrote with Native American filmmaker Sterlin Harjo. They’ll both executive produce, along with WWDITS‘ Garrett Basch, for a show called Reservation Dogs, and if the mere sound of that title didn’t swiftly bring Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs to mind, then FX’s first promotional photo (above) will get that job done. This time, a group of teens will be rocking awfully familiar looking suits, and perhaps this shall carry some parody vibes. No official language has surfaced yet on that end, so we’ll have to be patient.
A press release reveals that Reservation Dogs “follows four Native teenagers in rural Oklahoma who spend their days committing crime… and fighting it.” I’m hoping to also see some shades of Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack, which followed a band of brothers (reference intentional) as they explored the streets of New York City, but with Waititi’s new show, these teens are strutting through Okmulgee, Oklahoma (the home of the Muskogee Creek tribal headquarters). And we’re getting crime capers, perhaps? Here’s FX’s revelation of the leading quartet’s character names:
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Creeped Out) as BEAR
Devery Jacobs (American Gods) as ELORA DANAN
Paulina Alexis (Beans) as WILLIE JACK
Lane Factor (newcomer) as CHEESE
You can’t beat a guy who calls himself “Cheese.” He’s already my favorite, and I (obviously) know nothing about him. According to FX Original Programming President Nick Grad, “Sterlin Harjo draws deeply on his experiences as a Native Oklahoman to make Reservation Dogs a true-to-life and incredibly funny story of youth, courage and misadventures.” As for Harjo’s own sentiments, he declared that “[a]s longtime friends, it was only natural that Taika and I found a project together, and what better than a show that celebrates the complementary storytelling styles of our indigenous communities–mine in Oklahoma and Taika’s in Aotearoa.”
There’s no word on a specific release date yet for Reservation Dogs, but the pilot already shot in Okmulgee, and eight episodes will arrive sometime in 2021.
As far as albums that aren’t yet confirmed to actually exist, Rihanna’s ninth may have been the most talked-about of 2020. Throughout the year, she dropped hints about the nature and progress of the album, and before the year is over, she has offered yet another promising tidbit.
In a conversation with UK publication Closer, Rihanna suggested that she wants to make some musical moves in 2021, saying, “2021 is a little unknown for everybody and nobody is sure what restrictions there are going to be. My creativity is within my control, though, and I want to take my music and my brands to a different level.”
She also spoke about how the pandemic has given her an opportunity to slow down, saying, “I love what I do, but I am always busy and quarantine gave me the time to do things I wouldn’t always have been able to do — watch an entire box set in a day, cook, go for walk. It’s important we do little things we enjoy and are kind to ourselves.”
Speaking of cooking, Rihanna also revealed her plan to release a cookbook that features her favorite Caribbean recipes. She said she “loves food from my Barbadian roots and eats a lot of fresh fish” and also gets down with “mac ‘n’ cheese, shepherd’s pie, and rum punch.”
Nnamdi Asomugha definitely isn’t the first former pro athlete to become an actor, but he just might be the best at it. We’ve seen athletes become stars, sometimes even stars who act (occasionally even passably), but how many athletes have truly become actors?
Now that we’re on the subject, the “becoming” part is also debatable. More often they simply leverage one form of stardom for another. Showbiz is littered with sports superstars capitalizing on their fame by starring in movies — your Shaqs, your Jim Browns, your Lebrons James — a phenomenon that probably predates movies themselves, dating back to the days when sports page heroes like Babe Ruth played themselves on Broadway.
Nnamdi Asomugha isn’t a superstar cashing in and he isn’t playing himself. He’s an ex-athlete who has reinvented himself as an actor, taking the kinds of dramatic roles young up-and-comers take when they’re trying to build buzz on the festival circuit, not the easy cameos in high-profile action movies.
In fact, we might not be hearing about his latest, Sylvie’s Love (perhaps my favorite movie of the year), in which Asomugha stars as a jazz musician opposite Tessa Thompson, if not for him. Coming off Asomugha’s surprising turn in 2017’s critically acclaimed Crown Heights (for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for best-supporting actor) at Sundance, he was passed along Eugene Ashe’s script for Sylvie’s Love, a sweeping romance set in 50s and 60s Harlem. When Asomugha realized the film probably wouldn’t get made on its own, he called on his connections and put on his producer’s hat and helped make it happen himself.
“The same reason why studios and financiers and other producers were saying no to it was the exact reason that I was in love with it,” Asomugha says. “The fact that I hadn’t seen it before.”
How did he get some of those connections? Well, it’s probably easier when you’re married to the actress Kerry Washington. Still, it’s hard not to appreciate someone who seems genuinely motivated by the work and not the fame or money that comes from it. Keep in mind, this isn’t some guy with a brief college or pro career either, a la The Rock or insert pro wrestler here. Asomugha was a 10-year pro and three-time Pro Bowl cornerback with the Raiders, Eagles, and 49ers. He’d never even considered acting until he retired in 2013. And now he’s holding his own alongside Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson? How crazy is that?
With Sylvie’s Love finally hitting Amazon Prime on December 23rd so everyone can see what I’ve been shouting about, I spoke to Asomugha this week, to see if he could explain what seems like his charmed existence.
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Was acting something that you came to later after football or was it something that you’d always done that you had to put on hold for a while?
No, I’ve never done acting. It’s very much brand new. The weird thing is, I’ve now been in it for a handful of years, but because I’ve done so few projects it still feels very brand new. But no, this wasn’t a dream of mine as a kid. I mean, I was playing football and my thought was, all right, when I’m finished playing, I’m going to become one of the NFL correspondents, where I sit behind a desk and talk about the games or whatever. That was the plan. I think it was the road that a lot of my colleagues were going down. And, I don’t know, there was some moment midway through my career, where I was doing a commercial, and the director of the commercial just started talking to me about acting, and about how great I was in the commercial. And I was like, “It was just a commercial. It’s no big deal.” He’s like, “No, I see guys all the time. I was just with…” And he’ll name a quarterback or something, “and they don’t have that skill level that you’ve displayed today. I think you should really look into it when you’re done.”
So I put my heart into that. I mean, the other piece of advice that I got from some big-time names, they would talk to me and they would say, “Look, whatever you go into next, you have to really love it. Love it like you love football.” And I always loved movies. I always loved television and watching performances. So I just coupled those two things together, and said this is the direction that I needed to go.
Who were some of those people?
Oh, man! I mean, I remember specific conversations with… I’ll just name names — Ronnie Lott, Rod Woodson, Mike Haynes, Charles Woodson, Willie Brown. I remember specific conversations with them, all separately, where they were saying the exact same thing. When you’re hearing it from guys like that, you listen.
So when you were growing up playing football, you never saw people doing theater, and there wasn’t part of you that wanted to do that?
(Laughs) I hated the theater. I really did. Not with a passion, but it was just boring to me. I mean, plays at school, not even that I was in any, but just watching them. I’ll say now as an adult, I hadn’t matured enough to understand theater and musicals and all that, but it just was not interesting to me at all. My parents would make us stand up in front of church — every weekend we would have to recite something from the Bible to the church, or we’d have to put on some performance of the nativity scene or something, and I hated doing that stuff. I really did. Then one day my sister really wanted to see this musical called Wicked. I was in the middle of my career, and I had been that guy that, if I was dating someone and they said, “Hey, I want to go see a show.” I would be like, “Oh, I don’t watch the theater. I’m not going,” and then I’d make fun of it.
But my sister, we were in LA and she really wanted to go see Wicked. And finally I was like, “Oh, all right, I’ll go with you.” And I was blown away by the musical. I mean, she explained to me that this is the Wizard of Oz, but it pre-dates the Wizard of Oz, that we’re following [The Witch] — I was just fascinated by this. I was like, “Why would somebody even think of that?” I got into it. And so, I don’t know, I slowly started to appreciate it all as I got older, this world that I really tried to ridicule or to move away from.
Did you seek out people to study acting with? What was the process of learning to do it like?
I did. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go to these conservatory schools, like a Juilliard or a Yale or NYU or anything like that. But I knew that I could find out who those teachers were, and I could figure out a way to study with them on my own. And I could also find online, which you can find, the course study. So like with the catalog, what they go through throughout the year. So I downloaded all of that when I finished playing. I got in touch with individual teachers at these schools for their individual stuff. I had no clue what any of this stuff was, but they took the time to teach me. Obviously, it wasn’t as rigorous for me as those students, because they were in an actual class. It’s completely different, but I just needed the foundation. I needed to understand what I was getting into. And then I sought out acting coaches in LA and New York and just really wanted to figure it out and see if there was a lane for me in there. So that was the initial process.
So then in terms of this movie, you came on pretty early in the process. Right? You came on as a producer?
I did. So I came on as an actor, it was right after Sundance. I had another film that was there called Crown Heights. The woman that was producing this film, her name is Gabrielle Glore. She saw Crown Heights. And it was maybe two days later, I was flying home, and my management sent me this script. And they said, “Hey, we got this script. Someone saw you at Sundance and thinks that you’d be right for it.”
So I read [the script for Sylvie’s Love] on the plane and fell in love with it early. And that was the acting part of it. I would talk to them for the next several months as just an actor, but then it became clear that nobody wanted to make the film. The feedback that kept coming was, “We don’t know that there’s an audience for this type of film. We haven’t seen it. It’s a little risky.”
Now, obviously, they’ve seen a love story. But they hadn’t seen a love story surrounding black people that didn’t have anything to do with the societal issues that you might have in a story about black people. It was just about love. So we got a lot of nos. And I had produced films up until this point, successful ones, and I just talked to my producing partner, Jonathan Baker, and we said, “We have to make this film, or else it’s probably not going to get made.” It was that great a script. So we went in and I became a producer on it.
What was it that you liked so much about it?
I think the biggest thing was the fact that I hadn’t seen it before. The same reason why studios and financiers and other producers were saying no to it was the exact reason that I was in love with it. There was no true metric for it. We don’t see it very often. And it takes place in the fifties and sixties. We can watch The Notebook a 1000 times, but we’re never going to see it with black people in it. We’re going to be looking at Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. And so now we have an opportunity to make this type of film we can see ourselves in. And it just felt like, how do you not tell this story when you have the opportunity? That’s not to say that this is The Notebook or better or worse, it’s just to say, it’s a period film that centers around love. And so it was rare and we wanted to be a part of it.
Well, I can say it. It’s better than The Notebook.
There you go.
On Crown Heights, you played a Trinidadian, and you had a dialect coach. This one obviously is a little different, it’s just set in a different time period. Did you do anything to learn that period dialect at all?
Oh, to learn the dialects, without a doubt. And that was more about just watching documentaries. The main focus was the music. I read the script, it was clear that everything about this guy’s life was music. I started watching movies from that time. Watched a lot of Paul Newman. Remember I watched Paris Blues with Sydney Poitier and Paul Newman as the two male leads, and Joanne Woodward was opposite Paul Newman. And they were in the bedroom and she saw him playing. They were at home, she sees he wrote music, and it’s on the piano or something. She says, “You write music too?” And he says, “I live music. Morning, noon, and night. Everything else is just icing on the cake.”
And I wrote that on my script because that was Robert, that was my character. I knew I had to start with the music. So I watched jazz documentaries, I learned how to play the saxophone. I made sure that the style, the way that I sat, the way that I walked, the way that I spoke, the way I played the instrument, that all of those things were authentic to what I was seeing in those documentaries. I wanted it to be true, even though a lot of us won’t be able to tell.
So when you retired from football, what was that decision like? Did it take a long time or was it just like it came to you right away?
When you know, you know. It’s one of those things where, you know life doesn’t end there. Then you’re able to make decisions a little more clearly. Of course, that didn’t make it any easier. So the question is, did I know? Yeah, I felt that it was a good time, but it didn’t make it any easier. It’s a game that ’till this day I miss, and I miss playing. It’s not that I want to go play again, but I miss so many aspects of it; being around the team, being around the coaching, that calm before the storm. Getting ready to go out to the game, running out onto the field, and the crowd is going crazy. And the thrill of victory. All that type of stuff. The agony of defeat. I mean, it’s all part of it. It’s all a part of the growing process and I miss it. So it wasn’t difficult, I knew that I wanted to do it. I knew that it was time. But like I said, it didn’t make it any easier to do. It’s not my first love, but it was the first love that truly worked out for me. And it’s like, you want that sort of thing. You want that to last forever. You want it to last for a 100 years. And sadly, when it comes to an end. You have to figure out what you’re going to do next. And you have to go into the scary parts of what’s out there. And that’s what I had to do.
Well, thank you so much for talking to me. I can tell you that after I saw the movie, I saw your name in the credits and I knew your name from football. And I had to Google it to make sure you were the same person. Because you were so good at the movie that I was like, “There’s no way that’s the same guy. That can’t be true.”
Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you for your too support.
‘Sylvie’s Love’ hits Amazon Prime on December 23rd. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
Thailand rescue worker Mana Srivate was off-duty and on a road trip when he was called into action late Sunday. He was sent to a desolate road in the eastern province of Chanthaburi, Thailand to help an injured man and a baby elephant.
A family of elephants were crossing the road when the baby was struck by a motorcyclist, Anan Cherdsoongnern, 53.
When Srivate and fellow rescue workers arrived on the scene, several workers came to the aid of the downed motorcyclist, so he got to work on reviving the unconscious elephant.
Srivate was trained to work on humans, so he had to look up the location of an elephant’s heart online to perform CPR. The rescue worker made his best guess on the elephant and then got to work, giving vigorous chest compressions.
“It’s my instinct to save lives, but I was worried the whole time because I can hear the mother and other elephants calling for the baby,” Srivate told Reuters. “I assumed where an elephant heart would be located based on human theory and a video clip I saw online.
Thai baby elephant hit by motorcycle survives after receiving CPR
Srivate worked on the elephant for 10 tense minutes until it regained consciousness. “When the baby elephant starting to move, I almost cried,” he recalled. The elephant was removed from the scene and taken by workers for further treatment.
Later, it was returned to the scene of the accident where it was reunited with its mother. The rest of the pack rejoined them after hearing the mother cry out.
The motorcyclist walked away from the scene with only minor injuries.
News of the daring rescue comes at a time when there is growing optimism about Thailand’s elephant population. A century ago, when the country was known as the Kingdom of Siam, there were approximately 100,000 pachyderms in the country.
Unfortunately, poaching and the illegal logging industry reduced the population so drastically they were placed on the endangered species list in 1986.
But according to Thailand’s National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department (DNP), aggressive conservation efforts have been effective at increasing the country’s elephant population. There was a 7% increase between 2002 and 2017, raising the number to somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 elephants.
“The wild Thai elephant population is no longer at risk of extinction because of intensive care and monitoring,” Soontorn Chayawattana, director of the Wildlife Conservation Office, announced.
“The increase in the number of elephants by 7% is cause for optimism as we expect the population of them in 10 years to increase even further. There could be 670 to 680 more elephants in the wild [in a decade],” said Soontorn. “The data from the latest census provides clearer information and helps us make plans to manage water and food resources better to provide for the more than 600 elephants that will be in the wild in future,” he added.
So given the positive impact that conservation efforts have had in Thailand, it appears as though the baby elephant’s future is bright.
Move over, Ms. Cleo. There’s a new fortune-teller in town. Cardi B has partnered with Instagram once again to entertain fans with a new fortune-telling account that will read fans’ 2021 from Saturday, December 26 until New Year’s Eve. While Cardi is always quick to give helpful and hilarious advice and observations on current events when fans DM her new account @cardibtruthteller, they’ll receive guidance for the new year, which they can then share to both Instagram and Facebook via the newly integrated Messenger.
Just a week before this announcement, Cardi also kicked off another entertaining partnership with Facebook in the form of her new Watch Together show Cardi Tries __. In this show, Cardi will make a weekly attempt at a new activity that is decidedly not in her range of accepted talents. In the debut episode, she tried out ballet, while in upcoming episodes, she’ll work on a ranch and drive a stunt car alongside fellow celebrities like Damian Lillard and Michelle Rodriguez.
And speaking of Cardi’s plans for the upcoming new year, she also recently proposed an idea for previewing her sophomore album for a select group of fans while also promising a “WAP” follow-up coming “sooner than you think.” The future looks bright.
Not to impose my faith on anyone, but if there’s one thing that I believe in, it’s this: Chris Evans is the Best Chris. Come for me, cancel culture. A less controversial take is that Chris Pratt is the “worst Chris,” as Twitter users overwhelmingly dubbed him (his association with the “infamously anti-LGBTQ” Hillsong Church did him no favors). His wife and Marvel Cinematic Universe co-stars leapt to his defense, but the actor kept quiet about the Best Chris debate until a series of Instagram Stories posted this week.
“Guess what? My team, my fantasy football team in AGBO fantasy football league — if you’ve been following — I made it into the finals!” the Parks and Recreation star said in a video recorded inside a car. “I’m in the finals! How did this happen? It’s a 14-man league. I had 14th draft pick. You know how hard that is?” He got to the championship thanks to two “very, very close victories,” including one off Chris Evans, who had “beat Chris Hemsworth last week.” Pratt added, “I guess we can finally put an end to that debate of who’s the better Chris?” before whispering, “It’s one of them.”
While Pratt acknowledged that “one of them” could still take the title one day, he quipped that he has them beat “in body-fat content,” calling his fuller figure “more buoyant.” He told his Instagram followers that if he wins the league, he will donate his $150,000 earnings to Special Olympics Washington, a nonprofit organization that benefits athletes with intellectual disabilities.
Evans wasn’t invited into the league with his Chris competitors because they knew he would beat them. He’s probably in another league with Walken and Messina.
In the second season of The Boys, viewers got to meet the live-action version of Love Sausage, a Russian superhero from the comic book series whose power is having a graphically long… well, you can figure out from the name. As part of his debut, Love Sausage wrapped his super appendage around the neck of Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and tried to choke the life out of him, which isn’t a superhero battle you see everyday. As revenge for putting him in the phallic scene, Alonso had a very special scarf made for showrunner Eric Kripke, who tweeted a NSFW photo of the holiday “gift.”
“For a long time, @lazofficial has wanted payback for wrapping him in a ten foot penis,” Kripke wrote. “Yesterday, he got it. Thanks for the holiday gift, Laz! #WhoWoreItBetter #LoveSausage”
Not long after the memorable episode aired, Alonso revealed to Entertainment Weekly that Love Sausage scene caught him completely by surprise because he thought the whole thing was a prank being played on him by Karl Urban. According to Alonso, the graphic moment wasn’t in the last copy of the script he received, so he was sure Urban was joking — until it actually happened.
“So, we always tease each other, and always on set playing the dozens and cracking jokes,” Alonso explained. “And one day in the makeup trailer, Karl [Urban] is like, ‘You ready for that penis that’s going around your neck?’ And I’m like, ‘Ain’t no way in the world there is a penis being wrapped around my neck.’”
Obviously, that’s exactly what happened, but Alonso still isn’t convinced the whole thing wasn’t Urban’s handiwork. “When I see that [in the new script], I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Karl is definitely behind this.’ I am almost positive to this day he just pitched that idea to Kripke and Kripke with his sick sense of humor was like, ‘It’s great! Let’s do it!’”
Kacey Musgraves lent her vocals for an exciting new film from Studio Ghibli. Earwig And The Witch, the company’s first 3D animated film, just shared its first trailer Tuesday and it features a buoyant theme song by Musgraves herself.
Musgraves previously announced her part in Earwig And The Witch, with a heartfelt message. The singer said the opportunity was a “bucket list moment” for her: “My dad brought a vhs tape of Totoro home when I was about 9 and I’ll never ever forget the comfort and the magic that movie (and many other Ghibli films) have given me. My sister has always been my Mei and I’ve always been her Satsuki. To say this was a full-circle, bucket list moment is an understatement.”
Directed by Goro Miyazaki with planning from Studio Ghibli creator Hayao Miyazaki, the film is based on an original book by Howl’s Moving Castle writer Diana Wynne Jones. According to the trailer, the story follows Earwig, an orphan who has no idea that her mother had magical powers. Her life is instantly altered when she’s adopted by a selfish witch and she sets to uncover the secrets of her new guardians.
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If you are looking for a last minute gift and don’t know what to get someone, coffee table books are one of the safest gifts you can give. It acts as both entertainment and decoration. Let’s face it, when you walk into someone’s house for the first time and sit down on the couch, the book on the table in front of you is the first thing your eyes revert to. It is a conversation piece that gets people talking, gives character to your home and tells people a little bit about you before anyone speaks a word. It is a great way to make a lasting first impression.
1. Eruption In The Canyon: 212 Days & Nights With the Genius of Eddie Van Halen. An Uzi, a band member getting run over with a Porsche and an illegal military vehicle driving on to Fred Durst’s lawn with a gun pointed at his head. And that isn’t even the half of it. Keep in mind that this is a really strong list, so when I say that Eruption In The Canyon is the King Kong of coffee table books, you need to trust me. Author and filmmaker, Andrew Bennett, chronicles his time documenting one of the greatest guitarists of all time: Eddie Van Halen. You do not have to be a Van Halen fan to appreciate just how special this book is. Take a first-time look behind the curtain of the most private rock star in history. Featured in Billboard Magazine, Eruption In The Canyon reveals Eddie’s amazing work ethic, insane passion, eclectic behavior and lovable personality. I simply cannot say enough about this book.
2. The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is a look at some of the most scenic national parks in the U.S., complete with breathtaking photos and the history behind them. Dayton Duncan teams up with author and filmmaker Ken Burns to bring you a fascinating perspective on how our national parks came to be what they are today.
3. What’s The Punctum. Imagine a journey through an alien dream sitting on your coffee table. What’s The Punctum is Alice In Wonderland meets Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy with a splash of Twilight Zone and Stranger In A Strange Land. Hang on to your hats as Maine author Cheryl Ann Johnson takes you down the rabbit hole with amazing and truly unique artwork. This picture book is a great ride for people of all ages. I absolutely love all of her work.
4.The Book of General Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong. If you know someone who believes that the only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing, then The Book of General Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrongis for them. This book is filled with surprising answers to questions we all thought we knew. Get ready to fact check because if you thought you knew who the first president of the United States was, James Bond’s favorite drink, how long a chicken can live without a head or what George Washington’s teeth were made of, you will have a tough time believing what you read in this New York Times Bestseller.
5. Cabin Porn Inside.If you are looking for a conversation starter, have a book called Cabin Pornon your coffee table. This is a great way to get a read on your new guests, because there will either be laughter and intrigue or complete dead silence, followed by a fake phone call with an “emergency” that they have to attend to. All the more wine for the rest of you. Despite its provocative cover, Cabin Porn is hardly as salacious as its moniker. It features some of the most remarkable handmade homes in rural America. Be warned that while it might be inspiring to see such purity in beautiful architecture, the blanket fort you made for your kids last night might not seem as impressive.
6. Harrison Dwight, Ballerina and KnightSpeaking of blanket forts, don’t forget the kids table. From actor, musician and now author, Rachael MacFarlane, Harrison Dwight, Ballerina and Knightis just the thing to keep the little ones engaged in something other than a video screen. Illustrated by Spencer Laudiero, the impressive artwork is as slick as it gets. That, coupled with the important message dealing with the challenges of stereotypes, this children’s book is a must-have.
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