PicoBlog

The most common phrase in the Bible is various forms of “Do not be afraid.” Some think it’s found 365 times, but it actually appears a little less. One site said it appears 117 times, while another said it appears in various forms around300 times. While the daily Bible inspiration crowd might be a bit disappointed, “do not be afraid” is still the most common phrase in the Bible. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Louis Bromfield must be one of the most famous people I’ve never heard of. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning author of dozens of bestsellers. Like Hemingway, he was an American who lived in France and drove an ambulance in World War I. He gardened with Edith Wharton and regularly hung out with Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and a few US Presidents. I… ncG1vNJzZmiqn6TBo7vUp5tnq6WXwLWtwqRlnKedZL1wwMeeZKano6l6p63MqKysZZaWv66x0WawqK2mmnqvsdWeqQ%3D%3D

At least twice a month, I stumble across someone asking for advice about conjoint analysis. In most cases, they don’t know what conjoint analysis is actually for. But what’s worse is how often people replying to these questions don’t understand what conjoint analysis is for either! I’ve replied to so many of these posts recently that I figured it was time to share a simple explanation publicly (partly so I can send them this link instead of a new reply every time!

Atlanta, the brainchild of Donald Glover, is a terrific TV series that somehow debuted in 2016. How on Earth this is possible is a mystery of time and space, as surely it can’t have been six fucking years since this show launched? That’s absolutely unbelievable. The show is incredibly well-written and always thoughtfully directed, and its one of those shows that never forgets to tell a story and offer you interesting, well-shaded characters even when it’s making a point.

We all have frenemies. They’re people who make you feel both good and bad, and they exist in every walk of life. You might have mixed feelings about a relative, a neighbor, a colleague, or a mentor. My article in today’s NYT explores why frenemies may be hazardous to your health. Surprisingly, these ambivalent relationships turn out to be even more toxic than negative ones. In one experiment, when people were under stress, merely reminding them of their ambivalent relationships led to greater heart rate reactivity than priming them with their negative relationships.

Film Yap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Sure, it’s hoary, but I can’t write this review without dropping the following bon mot: Jennifer Lopez puts the ass in assassin with “The Mother” (now streaming on Netflix). Whew! With that out of the way let’s get to the movie itself. Lopez stars as our titular, nameless Mother.

There are so many kinds of mother. The mothers you cherish and celebrate. The mothers who were never really there. The mothers who broke you. Who built you. The mothers who cheered you on. Who chipped away at you until you were dust. The mothers who reveled in your astonishing intelligence and grace and power. Who saw only their own light. The mothers who died painfully young. The mothers who lived so long you felt yourself disintegrating with them.

I stood in the driveway watching a white ball pierce the blue-black sky, navigating branches and clouds. The moon always seems to move instead of the objects around it or the people looking up from below. When I was a child, I told my parents that the moon was following us as we drove home. They explained that the moon followed no one, least of all us. It was an inanimate sphere that gave the illusion of caring.

Amber Finlay works at Nike and most recently wrote the epic Seoul retail edition. Amber here. For the past month or so, I’ve been on The Summer I Turned Pretty TikTok, watching so many random clips of this teen beach romance drama that I know I’m Team Conrad even though I’ve never watched an episode of this show. But I’ve also been sucked into entire movies, delivered in sporadic clips that land on my “For You” page with no context whatsoever.