I think I almost always mention this, but I love watching people interact with each other. There is something fascinating about how people get along and laugh with each other, even if they are strangers. You think that the world is beautiful as you watch people interact and watch children run around playing tag. We find ourselves smiling involuntarily and our hearts become filled with hope and happiness. So I thought, why can’t we maintain these kinds of relationships with those close to us?

Life is filled with fluctuating emotions in our different states of being. We find ourselves happy one moment, sad another, angry the next and so on. Similarly, in our interactions with each other, our emotional states change frequently. These interactions are what we need to survive. Interacting with others is what we do to make sense of our lives. It is what we do to help form connections and bonds with each other.

But we are also a species whose instincts are to protect ourselves from pain and harm. We see this happening during a fallout with a person we consider close to us. During a fallout with someone, which is an inevitable part of life, we get overwhelmed with disappointment and sadness. Our instant reaction is to defend ourselves and not let the other person hurt us any longer.

In order to have the upper hand, we use every tool at our disposal, including revealing deep secrets a loved one entrusted to us. We get loud and very angry at the person. Now that we feel that we have the upper hand, we also become conceited and pretentious just to make ourselves feel better. It is like we are sending a message to everyone not to mess with us.

But what we don’t realize is that what we are doing doesn’t only hurt the person, but also turns us into a vengeful being. What happened to being kind to each other in times of heightened emotions and difficulties?

There is something called the rule of six. It is a strategy used to not take whatever comes our way personally. The rule of six tells us to make six excuses as to why an event happened. Why it happened in the way it did and how this event is the result of the interactions we had with others. I am trying to say that life with the COVID-19 pandemic is already hard, and falling out with our loved ones makes our life even harder than it should be.

Keep in mind that we will never be in one state of being, be it happiness or anger. Revealing our loved ones’ secrets and exposing their insecurities just to make ourselves feel like we won is a feeling that won’t last, so why not hold onto the beautiful people that come into our lives? Why not say kind words to each other and keep the secrets people share with us? Why not have the decency to keep their secrets even if life happens and you drift apart or have serious fallouts?

The pandemic has taught me that nothing is more important than people in our lives. When we take them for granted and play mind games when things go wrong, it does more harm than good. Learning to find beauty and joy in small moments and appreciating those around us is paramount in a time like this. Life is made of many beautifully mundane moments and it takes a good heart to see and acknowledge them as blessings. Let’s be kind to one another and not make life even harder than it is.

Juana Garcia/The Cougar

The Houston swimming and diving team took down conference opponent Tulane 179.00 – 121.00 in the Cougars’ final meet prior to the American Athletic Conference championships. 

In the 200-meter medley relay, sophomore Katie Power, freshman Henrietta Fangli, freshman Adelaide Meuter and freshman Emma Wright set the pace with a time of 1:43.65. 

Additionally, Power won the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:50.95.

The Cougars had other first-place finishers, including senior Rachel Hicks in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 24 seconds and junior Chase Farris won the 3-meter diving competition with a total score of 357.38. 

Sophomore Emilia Waters took first in the 1-meter diving event with a score of 292.43.

The Cougars will move on to the conference tournament in Dallas, looking to win their sixth straight conference championship.

sports@thedailycougar.com

—
“UH swimming and diving defeats Tulane” was originally posted on The Cougar

Aidan Moriarty received her coronavirus booster shot Friday, the Keck School of Medicine doctoral candidate and USC community luminary confirmed in an interview with the Daily Trojan the same day.

Her vaccination comes after contracting coronavirus late December and, upon trying to understand the University’s guidelines in accordance with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, becoming confused on how long she should wait to receive the booster. 

Typing in her laptop on Gmail, Moriarty reached out to USC Student Health Jan. 19 to get a definite answer on the vaccine requirement timeline. While Moriarty did not and still has not received a direct response from the University in response to her question, she did gain the entire student body’s attention when her email forwarded to every single student at USC.

The Daily Trojan spoke with Moriarty, who is involved in Keck’s Programs in Biomedical and Biological Sciences and Cancer Biology and Genomics program, about the eventful day and how she has  navigated her fame ever since.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Daily Trojan: When did you realize you had replied to everyone?

Aidan Moriarty: Actually, it’s really funny because I almost pressed Reply All, but then I was like, “Oh, no,” like, I caught myself. I was like, “That would be horrible,” and then I pressed Reply, but I didn’t check that the Send To line was just sending to Student Health … if I usually have a lot of anxiety over an email — which maybe I will have forevermore have anxiety over all emails — I would usually check the line, but I was in such a rush, I just obviously pressed Reply and then shot off the email. And so that’s why I was like, “No way, like no it didn’t. It could not have possibly gone to everyone because I’m positive I pressed Reply.” And then, very shortly after, the students in my lab were like, “What? What did you do?” So that’s kind of how that happened.

DT: When did you start to see that people had taken notice and started making jokes and memes on the internet?

AM: A lot of people responded to the email privately … A lot of people had said they had the same question, so that was funny. A lot of people were not nice too, but that’s fine. My boyfriend actually texted me and said that some of his friends who do not go to USC saw these memes going around because I immediately texted him right after I found out that I sent the email … So he was actually the one who showed the memes to me.

DT: Which meme was your favorite?

AM: I feel like the train one really hit me … I was also so busy that day. I think I was in meetings till like 9 p.m., and so I was just running around. The train one was very relatable because I felt like a fucking train. I also loved the Padmé one, though. Oh, and the Bernie one. I can’t decide. They were all good.

DT: Did anyone reach out to you personally or privately to check in on how you were doing?

AM: The student register office called me to apologize. Because I said I was COVID positive, and because that went through a moderator and that got sent to the entire student population, that’s actually a HIPAA violation on the side of the school, and so that’s why the Registrar’s Office got involved and apologized and also made sure that IT redacted the email from everyone’s inbox, which I didn’t even know you could do.

DT: What coronavirus vaccine did you receive?

AM: Pfizer fam, all the way.

DT: How was your experience with having the coronavirus late December?

AM: Thank you so much for asking. It wasn’t great, but, obviously, it wasn’t that bad. I was very, very grateful to have been vaccinated with at least the first two main doses of Pfizer because I don’t know how it would have been otherwise. I had a fever for several days, and that was pretty bad. I was really delirious. My boyfriend and I got sick over Christmas, so that was a bummer, but it cleared up, and I didn’t really have a cough or anything like that.

DT: Are you planning to make use of the Reply All function in the future to further causes important to you?

AM: I mean, yeah. It seems like it worked, no?

DT: How has it been navigating your newfound fame?

AM: If I were on the [University Park Campus], maybe I would have a totally different experience and a different answer for you. But [at the Health Science Campus], it’s so quiet over here, and half of these people are doctors, like they don’t have time for my internet fame. But it’s been really fun, and I feel like I’m getting to know the SC fam a little better. I don’t know, it’s just a lot of fun.

The post We sat down with Aidan Moriarty from the reply-all email. This is what she had to say. appeared first on Daily Trojan.

Tech track and field kicked off 2022 at the Orange and Purple Elite on Jan. 8, competing with Clemson and South Carolina. Four Jacket women earned the top spot in their respective events, and Tech swept the top five spots in the 1000m. Freshman Riley Perlakowski had the top overall time at 2:52.47, while freshman Sarah Copeland, senior Liz Galarza, senior Claire Moritz and freshman Katherine Byrne took spots two through five. 

Senior Olivia Moore finished first in the pole vault with a 3.87m success. Senior Taylor Grimes paced all attached runners in the 60m hurdles with a time of 8.50 seconds. Sophomore Sheleah Harris came first in the 60m dash on her 7.60 second time, setting a personal record in the process.

On the men’s side, sophomore Cameron O’Neal leaped to a second place finish in the long jump with a 7.39m mark. Junior Jameson Miller secured a second place finish of his own with a 48.90 time in the 400m.

O’Neal and Harris each won ACC weekly awards for their performances. O’Neal was the ACC Men’s Co-Field Performer of the Week while Harris was tabbed the ACC Women’s Track Performer of the Week.

Tech then traveled to Nashville for the Vanderbilt Commodore Challenge on Jan. 14-15. Day one saw two Tech women break the previous school record in the 1000m. Senior Nicole Fegans set yet another Tech record with her 2:48.51 mark in the event, and Perlakowski finished at 2:50.08, which would have been a record if not for Fegans’ own record-setting run.

Sophomore Shanty Papakosta beat out all other attached athletes in the high jump, clearing 1.80m. Grimes’ 5.89m long jump earned her a second place finish. O’Neal jumped 7.33m for the top men’s long jump spot, and sophomore Alex Thomas and freshman Zack Truitt took the first and second spots respectively in the men’s 1000m.

Tech women dominated the mile, taking four of the top six spots, highlighted by Fegans and Copeland’s first and third place finishes. Jacket women also took four of the top five spots in the 3000m, with Moritz and Galarza’s second and third place finishes leading the way. 

The men’s mile concluded in similar fashion, with junior Zach Jaegar, junior Cole Miller and sophomore Myles Collins finishing first, second and fourth respectively. Tech men swept the 800m event as well, taking the top five spots including Thomas’ second first place finish of the weekend.

Moore and Perlakowski won the pole vault and 800m events respectively. Four more Jackets earned individual podium appearances, and both the men’s and women’s 4×400 teams earned top-three finishes, rounding out a successful weekend. The next action for the Jackets is the Carolina Challenge on Jan. 21 and 22, hosted by South Carolina.

After originally premiering at Sundance Film Festival in 1995, “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love” returns as part of this year’s online “pre-fest,” the first screening shown to virtual festival attendees. Written and directed by Maria Maggenti, this film strikes a chord with the lesbian community and allows for the queer experience to be more than trauma. 

The Adventure

The film follows Randy (Laurel Holloman), a 17-year-old out lesbian who is flunking out of high school. She lives with her gay aunt, Rebecca (Kate Stafford), and when she is not home or at school, Randy works at a gas station. Evie (Nicole Ari Parker), a girl from a family of high status, enters the picture and, when she is afraid of filling up the back tire of her Range Rover with air, Randy assists her. After their momentary meet-cute, they bump into each other again in the bathroom at school and their romance begins to bud. 

Incredibly True

Maggenti has created a time capsule of a film for queer people that grew up in the 90s, but one that still connects with young members of the LGBTQIA+ community. The script brings out the humanity of Randy and Evie with physical comedy — their awkwardness plays out through shots of their feet, tripping over hoses and running over beds. It’s an artistic choice that reminds the audience of the beauty of adolescence and the blissful ignorance that comes with it. Throughout the entire movie they are quite literally falling head over heels for each other. These metaphorical cinematic shots add to the aesthetic of the film while also building the chemistry between Randy and Evie. It is marvelous how these seemingly aimless shots make the film full of life and humor.

At the end of the film, Maggenti listed a dedication of the film to her first love, in hopes that this film would bring her a sense of closure. In this statement, it became clear that this movie was a product of truth. Through this sentiment, the audience is reminded that the experiences within this film are almost universal for members of the gay community. 

Two Girls in Love

“The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love” is a stereotypical lesbian-love story ahead of its time, in that it follows all of the classic trauma-filled queer tropes, yet establishes a genuine connection between two women that is unlike anything in film today. The romance between Randy and Evie is so incredibly raw and shows the simplicities of youthful, gay, female-centered love. 

The common theme surrounding queer stories in today’s media is a thread of homophobia as a plot device. While this is an inevitable of the queer experience, it is not all-consuming. Queer people deserve to see their opportunities of happy endings displayed in the media. That being said, the time period that the movie was filmed in forced it to focus on the inherent homophobia of the time. The film tallied up a win for the lesbian community when the movie did not focus on the intolerance. Instead, the main characters sought to extend boundaries and encourage those around them to evolve. 

m.reynolds@dailyutahchronicle.com

@MakenaReynolds

The post Sundance: Re-Release of ‘The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love’ Opens Fully Virtual Festival appeared first on The Daily Utah Chronicle.

Juana Garcia/the Cougar

The first oral treatment for COVID-19 has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for an emergency use authorization, with the Biden administration doubling the order for Paxlovid, Pfizer’s antiviral pills.

The FDA still urges people to get the vaccines and boosters, as these antiviral pills are not a substitute for either, but for use after a diagnosis of COVID-19 and within five days since the start of symptoms. The order of Paxlovid is expected to arrive towards the end of June, with the second set arriving in September.

While these treatments are not a substitute for the COVID-19 vaccine, it should be viewed as an additional weapon used to fight COVID-19 and are likely to keep many people out of the hospital, said clinical assistant professor of pharmacology Michelle Turpin.

“Having an oral medication is a big leap forward in the treatment and management of COVID in part because of its convenience and ease of delivery,” Turpin said.

A second treatment, Molnupiravir, was also issued a EUA shortly after Paxlovid. With some similarities to Paxlovid, the main differences include more restrictions, such as it cannot be used once a patient has been hospitalized due to COVID-19, and if the patient is younger than 18 years.

Current data shows that Paxlovid is 89 percent effective, whereas Mereck’s Molnupiravir is around 30 percent effective. Life-threatening interactions could occur if taking Paxlovid while also taking forms of blood thinners, antidepressants and other certain medications.

In an article from NBC News, pharmacists stated that most of the drug interactions are manageable and should not prevent people from taking Paxlovid if needed.

Molnupiravir seems to have little to no side effects according to clinical trials, including dizziness and nausea, however, it is not recommended for people who are pregnant. 

Biology freshman Noura Abu-Shami, believes the antiviral pills are a vital step towards decreasing the spread of COVID-19, and that they must be available to all who are eligible in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.

“With the vaccine, there have been people not willing to take it or the booster,” Abu-Shami said. “It may take some time for (people) to get on board, but I think like the vaccine, we will see a decrease in the severity of COVID symptoms.”

With the recent surge of COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant, the implementation of antiviral pills will not help to prevent new cases but will focus on lessening symptoms and reducing hospitalizations.

news@thedailycougar.com

—
“Antiviral pills FDA approved for mild COVID-19 treatment” was originally posted on The Cougar

Photo Essay: Fall 2021 Concerts

Matthew Gibson/Senior Staff

Willow at The Regency Ballroom, San Francisco – Sept. 18, 2021 (Matthew Gibson/Senior Staff)

In fall 2021, live music came back more vibrantly than ever after having stopped completely during the lockdowns at the outset of the pandemic. From shows in small venues to massive multiday festivals, the Bay Area came alive with concerts to suit listeners of all persuasions.

All the while, our photographers at The Daily Californian were there to capture incredible performances from artists ranging from Faye Webster to Playboi Carti. This photo essay features some of our favorite images from fall 2021. We look forward to all the shows coming up in 2022 and can’t wait to share more wonderful images from them.

– Nora Povejsil, deputy photo editor 

Sudan Archives at the Chase Center, San Francisco – Sept. 15, 2021 (Theo Wyss-Flamm/Senior Staff)

Arlo Parks at The Independent, San Francisco – Oct. 12, 2021 (Lisi Ludwig/Senior Staff)

100 Gecs at Fox Theater, Oakland – Oct. 8, 2021 (David McAllister/Senior Staff)

Playboi Carti at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco – Nov. 11, 2021 (William Webster/Staff)

Faye Webster at Fox Theater, Oakland – Oct. 17, 2021 (Theo Wyss-Flamm/Senior Staff)

Madeon at Second Sky Festival, Oakland – Sept. 19, 2021 (Vanessa Lim/Senior Staff)

100 Gecs at Fox Theater, Oakland – Oct. 8, 2021 (David Mcallister/Senior Staff)

Second Sky Festival, Oakland – Sept. 19, 2021 (Vanessa Lim/Senior Staff)

The Aces at August Hall, San Francisco – Nov. 11, 2021 (Matt Gibson/Senior Staff)

Louis the Child at The Greek Theatre, Berkeley – Sept. 17, 2021 (Sunny Chen/Senior Staff)

LOLO at the UC Theatre, Berkeley – Sept. 11, 2021 (Antonio Martin/Staff)

Tame Impala at the Chase Center, San Francisco – Sept. 15, 2021 (Theo Wyss-Flamm/Senior Staff)

Second Sky Festival, Oakland – Sept. 19, 2021 (Vanessa Lim/Senior Staff)

Illenium at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco – Nov. 28, 2021 (Can Jozef Saul/Staff)

Madeon at Second Sky Festival, Oakland – Sept. 19, 2021 (Vanessa Lim/Senior Staff)

Adam Melchor at the Great American Music Hall, San Francisco – Oct. 11, 2021 (Antonio Martin/Staff)

Arlo Parks at The Independent, San Francisco – Oct. 12, 2021 (Lisi Ludwig/Senior Staff)

Arlo Parks at The Independent, San Francisco – Oct. 12, 2021 (Lisi Ludwig/Senior Staff)

Julien Baker at the Fox Theater, Oakland – Nov. 6, 2021 (Brianna Luna/Senior Staff)

Luna Li at The Regency Ballroom, San Francisco – Sept. 30, 2021 (Theo Wyss-Flamm/Senior Staff)

The Daily Californian

If your experience in the kitchen boils down to heating up frozen meals from Trader Joe’s, you’re not alone. Getting into cooking might seem like a daunting task, and one that requires lots of extra time, energy and money. But this doesn’t have to be the case.

Learning how to cook can be a fun, inexpensive way to take care of yourself, and it’s not as difficult as it may seem. Three local food and cooking connoisseurs weighed in on the best practices to get started in the kitchen, ingredients and tools every beginner home cook should keep on hand and more.

Jess Fleming is the food editor at the Pioneer Press. Growing up, Fleming’s interest in good food was piqued by her family’s dishes, like her aunt’s Thanksgiving pumpkin chiffon pie. Today, Fleming enjoys cooking at home for her three children.

Beth Dooley is a food writer and author working to create an intersection between professional and home cooking. She created the Bare Bones Cooking Club alongside her son, Kip Dooley, with the hope of teaching audiences cooking fundamentals and how to prepare delicious meals using what they already have in the cupboard.

Madison Bessinger is the creator of Madison in MPLS, an Instagram account-turned-website that focuses on local restaurant reviews and a series of her own simple recipes to make for a night in.

Getting started

Whether you’re a hands-on learner or like to read about the process before doing something, there are various steps you can take to feel more confident and inspired to get started in the kitchen.

Bessinger suggested browsing good sources of food-related media, such as the New York Times Cooking subscription. The subscription includes an email newsletter that provides the subscriber with weekly recipe plans and cooking inspiration.

“Their recipes are classic and pretty impressive, but not overly complicated,” Bessinger said. She also recommended following recipe creators on Instagram to find food inspiration on your feed.

Once you’re in the mood to cook, Fleming said the key to getting started is picking something you’re hungry for, finding a recipe and reading it in its entirety.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve screwed up by not reading a recipe all the way through,” she said.

Dooley said investing in one or two basic cookbooks is another great place to start. “Find a recipe, make it once and then fiddle with it,” she said. “The whole point of recipes is to have guidelines, but you can mess with them a little bit.”

She also suggested learning a few fundamental cooking techniques like roasting. “The easiest thing you can do is learn how to roast,” she explained. “A pan of roasted vegetables tossed with a little oil and salt makes a beautiful side dish.”

Stocking your kitchen

There are a few basic ingredients and cooking tools that every beginner chef should have on hand.

Dooley noted the importance of having good oils and butter, both of which can be sourced locally. Other pantry staples include dried and canned beans, which are inexpensive and great vegetarian options.

Bessinger said greek yogurt and a hunk of parmesan cheese are two versatile ingredients that she uses frequently in her recipes. She also recommended using kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, both of which can really step up the flavor in a dish. “Buying a pepper grinder has changed my life,” she said.

Other inexpensive cooking tools she recommended include nonstick pans, a cheese grater and a Magic Bullet blender.

Fleming said she loves to stock up on chicken broth, which often comes in handy for making sauces or adding moisture to recipes.

Tips and tricks

In terms of cooking on a budget, Bessinger said that pastas are your best friend.

“They’re pretty impressive if you’re hosting someone,” she said. “You could make a pasta that just has good olive oil, red pepper flakes, lemon and frozen shrimp, and that’s a very nice meal with cheap ingredients.”

As far as techniques go, Fleming advised to not overcrowd your pan, and don’t be afraid to let something get brown. “That browning is flavor,” she said.

One tip that Dooley had for beginners is to slow down and pay attention to your senses while cooking. Cooking is a sensorial experience, she explained, one that takes us away from our screens and connects us with the natural world.

“I think everybody needs to just slow down and cook a nice meal and be together,” Dooley said. “I don’t think we do enough of that.”

Finally! Finally, some appreciation for the land in which I grew up. The San Fernando Valley is so often forgotten about, picked last in the schoolyard lineup when it comes to discussions about the great City of Angels (even though we were the first to get Chick-fil-A and have the best parking spots). It is a gratifying feeling to see a shining memory of my neighborhood in the ‘70s, delicately and lovingly reconstructed by cinematic master Paul Thomas Anderson. Anderson is no stranger to making movies set in the Valley with films like “Boogie Nights” (1997), “Magnolia” (1999) and “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002). However, what separates his latest film, “Licorice Pizza,” from the former is that the San Fernando Valley is more than just the backdrop; it becomes a living arena for the two main characters to find themselves and each other among the earthquake-worn sidewalks, swaying palm trees and dry heat.

The tennis-match love story of Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and Alana Kane (Alana Haim) shows the two going through the typical fluctuations of any movie romance: the flirtatious banter, the spiteful back-and-forths and the use of other romances as weapons and “blindfolds” to forget one another. The scales continuously tip for our characters, their power dynamic seesawing up and down. The main struggle comes from their sizable age gap: Gary is 15 and Alana is 25. While the two have tons of chemistry, Alana never makes things physical. Instead the two just hang out, maturing at different stages but nevertheless together, which is ultimately the focus of the film. “Licorice Pizza” is a hangout movie, echoing the same sentiments of films “Dazed and Confused” (1993) and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982). Gary and Alana navigate their tumultuous romantic tug-of-war through the streets of Ventura. Numerous unpredictable situations and even more unpredictable characters make up the narrative, strengthening the duo’s bond even when they initially seem like roadblocks to the relationship.

All the actors in minor roles give such staggering performances that it feels as though they are aware of their place in the fictional hierarchy and desperately want to be main characters. Bradley Cooper playing the grossly larger-than-life Jon Peters is a shining example. His stretch as the manic Hollywood hairdresser/mogul seems surreal until you read about the actual Jon Peters and realize that Cooper may have surprisingly underplayed him (emphasis on may). My favorite cameo was the messianic bard of vagrants, the king of the rain dogs, Tom Waits, whose raspy, black-lung voice kept a permanent smile on my face. Unlike his other, more subtle, performances in the works of Jim Jarmusch and the Coen brothers, there is nothing subtle about Waits here. Considering his character’s frenzied theatricality, I imagine Anderson wrote the character while listening to Waits’ album “Franks Wild Years,” specifically the track “I’ll Take New York.” Furthermore, Sean Penn (still hot), Benny Safdie (so excited for his next movie) and Skyler Gisondo (he went to my highschool, good for you Skyler) also make marked appearances. However, to my surprise, these big names couldn’t steal the spotlight from our two main characters.

Alana Kane (Alana Haim) driving with Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman). Courtesy of Focus Features.

“Licorice Pizza” marks the theatrical acting debuts of Hoffman and Haim. Hoffman has big shoes to fill considering his father, Philip Seymour Hoffman, was one of the greatest character actors to ever live and a mainstay cast member in Anderson’s previous work. I am relieved to say that acting runs in the family. Cooper’s performance is wholly his own. He tackles an archetype I don’t believe his father ever had the chance to play: the charming, confident high-school dreamer, aka that kid you want to be friends with. Take the conviction of Ferris Bueller without the self-awareness, combine it with the motivation of Max Fischer from “Rushmore” (1998) without the pretentiousness and you have Gary Valentine.   

What was even more delightful to discover is that the initial focus on Gary is quickly stolen by Haim, who gives an incredible and naturalistic performance. Most of Anderson’s films focus on an eccentric unpredictable male character, but “Licorice Pizza” strays from that path, making Alana Kane truly the main attraction. The chemistry between Haim and Hoffman is unbelievable, further strengthened by their lack of experience on screen, which makes their acting feel more human. By the end of the film, I was convinced the two really were in love. Alana, of HAIM musical fame, is also accompanied by her actual family: the family of five recreate their Israeli-Jewish lifestyle on screen, and it feels effortless as a result. There’s something really charming about watching amateur actors nail their roles by playing their actual selves. The family dinner scene in particular feels as though Anderson uninvitedly brought his camera to document a real Haim family Shabbat dinner.

Teenage melodrama in movies is omnipresent, in love stories even more so, but there is a certain tenderness expressed and felt in “Licorice Pizza” that is so rare to find in a film. Some filmmakers get lucky and stumble upon this seemingly tangible sentimentality, the best are able to create it. As the credits rolled, that seldom-felt warmth washed over me, and it was clear that what I watched was no accident. It’s a shame this lovely cinematic experience was slightly marred by an obnoxious, highly liked, comment on YouTube I recently read: “Paul Thomas Anderson is the Stanley Kubrick of our generation.” It really annoys me that two greats have to be compared, one overshadowed, instead of admired separately. It is of my opinion that through a continuous output of great cinema, “Licorice Pizza” now an illustrious member of that lineup, Paul Thomas Anderson is the Paul Thomas Anderson of our generation.

The post Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Licorice Pizza’ affectionately shows the lesser known side of Los Angeles appeared first on The Emory Wheel.

Editor’s Note: This is a satire piece from The Collegian’s opinion section. Real names and the events surrounding them may be used in fictitious/semi-fictitious ways. Those who do not read the editor’s notes are subject to being offended.

Cat Blouch, a staunchly anti-porn advocate, argues against the devil-influenced gateway drug to masturbation. For Blouch, porn is a tricky subject full of ethical dilemmas and completely unrealistic plotlines. Alternatively, Dylan Tusinski argues that excessive consumption of online porn will lead to crazy results in your upper body muscles, and it’s the perfect way to get your body in tune. Additionally, Tusinski mentions the fact that sex is often half-fulfilling, so doing it yourself through obsessive, chronic masturbation is the perfect way to never leave a sexual interaction unsatisfied ever again.