‘Tortured Poets’ succeeds with emotional story of two heartbreaks

Share: For the average person, releasing a double album after a year filled with a record-breaking tour and movie combo, and a triage of high-profile relationships ending and beginning sounds like hell on earth, but not if you’re Taylor Swift. Swift’s latest whopping 31-track release “The Tortured Poets Department” and its sister “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” highlight a new but also not-so-new stage of her stardom, the double breakup album. Coming out just under two years after her last big release “Midnights” (which …

Bars, booze and barbecue: How to spend the perfect Pasadena day

Share: Pasadena may not be the hippest or trendiest city in LA county, but it still has a lot to offer anyone looking for a walkable day of fun after class or something to fill up their weekend plans. As summer approaches and students start to have more free time, many are seeking cheap and fun activities to experience with family and friends. Few cities in LA County are even relatively walkable, making Pasadena a hidden gem for those without a car or those simply …

Facebook for friends is dead, long live the marketplace

Share: Tucked away on the now barren Facebook feed that’s filled with people I knew over a decade ago, but no longer keep in touch with is a button for the best items for sale in your community which the site was never built for. The Facebook marketplace is your one-stop shop for vintage goods, used furniture, art, and some really weird stuff if you’re lucky.  Facebook as a social media site has been on the decline for years. As their user base grows to …

Huzzah! Wenches, mead and jousting enchant the Ren Faire

Share: Want to learn how to say “kiss my ass” in Gaelic? Or have your palm read by a woman who charges anywhere from thirty to a million dollars? If so, head on over to the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale, CA. Deemed the largest costume party in LA, the Renaissance Faire is an annual event where thousands of people of all ages dust off their corsets and tunics for a fun day of jousts, archery, shopping, and Elizabethan-style live performances.  One major attraction …

‘Abigail’ sinks teeth into vampire genre with hilariously hammy bloodbath

Share: Finally freed from the clutches of Ghostface and the “Scream” franchise, Radio Silence is back to deliver bloody goodness to the big screen with their latest release “Abigail.” Moving on from slashers the team has tackled the tried and true vampire genre of horror to a perfectly hilarious and gory effect.  This movie’s set-up starts out fairly simply and involves a group of criminals, given code names based on the rat pack, who kidnap a girl (the titular Abigail) who is the daughter of …

‘Civil War’ avoids real conversation of America’s dangerous divide

Share: What kind of American are you? How would you answer that with a gun to your head? Is that something that we should be asking ourselves? A24’s newest movie “Civil War” tries to answer the question with a gun to the head, but at the same time, it doesn’t and instead replaces those questions with jarring and often disturbing visuals which gloss over the real questions like how our nation got to that point. Don’t come into this movie expecting anything or wanting your …

Five berry fields to frolic in this Spring

Share: Before Los Angeles was known for being the home of Hollywood and famous celebrities, it was home to many farmers and their produce. Now most of our farms are found in the IE and towards Ventura, giving many Angelenos an opportunity to take advantage of the locally sourced fruits and vegetables at their local farmer’s markets throughout the year.  While we’re blessed with fresh local produce year-round, few people actually experience getting to harvest their food themselves, not knowing it’s an experience they can …

The ‘Big Three’ beef is heating up and Drake just won round one

Share: The first round of the ‘Big Three’ beef has concluded and in a span of one month, we got three albums, two diss tracks (kind of), and one participant turned casualty. Coming into the fight there was a wide consensus that Drake for some reason was at the bottom of the pole, but after this preliminary round, it’s time to throw that list away and actually get it right this time. What reignited the Cold War feud into the fiery onslaught it is now …

Crawl out of your vault and go check out ‘Fallout’

Share: Amazon’s live-action adaptation television series “Fallout,” doesn’t fail to impress new viewers or old fans with its faithful rendition of the post-apocalyptic video game series. The show satisfies what one should expect from Fallout: nuclear wastelands, cynical humor, jazzy music, ominous mutants, and bloody violence. Premiering on Prime Video with 8 episodes for its first season, “Fallout” doesn’t directly adapt from any of the existing games but rather expands on them as a chronological continuance of the series. Starring Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, and …

The keffiyeh is a statement based on freedom, resistance, and solidarity

Share: In California’s Bay Area, Abd Al Kareem Qaraman owns an online company called Rajaeen. Qaraman sells many items, including jewelry and embroidery. One of his best-selling items is the keffiyeh, a popular Palestinian garment in the region. For Qaraman, the business has been booming since the war in Gaza. But as a Palestinian himself whose family were refugees of Palestine, his entire purpose for Rajaeen is more than just to make money.    “We’re buying their product from a local market in the West Bank, …