Plus, chef talk, Elvis Costello, and Black Mirror

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when The Flash wasn't so flashy. It was the week when an implementation of AI was making people uncomfortable again. And it was the week when Queen Latifah got some well-earned recognition. Let's get to it. Yes, chef! How The Bear fights the second season blues It's hard to maintain the level of enthusiasm that critics and audiences worked up over The Bear last summer. The impeccably made story of Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), who takes over the family beef-sandwich shop after the death of his brother, not only had people chanting "Yes, chef," but it brought attention to the whole company -- particularly White, Ayo Edebiri as Carmy's new sous chef, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Carmy's cousin Richie, who worked in the shop for years while Carmy was off training for fine dining. The second season arrived this week, and the bottom line is that it avoids just about every pitfall that second seasons can encounter. It's one of the most successful follow-ups I can remember to a first season that generated this much heat. Jeremy Allen White as Carmen Berzatto and Ayo Edebiri as Sydney Adamu in "The Bear" / Hulu The Bear is still Carmy's story at heart, but rather than intensify its focus on him (particularly in the wake of the perhaps unanticipated levels of pure erotic enthusiasm that White generated), Season 2 widens its attention to the ensemble even more than before. Sydney has her own stories, Richie has his -- but so do the shop's longtime cook Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce), and Carmy's sister Natalie (Abby Elliott). It would have been easy for creator Christopher Storer and the rest of the team to "yes, chef" their way through this set of 10 new episodes, focusing on fan service and flexing the muscles of a show with a lot of goodwill on its side. But they don't do that at all. Instead, there are experiments with what Kathryn VanArendonk at Vulture has helpfully termed "departure episodes," where you get a chance to explore what's going on with a sharp focus on particular characters outside the most common settings and rhythms of the show -- here, one example would be an episode where Marcus goes off to improve his skills and works with a chef played by Will Poulter. There are others; I wouldn't dare spoil them. One of the things the show does this season that I suspect will be differently received in different corners is its deployment of unpublicized guest stars -- which goes back to Season 1 and the fact that it wasn't publicized ahead of time that Jon Bernthal would be playing Carmy's late brother Mikey in flashbacks. The Bear has become, for lack of a more exact term, a very cool show, and it's able to nail down some pretty impressive guest stars, most of whom you should encounter on your own (don't read any of the lists that are circulating; consider them true spoilers). But these don't feel show-offy, like mere "hey, look who we can get now" demonstrations. The Bear does a very, very smart thing with guest stars, which is that it uses people with big, well-established personas and reputations to play characters who loom large in the minds of characters we already know. Think of, for instance, when Marlon Brando played Superman's father in the Christopher Reeve Superman movie. (Stay with me.) The character of Jor-El needs to be big, important, indelible, the kind of person who could potentially bestow a superhuman upon Earth. So no matter what you think of the long and fairly ponderous Krypton sequence, it makes perfect sense that it's Marlon Brando. If it were just Some Actor, would it really work the same way? It's a fiction that actors ever really disappear into roles (with very rare exceptions). They bring with them your sense of who they are, and they hit additional notes just by being accompanied by their own history. (See: casting Tom Hanks as "Sully" Sullenberger, the hero pilot, which did half the work in establishing Sullenberger as an outsize good-doer.) When you watch The Bear and you watch these performances, ask yourself whether the effect would be the same if it were a character actor you didn't recognize. Not because there's anything lacking in the skills of character actors, who make enormous contributions to this season of The Bear, the last season of The Bear, and television generally. But with these particular characters, as you watch, think about what it accomplishes to cast a familiar face rather than one that asks the audience to start from scratch. This season also finds the right balance between sticking with what works and immediately pushing the story forward. At the end of last season, we saw that Carmy and Sydney intended to close The Beef and open a new restaurant called The Bear. This season is ... well, I was about to say it's the Build-The-Bear Workshop, but I wouldn't do that to you. It is, however, the story of building something new, and the focus on the new place means the show retains some of The Beef's high pressure and hard work, but moves those rhythms to a very different process -- the process of creating a restaurant rather than running one. In doing so, The Bear dispenses with any fantasy that just because Carmy's staff is talented and capable, they could instantly pivot from a sandwich shop to fine dining without any adjustments. It respects the fact that they would need to develop some different skills -- some of the ones that Carmy brought with him last season before he learned to master sandwich-shop life from them. We've seen Carmy barge into Richie's world; we now see what might happen if Richie were transported into Carmy's world. It makes use of the same complex characters and the same deeply developed relationships, but it also shakes up the specifics enough that you'd never mistake a scene from this run of episodes for a scene from the last. It was before, and it remains now, a show about work, one that is about training and not just natural genius. People are allowed to fail, sometimes more than once, because learning is not magic; it is repetition, attention and persistence. I have quibbles here and there -- for one, there is a new character who appears as a potential love interest for Carmy who is not as developed as the rest of the characters on the show, which is a regrettably common problem with Potential Love Interest characters. And more than anything, I dearly wish this show were being put out week by week rather than all at once, because it is a perfect candidate for a degree of molecular dissection that, as something dropping all at once, it probably won't get simply because of the nature of an all-episodes release. At the same time, I watched all 10 episodes in one day, so how can I complain? Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend My pal Kat Kinsman is hosting a new podcast for Food & Wine called Tinfoil Swans, in which she interviews chefs. Kat is exceptionally good at making people comfortable and getting them talking, and her first episode is a discussion with Guy Fieri. They talk about his philanthropy, his early-life hustles, and how he once worked as a "flambé captain." The Prime Video docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets has a title that might suggest it's as pulpy as the TLC shows it's covering. But it is an interesting piece of work, especially when it comes to exploring the ways that seemingly upbeat television shows can be very exploitative behind the scenes, particularly of young people. I spent a lot of time this week listening to Elvis Costello (in part because of The Bear, discussed below). If you've never given a good listen to the album Imperial Bedroom, or if you haven't in a while, give it a spin. What We Did This Week Jason Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson in Asteroid City / Focus Features We shared an encore of our episode about the first season of The Bear, featuring Aisha, Glen, and our longtime collaborator Kat Chow. I had a great talk with Chloe Veltman, Tasha Robinson and Nikki Birch about Pixar's new film Elemental, which seems to have been written off by a lot of people, but which we all found contained at least some, well, elements that we really liked. Glen and I talked to Jourdain Searles and Ronald Young, Jr. about the new season of Black Mirror, including the meta question of whether Netflix can really monetize content about how bad Netflix is. Glen, Wailin Wong and Chris Klimek talked about Wes Anderson's Asteroid City. Stephen and dear friend of PCHH Marissa Lorusso talked to Consider This about a beloved topic: the road trip playlist. And Stephen wrote up the Tiny Desk appearance of MUNA. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: Wailin Wong: The Social Network DVD menu Chris Klimek: The Last Action Heroes Glen Weldon: Dungeons and Drag Queens Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy

💧 Busting 5 common hydration myths

Plus, visible mending is having a moment

View this email online Photo Illustration by Becky Harlan/NPR I've been a nuisance to those around me since I listened to this Life Kit episode about hydration myths. What can I say? Hearing experts refute things I’ve believed for my entire life felt… historic. Thus, practically everyone who has talked to me in the last few months has learned that, um, actually, coffee isn’t a diuretic, thank you very much.  I usually don’t add in those moments that coffee isn’t a diuretic if you have some caffeine tolerance and consume it in moderation. (The caveats mess with my delivery). Maybe you've heard other claims about hydration, like you should drink eight glasses of water a day or that drinking water can help you lose weight. We talked with several experts to help us set the record straight.   HYDRATION MYTHS 🥤 Myth #1: You must drink at least eight glasses of water daily. Researchers tried to verify the eight glasses of eight-ounce water rule but could not find rigorous evidence to support it. The amount of water you need depends on your body size, activity level, the temperature and how much you're sweating, says Tamara Hew-Butler, an associate professor of exercise and sports science at Wayne State University. Because of these factors, there's no hard and fast rule for how much water you should consume. "The best advice is to listen to your body," Hew-Butler says. "If you get thirsty, drink water. If you're not thirsty, you don't need to drink water." ☕ Myth #2: Caffeine makes you dehydrated. Essentially, with the exception of higher alcohol-content beverages like hard liquor, all liquids count towards hydration. As does food. The experts we spoke to say about 20% of your fluid intake comes from the food you eat, from fruits and vegetables to pasta. According to multiple studies, caffeine can be a mild diuretic in large amounts for people who don’t consume it often. But caffeinated drinks in moderation provide the same hydration as non-caffeinated drinks. 🏃🏻‍♀️ Myth #3: We need sports drinks to replace salt and other electrolytes. According to the experts, if you're exercising for more than an hour, you likely need to replace the salt you're sweating out with water. But you don't have to do that by drinking sports drinks like Gatorade. They definitely can replace the body's salt, but you could also get that salt from other foods and beverages. And like thirst, you can trust your body to tell you how much you need. 📏 Myth #4: Drinking water can help you lose weight. Some small studies have found that drinking water before meals can help certain groups of people lose weight. The idea is that water makes your stomach feel full, and therefore, you eat less.  However, there are many conflicting studies on this topic, and when scientists looked at papers on this subject in a systematic review, they concluded that there's just not enough evidence for the general public. However! Studies have shown that drinking water can help with weight loss if it's replacing sugary beverages like soda, sweet juices and sports drinks. 🎨 Myth #5: Dark-colored pee means you're dehydrated.  Just because your urine is dark gold, says Hew-Butler, it doesn't mean your body is dehydrated. It just means your kidneys aren't releasing as much water to keep your blood's water-sodium level balanced.  That said, if you're not great at paying attention to your thirst, some hydration experts recommend drinking enough water to keep your urine a light, straw-yellow color — a simple way to assess hydration. There you have it. I can’t wait for you to put this hydration knowledge to use (and maybe infodump on your friends and family).  —Julia Carney, Podcast Coordinator   Newsletter continues after sponsor message If you want to fix your clothes, try this easy style of mending Instead of trying to hide clothing repairs, a style known as "visible mending" uses noticeable threads, fabrics and decorative techniques to show off patches and mends.  Visible mending is having a moment. Menders like Arounna Khounnoraj attribute the increasing interest, in part, to a growing awareness of ethical issues within the fashion industry: exploitative labor practices, significant carbon emissions and millions of tons of clothes going into landfills. Lily Fulop; Katrina Rodabaugh Access Sponsor-Free Episodes Want to support our show? Try a subscription to Life Kit+ and get all the tips and tricks you love sponsor-free! Learn more at plus.npr.org/lifekit.  Learn More Coming up on Life Kit 🏊‍♀️ Learn to swim as an adult 💰 What to consider when picking a bank 🥗 Tips for making the perfect salad   Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: LifeKit@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Daily News, Code Switch, Health and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Life Kit emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy

Plus, the Tiny Desk, Black Mirror, and -- yes -- Vanderpump Rules.

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when we remembered Cormac McCarthy and Treat Williams. It was the week when AI came for one of our greatest bands. And it was the week when the writers strike got new allies. Let's get to it. Let's let go of 3D already I saw the Pixar film Elemental this week (we'll be talking about it on the show soon). It's a story about Element City, where fire people, water people, cloud/air people and earth people all live alongside each other, sometimes uncomfortably. Some things about it work better than others, but it's impossible, I think, not to admire the inventive way it creates its world of flames and bubbles and flowers and puffy clouds, and the way all those things make up the characters it's about. On top of that, those characters live in a world of smoke, rivers, and all kinds of other -- shall we say -- earthly delights. The screening I attended was in 3D. I tend to have mixed feelings about 3D, which can certainly have its impressive "ooh, neat" moments, but which I tend to find more a gimmick than a genuine advantage -- despite the fact that these days, it works pretty well. Even as a person who wears glasses and is therefore not perfectly suited to putting 3D glasses over them, I had no trouble with the 3D presentation itself as far as appreciating and enjoying the different layers of visuals. 3-D glasses for Avatar: The Way of Water / Getty Images The problem is that, as you know if you've ever picked up a pair of the RealD glasses that you use for a film like this, it considerably darkens the picture simply because of the 3D technology. You can see it -- they are literally dark glasses, and as sunglasses would do, they make the picture look, you know, darker. Particularly with something like a Pixar movie for kids, and extra-particularly for one that's so dependent on a lively presentation of nature, it's impossible for me to believe I even saw the best version of Elemental. I feel certain that my appreciation of its colorful take on the world would have been, what, 30% greater?, if I had just watched it in a regular 2D presentation. I've always been a bit of a 3D skeptic -- the glasses are fiddly and just become more plastic junk, the gimmicks wear off, it gets distracting, and it introduces more opportunities for technical problems (there were some at my screening). And for a while, I felt like my side was winning the argument -- you don't see as many random "but this time it's 3D!" sequels as you did for a while, what with Saw 3D and Piranha 3D and Step Up 3D and so forth. But one of the places 3D seems to persist is in animated kids' movies, which is the last place it belongs. Why would you want to watch an explosively colorful world unfold while wearing sunglasses? The people who create Pixar films are perfectly able to make those worlds immersive and unforgettable without exploiting a technology that degrades the experience on one level in order to supposedly improve it on another. Honestly, maybe this is tech that belongs in cheapie horror sequels, where it can be used for jump scares and tricks in a genre that relies on them, rather than in films that are designed to be visually joyful. Besides, who wants to try to make a squirming kid wear plastic glasses for two hours? Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend We'll be talking about the new season of Black Mirror on the podcast soon. As is usually the case with anthologies, these five episodes are uneven, but it's always interesting to see what's kicking around in these folks' heads as they try to compete with the bleakness of the actual tech world. Sarah Wendell at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books had a lovely tribute this week to romance writer Julie Garwood, who died at 78. I, too, was a Garwood reader as a young person, and I remember her work fondly. I cannot say enough about the impact NPR Music, and especially the great and good Bobby Carter, have already had with their Tiny Desk offerings during their celebration of Black Music Month. And it's only half over. Wander over there and treat yourself. What We Did This Week Ezra Miller in The Flash / Warner Bros. Pictures Stephen talked to Reanna Cruz about Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. All the greatest dreams of our beloved former producer (and new ICYMI host at Slate) Candice Lim came true -- and she returned! -- when she talked with Stephen, Amil Niazi, and Shamira Ibrahim about Vanderpump Rules and the Scandoval that has swirled across the internet. Aisha is off enjoying the release of her book Wannabe, but before she left, she wrote a review of The Blackening, and she talked about it with Ayesha Rascoe and jarrett hill. We talked a lot about how to best cover The Flash, given the history of allegations against its star as well as its complicated place in the history of DC movies. Glen and I wound up talking about those things, and about the movie, too. And he also sat down and wrote a terrific review. (Many thanks to our producers and our editors for their help with this episode.) What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: Glen Weldon: The very unusual Tony Awards Linda Holmes: Megan Abbott's Beware the Woman Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy