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I recently graduated from the California State University Northridge school of Cinema and Television Arts with an emphasis in film production. Currently I'm working for an online jazz station; McQsJazz.com and it's pretty cool. On the side I'm working on breaking into the industry. One step at a time.

You Haven’t Read A Heist Novel Like This Before

by Jessica P. Wick

The All-Consuming World, by Cassandra Khaw

A rag-tag band of criminals must come together for one last heist; of course, they didn’t part on good terms after the last job …

You might know this story, but you don’t yet know it in the hands of Cassandra Khaw. They transform one last heist into The All-Consuming World: a visionary, foul-mouthed, gory sci-fi adventure, dripping viscera, violence, and beauty in equal measure.

This time the criminals are cyborg clones — grown and augmented for work, treated like second class citizens and, unless something goes wrong, functionally immortal. When their bodies wear out or are damaged, their minds are uploaded into a new body, as long as nothing goes wrong. “Work, die, mulch the corpses, brine in the appropriate solution, bring them back. Rinse repeat.” Maya is the muscle and often our viewpoint character, loyal number two to callous mad scientist Rita, the manipulative former leader who’s bringing the Dirty Dozen — or what’s left of them — back together.

The authorities determined to stop them are autonomous AIs called Minds: relentless, alien, fascinating. A powerful Mind faction, the Bethel, believe the physical world and data exist to be devoured. We also meet the enigmatic Merchant Mind — out for themself, playing multiple sides to a mysterious end — and Pimento, a surveyor Mind who becomes embroiled in politicking. There’s a third wrinkle: Elise, one of two casualties from the last heist, isn’t exactly dead. Of course, she’s not exactly alive either – and that’s one of the hooks Rita uses to reel the old team back, along with the chance to figure out what exactly went so wrong last time.


For most of The All-Consuming World, the reader doesn’t know why the heist has to happen now, or what its target is. True stakes reveal themselves slowly. Anyone who seems to have answers turns out to be an untrustworthy manipulator keeping everyone else in the dark, so you’re pretty much in the dark, too. Khaw’s characters are damaged, raw, full of salt and vinegar, not always likable but charismatic. Members of the Dirty Dozen have baggage, and Khaw effectively gives you a sense of a dysfunctional, formerly chosen family, of outsiders with history. There’s little warmth, but occasionally a gleam of yearning which keeps you interested and adds to the tragic elements at play. Kudos to Khaw for the Minds, who think in terms that don’t align with how a species defined by biomatter would think. They don’t feel like somebody trying to imagine how AIs would think if they ruled the universe; they feel like AIs, who are ruling the universe. They’re terrifying and great.

Let’s talk about the prose: It’s incandescent, densely layered, adjectives and metaphor encrusted on the page and the mind’s eye. Although “encrusted” connotes static, this work is anything but static; rather, it’s orchestral, in constant breathless motion. “A million adjectives fettered to the mythic” is a description of one of the characters, but it’s a pretty good description of Khaw’s writing, too. I love when language is poetry, as it is here, and the syncopated melange of curse words, programming language, and stunningly realized images is intoxicating. Occasionally, the language overwhelms the story, and with so many viewpoints and such a quick pace it’s not always easy to follow scene changes. I found myself pausing as often as I found myself staying up late to read what happened next. Make no mistake: I did both these things, but I acknowledge less patient readers might wander away.

Although immortality has been effectively achieved for clone and machine, who gets to be real and who matters are questions this novel wonders about. It also thoughtfully considers whether it’s possible to break free from patterns when they seem hardwired. You won’t get a great sense of location or what everyday life looks like in Khaw’s universe, but you will think about what goes into making a life and what is important. There’s a lot to be introspective about.

The All-Consuming World is a gory, gloriously punk, queer heist story set in an unsettling and cold universe. It delivers thrills and questions. This is Cassandra Khaw’s debut novel, although they’ve published many novellas before, and it’s a worthwhile addition to the sci-fi canon. The ending is abrupt; a sudden stop. But it feels right that this story leaves you with questions unanswered and futures uncertain. The All-Consuming World will consume your attention and linger in your thoughts, a very good ride and a remarkable what-if.

Jessica P. Wick is a writer, freelance editor, and California native currently living in Rhode Island.

The Flowers For Olympic Medalists Carry Deep Meaning In Japan

by Merrit Kennedy

TOKYO — If you’ve been tuning in to Olympic events, you might have noticed that every medal winner carries a small bouquet of yellow, green and deep-blue flowers tied with a blue bow.

But they’re more than just flowers. The elements of the bouquet carry a deeper story, and they are years in the making.

They’re meant to symbolize Japan rising from the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011, which left about 20,000 people dead or missing. Homes were swept away and whole areas were deserted.

The flowers that make up the bouquets are grown mostly in three prefectures hit particularly hard in that event. All but about 100 of the dead or missing were from these areas.

Eustomas from Fukushima

The bouquets’ Eustomas, which are green and frilly, are grown in Fukushima. After the tsunami killed thousands, the area was devastated by a nuclear disaster, forcing many residents to evacuate.

It was an unlikely place to grow flowers. The Japanese organizers say a nonprofit started trying to cultivate Eustomas there in an attempt to jump-start the economy and help with the recovery effort.

Switching to flowers was also a practical option for some agricultural producers. Early tests of vegetables grown after the nuclear disaster showed their radiation levels were too high for human consumption, Kyodo News reported. Flowers are held to less strict standards.

In the years since the disaster, Eustomas have flourished in Fukushima.

“I hope there is a chance to introduce to the world how much Fukushima has recovered through the flowers,” Yukari Shimizu, who grows flowers in a town that was formerly off-limits because of the radiation, told Kyodo.

Sunflowers from Miyagi

When the tsunami hit, it propelled gigantic waves to Miyagi prefecture, and more than 10,000 people there were killed or are missing.

Olympic organizers say that in the wake of the disaster, parents came back to a hillside in Miyagi to plant sunflowers in memory of their children who died.

“Every year the hill becomes covered with sunflowers,” the organizers said. “The sunflowers from Miyagi reflect the memories of the people who were affected by the disaster.”

Miyagi is known for its roses, and sunflowers are a newer specialty for the area. Flower cultivators needed to develop the expertise and technology to produce small sunflowers that would fit within the small bouquets.

Gentians from Iwate

Just north of Miyagi is Iwate, a coastal area that was also devastated by giant waves. The prefecture produces the majority of Japan’s gentians, a small bright-blue flower. Unlike Miyagi and Fukushima, which tackled growing new species of flowers, Iwate has been growing gentians since at least the 1960s.

The bouquets also feature a small figure of the Olympic mascot, Miraitowa. The cartoon creature has a blue and white checkered headband, and its name is a combination of the Japanese words mirai (future) and towa (eternity). It is meant to be a celebration of Japan’s past and future.

Prime Day Is Here. Watch Out For Fake Reviews

by Savannah Sicurella

Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event has begun with the largest number of discounted items in its history. Over the next two days, customers can snag discounted big-ticket items, Amazon-branded products or any tchotchke they desire.

One thing to keep in mind when shopping during Prime Day: fake product reviews on Amazon and across social media.

Fake reviews often show up when consumers receive payment or discounts from companies looking for positive feedback. They’re sometimes easy to spot — just look for the overly positive or promotional language — but often are sneaky and deceptive.

Online reviews play an integral part in the shopping experience. A review is often the deciding factor in whether a customer splurges on an item. Aside from deceiving customers, fake online reviews can also harm competitive offerings from credible smaller businesses and can jeopardize brand trust.

Amazon has struggled to crack down on fake reviews for years, though it has ramped up operations to detect and prevent them over time. In 2020, Amazon identified more than 200 million fake reviews on its site before they were published.

But they’re sprouting elsewhere. In a blog post from last week, Amazon said it has noticed a trend of customers posting fake reviews to social media sites. On average, social media platforms take five days to remove them after Amazon has identified them.

There’s no surefire way to determine the honest reviews from dishonest ones, but taking each review with a grain of salt is a place to start. Take a close look at the words used in each review: Does the language sound too flowery, too jargony, too similar to other reviews? Examining the user who posted the review can also help. Be wary of generic-sounding names or accounts without profile pictures.

There are tech solutions, too: Web browser extensions such as Fakespot and ReviewMeta both use algorithms to analyze product reviews and determine the most genuine.

It’s just as important not to rely on reviews as the only deciding factor in buying a product. Back up your research with information from other websites unaffiliated with the brand. If you’re going to buy that discounted pasta maker, check out credible consumer reports and the pasta-making blogs.

Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR’s financial supporters.

Savannah Sicurella is an intern on the NPR Business Desk.

‘The Woman In The Window’ Locks Amy Adams Inside

by Linda Holmes

The Woman In The Window has been a little … snakebit, let’s just get that out of the way first. Filmed in 2018 (!), it was scheduled to come out in 2019 (!!), but it was pushed to 2020 for reshoots (!!!) and then to 2021 because of the pandemic (!!!!). That’s a long road. Meanwhile, the writer of the novel on which the film is based was the subject of an explosive article in The New Yorker accusing him of a variety of deceptions, and producer Scott Rudin was confronted with allegations as well, particularly about his treatment of assistants.

Woman in the Window, Amy Adams as Anna Fox

What’s odd is that in a lot of ways, the film, coming to Netflix on May 14, has a solid pedigree. Directed by Joe Wright (AtonementHannaDarkest Hour) and starring Amy Adams, it works from a screenplay by playwright Tracy Letts. The cast includes Gary Oldman, Brian Tyree Henry, Julianne Moore, and Anthony Mackie. Furthermore, there’s something that seems perhaps timely in a film about agoraphobia coming out at the tail end of, for a lot of people, a period of rather intense isolation.

Adams plays a child psychologist named Anna Fox. She lives alone, but has phone conversations with her (ex-?)husband (Mackie) about how he and their daughter are doing. She does not go out. At all. She explains that she is agoraphobic, although it’s initially unclear how long this has been the case. She has everything delivered, and she has the help of a scruffy downstairs tenant (a charming but opaque Wyatt Russell, of Lodge 49 and more recently The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), who does his best to navigate her anxieties.

Anna becomes interested in the new neighbors across the street, and when she meets the teenage son (Fred Hechinger) and the mother (Moore), she begins to feel an attachment. But then she witnesses something from her window — she is, after all, the woman in the … well, you know — and she becomes concerned. Eventually, she also meets the family patriarch (Oldman). Before long, she’s in contact with a cop (Henry) who’s unsure what to make of her worries.

The Woman In The Window belongs to a class of domestic thrillers that blossomed with new energy after Gone Girl was published in 2012. It particularly seems to call back to The Girl On The Train, published in 2015 and made into a movie starring Emily Blunt the following year. They resemble each other not just because of their similar titles, but because they are both about women who believe they have seen something and are forced to consider whether, in fact, they have not. They are both about women whose deeply troubled lives call into question nearly everything they say. Narrators not only unreliable to the reader (or the watcher), but unreliable to themselves.

One challenge of this kind of story is that it has a limited number of places to go. Either Anna saw what she thinks she did, or she didn’t. Either she will be vindicated, or she will not. We’ve seen both of those endings before when it comes to the unreliable narrator: We’ve seen what it looks like when everyone says, “I’m so sorry I doubted you,” and we’ve seen what it looks like when reality closes in and the narrator’s unreliability turns out to have been flat-out misdirection.

Thus, as in so many genre pieces, it’s all about how you get from point A to point B. Nobody stays with a film just for a jack-in-the-box to either pop out or not. There are some strong moments — and there’s some visual inventiveness — as Anna tries to reconcile her present and her past. But without spoiling anything, I’ll say that the conclusion of this story just isn’t that inventive. It’s convoluted — reportedly, confusion is part of why reshoots happened. That’s pretty common in stories that endeavor to get to a place where they’ve tied enough knots in the thread that it’s almost impossible for anyone to say they truly anticipated where the story was going. But convoluted just requires throwing in a lot of plot detritus to conceal the truth. Inventiveness means using the formula to do something meaningfully new, and that’s where this film falls short.

They might get away with the familiar plot if there were a little more dimension to these characters. This is particularly true of Anna herself, whose fear and paranoia seem … well, like well-trod cinematic territory of fear and paranoia. The most intriguing character is the one played by Julianne Moore, whose laugh is unsettling and whose friendliness is ominous, but her appearance is regrettably brief. Oldman is playing a well-worn type, as is Hechinger. There’s a good scene late in the film between Adams and the wildly charismatic Brian Tyree Henry, and if there had been a way to make the film more of a two-hander between them as she tries to convince him to believe her, it might have felt like a stronger story.

As it is, you get a good cast working with a good director and screenwriter on a story that just doesn’t have enough to offer.

Meet America’s Newest Chess Master, 10-Year-Old Tanitoluwa Adewumi

by Mary Louise Kelly and Karen Zamora

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 03: Tanitoluwa Adewumi attends the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival at BMCC Tribeca PAC on May 03, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)

Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a 10-year-old in New York, just became the country’s newest national chess master.

At the Fairfield County Chess Club Championship tournament in Connecticut on May 1, Adewumi won all four of his matches, bumping his chess rating up to 2223 and making him the 28th youngest person to become a chess master, according to US Chess.

“I was very happy that I won and that I got the title,” he says, “I really love that I finally got it.”

“Finally” is after about three years — the amount of time that Adewumi has been playing chess. When he started, Adewumi and his family were living in a homeless shelter in Manhattan after fleeing religious persecution by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in their home country of Nigeria.

Now, Adewumi practices chess “every day” after school for “10, 11 hours” — and still manages to get some sleep. 

His hours of practice have paid off. As a chess player, he describes himself as a bit of an every man, “aggressive” or “calm” when he needs to be, and always thinking ahead.

“On a normal position, I can do up to 20 moves [in advance]”, he says. Keeping all of the pieces straight in his head might seem like a challenge but Adewumi says it’s a skill that “when you master, it just keeps coming back.”

Adewumi competes against other chess players at all levels. But his favorite match?

“I guess Hikaru Nakamura is my favorite person I’ve ever played,” he says. “He’s a grandmaster, a very strong one. He’s on the top of the rankings.”

Nakamura won that match. But Adewumi takes each loss in stride — and there’s always the possibility of a comeback.

“I say to myself that I never lose, that I only learn,” he says. “Because when you lose, you have to make a mistake to lose that game. So you learn from that mistake, and so you learn [overall]. So losing is the way of winning for yourself.”

Since the last time NPR spoke with Adewumi, his family moved out of the shelter and he’s written a book about his life called My Name Is Tani . . . and I Believe in Miracles. That book has been optioned for a Trevor Noah-produced film adaptation with a script by The Pursuit of Happyness screenwriter Steven Conrad. 

But Adewumi’s journey is not over yet. He says his goal is to become the world’s youngest grandmaster. At 10 years 8 months, he has a little under two years to beat the current record holder, Sergey Karjakin, who gained his title at 12 years 7 months.

Karen Zamora and Amy Isackson produced and edited the audio story. Cyrena Touros adapted it for Web.

She Has Style, She Has Flair And We’re There For ‘The Nanny’

by Linda Holmes and Saeed Jones

LOS ANGELES – NOVEMBER 3: The Nanny, a CBS television situation comedy. Premiere episode aired November 3, 1993. Pictured from left is Daniel Davis (as Niles), the butler; Fran Drescher (as Fran Fine); Charles Shaughnessy (as Maxwell Sheffield), theatrical producer; Lauren Lane (as C.C. Babcock), Maxwells business partner. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)

Fran Fine was working at a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens, and now she’s on HBO Max. The Nanny, starring Fran Drescher as Fran Fine, nanny to the wealthy Sheffield family, originally ran from 1993 to 1999. More than 20 years after it ended, the show has made it to a major streaming service: HBO Max. And what that means is that a comedy that spent years a little under the radar has roared back into the public conversation. 

The audio was produced by Mallory Yu and edited by Jessica Reedy.

Selena’s Legacy Lives On, In ‘Selena: The Series’ And Beyond

by Stephen Thompson and Maria Garcia

SELENA THE SERIES (L to R) CHRISTIAN SERRATOS as SELENA QUINTANILLA in Trailer of SELENA THE SERIES Cr. NETFLIX © 2020

Selena Quintanilla was known as the “Queen Of Tejano Music,” a major Latin star who was crossing over into the mainstream U.S. pop world when she was shot and killed in 1995. She was 23 years old. Her story spawned a 1997 movie starring Jennifer Lopez, as well as an 18-episode series streaming now on Netflix called Selena: The Series. Maria Garcia, the host and creator of the Anything For Selena podcast, joins us to talk about the legacy of Selena, who would have turned 50 years old this year.

The audio was produced by Candice Lim and edited by Mike Katzif.

Fandom Can Be A Lot Like High School — Here’s How To Avoid The Bad Stuff

by Alan Yu

The first thing Kristen Lopez remembers being a fan of is Disney, specifically the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

“I remember celebrating my birthday … and we all went and saw it, full disclosure, I saw Pirates of the Caribbean16 times in theaters to the point that I could memorize swaths of this movie,” she says. “I look back on it now and I was like, ‘god we were nerds,’ but there was a lot of fun to it … it was a feeling of understanding and camaraderie with my friends, they definitely understood and didn’t look down on me.”

Growing up disabled, Lopez says places like Disneyland gave her “the sense of possibility and no barriers.” Other fandoms — like Turner Classic Movies — came later; Lopez says that becoming part of the supportive TCM fandom felt “like the best parts of high school, where you feel that acceptance and people like what you like, and you don’t really have to explain or justify it.”

It’s about teaching kids that there are … many other people who like the same things that they do in the same enthusiastic ways and hopefully, helping kids feel more comfortable and confident.

Amy Ratcliffe

But fandom has a darker side as well. When Lopez wrote about the portrayal of chronic pain in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, she got several days of vitriol online, including rape threats.

“There’s the people that love to troll and that love to stir the pot, but then there’s also the people that feel very defensive about the fandom communities that they love, and feel that any criticism is a criticism of them,” she says. “I get very nervous when I’m talking about genre things that I know have a very deep fandom, and it’s like, ‘great they’re going to be mad at me … talking about this.’ … That happens a lot professionally.”

So how do fans navigate these communities, to find the good parts while being aware of the bad?

Amy Ratcliffe, managing editor for the pop culture site Nerdist, addresses this as part of her new book, A Kid’s Guide to FandomShe says it’s the book that she wishes she could have had when she was a young fan looking for others like her. Ratcliffe remembers growing up as a fan of the Wheel of Time series, using her family’s dial-up internet to visit online forums.

She says her objective is for kids to be aware of fandom, “that other people like the same things that you like … even if it’s one other person, like you’re not alone.”

“I still hear stories about young girls being bullied because they like Star Wars; they think they’re the only kid,” she says. “It’s about teaching kids that there are … many other people who like the same things that they do in the same enthusiastic ways and hopefully, helping kids feel more comfortable and confident.”

No one gets to decide who is a “real” fan

Ratcliffe explains in her book that some fans can become gatekeepers, people who want to decide who is or is not a “real fan.” Fans, she says, should never have to prove themselves.

Ratcliffe herself has run into gatekeepers; once, at a Star Wars convention, a man saw her Rebel Alliance tattoo, “looked at the tattoo, looked at my then-boyfriend who was with me, and was like … completely serious by the way, no sarcasm, like, ‘oh that was really nice of you to get that tattoo for your boyfriend.'”

Her advice for younger fans who want to find communities is to start with groups or places that they know: a local library, or a game shop they go to with their family; to trust their instincts when they feel something is off; and to get an older sibling, a parent, or guardian involved.

Think critically about the work you like

Mackenzie MacDade has thought a lot about this too, as someone who is deeply engaged with fandom and is a diversity and inclusion consultant for, among other things, Buffering the Vampire Slayer, a podcast about Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and Noelle Stevenson, creator of the Netflix show She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. 

“The first thing I start with, whether kids or adult, is: Do not passively consume media,” she says. She explains that means people should think critically about what is portrayed, be aware of problems either in the fictional world or how creators and stars behave, and then decide to enjoy the work anyway if that is what they want.

As an example, she brings up the relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren in the most recent Star Wars movies — a favorite topic for fan fiction writers.

That’s how you find the best fandoms, I think, you look at what is the creator doing, how do they feel about it.

mackenzie macdade

“If we look at how Kylo and Rey interact, is that a way that you would actually want to interact with someone and then date them? Would you feel comfortable and safe doing that? No? Great. You understand, then feel free to read the fic anyway if that’s what you want to do.”

“Don’t watch it and just think, ‘oh, this is just entertainment’, because popular culture shapes our culture whether we want to admit that or not,” she says. “Now, we kind of do shape popular culture, but for the most part, the messages that we get from popular culture are internalized and often played out.”

What are the creators doing?

MacDade adds fans can also look to the creators, or people involved in a movie or TV show or book series, to get a sense of how they interact with fans.

“What the best creators do: they create a sandbox, they build a couple of castles and they let it go, and they let people play and have fun,” she says. “That’s how you find the best fandoms, I think, you look at what is the creator doing, how do they feel about it.”

She cites the example of Rick Riordan, creator of the Percy Jackson book series, who promotes fan creations, and extended the his fictional universe by working with authors from different backgrounds to write about the gods in their cultures.

Tracy Deonn, author and creator of the Legendborn fantasy book series, thought specifically about future fans while writing her book. She says there are moments that she chose not to write because it might be something that people might enjoy writing as fan fiction.

That feels like something really personal and empowering … when someone claims for themselves that they’re a fan of something.

Tracy Deonn

“It’s sort of my love letter, my thank you back to the fandom community, creating the little pockets … fans will often find the crack in a story, and I like to say they get in like water and expand like ice,” she says.

“That organic growth is why people stick around,” she says.

Fandom is an identity you choose for yourself

Deonn’s advice to fans is to find the people who enjoy something in the same way they do, to know there are probably other people like that out there, and to remember that their relationship to a work is special.

“I think about how many different identities are applied to individuals from external sources … I’m walking down the street, I’m minding my own business, someone else externally refers to me as a Black woman, and then that comes with a whole lot of historical, social, cultural weight depending on who that person is and what they’re looking at,” she says. “Fandom is something that is pure choice: no one can really call you a fan of something just based on an external visual. Even if I’m walking down the street wearing a Leia costume, someone could call me that but they don’t fully understand my engagement with the story. That feels like something really personal and empowering …when someone claims for themselves that they’re a fan of something.”

Alan Yu reports on science for WHYY in Philadelphia.

‘An Extraordinary Discovery’: Archeologists Find Neanderthal Remains In Cave Near Rome

H.J. Mai

Archaeologists discovered the fossilized remains of nine Neanderthals at a prehistoric cave site south of Rome, the Italian Cultural Ministry announced on Saturday. 

The oldest of the remains date from between 90,000 and 100,000 years ago, while the other eight are believed to be younger, dating from 50,000 to 68,000 years ago. 

The findings include skulls, skull fragments, two teeth and other bone fragments. The fossilized bones were found at the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo, which is roughly 56 miles southeast of Rome.

A Neanderthal skull was discovered there in 1939, according to the Associated Press. The ministry said the latest discovery confirms Guattari Cave as “as one of the most significant places in the world for the history of Neanderthals.”

This image released by the Italian Culture Ministry shows a cave near Rome where fossil findings were discovered, shedding new light on how the Italian peninsula was populated and under what environmental conditions. The Italian Culture Ministry announced the discovery Saturday, May 8, 2021, saying it confirmed that the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo, where a Neanderthal skull was discovered in 1939, was “one of the most significant places in the world for the history of Neanderthals.” (Emanuele Antonio Minerva/Italian Culture Ministry via AP)

Neanderthals died out roughly 40,000 years ago, but small traces of their DNA still exist in modern humans. 

The excavation work at the site started in 2019 and explored parts of the cave that hadn’t been studied before. 

Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini called the finding “an extraordinary discovery that will be the talk of the world.”

Archaeologists said the cave, which had been closed off by an ancient earthquake or landslide, perfectly preserved the environment of 50,000 years ago. 

In addition to the Neanderthal bones, the team of researchers unearthed many fossilized animal remains, including those of hyenas, elephants, rhinoceros and giant deer, among others.