Category: Worldwide

People who decide not to have children are often unfairly judged by those who chose a different life path. People with children can be especially judgmental to women who’ve decided to opt out of motherhood.

“You will regret it!” is one of the most common phrases lobbed at those who choose to remain childless. Why do people think they’ll have such awful regrets? Because they often say they’ll wind up “lonely and sad” when they’re older.

They also say that life without children is without purpose and that when the childless get older they’ll have no one to take care of them. One of the most patronizing critiques thrown at childless women is that they will never “feel complete” unless they have a child.

However, a lot of these critiques say more about the person doling them out than the person who decides to remain childless. Maybe, just maybe, their life is fulfilling enough without having to reproduce. Maybe, just maybe, they can have a life full of purpose without caring for any offspring.

Maybe the question should be: What’s lacking in your life that you need a child to feel complete?

---

Studies show that some people regret being childless when they get older, but they’re in the minority. An Australian researcher found that a quarter of child-free women came to regret the decision once they were past child-bearing age and began contemplating old age alone.

People revealed the reasons they’ve decided to be childless in an article by The Upshot. The top answers were the desire for more leisure time, the need to find a partner and the inability to afford child care. A big reason that many women decide not to have children is that motherhood feels like more of a choice these days, instead of a foregone conclusion as it was in previous decades.

Reddit user u/ADreamyNightOwl asked a “serious” question about being childless to the AskReddit subforum and received a lot of honest answers. They asked “People over 50 that chose to be childfree, do you regret your decision? Why or why not?”

The people who responded are overwhelmingly happy with their decision not to have children. A surprising number said they felt positive about their decision because they thought they’d be a lousy parent. Others said they were happy to have been able to enjoy more free time than their friends and family members who had kids.

Here are some of the best responses to the Askreddit question.

1. Never had any desire.

“I explain it to people like this – you know that feeling you get where you just can’t wait to teach your kid how to play baseball? or whatever it is you want to share with them? I don’t have that. Its basically a lack of parental instinct. Having children was never something I aspired to. My SO is the same way.

“Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against children. And I get really angry at people who harm them or mistreat them. I just never wanted my own.” — IBeTrippin

2. No desire. No regrets.

“Nope. It was never something I wanted. No regrets.” — BornaCrone

3. Mixed feelings.

“I have mixed feelings. I don’t care much for children and I think it would have been disastrous for us to have them. I was also able to retire at 52. Pretty sure that wouldn’t have happened with kids. So yeah, absolutely the right decision.
But I love my family and I do wonder what it would be like to have my own, to teach my child the things I know and not to be without someone who cares about me at the time of my death.

“But again, absolutely the right decision and at 55 I’m very happy NOT to have them. This is reinforced every time I’m exposed to other people’s kids.” — ProfessorOzone

4. They never visit.

“My wife worked at a nursing home for years. Imagine seeing for years that over 95% of old people never have family visit. Till they die and people want a piece of the pie. This when I learned that the whole ‘well who is gonna visit you or take care of you when you’re older’ line is complete bullshit. We decided to not have kids ever after that. Made great friends and saw the world. No regrets.” — joevilla1369

5. It wasn’t an option.

“I don’t necessarily regret not having them, but I regret the fact that I wasn’t in a healthy enough relationship where I felt I COULD have children. I regret not being stronger to leave the abuse earlier, if I had been stronger, I think maybe I could have had the choice at least. So yeah… I have regrets.” — MaerakiStudioMe

6. Grandkids are cooler.

“No. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to marry my husband. He had two sons from his first marriage and a vasectomy. He was worried because I was so young (comparatively, he’s 10 years older). I did think it over seriously and concluded that a life with him compared to a life without him but (perhaps!) with a baby I didn’t even have yet was what I wanted. It worked out for us, we’ve been together for 26 years. As a bonus I have 9 grandchildren. All the fun without the work of the raising!” — Zublor

7. I’d be a bad parent.

“Not one bit. I have never believed that I would be a good parent. I have a short temper, and while I don’t think I would have been physically abusive, my words and tone of voice would be harsh in a very similar way to my own father. I wasn’t happy growing up with that kind parent and I wouldn’t want to subject any child to that kind of parenting.” — Videoman7189

8. I’d rather be the cool aunt and uncle.

“No and I found a partner who feels the same. We are the cool aunt and uncle.” — laudinum

9. Loneliness is underrated.

“54 yrs.old. I’ve lived the past 30 years alone. Presently my dog and I are chillin’ in a nice hotel on a spur of the moment vacation. I’d maybe be a grandfather by now?! I can’t imagine what it would be like to have family. I picture a life lived more “normally” sometimes. All sunshine and roses, white picket fence, etc. but I realize real life isn’t like that. No I don’t regret being childfree or wifefree for that matter. My life can be boring at times but then I look back at all the drama that comes with relationships and think I’ve dodged a bullet. I spent 20 years trying to find a wife to start a family. Then I realized the clock had run out, so fuck it, all the money I’d saved for my future family would be spent on myself. Hmmmmm…what do I want to buy myself for Christmas?” — Hermits_Truth

10. No diaper changes and no regrets.

“Nope. I never had the urge to change diapers or lose sleep, free time and most of my earnings. Other people’s kids are great. Mostly because they are other people’s. When people ask ‘Who will take care of you when you’re old’ I tell them that when I’m 75 I will adopt a 40-year-old.” — fwubglubbel

11. Zero desire.

“I’m 55 (F) and never wanted children. I just don’t much like them, and 20+ years of motherhood sounded (and still sounds) like a prison sentence. Maternal af when it comes to cats and dogs, but small humans? No chance.

“And I’m very happy to be childless. Cannot imagine my life any other way.” — GrowlKitty

12. D.I.N.K.

“Dual income no kids = great lifestyle!” — EggOntheRun

13. Some regrets

“Over 50 and child free. My only regret is that my wife would have been a great mother, and sometimes I feel like I deprived her of that, even though we both agreed we didn’t want kids. Sometimes I wonder if I pushed her into that decision. She works with the elderly every day and sees a lot of lonely folks so it gets to her sometimes. I was always afraid I’d screw up the parenting thing, so I was never really interested in the idea. I’m a loner by nature though.” — Johnny-Virgil

Pablo Larraín’s Spencer is Oscar bait. It’s a biopic about a beloved historical figure, Princess Diana of Wales. Its star, Kristen Stewart, is going through something of a redemption arc, which Oscar voters loved when Matthew McConaughey did it. Stewart, who started acting as a child, is decades into her career and over a decade into proving herself as a serious performer. With her months-long campaign for Spencer, Stewart is not trying to reinvent her image, but trying to earn well-deserved, long-overdue recognition among her peers who still associate the actress with a vampire franchise she starred in when she was a teenager into her early 20s; the same reputation that her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson easily earned. Spencer is also an extremely expressive film. It’s beautifully shot and carefully lit, with landscapes as glamorous as its costumes. The visuals are in stark contrast with the story, which centers on Diana’s internal struggle with her marriage, being in the royal family, and her eating disorder. It looks like the fantasy royal life you imagine, but the reality is quite the opposite. Larraín’s film is not a standard biopic, though – it’s more of a slice of Diana’s complicated, lonely life.

Stewart and Spencer check every box on the Oscar to-do list with big, green, and perfect checkmarks. But Stewart, who kicked off awards season as a favorite for the Best Actress Oscar, has slowly become as unlikely to win an Oscar as Bradley Cooper, or a pre-The Revenant Leonardo Dicaprio. Although Stewart was just nominated in the Best Actress category for Spencer, she is the least likely to win among the other nominees. How did Stewart go from most obvious frontrunner to so left in the dust that it’s surprising she was even nominated? This has to do with several factors, including Hollywood’s obsession with itself, Stewart’s career (and everyone’s relationship to it), as well as the difference between what critics/film fans like compared to Hollywood and Academy voters.

When Spencer premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2021, critics swooned over Stewart’s performance. For years, critics and film fans have been working to give Stewart her due. Before her Twilight career, she was a child actress who worked with David Fincher in Panic Room (2002), and years later had a memorable role in 2007’s Into the Wild. Her post-Twilight career gets more impressive with every role, with her quiet performing style building and maturing. Stewart played Julianne Moore’s daughter in 2014’s Still Alice in a small but rousing performance opposite an Oscar-winning performance from Moore. In Stewart’s unsettling, emotionally raw but refined performance 2016’s Personal Shopper, Stewart established what most critics already knew: she is as good as the rest of them and better than some.

In Spencer, which follows Princess Diana as she decides to end her marriage with Prince Charles while on a Christmas holiday, Stewart disappears into Diana, fluctuating between extreme moods as a result of her isolation within the royal family. Stewart portrays Diana as an extremely sad, trapped woman. She has what anyone would consider an enviable life: she is part of the British royal family so she has everything — more beautiful things and surroundings than most people could ever imagine. But she is almost imprisoned by her status, in a loveless marriage with a man who openly loves another woman, and the only joy she experiences is through her children. Stewart plays these emotions naturally, assimilating from intense pain in scenes with her husband and his family to the intoxicating joy Diana was known for in scenes with her young sons, William and Harry. It’s the kind of performance that makes you forget who the actor is, and that the character has been played by other actresses (and very recently). Most importantly, Stewart does not try to make Diana feel special. The best part of Stewart’s performance is that she allows Princess Diana to be rather ordinary, which establishes a necessary connection with the audience.

Over the past few months as other films came out and the conversation shifted from critic chatter to actual awards show voters, Stewart’s chances for an Oscar grew smaller. Stewart went from shoo-in to, “she’s lucky if she even gets nominated.” The front-runners for best actress among the nominees are now Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter) and Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos), and Penelope Cruz (Parallel Mothers), with previous winner Nicole Kidman the most likely winner for an average performance at best, if I’m being generous. Compared to Stewart, these actresses have more pull within Hollywood circles and, therefore, Academy voters. All of them have won before, which makes them more favorable to voters, who tend to go with what they’re comfortable with, even as the voting pool expands. Stewart, although decades into her acting career, does not run in the same circles. She’s also not from a Hollywood family, which favors actors more than they’ll ever admit. And up until this point, she has never been taken very seriously as an actress on this scale, rarely given the chance to mingle at awards shows like her peers. Stewart has been in a constant state of proving herself, and she’s gone ignored.

This is a similar problem to that of Jodie Comer, another actress who delivered one of the best performances in 2021 for The Last Duel, who, like Stewart, simply does not have as much pull in Hollywood. In an ideal world, Stewart and Comer would be the undisputed frontrunners for Best Actress, in a race that no one could predict.

Unfortunately, there are still people who consider Stewart unworthy, apparently unable to separate an actor from a job. If I was judged by all the jobs I had in the teens and 20s . . . you know what, I actually don’t even want to imagine that. While there are still some who extend the same fervor toward Robert Pattinson (every time I tweet about him, a few Batman fans who hate him harass me), he quickly broke out of his Twilight association, becoming an indie/arthouse film darling.

Meanwhile, Stewart has been doing the same thing but is still working her ass off to prove she’s just as good. Awards shows are, for the most part, a popularity contest. The hottest person of the moment – rooted in likability but fueled by clever PR campaigns – is more likely to win than the person who actually deserved it for the individual work, creating a cycle of actors (or writers and directors) winning years later for the wrong thing. Gary Oldman won his first Oscar for Darkest Hour, an unremarkable film and performance led more by prosthetics than the actor himself. In 2016, Leonardo DiCaprio’s win for The Revenant was an ultimately unsatisfying conclusion to his extraordinary early acting career. In the Best Actress category, Kate Winslet finally won her first Oscar in a similarly disappointing fashion for The Reader in 2008. The following year, Sandra Bullock won for The Blind Side, which hurt her chances for a win for Gravity several years later, were career-based wins, meant to respect the body of work and the person more than the individual performance.

As this cycle continues, Kristin Stewart may get her comeuppance, in a few years or maybe in many. But as it so often goes, it will be for a performance that wasn’t as deserving as Spencer – an apologetic handout for willful ignorance of her previous work. If not Spencer, what will Kristen Stewart have to do to get some respect?

The relationship between cannabis and creativity is delicate and polarized. While weed can be an incredible tool, inspiring the artist while relaxing the mind into a flow state, it can also backfire. If you over-consume THC or choose the wrong strain to accompany you on your creative voyage, you can quickly find yourself transformed into a stagnant energy orb incapable of creating linear thought, much less conceptualizing art.

While different terpenes and cannabinoid combinations can affect creativity, energy levels, and calm the mind enough to focus, it’s ultimately a matter of personal preference when it comes to choosing a strain that makes you feel creative. Speaking personally, weed has always been a huge part of my creative process — mostly for better, sometimes for worse. I went to Pratt for fine art before finding my path in writing and have used weed extensively to create throughout my adolescence and into adult life. The perfect space to create, for me, is a mixture of feeling uplifted, inspired, and relaxed enough to skirt the anxiety that often accompanies procrastination.

The terpenes that seem to work for me are pinene (focus), limonene (energy), and terpinolene (inspiration), balanced by a lower percentage of myrcene (relaxing) or caryophyllene (anti-anxiety). I also have found that THC percentages below 25 percent tend to help keep my head in the game and my feet on the ground as opposed to super-strong strains that send you into orbit.

So, that’s what works for me. Now let’s see if we can figure out what works for you. Today, we’re ranking the creativity-inducing effects of five incredible strains hot on the market right now. Each of these would be a great place to start if you’re looking to up your game in the studio without accidentally spacing out and ordering a triple pepperoni pizza.

To rate these strains, I went to a beautiful park with lots of happy dogs running around under the Hollywood sign and experienced each of them through this super cool crystal ball pipe from Sackville and Co. It seemed appropriate for this kind of mystical undertaking. Here are the results!

5. Classic Jack by Source Cannabis

Price: $55 for 3.5g

The Strain:

Few strains are more iconic than the uplifting, cerebral Jack Herer. But we rarely see it anymore. This Classic Jack variety by cannabis veterans and one of my favorite indoor brands, Source Cannabis, does the original justice and then some.

Tasting Notes:

Like all Source flower, this weed looks insanely amazing. The nugs are grass green with big orange hairs frosted in trichomes. Smelling the jar, there are notes of bright lemon, deep forest, and pink pepper. It has a sharp, evergreen aroma like pine sap evaporating in the hot summer sun.

I loaded my crystal ball pipe and took a big hit as a dalmatian looked on, confused. I exhaled. There was lemon, pine, fruit that was at once sour and sweet, like sipping some kind of incredible and complex botanical beverage.

Bottom Line:

I felt inspired to create but also a little dreamy — which I think works for certain art forms better than others. With writing, I often need to be more focused, and sometimes the whimsical element can distract me from completing the creative task at hand. For more open-ended creation, however, I think this would be a perfect choice. That makes this is a great flower for creativity as long as you don’t get too distracted by having fun doing other things, because it’s good for that too.

It’s uplifting and energizing, but also dreamy and zoomy — perfect for visual artists whose work deals in whimsy like painters, sculptors, and illustrators.

4. Durban Poison by Rythm

Price: $55 for 3.5g

The Strain:

In its original form, Durban Poison is one of the only true sativas in existence. Beloved for its creative, energizing effects, today’s Durban Poison from Rythm follows suit with an electrifying strain that energizes the body and invigorates the mind.

Tasting Notes:

Upon the first whiff, I knew this was the kind of weed that wakes your ass up. There’s lemon, spicy, zingy, tangy — you literally feel uplifted just by smelling it. The nugs are bright, dense, and pretty, and, at one point, were probably gorgeous. The mechanical trimming process these corporate brands use tends to destroy the intricacies of bud structures and grinds off many of the trichomes that contain the psychoactive compounds that get you high.

Still, though, it looked bomb.

As I smoked it, the flavor was woodsy and the color dark green came to mind. It had a pine flavor that was more woody than sharp. I exhaled and became immediately electric and sprang into action. It was a manic, prolific kind of creativity where you create a lot and edit it down later.

Bottom Line:

This is great for writers, thinkers, and people who really have to dive into the depths of their brains to create their art. This flower is deeply cerebral and physically uplifting — much better than coffee for someone keen to get shit done. Promoting laser focus and deep thought, this flower is great for being manically productive in a creative space.

3. Harmony Rose by Emerald Spirit Botanicals

Price: $65 for 7g

The Strain:

Harmony Rose by the fifth-generation family farm Emerald Spirit Botanicals is soul medicine that raises your vibration, making it perfect for elevating your artistic practice. While that might sound a little woo-woo to the average reader, I’m fucking serious. This shit is high-frequency earth magic and I will die on this hill.

Loose and fragrant, this is the kind of weed that makes you realize cannabis is a psychoactive flower. Harmony Rose is the antithesis to the small, rock-shaped nugs with astronomical THC percentages that are grown in a warehouse and make you feel like a zombie. This flower is free-flowing, low dose, and high in all the other chemical compounds that make you feel happy, healed, and good.

Just a quick educational side note: THC percentage refers to the percentage of the mass of the nug that is made up of the chemical THC. Meaning, when you have a flower that’s something astronomical like 35 percent, so much of the physical mass of that plant is being taken up by one chemical. All the other compounds that make you feel good are going way down to make room for the juiced-up THC. You lose the other colors in the rainbow of cannabinoids naturally present in the plant and narrow the scope of its healing powers dramatically. While a newbie might think they’re getting more bang for their buck, consumers of extremely high THC flower often experience anxiety, paranoia, and even freakouts.

Tasting Notes:

All of that said, Harmony Rose comes in at just 8.7 percent THC and 9.5 percent CBD. This is a 1:1 flower whose nugs are natural-looking and not dense. They’re purple, green, and orange. They look like what the cannabis plant produced prior to all this human intervention looked like. The smell is like delicate rose tea — beautiful and strong — without being overwhelming. Truly exquisite and difficult to define.

I packed a bowl and took a hit. The flavor is exactly like the smell: Sweet, musky, floral, delicious. Harmony Rose is all about the subtle art of elevation. Immediately, you feel better, brighter, and lifted.

Bottom Line:

The only way I can truly describe the high is that your vibe just gets way, way higher. The ideas flowed and I wasn’t judging myself or being critical. I was creating freely. This medicine brings you to a healing place where you’re eager to create, without fear or judgment.

Plus, you’re guaranteed not to freak out. So if you’re freakout-prone, this one’s for you.

2. Blood Orange by Aster Farms

Price: $30 for 3.5g

The Strain:

Blood Orange by the sun-grown, sustainable brand Aster Farms is one of my favorite strains of now. Not only is it incredible for reaching the creative flow state, but it also makes every day come alive with fun.

Tasting Notes:

This flower smells and tastes like blood oranges. They’re luscious, fragrant orange blossoms with a sour and savory tinge. The terpene profile on this strain is out of control. The smell, the taste, it’s overwhelmingly decadent. A complex and robust terpene profile is the most important thing when it comes to choosing your flower. The more terps, the more healing and nuanced the high. While some flower may look insane on the outside, it’s what you can’t see that really counts in my opinion. These nugs are dense, green, orange, fuzzy, earthy, and real.

Another way to determine great weed is if the smell of the terpene profile continues into the flavor of the weed as you smoke it and exhale. This, my friends, was a flavor explosion. It was as if my mouth was coated in an expensive blood-orange liqueur. It tasted natural and gorgeous, like the essence of fruit and sunshine.

“Orange orchards in the springtime,” “farmers market on a Sunday,” and “fancy steak dinner” were all scribbled in my notes.

Bottom line:

The high is focused, clear, and left me ready to take on the world with a playful bent. Blood Orange contains high levels of the terpene terpinolene, which is known as the creativity terpene. It’s cerebral and exciting, perfect for writing and coming up with ideas. Dreamy, calming, and inspiring.

This is a fantastic daytime flower that — aside from the official creativity test — I’ve been smoking at all times for the past couple of weeks.

1. Candy Cane by Moon Made Farms

Price: $100 for 14g

The Strain:

Candy Cane by the sun-grown Emerald Triangle brand Moon Made Farms blew my mind. It has become a life-changing flower for me in a lot of ways. Healing, inspiring, thoughtful, and deep, it allows you to transcend the physical realm and exist only in the ethereal space between body and mind where creativity occurs.

Tasting Notes:

This flower checks every box for me in the sensory department. The nugs are chunky, sparkly, crunchy, and perfect. Not too dense, they break apart easily into cascading tones of violet, deep purple, and orange with a hundred shades of green. It’s piney, woody, and peppery. Just smelling this flower helps relieve the anxiety that constantly plagues my body and mind.

The smell is perfectly aligned with flavor in this variety with a deep, woody flavor that melts anxiety on the exhale. There is an immediate head change. Your eyes get heavier but your mind comes alive.

Bottom Line:

I found this flower to be inspiring in a totally different way than I’m used to. Usually, I go for an intense sativa, but this is definitely something more languid. The body high is so relieving and euphoric. It’s almost like you don’t have a body at all and can completely focus your energy on what your mind is creating.

Finally freed from the bindings of the physical realm, you are free to explore your mind and see what materializes from its depths. That makes this the perfect cannabis, in general, but also for creativity!

It’s nurtured by the sun! And the rain! And soil that is alive! Every psychoactive compound has been filled out to perfection. Your mind will be excited and your body relaxed. Seriously, try it for yourself and go make something wonderful.

Despite only being a first-time director, The Roots’ drummer Questlove has already entered rarified air as one of the nominees for the 2022 Academy Awards. he’s nominated for Best Original Documentary for his debut film, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), which captured the subversive energy and vibrant performances of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. The documentary is also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Music Film, an impressive achievement for the veteran musician.

Questlove himself seemed pretty pumped about the new nomination online — to the point of incoherence. He tweeted out an unintelligible string of characters before he was able to compose himself enough to write a tweet genuinely expressing his excitement. “Oscar Nominated Film Director Questlove……I just need to see this in print,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, over on Instagram, he needed the help of some archival video to tell his followers “THIS IS HOW I FEEL.” “Man I’m so happy about this,” he wrote in the caption. “Thank you to every last soul that assisted in this journey from 1969 to tomorrow!!!”

Should Questlove win the category (out of a field that also includes Ascension, Attica, Flee, and Writing With Fire, he’ll be halfway to an EGOT — and with Black Thought’s musical Black No More still in the works, there’s time for Quest to attach his name and position himself for a potential Tony as well. Then all he’ll need is for John Oliver to take a season off and that EGOT’s in the bag.

The last we heard from Mxmtoon was her 2020 EPs Dawn and Dusk, as well as her contributions to the Life Is Strange: True Colors soundtrack in 2021. Now, she’s starting her 2022 with a new single, “Mona Lisa,” a jaunty, ukulele-led tune.

Mxmtoon says of the song:

“As someone who usually writes songs about other people, one of my ongoing questions is, ‘Will anyone ever write songs about me?’ Mona Lisa is about wanting to be the subject of the art for once instead of being the creator. I think we all daydream at some point in our lives of diving into our favorite stories and finding ourselves in the pages. We all deserve the chance to feel like we’re worthy of a spotlight every once in a while, and Mona Lisa is meant to express that sentiment exactly.”

As for what’s next for Mxmtoon, she says, “I hope to keep pushing myself and make something that feels really different. I want Mxmtoon to be a diverse sonic playground. Everything is open-ended for me right now, but I see that as being incredibly liberating and exciting.”

Listen to “Mona Lisa” above. Mxmtoon also announced some 2022 tour dates today, so find those below.

05/02 — Montreal, QC @ Fairmount
05/04 — Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
05/05 — Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
05/07 — Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
05/08 — Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theatre
05/10 — Englewood, CO @ The Gothic
05/11 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Complex
05/13 — Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
05/14 — Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
05/15 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox Market
05/17 — San Francisco, CA @ Regency
05/20 — Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
05/21 — Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda
05/24 — San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
05/25 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
05/27 — Dallas, TX @ The Studio at The Factory
05/28 — Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn (Outdoors)
05/29 — Houston, TX @ White Oak Downstairs
05/31 — Orlando, FL @ Beacham
06/01 — Atlanta, GA @ The Loft
06/03 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
06/05 — Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts
06/07 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall
06/10 — Boston, MA @ Royale

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

When Big Thief called their debut album Masterpiece, I assumed it was meant to be ironic. Yes, I thought it was a great record — it was among my favorite albums of 2016. But many of the bands who make my favorite albums wind up slowly fading back to obscurity after briefly bubbling up. It’s the trajectory of 99.9 percent of the artists who are lucky enough to even get noticed in the first place. Surely, this modest, country-leaning indie rock band couldn’t really have such delusions of grandeur.

In the years since then, I’ve come to realize that Big Thief actually did indeed have such delusions. Also: maybe they weren’t delusions after all.

In their own humble way, Big Thief has aspired to greatness more than any other American rock band I can think of from the past decade. From the beginning, what distinguished them was that “intangible feeling that’s conjured when musicians with chemistry assemble in a room and become something greater than the sum of their respective parts,” as I put it upon the release of Masterpiece. It’s a cliche to liken a band to a family or a sports team — most bands are really marriages of convenience — though in the case of Big Thief these analogies don’t go far enough. They are more like a body, in which each part performs a specific task so that the life form can move, breathe, think and feel.

In their publicity photos, the members of Big Thief are always situated close together, to the point where they’re often literally falling over each other, as if they are attempting to physically merge. The body language here speaks volumes. Big Thief emerged during a period of indie rock in which Bandcamp auteurs summoned online followings and then formed bands in order to tour. In contrast, Big Thief represents the most endangered of modern pop anachronisms: A rock band with a real bond.

By the time of their second album, 2017’s Capacity, they had a signature sound. Whereas Masterpiece is more or less a rough and tumble alt-country record, Capacity showed them capable of playing with a quiet, unsettling intensity as singer-songwriter Adrianne Lenker sang intimate art-folk songs in a stage whisper. On stage, however, Big Thief tore those songs open, with Lenker and guitarist Buck Meek suddenly raining down torrents of squalling feedback after lulling the audience with 45 minutes of intimate beguilement, as bassist Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia somehow held it all together, like scotch tape around a tornado.

By 2019, they were indie stars, though there were also signs of strain. U.F.O.F. and Two Hands contain some of their very best and most beloved songs, but there was also a sense that Big Thief might slip into a formula of austere, mid-tempo and kind of same-y sounding singer-songwriter music. There was also their relentless work schedule of constant touring and prolific recording. Are they working too hard? I wondered. That drive for greatness seemed to be pushing them toward burnout. (Lenker has said that she was briefly hospitalized in 2020, in part, due to exhaustion from seven years of non-stop touring.)

The pandemic forced them to slow down. But it didn’t tamp down their ambition. Before Covid hit, Krivchenia had a genius idea: Let’s travel the country and record many, many songs in several different locations. It was the sort of gambit that conjures other great rock adventures like the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main St. and Bob Dylan and The Band’s The Basement Tapes, though Big Thief sought to dream up their own creative utopias in four different corners of America, as if attempting to recover an idealized fantasy of what this country could be. As most of us hunkered down in our own private spaces, the members of Big Thief spent five months traveling to the Catskills in upstate New York, the Colorado Rockies, Topanga Canyon in Southern California, and Tucson, Arizona. That they did it during the shutdown in retrospect feels like a metaphor for a band that signifies so many old-world American attributes that now seem lost: kindness, community, adventurousness, empathy, good humor, guilelessness.

They recorded 45 songs in all, 20 of which are included on their staggering new double album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You. This may strike some as hyperbole but I don’t care because it’s true: As strong as the other Big Thief albums are, they feel like rough drafts for what they’ve finally achieved here. I’ve had a promo of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You for a few months, and it already feels like the kind of album that’s destined to be handed down from generation to generation, like Automatic For The People or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It’s music I know I will reach for on epic road trips or in the midst of profound grief. An all-timer. A masterpiece. They really did it this time.

Turns out recording in different places with different engineers — Krivchenia is listed as the album’s producer — had real impact on the music. The seething Old Testament sermonizing of “Sparrow” has heavy Catskills vibes. The sweeping country rock of “Red Moon” (featuring excellent fiddle playing by Mat Davidson, among the small handful of non-band members appearing on the album) carries with it the dust of the Arizona desert. The stupendous “Simulation Swarm” is classic ’70s L.A. soft rock with one of the best guitar solos on any Big Thief album. The gorgeous title track evinces the restraint and simplicity endemic to their work with long-time producer Dom Monks on the previous records.

But honestly, every song here is terrific, which is a minor miracle for a band that sought out to (in Meek’s words) “lose our minds a bit.” Of course, I must cop to a personal bias in favor of bands — especially great bands — losing their minds a bit by letting it all hang out. The knock on double albums is that an expansive approach necessitates including songs that normally would have been left off. For those who are impatient with curveballs, experiments, and half-baked flashes of inspiration, this can make double LPs tedious.

In the case of Big Thief, however, this is exactly where Dragon thrives. Nothing is left un-hung out. Let me put it this way: It’s an album in which two different people are credited with playing “icicles” on a track. Though the eccentricities never get in the way of the songwriting, which is so consistently stellar that I will no longer entertain arguments about anyone from her generational cohort topping Lenker in that department. Only on a canvas this grand is she able to show all that she is capable of. The goofy back porch country philosophizing of “Spud Infinity.” The Ren-Faire flute-accented balladry of “No Reason.” The ethereal psychedelia of “Little Things.” The demo-like “Wake Me Up To Drive,” in which Lenker sums up her band’s M.O. over a drum machine and lo-fi indie-pop melody:

Wake me up to drive
Wake me up to drive
Even if I’m tired I don’t wanna miss the ride
Wake me up to drive
Wake me up to drive
Even if I’m tired I don’t wanna miss the ride

But this is not (as parts of U.F.O.F. and Two Hands seemed to be) merely an Adrianne Lenker solo record that the other members of Big Thief happen to play on. So much of the pleasure of listening to Dragon comes from appreciating the subtle and delicate ways in which this band works and plays together, whether it’s the excellent jam that closes “Little Things,” the surprisingly heavy rock groove that subsumes “Flower Of Blood,” or the way Meek’s voice rises to harmonize with Lenker on the chorus of the stunning love song “12000 Lines.”

We’ve all had our souls crushed by the monotony of the past few years. Stay inside. Dread your neighbors. Distrust everything you see. The drumbeat of negativity is deadening. I think that partly explains why this album moves me so much. The joie de vivre on display is invigorating. The prevailing message is: go outside, care about your neighbors, hope for the future, live. Even the songs that reference death look upon it not as an ending but as a reason to cherish life all the more, “like a door to a place we’ve never been before,” as Lenker sings on the gorgeous album-opener “Change.”

Life is hard. Loss is inevitable. You will be hurt. But only on an album this wide-eyed and open-hearted can the flip side also be articulated. On Dragon, Big Thief makes the case that loss and pain are also what make life worth living. Even if I’m tired I don’t wanna miss the ride. What matters in the end is that we are here for each other. I am grateful Big Thief is here for us.

LA is a taco town. When it comes to the United States, the City of Angels is to the taco what NYC is to pizza. It’s a haven of unctuous meats and tongue-singeing salsa rojas. Where a unique riff or classic play on this classic food-delivery-system can be found on just about every street corner. And, thankfully for us night owls, at any time of the day.

If you’re in town for this Super Bowl weekend, you probably already have “eat Mexican food” on the itinerary. But with so many options out there, it can be pretty overwhelming to settle on a place to try. We get that. So here’s some free advice from someone born and raised in the city: Don’t be too selective. Eat a lot of tacos. Everywhere you go.

Seriously, if you want the quintessential LA taco experience, you don’t even need reccomendations. Just look for the closest street vendor with the largest gathering of people. Trust the masses. Those carts and trucks will serve you a great taco every single time.

To help guide anyone who doesn’t have the time to wander, I’ve put together a list of the best taquerias in every corner of the city and highlighted what each spot’s specialty is. Tacos are so varied — from street tacos to birria tacos to fish tacos — that you could only eat at taquerias your entire trip and never get bored. If you have to make time to actually see the game too, the entries below will help you zero in on the exact taco experience you’re looking for.

Let’s eat!

Tire Shop Taqueria

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Passport2Fun | Travel & Fun (@passport2fun)

The Joint:

As I mentioned before, the best tacos you’re going to find are from street vendors. There is perhaps no finer street-based taco establishment in all of LA than Tire Shop Tacos. Popping up every day (except Tuesdays) in the parking lot of a used tire shop in South Central, you’ll know you’re nearby when you see a line of people wrapped around the block and smell the intoxicating aroma of freshly grilled carne asada, chorizo, and tortillas filling the air.

Essential Order:

If you’re at Tire Shop, the must-order meats include carne asada, cabeza, chorizo, and the deliciously smokey pollo asado.

Sonoratown

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sonoratown Taqueria (@sonoratownla)

The Joint:

Open seven days a week and located in the heart of Downtown LA, Sonoratown features a short and simple menu that packs a whole lot of flavor. The tacos are meant to mimic the flavors and style of street food from Sonora, Mexico. That means that the small restaurant makes their flour tortillas with lard. Which is the only way anyone SHOULD make them.

Taking a single bite of their tacos — which feature the meat of your choice, house-made salsa roja, avocado, and cabbage — is enough to stop you in your tracks as you soak in one of the most flavorful eating experiences of your life. Don’t eat these tacos standing up, you’ll need to sit down to really appreciate the power.

Essential Order:

At Sonoratown the best meat is hands down the carne asada. If you’re tired of tacos (who are you?), we can’t recommend the Costilla Burrito highly enough.

La Azteca Tortilleria

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rick Lox (@ricklox)

The Joint:

There isn’t a single taqueria in all of Los Angeles that makes better tortillas than La Azteca. You’re going to love them so much that you’ll want to take them home. Located in LA’s taqueria capital, Boyle Heights (don’t sleep on this neighborhood, it’s not touristy and it’s better for it), La Azteca serves all of its food on housemade tortillas (corn and flour) with fresh salsa and offers a small but delicious variety of proteins including asada, carnitas, chicharron, and a sleeper hit, cactus.

They also make a mind-blowing breakfast burrito. If you’ve never had a cactus taco or burrito, this is the place to order one.

Essential Order:

I know this is a list specifically focused on tacos and the cactus taco is definitely one to try, but you can’t leave LA without having the famous La Azteca Chile Relleno burrito. If you’re unfamiliar, Chile Relleno is a giant roasted chili that is stuffed with cheese. Eating it is an unforgettable, deeply aromatic experience that takes you on a journey of spicy and smokey flavors.

Tacos el Gavilan/King Taco

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tacos Gavilan (@tacosgavilan)

The Joint:

This is going to send the loyal fans of Taco el Gavilan and King Taco after me but … these two taco joints are practically interchangeable. Giving each an individual entry would just take some other taqueria’s spot.

So why are we including both? Because King Taco and Tacos El Gavilan are both everywhere throughout the city. They are absolute LA icons, and locals in every neighborhood have strong feelings about which is the best. But I love them both because they’re always open late. That means when you crawl out of a bar in the late hours of the night, these two taco icons will be there.

Plus, they’re both super cheap — so eat at whichever one is closest.

Essential Order:

Both shops make a variety of tacos with a variety of different meats. The main difference is this, Tacos el Gavilan has less fatty cuts of meat and Coca Cola. King Taco has better salsa and Pepsi. If you like chewing the fat and live for salsa, King Taco is the play. But if you think unlimited sides of salsa, beans, and roasted chilies make the meal, you gotta go Gavilan.

Also, Coke is better than Pepsi, so you know where my allegiance lies.

Guerilla Tacos

The Joint:

Started by Chef Wes Avila in the early 2010s, Guerrilla Tacos has been cited as a favorite by the late, great food critic Jonathan Gold, who wrote of Avila’s approach as “a kind of tasting-menu restaurant whose dishes happen to be composed on tortillas instead of on fancy plates.”

Guerrilla Tacos isn’t the place you go when you want an authentic LA taco experience (though it is very LA). It’s where you go when you want to know where the world of tacos is headed next. The menu is just so interesting, from the Korean Fried Fish Taco to the ground beef crunchy tacos to the vegetarian sweet potato taco — there isn’t a single option on the menu that you won’t want to test.

Guerrilla also has a variety of finely crafted Mexican-inspired cocktails. So if you like to get a buzz on while you eat, this is a great option.

Essential Order:

The Korean Fried Fish Taco features rock cod, sesame mayo, a guajillo and gochujang glaze, pickled daikon radish, and green onions. If that doesn’t make your mouth water, I guess your tastebuds are broken.

Guisados

The Joint:

Juicy homestyle braises, housemade agua frescas, and a gourmet edge set Guisados apart from most taco spots in the city. Plus it’s home to the spiciest taco you’ll ever eat.

Over the past decade, Guisados has expanded from its humble beginnings in Boyle Heights to Echo Park, Downtown, West Hollywood, Burbank, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena. That means absolutely nothing to you if you’re visiting LA for the first time, but just know — that’s a wider net than it looks like on a map, this joint is thriving.

Guisados has one specialty: tacos. They offer over ten different styles that you can’t really get anywhere else in the city. Their approach each taco is so unique that they offer a sampler platter that lets you try six different variations. They know how hard they’ve made it for you to decide.

Essential Order:

I love the Bistek en Salsa Roja and the Mole Poblano. For vegetarians, I suggest the Calabacitas and Hongos Con Cilantro.

You might as well also order the Chiles Toreados for the table as a challenge amongst friends. This taco features a suicidal blend of habanero, serrano, jalapeño, and Thai chilis all mixed together. Or just get the sampler!

Angel’s Tijuana Tacos

The Joint:

I included Angel’s on my list of the most essential LA meals so it only makes sense that I double down and mention it again. I can’t say this enough: you can’t leave LA without rolling up to Angel’s. This is another street set-up situation, this time in a Target parking lot in Eagle Rock where you’ll find some of the best tacos served on delicious homemade, hand-pressed tortillas.

The build is simple, your choice of meat, cilantro and onions, salsa, and a healthy dose of guacamole which doesn’t cost anything extra and blows Chipotle’s weird lime-forward guac out of the water. The way the juicy meats and salsa soak into the thick tortillas is culinary perfection. You’ve never eaten this good in a Target parking lot.

Essential Order:

Everyone is surrounding that spit roast for a reason — the al pastor tacos are a must.

Holé Molé

The Joint:

If this list seems light on fish tacos, it’s because… I don’t really like fish tacos. It’s just not my thing. And more to the point, if you really want a fish taco, go to San Diego. Better yet, if you’re going all the was to SD, just go to Tijuana.

All that said, one fish taco spot I can definitely recommend is Long Beach’s Holé Molé. If you want fish, you’re going to have to go near the water (don’t go in the water, it’s Long Beach) and people swear by Holé Molé’s tender shrimp ceviche and fish burritos.

Essential Order:

Cabo tacos, made with lime-grilled fish or shrimp and topped with grilled onions (a rarity!) and fresh cilantro.

Tacos Soloma

The Joint:

Admittedly, the Valley is a bit of a blind spot for me when it comes to good food. I was born and raised on the East Side and if you’re not living or working in the Valley, there really isn’t a reason to visit (sorry Valley peeps). Having said that, if you for some reason find yourself in North Hollywood (AirBnB maybe?), then you have to track down Tacos Soloma.

The tortillas and salsa are fresh. The grilled meats are tender and juicy while still capturing that smokey grilled flavor. This is a hidden gem in a sprawling city.

Essential Order:

Carne asada and Al pastor. Also, the green salsa is a must.

Birria Pa La Cruda

The Joint:

And now the moment some of you have all been waiting for. When it comes to birria tacos (tacos dipped and smothered in a delicious flavor-packed stew) where do you go? There are a lot of great places throughout the city (we could probably make a list of just birria spots). But if I had to suggest just one… I’m going Birria Pa La Cruda.

Be warned that this taco truck is only open on weekends and has few options outside of birria. But once you taste their tender beef consommé, your life will separate into two eras: the time before you had Birria Pa La Cruda and the time after. Your tastebuds will never be the same.

Essential Order:

Birria de Res, or mushroom tacos if you’re vegetarian!

In a move that we’re frankly amazed hasn’t happened sooner, Donald Trump has weighed in on the Joe Rogan fiasco, and naturally, he’s encouraging Rogan to stick to his worst impulses and to stop apologizing. In an official statement from his PAC, Trump came to Rogan’s defense after the podcaster admitted and apologized for using the N-word several times on his podcast after Spotify pulled over 70 episodes (and counting) off its platform amidst the growing controversy around the content on Rogan’s show.

In the statement, Trump advises Rogan to stop apologizing, which has clearly been a winning strategy for the one-term president. Via Mediaite:

Joe Rogan is an interesting and popular guy, but he’s got to stop apologizing to the Fake News and Radical Left maniacs and lunatics. How many ways can you say you’re sorry? Joe, just go about what you do so well and don’t let them make you look weak and frightened. That’s not you and it never will be!

Going by Trump’s statement, it’s clear that Rogan has become a cause célèbre for the right who, to put it bluntly, really like that the podcaster says racist things and pushes COVID misinformation. After Rogan’s episodes were pulled, the right-wing video platform Rumble offered him a $100 million contract along with the promise of restoring the episodes pulled by Spotify. So far Rogan has not accepted the offer, and he appears to be sticking by the promises in both of his apology videos to do better.

Of course, after the first video, Rogan shared a debunked article about ivermectin just a few hours later, but he did delete it after being called out on the blunder. Baby steps.

(Via Mediaite)

On Jan. 15, Kevin Durant collided with Bruce Brown, suffering an ACL sprain in his left knee. At the time, Durant was frequently included on the short list of NBA MVP candidates and, when the evening concluded, the Brooklyn Nets were 27-15 and in a seemingly strong position in the Eastern Conference. In Durant’s absence, however, things have cratered for the Nets, with Brooklyn now firmly battling to avoid the NBA’s Play-In Tournament, rather than for homecourt advantage in the Eastern Conference Playoffs.

Brooklyn is on an eight-game losing streak, the longest currently in the NBA, and the Nets are now just 6-14 since the calendar flipped to 2022 — 2-9 since Durant’s injury. During the team’s losing skid, Brooklyn sports a 110.2 offensive rating that isn’t overly inspiring, but also isn’t disastrous. The Nets have been dreadful on defense, though, giving up 121.9 points per 100 possessions. In zooming out, Brooklyn has the second-worst defensive rating (118.3) in the NBA since Jan. 1, ahead of only the fledgling Houston Rockets. The Nets were certainly due for some level of regression after a hot defensive start buoyed by unsustainably poor shooting from opponents, but there is a level in which Brooklyn (or any team) must attain to find success, and the Nets have operated well below it in recent days.

It stands to reason that any NBA team would be much worse without Kevin Durant and, for the season, Brooklyn is 24-12 when he suits up and just 5-12 when doesn’t. Some of the gaping hole caused by a Durant absence should, in theory, be covered by the presence of both James Harden and Kyrie Irving on the roster, but no such triage has taken place. Harden has been present for most of the season but, in the midst of bubbling trade rumors and general frustration on all sides, the former MVP has missed four of the last six games with a lingering hamstring issue. In the two games Harden did play, he shot 27 percent and averaged 13.0 points per contest, adding to the overall malaise in Brooklyn.

From there, the bizarre situation with Kyrie Irving continues. He can’t play in home games after not appearing at all until January, and the trio of Durant, Harden and Irving has appeared in just two games for a total of 32 minutes together. Unsurprisingly, the Nets won those two games, but the theory of everything in Brooklyn is centered around the stars driving an elite offense and, if nothing else, the plan certainly consisted of at least two of the superstars being available at all times. Harden is playing his worst basketball since he was in Oklahoma City, Irving is playing well when he’s available, but his previous forays into “No. 1 option by a wide margin” haven’t always gone well.

Perhaps the biggest thing that the Nets can change, other than a blockbuster deal that would signal real panic, is the return of Durant. He could be back in the next couple of weeks after the All-Star break, especially if an initial timeline of a 4-to-6 week recovery stands true. Brooklyn certainly doesn’t want to rush Durant back, however, and they could be as dangerous as any team in the league if they can peak at the right time. At present, there isn’t a lot of evidence to suggest a big run is coming for the Nets, but a more optimistic view would include the ability to tread water until Durant returns, coupled with a run of some kind when one of the best players in the world is available again.

In the meantime, the Nets are now operating in the same airspace as the Celtics, Raptors and Hornets in the standings, and that isn’t what anyone expected. Where does Brooklyn land in this week’s DIME power rankings? Let’s discuss.

1. Phoenix Suns (43-10, Last week — 1st)

Phoenix doesn’t have the longest winning streak in the NBA anymore, but everything else is pointing to the Suns. They are 13-1 in the last 14 games, losing only to the Hawks on the road, and Phoenix has the best record in the NBA by 2.5 games. Ho-hum.

2. Golden State Warriors (41-13, Last week — 2nd)

With Phoenix finally losing, it is Golden State that has the longest active winning streak. The Warriors haven’t lost since Jan. 20, winning nine straight, and Golden State can only do what they can do. The schedule has been soft during the run, but the Warriors have the best net rating in the league and have managed to keep ripping off wins despite Draymond Green’s absence. The schedule also kicks into a higher gear this week, beginning with a road trip to Salt Lake City on Wednesday.

3. Memphis Grizzlies (37-18, Last week — 4th)

Memphis continues to roll, posting an 18-4 mark in the last 22 games. That includes five wins in the last six games, with the only loss coming on the road in Philadelphia. Throttling New York and Orlando doesn’t do much, but the Grizzlies just took care of business this week.

4. Cleveland Cavaliers (33-21, Last week — 5th)

It remains to be seen as to whether the deal for Caris LeVert was an overpay, with Cleveland giving up real capital in the swap. The Cavs definitely needed more offensive creation, though, and LeVert can provide it to take some burden away from Darius Garland. On top of that, Cleveland is 12-4 in the last 16 games with the No. 2 defense over the last calendar month.

5. Milwaukee Bucks (34-21, Last week — 8th)

The reigning champs are 7-2 in the last nine games, with signs of dominance on the horizon. The defense isn’t firing on all cylinders just yet, but the Bucks are scoring 1.18 points per possession during the nine-game run. Milwaukee is still missing Brook Lopez, but there is real reason for optimism around an established team.

6. Philadelphia 76ers (32-21, Last week — 3rd)

The Sixers did lose twice this week before picking up a strong road win over Chicago. Philadelphia is 16-5 in the last 21 games, and Joel Embiid is the MVP leader in the minds of many. Embiid has scored at least 25 points in 20 straight games, averaging 33.8 points, 11.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game.

7. Miami Heat (35-20, Last week — 9th)

Miami currently leads the East alone. The Heat have won three in a row, erasing a three-game losing streak before that, and Miami is in the top five in net rating and in the top eight in offensive and defensive rating.

8. Toronto Raptors (29-23, Last week — 13th)

The Raptors have the longest winning streak in the East, picking up six wins in a row. That is impressive on its own, but Toronto beat Atlanta (twice), Miami (twice), Chicago and Charlotte during the run, so it wasn’t as if it was a breeze. Oh, and the Raptors swept a four-game, five-night stretch.

9. Boston Celtics (31-23, Last week — 12th)

Boston’s defense has been dialed in all season, but it’s been even better lately. The Celtics are 12-4 in the last 16 games, allowing only 100.1 points per 100 possessions. It hasn’t been the defense on its own, though, and Boston’s offense has come alive a bit with 112.6 points per 100 possessions in those 16 games.

10. Dallas Mavericks (31-23, Last week — 10th)

Last week began with a bad home loss to Oklahoma City, but Dallas righted the ship with two nice home wins over Philadelphia and Atlanta. The Mavericks managed to navigate insane foul trouble against the Hawks, with Luka Doncic picking up a fifth foul early in the third quarter, and the team’s defense remains in the top five of the NBA for the season.

11. Denver Nuggets (29-24, Last week — 7th)

Denver was in line for a larger drop until a home win over Brooklyn on Sunday. The Nuggets lost three in a row before Nikola Jokic posted a 27-12-10 outing to beat the Nets. Denver is a solid No. 6 in the West and, as long as Jokic is on the floor, the Nuggets have proven to be rock solid.

12. Chicago Bulls (33-21, Last week — 6th)

The Bulls made things a lot more interesting down the stretch against Phoenix, but Chicago fell short in the end. The Bulls are also just 6-10 in the last 16 games, losing three of the last four with two home defeats as injuries are taking their toll in the Windy City.

13. Minnesota Timberwolves (28-25, Last week — 16th)

The Wolves are 12-5 in the last 17 games and on a four-game winning streak. The last two wins came against Detroit but, prior to that, Minnesota knocked off Utah and Denver in succession. Minnesota’s bench is rolling, getting deserved publicity, and the Wolves feel pretty dangerous.

14. Utah Jazz (33-21, Last week — 14th)

Monday’s win over the Knicks wasn’t exactly pretty, with the Jazz needing to overcome a 12-point deficit. They pulled it off in the end, though, and Utah has a three-game winning streak going with Donovan Mitchell back. That was badly needed and the pending return of Rudy Gobert should obviously help in terms of stability.

15. Brooklyn Nets (29-24, Last week — 11th)

Brooklyn has a pair of TNT games this week, facing Boston and Washington. The Nets simply need to survive until Durant returns, and Brooklyn has six games before the All-Star break.

16. Atlanta Hawks (25-28, Last week — 15th)

The Hawks followed up seven straight wins with three losses in four games. The lone win in that stretch was impressive, knocking off Phoenix, but the losses still count. That’s the trouble with the (very) slow start for Atlanta this season.

17. L.A. Clippers (27-28, Last week — 17th)

The Clippers were lambasted by 24 points at home against Milwaukee in the first game with Norm Powell and Robert Covington on board. That move may have been more about the future and the ability to take advantage of Steve Ballmer’s bottomless pocketbook, but the Clippers are better than they were a week ago.

18. Los Angeles Lakers (26-28, Last week — 20th)

It was a 2-1 week for the Lakers, and LeBron is back. It isn’t as if Los Angeles has utterly dominated when James and Anthony Davis are both available, posting a 10-7 record, but they are a lot more interesting when the stars align. With that said, a backloaded schedule does make things more difficult for the Lakers.

19. New Orleans Pelicans (21-32, Last week — 23rd)

At the time of this post, the Pelicans are the No. 10 seed in the West. It’s been a wild ride, but New Orleans is firmly in the mix. The Pelicans have won three in a row, all on the road, and one of those victories came in Denver. From a long-term standpoint, New Orleans probably shouldn’t buy at the deadline, but they might.

20. Charlotte Hornets (28-27, Last week — 18th)

Charlotte’s offense is usually electric, but that hasn’t been the case lately. The Hornets have lost five games in a row, averaging only 97 points per game. All five losses came to competitive opponents, but four of the five came at home in Charlotte, and that is troubling as the Hornets compete for playoff positioning.

21. San Antonio Spurs (20-34, Last week — 21st)

The Spurs are in the midst of a four-day off period. That is bizarre in this era of NBA scheduling, but San Antonio hasn’t played since Friday. That was a win, at least, but the extra rest helps the Spurs gear up for the “rodeo road trip,” featuring eight straight games away from home beginning on Wednesday.

22. New York Knicks (24-30, Last week — 19th)

New York’s offense absolutely cratered in the fourth quarter against Utah on Monday, leading to another loss. The Knicks are 2-9 in the last 11 games with the only wins coming at home to the Kings and the shorthanded Clippers. The play-in mix is a mess in the East, and New York should be thankful.

23. Washington Wizards (24-29, Last week — 25th)

Washington technically moves up this week, but it’s not as if the team’s profile is overly impressive lately. In fact, the Wizards are 1-8 in the last nine games, and Washington has a hideous -11.2 net rating in that sample. The one victory came on the road over Philadelphia, which definitely helps, but the vibes are bad.

24. Sacramento Kings (20-35, Last week — 27th)

It was a good week for the Kings, seemingly on cue after our deep dive a week ago. Sacramento is still just 4-13 in the last 17 games, but against all odds, they are still in the play-in race.

25. Portland Trail Blazers (21-33, Last week — 22nd)

After a fairly impressive January performance without Damian Lillard, the Blazers are on a five-game losing streak. On top of that, Portland sent Norman Powell and Robert Covington to L.A. in a deal that was flagrantly related to cost-cutting. It does clear the decks for a potential retooling, but it remains unclear what the next steps look like.

26. Indiana Pacers (19-36, Last week — 24th)

Malcolm Brogdon and Myles Turner are still out. Caris LeVert is no longer on the team. Indiana keeps losing. Let’s say it’s not perfect. The Pacers did get real value for LeVert, though, and more deals could follow to give Indiana a rosier long-term outlook.

27. Oklahoma City Thunder (17-36, Last week — 29th)

It doesn’t erase everything else, but OKC is 3-2 in the last five games. Even if the Thunder have dropped the last two games, it has been an unequivocally positive stretch.

28. Orlando Magic (12-43, Last week — 26th)

From a league-wide standpoint, the biggest thing with Orlando is which players are moved before Thursday’s deadline. A closer look tells you that the Magic are 4-4 in the last eight games, and they are pretty fun when the young guys are available and playing together.

29. Houston Rockets (15-38, Last week — 30th)

A home win over Cleveland this week gets the Rockets out of the No. 30 spot. It’s not as if things are going well in Houston, particularly when you account for the league’s worst defense over a large sample, but the Rockets do have young talent and trade pieces. It could be worse.

30. Detroit Pistons (12-41, Last week — 28th)

On the bright side, Jerami Grant returned this week, and that helps the Pistons, both on the court and in the trade market. Almost simultaneously, Cade Cunningham went down and he’s been out for the last three games. Detroit is also on a four-game losing streak, and the Pistons are 1-8 in the last nine games to return to the basement.

Lightyear is — and Chris Evans cannot stress this enough — NOT about Buzz Lightyear the toy. It’s the origin story of the human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on.

If you were also confused about what the hell that December 2020 tweet from the sweater-wearing Knives Out actor meant, maybe the trailer will help clear things up?

Pixar released the first full-length trailer for the Toy Story spin-off about Buzz Lightyear’s origin story on Oscar nominations morning (a painful reminder of what should have been for the First Man stans among us). There’s no Woody, or Bo Peep, or even the Little Green Men — but there is an alien, the evil Emperor Zurg.

“Buzz’s world was always something I was excited about,” said director Angus MacLane. “In Toy Story, there seemed to be this incredible backstory to him being a Space Ranger that’s only touched upon, and I always wanted to explore that world further. So my Lighytear pitch was, ‘What was the movie that Andy saw that made him want a Buzz Lightyear toy?’ I wanted to see that movie. And now I’m lucky enough to get to make it.”

Lightyear, which also features the voices of Keke Palmer, Dale Soules, Taika Waititi, Peter Sohn, Uzo Aduba, James Brolin, Mary McDonald-Lewis, Efren Ramirez, and Isiah Whitlock Jr, opens on June 17.