Lifestyle
Shaquille O'Neal Says Giannis Antetokounmpo Deserves Game Ball, Not Pacers Rookie
![Shaquille O'Neal Says Giannis Antetokounmpo Deserves Game Ball, Not Pacers Rookie Shaquille O'Neal Says Giannis Antetokounmpo Deserves Game Ball, Not Pacers Rookie](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/a9/16by9/2023/12/14/a995756b41384adf9b69f537af44faf7_xl.jpg)
TMZSports.com
Shaquille O’Neal is weighing in on the Giannis Antetokounmpo vs. Pacers game ball debate — and he’s making it clear, he’s siding with the Greek Freak in the tiff.
The beef, of course, began late Wednesday night — after Indiana players felt following their 140-126 loss to the Bucks … the rookie who scored his first-ever points during the contest, Oscar Tshiebwe, deserved the game ball more than Antetokounmpo, who dropped a franchise-record 64.
Giannis goers sprinting down the tunnel and then returns a minute later to go off on Lloyd Pierce and Tyrese Halliburton demanding they get the game ball back as one of the Pacers took it pic.twitter.com/MocZ4VPNBi
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) December 14, 2023
@cjzero
Obviously feeling differently than Indiana’s players, Antetokounmpo went to the Pacers’ locker room area to retrieve it — but, chaos then proceeded to break out.
Giannis Antetokounmpo Throws Fit After Pacers Take Game Ball Following 64-Pt Night
When Shaq joined Charles and Babcock on Thursday’s “TMZ Live” and spoke about the commotion … he said Giannis had every right to be upset with the situation — believing the two-time MVP should have been the one who ultimately walked away from the arena with the memento.
“By the letter of the law,” Shaq said, “if you’re playing at home, you should get the ball if something spectacular happens.”
Giannis did end up with a game ball — though he told media members afterward he wasn’t sure if it was the basketball he used to record his historic night.
![](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/a8/16by9/2023/12/14/a8134b223c694948b9bbbc2b91eb3d2f_md.png)
TMZSports.com
Mark Cuban, meanwhile, told TMZ Sports earlier Thursday that if the game had happened in his home arena, he believed whichever team had the rookie deserved it most.
“That’s a big deal that only happens once,” the Mavericks owner said.
![](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/e1/16by9/2023/12/14/e13d6a27ebcd47619bb642d2ccd48715_md.jpg)
TMZSports.com
By the way, if you’re wondering why Shaq had a Santa hat on while joining the guys … it’s cause he’s begun helping a bunch of kids throughout the country this month enjoy their Christmas holiday with his annual Shaq-A-Claus charity events.
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Lifestyle
In 'Miss Merkel,' Germany's former chancellor is a crime-solving amateur detective
![In 'Miss Merkel,' Germany's former chancellor is a crime-solving amateur detective In 'Miss Merkel,' Germany's former chancellor is a crime-solving amateur detective](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2598x1461+0+135/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe6%2Fac%2F04a577a043eebf003cefab44af9e%2Fe1-3.jpg)
In a scene from the German TV series Miss Merkel, actress Katharina Thalbach, playing the amateur detective based on the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, takes a closer look at her pug Helmut.
RTL/Maor Waisburd
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RTL/Maor Waisburd
BERLIN — Little is known about how Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel is spending her retirement, and that seems to be the way she likes it. Thanks to a German crime fiction series adapted for television and now proving a hit in Italy, she is back in the headlines — this time as a fictional small-town amateur sleuth.
As the title suggests, Miss Merkel is a whodunnit that imagines the former chancellor as an Agatha Christie-style detective who starts solving crimes out of sheer boredom. For want of a G7 or European Union summit, Merkel is desperate to put down the garden shears and get back to solving something, anything! This time, it’s a village murder. Move over, Miss Marple!
The TV adaptation stars German theater doyenne Katharina Thalbach as Merkel. Like Merkel, Thalbach is 70 and from former East Germany. She says it wasn’t too hard to prepare for the role.
“You could always see the burden of power in Merkel’s shoulders, how it weighed on her,” Thalbach tells NPR. “So, I focused on my shoulders, put on a wig and one of her signature colorful boxy blazers and I had the feeling I was her. That I am Angela Merkel!”
![Miss Merke solves the murder case while her invited guests Katharina von Baugenwitz and police officer Lena Amado listen attentively.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2598x1732+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F18%2Fee%2F5665fad847e48fc386dc02657293%2Fe1-12.jpg)
In a scene from the TV series, Miss Merkel, played by Katharina Thalbach, solves a murder case while her guests listen attentively.
RTL/Maor Waisburd
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RTL/Maor Waisburd
Thalbach has met Merkel a number of times but is not sure whether the ex-chancellor is a fan of Miss Merkel.
“The last time I saw Angela, I tried to find out whether she’s read the books or seen the series,” Thalbach recalls. “But she deftly dodged the question, saying instead that her office staff are big fans.”
The books’ author, David Safier, known previously for his fictional accounts of the Holocaust and his work as a scriptwriter, says he’s also none the wiser as to what Merkel thinks of his alternative retirement plan for her.
![Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for a conversation with journalist Alexander Osang on stage at the Berliner Ensemble theatre on June 07, 2022 in Berlin, Germany.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/8192x5464+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F82%2F95%2Fd9b29cc0497da7c14ebb9cddec95%2Fgettyimages-1401585388.jpg)
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for an onstage conversation in Berlin in 2022, the year after she retired from politics.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“Probably she has read the novels,” Safier speculates. “To be honest, if there would be a crime novel where you are the hero, wouldn’t you at least read the first 10 pages?”
While the books are a commercial success, the small-screen adaptation by RTL — which will be available to stream later this year in the U.S. — has received lukewarm reviews in Germany. The broadsheet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung acknowledged the star power that Thalbach’s performance brings to the production, but lamented the show’s “corny jokes.” German magazine Fokus suggested the production company engage Safier as the scriptwriter, seeing as he won an Emmy for a German sitcom Berlin, Berlin.
Safier came up with the idea for Miss Merkel in 2019, on the day Merkel announced she wouldn’t be running for a fifth term. He says he sat down to watch an old rerun of Columbo that same evening and the idea for his top-10 Spiegel bestseller was born.
Safier says Angela Merkel makes for a consummate detective.
“Merkel is highly intelligent, much more intelligent than other politicians,” he says. “She is strongheaded. And, after 30 years in politics, she’s used to dealing with sociopaths and psychopaths.”
Like Miss Marple, Merkel is often underestimated — something the former chancellor used to her advantage throughout her political career. Thalbach says this particularly baffled alpha-male politicians.
![Miss Merkel and her husband Joachim Sauer are bored in the audience watching the drama on stage.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2598x1732+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb5%2F50%2Fd5bac66149e9a3ee9fe5ec5c6fa7%2Fe1-1.jpg)
In a scene from the TV series, Miss Merkel, played by Katharina Thalbach, and her husband, played by Joachim Sauer, sit in the audience watching a play.
RTL/Maor Waisburd
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RTL/Maor Waisburd
“The real Merkel was brilliant at finding skeletons in the closets of her political rivals,” Thalbach asserts. “But she had none of her own: the perfect trait for an ace detective!”
Safier says it’s the references to Merkel’s former life as chancellor that tickle his readers.
In the first book, Miss Merkel attends a community theater production and remarks that “compared to six hours of Beijing Opera with Xi Jinping, everything else is a piece of cake.”
“Her experience helps her to solve crime mysteries. When she’s questioning a suspect, she knows that she has to wear him down,” Safier says of his main character. “Merkel knows what it’s like to probe and ask questions over and over again. She did it until the early hours at countless EU summits.”
Unlike Miss Marple, Merkel is actually a Mrs. — a Frau Dr., that is, with a Ph.D. in quantum chemistry. In the TV series, Merkel’s husband asks why she’s still wearing her trademark pantsuits in retirement. Her answer could be considered classic Merkel logic: “I’ve still got 50 of them in my wardrobe.”
Angie nostalgia aside, Safier says that in his next book, Miss Merkel is seeing a therapist after realizing, while writing her memoirs, that she neglected to solve a number of issues during her time in office — be it Germany’s ailing railway system or relations with Russia.
Merkel was something of an enigma in office. Now, in retirement, the fictional version of her is an open book. The real version is set to be revealed in November. That’s when Safier’s next installment comes out — and when the real Merkel publishes her autobiography.
Lifestyle
Ed Sheeran Roasts Fan Who Misheard Lyrics in 'Thinking Out Loud'
![Ed Sheeran Roasts Fan Who Misheard Lyrics in 'Thinking Out Loud' Ed Sheeran Roasts Fan Who Misheard Lyrics in 'Thinking Out Loud'](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/84/16by9/2024/09/01/84a38646beb641a98c11fb46dc072ac8_xl.jpg)
Ed Sheeran‘s giving his fans with poor hearing some grief … telling one of them she’s probably on a watchlist ’cause she misheard an iconic line in a song.
Here’s the deal … in the song “Thinking Out Loud” Sheeran croons he will love an unnamed person “until we’re 70” — a line meant to convey a long-lasting love.
However, fans have been giving the pop star guff … ’cause what happens to the love when a person in the couple turns 71, they ask. This has sparked a viral trend of people jokingly flipping off the camera — POV of what happens when ya age out by Ed’s standards.
Never one to shy away from poking fun at himself, Ed made his own video … aggressively flipping off the camera before storming out with his guitar slung over his back.
While many fans laughed, a few had a totally shocking moment … ’cause they realized Sheeran belted out the word 70, not 17 like so many of them thought.
One woman expressed her confusion in the comments … and, ES jokingly wrote back, “Youre on a watch list somehwere.”
Of course, Ed’s in the middle of his Mathematics tour … with shows this upcoming weekend in Cyprus.
Hopefully, fans are belting out the right lyrics at his concerts … ’cause they don’t want to end up on any watch lists!
Lifestyle
'The Dictionary Story' is a kids' book that defies definition
!['The Dictionary Story' is a kids' book that defies definition 'The Dictionary Story' is a kids' book that defies definition](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4721x2656+0+569/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1f%2F26%2Ffd71db164feb8530b1b271387163%2F2.jpg)
Copyright © 2024 by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston/Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA on behalf of Walker Books, London
Have you ever read a children’s book where the main character is… the book?
Dictionary has noticed that even though her pages contain all the words that exist, she doesn’t really tell a story like all the other books on the shelf do. So one day, Dictionary decides to change that and bring her contents — guts? pages? definitions? — to life.
A hungry alligator bursts out of the pages ready for a snack — and finds a donut several pages later. But Donut doesn’t particularly want to be eaten, so he rolls off further into the alphabet. Alligator gives chase and the story soon goes off the rails — they crash into Queen who slips on Soap. And that’s all before Tornado shows up! Definitions go flying, no one is in the right place. Can Dictionary put herself back together again?
“It’s a book about chaos. Chaos and order. Fine line,” says Oliver Jeffers who — along with Sam Winston — wrote and illustrated The Dictionary Story. The two previously worked together on 2016’s A Child of Books (where the main character is a child, not a book). They’ve been working on The Dictionary Story pretty much ever since.
“But not working on it full time, seven years total” clarifies Oliver Jeffers. “Maybe if you were to add it all up, I don’t know. I don’t even want to think about that.”
(Sam Winston likes to joke that they knocked this one out in a week but he’s very much kidding — this book took work).
![3.jpg](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4721x3225+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdf%2Fd3%2F822351ae4859a3e1abd6fcb8d890%2F3.jpg)
Copyright © 2024 by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston/Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA on behalf of Walker Books, London
For example, how do you make a book into a character that the children and adults reading the book can have a relationship with? “It was a real challenge because we had to literally make a book,” explains Sam Winston. Luckily, his partner Haein Song is a bookbinder. “We had her literally make us two physical copies, which we then photographed and drew on and aged and then distressed in different ways.” While the prop dictionary starts out all nice and new, by the end of the book she’s looking very beat up. “But it’s told a pretty wild story,” says Winston.
Haein Song also sent Jeffers the paper that she used to bind the dummy book. “She sent enough of that to me that I was able to do the paintings on the same paper. So it looked seamless,” Jeffers explains. Then he scanned the sheets of paper with his illustrations on them. The end result is a combination of photography, painting, ink handwriting, and typography, for the dictionary definitions.
![In This 'Alphabet,' 'O' Is For Helpful Owl And 'C' Is For Escapist Cup](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/10/09/o2small_sq-fe392f1ea23d77fd80b66e96a78f23e6368deec3.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
“It looks like a real dictionary,” says Jeffers. “But if you pay close attention, you’ll see that all of the definitions have been rewritten.” Like:
zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/ Zero is a word that means nothing. Nothing is a word that means nothing. Even though zero is a different word for nothing, both mean nothing. This definition has just told you nothing.
miracle /ˈmɪr.ə.kl/ Something that is amazing or magical for which there seems to be no scientific or common-sense explanation. Often associated with finding a parking space or getting homework done.
The definitions are not not true, but they are a little sideways.
![The Dictionary Story](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2359x3225+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fef%2Fe8%2Fbb12f216404c8fd7bbd41fba0fb6%2F1.jpg)
The Dictionary Story
Copyright © 2024 by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston
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Copyright © 2024 by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston
As the characters in the book — like puddle /ˈpʌd.əl/ A small pool of water. Puddles are often made by rain and they love to look up at the sky — come to life (and, in Puddle’s case, make friends with Ghost), they disrupt the text on the page. Puddle, who Cloud made by crying, soaks through the definition for “power.” Alligator makes a hole in the “a”s as he escapes from inside the book. When Queen slips on Soap, some of the “s” words go tumbling off the page entirely. Letters end up out of order, or jumbled up in a pile. Definitions are in the wrong column. Sentences go all wonky.
“The idea behind the book is that you’ve got this very rigid structure,” Sam Winston says, of a typical dictionary. “So where some of the humor and the playfulness and the fun comes from is that this is a book doing something it shouldn’t do.” Essentially, coming alive.
And to circle back to why it took Winston and Jeffers so many years to make this book: there’s not much software designed to do this in the way they needed it to be done. “Imagine a column of type in a newspaper accidentally becoming a waterfall of type,” says Winston. “Everything gets knocked off its grid and its axis and out that waterfall emerges, say, a crocodile.”
![From 'F-Bomb' To 'Photobomb,' How The Dictionary Keeps Up With English](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/04/19/ap_070703038854_sq-000b1cf73768c08bab12d4d4c245204c5c04402d.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
You’ll probably never see that in a newspaper — or a normal, boring dictionary — because that is not what publishing software typically does. “We have all of these typographic structures that are not meant to be bent and then to bend them is like cutting out thousands of single letters and then sticking them back on the page,” Winston says.
There was a lot of back and forth to get to the finished product — a lot of half completing drawings and half writing definitions, and then a lot of destroying an illustration and or a definition and sending it back again.
![4.jpg](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4721x3225+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fd5%2Fec%2Feee4656749e785cbe5375ddce485%2F4.jpg)
“It’s a dance,” says Sam Winston. “But you know, we like it. There’s a lot of trust in the room, so we have fun.”
And, by the way, the story itself is fun. While a lot of thought and work and planning went into making it, at its heart The Dictionary Story is just a good old fashioned chase story with a lot of chaos and a heartwarming ending (can Dictionary put herself back together? Maybe with a little help from some friends!)
“I think what you’re looking at when you see these books are two individuals who have a deep respect for storytelling and the physical objects of books. Having fun together and playing well together and sharing that with the world,” agrees Oliver Jeffers. “It’s a pure joy.”
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