Lifestyle
Sunday Puzzle: That’s HOT!
Sunday Puzzle
NPR
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NPR
On-air challenge
Today’s theme is “hot.” Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word starts HO- and the second word starts with T-.
Ex. Rowdy bar with country music, in slang –> HONKY TONK
1. Guided walkthrough of a property
2. Any member of the N.H.L.
3. Lone Star State metropolis that’s the fourth-largest city in the U.S.
4. Like an animal with its four legs bound (hyph.)
5. Instruction manual (hyph.)
6. A little pompous and arrogant, informally (hyph.)
7. Punny greeting from a magician
8. Someone who steals animals from a stable
9. Congestion that drivers encounter around July 4th, say
10. Acquisition of a company against its will.
11. Exclamation for “wow!” on TV’s “Batman”
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge comes from Evan Kalish, of Bayside, N.Y. Take the name of a nocturnal creature, in two words. The first word is a spooky sound. Move the last letter of the first word to the start of the second word and you’ll get another spooky, nocturnal sound. What is the creature and what are the sounds?
Answer: Screech owl –> howl
Winner
Dan Sadoff of St. Paul, Minnesota
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from Rawson Sheinberg. of Plymouth, Mich. Think of a U.S. city with a two-word name. Add a letter to the first word, without rearranging letters, to name a country. Then, without adding a letter, rearrange the letters of the second word to name another country. What places are these?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, July 2 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.
Lifestyle
‘The End Of Oak Street’ is a prehistoric good time : Pop Culture Happy Hour
Anne Hathaway in The End of Oak Street.
Daniel McFadden/Warner Bros. Pictures
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Daniel McFadden/Warner Bros. Pictures
In the fun, entertaining new film, The End of Oak Street, Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor star as a married couple in the early 1980s. One night, their entire suburban neighborhood is transported to a time filled with a variety of large and dangerous dinosaurs. Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows), it’s part action-adventure, part monster movie, part dark comedy. But after so many dino-packed blockbusters, does this movie offer a fresh take to the prehistoric creature feature?
If you need a few more creature features, check out these episodes:
‘Minions & Monsters’ is, oddly enough, a love letter to Old Hollywood
Only Guillermo del Toro could’ve made this ‘Frankenstein’
‘Jaws’ is still stuck in our teeth, 50 years later
Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:
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Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
Lifestyle
Chainlink necklaces, lace headpieces, fringe bangs. The personal language of adornment
This story is part of Image’s August Adornment issue, which dives into loud, expressive and distinctive accessories.
When I was 20 years old studying abroad in Paris, I had a French teacher who took issue with my sense of style. During one class, she managed to transform my yellow wool dress into a language lesson: People who wear bright colors call attention to themselves, she said in French while looking at me and making some point about grammar that quickly went over my head. More than offended, I was confused. I had not considered, or particularly cared, what my yellow wool dress might ignite in others. My quickly growing love for yellow had been more of an internal journey. I had gravitated to the color like a moth to light, seeking the dopamine hit of its glow, as if by osmosis I could absorb and become it.
Sitting with the stories in this issue, I am struck by a consistent and gentle contradiction: that many of us adorn ourselves in loud, expressive or peculiar accessories and clothes not to show off or be seen, but to hide, find comfort, turn inward. Chainlink necklaces, lace headpieces and even fringe bangs become a form of armor. As fashion designer Bryan Hearns says, “it’s kind of like you’re protecting yourself” — words that echo in Julissa James’ essay on hardware, in which her studs “communicate to predators” that she does “not identify as prey.”
In observing the Los Angeles Ballet at rehearsal, Claire Salinda distills the appeal of ballet core: How slippers and satin can make you feel more confident, secure and ordered in a chaotic world. In the studio, she marvels at the intimacy of ballerinas pulling up their leg warmers and doing their hair in the mirror as they wear their own YMCA T-shirts, crochet ponchos and charm necklaces. They show up not as characters, but themselves.
How we adorn ourselves is extremely personal, even a little superstitious. It is a secret code that cannot be fully understood by outsiders.
Cover
Photography Joelle Grace Taylor
Movement Direction Charissa Kroeger
Creative Direction Elisa Wouk Almino
Videography Trace Taylor
Dancers Natalia Burns, Holly Bratkovich, Cassidy Cocke, Abigail Gross, Taylor Hugens, Chloe Oronoz, Cleo Taneja, Nick Sedano, Theo Swank, Paige Wilkey
Production Cecilia Alvarez Blackwell
Photo Assistant Dante Velasquez Jr.
Image Flag & Lettering Steven Rodriguez
Lifestyle
How would a Kennedy Center shutdown impact artists and audiences?
The entrance to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 13, still draped with the tarp that has been in place for months.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
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Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
On Thursday, the Kennedy Center board voted for a second time to shut down most of the arts complex for two years of renovations. The project is estimated to cost $250 million and if it gets approval from a federal judge, it could have a sizable impact on audiences and artists alike. The board is also trying to add Trump’s name back on the building for a second time, after a federal judge ordered its removal.
Instead of naming the complex after Trump, according to the latest plan, the signage would instead say that the center was “restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

NPR has requested a copy of the proposal from the Kennedy Center, but did not receive a response. An individual who was briefed on the board meeting and renovation plans confirmed the details and the vote to NPR, but is anonymous because they are not authorized to speak to the media. The proposal and the potential name change were first reported by The New York Times.
“Today’s sham meeting makes clear the Trump-appointed Board of the Kennedy Center believes it is above the law. What happened today was nothing more than a rubber stamp on a decision the President made months ago that the Board already tried to effectuate without doing proper due diligence,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat and ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board said in an emailed statement after the vote.

Already, the Kennedy Center’s public profile has shifted. Last December, when the board tried to rename the complex the “Trump Kennedy Center” and Trump’s name was added to the front entry as well as the center’s public-facing materials (including its web site, signage, program booklets and merchandise), many marquee artists canceled, including the composer Philip Glass and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Many performers said that the arts center had become politicized.
What does the new proposal include, and who’s overseeing it?
The proposed project includes structural repairs, new marble floors, nearly $12 million in “acoustical improvements” and a plan to temporarily move the famed, eight-foot bronze bust of Kennedy that sits in the center’s main foyer. None of the current board members have any known expertise in acoustics, performing or presenting the kind of performing arts — including classical music, dance and jazz – that have been staple programming at the Kennedy Center for decades. The only artist on the board is a close Trump ally, country music singer Lee Greenwood.

It is also unclear whether the construction management firm named in the plans, JLL, has any experience with arts venues that feature unamplified performances, such as the orchestras, solo and chamber instrumentalists, opera companies and dance ensembles that have comprised much of the Kennedy Center’s programming for decades. NPR reached out to JLL for comment, but has not received a reply. Additionally, it is unclear how many companies bid on the construction contract, or how the firm was selected; NPR has reached out multiple times to ask the Kennedy Center for comment on the newest plans, but has not received a response.
According to the board’s current proposal, the target date for a reopening is summer 2028. Prominent arts administrators who will not comment publicly due to fears of retaliation or because they were not authorized to speak to the media have told NPR that once a performing arts venue or organization shuts its doors – even for a brief renovation — it’s usually a hard road back to solid footing; it can be very difficult to coax audiences back, once they’ve lost the habit of attending.

There’s an additional consideration, too: the touring schedules of top-level international performers, the kinds of solo artists and orchestras who were previously engaged at the Kennedy Center, are generally set years in advance. Renovations are frequently delayed, so by the time the arts complex is actually ready or nearly ready to reopen, artists may already be booked until at least 2029 or 2030 — and that is a very long time to ask audiences to hold on before their attentions wander elsewhere.
The Kennedy Center’s audience — and artist, and staff — drop-off
Audience attendance has already declined sharply for various reasons. On social media, people said they didn’t want to go to performances that had become attached to Trump’s name, or because shows they wanted to see had already been canceled.

Ticket sales plummeted. In January, one of the center’s resident companies, the Washington National Opera, left entirely. The complex’s other resident organization, the National Symphony Orchestra — whose budget is far more tethered to the center — is now in a deep financial crisis, according to multiple internal sources at the NSO who are not authorized to speak publicly. The orchestra’s money troubles were first reported by The Washington Post.
As a result of those dwindling audiences, as well as the board’s previous attempt to wind down programming in anticipation of the major renovations which Trump has been heralding for months, the Kennedy Center is currently offering only a tiny fraction of its previous slate. For example, the institution prided itself on its Millennium Stage programming, which presented a free public performance every day, 365 days of the year, for decades.
Under the board’s current plan, the center’s main building will be shuttered, while keeping The REACH, a 2019 addition, open for limited programming and as a memorial to the late President John F. Kennedy.
In recent months, much of the center’s staff, ranging from artistic curators to development staffers, have either been fired or have left. Over this period, dozens of prominent figures in the performing arts community, including former Kennedy Center staffers, have told NPR that they believe that the call for renovations from within this Trump-led board has been a way of covering the center’s recent programming and financial failures. Those individuals are not willing to be named publicly because of fears of retaliation, but they have said that between lost ticket revenue and lost donations, the current numbers cannot add up to financial stability. Large legacy institutions like the Kennedy Center generally depend on a balance of earned revenue, philanthropic giving and some amount of government grants.
Jennifer Vanasco edited the audio and digital version of this story.

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