On-air challenge

I’m going to give give you clues for two words. Switch the first and last letters of the answer to the first clue to get the answer to the second. (Ex. Nutmeg or ginger / Long, heroic poems –> SPICE & EPICS)

1. Make a grand speech / Muse of love poetry
2. What a skull and crossbones signifies / Wandered around

3. Words to a song / Saint for whom the Russian alphabet is named

4. Yell / Amounts equal to ten $100 bills

5. Assignments for delivery drivers / Former Supreme Court Justice David ______

6. Small bag with a shoulder strap / Some gate fasteners

Last week’s challenge

Last week’s challenge came from Al Gori, of Cozy Lake, N.J. Name a place where games are played. Move the last two letters to the beginning. Change the new last letter to an “H.” The result, sadly, is what you might have when you leave this place.

Challenge answer

Casino, no cash

Winner

Mike Rombach of Pleasanton, California.

This week’s challenge

This week’s challenge comes from Mike Reiss, who’s a showrunner, writer, and producer for “The Simpsons.” Think of a famous living singer. The last two letters of his first name and the first two letters of his last name spell a bird. Change the first letter of the singer’s first name. Then the first three letters of that first name and the last five letters of his last name together spell another bird. What singer is this?

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, December 11 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.

Instagram/@barbrastreisand

Barbra Streisand has now come out of the closet with a very deep and tiring to tell remorse from her past—the once sold, now cherished, Gustav Klimt painting. The public has been granted access to the performer’s extensive emotions, and thoughts connected to the loss of this painting, which she bought in 1969 for $17,000 but sadly sold a few decades later. The star’s candid and honest confession has not only invited sympathy but, to a certain degree, has also made listeners share similar situations.

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Streisand pointed out that her long time assistant was the one that prompted her to gather a collection of artworks that she had previously loved but eventually sold. One of the included works was Klimt’s “Miss Ria Munk on her Deathbed,” a painting that she acquired in her early days. Even though the $17,000 price for the painting was not her saying it was easy to part with, she still sold her Klimt in 1998 as she started to change her artistic likes to Frank Lloyd Wright and the Arts & Crafts movement. She rarely lets anyone know, she just says, “Oh how I regret selling her.” The title of the book her assistant assembled is not much different from her regret – ”You should never sell art you love.”

Very soon after, the post received immediate and emotional response. Most of them were sympathetic, one person commented, ”Perfect title, your assistant is telling the truth!” Another one pointed out that art has through the years always been characterized by the quality of being a story and therefore could be re-told in music.”

Streisand’s financial revelations have prompted plenty of comments and now they are especially relevant since Klimt’s masterpieces have become even more expensive and sought after. One person said, ”Today $17,000 looks like a large sum of money to almost everyone.” Someone else said even more strongly, ”Hey, if a Klimt painting comes my way, I will never be letting it go. In those days $17,000 was already a steal.”

A very smart statement gave an additional perspective about the time being right for Streisand to think back. The person referred to the auction news, saying, “A Gustav Klimt painting has been sold for a record $236.4m, making it the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auctions.” This mind-boggling sum allows one to see, in a way, the almost tragic story of Streisand’s buying and selling of her painting.

The story of the painting proved to be a true global one. A user, writing in her German language, expressed the same feeling of sadness as was, “Yes, it is indeed a big pity you have sold this picture. It is a wonderful testimony and… I am from Austria and I can tell you.” This response validates the idea of the painting being an important cultural artifact that is worth much more than just a monetary value.

Nevertheless, in calling the sympathies, some comments were slightly teasing the situation. One user said, “I don’t want to make your pain worse, but YOU SOLD THAT!!” Another replied, ”You should never sell Klimts they would be worth millions today.” Such humorous replies illustrate, to a degree, the almost incredulous financial hindsight surrounding the decision.

Moreover, Streisand’s post made people wonder about her collection of art in general. One of her fans even asked, “Barbra do you like paintings of Frida Kahlo?” while another one, was talking about her favorite artist saying, “The other one is Egon Schiele?” This has truly shown how the star’s personal taste still continues to fascinate and provoke curiosity among people. Her reflections on legacy extend beyond art, as seen in her mourning the loss of her White House rose garden legacy.

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Ultimately, Barbra Streisand’s open and honest post is not just a case of a missed financial opportunity but also. It is, rather, a collective saga of the emotional burden of the things we throw away. The price at which her loss is counted is very high since it is a strong reminder that some of the things we love most are worth a lot more than the price tag on them. Her initiated communication suggests that the relationship between an artist and a collector can be very profound and lasting, even when the work is no longer physically present. She has also honored Nancy Pelosi for their shared fight for women’s health.

Based on a 2017 Los Angeles Times article by Frank Shyong, the new movie Rosemead dramatizes a true and tragic story of a single Taiwanese American mother named Irene (Lucy Liu) who has cancer, and her teenage son, Joe (Lawrence Shou). A star student and swimmer, Joe begins to have increasing symptoms of his diagnosed schizophrenia, which intensify after the passing of his father (Orion Lee). As Joe’s hallucinations, delusions and outbursts become more frequent and intense, Irene struggles to support her son while dealing with her own terminal illness. If the premise of director Eric Lin’s feature debuts sounds bleak, that’s because it is.

Whether in the form of teachers, social services, or cultural shame, Rosemead highlights how external actors repeatedly fail Joe — driven not by compassion, but by their own internalized fears, exposing the lengths to which institutions will go to protect themselves from those they deem dangerous. After a school shooting drill triggers Joe in an early scene, prompting hallucinations, an administrator suggests that he transfer schools. “We all have his best interests at heart here,” he says with a false authenticity to an already-strained Irene.

The story of Rosemead is about a teenager with mental illness just as much as it is the Asian-American community, in a rare thematic combination that showcases the challenges facing both. Irene projects a composed public front and keeps her sorrow private, reflecting a culture in which shame often wears the mask of secrecy. At a party, other Asian-American families quietly gossip behind Irene’s back, raising questions about Joe seeing a psychiatrist. Instead of standing up for Joe, Irene insists that he’s attending the Family Center out of an interest in psychology, not because he needs therapy.

Meanwhile, when Joe is at school, Irene confesses to a friend who runs an herbal medicine shop that she’s avoided telling her son about her cancer diagnosis because she doesn’t want him to worry. She waves away her friend’s urging to be honest with him, saying she’s already doing all she can. Part of what makes Liu’s performance as an immigrant mother feel true is that the film doesn’t try to appease Western audiences with English-language dialogue. “I’ll make you another tincture,” her friend says in Chinese, as Liu dutifully sips a medicinal remedy from a cup — one of many nods to the divergence between cultures in the East and West. Another: their views on talk therapy, as Irene refuses to accompany Joe in his sessions, despite suggestions from his psychiatrist, Dr. Hsu (James Chen), to do so as a way to show support. Irene stubbornly claims that Joe is getting better on his own.

Dr. Hsu plays an integral role in the film, as perhaps the only character who truly sees Joe without judgment, and in turn, tries his best to tear through the family’s walls. In a pivotal scene, Irene discloses to Dr. Hsu that Joe’s internet search history is riddled with queries on school shootings and is worried that he might hurt someone. “Most people with schizophrenia don’t engage in violence,” Dr. Hsu says. “In fact it’s quite rare. We have no reason to believe that Joe is any different.”

Shyong’s original Los Angeles Times article notes that although mental illnesses such as schizophrenia are not significant contributors to violence in America, media reports tying mental illness and violence have increased in recent years. Rosemead‘s strength lies in its ability to dispel such narratives, however, the film’s portrayal of someone diagnosed with schizophrenia is less nuanced than the portrait it paints of Irene. Liu’s understated performance empathetically captures the resilience and sense of duty often associated with Asian mothers, while steering clear of tired on-screen tropes of strict parenting in Eastern cultures. However, the story would be far stronger with a more deliberate effort to challenge one-dimensional portrayals of mental illness. The film uses a range of camera angles and shaky movements to place the viewer in Joe’s mind, putting Lin’s background as a cinematographer on display. When Joe bolts from the classroom in the midst of the drill, the camera clings close, moving with him as if sharing the pulse of his panic. But viewers get little insight into Joe’s internal thoughts and struggles.

If you’re looking for a happy ending or an inspirational arc, Rosemead might not be for you. What Rosemead offers instead, is something real — a critique on a society that doesn’t know what to do with those that are outside the bounds of what is considered normative, and the compounded effects of shame and silence. What may seem to be one family’s tragedy is often a collective failure, born and bred by the same agents that pretend to offer a lifeline, only to yank it away as soon as you try to take hold.