SONY DSC Before joining PSG as an editorial intern, I worked as a chemist in Cambridge, MA, in a six-story structure that once belonged to the New England Confectionary Company—famous for their colorful wafers and conversation hearts, and more commonly known as Necco. Back in 1928, the Necco candy factory embodied the “promising future of American architecture,” but in 2001, with [...]
Fall has arrived and there are new television shows starting up this season that some PSG staff members are very excited for, while others are returning with new seasons that are garnering just as much enthusiasm. During this time of the year I always get ready for a new season of “American Horror Story,” but am also looking forward to “Bob’s Burgers”—I like [...]
I’ve always been a fairly geeky person, so when I started playing Dungeons and Dragons (also known as D&D) it was no surprise that I immediately fell in love with it. For those who don’t know, D&D is a tabletop roleplaying game that uses polyhedral dice to determine the outcome of in-game events in a fantasy world controlled by the Dungeon Master (DM). [...]
I love the sound that typewriters make almost as much as I love satire. These are two elements rarely brought together, so when I started researching the Boston Typewriter Orchestra (BTO), I got unreasonably excited. Self-described as a group that combines “elements of performance, comedy and satire,” the BTO, a group of five typists, uses typewriter keys to create music. Bedecked in 1950s-style [...]
Some landmarks are designed to stand out: DC’s Washington Monument, London’s Big Ben, Russia’s the Motherland Calls (a sword-wielding stone woman who reaches nearly 300 feet!). But other marvels are easy to miss if you aren’t looking for them. In contrast to its towering warrior, Russia houses the smallest public monument in the world. The tiny frog statue, named the Frog Traveler, sits [...]
While authors like Agatha Christie and Stephen King have published dozens of novels, others are known for their publication of a single novel. Emily Brontë, for example, only published Wuthering Heights, and it wasn’t well received until after her death. Critics either judged it very harshly or were unsure how to react to her dramatic romance. Whether Brontë ever intended to publish another [...]
I did not like the dancing portion of high school theater; every dance was a painful experience for me and anyone nearby. To this day, I cannot confidently do the Charleston, but luckily all that time spent on the dance floor wasn’t wasted. It turns out even poor attempts at dancing can help your brain! A team led by a Colorado State University [...]
Picture this: you’re nearing the conclusion of a thrilling book, and you can feel three pages left in your fingers. But the ending comes more abruptly than you thought—the last two pages are blank! I used to wonder how those extra pages ended up in my books. But PSG staff members Alyssa and Don clued me in on an alternative definition of the [...]
Tucked away in a Berkshire valley, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is one of the most innovative museums in New England—and one of the most fascinating art museums I’ve ever visited. MASS MoCA was converted from a nineteenth-century mill into a contemporary art behemoth, making the building an attraction in itself. Consisting of 26 buildings, the sprawling property has extensive courtyards, [...]
Synesthesia is generally described as a neurological crossover of the senses. Essentially, the stimulation of one sense causes the experience of another. In his autobiography, author Vladimir Nabokov wrote that his synesthesia caused his brain to conjure colors when he heard different letters and sounds. In Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve, data journalist Ben Blatt seeks to learn more about the Russian-American author, as [...]