Posted by Elena del Valle on May 24, 2023
Joey Santore and Al Scorch, hosts, Kill Your Lawn
Photo: Empty Quarter Studios
Kill Your Lawn, a new half-hour reality-TV series that began airing last month, seeks to inspire viewers to rid themselves of their home lawns. Based on two screeners provided by an Empty Quarters representative via email, the guys next door style program showcases examples of yard transformations and lawn-less projects. In Episode Two the program’s two hosts and a dog travel to Miami, Florida where they share their opinions on lawns, interview a homeowner keen to replace his lawn with native plants as well as a nursery owner and others. With the owner’s approval the hosts kill the lawn using a pressure washer. In a similar episode they redo the yard of a Fort Lauderdale, Florida couple. They remove the lawn using a portable fire device.
According to a press release Kill Your Lawn “is a rejection of the lawn industrial complex, celebrating the courage and inspiring messages of first-time lawn killers.” It consists of eight half hour makeover episodes. The goal is to replace homeowner lawns with pollinator-friendly, native plant gardens, according to promotional materials.
Joey Santore and Al Scorch are the hosts. Santore is described in promotional materials as “a blue-collar schmuck from Chicago who left a career at the railroad to pursue a lifetime studying botany and educating others via his cult-hit YouTube channel Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t.” Schorch is said to be his best friend from Chicago, “a bicycle mechanic and punk rock banjoist.”
According to a spokesperson EarthxTV, is available on Charter’s Spectrum TV, FuboTV, the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) in the United States, Sky, and Freeview in the United Kingdom, M7 in Europe, Claro video and TotalPlay in Mexico. EarthxTV may be available on Directv for satellite and internet customers and Directv Streat.
Empty Quarter Studios (EQS) specializes in “unique, uplifting, and edgy entertainment, telling stories of human experience shaped by adventure, natural history, culture, and ingenuity.”
Posted by Elena del Valle on May 17, 2023
The Good Life
Photos: cover photo courtesy of Simon and Schuster, Robert Waldinger photo by Katherine Taylor, Marc Schulz photo by Ann Chwatsky
Robert Waldinger, Ph.D., director, Harvard Study of Adult Development, and Marc Schulz, Ph.D., associate director of the same study, believe healthy relationships are key to happiness. They explain their reasons in The Good Life Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness (Simon and Schuster, $28.99), a 341-page hardcover book published this year.
Robert Waldinger, Ph.D., co-author, The Good Life
Along with reading, writing and arithmetic the authors propose that social fitness should be taught to children and included in public policy considerations. It should also be an important part of adult lives; emphasis on relationships, they say in the book, pays off.
Marc Schulz, Ph.D., co-author, The Good Life
The authors reached their conclusions based on the findings of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a multi-generational volunteer study conducted by Harvard researchers among students beginning in 1938, and later paired with a study of area non students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In total more than 2,000 people, a high percentage of the initial participants and their descendants, shared personal information, answered questions over their lives, provided blood samples, and in some cases donated their brains after their passing in furtherance of the study goals.
Waldinger and Schulz discuss the study findings in the book while weaving stories around the lives of some of the participants (keeping their identities private) and their relatives. It’s never too late, the authors say, about finding happiness and changing attitudes and behaviors. Life is in many ways, at least for the study participants, about the joys offered by relationships rather than financial successes, it seems. The authors acknowledge that some participants may have altered their views and behaviors as a result of their participation in the study.
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Filed Under: Books
Posted by Elena del Valle on May 1, 2023
Photo: Citronella Stories
Citronella Stories will release Bug Therapy, a seven minute animated short film about mental health, via YouTube.com on May 1, 2023. According to a press release the short film will have a limited release in North America online and at select theaters, at no cost, for the month of May, to celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month. The film strives to highlight the importance of therapy and mental health. It should be available today at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6n7aMfxKec
It features the voices of Phil McGraw, Meghan Trainor, Jay Leno, Sterlin K. Brown, Tom Green, Emily Goglia and Jason Reisig. It is due to have a wide release in June, with plans for a global release this fall, according to a press release received by email.
Bug Therapy was directed by Jason Reisig. It was written and created by Michael Jann and Michele Jourdan, of Citronella Stories, and animated by 88 Pictures. Randy Mills was producer. Eric Bergman was co-producer. Jann and Jourdan were executive producers, along with Jason Reisig, Randy Mills, and 88 Pictures’ Milind D. Shinde.
In Citronella (Trainor), a mosquito who faints at the sight of blood, tries to muster the courage to attend group therapy to overcome her phobia. She learns that “everyone faces mental health struggles.” Stick Bug (Brown) battles depression over never feeling seen, Fly (Leno) is “OCD and germaphobic and can’t stop washing his hands,” Grasshopper (Green) suffers from addiction to coffee, Praying Mantis (Goglia) is narcissistic and delusional and believes she’s God. A Dragonfly couple (Jann and Jourdan) are co-dependent, and Spider (Reisig) tries to overcome his phobia of spiders. Dr. Pill (McGraw) leads the therapy.
