Dining

From Madeira to Smuckers Mosaics

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My family is notorious for waiting until the last minute to plan our summer trip; that’s why this summer was so surprising. In November 2019 we had tickets to Madeira, and over winter break we began to very informally plan. While I was supposed to be finding hotels and hikes, I was too busy dreaming of all the passion fruit and tabaidos I was going to be eating. Unfortunately, our summer plans came to a screeching halt in mid-March. Instead of daydreams of Madeira, my mind was occupied with finishing up school, applying to summer jobs and remembering a mask when I went to the grocery store.

Arts & Culture

The American Family Veers Off-Road: The Detour

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As someone who watches comedy TV a lot — and I mean a lot — I’ve found that there’s one key ingredient in creating a successful TV comedy: don’t make your show based on a funny plot; make it based on funny characters. Write good characters, and the good plots will come. The Detour, created by The Daily Show power couple Samantha Bee and Jason Jones, completely fails this litmus test for a sustainable, quality TV comedy. The new TBS series follows a family of four attempting to drive to a relaxing beach vacation, finding themselves embroiled in misadventure after misadventure. To make things more complicated, father Nate Parker (Jones) recently lost his job at a nefarious biopharmaceutical company and keeps this hidden from his family, paving the way for even more clandestine antics as he tries to frame his ex-employer for unethical behavior.