Author Archives

Em Perper
Bookseller, writer, editor.

A Drug-Fueled Sprint Through Times Square: The Opening Credits of ‘Broad City’

“I wanted it to be big, bold, and weird,” Perry explains of his initial inspiration during our conversation with him. He highlights his exploration of color as a way to “vibrate the viewer.” His designs nail this goal, flashing fast and bright like a drug-fueled sprint through Times Square…

Artist Mike Perry had so many ideas ahead of his initial meeting with Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, the show’s creators and stars, that one was not enough. So every episode of the Comedy Central series — returning for its third season next spring — offers the viewer a different sequence and a new glimpse into Perry’s limitless imagination.

The Art of the Title takes you behind the scenes with Mike Perry, the illustrator behind the colorful chaos of the “Broad City” credits, and Julie Verardi, Comedy Central Senior Designer and Animator. Both Perry and Verardi grew up doodling; their collaboration on “Broad City” involves Perry hand-drawing 10 to 100 intricate frames, while Verardi edits and perfects the animation.

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My Hijab, My Choice

Photo: Kamyar Adl

There’s also such diversity in the way Muslim women feel about, understand, and observe hijab. Some women hate it because forms of it are forced on them. Some Irani women have undertaken a social-media campaign to show themselves without the scarves and the long black chador coverings as a way of protesting being made to wear them. I get that. The headscarf is a source of strength for me, but that stems largely from the luxury of having a choice about if I want to wear it and how I want to wear it.

I’m a professional in my 30s, living on her own and working as an attorney and consultant in New York City. I am also a former hijabi, a de-jabi, and now a re-jabi. These things might seem like contradictions to some, but it’s entirely consistent in my mind as part of a long, nuanced spiritual journey that continues to change and challenge me even today. My story only seems novel because it disturbs the existing narrative about what the headscarf and dressing more modestly signifies.

— At Refinery 29, Zehra Naqvi shares her story of emotional and spiritual growth, and how coming into her own meant reclaiming the hijab.

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Whale Tales: A Reading List

Whales: We want to watch them, to save them, to read all about them. They are so large—larger than life—that they are symbols in our literature and in our lives. Yet they remain elusive to us, due in part to their nature (deep-diving and difficult to track for sustained periods of time) and to our nature (killing what fascinates us, industrialization, greed). These four stories demonstrate humans’ multi-faceted relationship with whales—where politics, the environment and the economy intermingle with love, terror and cruelty.

1. “Chasing Bayla.” (Sarah Schweitzer, Boston Globe, August 2014)

Let’s start off strong. Sarah Schweitzer has written a masterful story, here: one of hard work, daring rescues, danger and heartbreak. Dr. Michael Moore created a sedative to calm endangered whales trapped in deadly fishing wire. But is his invention enough to free the animals he studied all his life? (I cried.) Read more…

It’s Friday, Friday: Rebecca Black, the Politics of Entertainment, and Growing Up

Had it been released today, “Friday” almost certainly would have gone to No. 1 on Billboard’s flagship singles chart the Hot 100 (which began counting YouTube streams in its formula in 2013), a distinction that, for an unsigned artist, would have made a recording contract a foregone conclusion. Black’s status as a previous unknown with a catchy but readily mocked hit would be far less anomalous in a mainstream that has stretched to accommodate songs like Psy’s “Gangnam Style” and Baauer’s “Harlem Shake.” But in 2011, YouTube was still widely regarded as a sideshow in the industry…

When “Friday” exploded, the YouTube community was a dubious ally — a source of more snark and vitriol than moral support; but now it’s home. Black’s life revolves around the platform…where she’s regarded as something of a grizzled veteran. In Black’s story, middle- and high school–age kids enmeshed in the unlovely “before” phase of life see a survivor and a role model, someone who lived through a social media nightmare of epic proportions and managed to emerge unbroken.

—Reggie Ugwu, writing for BuzzFeed. When she turned 14, Rebecca Black’s mom paid a couple grand to have her daughter record an inane, hyper-catchy music video in Los Angeles. “The video for ‘Friday’ was never supposed to be made public, and instead was meant for sharing among friends and family, like glamour shots or a wedding video,” but the production company posted it to their YouTube page, and it garnered 100 million views in mere hours. Cue chaos, a media tour, several thousand nasty comments, and a hell of an adolescence. But now, Rebecca Black is doing just fine.

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What is Sista Grrrl’s Riot? Punk Music, Collaboration and Revolution

Photo: Kate Milford. Punk musician Tamar-kali Brown, founder of Sista Grrrl Riots, performs at Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls in 2010.

Vice’s new vertical, Broadly, is off to a strong start with reporting like Gaby Bess’ “Alternatives to Alternatives: the Black Grrrls Riot Ignored.” Tamar-kali Brown, Maya Glick, Simi Stone, and Honeychild Coleman founded Sista Grrrl Riots, an alternative safe space for black women punks to rock out and revolutionize. The founders continue to support each other and other women making music to this day.

On their first flyer:

“It was a lipstick heart with our silhouettes in it, like Charlie’s Angels, and we had weapons. I brought my father’s machetes and BB guns for our shoot.” But unlike the flyer’s silhouetted BB guns and machetes would suggest, the riot’s real ammunitions were electric violins, bass guitars, and the raging voices of women who were lifelong punk outsiders. On this momentous night at Brownies, a now-defunct rock club on Avenue A, these four women had found their place, playing to a packed crowd who could finally see versions of themselves onstage.

If you bore passing witness to this night, you might have casually referred to Brown, Glick, Stone, and Coleman as Riot Grrrls, if you didn’t know any better. They were girls. They were angry. They were tired of playing shitty gigs and taking a backseat to the boys. But these women would scoff at the thought of designating themselves “Riot Grrrls,” or just plain correct you. “You had Riot Grrrl,” Brown explained, “and this was a Sista Grrrl’s Riot.”

Their dedication to visibility and representation, in addition to sisterhood and killer musicianship, should not be underestimated:

The Riot Grrrl box may have been decidedly off-limits in the eyes of Brown and other black women who couldn’t see themselves in the movement, but as [Rhonda] Davis points out, these women shirked boxes, created their own wave, and reclaimed rock for black women. After all, rock music is black music. While the Sista Grrrls didn’t see themselves in Riot Grrrl or in the men they had been playing with in bands, they saw themselves in each other. “I got what Riot Grrrl was about. I didn’t think it was exclusive, but it didn’t feel inclusive to me,” said Brown. “I didn’t see myself or my story, and so that’s why Sista Grrrl came about later on–out of other women of color that I knew who were punk rock and navigated that scene and had similar feelings about it. Sista Grrrl was my response to Riot Grrrl because it just felt super white.”

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The Cultural Impact of “A Wrinkle in Time”

Photo: brainwise

My beloved fourth-grade teacher, Miss York, held my class in rapture as she read aloud a chapter of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic, A Wrinkle in Time, every day after lunch. Later, I read it on my own, over and over, and devoured much of L’Engle’s other fiction. I met the Austins, I time-traveled to Noah and his infamous ark, I went up against an insane dictator.

L’Engle’s life–her family, her religion, her motherhood, her career, her writing decisions—have been subject to much speculation. Later in her celebrated, prolific career, she transitioned to writing about religion and family–more memoir, less fiction. But it’s her “children’s” books that remain the most popular. At Mental Floss, Jen Doll explores the magic of A Wrinkle in Time and its effects on the boundaries of genre and powerful women protagonists.

The reception of [A Wrinkle in Time] was far from universally positive, though. It was a weird mashup of genres combining science fiction with fantasy and a quest; a coming-of-age story with elements of romance, magic, mystery, and adventure. There’s a political, anti-conformist message, and at its heart is the importance of family, community, freedom of choice, and, most of all, love. In some ways, there was too much room for interpretation in L’Engle’s themes…

In these fantasy worlds, as in the real world, things can’t always be tied up neatly. Evil can never be truly conquered; indeed, a key to fighting it is knowing that. It’s a sophisticated lesson children thrill to, and one in which adults continue to find meaning.

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The Minds Behind Diversity in Comics: A Reading List

Comics inspire me to be brave, to collaborate with my friends, to try new things, to stand up for myself. Maybe that’s trite, but it’s true. Vanity Fair’s profile of Kelly Sue DeConnick (#7) includes statistics about women: they are the fastest-growing demographic interested in comics; they are protagonists of twice the story arcs. Wired says diversity isn’t just good business–it’s honest, truthful storytelling (#1). I want everyone who walks into a comic book store to feel comfortable (#4), to find someone who looks or feels like them (#9) when they open a new issue of their favorite series. The people interviewed and profiled in the following pieces–creators and critics who advocate for diversity and inclusion in pages and on-screen–are the real superheroes.

1. “It’s Time to Get Real About Diversity in Comics.” (Laura Hudson, Wired, July 2015)

Rather than a superficial issue of optics or quotas […] Rather than seeing diversity initiatives as a matter of altruism or avoiding controversy, the most transformational approach advocated by critics and creators alike is the one that views it both as a form of honesty and as a valuable creative investment… Read more…

Sailing Across the Atlantic in 30 Days—With Two Toddlers

When her youngest son was just a few months old, experienced sailor Janis Couvreux and her family determined to sail across the Atlantic Ocean–from a port city in Senegal to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This was the 1980s. There was no GPS, no 3G, no iPads. Armed with months’ worth of supplies and her husband’s sextant, they made the journey in 30 days. It was, by all accounts, blissful. Whether you’re lounging on the beach or reading on your lunch break, lose yourself in Couvreux’s adventure on the high seas.

So many questions I have been asked over the years about this part of our trip. How do you cross an ocean with an infant and a 3-year-old? How do you spend 30 days in such a tight space with two small children? How do you keep them from falling overboard? How do you get along with your husband all that time? What do you eat? Don’t you get bored…? Well, getting bored was definitely not an issue. There was no time for that. Living on land with two small children is time consuming in itself. On a boat without modern conveniences, it’s an all day job. Think of life in the old west: no refrigeration; no electricity; having to make one’s own bread; conserving food by canning, salting, drying; washing clothes by hand…It’s actually a “survival” mode lifestyle. However, since that’s all we have to do, and not obliged to rush around in a car running errands, working, paying bills, meeting people for appointments and the like, that’s part of the purpose: taking the time to live.

— Read the rest at Luna Luna Magazine.

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Say Her Name: Roxane Gay on Sandra Bland

Because Sandra Bland was driving while black, because she was not subservient in the manner this trooper preferred, a routine traffic stop became a death sentence. Even if Ms. Bland did commit suicide, there is an entire system of injustice whose fingerprints left bruises on her throat.

–At the New York Times, Roxane Gay indicts a society built on systemic racism for the death of 28-year-old Sandra Bland and dozens of other innocent, murdered Black people.

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The Mysteries and Truths of Illness: A Reading List

Photo: NVinacco

In her essay “This Imaginary Half-Nothing: Time” (#10 on this list), poet Anne Boyer quotes another poet, John Donne: “We study health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and air, and exercises, and we hew, and we polish every stone that goes to that building; and so our health is a long and a regular work.” What happens when that long work is disrupted, when an irregularity appears? What if the irregularity is chronic, terminal, fatal? Here, I’ve collected 10 stories about authors reckoning with illnesses—some without cause or cure. Read more…