Marisa LaScala: Writer, Editor, and Good Addition to Your Bar Trivia Team

Recently on Bustle, I...

...wondered if True Detective's Ray Velcoro could be the new Rust Cohle.

...came up with some theories about what True Detective's mysterious Black Mountain could be (though I'm pretty sure my first guess is correct).

...praised Orange Is the New Black for forcing its actresses to use different creative muscles, like taking singer Annie Golden and making her character near-mute.  

...speculated about whether or not Fake Off, The Comedians, and Happyish will be renewed for more seasons. 

...explored Boom! host Tom Papa's friendships with Seinfeld and Soderbergh.

Image: Lacey Terrell/HBO

Part of the reason I've been so behind in posting my clips is that I've started a new, full-time job as a writer and editor at Working Mother magazine. Already, I've had some interesting assignments, including...

...showing how Mad Men's Matthew Weiner is a champion of working mothers. 

...finding the companies with the most extreme maternity leaves. 

...asking a host of HuffPost Live about naming her daughter after herself. 

...finding the most enviable programs for Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.

...looking into the gender wage gap for Equal Pay Day.

...decoding the Supreme Court's ruling on pregnancy discrimination.

...highlighting why mompreneurs are important to the business community and shouldn't be ignored.

...soliciting advice from an expert on what women need to do for a personal finance tune-up.

...asking a professional organizer how to de-clutter for spring cleaning. 

...talking with a participant in Habitat for Humanity's Women Build Week about how the organization benefits working moms.

...offering advice to kids—and parents—separating for sleep-away camp for the first time and taking care of pets for first-time owners.

...rounding up the best spring work/life accessories, confidence-boosting books, Earth Day board games, Cinco de Mayo books, Memorial Day cookout must-haves, and gifts for elementary school grads and high school grads.

For one of the last assignments I had at my old job, I was asked to write about what it was like to be raised by hippies as part of a feature package about Baby Boomers. You can read it here, or download the PDF below. 

I've been behind in posting my Bustle articles—very behind—but here are some of my favorite posts I've done in the meantime:

Mad Men Season 7 Premiere "Severance" Has An Ominous Title, But Does It Actually Tell Us Anything?

15 Selina Meyer Quotes That Prove The President (Yeah, President!) Has The Perfect Thing To Say In Every Situation

As Justified Rides Off Into The Sunset, Here's What's Going Ro Be Missed The Most

Aquarius Lead Sam Hodiak Vs. Fox Mulder: They Have More Than David Duchovny In Common

Halt And Catch Fire Season 2 Emphasizes The Women Of The Show & We Couldn't Be More Excited

Here are the rest of the TV shows I've covered since I last posted:

AD: The Bible Continues (2); Agent Carter (2, 3); American Odyssey; The Americans; Aquarius (2, 3); Battle Creek; Between; Black-ish; The Blacklist;  Blood, Sweat, and Heels; Brides Gone Styled; Catfish; The Casual Vacancy; Cleveland Abduction; The Critics' Choice Awards; The 87th Academy Awards (2); Dancing with the Stars; Empire (2, 3, 4); Gotham; 500 Questions; Forever; Halt and Catch Fire; Hindsight; The Josh Wolf Show; Lake Placid vs. Anaconda; Labor Games; The Last Man on Earth (2); Little Women: NY (2); The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2); Mad Men; The  Making of the Mob: New York (2); The Messengers; MTV's Scream; New Girl (2, 3); Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards; Orange Is the New Black; Parks and Recreation; The Prancing Elites; Proof; The Returned (2); Saturday Night Live (2, 3); Seeds of Yesterday; Sense8; Shark Tank; Stitchers; Sons of Winter; Swab Stories; Texas Rising; 'Til Death Do Us Part; The Tony Awards; 12 Monkeys; Turn: Washington's Spies (2); Undateable; Weird Loners; The Willis Family

I also got to spoil Fifty Shades of Grey for people who didn't want to watch the movie and just wanted to know if the ending deviated from the book.

Image: Justina Mintz/AMC

For its 1995-themed week, The A.V. Club let me write about one of my favorite film subgenres: mid-'90s internet paranoia movies. 

1995 Marked the Birth of Internet-Paranoia Films

"...The internet and virtual-reality films of 1995 also show the emergence of a problem that filmmakers are still struggling with today: how to represent a digital world on screen. You can see early attempts to create some sort of cohesive visual language to stand in for the internet. Status bars, for example, are used in more than one of these movies as a quick way to ratchet up tension; the heroes have to wait until the bar reaches 100 percent before they can flee to safety. It’s a cheap thrill, and one we sadly haven’t outgrown yet.

Mostly, though, attempts to create a new look for the internet are hideous, trafficking in cheesy, psychedelic swirls of numbers and symbols and environments that look like video games circa Nintendo 64. Hackers andVirtuosity both fall victim to the allure of pop-art colors: Virtuosity makes is virtual exit quickly, bringing SID 6.7 into the real world, but Hackers often goes into the “architecture” of circuitry, with skyscrapers of squares and rectangles standing in for the systems they’re trying to break into, and dreamy-looking equations standing in for the data they want to collect. Today, it looks dated..."

Click through to read the full essay at The A.V. Club, or download the PDF.

Incredible Views from the Tallest Observation Wheels in the World

High Roller
Las Vegas, Nevada

Height: 550 feet

Ticket price: $24.95-$34.95

What you’ll see from the top: The current record-holder for the tallest observation wheel in the world (for now), the High Roller offers 360-degree views of The Strip (including the Bellagio fountains), along with Red Rock Canyon, the valley, and the mountains beyond.

You Can't Sink Your Teeth Into Any of the Ideas in 'Annabelle'

...With a period setting and a story centered on family, it seems like Annabelle is attempting to replicate some of the The Conjuring‘s strengths; it also duplicates the first film’s eerie moods and tense setpieces. In some places, it succeeds; Leonetti makes great use of deep focus, with threatening figures crossing the way, way back of the frame. These moments are startling without resorting to the typical, easy jump scares.

Leonetti doesn’t have Wan’s way with imagery, however, and these moments fail to build on one another. It seems at times like Annabelle is trying to imply that domesticity itself is under attack: sewing machines start by themselves, a bedroom television can’t get reception, and baby dolls are tampered with. But then it finds itself dabbling in pretty much any kind of horror-movie elements it can get its hands on, throwing in all different kinds of religious symbolism, other creepy children who have barely anything to do with the story, and an all-knowing bookstore owner (a thankless role for Alfre Woodard), so that its message, such as it is, becomes diluted....

Click through to read the full review at PopMatters.

...researched the music behind some of the biggest Super Bowl ads, figuring out what band does the "500 Miles (I'm Gonna Be)" cover in the Budweiser ad, the "Pretty Woman" cover in the Nationwide ad, and the song in the BMW i3 commercial.

...found out when Better Call Saul takes place in relation to Breaking Bad.

...explained why I want to be Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran when I grow up.

...detangled the Dr. Crane/Scarecrow connections in Gotham.

...put a few things on the wedding registry for Donna Meagle on Parks and Recreation. 

...figured out where I might have seen Allegiance's Gavin Stenhouse before (opposite Kevin Spacey).

...distinguished Paz Vega from Paz de la Huerta, Alexa Panvega, and other actresses with sound-alike names.

...investigated what Little Women: LA's Briana Manson does for a living (apart from being on a reality show).

Image: Ben Leuner/AMC

Image: Holly Baumann Photography