Bricks and elves and building something new with LEGO

Plus; Pinocchio, cookies and fancy cocktails [View this email online]( [Pop Culture Happy Hour]( by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when Trevor Noah [wound down his time]( behind the desk. It was the week when the National Board of Review [raised some eyebrows](. And it was the week when [games won awards](. Let's get to it. Opening Argument: Bricks and elves and building something new with LEGO I have this app on my phone called Happy Color. It's basically paint by numbers; you start with a picture and gradually go around tapping all the areas to fill them in with color. It's part of the wider [world of adult coloring]( that's surged in the last, say, 10 years, but you don't need pencils and you don't accumulate paper and so forth. It sounds very odd when I try to explain it, but I do find it relaxing, and I often do the daily picture while I listen to a podcast or something before I fall asleep. NurPhoto/Getty Images But I did find myself thinking: I wonder what might scratch that itch that doesn't require me to spend even more time looking at my phone than I already do? What might be relatively simple, repetitive, satisfying, perhaps a few notches more challenging than coloring but not so challenging that I would get stressed out? And then right before Black Friday, I came across an article about LEGO sets. And I thought ... "Maybe it's LEGO sets." --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- If you know anything about the current state of LEGO stuff, you know that one can spend a small fortune (or a large fortune) to build some of these things (the Titanic! The Eiffel Tower!), so a big sale day was a good time to try it out. I did not buy the Titanic or the Eiffel Tower, but I did get a couple of sets, including the Apollo 11 lunar lander. "Let's try it," I thought. Fortunately for me, my box came with a free gift, so I started with that. It's a little scene, like a school diorama, of two elves, surrounded by a snowy landscape of Christmas trees. As I dumped out the (relatively modest!) collection of pieces, I thought, "Do I have a chance at this, or is this going to be too fiddly?" I hadn't done anything similar in quite a long time. I did play with LEGO as a kid, but not in ages. Not since I got middle-aged fingers. I took out the manual and started at the beginning. Linda Holmes I'm not going to lie: I made a few errors. The manual, for whatever reason, is printed on gray-blue paper rather than white paper, meaning the colors of the pieces you're being directed to can be confusing. It took a while for me to figure out when the manual was calling for the opaque blue-green pieces versus the transparent blue-green pieces. (I also should have been wearing my reading glasses; I was being lazy.) When I was finished, I realized I had also confused the red buttons, meant to be Christmas lights, with the orange buttons, meant to go inside the tree trunks. I didn't fix it. I still might. I still could, after all. There are places where I thought I had to be doing it wrong, because I was entirely covering up something that was in a particular color, and why would they call for a particular color if I were just going to cover it up? This is a mystery I still do not entirely understand. As soon as I placed this order, I told one of my friends: I'm going to have to come up with a one-in, one-out policy if this turns out to be something I enjoy, because my house does not have room for the display of a bunch of brick masterpieces, plus my dog would undoubtedly love to knock one over, take it apart, and pass its pieces through his digestive system one at a time. No, my plan is to build them, admire them, and then destroy them so they can be built again by someone else. That's the plan, at least. But if I successfully build a lunar lander and I am staring it in the face, will I want to gaze upon it for a while? It's possible. Fortunately, I discovered the instant I mentioned all this on social media that I am in the virtual company of a great many people who also build lunar landers and such things. I felt like I had walked into a speakeasy where everyone was drunk on bricks, and it was exactly what I wanted. Solitude and camaraderie while doing something with my hands that isn't on my phone? Sounds perfect. Listen to the Podcast Sponsor-Free Support your favorite pop culture junkies AND listen without sponsor interruptions with a subscription to [Pop Culture Happy Hour+]( Learn more and sign up at [plus.npr.org/happy](. [Learn More]( We Recommend I made a haul of Christmas cookies last weekend, and while they were all successful, I have to give a shout to Eric Kim's gochujang caramel cookies over at [NYT Cooking](. They are very very easy to make, and they turn out like the most beautifully complex snickerdoodles. I had fun this week watching Drink Masters [on Netflix]( -- as you might suspect, it's a bartending/mixology competition, and I absolutely didn't know anything about anything anyone was talking about, which was sort of fun. I learned about oil-washed booze! While contemplating my reactions [to the film]( Tár, I was grateful to be directed to [this very thoughtful piece]( by Tavi Gevinson in The New Yorker. What We Did This Week Netflix We shared [our earlier conversation]( about the show Sort Of upon its return. Glen [talked to Andrew Limbong]( about some of the NPR staff picks in this year's [Books We Love]( feature. Glen also [talked to Barrie Hardymo]( and Kat Chow]( about the new series Fleishman is in Trouble. Aisha [spoke with Neda Ulaby and Jordan Crucchiola]( about Violent Night. And Glen and Aisha [talked to Roxana Hadadi and Carlos Aguilar]( about Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. I [dropped by All Things Considered]( to talk about what's in the new Netflix series [Harry & Meghan](. Stephen wrote up [Stromae's Tiny Desk Concert]( and [Hurray for the Riff Raff's set]( at NPR Music's 15th anniversary party. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: - Roxana Hadadi: [South Side]( - Carlos Aguilar: [Treasure Planet]( - Aisha Harris: [Criterion Channel's curation of the Sight & Sound list]( - Glen Weldon: [Matt Rogers: Have You Heard of Christmas?]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. [Find a Station]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+](. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [pchh@npr.org](mailto:pchh@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can [sign up here](. Looking for more great content? [Check out all of our newsletter offerings]( — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy]( [NPR logo]