LOVE IT
A Helvetica-inspired perfume gets props for being a witty, Secret Santa--worthy take on modernism: the neutral scent--it's actually just water--smells like nothing.
TIME's James Poniewozik calls HBO's Stephen Sondheim documentary, Six by Sondheim (Dec. 9), "a tour of the wry mind and sly music of the Broadway genius."
Amazon's latest publicity stunt: delivery by drone. Alas, the buzzed-about service won't be ready for four or five years.
Budweiser's Knitbot stitches ugly Christmas sweaters every time you tweet about not driving drunk.
TURKEY-DAY TRIUMPH
$109.9 million
The scorching Thanksgiving-weekend North American box-office total for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which far surpassed the $82 million take by previous record holder Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 2001
HAIKU REVIEW
As expected: sex.
Sure, there's a spoken track too,
But mostly slow jams.
--LILY ROTHMAN, ON R. KELLY'S BLACK PANTIES (OUT DEC. 10)
TWIN PEEKS
He's famous as the director of Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, but David Lynch's pictures aren't just the moving kind--he also makes paintings and drawings, like the 2013 mixed-media work Airplanes, above. It's included in "Naming," an exhibit and accompanying catalog of Lynch's work exploring the relationship between words and images, at Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles through Jan. 4.
QUICK TALK
Childish Gambino
Actor Donald Glover, 30, will appear in only a few episodes of the next season of Community (which starts in January on NBC), but he's staying busy as his rap alter ego Childish Gambino. His new album, Because the Internet, drops Dec. 10. Here, he talks to TIME.
--LILY ROTHMAN
The album's called Because the Internet. What's the other half of that sentence?
I was working with Beck, and he asked me whether rappers talk to each other, and I started off the answer by saying, "I don't like starting answers with this, but because the Internet ...," and he said, "You should name your album that."
On the song "3005," you say you're scared of the future. Any futuristic thing in particular?
I'm afraid of the great robot war. It's coming [laughs]. Honestly, I'm not scared of the future at all. The future is progress if we treat it right.
You're promoting the album at a series of house parties.
I'm not a big party animal, but I'd like to create moments people can hold on to.
Do you have any favorite party memories?
I threw a house party when my parents were away when I was, like, 17 or 18. My girlfriend and I made out in the bathroom. I felt like Ferris Bueller. That was a cool moment. And in the mansion that we rented to record this album in, we used to throw parties every once in a while. That was nuts. We used to make s'mores.
In a fireplace or outside?
There was a fireplace in the middle of the pool.
You may be the only people who've ever eaten s'mores in a swimming pool.