Author: Rebecca OConnell

Over the course of its seven-year run, Gilmore Girls introduced many future stars. Some even played multiple characters on the show before making it big. 

1. Jon Hamm // “Peyton Sanders”

The future Don Draper’s biggest role prior to Gilmore Girls was a recurring part in the TV series Providence (which apparently didn’t pay very well—the actor has said in interviews that he kept his job as a waiter for the year he was on the show). In the season three episode “Eight O’Clock at the Oasis,” Hamm played Peyton Sanders; his character met Lorelai at an auction. They went on one date, but she had a miserable time (off camera).

2. Max Greenfield // “Lucas”

Max Greenfield had appeared on two TV shows before he played Lucas in the season four episode “Chicken or Beef?” He attended Dean’s bachelor party and tells Luke, “Hey, my name’s Luke, too. We should start a club or something.” After Gilmore Girls, Greenfield played a romantic interest for Veronica Mars for a couple of seasons, a role he reprised in the 2014 film. For four years, he has starred on New Girl as Schmidt.

3. Alex Borstein // “Drella,” “Miss Celine,” and “Doris”

Borstein, who at the time was appearing on MADtv, was originally cast as Gilmore Girls’ Sookie. But when Melissa McCarthy took over that role, Borstein was given the opportunity to play three different characters. She was the Independence Inn’s sassy harpist, Drella, in four season one episodes, and played Emily’s stylist in the later seasons. She also provided the voice for Doris in the season three episode “Eight O’Clock at the Oasis.”

Since wrapping up MADtv in 2009, Borstein has starred in A Million Ways to Die in the West and Shameless. She also voices Lois on Family Guy. 

4. Chad Michael Murray // “Tristan Dugray” 

Chad Michael Murray had just a few roles under his belt when he played Rory’s rich Chilton classmate, who definitely had a thing for her, in the first season of Gilmore Girls. He left Gilmore Girls to do a season of Dawson’s Creek, then played Lucas Scott on One Tree Hill for six seasons. Now, he appears on Agent Carter as Jack Thompson.

5. Seth MacFarlane // “Zach” and “Bob Merriam”

MacFarlane had already created and premiered Family Guy when he took on his first live-action role as Zach, a business school student who graduated alongside Lorelai in the season two episode “Lorelai’s Graduation Day.” Later, he played Emily’s lawyer, Bob Merriam, in the season three episode “I Solemnly Swear.” Since Gilmore Girls, MacFarlane has created American Dad and The Cleveland Show, and he wrote and starred in Ted and A Million Ways to Die in the West. He also somehow found time to host the 85th Academy Awards in 2013. 

6. Jane Lynch // “Nurse”

The same year she appeared in the mockumentary Best in Show, Jane Lynch played an exasperated nurse who gets harassed by Emily when Richard is in the hospital in the season one episode “Forgiveness and Stuff.” Since then, she has starred in many films, including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and A Mighty Wind. She has also had regular roles on shows Two and a Half Men, Party Down, and, of course, Glee. She currently hosts NBC’s Hollywood Game Night.

7. Masi Oka // “Unnamed philosophy student”

Masi Oka had just two roles under his belt when he played a student who gets into a debate with Rory when she sneaks into a Harvard class in the season two episode “The Road Trip to Harvard.” These days, Oka is best known for playing Hiro on four seasons of Heroes; he can now be seen as Dr. Max Bergman in Hawaii Five-0.

8. Brandon Routh // “Jess”

Future Superman Brandon Routh had appeared in a couple of TV shows—including MTV’s Undressed—before he played Jess, a handsome man who lured Madeline and Louise away from a Bangles concert, in the season one episode “Concert Interruptus.” Currently, he stars on the TV show Arrow.

9. Adam Brody // “Dave Rygalski”

Adam Brody had a number of roles before he landed the role of Seth Cohen in The O.C. One of them was Dave Rygalski on Gilmore Girls. The character, who appeared in season three, played in Lane’s band and eventually became her boyfriend; after Brody booked The O.C., characters on Gilmore Girls said that Dave “moved to California.”

10. Riki Lindhome // “Girl #2” And “Juliet”

These days, Riki Lindhome is best known as one half of the popular singing duo Garfunkel and Oates, which now has a TV show of the same name on IFC. But in the early days of her career, she booked a couple of roles on Gilmore Girls: In the season three episode “One’s Got Class and the Other One Dyes,” she plays a girl in a Stars Hollow classroom where Lorelai is giving a speech. In seasons five and six, Lindhome plays Juliet, a member of the Life and Death Brigade secret society along with Logan. Since Gilmore Girls, she has appeared in the movies My Best Friend’s Girl, The Last House on the Left, and Million Dollar Baby.

11. Abigail Spencer // “Megan”

Soap fans might have recognized Abigail Spencer—who played Rebecca Tyree on a season of All My Children—when she popped up on Gilmore Girls as Megan, one of the bridesmaids of Honor Huntzberger, Logan’s sister, in the season six episode “Bridesmaids Revisited.” Since the show, Spencer has had roles in Oz the Great and Powerful, This Means War, and Cowboys & Aliens. You can see her now playing Dana Scott on Suits.

12. Nasim Pedrad // “Waitress” 

Future SNL player Nasim Pedrad had just two credits to her name when she played a waitress in “Bridesmaids Revisited”; she waited on a sad, drunk Rory in a bar. After Gilmore Girls, she played a nurse on ER and landed SNL in 2009, where she stayed for five seasons. Most recently, she appeared in the sitcom Mulaney.

13. Matt Jones // “Morgan”

In his first TV role ever, Matt Jones helped Jackson deep fry a Thanksgiving turkey in the season two episode “A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving.” He didn’t get another TV role until 2008, when his career really took off: He played Badger on five seasons of Breaking Bad and now stars as Baxter in the CBS sitcom Mom.

14. Arielle Kebbel // “Lindsay”

Arielle Kebbel had done just a couple of bit parts on TV shows before she played Lindsay, who dates, then marries, Rory’s ex-boyfriend Dean in seasons four and five of Gilmore Girls. Since then, she’s starred in The Uninvited, John Tucker Must Die, and Think Like a Man. She frequently makes appearances as Lexi on The Vampire Diaries.

15. Ben Falcone // “Mr. Brink”

Ben Falcone played the executor of Fran’s will, who informs Lorelai that Fran’s family will be selling the Dragonfly Inn, in the season three episode “Say Goodnight, Gracie.” Before that, he had just four on-screen credits. Since Gilmore Girls, Falcone has been in Bridesmaids, Enough Said, and What to Expect When You’re Expecting. He also wrote and directed the 2014 film Tammy, which starred his wife, Melissa McCarthy, who played Sookie on Gilmore Girls.

16. Colin Egglesfield // “Sean” 

Colin Egglesfield had small parts on four TV shows—including Law & Order: SVU—before he played Sean in the season four episode “Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin’ the Twist.” Rory meets Sean while she’s on spring break in Florida. She falls for him, but he doesn’t reciprocate much—until he sees her kiss Paris. Since Gilmore Girls, Egglesfield has been a cast member in many TV series, including All My Children, The Client List, and Rizzoli & Isles. He also played Dex, the romantic interest of both Ginnifer Goodwin and Kate Hudson, in the film Something Borrowed. 

17. Danny Pudi // “Raj”

Danny Pudi had appeared in one episode each of The West Wing and ER before playing Raj, a Yale Daily News writer, for four episodes in seasons six and seven of Gilmore Girls. Now, of course, he’s best known for playing Abed Nadir in Community.

18. Victoria Justice // “Jill #2”

In her first television appearance ever, Victoria Justice played Jill #2, a young girl at a party catered by Lorelai and Sookie, in the season four episode “The Hobbit, the Sofa, and Digger Stiles.” She claimed that Sookie’s cooking “tastes like diapers.” Since Gilmore Girls, Justice has starred in two wildly popular Nickelodeon shows: Zoey 101 and Victorious. She can now be seen in the new MTV series Eye Candy, where she plays a cyber sleuth. 

19. Emily Bergl // “Francie Jarvis”

Emily Bergl had a few small roles before she played Rory’s intimidating, popular classmate at Chilton in the second and third seasons of Gilmore Girls. Since then, Bergl has appeared on Desperate Housewives and was a regular on Southland until 2013. She now stars as Sammi in Shameless.

20. KRYSTEN RITTER // “LUCY”

Fresh off her gig as Gia Goodman in Veronica Mars—but a few years before she played Jane Margolis, Jesse Pinkman’s girlfriend, on Breaking Bad, or the titular superhero in Jessica Jones—Krysten Ritter played Lucy, one of Rory’s college friends at Yale, in several episodes of the show’s seventh (and final) season.

An earlier version of this post ran in 2015.

Have a few friends who are always looking up at the sky? Here are some gift ideas that celebrate the celestial bodies they know and love.

1. MOON LIGHT BALL; $10

The whole moon can be lassoed out of space and brought near you. Give this 4-inch lunar light to anyone who needs a little illumination on their desk or in their closet.

Find It: Amazon

2. SATURN CRYSTAL PUZZLE; $8

Take puzzles to another dimension with a 3D crystal model of Saturn. The jigsaw is made of 39 interlocking pieces that come together to form the shape of the ringed planet. 

Find It: Amazon

3. PLANETARY GLASSES; $20

Now, your loved one can take drinks from all the planets in the solar system. This set comes with eight glasses (which can hold up to 10 ounces) that look like the planets, along with the sun (which holds up to 16 ounces) and Pluto (which holds up to 4 ounces). The designs are applied to the glass with a high temperature heat wrap, so they can’t be put in the dishwasher—but would you really want to get the sun wet?

Find It: Amazon

4. SOLAR SYSTEM NECKLACE; $40

Have a friend who believes they’re the center of the universe? Now, they can really assume that role with a miniature version of the solar system wrapped around their neck. This necklace from ThinkGeek comes on an 18-inch chain and features an array of colorful semi-precious gems. It has all the planets, plus the sun, Pluto, and an asteroid belt.

Find It: ThinkGeek

5. GLOW IN THE DARK CONSTELLATION MAP; $25

Skip the travel poster and go for something really out of this world. With the lights on, this nearly 29-inch poster shows the stars and constellations of the Northern Hemisphere. When you flip off the lights, the lines fade and the stars and Milky Way shine vibrantly.

Find It: Amazon

6. CHART OF SPACE EXPLORATION; $38

This all-inclusive map from Pop Chart Lab details the history of cosmic exploration by highlighting every orbiter, lander, rover, flyby, and impactor to ever enter space. In total, the chart features 100 exploratory instruments.

Find It: Pop Chart Lab

7. ASTRONAUT ICE CREAM; $6

We can’t all be astronauts, but we can at least eat like them. Though the Neapolitan square was originally created for early Apollo Space Missions, it isn’t eaten by modern astronauts today because of its crumbly nature. Still, it’s a novelty snack worth trying. The ice cream is frozen at -40 degrees and vacuum dried, so it doesn’t need to be kept in the freezer.

Find It: Amazon

8. SPACE PLATES; $39

A great addition to any space-themed kitchen, the melamine plates feature watercolor designs of the eight planets (Sorry, Pluto!) that will make any entrée seem otherworldly.

Find It: Amazon

9. EARTH FLEECE; $30

Global warming suddenly has a new—and less dire—meaning. These 60-inch fleece blankets feature actual NASA photographs of Earth, Jupiter, or Mars.

Find It: ThinkGeek

10. LITTLE DIPPER EARRINGS; $18

Astrology fans can wear the iconic constellation right in their ears. The set comes with a small star earring and a constellation-shaped ear wrap, made with sterling silver and AAA zircon.

Find It: Amazon

11. PLANET BALL SOCKS; $9

At first glance, this looks like a plush toy of Earth, but once you unroll it, a pair of colorful socks emerges.

Find It: Amazon

12. HEAT CHANGING MUG; $15 

Nerdy coffee drinkers will love this mug featuring the red supergiant V838 Monocerotis. When the cup—which can hold up to 20 ounces—is filled with hot water, the design changes to show the light echo of its stellar outburst.

Find It: ThinkGeek

13. ASTRONAUT JUMPSUIT; $84

This cotton jumpsuit mimics the look of a spacesuit and even has a removable cooler for storing space beer. If your giftee needs room for storing more items (moon rocks, for instance), there are also two zippered pockets on the side.

Find It: Tipsy Elves

14. FINDERS KEEPERS SHIRT; $24

Here is a humorous shirt for patriotic friends and family. It features an astronaut on the moon with the triumphant words, “FINDERS KEEPERS.” The shirts come in men’s and women’s, in sizes ranging from small to triple XL.

Find It: Busted Tees

15. SPACE POPS; $30

If Earth had a flavor, what would it be? Cotton candy, according to this collection of 10 handmade lollipops featuring pictures of all the planets of the solar system, plus the sun and Pluto. Each celestial body has its own unique flavor. (Spoiler alert: Pluto is strawberry kiwi.)

Find It: ThinkGeek

16. VIRTUAL REALITY PLANETARIUM; $99

Give your loved one the gift of a planetarium that they can hold in their hands. The device has eight different modes and three hours of educational audio and is compatible with images of 150 different celestial objects, all taken by the Hubble Telescope.

Find It: Amazon

17. MOON PHASE EARRINGS; $45

Perfect for both the science-inclined and the mystics in your life, these brass earrings show the phases of the moon covered by little dollops of glass.

Find It: Uncommon Goods

18. SOLAR SYSTEM WATCH; $13

As it’s telling time, this watch certainly makes a statement. Lacking any numbers, the accessory has three working hands that dutifully move around the face of the watch.

Find It: Amazon

19. USB ASTRONAUT LIGHT; $5

Working late into the night doesn’t have to be lonely with this astronaut companion. Simply plug it into a USB port and its helmet will give off a warm glow of LED light.

Find It: Amazon

20. SUPERNOVA SKIRT; $35

Help your loved one show off their supernova “flare” with this skirt that features a faux-leather waistband and a vibrant design of a galaxy.

Find It: ModCloth

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There are plenty of interesting lamps to illuminate your workspace—but why not opt for one that will inspire you to obliterate your work? This new Death Star lamp from ThinkGeek has arrived just in time for the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The officially licensed gadget uses the ominous space station’s shape for the base, with a blueprint-style pattern for the shade design.

With a push of the superlaser, users can turn on the top of the lamp; with a second push, they can make the base glow; a third push turns off the top light and leaves the base illuminated. All the lights are long-lasting LEDs, which cannot be replaced by the customer. That said, the LED lights are meant to last 60,000 hours—roughly seven years of continual operation. You can get your own for $50 here.

[h/t io9]

Erik Sass is covering the events of the war exactly 100 years after they happened. This is the 258th installment in the series.

November 21, 1916: Franz Josef Dies 

Already 84 years old when he made the critical decision that ignited the First World War, Austria-Hungary’s iconic dynast Franz Josef lived long enough to witness the nightmare unleashed by his desperate gamble – but not the final collapse of his empire, nor the strange new world that arose from the ashes. 

On November 21, 1916, several days after contracting pneumonia on a walk around the palace grounds, the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary died at the age of 86, having ruled his subjects for a remarkable 68 years, making him one of the longest reigning monarchs in history. His successor, his young, liberal-leaning nephew Karl, until recently the commander of an army on the Eastern Front, inherited a system in collapse (below, the royal family at Franz Josef’s funeral on November 30, 1916):

Indeed, Franz Josef’s entire life could be viewed as a chronicle of the long, gradual decay of Europe’s old aristocratic order, punctuated by disasters and sudden bursts of frenetic activity – brief and only partially successful attempts at reform. 

Franz Josef ascended to the throne unexpectedly as liberal revolutions swept Europe in 1848, threatening the very existence of the monarchy and its multiethnic dynastic holdings. After his uncle and predecessor Ferdinand I abdicated to appease the revolutionaries, Franz Josef’s father Franz Karl also renounced the throne, leaving the task of reuniting the divided and rebellious empire to his 18-year-old son. 

This the new emperor did with typical caution, reflecting both his youth and generally moderate character – but as a profoundly conservative aristocrat he also showed a steely determination to uphold the old feudal order, as well as a willingness to use force if he judged it necessary. 

After agreeing to the constitution demanded by liberal revolutionaries in 1849, restoring his power base in Austria, Franz Josef crushed a nationalist rising in Hungary by inviting Tsar Nicholas I to send 200,000 Russian troops into the rebellious kingdom – one of the high watermarks of the Concert of Europe, the reactionary diplomatic system created by Metternich to prop up the continent’s old dynasties following the upheavals of the French Revolution and Napoleon. 

Following the defeat of the Hungarian revolution, however, Franz Josef was willing (as he would show himself many times in the decades to come) to compromise in order to preserve the core institution of the monarchy amid the earth-shaking developments resulting from the spread of nationalism across Europe. 

In 1859 Austria lost the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia to the new-forming nation of Italy, causing a long-standing grudge, which their membership in the Triple Alliance did nothing to allay (ironically Franz Josef’s ill-fated heir, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, though the empire would go to war with Italy before Serbia). 

But no event was more fateful for Austria-Hungary, or Europe, than the creation of a new German state by Prussia led by chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who united the independent German kingdoms by force under Prussian rule with a series of short wars, successfully overcoming opposition by Austria and the German Confederation in 1866, and France in 1870-1. Austria’s stinging defeat damaged Vienna’s prestige and stirred up a new Hungarian national movement by the aristocratic Magyars; with the compromise of 1867, Franz Josef conceded the Hungarians their own constitution, giving rise to the unusual Dual Monarchy that would unite the “kaiserlich und königlich” (Imperial and royal) realms of Austria-Hungary somewhat awkwardly for the rest of its existence.

With the rise of Germany as a leading industrial power in the remaining years of the century, Austria transitioned from defeated foe to junior partner in central Europe – a diplomatic demotion which Franz Josef accepted graciously enough, although he found Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II rude and overbearing. Personal tragedy struck in 1889 with the suicide of Franz Josef’s son and heir Rudolf, who killed himself in a suicide pact with his mistress Mary Vetsera, leaving the crown (unexpectedly, again) to the emperor’s nephew Franz Ferdinand. 

But the emperor never deviated from the basic, aristocratic views that he inherited along with his feudal realm – among them the principle of “hausmacht,” or the power of the noble house. This expressed itself in opportunistic attempts to aggrandize the power of the Habsburgs by acquiring new territorial holdings, just as an ambitious medieval monarch might in the days of the Holy Roman Empire. 

This ancient impulse was ill suited to the modern era, and became dangerous with the surging power of national ideologies requiring resistance to “foreign” rule, even by a well-intended dynasty. This was the bitter fruit of Franz Josef’s ill-advised decision to formally annex Bosnia-Herzegovina, formerly a province of the declining Ottoman Empire, in 1908.

In addition to sparking a general diplomatic crisis, the annexation of Bosnia embroiled Austria-Hungary in a messy, unwanted confrontation with the neighboring small Slavic kingdom of Serbia, and with it its great Slavic patron, Russia. The confrontation between the Dual Monarchy and Serbia escalated with Serbia’s success in the First and Second Balkan Wars, threatening to cause a general European war. The situation was temporarily defused by the Conference of London, which agreed on the creation of a new nation, Albania, to prevent further Serbian expansion in 1912.   

However Franz Josef’s advisors, including chief of the general staff Conrad von Hotzendorf and foreign minister Count Berchtold, were convinced that Serbia remained committed to undermining the empire in its nationalist quest to free the Serbs of Bosnia (some Serbs, led by the intelligence officer Apis, certainly were). The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand provided a convenient excuse to finally crush Serbia and dispense with the threat of Slavic nationalism once and for all – but they were unable to avoid war with Russia, resulting in disaster. 

In the two years following the outbreak of war, Franz Josef found himself largely an onlooker to the empire’s repeated military defeats (and later successes under German control). His refusal to give up traditional Habsburg territories in the Trentino and Trieste provoked Italy to join the war against the empire in 1915. By the same token, there was little he could do to stave off German moves to dominate Eastern Europe economically and diplomatically, giving Austria-Hungary’s inferior position. Chaos was also clearly beginning to rend the old society: on October 21, 1916 the Austrian premier Karl von Stürgkh was assassinated by the socialist revolutionary Friedrich Adler. But at least he lived to see Romania, another erstwhile ally, brought to book.

German victories were hardly much consolation for the people of the fragmenting empire he left behind. On one hand there was still the popular image of a familiar, avuncular figure, who had endured the heartbreaking loss of his child, and could until recently still be seen taking stately walks with his companion Katharina Schratt. On the other was the knowledge that this elderly man had set in motion events that caused the conflagration consuming Europe – and then stood back, a passive bystander to what followed. 

In Karl Kraus’ satirical play “The Last Days of Mankind”, when told that the emperor has died, the character “the Grumbler” responds: “How do you know?” Later the same character opines: “Just for reasons of prestige, this monarchy should have committed suicide long ago.” Asked to evaluate the emperor’s 70-year-reign, he unleashes a tirade against the years in question: 

They are a nightmare of an evil spirit which, in return for extracting all our life juices, and then our life and property also, let us have as a happy gift the opportunity to become completely idiotic by worshiping an emperor’s beard as an idol. Never before in world history has a stronger non-personality impressed his stamp on all things and forms. A demon of mediocrity has determined our fate. Only he insisted on Austria’s right to trouble the world with our murderous nationality brawls, a right grounded in the God-ordained bureaucratic muddle under the Hapsburg scepter, the mission of which, it appears, has been to hover above world peace like Damocles’ sword. 

Later the Grumbler adds: 

I would also like to believe that it is more pleasing to God to show veneration for the majesty of death at the graves of ten millions youths and men, and hundreds of thousands of women and infants who had to die of hunger, than to bow down before that one casket in the Capuchins’ Crypt, that very casket that entombs the old man who considered everything carefully and, with a single scratch of the pen, brought it all about. 

Unsurprisingly, news of Franz Josef’s death didn’t elicit a great outpouring of sympathy from Austria-Hungary’s enemies in the great struggle now unfolding. Mildred Aldrich, an American woman living in the countryside near Paris, wrote in a letter home on November 25, 1916, touching on Franz Josef’s death briefly: 

In the meantime I am sorry that Franz Josef did not live to see this war of his out and take his punishment. I used to be so sorry for him in the old days, when it seemed as if Fate showered disasters on the heads of the Hapsburgs. I wasted my pity. The blows killed everyone in the family but father. The way he stood it and never learned to be kind or wise proved how little he needed pity. 

See the previous installment or all entries.

Everyone has feelings about glitter. Unicorns bathe in the stuff. Six year olds dream about it. It’s essential to Pride parades, a weapon of social disruption and foremost in a pop star’s make-up arsenal. It’s also the stuff of cleaning nightmares. But where does glitter come from? Why does it exist? And how in the name of all that is good can you get it off the upholstery?

1. WHY ARE HUMANS SO ATTRACTED TO GLITTER?

Culturally, of course, we love shiny things, perhaps because they are associated with wealth and status: flashy cars, blinged out accessories, even solid gold toilets. But the roots of our attraction to All Things Sparkly goes deeper. Anthropologists have noted that many hunter-gatherer tribes equated shiny things with spiritual powers. Prehistoric man also had a habit of polishing his bone tools. But it seems to be more than just an “ooh, pretty,” phenomenon. Babies, after all, can’t tell a diamond-coated Rolex from a Timex, but new research shows that kids favor putting shiny objects into their mouths over matte materials. And it turns out, there’s an evolutionary reason for that.

According to researchers from the University of Houston and Ghent University in Belgium, our impulse for shiny things comes from an instinct to seek out water. The theory is that our need to stay hydrated has kept mankind on the lookout for shimmering rivers and streams. And thanks to natural selection, that’s left us with an innate preference for things that sparkle. 

2. HOW DID OUR ANCESTORS GET THEIR GLITTER ON?

For those who couldn’t get their mitts on gold, silver, or precious jewels, mica has been a saving grace. These naturally occurring sheets of silicate-forming minerals have been used to bedazzle objects ever since the Paleolithic era. Mayans, for example, chipped and mixed the stuff into pigments and slapped it onto 6th-century temples. Even today, you can find mica in luster paints. 

But mica was hardly the only option. Pyrite was used in Paleolithic cave paintings to produce a muted shimmer. Ancient Egyptians slipped ground green malachite, a copper carbonate with an iridescent effect, into their cosmetics, and there was also galena, a silvery mineral used in early eyeliners. 

By the 19th century, however, glitter was most often made from powdered or ground glass. It came in any color that glass came in and was often marketed under the name “diamantine.” As an 1896 article syndicated from The New York Sun explained, the ornamental effect was achieved by coating fabric in glue and rolling it in glass powder. Which sounds somewhat glamorous, but more dangerous. 

3. WHO INVENTED GLITTER?

Glitter as we know it today wasn’t invented until 1934. According to glitter lore, New Jersey machinist Henry Ruschmann accidentally invented the stuff after he took a load of scrap metals and plastics and ground it up very fine. Some reports claim that his invention took off during World War II, when American access to Germany’s glittering diamantine was cut off. While the origin story is murky, Ruschmann is a strong candidate: He did file for four separate patents for inventions related to cutting up strips of foil or film. And though he died in 1989, his company Meadowbrook Inventions is still in the glitter business today, peddling more than 20,000 different kinds of glitter. 

4. WHY DID THE MILITARY EXPERIMENT WITH GLITTER?

While cosmetics and crafts seemed to be the obvious uses, inventors also dabbled with the sparkling substance. The U.S. Air Force briefly tried spraying what amounted to glitter—they called it “chaff”—from the back of warplanes. The idea was to create a cloud of false echoes to throw off enemy radar, making it virtually impossible for the enemy to determine the real target from a fake. The UK also used something similar in “Operation Window,” where planes released strips of aluminum-coated paper at timed intervals, swamping German radar screens with false signals. But the armed forces aren’t the only group to take advantage of glitter’s shimmering qualities: A significant number of glitter patents have also been filed for fishing lures. Fish, like humans, like shiny things.

5. HOW IS GLITTER MADE?

The making of glitter is fairly banal. Color is applied to a copolymer sheet, then a layer of reflective material, such as aluminum foil, is placed on top of that. Then, the now-fused film is run through a rotary cutter—“a combination of a paper shredder and a wood chipper,” according to a glitter maker on a Reddit thread—resulting in precision-cut pieces of uniform size. That size varies according to the need of the customer; Meadowbrook offers a teeny, tiny, microscopic .002-inch-by-.002-inch glitter, typically used in cosmetics or aerosol sprays. And while the shapes are most often hexagonal, they can be nearly anything you want: square, butterfly, stars, hearts. How much glitter these machines can produce in an hour is dependent on size, shape, and yield.

6. HOW CAN YOU CLEAN UP AFTER A GLITTER SPILL?

You can’t. Glitter sticks to stuff because of the static electricity generated between its small particles of metal or plastic and virtually every surface known to man or beast. Getting it off is often an exercise in futility and frustration. But if moving away isn’t an option, Real Simple says all is not lost. For tiled or hardwood floors, you can aggressively vacuum up drifts with the crevice attachment. For fabric surfaces, such as couches and other upholstery, a lint roller works best. Meanwhile, you can use a rubber-gloved hand to loosen glitter stuck in carpet and then attack with the vacuum’s upholstery brush. For your keyboard, try loosening the glitter with a shot of compressed air. Just be prepared: This is a war you will not win. There will always be a bit of sparkle somewhere.

7. WHAT IF THE GLITTER IS STUCK TO YOU?

If the glitter is on your person, you can unstick it with oil on a cotton ball. Beyonce’s make-up artist, who has coated the flawless star in craft glitter at least twice, says Scotch tape is another great way to remove it (although she still spots the lingering glitter in her make-up kit). 

If you’ve ever used glitter nail polish, you’re probably aware that it requires a chisel to remove. Pro-tip, via Glamour: You can use either a cotton ball soaked in acetone and secured around your fingertips with aluminum foil for as long as it takes to remove the stuff, or try a felt pad soaked in nail polish remover; evidently, the felt is rougher and more durable than just regular cotton. 

8. DOES GLITTER EVER REALLY GO AWAY?

No. And that’s a problem for the environment. 

Remember in 2014, when microbeads, those tiny, supposedly exfoliating beads that come in face washes, came under fire? The beads, made of plastic, are too small to be filtered out by water treatment plants, so they end up in lakes and rivers where they are eaten by unsuspecting fish. Eventually, environmentalists called for bans and several companies stopped using them. Glitter is similar. When it ends up in waterways and oceanic environments, it’s often mistaken for prey by marine life and ingested.

But since people still want sparkle, companies are working on ways to satisfy that need without harming the environment. Ronald Britton, a UK-based glitter manufacturer, has come up with Bio-Glitter, a certified compostable, biodegradable glitter that won’t clog waterways or harm marine life. Manufacturers on the consumption end, such as distinctively-scented soaps company Lush, have started using biodegradable glitter made from synthetic mica in their bath products. And if you’re feeling a bit uncomfortable about all the fish your glitter habit has probably murdered, rest easy knowing that going forward, you can make your own non-toxic, animal-safe glitter using food coloring and salt.  

9. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU EAT GLITTER?

Though eating glitter is ill-advised, most commercially available glitter is non-toxic and won’t hurt you in small amounts. Or, and this is rather more likely, it won’t hurt the small child in your care who has been gleefully shoveling orange glitter into his mouth. The major exception is glass glitter, which is used by hardcore crafters for a vintage sparkle and would be very bad if consumed; if you’ve swallowed glass glitter, go directly to the hospital. 

There is glitter that you are allowed to eat, but this glitter comes with its own warnings and can be confusing. Some shops sell “edible glitter,” which is typically made from colored sugar or gum arabic. There’s also glitter that can touch food but isn’t meant to be eaten. And you can find glitter that’s only intended to be on removable decorations (think princess cake toppers). Just make sure you read the labels, or you know—sparkle poo. 

10. WHY IS GLITTER SO GOOD AT SOLVING MURDER TRIALS?

Forensic pathologists love the stuff. They’ve been mounting a case for glitter’s usefulness since 1987, explaining that glitter’s steadfast adherence to persons and clothing make it “near perfect” as trace evidence. In fact, it’s been a star witness in several court cases. In 1987, for example, a Fairbanks, Alaska man, Michael Alexander, was convicted of the abduction and murder of 15-year-old Kathy Stockholm after glitter found on her body was linked to glitter found in his car and homes. 

11. HOW MUCH GLITTER DO WE ACTUALLY USE?

It’s difficult to say. Wikipedia claims that between 1989 and 2009, more than 10 million pounds of glitter were purchased, but at first blush, this fact seems suspicious. Since individual companies are hesitant to release sales and output figures, we’re left with anecdote and extrapolation: The Toronto Santa Claus Parade used nearly 155 pounds of glitter in 2011. If 200 cities and towns each bought that much for their celebrations, that would be around 31,000 pounds for one holiday event alone.

So given that, and coupled with the fact that, according to Vanity Fair, pop star Ke$ha spends thousands of dollars a month on glitter alone, 10 million pounds may be a fair estimate.

12. CAN YOU GET ARRESTED FOR GLITTER BOMBING?

Well, yes. Glitter bombing first became a thing in 2011, when Nick Espinosa, a gay rights activist, dumped a Cheez-Its box full of glitter all over erstwhile presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and his wife. “Feel the rainbow, Newt!” he shouted, as multicolored sparkles enveloped Gingrich’s head. From then on, it was open season on what was billed as a non-violent yet effective form of protest: Most targets were conservatives, and most bombers were gay or women’s rights activists. But while glitter-bombing is more annoying than it is threatening, authorities took a dim view of the protest: In 2012, a Denver college student who tried to nail Mitt Romney with a fistful of blue glitter pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace; he only narrowly avoided being charged with a more serious crime of throwing a missile. And naturally, the people who were glittered were fuming: Mike Huckabee demanded glitter-bombers be arrested while Gingrich called his glitter-bombing “assault.”

Though “assault” seems a bit harsh, is glitter-bombing safe? Every year around the holidays, ophthalmologists warn that glitter can get into the eye and scratch the cornea; it’s also not terribly pleasant to inhale glitter.

13. WHAT ABOUT GLITTER AS A PRANK?

Clearly, there’s a market for glitter pranks. In January 2015, Matthew Carpenter, an Australian 20-something, started a website called Ship Your Enemies Glitter, which soon garnered headlines across the globe. After orders poured in and he found he couldn’t keep up with demand, Carpenter sold the business for about 85,000 Australian dollars. But glitterbugs can go overboard, too. In October of this year, an Akron, Ohio woman was found guilty of fifth-degree felony vandalism after she glitter-bombed her former supervisor’s office. When Samantha Lockhart, 25, resigned from her job at the Summit County Fiscal Office in January 2015, she spent her last day “decorating” her boss’s office with toilet paper, silly string, and fistfuls of multi-colored glitter. The glitter, which piled up in sparkly drifts about the office like evil festive snow, damaged office computers. She was recently sentenced to 18 months probation and a fine of $1000.

14. WHY ISN’T GLITTER ALLOWED IN JAIL?

In recent years, prison authorities have seen an uptick in people smuggling drugs, particularly Suboxone, into prison using glitter glue and crayons. How? Suboxone, which is used to treat the symptoms of withdrawal from opiate addiction but is also a powerful drug, can be made into a paste. That paste is then applied to paper, dried, and covered with something bright and distracting like crayon scribbles or glitter glue. Inmates lick the drug right off the page. Today, any letters containing glitter glue or crayon markings are immediately pulled out and destroyed (which seems terribly sad, given that crayon and glitter are the preferred mediums of small children).

15. HOW DID BODY GLITTER BECOME A THING?

Though glitter had been around for ages, you couldn’t really get away with wearing it out in public until the late ‘60s. Mod culture, Iggy Pop—who used to coat his body with peanut butter on stage before discovering glitter was better—David Bowie’s surreal turn as Ziggy Stardust, disco, and glam-rock all helped the stuff go mainstream. Sparkle, whether on shoes or eyelids, was in.

By 1984, Clairol had noticed. The company filed for a patent for glitter hair mousse—specifically, the “process for imparting temporary high fashion ‘glitter’ to hair”—and though this wasn’t the first or only way to apply glitter to your head, the game was changed. By the 1990s, body glitter was being sold at fine tweenager emporiums everywhere. (This patent, filed in 1997, is not the first for body glitter, but it does have this fantastic drawing to accompany it.) Glitter fever died down by the end of the decade. Or, at least, teenagers were no longer bathing in it before a night out. But that doesn’t mean that our love affair with glitter in all its sparkly forms is over: after all, we’re hardwired to love a bit of shimmer.

Anyone who has ever seen Cartoon Network’s surreal hit show Adventure Time knows that the Land of Ooo is a pretty delicious place. From bacon pancakes to candy townspeople, the show is a smorgasbord for the eyes. Now fans can get a taste of what they’ve been watching on television with Adventure Time: The Official Cookbook.

According to the product description, the book was discovered by Finn in the Founders’ Island Library. The old cookbook was filled with strange recipes for things like “lasagna” and “boiled eggs.” Many of the pages were lost, so Finn, along with Jake, Marceline, Princess Bubblegum, and the other citizens of Ooo, came together to create an extensive collection of fun recipes.

Whimsical cooks can make things like Prince Gumball’s pink and fluffy cream puffs, Jake’s everything burrito, and whatever apple-related baked good Tree Trunks has for us. The 112-page book has over 45 recipes, which are all separated by meal or course. The cookbook is available for presale on Amazon for $30 and will ship November 29. Now every meal can feel like it’s been prepared the best chefs in the Candy Kingdom.

Sylvester Stallone wasn’t born a leading man. Complications at birth left the son of a hairdresser with nerve damage that slurred his speech and curled his lips into a permanent snarl. His childhood wasn’t easy. His parents fought constantly, and he and his brother slipped in and out of foster care. By high school, they’d moved back in with their mother in Philadelphia, but Stallone’s emotional problems followed him. He struggled academically and was expelled from multiple schools. The arts became his refuge. He spent his free time painting and writing poetry, but his real dream was the silver screen. By the time he was 18, he knew he wanted to act.

Stallone studied drama at the American College of Switzerland and then at the University of Miami, but then abandoned school to pursue a career in New York City. By his mid-twenties, he was getting by on odd jobs like cleaning lion cages and ushering at movie theaters. The bit parts he did manage to land were few and far between. Once, when funds were short, he took a role in an adult film to keep from living in a bus station. When Stallone landed bigger parts, it was because his drooping, stone-chiseled face made him the perfect heavy (Subway Thug No. 1. wasn’t an uncommon credit). By 1975, the 29-year-old actor was desperate for something bigger, so his agent sent him to the L.A. offices of Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, two producers who had a standing deal with United Artists.

The meeting didn’t go as planned. When Winkler and Chartoff met Stallone, they didn’t see a movie star. Dejected, Stallone had his hand on the doorknob when he turned and made one last pitch. “You know,” he said, “I also write.”

The script Stallone turned in was an underdog tale, the story of Rocky, a streetwise palooka who gets an unlikely opportunity to fight the heavyweight champion of the world. But the story of how the film itself got made is even more improbable.

Earlier that same year, a boxer named Chuck Wepner had silenced the world. Pitted 40:1 against the heavily favored Muhammad Ali, Wepner landed a blow that knocked Ali down. Though Ali ultimately knocked out Wepner in the 15th round, Stallone was riveted by those moments in which it seemed like Wepner stood a chance. When he sat down to write a screenplay, it took him just three days to dash it off.

Stallone centered his story around Rocky Balboa, a club boxer plucked from obscurity and eager to go the distance. But Rocky would have the odds stacked against him. Even his trainer, a salty old cynic named Mickey, would write him off—until a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fight against brash champion (and Ali stand-in) Apollo Creed arises.

To ground his story, Stallone drummed up a love interest for Rocky: Adrian, a shy pet store employee. The unlikely romance allowed the film to become as much a character study as a genre slugfest. But when Stallone’s wife, Sasha, read an early draft, she pushed him to sand down his hero’s rough edges even more. In the rewrites, Rocky, who had started out as a violent thug, emerged as a gentle and deceptively wise soul who, in the actor’s words, “was good-natured, even though nature had never been good to him.”

Impressed by the story’s heart, Winkler and Chartoff agreed to produce the film with United Artists, which gave them creative freedom for any picture budgeted under $1.5 million. But the studio balked. A boxing picture and all its trappings—extras, location, and arena shooting—just couldn’t be made for so little money. And with a nobody in the lead role, the flick seemed doomed to box office failure. Chartoff and Winkler countered by offering to make the movie for less than a million, promising to cover any overages out of pocket, and the producers sent the studio a print of Stallone’s recent independent film, The Lords of Flatbush, to seal the deal. With no one in the screening room to recognize him, the executives assumed handsome costar Perry King was the young nobody who had written the script.

Fine, they said. Go make your boxing movie.

The small budget meant that the production team had to get creative. Interiors were shot in L.A., since a full 28-day shoot in Philadelphia was too pricey. Instead, the team spent less than a week on location, quietly shooting exteriors using a nonunion crew. Driving around in a nondescript van, director John Avildsen would spot an interesting locale—a portside ship, a food market—and usher Stallone out to jog, sometimes for miles, while he rolled film. It wasn’t long before the actor gave up smoking.

The slim budget was evident everywhere. Stallone’s wardrobe was plucked from his own closet. His wife worked as the set photographer. But it was more than that— the movie’s finances also meant that the director had to be choosy about how many shots to film. A crucial scene where Rocky confesses his fears about the fight to Adrian (played by Talia Shire) was almost cut before Stallone begged the producers to give him just one take. The scene became the film’s emotional spine.

When the director proposed shooting a date between Rocky and Adrian at an ice rink, the producers laughed. A rink full of extras, combined with the costs of filming all the takes, seemed risky. But when Stallone convinced them of the scene’s worth, they wrote around it. In the movie, Rocky pays off a manager to let the duo skate in an empty rink. The result was easier to shoot and made for a beautiful metaphor: a clumsy dance between two misfits, each holding the other up.

But improvisation wasn’t always an option. For Rocky’s climactic bout with Creed, Stallone and actor Carl Weathers rehearsed five hours a day for a week. Though both were incredible physical specimens, neither had ever boxed and their earliest attempts were exhausting. (Ironically, only Burt Young, cast as Rocky’s sad-sack pal Paulie, had any actual ring experience: He was 14–0 as a pro.) When the director saw their first sparring efforts, he told Stallone to go home and write out the beats. Stallone returned with 14 pages of lefts, rights, counters, and hooks, all delivered using camera-friendly gloves too small to be legal in a real prizefight. As they practiced, Avildsen circled them with an 8mm camera, recording them to point out their weaknesses. He even zoomed in on Stallone’s waistline to remind him he needed to shape up.

Studying all that footage paid off. The fight was shot in front of 4,000 restless extras, corralled with the promise of a free chicken dinner. In the original ending, Rocky walks off with Adrian backstage. But composer Bill Conti’s score was so soaring that the director decided to reshoot the finale, despite having run out of funds. The producers paid for the overage themselves, allowing for the unforgettable final scene: Rocky in the ring, with Adrian fighting through the crowd to reach him, her hat pulled off by a crew member using fishing wire. The image freezes with Rocky embracing her— stopping at what Stallone later called the pinnacle of Rocky’s life. It was the perfect crescendo to an emotional journey—not only for Rocky, but for his alter ego.

The parallels between the actor’s story and Rocky’s were not lost on United Artists’ marketing strategist, Gabe Sumner. A clever publicist, Sumner knew he had quite the task in front of him: selling an old-fashioned boxing movie starring a nobody. Rocky’s competition at the box office didn’t make it any easier. Late 1976 was filled with blockbusters, and Stallone’s hero had to battle with King Kong, a new Dirty Harry sequel, and Carrie for ticket sales.

To compete, Sumner turned up the volume on Stallone’s shaggy-dog story. He sold the narrative about Stallone, a self-made actor-writer who had scraped and clawed his way to the top, as irresistibly American. And he bent the facts a little, too. In Sumner’s version, studio execs offered Stallone hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the script if they could cast a bankable movie star in the role. The impoverished actor, despite having a pregnant wife and just $106 in the bank, stood his ground. He hitchhiked to auditions. He had to sell his dog. But Stallone wasn’t a sellout, and this was his one chance to break through. The truth, Sumner later admitted, was that the studio had never met Stallone. None of it mattered, though—this was Madison Avenue mythmaking at its best.

The marketing strategy struck a chord. The actor’s tale so perfectly mirrored his onscreen role that the film received significant attention from both the media and audiences. And as word of mouth spread, Rocky became the highest-grossing picture of 1976, earning more than $117 million at the box office (the average ticket price at the time was just over $2). Audiences were equally captivated by the soundtrack. “Gonna Fly Now,” Conti’s trumpet-heavy theme, which accompanied Rocky’s training montage, moved more than 500,000 units.

Though some critics, including The New York Times’ reviewer, panned the flick for its sentimentality, most media embraced it. “Rocky KOs Hollywood,” crowed a Newsweek cover. The Academy agreed. At the 1977 Academy Awards, Rocky became the first sports film to win Best Picture, beating out heavy hitters Network, All the President’s Men, and Taxi Driver. Frank Capra and Charlie Chaplin wrote Stallone congratulatory letters. He became a bona fide movie star, anointed by two Hollywood legends who had built their careers making heroes of the common man.

Today, Rocky’s boxing trunks hang in the Smithsonian. Wedding ceremonies have been held at his statue near Philadelphia’s Museum of Art. Fans still run up the adjacent steps, mimicking his sprint to glory. As for Stallone, he was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011, making him the only actor ever to receive the honor. In his vision of a gentle slugger searching for an opportunity to shine despite the longest odds, Stallone crafted a story that continues to resonate with millions of moviegoers: It’s the American dream played out at 24 frames per second.

When Sumner’s publicity exaggerations were discovered in 2006, few seemed to care. Perhaps that’s because as a character, Rocky did more than go toe-to-toe with Apollo Creed. At a time when Taxi Driver’s sociopathic antihero Travis Bickle preyed on audience fears and Network played to the bleak pessimism of a struggling nation, Rocky reminded the country what it means to hope. As Sylvester Stallone once said, “If I say it, you won’t believe it. But when Rocky said it, it was the truth.”