READ
Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
By Stuart Brown
Amazon.com

A husband flipping a paper football through a wishbone after dinner or a wife playing dress-up with the dog may not be encouraging as much stupidity as you might think at first. In Play, author Stuart Brown analyzes the science of play, and its essential role in fueling intelligence and happiness throughout life. Brown shows that play is anything but trivial—it is a biological drive as integral to health as sleep or nutrition.

Play stimulates intelligence through creative thinking that brings innovation to several parts of life—one’s career, friendships and, hey, your sex life. Yay! Another argument in favor of foreplay!

WATCH
My Boys
Jordana Spiro, Jim Gaffigan, Reid Scott, Jamie Kaler, Michael Bunin, Kyle Howard, Kellee Stewart
www.tbs.com/myboys

Whether you’ve been waiting since this last summer to watch it or you've just decided to join the party, rejoice! Season three of My Boys starts Tuesday night at 10:30.

Centered on every guy’s best girl, Chicago sports reporter P.J. Harvey, My Boys dwells humorously on what both romantic and platonic relationships between opposite sexes can become. Sure, it’s not like there haven’t been shows like Friends that explore this theme, but the way P.J. partially narrates the show (not in an over-the-top Wonder Years way) makes the analysis of these relationships more explicit. When the show started, P.J.’s narration was a bit heavy on the baseball metaphors. The show’s writing has matured since then, however, and now heads into the collision of the platonic and romantic opposite-sex friend as Bobby comes to P.J. when he gets cold feet before his wedding.

LISTEN
It’s Blitz
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
www.yeahyeahyeahs.com

When this band first came on the scene with Maps, which they performed at the MTV Music Awards in 2004 in the middle of what seemed to be an opium-induced buzz as poppies fell onto the stage, I didn’t think they’d be around very long.

But as I’ve listened to albums Fever to Tell, Show Your Bones, the IS IS EP and It’s Blitz, it’s obvious: This band doesn’t make bad albums and obviously has the power to stay in the music scene as long as they want. It’s Blitz delivers the band’s always winning combination of both wild, catchy songs you’ll risk blowing your speakers out to—"Dull Life," "Heads Will Roll," "Shame and Fortune"—and slow, seductive songs that strangely lure you back with the same catchiness. This is the case with "Little Shadow," "Soft Shock," and "Runaway." The Deluxe Edition also features acoustic versions of half the songs and in each case the songs are either as good or better than the original.