Ripped from the Headlines: November 2019: This Week In Culture: November 30–December 6, 2019

Fabric is a new horror movie about a killer red dress starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and directed by Peter Strickland. It opens this week, and gives new meaning to the phrase "dressed to kill." Abject is a great word for describing something or someone completely wretched, debased, or despicable. It comes from French, with a root in the Latin abiectus.

Sixers guard Ben Simmons astonished the world by making three consecutive steals at the end of a close game against the Indiana Pacers. The Sixers ended up winning, and after the game Simmons said that they're afraid of losing in front of their Philadelphia fans. A coup, from the French word for a "hit," a "blow," or "overturning" is usually used to describe the overthrow of a government but can also be applied to any amazing success.

So-called "green burials" — which use biodegradable coffins and no chemicals — are gaining popularity despite widespread opposition from the funeral industry and many local governments. Many of the regulations imposed on cemeteries are expensive or contrary to the movement's stated goals of ecological preservation and lowering the carbon footprint of burials.

Though she's only 17, Billie Eilish is not only a talented artist but also effectively CEO of her own corporation, which also employs her parents and her brother. Her newest single has been streamed nearly a billion times on Spotify alone. Epicenter literally means the ground directly above the center of an earthquake; it can also, as in this article, refer to a center of energetic activity.

At 85, Italian mega-designer Giorgio Armani shows no signs of slowing down as the head of his fashion empire, which employs 8,000 people and made over $2 billion last year. He has not yet appointed his successor, though he's clearly giving it a lot of thought. He was awarded the Fashion Award for outstanding achievement at London's Royal Albert Hall.

A young male tiger in India has walked over 800 miles, the longest such trip on record, probably in search of a mate. Researchers are able to track him with a radio collar he's been wearing since last winter, though the battery is running low. He has been eating pigs and cows, and mostly avoiding humans though he did injure one man who surprised him when he was sleeping.

For Giving Tuesday, Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan posted a video for his song Cold Outside. Shot in Seattle, where McKagan is from, it features members of the homeless population in an effort on his part to raise awareness and encourage donations to combat the ongoing problem. Panhandle refers to beggars, holding a pan out for donations from passers-by. It can also describe skinny areas protruding from larger ones, as in Oklahoma, Idaho, or San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Cheating in sports, or in anything for that matter, is nothing new. A book by J. M. Fenster explores the life of Jim Devlin, a talented pitcher who was banned from baseball forever in 1877 for purposely losing games in exchange for payoffs. He died in 1883, dirt poor, at the age of 33. To prevail is to succeed, to win. In the context of "prevailing opinion," or "prevailing wisdom," it means a widely held belief that has won out over other points of view.

Burial — the stage name of influential EDM producer William Bevan, whose thoughts on green burials are unknown — has released a new album after a ten-year hiatus. Famously reclusive and uninterested in celebrity, Burial prefers to let his music speak for itself. Sublime refers to something so perfect and pure that it inspires awe. Sublimity is the state of being this way.

If your cat doesn't take 800-mile walks and you miss it when you're out of the house, a new Kickstarter campaign is raising money for a solution to both problems. Ebo is a robot that entertains your cat while also sending video to your phone and recording data on how much exercise your pet gets, much like a FitBit. A Kittenstarter for a CatBit? You be the judge.