3 Things: Rachel Klein, Norm Macdonald, and Arthur Miller / by Chris Duffy

Hi friends,

It's Saturday! Every week, I send out an email with one thing I think is great, one thing that made me laugh, and one thing I found interesting. Feel free to spread the word and share these emails with friends. If you're checking this out for the first time, you can sign up to get these emails here.

 Live shows

NEW YORK:
It's a week full of comedy festivals here in NYC! You can catch me at two of them: 

Tomorrow, Sunday, August 21 at 8 p.m at Brooklyn's Shea Stadium. I'll be telling jokes at the Macaulay Culkin Summer Comedy Festival along with a lineup of the very best and most insane in NYC comedy right now. Only $5 for the whole thing and includes an ice cream sandwich. Link

Wednesday, August 24 at 7:00 p.m. at The Annoyance Theater. The Sensible Show is part of this year's Brooklyn Comedy Festival. My co-hosts have taken the reins for the last few weeks, so I'm really excited to be back performing and also to watch Josh Gondelman, Brooke van Poppelen, Myq Kaplan, Adam Mamawala, Hadiyah Robinson, and special guests. Link


You can also find my full up-to-date show schedule online here.

 This week's list

1 Thing I Think Is Great:


Rachel Klein wrote this jaw-droppingly beautiful piece about raising her teenage child who is navigating gender identity. It's the kind of nuanced and powerful piece I wish we had more of these days. Also, Rachel is just an incredible writer and comedian. She brings that openness and vulnerability to writing about her own struggles as a parent. Everyone should read this. Rachel Klein: Their Body, Themselves
 

1 Thing That Made Me Laugh:


Norm Macdonald is one of the greatest standup comedians of all time. He also appears to be a very strange human being. That makes sense. This profile for the Washington Post by Geoff Edgers is a little too fawning for my taste (we get it, Geoff, you think Norm's the best), but the bonus features are hysterical. The Post printed Norm's text messages in full and also included two hilarious never-before-seen sketches from an unaired pilot calledNorm Macdonald is Trending. I couldn't stop laughing at the sketch about Norm putting on an invisibility cloak. It's so dumb but also perfect. Will Somebody Please Give Norm Macdonald Another TV Show?


1 Interesting Thing:


If there's one conversation topic that's come up every day this summer, it's the heat. But this incredible New Yorker piece by Arthur Miller puts all my sweating in perspective. It's a reminiscence of the days before air conditioning. "People on West 110th Street, where I lived, were a little too bourgeois to sit out on their fire escapes, but around the corner on 111th and farther uptown, mattresses were put out as night fell, and whole families lay on those iron balconies in their underwear." Arthur Miller: Before Air Conditioning (h/t Hannah Fenlon)


Ok, thanks for reading this! Feel free to find more details on shows and my full schedule online at www.chrisduffycomedy.com/calendar/

Have a great weekend,
Chris