Happy Saturday! Every week, I send out an email with my upcoming shows, one thing I think is great, one thing that made me laugh, and one thing I found interesting.
Upcoming Shows
EVERYWHERE:
On this week's episode of You're the Expert, it's the second and final installment of our mini-series with paleontologist Dr. Mike D'Emic. I spent a week in Montana/Wyoming digging up an entirely new species of dinosaur with Mike and his team and you can hear it all. Link
Officially, the book comes out in January but "No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work" written by my wife Mollie and illustrator Liz Fosslien is available for pre-order now! Link
SEATTLE:
Thursday, December 27th at 7:30 p.m. at The Annex Theatre. Mark your calendars! Riley Mulherkar (of The Westerlies) and I are going to be in town for the holidays and we're putting on a night of music and comedy for you. This show always sells out fast, so I'm telling you now even though tickets won't be on sale for another week or two.
As always, you can find my schedule with all upcoming dates online here.
This week’s list
GREAT:
Emmy the Great is... great. I loved this story she reported for the BBC. She tries to track down one of her first musical loves, a clapping game from the elementary school playground. Along the way, she discovers how children's games (and songs like "Yankee Doodle Dandy") have crossed oceans and cultures and languages just by kids playing with each other. I thought the story of the first clapping game to reach Iceland and the explanation of the connection between tempo and heart rate were particularly fascinating. A Sailor Went To Sea Sea Sea with Emmy The Great
FUNNY:
Standup comedians rely on a shared cultural context with their audience. And all jokes rely on a mastery of language's nuances. But Daniel Simonsen has almost none of the same touchstones as Americans and his first language is Norwegian. Which makes his standup so extraordinary. The first time I saw him, just after he'd moved from Norway, we were both on a show in a dark club basement. It was not what I would call "a good show." But Daniel crushed. I couldn't stop laughing at his stories about the most famous comedian in Norway and why seeing that man's terrible act meant that Daniel had to leave the country. This week, Daniel made his US late night TV debut, so he's well on his way to becoming Norway's top comedian himself. You have to watch this set. It's so funny. Daniel Simonsen on Seth Meyers
INTERESTING:
E. Tammy Kim is a writer and journalist who has reported stories for The New Yorker, NYT Magazine, and The Nation. She was previously a lawyer for low-wage workers and an adjunct professor. Tammy's stories are always vividly written but also tend to look deeper at what the media takes for granted. Her most recent piece is an incredibly important analysis of the prospects for peace with North Korea. It's a reminder that having a knee-jerk opposition to anything and everything that Trump does can be just as dangerous as not opposing him at all. The current US media narrative that North Korea has deceived Trump and peace is impossible is a very dangerous story that we should all push back against before it leads us into an armed confrontation. Tammy lays out the difference between the facts on the ground and the media coverage here: Covering the Koreas (And here's a shorter, related critique of a recent inaccurate NYT report about North Korean nukes.)
Thanks for reading! If you like these emails, please forward to a friend or come say hi at a live show. If you're reading this for the first time (maybe someone forwarded you this email?), you can subscribe here.
Stay warm!
Chris