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:
You can listen to You're the Expert, my podcast where three comedians interview a scientist about her work and why it matters. Link
I was in a few online things this week.
- An article in Vulture about the weird art of coming up with a show title
- A tribute to one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver.
-On Jesse Williams instagram, as the meme that just will not die.
My wife Mollie's upcoming book got a great review in the Financial Times! They called it a "lively book" and said it would be "a wise purchase... for anyone who simply wants non-preachy guidance on how to be a more effective (and kinder) colleague at work." No Hard Feelings comes out on February 5th but you can see more and pre-order here: Link
NEW YORK CITY:
Saturday, January 26 at the Brick Theater. I'm improvising with some of NYC's best at Carley Moseley's very fun show Monster Mash, where a chef makes a dish for the audience and then we all do a show inspired by it. Funny and delicious! Link
Tuesday, February 5 at Powerhouse Arena. Come join me in the audience for Mollie and Liz's official book release! They're going to have prizes, a station where you can make your own stress ball, and of course, they'll be reading from their newly published book. It's going to be great and it costs zero dollars. Link
As always, you can find my schedule with all upcoming dates online here.
This week’s list
GREAT:
Haywood Turnipseed Jr. is a great comic with a great name. What's not great is that, as a federal employee, he's already missed one paycheck and is on track to miss a second. While the longest U.S. government shutdown continues without an end in sight, there doesn't seem to be a lot of empathy for the people it's hurting. Comedy is sometimes able to cut through the noise. I hope Haywood's article opens a few eyes. At the very least, it's going to make you laugh. Trump Furloughed Me. Should I Take Up Pole Dancing?
FUNNY:
Mekki Leeper had a fantastic standup set on The Late Late Show last week. He's got lots of great punchlines, a really interesting personal story, and a ton of charm. It's the rare late night set that I watched more than once and truly enjoyed a second time as well. He talks about discovering he's a "weak little nerd," growing up in a Christian-Muslim interfaith house, and why you should never trust an older man using Crest white strips. Mekki Leeper
INTERESTING:
I'm in the middle of Rachel Cusk's novel Outline right now. Her writing is so densely layered that I sometimes have to reread her paragraphs multiple times to make sure I understand what she's saying. But she uses that density to capture a particular sensation or memory so perfectly that I can feel it as though it was my own. The reward is worth the work. And so when I stumbled across her article in the NYT Magazine this weekend, I sat down and made sure I had enough time to really get into it. Her essay is ostensibly about driving, but it's really a combination of personal vignettes, philosophical musings on the subjectivity of experience, sketches of life in rural Britain, and more. It's beautiful. What Driving Can Teach Us About Living
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.
Have a great MLK weekend,
Chris