Happy Saturday!
Every week, I send out an email with my show dates and recommendations of things I think you might enjoy. Last night, my tour with Pop-Up Magazine kicked off with a sold-out show in San Francisco. Pop-Up is an event I admired for years as a fan and audience member so it's really exciting to get to finally be a part of it. This edition features everything from deeply moving stories about migration and prison to musical numbers to my jokes about becoming a meme. If you can make it to a show, I hope you will. It's something special.
Upcoming Shows
Pop-Up Magazine's Escape Issue
Oakland: Saturday, September 21st at the Paramount Theatre
San Diego: Monday, September 23rd at Observatory North Park
Los Angeles: Thursday, September 26th at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel
Vancouver: Saturday, September 28th at the Vogue Theatre
Washington, DC: Monday, October 7th at the Lincoln Theatre
New York: Thursday, October 10th at Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall
Chicago: Saturday, October 12th at the Athenaeum Theatre
Tickets for all shows on sale here
This week’s list:
GREAT:
Yesterday in San Francisco, my friend Clio and I walked down Market Street and joined the Climate Strike. The streets were filled with chanting, music, and handmade signs. What was most impressive was that this huge global event was organized by and composed mostly of kids. We were marching alongside huge groups of teens and elementary school students, all demanding immediate action on climate change. It's inspiring to see them take matters into their own hands and kind of heartbreaking that they have to do it themselves. But as Greta Thunberg says so clearly, "Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope. But I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day." We Need to Act Right Now on Climate Change
(Note: I recognize the irony of going on a tour that requires plane travel and simultaneously demanding climate action. I've been buying carbon offsets, but if you have different and better ideas, I'm very open to hearing them!)
FUNNY:
Ryan Hamilton is a classic standup comedian. He's a master of the form, both in his writing and his crisp delivery. I love watching him tell jokes. His most recent set on The Tonight Show is a good introduction to his work. He covers important topics like falling down and what it's like to look young from far away. Ryan Hamilton
INTERESTING:
Andrew Marantz, a staff writer at The New Yorker, has a new book coming out called Antisocial. For several years, he's been "embedded in two worlds. The first is the world of social-media entrepreneurs, who, acting out of naïveté and reckless ambition, upended all traditional means of receiving and transmitting information. The second is the world of the people he calls 'the gate crashers'—the conspiracists, white supremacists, and nihilist trolls—who have become experts at using social media to advance their corrosive agenda." The book is fascinating and touches on everything from the beginnings of the printing press to the 2016 election. Marantz answers the question of "how the unthinkable becomes thinkable, and then how it becomes reality" but he also insists that it's far from unavoidable. Antisocial: Online Extremists,Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation
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Have a great day,
Chris