3 Things: Julio Torres, Podcast Chatter, and Katie Okamoto

Hey there,

Some housekeeping: Next week, I'm going to be switching this newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack. You don't need to do anything, but if, for some reason, you don't see this email next week, check your spam or promotion tab, or go directly to my Substack site here.

What a week. I hope you are safe and healthy and that we can hold the tragedy and the triumph of this week at the same moment. Georgia elected a Black preacher and a Jewish man as senators. On that same day, white supremacists and neo-nazis attacked the Capitol. There's a common tendency to want to respond with "This is not who we are. This is not what America is." But, as Andrew Marantz writes so eloquently, this is who we are. He's been covering and reporting on the extremists openly advocating for this kind of action on social media for years. 

It's only by acknowledging that white supremacist violence and terrorism is nothing new in America that we can attempt to fix anything. James Baldwin wrote that “not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Or as comedian Ziwe put it on Twitter, "fun fact: the majority of southerners who fought and died during the civil war couldn’t even afford slaves, they were just convinced by white aristocracy that black liberation would negatively effect them if this sounds familiar well then idk girl history has like 9 themes."

Upcoming Shows

How to Be a Better Human - This is a new weekly podcast from TED that I'm hosting. The show launches this Monday (1/11) and our feed is live now wherever you get podcasts. Links here for Apple or Spotify

You're the Expert - You can find all past episodes online or our latest video episode about a remote Canadian lake full of birth control is here.  

Social Media - After a long mental health pause on posting, I'm back on Instagram and my favorite of all social networks, LinkedIn.

This week's list

GREAT:
Julio Torres has the clearest and most distinctive aesthetic of any comedian I know. Los Espookys, the HBO show he co-created and co-stars in with Ana Fabrega, is must watch TV. Julio's SNL sketches are legendary (like Wells for Boys, Papyrus, or Diego Calls His Mom). And his standup makes me laugh so much. His special, My Favorite Shapes, is probably the most creative standup hour I've ever seen. Every time I pour a glass of water, I think of Julio's impression of a Brita filter. "Do not rush me! The water will be ready when it's ready." As with everything he does, this Architectural Digest tour of Julio's apartment is full of great visuals and laugh out loud jokes. Julio Torres’s Brooklyn Apartment Is Filled With Futuristic Furniture


FUNNY:
I'm launching a new podcast this week. And I've hosted one podcast or another for the entire time I've done comedy professionally. So let me just say that this impression by Jonathan Ogden of the meaningless host chatter that fills most audio is so spot on. It cut me to my core. It's also hilarious. Podcasters saying literally nothing for 20 minutes 


INTERESTING:
Katie Okamoto is a brilliant writer and journalist. She's written for The Atlantic, Bon Appétit, Newsweek, and is currently at work on a memoir. Katie manages to take big emotional and cultural forces and examine them through small objects, meals, routines, or gestures. She's able to pull the profound out of the ordinary in a way that no other writer I know can. Her most recent piece is about a particular brand of dish scrubbing brush from Japan. But really it's about culture and desire and how we create our identity around certain objects and the unreliability of our memories. It's beautiful. And it also definitely makes me want to buy that scrub brush. An Ode to the Kamenoko Tawashi, the Turtle Brush


That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! If you're enjoying these emails, please forward to a friend or spread the word. If someone forwarded you this email but you're not yet on the list, you can sign up on Substack here. 

Stay safe and be well,
Chris

3 Things: Inside a Whale, Bucatini, and Mimi Jones

Happy new year!

I'm a big fan of the polar bear plunge. I did my first one in 2015 in Coney Island on a dare and I've been hooked ever since. There were hipsters and old ladies and a whole Russian family wearing matching fur hats while they swam. A giant, motley crew of strangers all screaming obscenities as frigid sea water approached the level of their genitals. It's hilarious and amazing. What more could you want?

For this year, I wanted to avoid the crowds but I was still committed to the water and the screaming. And since I live in Los Angeles now, it was less of a polar bear plunge and more of a "polar bear" plunge (what's a warmer weather bear? A koala bear plunge? A panda plunge?). When I got to the Pacific, I asked the lifeguard on duty if it was safe to swim and he told me that it had technically been more than 72 hours since the last rain, which means "any sewage overflows should be dispersed by now." I decided that I was going to ignore his use of the word "should" and jump in anyway. It felt incredible, but I made it a quick dip. Afterwards, I thought about how that's probably the perfect metaphor for how I'm going into 2021. I want a fresh start and for things to have instantly changed, but sometimes it takes longer than you'd like to deal with last year's crap.

Afterwards I went home and showered thoroughly, just FYI!

This week’s list

GREAT:
We're now in the part of the year when each day is longer than the last. It's still dark but it's a little bit less dark each time I check. I reread one of my favorite poems recently and I felt like it particularly resonates in this time of the year (and this new year in particular). It's all about hanging in there as we wait for the rescue. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale by Dan Albergotti


FUNNY:
When's the last time you saw a box of bucatini pasta? I can't say I was personally ever aware of bucatini but after reading this wild report into why there's a nationwide shortage, I will never naively walk past a box of those precious noodles ever again. Rachel Handler investigates everyone from the FDA to Alison Roman to the National Pasta Association to get answers. It's so funny and so good. What the Hole Is Going On? The very real, totally bizarre bucatini shortage of 2020.


INTERESTING:
I spent some time this week reading about the folks we lost in 2020. There were so many that I often missed learning about the legacies they left behind. But Mimi Jones is someone so important to American history that I can't believe I'd never heard her name before. As a teenager, she played a crucial role in the civil rights movement and her activism was a major factor in pushing the civil rights bill through the Senate. In later years, she moved to Boston's Roxbury neighborhood and kept up her fight. Read more about her legacy and work here: Mimi Jones Understood the Power of Public Resistance


That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! And a special welcome to everyone who found me from the great Edith Zimmerman's newsletter.

If you're enjoying these emails, please forward to a friend or spread the word. If someone forwarded you this email but you're not yet on the list, you can subscribe here.

Have a great and completely sewage free week,
Chris

3 Things: Snowball Fights, Hot Baths, and Siberian Farmers

Hey there,

This is the last newsletter of 2020 from me. For me, this year has been all about contradictions. Worrying nonstop about getting sick but also not getting a single cold all year. Feeling scared but also feeling bored. Staying at home but having to figure out how to do everything in a new way. Worrying slightly less about how I looked and yet staring into my own face every time I talked to someone on a video call. Feeling happy for friends having babies and my brother getting married, but sad that we couldn't celebrate them in as big a way. Canceling all my plans but also being overwhelmed by how often I had to get on Zoom each day. Making bread and then eating bread. (I guess that last one's not really a contradiction...)

The best advice I've gotten this year is that it doesn't have to be either/or. It can be both. You can be so grateful for your friends/family and feel lonely. This can be a terrible year and also a time of growth. You can make the bread and eat the bread and sometimes also buy bread to see if it tastes better than what you've been baking. This week's email is all about hot and cold (and sometimes both simultaneously).

I hope you're well and staying safe and, if possible, helping the people around you. 

This week’s list

GREAT:
This video of a snowball fight in 1897 France is so good. The footage has been smoothed and colorized, which makes it look almost modern. But then you also get the joy of watching women in long dresses and mustache guys go into full snow battle with each other. And when a guy tries to ride his bicycle through the middle? He gets fully destroyed. Snow Fight in 1897 Lyon by the Lumière Brothers (Sam Anderson also wrote a full play-by-play analysis of the action)


FUNNY:
Kelly Conaboy is one of the funniest writers on the internet. I first discovered her genius when I read her deep investigation into whether bay leaves actually add anything to dishes (The Vast Bay Leaf Conspiracy). As a fellow bay leaf truther, I loved her grilling every chef about why they lie and say the leaves add flavor. After that article, I was fully onboard with her. She has a new book out about her dog called The Particulars of Peter, where she visits Woofstock, “the largest outdoor festival for dogs in North America,” tries to see if her dog can sense ghosts, and takes him for lessons in Canine Freestyle, "a sport where dogs perform a routine set to music, creating the illusion that they’re dancing with their owners." For me, the best part of Kelly promoting her new book is that it reintroduced me to one of the funniest things ever written, which is her debunking a post she read on a mommy blog. I don't want to tell you too much because it's so funny, but the title really says it all: Do Men Enter Bathtubs on Hands and Knees So Their Balls Hit the Water Last?


INTERESTING:
"Climate change is propelling enormous human migrations as it transforms global agriculture and remakes the world order — and no country stands to gain more than Russia." This article convinced me that maybe even in a Biden presidency, I should still think about moving to Canada? I think I'd do better there than in Siberia. It makes a compelling case that the climate change is already shifting where food can be grown and where people are going to want to live. The Big Thaw: How Russia Could Dominate a Warming World


That's it for this week and for this year. Thanks for reading! If you're enjoying these emails, please forward to a friend or spread the word. If someone forwarded you this email but you're not yet on the list, you can subscribe here.

Wishing you a very safe and healthy new year,
Chris