3 Things: Larissa MacFarquhar, The Onion, and Chris Koentges

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.

 Upcoming shows

EVERYWHERE:
A new episode of You're the Expert is out today all about a scientist who studies butterflies. Ken Reid, Rachel Rosenthal, and Corey Rodrigues learn the secrets of nature's prettiest bug.   Link

I'm the co-host of a new podcast from Mic.com all about money. Antonia Cereijido (from NPR's Latino USA) and I learn how to handle our own finances, interview people who actually know what to do with money, and find out how each week's news affects our bank accounts. It's called The Payoff and the first episode comes out on Monday but you can subscribe here now:  Link

MADRID, SPAIN:
Friday, January 26th to Sunday, January 28th at Only You Hotel Atocha. I'm headlining a weekend of standup shows this weekend at a NYC-themed hotel sponsored by Seagram's. Link

NEW YORK:
Sunday, February 5th at 7:00 p.m. at The Wild Project. You Get A Spoon is back in NYC with another night of incredible performances, audience prizes, and one spectacular spoon. Come see the show that The Comedy Bureau called "one of the 100 best things in comedy." Link

My full calendar with all upcoming shows is online here.

 This week's list

1 Thing I Think Is Great:

"The qualities that get people into prison may not be so different from the ones that get them into college." Larissa MacFarquhar's profile of the Underground Scholars Initiative starts with two students at UC-Berkeley meeting on their first day and realizing they'd both been in Pelican Bay, one of the nation's toughest prisons. It ends with the two men transforming the lives of countless inmates. "'I've always been somebody who went out and got what I wanted,' Murillo says. 'Fifteen years old, I was selling crack cocaine and making close to fifteen hundred dollars an ounce. I was a very resourceful individual.' But what switch—what new thought, or new chance—had deflected Murillo and Czifra from one track to the other? The trick was to go back over their lives and figure out how they'd done it." Building a Prison-to-School Pipeline
 

1 Thing That Made Me Laugh:

Sometimes I overlook the best comedy because I assume everyone must already know about it, but if you're struggling with finding a way to laugh about the depressing new political realities, let me assure you that The Onion has always had, and continues to have, some of the very best satire possible. Check out their latest headlines, but also don't miss the incredible work they've done over the years creating two of the most hilarious characters of all time, Onion Joe Biden and Onion John Kerry.


1 Interesting Thing:

Chris Koentges embeds in a Muslim enclave to report on homegrown fanaticism. It turns out that America's largest Arab enclave, Dearborn, Michigan, cares passionately about...football. Koentges gets deep into what it means to be an American these days, and why tensions between Cowboys fans and Lions fans are running high. As American As The Dallas Cowboys


Thanks for reading. Take care of yourselves,
Chris

3 Things: Henry Orenstein, Ouija, and Silent Film Effects

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.

 Upcoming shows

MADRID, SPAIN:
Friday, January 26th to Sunday, January 28th at Only You Hotel Atocha. I'm headlining a weekend of standup shows at a new NYC-themed hotel sponsored by Seagram's. If you're in Spain or just looking for a way to theme a vacation around my comedy, gin, and eating tapas, this is your chance. Link

NEW YORK:
Sunday, February 5th at 7:00 p.m. at The Wild Project. You Get A Spoon is back in NYC with another night of incredible performances, audience prizes, and one spectacular spoon. Come see the show that The Comedy Bureau called "one of the 100 best things in comedy." Link

CRAWFORDSVILLE, INDIANA:
Friday, February 10th at 7:00 p.m. at Wabash College. You're the Expert is taping live in the Hoosier State and we've got a genius scientist (and former hippie), Shalewa Sharpe, and Matt and Charlie from Comedy Central's New Timers. The show is free, you just have to get to Crawfordsville. Link

My full calendar with all upcoming shows is online here.

 This week's list

1 Thing I Think Is Great:

Henry Orenstein is a legendary toymaker. He's the man responsible for making dolls affordable, figuring out how to make them blink using magnets, and bringing the Transformers to America. He's directly responsible for millions of children's favorite toys and for billions in sales. But he's also the guy who pitched poker to ESPN and brought it from smoky casino backrooms to an American obsession. Before his success and wealth, he escaped the Nazis and arrived in the U.S. penniless and orphaned. Meet Henry Orenstein, The Man Who Changed How The World Plays
 

1 Thing That Made Me Laugh:

The Internet brings out the best and worst of humanity. There are the trolls and racists and Twitter monsters. But there are also the people who write nice reviews on Yelp and take time to answer strangers' questions. Somewhere in the middle in the comedic mastermind who takes terribly written Yahoo Answers posts and reads them out loud for the rest of us. I knew that "ouija board" was pretty tough to spell and the concept behind it was confusing, but I had no idea how horribly and gloriously wrong it could go. I love this video so much.Curse of the Weggy Board (h/t Aparna Nancherla)


1 Interesting Thing:

Before movie studios spent millions of dollars on computer-generated graphics and special effects, filmmakers had to invent ways to do it themselves. Their creativity and engineering led to some of the most iconic movie moments. And what's incredible is that even with all the technological advances, some of the tricks they used then look as good or better than what's in movies today. Watching gifs of silent film effects is a rabbit hole that you could easily go down for hours, but here are some of the best. How Some Cool Silent Film Effects Were Done (h/t Sam Gilroy)


Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend!

Chris

3 Things: Robots, Bess Kalb, and Stephon Marbury

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.

 Upcoming shows

NEW YORK:
Tuesday, January 10th at 7:30 p.m. at QED Astoria. I'm a guest on Evan Barden's live music and talk show, Repeater. We'll discuss Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" and then a band, Dear Georgiana, will play it live. Link

Wednesday, January 11h at 7 p.m. at The Annoyance. I'm hosting The Sensible Show again. Great standup comedy at a very reasonable hour. Link

Friday, January 13th at 8 p.m. at The Brooklyn Arts Exchange. I'm a guest judge for Dancify That, a game show where dancers create performances inspired by viral videos on the Internet. Pretty standard Friday. Link

MADRID, SPAIN:
Friday, January 26th to Sunday, January 28th at Only You Hotel Atocha. I'm headlining a weekend of standup shows at a new NYC-themed hotel sponsored by Seagram's. If you're in Spain or just looking for a way to theme a vacation around my comedy, gin, and eating tapas, this is your chance. Link

BANGOR, MAINE:
Saturday, March 18th at 7:30 p.m. at Hampden Academy Performing Arts Center. You're the Expert is coming to the Maine Science Festival and we've got an incredible lineup of guests. It looks like this show is going to sell out pretty far in advance, so if you want to come, get your tickets now. Link

My full calendar with all upcoming shows is online here.

 This week's list

1 Thing I Think Is Great:

A 24/7 livestream of two robots talking to each other on a social network designed to let you watch strangers play video games. Welcome to 2017. Some mad genius programmed these two Google Homes with a chatbot script and then set them loose. It's occasionally hilarious (at one point while I was watching, one of the robots said her favorite thing to read was "digestible nonfiction.") and sometimes even soothing (when they get into a loop of complimenting each other). Anyway, join the 19,000 other people watching these robots talk this morning. Robot Talk
 

1 Thing That Made Me Laugh:

Bess Kalb is truly hilarious. She's a writer for Jimmy Kimmel and the woman behind so many of the great bits on his show. Her newest role is curating The New Yorker's 30 Most Disappointing Under 30 list. My personal favorite is "Victor Chen, twenty-eight. Chen used an app to hire a person to pick up and deliver a Chipotle burrito to him every night for twenty-two consecutive nights." Read the whole list here.


1 Interesting Thing:

"There is a statue of him holding up the 2012 Chinese Basketball Association trophy above his head outside the home arena. He is in another statue celebrating the first title along with two of his teammates outside of the practice arena. There is a Marbury museum about five kilometers from Tiananmen Square showcasing his entire basketball career, filled with old trophies, jerseys and other hoop artifacts as well as a gift shop. There was a Broadway-type musical centering on his life that he actually acted and danced in for 11 nights. He is acting as the lead in My Other Home, a Chinese film based on his life that's expected to debut in 2017 with cameos from Allen Iverson and Baron Davis. He also has a Chinese postage stamp." I pretty much know nothing about basketball and I'm normally not a fan of sports profiles, but the way Stephon Marbury flamed out of the NBA and then rebuilt himself as a huge star in China is an incredible story. Stephon Marbury: Remade in China


Thanks for reading. Happy New Year!

Chris