3 Things: Emmy the Great, Daniel Simonsen, and E. Tammy Kim

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

3 Things: Ann Dowd, Shannon Reid, and Zahra Hirji

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 the newest episode of You're the Expert, I went out into the badlands of Montana/Wyoming to dig up dinosaur bones with paleontologist Dr. Mike D'Emic. While I was there, Mike discovered four completely new species and I learned what a dinosaur bone tastes like.  Link

"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

NYC:
Sunday, November 18th at 7:00 p.m. at Caveat. It's the final You're the Expert live taping of the year! Featuring Wyatt Cenac, Maeve Higgins, Negin Farsad and Dr. Rebecca Brachman. This taping is a New York Times critic's pick for this weekend, so don't miss out. Link

As always, you can find my schedule with all upcoming dates online here.

This week’s list

GREAT:
Ann Dowd has been acting on stage, film, and screen for decades, but only "made it" relatively recently. She gave a fantastic speech at the Glamour Women of the Year Summit about sticking with creative work even when it's difficult and what it's like to find success later in life. It's so easy to fall into competition or comparisons, especially when things don't seem to be going your way, but this is a good reminder that no matter what you're trying to accomplish, the only thing you have control over (and the only path to success) is to keep doing the work. Why Ann Dowd is Grateful She Found Success Later in Life  (h/t Chrissy Shackelford)


FUNNY:
Despite the fact that I've been out of the classroom for years now, I still identify so strongly with teachers. It's simultaneously such a common profession (everyone knows a teacher) and such a strange and unique one. You have almost no control over when you go to the bathroom or talk to other adults, the idea of "just browsing the Internet" during the day is inconceivable, and you have exceptionally up-to-the-minute knowledge of slang that no person your age should ever know. In her very funny McSweeney's list, Shannon Reid captures some of the other strangest parts of teaching: how other adults talk to you. If People Talked to Other Professionals the Way They Talk to Teachers


INTERESTING:
Zahra Hirji is a science reporter for BuzzFeed News and has been covering climate issues for years. Before she was at BuzzFeed, she worked for the Pulitzer Prize-winningInsideClimate News and trained at MIT. She's an incredible writer and one of the smartest people I know. She's fighting an uphill battle because despite the fact that climate change reporting is among the most important journalism any of us could read, most people really, really, really don't want to hear about it. So Zahra has come up with all sorts of ways to get people to care, whether it's guest-hosting a morning talk show on Twitter (AM to DM), tracking the money behind anti-environmental lobbying, or creating an interactive website that shows how rising sea levels will affect the value of your home: Is Your Home at Risk of Flooding From Rising Seas by 2050? Check This Map 


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 day,
Chris

3 Things: Maggie Smith, Chris Gethard, and Elizabeth Jameson

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:
The newest episode of You're the Expert features Dr. Bianca Jones Marlin, a neuroscientist who teaches panelists Josh Gondelman, Ashley Brooke Roberts, and Dylan Marron how our parents' lives affect our brains. Link

You can now pre-order my wife's very funny, interesting, and great book "No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work" Link

NYC:
Sunday, November 18th at 7:00 p.m. at Caveat. It's the final You're the Expert live taping of the year! Featuring Wyatt Cenac, Maeve Higgins, and Dr. Rebecca Brachman. Link

As always, you can find my schedule with all upcoming dates online here.

This week’s list

GREAT:
As I watched the midterm election results this week, I was thinking a lot about realism versus optimism.  I find that sometimes fiction or poetry or comedy can ground me in what's important and remind me of the big picture. It's important to keep imagining the world you want even as you fight to change the world as it is. Maggie Smith's poems have been helping me with that over the last couple days. Especially her poem "Good Bones," which you may have seen before, but is definitely worth revisiting. I also love "Sky" and "Invisible Architecture." You can read Maggie's work and find out more about her on her website: Maggie Smith, Poet 

(Side note: not many poems also have excellent viral comedy videos referencing them, but "Good Bones" does. Gotta love how Evan Kaufman uses her work to get a perfect final joke in the newest episode of his webseries "Dude Turned Dad")


FUNNY:
There is no comedian who has inspired me more than Chris Gethard. He is hilarious and kind and creative, but he also never stops taking big risks. When he started The Chris Gethard Show in a basement theater in NYC, he promised the audience that each week would be memorable. He personally guaranteed that it would either be hilariously good or disastrously bad. They would never accept just okay. Geth's new book is called Lose Welland it's partly essays, partly self-help and inspiration. 

Here's Geth talking about the book and telling a very funny story to Seth Meyers and here's a classic clip from 2013 when The Chris Gethard Show had just hit 100 episodes on public access, before it was picked up to cable and got an actual budget. It's Geth trying to give an earnest, emotional speech while his crew uses speech-jamming technology that makes it impossible for him to talk. (The video is cued up for you to the right spot in the monologue)


INTERESTING:
Elizabeth Jameson is an artist and writer living with multiple sclerosis. She wrote an essay for the NYT about how her condition has led her to find new forms of intimacy with her friends. It's a reminder that in any situation, there are beautiful discoveries and moments of connection. Also, I am very inspired by her idea and down for any friend who needs a partner for a 2-hour pastry eating session.  "Losing Touch, Finding Intimacy" (h/t Sara Mansur). 

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.

Enjoy your weekend!
Chris