3 Things: Ricky Jay, Charlie Hankin, and Emma Harris

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:
Both parts of the You're the Expert mini-series are out now. I went into the badlands of Montana/Wyoming with paleontologist Dr. Mike D'Emic to dig up an entirely new species of dinosaur. You can hear it all here: Link

My wife Mollie and her co-author Liz Fosslien wrote a very funny, insightful, and useful book called "No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work." It's out in January but available for pre-order here: Link

SEATTLE:
Thursday, December 27th at 7:30 p.m. at The Annex Theatre. Riley Mulherkar (of The Westerlies) and I are going to be in town and we're continuing our holiday tradition of putting on a night of music and comedy. Tickets just went on sale today, but this show always sells out fast so grab yours now while you still can. Link

I'll be announcing a lot more shows after the holidays. As always, you'll be able to find my schedule with all upcoming dates online here.

This week’s list

GREAT:
Ricky Jay was one of the world's most iconic performers. A magician who redefined the craft, he was also a wonderful actor. He passed away this week. If you're not familiar with his work, do yourself a favor and read this incredible 1993 New Yorker profile of him. I think it's one of the best pieces the magazine has ever run.  "Ricky Jay does closeup magic that flouts reality. But, rather than headline in Las Vegas, Jay prefers to live in the mysterious world of ancient mountebanks, eccentric entertainers, and sleight-of-hand artists, whose secrets he preserves with a scholarly passion, and who are his true peers in the realm of illusion." Secrets of the Magus


FUNNY:
Charlie Hankin is one of those comedians who can do it all. He's an actor who stole scenes in series on Amazon and Comedy Central. He's a co-creator of the incredibly prolific sketch comedy duo Good Cop Great Cop. But on top of that, he's developed a huge following for his laugh out loud cartoons. You can see them in magazines all over the world or on his Instagram, which I highly recommend. Charlie Hankin


INTERESTING:
Emma Harris is an environmental writer in Klamath Falls, Oregon. She covered a wild story for Outside Magazine. Pun fully intended. (By the way, I am consistently amazed by the stories Outside publishes. They are doing something very right.) "As a child, Cody Sheehy made headlines when he vanished into the freezing wilderness of Northeast Oregon, making it out safely after 18 hours of determined slogging. Retracing his steps 32 years later, Sheehy says that getting lost was one of the best life lessons he ever had." How a 6-Year-Old Survived Being Lost in the Woods


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 weekend,
Chris

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