3 Things: Esther Perel, TMNT, and Jonathan Blitzer

Happy Saturday! Every week, I send out an email with some upcoming performances and three things for you to enjoy. This week, Mollie and I have been visiting family in Oregon and Seattle. It's a lot of outdoors activities, so I've mostly been unplugged from the Internet. As a person whose professional life is unpredictable and irregular, I find that routines and traditions are very important to me. Whether it's coming back to the same spot with family each year, sending this email every week, or inventing a holiday, I love knowing that I have some recurring events to depend on. 

Upcoming Shows

EVERYWHERE:
Both full seasons of Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas are streaming online and on HBO Go. Link

You can listen to all the episodes of my podcast You're the Expert on any podcast app. Three comedians interview a scientist about her work and why it matters. Link

NEW ORLEANS:
Tuesday, July 16 at 7:00 p.m. at the Civic Theater. I'll be performing at this Pop-Up Magazine show. SOLD OUT

NEW YORK:
Friday, July 19 at 7:00 p.m. at Littlefield. I'll be performing at Bit Tank, a show where comedians pitch jokes to sharks for real money. Link

Saturday, July 27 at 10:00 p.m. at Union Hall. Dillon Stevenson and Mike Brown host Super Video Bros, where comedians (including me) break down classic music videos. Link

July 29-31 at The Wild Project. A short play that I wrote is going to be performed as part of this year's Cherry Picking festival, which celebrates "new work, creative risk, and prosecco." I'll be performing in a play on Monday and my play is being staged on Wednesday. Link

You can find ticket links for all upcoming shows as soon as they are announced online at my website here.

This week’s list

GREAT:
I've been working on a project about long-term relationships and people keep recommending that I read Esther Perel. I finally got around to starting her book this week. Perel is a therapist, author, podcaster, and speaker who's one of the most prominent experts on relationships today. She says that "the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives." I'd never read any of her work before, but her latest book is very thought-provoking and compassionate. She looks at infidelity as a clinician, but also from a cultural and social perspective. Her big question is how can we be more honest with ourselves and our partners about what we're looking for in relationships and what our expectations are? The State of Affairs


FUNNY:
Sometimes I love comedy that's the work of masterful writers and performers. Other times, I can't stop laughing at a collection of words that probably took fifteen seconds to put together. This week, I'm going to share one of those. It's alternate lyrics to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song. Every time I read one of these and then sing it in my head, it makes me laugh. There's nothing deeper there but there doesn't need to be. Wiki Titles Singable to the TMNT Theme Song (h/t Will Guzzardi)


INTERESTING:
Jonathan Blitzer is an incredibly talented writer doing very important investigative work on immigration. He has a book coming out called The Golden Door: The United States, Central America, and the Untold Story of the Border Crisis. It's "a narrative of forty years of immigration history in the U.S., El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to tell a sweeping story of the present crisis at the southern border." If you haven't read any of his work before, I recommend his analysis of how climate change is exacerbating migrationand how even ICE agents are losing patience with chaotic immigration policy. But honestly everything he writes is worth reading. Jonathan Blitzer


Thanks for reading! If you like 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 cansubscribe here.

Have a great weekend,
Chris

3 Things: Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Joe Pera, and Suleika Jaouad

Happy Saturday! Every week I send out an email with some upcoming performances and three things for you to enjoy. This newsletter only grows by word of mouth, so feel free to forward it and tell your friends. This week, I'm trying to hold multiple truths in my head at once. It's the start of my favorite season, filled with light, swimming, eating outdoors, and family vacations. It's also a terrifying moment when America seems to be on the brink of another pointless and deadly war.

So I'm reminding myself that you can be happy and scared at the same time. You can push for the country and the world to be better and more just, and it's also okay to take a break from the news to laugh at some online videos. At least that's what I've been telling myself. My summer 2019 vibe is crying into a hotdog. 

Upcoming Shows

EVERYWHERE:
Both full seasons of Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas are streaming online and on HBO Go. Link

You can listen to all the episodes of my podcast You're the Expert on any podcast app. Three comedians interview a scientist about her work and why it matters. Link

SEATTLE:
TONIGHT! Saturday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall. Liz and Mollie are reading from their book No Hard Feelings and answering questions about emotions at work. Check out this great Seattle Times interview with Mollie and come join me in the audience. Link

NEW ORLEANS:
Tuesday, July 16 at 7:00 p.m. at the Civic Theater. I'll be performing at this Pop-Up Magazine show. SOLD OUT

NEW YORK:
July 29-31 at The Wild Project. A short play that I wrote is going to be performed as part of this year's Cherry Picking festival, which celebrates "new work, creative risk, and prosecco." Tickets on sale soon here

You can find ticket links for all upcoming shows as soon as they are announced online at my website here.

This week’s list

GREAT:
When I recommended Taffy Brodesser-Akner's writing here once before, I got deluged by excited emails back from her fans. Taffy might not be the most famous writer on the planet, but everyone who does know her is obsessed. Or as this article puts it, she's "every other writer's favorite writer." Personally, I know that if she started a cult, I'd ask where to sign up and what color clothes to buy. Her food diary for Grub Street is the perfect combination of my interests: food, comedy, and things that Taffy has written. Taffy Brodesser-Akner Loves a Good Breakfast Salad (h/t Meredith Gringer)


FUNNY:
I went back and rewatched all the episodes of Joe Pera Talks With You recently. They're relatively short, so they don't take up too much of your time, but the show is brilliant and different from anything else on TV. They pioneered a new genre: soothing, Midwestern comedy. It's almost certainly the only show on television that's devoted two full episodes just to helping you go to sleep. Jo Firestone is great as the love interest in this show, but you can also see her influence behind the scenes as head writer. I'm glad that the Jo(e)s got to make this show and I'm excited for season two. In the meantime, let Joe Pera Talk You Back To Sleep.


INTERESTING:
Suleika Jaouad is a writer, teacher, and activist. I first came across her work when I read her column in the NYT, "Life, Interrupted," about being diagnosed with leukemia at 22. Now in remission, she just gave a beautiful talk about "the porous border between sick and well" and how the hardest part of her recovery was once the cancer was gone. What Almost Dying Taught Me About Living


Thanks for reading! If you like 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 cansubscribe here.

Have a great weekend,
Chris

3 Things: Gideon Irving, Eliza Cossio, and Terrace House

This week, I've been working on some longer term projects. My favorite thing in the world is performing in front of a live audience, but sometimes the show scheduling and joke writing means that I don't leave myself enough time to tackle bigger, more ambitious ideas. So I'm taking some time over the next few months to do that. In the meantime, you might notice I have fewer live shows on my calendar. And I'm sure friends and family will notice a desperate need for laughter and a sharp, hungry edge in my eyes every time I hear the sound of applause. (I'm joking... kind of.)

In the Fall, I'll be doing a big national tour and I'm staying open to any fun, interesting opportunities that might pop up in the meantime. Since tomorrow is Father's Day, I'm also feeling grateful to have had a dad as supportive as mine, even if he truly could not understand my career any less. He was the first person in his family to go to college and worked in an auto factory over the summers to pay his tuition. I'm an adult who gets paid to play make-believe. As he put it when I told him I was quitting teaching to tell jokes, "Well, you're continuing the grand Duffy tradition of your dad having absolutely no relevant career advice to give you at all." 

Upcoming Shows

EVERYWHERE:
Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas is now officially wrapped, but both full seasons of the show are streaming online. Link

You can listen to all the episodes of my podcast You're the Expert on any podcast app. Three comedians interview a scientist about her work and why it matters. Link

SEATTLE:
Saturday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall. Liz and Mollie are reading from their book No Hard Feelings and answering questions about emotions at work. Check out this greatSeattle Times interview with Mollie and come join me at the show. I'll be there to cheer them on! Link

You can find ticket links for all upcoming shows online at my website here.

This week’s list

GREAT:
Gideon Irving is one of my all-time favorite performers. His live shows are like nothing else. Everything about his performances sounds made up. He traveled the world playing concerts exclusively in strangers' living rooms. One tour, he pushed a full show's worth of instruments and set pieces and magic tricks in a modified shopping cart while rollerblading behind it. Right now, he's about to tour the American West on horseback. And he just released a fantastic new music video which, after watching, will blow your mind to learn used no special effects or editing at all. Gideon Irving - Woke Up Looking (Here's the making of video. Don't skip it!) 


FUNNY:
Over the past three years working together, Eliza Cossio has become one of my closest friends. She's a deeply kind and wonderful human being. She's also unbelievably hilarious. Eliza has such a strong, unique comedic vision. Her new short film just premiered at the Lower East Side Film Festival and won the Audience Favorite award. It's the story of a woman who asks a witch to help her win her ex-boyfriend back. I guarantee you will not see another short film as funny or beautifully shot as this one. La Bruja 


INTERESTING:
If you've hung out with me in the last two months, you've almost certainly heard me rave about the show Terrace House. It's a Japanese reality show where a group of six people live in a beautiful house together and try to accomplish life goals (often finding romance). There's not nearly the same kind of forced drama as on American reality TV. In fact, a lot of Terrace House is just people making plans to go out to restaurants together and then debriefing what they talked about during their meal. Then a panel of celebrities comment on what's happening during the show and they're so funny. Also, each season of Terrace House is so long that at a certain point contestants on the show watch themselves onTerrace House and then you're watching them watch themselves. It's wild. Please get hooked and then talk about the show with me. I'm currently watching Terrace House: Opening New Doors (Bonus: still images from Terrace House without any context)


Thanks for reading! If you like 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 cansubscribe here.

Have a great weekend,
Chris