3 Things: Lynn Jones Johnston, Kyle Ayers, and Billy Collins

Hey there!

After spending the full month of April in quarantine, I've definitely hit social distancing bingo. I've pickled carrots, brewed kombucha, baked cakes, planted tomatoes and cucumbers, and Zoomed in almost every configuration imaginable. (A fun thing to try during a boring meeting is to pin someone's video who is not the active speaker and just watch them react to what's being said.)

As we move into May, I'm finding my sense of time is weirdly distorted. It seems like everyone is experiencing that. Sometimes the days feel endless. Other times, I can't believe how fast time is moving without any events outside my house to break it up.

Here are some things I've enjoyed this week that you might enjoy too. Also, let this email serve as a reminder that today is Saturday and the year is 2020. At least, I think that's right...

Upcoming Events

LIVESTREAMS:
- TODAY Saturday, May 2nd at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET
COME ON DOWN, YOU'RE ALREADY HERE! I'm hosting another edition of my Zoom game show where audience members from around the internet compete for prizes with celebrity guests. Today's show features returning audience favorites Myq Kaplan and Ashley Brooke Roberts along with a bunch of surprises. Link

This week’s list

GREAT:
The crispy rice on the bottom of the pot goes by many names. In many cuisines, it's the most important and prized part of the whole pot. A few years back, Mollie and I got really into Korean nurungji candy, which captures that crispy, toasted flavor. It's not always easy to find nurungji though, so we'd hunt through the aisles of H-Mart until we found the buried treasure. Lynn Jones Johnston wrote a beautiful piece this week about her own hunt for the perfect crispy rice and how it connects her with her mom during this pandemic. Plus, she includes a recipe for how to get the perfect crispy rice bottom yourself that I'm excited to experiment with. A Mother, A Pandemic, and Scorched Rice


FUNNY:
Kyle Ayers is one of the most creative comedians I know. He's always coming up with new, hilarious ideas. He hosts a podcast where comedians rewrite famous movies that they've never watched, he created a live compliment competition, and I recently saw him do a standup set on Zoom where he sold airtime to a local pizzeria and read ads in between each joke. This set of his on Conan is NSFW, but it makes me laugh a lot and I think the bit at the end is truly brilliant. Kyle Ayers


INTERESTING:
Billy Collins is the poet that first got me into poetry. Before reading him, I'd always associated it with either impenetrable pretension or annoying rhymes. But Billy Collins' poems are funny, they're approachable, and they're often so beautiful that they stick in my head for years afterwards. The Library Foundation of Los Angeles posted a short interview with the former poet laureate where he talks about running into a Chase bank to scribble down a verse and why it's okay to write poems even if you're not overcome with malaise. Billy Collins  (And here are some of my favorite poems of his: The Art of Drowning, The Best Cigarette, and Picnic, Lightning)


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I hope you're all staying safe, sane, and fully fermented,
Chris

3 Things: Suleika Jaouad, Grub Street Diets, and Geoff McFetridge

Hey there!

First of all, welcome to all the folks who signed up for my mailing list after reading the article about my game show on TMZ. The link to sign up for today's show is below. This is my weekly email where I send out info about my shows as well as three things that I enjoyed this week and I think you will too.

To everyone else, who was already on this list... I'm guessing you can tell I had a pretty surreal week. When I got a phone call from an unknown number and the guy on the other end introduced himself as a reporter for TMZ, I thought it was clearly either a prank or identity theft. But then, hilariously, it turned out to be real. All it took was a global pandemic for me to make it into the gossip pages.

But then again, nothing really seems that surprising anymore! Who could possibly predict what will happen tomorrow? I'm just doing my best to live in the moment. I hope you are too.

Upcoming Events

LIVESTREAMS:
- TODAY Saturday, April 18th at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET
COME ON DOWN, YOU'RE ALREADY HERE! I'm hosting another edition of my Zoom game show where audience members from around the internet compete for prizes with celebrity guests. Link

This week’s list

GREAT:
I've been a fan of Suleika Jaouad's writing for a long time. She's written about finding beauty and joy despite illness or isolation for years now. And this month, she's been taking that expertise and sending out daily prompts for journaling. I've been doing them every morning and it's been such a calming mental escape from the stresses of everything going on. Prompts have come from not just Suleika but also friends of hers like Ann Patchett, Mavis Staples, and Jon Batiste. The Isolation Journals


FUNNY:
The perfect nonfiction format for comedy is a Grub Street Diet. You get a little glimpse into a person's routines, you hear about their favorite local shops and restaurants, and they have so many opportunities to make you laugh with the mundane details of their lives. I love them. Bess Kalb, comedy writer and author of Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, wrote a quarantine edition for NY Mag and it's spectacular. I laughed out loud multiple times. Here are all the canned bean and Alison Roman jokes you desperately need. Bess Kalb Finally Made #TheStew

Other notably fantastic Grub Street Diets: Aparna Nancherla's (which was so good that Tom Hanks tweeted out "Thanks, Aparna! Happy 2017"), Maeve Higgins, Sam Bee, Max Silvestri, and Gary Shteyngart. Now you have all the information you need to spend tonight going deep down a food diary rabbit hole. 


INTERESTING:
Along with trying to write every morning, I've gotten very interesting in artists who keep visual journals. I think they're so fascinating. Geoff McFetridge is an incredible visual artist who shared his painted observations of a changed LA. The Pandemic Has Turned Los Angeles Into a Walking City


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 can subscribe here.

Stay safe and take care of each other,
Chris

3 Things: Austin Kleon, Jackie Kashian, and C.J. Chivers

Hello there!

It's Saturday again and, strangely, it feels like I'm settling into a rhythm. I guess anything can become routine when you do it for a few weeks. As there starts to be more conversation about how and when to open the country back up, I've been thinking about how hard it is to get people to listen to scientists.

Over the past few years, I've spent a lot of time talking with researchers. I used to describe the problem by saying that, for most people, the only direct information they get from scientists is a report one year that says something like "eating eggs is good for you!" Then the next year, a different report comes out saying "eating eggs is bad for you!" and a lot of people conclude, "well, no one knows anything about eggs." (Or, if they're a vegan, "eating eggs is definitely bad for chickens.") But if they could talk to the scientists doing the research and understand the process, they'd be much more open to the idea that new data can change interpretations and that it's not as simple as "good for you" or "bad for you." I also think people would trust science more if scientists themselves were presented as people with passions and curiosity instead of just fact-checking robots.

Now, we're in this weird zone where some people are trusting the scientists to keep us safe and other people don't trust them at all (ironically, often because the measures they suggested successfully kept death/infection rates down so now some people think "it wasn't a big deal after all.") I don't know what my big conclusion is here, other than that we're in a tough time and I hope we will trust and listen to smarter people than me as we chart a way out of it. Also, try to make friends with a scientist or two.

Upcoming Events

LIVESTREAMS:
- TODAY Saturday, April 18th at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET
COME ON DOWN, YOU'RE ALREADY HERE! I'm hosting another edition of my Zoom game show where audience members from around the internet compete for prizes with celebrity guests. Link

- TOMORROW Sunday, April 19th at noon p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET
A DIY QUARANTINE HAIRCUT PARTY. I need a haircut. Maybe you need a haircut too. Let’s cut our hair together under the guidance of a professional hair stylist (who we can also help recoup some of their lost income). Whether you’re cutting your own hair, a partner’s hair, or having your hair cut by a partner, we’ll all get some pro tips, laugh, and hopefully make it through so we’re more stylishly DIY and less of an Edward Scissorhands / Sweeney Todd situation. Link

This week’s list

GREAT:
I always love reading Austin Kleon's writing about creativity. He has a way of managing to be inspiring while also completely accessible and down to earth. This week, he talked about the pressure to make good art and how he's encouraging himself to "make bad art too." As he says, "don’t listen to people who remind you that Shakespeare wrote King Lear during a plague— we’re living in King Lear!" Forget good or bad. Just make something. Make it for yourself. Make Bad Art 


FUNNY:
Jackie Kashian is one of the great standup comics of our time. You may have seen her on tour with Maria Bamford. Or maybe you listen to her podcast, The Dork Forest. She's got the killer punchlines and the warm, calming demeanor I want from my quarantine comedy. And, since she's currently preparing to record an album, you can even tune in to one of her livestreams. (She's doing them regularly but you'll need to sign up for her mailing list or follow her on Twitter to get the links.) In the meantime, watch this great video of her standup from Live from Here: Jackie Kashian


INTERESTING:
C.J. Chivers is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His latest piece is about onions in Rhode Island. And it's incredible. Chivers tells the story of how planting simple vegetable gardens has brought together his small town. I love it so much. When Life Gives You Quarantine, Plant Potatoes


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 can subscribe here.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and take care of each other,
Chris