Hi friends,
If you're new to these emails, welcome! Every Saturday, I send out a short email with three great things. If you feel like you haven't gotten these emails in a while, try checking to make sure this email is a trusted address so they aren't getting filtered to spam. For live shows, I've got a bunch featured below and a complete list on my website. Feel free to spread the word about these emails! Anyone can sign up for the mailing list online and/or check out the archive with all past emails here.
SHOW UPDATES:
BOSTON:
Sunday, December 6 at 7:30 p.m. It's a special Chanukah edition of Taste Test Comedy at ImprovBoston. Come enjoy delicious samples from Boston restaurants and jokes/stories exclusively about food from me. All with a very distinct Chanukah twist. Details and tickets here
NEW YORK:
Monday, December 7 at 8:30 p.m. It's a special Chanukah edition of An Hour Abroad. Evan Barden and I will teach you the entire Yiddish language in 60 minutes. You'll learn several ways of making adult children feel guilty, how to decipher signs in Yiddish, and have a chance to shout words of encouragement at comedian Myq Kaplan. Details/tickets here
You can also see my full schedule up on the website now.
Ok, on to this week's list!
1 Thing I Think Is Great:
James Chapman is a 25 year old PhD physics student at the University of Manchester, working with graphene, the thinnest material in the universe. He's also an artist who's been working on illustrations of "onomatopoeia and sounds in other languages." This is exactly the kind of thing that I nerd out about. I've been telling a joke in my standup about the noises dogs and bees make in other countries. An audience member after one show turned me on to Chapman's illustrations of dogs barking in other languages and I find them so funny and wonderful. He's got a lot of other great pieces too, like "How To Be Hungover in Different Languages," which you might find very appropriate this morning depending on how last night went. Check his work out here: Pictures by James Chapman
1 Thing That Made Me Laugh:
Switched on Pop is a podcast on "the making and meaning of popular music" hosted by Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan. They're a musicologist and a musician, working together to break down the biggest pop hits and explaining how and why they work. Charlie and Nate are both charming and hilarious, and the podcast is legitimately fascinating. They ask questions like "does the falsetto in One Direction's 'What Makes You Beautiful' essentially make them our modern day Castrati?" I had the honor of being a guest on their latest episode, where Charlie explained how there is a Swedish genius named Max Martin behind basically every huge hit song right now. He also definitively proved that I am an 80-year-old man when it comes to knowing what music is popular right now. Switched On Pop: Searching for Max Martin
1 Interesting Thing:
I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a comedian when terrible things are happening in the world. With what's going on in Mali, France, Syria, and so many other places, it's hard to see anything funny in the world. I wrote this piece as a way for me to personally process what was happening, but decided to share it publicly as well. If there's one thing I've learned from living through three terrorist attacks, it's that the best response isn't to put more fear and violence into the world, but instead more joy. Chris Duffy: Joy as a Political Act
Ok, thanks for reading! More details on shows and my full schedule online atwww.chrisduffycomedy.com/calendar/
Have a great weekend,
Chris