Tyrannosaurus Recs: July 2024
Janet Planet, Password, eating that frog, and other things I love this month
Hey there! It’s Thursday, we’re alive, and July is rapidly coming to a close. How’s your week been? Mine has been good, thanks. I’m feeling energized and hopeful about America (if you haven’t watched yet, at least check out the final six minutes, they will FIRE YOU UP), and I’m very excited that our 10-year-old comes home from sleepaway camp tomorrow. I’m also feeling way more recovered from surgery than I was a week ago. Which I guess is how time works.
I’ve also been making slow and steady breakthroughs in my rewriting of this YA novel. It hasn’t been easy! Rather than just dive into the text and go, I started by turning the first draft into an outline, which I then turned into index cards, so I could stare at it. And think.
This is what it looked like:
After days of stare-thinking, I began the process of rewriting the outline. This way, I’ll make sure the new beats of the book all fit together, show this “blueprint” to my editor to see what he thinks, and then I can take my wild buzzsaw into the draft itself and start TEARING SHIT UP.
But yeah, it hasn’t been easy because my capital-R Resistance to rewriting this book the past months has been capital-M Massive. I’ve all-too-frequently been in that mode where I want to do anything BUT work on it. Because I know the book can be good, but it seems like such a huge amount of work that needs to happen to get me there. So I freeze up. There have been more days than I’d care to admit where Rubin’s Paradox has hit me hard—I decide to do the easier short-term tasks of my day first, and then starting my work on the book gets scarier and scarier, even as the longer I wait to begin, the worse I feel about myself. It’s fun!
What gets me out of this cycle is the same thing that always does: I need to start the day with the hard shit first. “Eat that frog,” as someone named Brian Tracy once said. (I still don’t get why that’s supposed to work as a metaphor—I don’t want to eat a frog at any point in the day, let alone first thing—but I like the idea nevertheless.) It’s kind of hilarious (and sad) that I can intellectually know this and read numerous books about it and experience the benefits of working this way firsthand time and time again and still, I find myself running from that frog.
In The War of Art, a book I highly recommend to anyone looking to be creatively galvanized, Steven Pressfield says:
“The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”
So I know that’s what’s happening to me here. I try to be kind to myself on those heavily resistant days. And you should be kind to yourself too. And then start your next day’s work session with a gritty intention to sit down with a fork and knife and focus on that frog even when it feels uncomfortable. Because inevitably you’ll push forward, have some break-throughs, make some progress, and be reminded for the millionth time that the slow-process difficult stuff in life is always the most rewarding. So cheers to that.
And onto some T-Recs, baby! Here are recent things I love that have brought me inspiration and contentment.
Janet Planet
Annie Baker is one of my favorite playwrights (she wrote Circle Mirror Transformation, Infinite Life, and The Flick, to name a few), known for her naturalistic dialogue that captures the rhythms of how people actually talk, with interrupted sentences, half thoughts, and a liberal use of pauses and silence.
Her film directing/writing debut did not disappoint. It’s beautiful, evocative, and funny, confidently moving at its own pace as it tells the story of eleven-year-old Lacy and her mother, Janet, in the summer of 1991 in a grassy western Massachusetts town. Zoe Ziegler and Julianne Nicholson as Lacy and Janet are just spectacular. At such a young age, Ziegler somehow gives a singular, lived-in, weird, wonderful performance, and the film captures the world through a young person’s eyes in an astounding way I’ve never seen onscreen before. (Her performance also, at times, reminded both me and Katie of our 10-year-old, which definitely added to the emotional experience.)
Richard Linklater is a filmmaker I love so much—especially Boyhood and the Before Sunrise trilogy—and I put this movie right alongside his best work.
Annie Baker’s voice and style are completely her own, but Janet Planet charms and awes in a similar way, with these quiet, revelatory, recognizable human moments that explode your heart. I want to watch it again right now.
Password
Since we don’t have TV channels in our home (only platforms galore), going to hotels and turning on the television has always been an exciting/confounding experience for our children. “Can we rewind to the beginning?” “No.” “Can we choose a different episode?” “Also no.” “We just have to watch this?” “Yes. This is what it was when Mom and I were kids. You watched whatever was on.” “Can we just rewind a little?” “Literally no.”
The delight, of course, in watching whatever is on is that sometimes you discover things you otherwise might not have. Such was the case when we were in Montreal during spring break and discovered the glory of NBC’s new edition of Password. It’s a simple game show—people get a word and try to get their partner to guess it with a one-word clue—and yet it’s way more fun than any of us were expecting it to be.
It’s hosted by Keke Palmer, who is charismatic and commanding and comforting (not that I put much stock in awards, but we later learned she won an Emmy for her hosting, and it made complete sense and is absolutely deserved), with two celebrities every episode that pair up with the contestants. One of these celebrities is always Jimmy Fallon, which I was wary of, as sometimes he can be a Little Much. But he’s such a welcome presence on this show! He’s very good at the game and witty and really seems to care about the contestants he’s playing with. The show’s entire vibe is feel-good and big-hearted in a way that is both classic and fresh. Look, it’s possible I’m hyping it up too much, but it’s fair to say if you enjoy game shows, this will likely be your cup of tea.
As an added bonus, this show has inspired our family to sometimes play the game IN REAL LIFE, especially (and mostly) at restaurants while we’re waiting for our food to come. We’re all into it, and it makes us happy (for at least five minutes), and for that, I am grateful. Thank you, Keke. Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you, Password.
Joyful Recollections of Trauma, by Paul Scheer
I’ve been a fan of Paul Scheer since I saw him do an improv show at UCB circa 2005 or so. I’m sure you’ve seen him act in things, or maybe heard his great podcast How Did This Get Made?, or maybe this is the first you’re hearing of him in which case you should know that he’s awesome. And so is his book! It’s filled with really enjoyable essays about Paul’s life and childhood that are consistently funny, even when they get dark. And they do get dark, since some of the essays unpack the emotional and physical abuse Paul experienced from his stepdad, abuse that was so normalized in his home that he didn’t even realize the extent of the trauma until years later. There are also amazing essays about his love of video stores, his discovery of UCB soon after it started, his courtship with his also-awesome actor-comedian wife June Diane Raphael, and his many hilarious, usually awkward, celebrity encounters, including with Christopher Walken, Lou Reed, and Alan Alda. It’s a quick, thoughtful, life-affirming read.
Hacks, Season 3
This is the show’s funniest, best-paced, most emotionally rich season yet. Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder’s chemistry crackles, it’s such a pleasure to watch. (And Episode 3 features Naomi Ekperigin!) You should get there if you haven’t.
Naps
I love taking naps this month, as I do every month, and I don’t care who knows it, okay? I love them so much, in fact, and have so much to say, that it quickly became clear to me this topic needs its own post. So get ready for that next week. NO SHAME IN TAKING A NAP, PEOPLE!
Thank you for joining me here! And thank you for spreading the word to others! It’s immensely appreciated, as there’s no algorithm pumping this out to the world for me.
Reminder again: I’ll be performing next week with Iconis and Family at 54 Below on Tuesday, 7/31, Friday, 8/2, and Saturday 8/3.
Also, if you’ve ever replied to my emails and I haven’t responded, it’s because I didn’t get it! Katie replied directly to one of my substack emails, and it did not show up in my inbox. Thankfully, we live together so she was able to say, “Great post. I replied to your email.” And I was able to say, “Oh, I didn’t get it. What did you say?” And then she told me. But I can’t do that with people who don’t live with me! So just wanted you to know that, if you’re reaching out, and I’m not writing back, that’s why.
Thank you for reading and caring. Hope you’re having a nice, slow week that includes at least one glass of lemonade. Or even an Arnold Palmer.
Now that I am recently retired, I’m hoping to kickoff my writing routine this Labor Day. You continue to inspire me! Also- sorry we won’t get to see you on August 1 at 54 Below, but hopefully we will see you sometime soon!
I had an Arnold Palmer TODAY!