Worth It #1

the very best of what I'm reading + watching + listening to

Today I’m experimenting with a new addition at Between Two Things—a weekly(ish) round-up of the very best of what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and occasionally even cooking. Only the things absolutely worth your valuable minutes.

Welcome to Worth It.

P.S. Let me know in the comments what you’ve loved that I’ve missed!

Cloud Cuckoo Land | Anthony Doerr

With the added benefit of fitting into my color scheme.

One word: epic.

Not epic the way my 6-year-old son uses the word (as in, a catch-all exclamation resembling “so cool”).

Epic as in a long story (574 pages long, to be exact) that recounts the adventures of heroic characters (like, say, Ulysses), usually drawing on ancient traditions and myths. Epic as in, wide and deep. As in, past + present + future. As in, about life, death, love, hate, hope, desperation, success, failure. As in, about everything.

This is the pinnacle of the fiction genre—a woven narrative spanning centuries and the globe, a story about stories and why they matter. A book lover’s book.

Ok, so, not your average escapism. Not even your average title. (My kids asked me about it at least four times, their little brows furrowed.) I’ll admit that the book is a little tricky at first, when Doerr is introducing you to a bunch of characters with seemingly no throughline. A troubled young gunman inside a library in Idaho… a lonely peasant girl inside the walls of Constantinople as they crumble… another fearless girl hurtling through space on a ship called the Argos, escaping an uninhabitable earth. 

Yeah, it’s weird.

But you’ll be more than rewarded by the second half, when everything starts coming together. The last hundred pages or so are magnificent. At one point I held my breath for the span of five pages.

This is the kind of book you could read 10 times and never fully absorb. (But since it’s almost 600 pages, you probably won’t. That’s ok too.) 

Despite its quirkiness, through all the time jumps and character deep dives, the novel (as all the best ones do) proves itself relevant to our regular lives… and in so doing, makes a case for its own existence. If, in 2023, you’re not feeling overwhelmed by some piece of bad news, well you’re just not paying attention. Doerr reminds us: Inside sorrow, sometimes the stories we tell ourselves and each other are the only form of hope we have.

“‘I know why those librarians read the old stories to you,’ Rex says. ‘Because if it’s told well enough, for as long as the story lasts, you get to slip the trap.’”

First let me say: You probably think you are either a Poem Person or not a Poem Person. If you are not a Poem Person, I get that.

I took a jillion poetry classes in college, but then I realized I was a terrible poet, and I didn’t read poems after that for about 15 years. In early covid-times, a friend from my MFA started sending out an email called “good poems.” Just one poem a week. I was surprised by how much comfort I took in those little emails, and they eventually got me back into the practice of seeking out poetry. I can’t totally explain it, but it really struck me that poetry had felt like a dispensable luxury in the midst of ease, maybe even a waste of time. And when things got a little scarier, and I needed something (anything), poems were just sitting there where’d they always been, waiting for me.

Which is what I think poets have always done for societies—wait until they are needed, and then offer the quiet, thoughtful voice people didn’t know had been there scribbling into the void all along.

So I don’t know, maybe give poems a chance.

For the Children / Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

The Art of Noticing

by Rob Walker

From the about page:

The Art of Noticing is a newsletter about creativity, work, and staying human. It’s written by me, journalist and author Rob Walker. I share useful ideas, practical prompts, and unexpected inspiration that will help you pay attention to what you care about, and care about what you pay attention to. It’s for people who want to stay interested in life.

Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out

This podcast is a comedian interviewing other comedians, and while it’s mostly funny, it gets surprisingly deep at times. (Comedians are thinkers, I’ve learned.) Also, host Mike Birbiglia is lovely and complex human being.

Start with the Stephen Colbert episode.

Succession, obviously.

And this accompanying video. IYKYK.

Gav Murphy @cymrogav

This video I made of Kermit dancing to the Succession theme tune is my film of the year...