Blogs I Like: Sitcom Geek
As Stephen Fry said once upon a time: when I was young, comedy albums were my rock albums. The first albums I remember buying were remaindered copies of "Another Monty Python Album" and, rather incredibly, Robert Klein's "Mind Over Matter" (I think because the cover just looked so out-there).
“We cannot think if we have no time to read, nor feel if we are emotionally exhausted, nor out of cheap material create what is permanent. We cannot co-ordinate what is not there.” (Cyril Connolly)
One of my favorite quotes of all time, probably my very favorite, is this one from Stanley Kubrick: “Sometimes the truth of a thing is not so much in the think of it, as in the feel of it.”
Review: "In Our Time" podcast and newsletter
One of my long-term listening pleasures is BBC4's In Our Time podcast. The show is hosted by Melvyn Bragg, a novelist, cultural reporter, broadcaster, and a member of the House of Lords, in no particular order. The show's premise is to pick a significant topic from history, culture, science, art, philosophy, etc., bring in three scholarly or scientific experts on the topic, and let Lord Bragg serve as the audience's guide and interlocutor. Bragg's job is to absorb lots of detail (written and prepared for him beforehand by the week's guest experts) and then attempt to lay out the topic from end-to-end for the eager-to-be-informed listener. All in about 43 minutes, which makes it fast-paced with lots of finely argued details and centuries of stories regretfully brushed aside or glossed over in an attempt to get out of the studio on time.
What would the 50-something you say to the 20-something you?
You’re going to need reserves of determination, and persistence, now, during the high points and right up to the moment you retire, if that ever happens. So, don’t be put off easily. You’re never too young, too inexperienced, too familiar, too old, too traditional, too radical, too uncool, too black, too female, too weird, too conventional, too deaf, too Portuguese, or too anything for anyone to stop you making the comedy you feel driven to make. And if you don’t feel that, then you shouldn’t be doing it.
And then I realize: The way for me to be better than my parents isn’t to do my taxes on time. That would be nice. But really I need to not give myself choices about how I spend my time. The more choices I have throughout the day, the more decisions I make, the more willpower I need, the more I get distracted from paying attention to the building blocks of a fulfilling life: gratitude, meaning, and ritual.
Being productive means simplifying how you use your time. Which in turn, simplifies your life.
Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others.
—Groucho Marx