A gentle close to the week
8 little things that made the week brighter / Issue 1,456
Oh, hi friends!
To get something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.
This has been on repeat in my brain all week. I’ve parroted it to friends! To Lula the cat! To the sea!
We all make investments in ourselves.
With our energy, our money, our time.
We choose what to sacrifice. How much friction we can handle.
This feels like a pivotal part of the year, an in-between phase to look behind and consider what’s ahead.
So I keep asking and wondering:
What are you hoping to get?
And what’s one thing you haven’t tried yet, on the road to getting there?
7 Things That Made the Week Brighter and Better
I love doing these round-ups because often at the end of the week I’m like, “oh nothing really happened” or “I don’t know what’s memorable” but when I look around I find so many jewels of encouragement or bursts of creative feeling or just plain delight — and they remind me that it’s always the little things that move the day, the week, the year, your life.
Words of advice via actress Mary Testa:
“The best note I’ve ever received was from Andrei Belgrader. He directed Scapin at Classic Stage. He was just a genius, and he always smoked. He said to me one day during rehearsal, ‘Mary, you know, you try too hard to be good. Just be bad.’
That is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard.”
Thinking about this nonstop since my friend Andy Roninson reposted. Goes for acting, goes for art, goes for most things. Why do we try so hard to be good??? Let us be bad first.
“The Monolith.” Short film meditation on change, grief, construction, and how our views of art and ourselves are forever shifting. (h/t Jane Frye!!)
What’s a mung bean? I don’t care. These crackers are astoundingly good.
Let’s consider this giant bag a single-serving size. Jose Rivera’s 36 assumptions about playwriting. Brilliant. (Thanks to Durra Leung!)
Where are all PBS Masterpiece subscribers? We watched season one of Guilt, a dark comedy thriller, highly recommend! Bonus: Each season is only four episodes. I love when things are neither stretched nor shrunk to dimensions that don’t fit them. (Watching another series now with, um, the brother of Maggie Gyllenhaal, which could literally be two hours…we’re on episode six…there’s no going back…*sob*)
Books I read and learned from this week:
If growing your social media following is important to you: Gary Vaynerchuk’s Day Trading Attention
If you lead teams and want to find more meaning in your work: Seth Godin’s The Song of Significance
If you like clever, beautiful writing: Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren
Never underestimate the little things: I fixed something at home that had been driving me crazy for, oh, two years. Took 15 minutes. Pure joy.
Here’s a three-week-old baby orangutan!! (h/t Colin, who else?)
What made your week brighter and better? I’d love to know!!
And enjoy your weekend. Get into, and/or stay out of, trouble.
Wonderful post, Kara! What made my week better was clicking on your link to "Jose Rivera’s 36 Assumptions About Playwriting." So much great advice and things to consider (I'm not a playwriter, but it works for any type of writing.) In each of the 36 assumptions was an underlying: "Just be brave."
I loved this round-up Kara! Thank you! I posted my publishing timeline this week, even though I am not a published author yet. It was freeing to define success for myself, and also redefine what feels good and right. And just be bad too.