Three Reading Recommendations

If I had to guess why I watch Saturday Night Live, it's because I enjoy crave feeling like I'm a part of things—that I know things that happened, and want the most timely conversation around those things. I want to be able to follow the jokes on Twitter. I even have an antenna for my TV so I can watch it Live and hear the jokes along with the world.

And yet, I watch every week wishing the show was so different. That the people on it were different (at least some of them), that some of the jokes were different, and that it didn't serve as a vehicle for capitalism.

This is a preface to say, I am constantly thinking about this essay from Seth Simons. In it, he reads between the lines of Colin Jost's memoir to untangle what is the core of SNL's unsolvable problem.

I would also like to recommend the most recent excellent report on what is happening at the Flea Theater. I would love to discuss this with fellow humans. My questions are:

  • why not just straight-up make the org a cooperative?
  • is this now a fight over the fate of a $25 million building?

Is A.R.T./NY successfully leading by example? Joey Sims asks the question always on my mind. My faith in +optimism for institutions and organizing is at an all-time (not equalling zero though) low.