Deciding What to Write

by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when, uh ... well, let's see. They [cancelled Caillou](. There was other [surprising news about children's television](. And one senator found his book's booking unbooked. Let's get to it. Opening Argument When I sat down with this newsletter and started to try to decide what to write about this week, the words that came to my mind were precisely these, except slightly more sweary: "You've got to be kidding me." What, precisely, do I talk about in a moment in which [Axe body spray is distancing itself from an attack on the Capitol]( where five people died, including a member of the Capitol Police? Not to mention multiple ongoing other terrifying apocalyptic scenarios? And then I remembered what I always try to tell myself in the moments in which that kind of feeling overtakes me: There's always an emergency somewhere, even if you're not watching it happen. That's not intended as an "oh well, whatever," but as a reminder to my own brain, which always sees what's close to me (both geographically and culturally) and then fans out in a series of concentric circles. A reminder that to laugh at a movie or read a love story or analyze a comedy is always to operate next to someone's disaster. I may not have been writing these notes to you for the last year or two while Axe body spray was distancing itself from an attack on the Capitol where five people died, but I have written them in the emotional company of police violence, hunger, a raging pandemic, neglect, climate change, systemic racism, economic inequality, and -- shall we say -- multiple ongoing other terrifying apocalyptic scenarios. There is a part of me that finds it distasteful when people say well, obviously, we will not be putting out our comedy show this week, because of ... events. There is something to be said for sensitivity to timing, obviously, and for room-reading, and for the things we all want to aspire to getting right. Those choices usually come from a place of good intentions, and I always support a pause when a pause is needed. But the reason to allow yourself the space for entertainment and art is not that all is mostly right with the world except when you suddenly decide it isn't, but that a well-developed sense of reality will tell you that human beings have always sought out both beauty and distraction, no matter what was going on around them. It's not about postponing your joy until some unspecified time when you can go back to thinking about it. It's about placing your joy in the context of the world and your obligations to it and keeping all of those things in mind together, right? This has always been the world. It has always contained all these things. As you can see, I still don't know what to say. A week from today, Promising Young Woman, one of my favorite recent movies, will be out on demand. (It's very upsetting, just by the way.) I didn't really care for the first episode of the new Tina Fey-produced comedy Mr. Mayor, but I haven't given up on it. I think there's less to the new extremely sad movie Pieces Of A Woman than meets the eye, even though Vanessa Kirby is very good in it. (And especially though not exclusively for parents and parents-to-be, the opening sequence is Saving Private Ryan levels of hard-to-watch, just so you know.) Peacock is really pulling out all the stops to promote The Office now that it has it, but why don't they have the blooper reels and the commentaries that were on the DVDs? I have all these thoughts. They're there, next to my fears and worries and anger and, yes, at times, hope. We'll keep going. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- We Recommend I'll have fuller thoughts on it next week, but I really recommend checking out the new All Creatures Great and Small that's coming to PBS this weekend. I realize it's always hard, when there already exists a really good adaptation of a book, to interest people in a new one. But the first shots of the rolling green hills were one of the few moments this week when I sighed in a good way. Look, I'm not here to tell you how to eat chicken. But I will say that boneless, skinless chicken breasts have usually been a profound disappointment to me, and the recipe at the NYT Cooking site from Kenji Lopez-Alt for [Mayo-Marinated Chicken with Chimichurri]( is the rare exception. (If you hate mayonnaise like I do and think it sounds gross, rest assured that I could detect no mayonnaise-ness.) I think we can all agree that we have all been, at times, [both the bird and the capybara](. What We Did This Week Murray Close/Sygma via Getty Images [On our Friday show]( we rounded up some recent movies we missed. [Thursday]( was Showgirls, [Wednesday]( was Bridgerton, [Tuesday]( was Card Sharks, and [Monday]( was love stories from the Book Concierge! Stephen talked about new music over at NPR Music, and he and Aisha talked to Michel Martin about how entertainment changed in 2020. A special thanks from the PCHH team to producer Will Jarvis, who finishes up a stretch this week in which he helped us get through the complicated scheduling and other challenges of the last couple of months. Thanks, buddy. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: - Aisha's pick: [Save Yourselves]( streaming on Hulu - Bilal's pick: [Les Misérables]( streaming on Amazon - Bob's pick: [S***house]( available to rent on VOD - Linda's pick: [Collective]( available to rent on VOD - What's making Aisha happy: "Reminders" by Mariah the Scientist - What's making Bilal happy: [No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier]( - What's making Bob happy: [The Personal History Of David Copperfield]( - What's making Linda happy: [Bag Man podcast, hosted by Rachel Maddow]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. --------------------------------------------------------------- What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [pchh@npr.org](mailto:pchh@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can [sign up here](. Looking for more great content? 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