Yum! Stuff that’s provoking + inspiring me (Sept 2025)
We often think about sadness and joy as opposites, but humor has the power to show us just how fine the line between what makes us laugh and what makes us cry can be. I love art that shows us how fine that line is. I love the paradoxical jolt of both surprise and resonance that it gives me.
“Aaaaah, yes! I forgot that’s how it is. “
And the laughter that comes afterwards feels so good and holds the door open while wonderful things like acceptance and belonging quickly sneak in.
Trauma can be great fertile ground for developing a dark sense of humor. Perhaps for those of us who’ve done our fair share of crying, it’s a great comfort to be reminded that laughter is always just as close and present in horrible circumstances.
Dr Brené Brown’s articulates this well in her conversation with comedy film and TV show Producer / Director, Judd Apatow, on the relationships between vulnerability, laughter, and connection.
I often noodle on how my art can better hold both the grief and the delight. And I love the work of writers, poets, film-makers, and researchers who understand and take us on those kinds of wholehearted journeys that have us finding unexpected humor in the grief and vice versa.
My favourite film of all time - Funny Bones - is a great example.
I also quite enjoyed the newly released dark comedy about the picture-perfect yet highly dysfunctional marriage (and friendship circle!) of Ivy and Theo in The Roses.
The prolific author, David Sedaris, is another great example. I’ve enjoyed several of his books of short stories about his own dysfunctional family life and his observations on the dysfunctions of society, and it’s on my bucket list to attend one of his live readings someday. (How many short story writers can fill Carnegie Hall for a book reading?!) Here he is, performing a live reading of one of his stories.
I took this photo last week on one of my daily walks in our local park. There’s something really special about the warm early Autumn light here… often emerging through a gap in the clouds, and landing on a small patch of foliage that’s beginning to turn …creating a zing of glowing oranges, yellows, or reds in the growing greying days.