Author: joshua chamberlain
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doors, not mirrors
Fran Lebowitz makes an excellent point about reading in the final episode of the new Netflix series, Pretend It’s a City: Now people are always saying, “There are no books about people like me, I don’t see myself in the book,” […] A book isn’t supposed to be a mirror,…
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a letter from my past self
Four years ago, I wrote a letter to my future self. This is what it said: dear josh, I’m sure you have plenty to tell me, but it will have to wait. You’re at an advantage. You’ll read this letter someday. I recently finished a letter to myself as I…
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failure’s pretty great
Yesterday, my roommate and I had a conversation about failure. I told him a story about writing my first full-length play. When I finished it, I printed out copies and invited a group of friends to come over and read it. This night was among the top five most embarrassing…
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my favorite coffee mug
A few years back, some friends and I shot a web series. It was about our lives at the theater company where we worked and no, it wasn’t very good. I wrote an episode about dealing with writer’s block. The opening shot featured my desktop, including my favorite coffee mug…
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why feel guilty?
There are a fair amount of things I enjoy that aren’t cool. They’re not culturally bulletproof, they’re cheesy, they’re sentimental. They’re not high art. These are the things we might call “guilty pleasures.” “The guilty pleasure is always the enjoyment of some form that is not high art,” says Fran…
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why i love musicians
I truly envy musicians. A friend of mine from college used to talk about hanging out in the studio while recording music and how it fostered collaboration. One time I expressed my jealousy. “But dude,” he said. “You’re a writer. The world is your studio time.” Fair point, but landing…
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“be patient”
A few years back, I went to see a Broadway play. Afterwards, I hung around outside the stage door and wound up talking to the director. “Be patient,” he said when I asked for advice. This is something at which I’ve never excelled. Be it waiting for a break, waiting…
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here and now
In the final episode of The Last Dance, Mark Vancil had this to say about Michael Jordan: Most people live in fear because we project the past into the future. Michael’s a mystic. He was never anywhere else. His gift was not that he could jump high, run fast, shoot…
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on bullshit
We all know the truth when we see it. And yet, so many refuse to look it in the eye. They kick, they scream, they cry injustice. Some deny, some obfuscate, some look the other way. It’s the true measure of a man to look the truth in the face…
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times like these
“These are times that try men’s souls,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, although it many ways, it feels as though these words could have been written yesterday. In times when it feels as though the whole world is ending, it helps me to remember history. I often think about the…
joshua chamberlain 