joshua chamberlain

Category: television

  • brushes with nonexistence and performing vulnerability

    There are times I worry the things I say aren’t all that deep. This almost always stems from comparison of some kind, which is, of course, unhealthy. Comparison is the thief of joy, as the old saying goes. But in a late-stage capitalist hellscape like this one, comparing ourselves to…

  • peripheral opponents

    Every so often, I stumble into a show to live in, a story so powerful and immersive, it touches every corner of my life. Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is the latest show I’ve let swallow my life whole. Let me begin by expressing tremendous gratitude for…

  • cut your teeth

    Malcolm Gladwell’s Principle of 10,000 hours is well documented, but for those of you who aren’t familiar, the idea goes like this: achieving mastery of a specific skill require an estimated ten-thousand hours of practice. Backed by research studies and social experiments, Gladwell asserts that “ten thousand hours is the…

  • speaking truth to power

    I recently listened to an episode of The Moment with Brian Koppelman in which Koppelman reflects on his late father’s influence and the lessons learned from watching his father operate in the music business. One of these lessons is how to speak truth to power, a privilege that stems from…

  • do what you’re doing

    While I was in college, I had the opportunity to meet Alan Zweibel, one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live. He told a story about how he got the job at SNL: he’d been writing jokes on his own, collecting them and refining them at open mic nights…

  • thoughts from a detective

    In a recent episode of The Moment with Brian Koppelman, writer-director John Hamburg (Along Came Polly, I Love You, Man) touched on a few things that I’ve been turning over in my mind lately. Referencing advice from his therapist, Hamburg says of writing, “Be a detective, not a judge.” I’ve…

  • psychic scars

    A friend of mine is studying to be a screenwriter. The other night, we had a conversation about her graduate program. She’s in her mid-thirties, while most of her classmates are in their early twenties, a disparity she claims is obvious in their writing. Much of the work her classmates…

  • what I’ve been up to

    It’s been a little while. Things have been crazy for me lately and as a result, things like posting here have fallen by the wayside. Here’s a list of things I’ve been up to and a few observations I’ve made: Also, some worthwhile reading and watching I’ve done:

  • how to have more than one success

    In a conversation on Illeana Douglas’s podcast, Matthew Weiner recounts asking Larry Gelbart the secret to having more than one success. Gelbart, famous for M*A*S*H and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, responded: Don’t do anything for money, don’t do anything you’ve done before, and don’t…

  • happiness is not bullshit

    I was struck by a brief exchange in Ann Lamott’s episode of The Midnight Gospel, which quickly dispels the myth of the tortured artist. “I felt terror that if I stopped drinking, I would never write again,” Lamott muses. “Because I needed the misery. Because I needed that edge. And…