Abel Brainz Digest, Vol. 7 - June 20, 2023

Greetings fellow humans!

First and foremost, thanks for sticking with me on this creative endeavor. Do I spend too much time on this? Maybe. Do I have fun doing it? YUP!

Happy belated Juneteenth! Black History is American History and there are so many amazing resources to learn more about the history of the United States. A few of my favorites are:

The 1619 Project - Podcast that is now accompanied with a book. Both by Nikole Hannah Jones. 

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Zinn Education Project - A fantastic resource for teachers and students. 

And of course, Happy belated Father's Day to all my fellow motherf&%#ers!! 

Apologies for the crude and ridiculous joke. 

Dad relationships are weird and when you think about how arbitrary it is who our parents are, it's really weird. Before we get too crazy...

Check out this cool stuff! 

MOVIES!

- I watched The Worst Person In The World this past week. It's a Norwegian film that got a lot of buzz and a few of the scenes really hit you in the existential. It's currently streaming on Hulu. 

- I rewatched Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead. It's a classic to me and maybe for you. Released in 1990, it's a great time capsule. The movie has a lot of those 80's sensibilities with some 90's flavor. 

- Speaking of 90's flavor, I immediately thought of Boyz N The Hood. 

I'd be remiss not to mention how dope that movie is. The powerful movie put John Singleton on the map as a filmmaker. Laurence Fishburne is credited as Larry Fishburne and this scene from Boyz N The Hood is as relevant as ever. 

Teacher Stuff

I had the pleasure recently of closing out another six week class at Drama Inc. in Atlanta. We talk a lot about improv (duh) and one of my favorite approaches to improvisation is asking/answering the question, "if this is true, what else is true?" If you want to watch a movie that answers that question at every turn possible, check out Lonely Island's Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping. It's also streaming on Hulu. 

Reading Stuff

I'd love to be in the Matrix if only for the ability to read/learn like you can in the movie. 

In the meantime, I'll read and learn kung-fu the old fashioned way. 

I'm currently reading Above Ground by Clint Smith and Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. Above Ground is a collection of poems and Cloud Cuckoo Land is a novel. I'll let you know how they are when I finish. 

Improv Stuff

There's a goood chance I'll be at Community Night at Dad's Garage on Wednesday night. Come say hi! We can catch up and maybe even play together!

Wow. That was another long one. Thanks for reading. As always, please forward to like-minded folks. Click here to get to the past volumes. 

Have a great week!

-Abel