Cal Newport's Slow Productivity was the gift I didn't know I needed. Oh yeah, here's my website before I forget: https://www.leahrenee.co/ I read the book Slow Productivity in one day because it was *that* good. Now I'm wondering how I can apply it to my stand up comedy and naturally the first place I went was Ireland.

I am interested if the slow food movement would work in comedy. I'm also interested in some of the fun offline clubs and phone-free events, like Summerween! I'm not as interested in Norway's gloriously ridiculous Slow TV but I applaud them for being so Norwegian (my maternal grandparents are from Bergen). And my other ancestors were Irish Seanchaí.

Find your place in the episode:

00:50 Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

02:05 Educated by Tara Westover (episode coming soon)

03:05 The three tenets of slow productivity

04:50 My sticky note method for book notes

05:50 Guesting on Women Folk Revival + how to get back into reading

08:25 The slow food movement (Carlo Petrini)

09:45 What is slow media?

10:55 Offline clubs, Silent Book Club & dinner with strangers

14:15 Slow media habits: longer essays, fewer tabs

15:35 Norway's SlowTV cracks me up

17:20 Can comedy be slow? Fast vs. slow comedy

19:05 Fast Food Comedy is Taking over

21:50 Comedy showcases & hacky crowd work

22:50 UK vs. US comedy: novels vs. essay collections

23:55 Irish Seanchaí & Eddie Lenihan's fun weasel folklore

26:50 Oral storytelling traditions & Orality and Literacy

29:15 Hack comedy vs. nourishing comedy

33:10 Comedians who do it right: Bamford, Gaffigan, Vine, Glanc, Regan

36:50 Quality takes time: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jane Austen, Jewel

40:50 Cozy comedy with candles?

42:10 What I'm reading now

43:40 Podcasting vs. stand-up lifestyle

44:45 Book recommendations por favor

Stuff I mentioned this episode:

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

Educated by Tara Westover

Imperial Twilight by Stephen R. Platt

Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong

Calypso by David Sedaris

I'm Dying Up Here by William Knoedelseder

Women Folk Revival podcast: ⁨@womenfolkrevival⁩

My episode:

https://youtu.be/-DZK8LDIHkI?si=1_kYGd4X4OFdxAZq

My Imperial Twilight book review: https://youtu.be/YfERMrrskWQ

Listen to more of these to learn about quitting social media, books, comedy, and much more:

→ https://youtu.be/YfERMrrskWQ

→ https://youtu.be/yKZPaA1b-XA

Here is how to find Leah Renee other places:

Website: https://www.leahrenee.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@leahreneecomedian

Substack: https://substack.com/@leahreneecomedian

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LeahReneeComedian/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leahreneecomedian

IG: https://www.instagram.com/leahreneecomedian/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahcreative/

#slowmedia #calnewport #slowcomedy #Seanchaí #slowtv #quittingsocialmedia #bibliophile

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Leah Renee is a comedian based in Philadelphia and New York City.

She’s storyteller comedian with a uniquely personal perspective on culture, religion, gender roles andmotherhood. Leah's comedy offers a warm and distinct hug and wagging finger in a crowded field of Tinder/Trump/Am-I-right? jokes.

Four time Edinburgh Fringe performer Leah's shows have been described as:

"Funny, daring and quite surprising in places with laugh out loud moments of wryness, poignancy, shock and tenderness."

EdFringe Review ★★★★★

"Renee’s exploration of the realities of Mormon life...is eye-opening, funny, well told and, ultimately, very interesting."

One 4 Review ★★★★

Thanks for listening! See more of Leah's stuff at leahrenee.co

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A book review and follow up of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods (before I forget, here is my website: https://www.leahrenee.co/ ) I go down a rabbit hole fact-checking his 30-year-old predictions about the environment, talk about OG (Old Granny) Grandma Gatewood and connect it all back to hedonic adaptation, digital detox, and even Mormon Girls Camp.

CHAPTERS

0:30 A Walk in the Woods on a whim

0:50 Hiking the Appalachian Trail is a massive ordeal

3:10 I'm very much into walking books and deprivation

4:14 The Salt Path — homelessness and the housing crisis

6:40 Camino de Santiago books on my list

7:20 Grandma Gatewood the most bada** lady who hiked the AT thrice

9:00 US Hiking is scarier than European Hiking

9:20 Fact-checking Bryson's climate predictions

13:00 The ozone layer and the Montreal Protocol

15:40 Nature reclaiming abandoned industrial sites

16:20 Benton MacKaye's utopian vision for the AT

19:40 Hedonic adaptation and voluntary discomfort, shout out stoics

21:00 Mormon Girl's Camp

22:20 Bryson and Stephen Katz, the odd couple that works

25:10 AT deaths and hypothermia

27:00 William Bartram, Philadelphia's Most Famous Naturalist

29:40 I Guess I Have to Camp Now

30:40 Cal Newport, Johann Hari, and reclaiming attention

34:00 Send me book recommendations

Books mentioned:

A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson)

The Long Walk (Sławomir Rawicz)

The Salt Path (Raynor Winn)

Stolen Focus (Johann Hari),

Cal Newport's writing on attention and reading.

Watch more fun podcast videos:

→ https://youtu.be/YfERMrrskWQ

→ https://youtu.be/yKZPaA1b-XA

Listen to more of these to learn about a life in stand up comedy, life post Mormonism, and moderately woo woo stuff. :)

#BillBryson #AppalachianTrail #LeahRenee #Podcast

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Leah Renee is a comedian based in Philadelphia and New York City.

She’s storyteller comedian with a uniquely personal perspective on culture, religion, gender roles andmotherhood. Leah's comedy offers a warm and distinct hug and wagging finger in a crowded field of Tinder/Trump/Am-I-right? jokes.

Four time Edinburgh Fringe performer Leah's shows have been described as:

"Funny, daring and quite surprising in places with laugh out loud moments of wryness, poignancy, shock and tenderness."

EdFringe Review ★★★★★

"Renee’s exploration of the realities of Mormon life...is eye-opening, funny, well told and, ultimately, very interesting."

One 4 Review ★★★★

Here is how to find Leah Renee other places:

Website: https://www.leahrenee.co/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@leahreneecomedian

Substack: https://substack.com/@leahreneecomedian

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LeahReneeComedian/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leahreneecomedian

IG: https://www.instagram.com/leahreneecomedian/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahcreative/

Thanks for listening! See more of Leah's stuff at leahrenee.co

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you like vampires, Imperial Twilight is for you because it's all about compulsive blood suckers!: 19th century opiųm smugglers and 21st century tech billionaires. P.S. This is my website: https://www.leahrenee.co/ and this is the author of Imperial Twilight (the book I review in episode 21) Stephen R. Platt: https://www.stephenrplatt.com/

This episode is not just about old timey trade relations between Britain and China, it's about addiction. What we can learn about China's handling of the dangerous opiųm epidemic admidst our modern day attention fracking crisis?

Is there hope for the human race when it comes to reclaiming our attention which is being harvested at a rate that would make the East India Company blush.

This episode is full on with anecdotes, personal stories, excerpts, animated GIFS, and of course: unnecessary references to Mormonism. How could I not get in on the Mormon + Twilight game that Stephanie Meyer started?

You'll have to wait for the monkey anecdote, just like I did. It was over 400 pages deep in the book when Platt dropped the most delightful glitter bomb of an aside, as the book was wrapping up. Only those who stay until they've eaten their dinner get desert.

For the purposes of indexing and clarity, here's what episode 21 of the Leah Renee Podcast covers:

- Is social media the opiųm of our day?

- Cal Newport's five cognitive fitness tips, I promised to share where you can learn the five things from Episode 16 here: https://youtu.be/yKZPaA1b-XA?si=KuuxnOSWfyo-jJ_Y&t=223

- The Switch Cost Effect (including references to Johann Hari and Gloria Mark's research at UC Irvine)

- Lin Zexu's famous letter to Queen Victoria and the physical, social, and economic harm of the opiųm trade to China

- British dependence on Chinese goods, and China's indifference to their "toys"

- The sobering social media statistic that matches up with heavy opiųm users, that I ran by a teenager to find the numbers may just be right

- New social media bans rolling out in Australia and UK

-  Center for Humane Technology www.humantech.com a fantastic site run by digital ethicists and the creators of The Social Dilemma

- Current bills and legislation to protect children from the harms of the modern digital world:   Kids Off Social Media Act, COPPA 2.0, KIDS Act

- I also complain about how everyone's handwriting sucks, and I don't remember phone numbers or basic math any more.

- The ChatGPT study MIT published about cognitive debt and why using ChatGPT makes you dumber

Linkage:

Website: https://www.leahrenee.co/

YouTube: / @leahreneecomedian

Substack: https://substack.com/@leahreneecomedian

Reddit: / leahreneecomedian

Facebook: / leahreneecomedian

IG: / leahreneecomedian

LinkedIn: / leahcreative

Thanks for listening! See more of Leah's stuff at leahrenee.co

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.