'Good' Things to Start Your Week

0:00I'm Brian Ler on WNYC and for the last 10 minutes of the show today we're going to head to the Good List. What is the Good List? It's a brand new New York Times newsletter, The Good List. It was launched about two weeks ago and each week the newsletter gives recommendations and inspirations for living a more joyful and meaningful life. They range from fun things to participate in as we'll see March Madness is on their list. Great films to see and things like rethinking small talk as something actually more meaningful. So let's welcome Melissa Kirsch who is the writer of the New Newsletter, The Good List. Hi Melissa, welcome to WNYC. Hi there. We don't have a lot of time for this but we think we have enough time for you to contribute to the list and make some suggestions to things that Melissa Kirsch might write about.

1:06What would you put on The Good List? Some things that are maybe new to you recently or just bringing you some joy here at the beginning of spring in what many of you will say is otherwise tough times, maybe for you personally and in the world, maybe a brand new hobby, seasonal or not, is already benefiting you a new season of your favorite sport with new players to look forward to. Maybe it is March Madness, maybe it's a great new book you just finished or a movie you just saw for the first time, maybe a new recipe is a hit for your family. You get the idea. Anything big or small you want to share that's bringing meaning to your life and if you were writing a newsletter called The Good List that you might put on it and maybe Melissa Kirsch should consider it for us. 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, caller text, 2-1-2-4-3-3-9-6-9-2. And you want to just define what you're doing with this newsletter, Melissa?

2:10Yeah. As you said, we're living in this uniquely dense moment of heavy news and I hear from so many people that they're looking for good news and it's sort of simplistic to think that all of our cares could vanish if only there were more good news and all that we think. But what we're trying to do is sort of help all of us bring it towards what's good in our lives. So it's like ignoring what's happening, ignoring what's stressing us out or the problems that we're having, remembering the events and bringing the good and sort of orienting ourselves towards it so that we are noting it, so that it is resonating with us and it's giving some sort of, you know. And I was just going to say, as she couldn't stick the landing of that sentence, giving us some sort of what? Well, maybe pleasure, maybe meaning. We'll get her back in a second, obviously we're having some connection problems with

3:10her line. So that'll give us an opportunity, actually, to hear the first of what some of you might put on a good list podcast starting with Chris and Crown Heights, Chris, you're on WNYC. Hi there. Hey, Brian. I wanted to share a new podcast I found called A Moment of Kindness. It's Villain Spotify and people can submit beautiful things people did in their lives, a kindness they performed to somebody that they remembered and it's just really lovely to hear stories of hope and kindness right now. Chris, thank you very much. Nice one. Marie and Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi Marie. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm giving a shout out to the New York Public Library. I live near the branch. I think it's called the Morningside Branch on West 100th Street and every Monday they show movies for free and they show all ranges of films from brand news to vintage and it's

4:13just an extraordinary thing. Good one Marie. Thank you very much and I think we have Melissa Kirschbach. So I'll note that you'll begin last week's newsletter with March Madness Madness and for people in Connecticut, you might double or triple or quadruple that this morning, right? Yes, I think they're they're going wild and I know if there were a Connecticut version of the good list, certainly you'd have the Huskies on there. The item on the list, I was looking at March Madness and you know if you're not a basketball fan, there's so many sort of extensions of March Madness out there, people creating their own brackets for everything from their like the best book to the past year or you know the best cows and killer Iowa. I'm going to keep jumping in because we keep having line problems but you know the previous caller mentioned her local library branch on West 100th Street and it happened there and I see that you wrote on your newsletter that your editor noticed a battle of the top 16

5:20circulating books at the local library in Norfolk, Connecticut which called to mind the glorious tournament of books which has been presenting a bracket of the year's best novel since 2005. So it's kind of the March Madness of Books. That is awesome. Adele and Oyster Bay, you're on WNYC, hello Adele. Hello, I have one word for you and that is sing and it doesn't matter if you belong to a singing group or if this is just something that comes back to you from your childhood, that's fine too. But the physical exercise of singing is just wonderful. That is a great one. Thank you for that. David and Harlem, you're on WNYC, hi Janet, what's on your good list. Hi Brian, I've called you so many times, it's a pleasure. My, what's my idea, it's bird watching. I discovered it a couple of years ago during the pandemic and I was looking outside and I saw sparrows taking dirt baths, I said this is fascinating.

6:22What I do, I can't even hold a binoculars but I have an app called Merle and it will hear the birds on and tell you what the bird is. And it's so wonderful being in the middle of New York City in Harlem and discovering birds all around it. Bird watching in Harlem, by the way a little correction on the library branch name, it's the Bloomingdale library on West 100th Street, not the Morningside branch. I think she was referring actually to Bloomingdale that particular branch because she gave the location. In Yonkers, you're on WNYC, what's on your good list. Is that more? Yeah, Mark, you're, you're pouring some water there. Hi, hi, hi, yes, Brian, I actually called in the last month to tell you about this and my suggestion is just find a way to be of service. We do it outreach. The street home is outreach every Thursday night in Midtown and it has just really improved

7:23my life immeasurably just to be present with people who are, who you can help. There's an incredible joy. We have a celebration to read Thursday night, it's like a street party. So just find a way to do that. It will enhance your life, it'll lengthen your life, and it'll give you a sense of value that you may not, may be seeking. Nice, Mark, glad you got that on again. So Melissa, you're hearing some of these from listeners and on your good list in the New York Times newsletter, one of the ones that surprised us was Pleasantries, like how you don't like small talk, and yet there was this Times op-ed by Roger Rosenblatt about that? Yes, he wrote sort of a defense of small talk and presented it as rather than just sort of like an on ramp to larger conversation, he presented it as a way, as a moment in which we are sort of seeing one another and telling each other that we matter. And there's something about that, you know, like that's such a basic human need to feel

8:24like you matter in the esteem of another person and it may be reconsider it. And I'll let you end on this one, a diversion that you call the Sandwich Alignment Chart, like Dungeons and Dragons, but about sandwiches? That's right, in the same way that you can evaluate the moral character of a character and Dungeons and Dragons, someone has put together a sandwich alignment chart so you can determine how chaotic or lawful or evil a meatball sub is. So much fun. Can people submit actual suggestions to you, like what we've been taking on the air? I would love it, the good list at nytimes.com. The good list, the new newsletter from the Times written by Melissa Kush, thanks for coming on and helping to introduce it. Thanks so much. And that's the Brain Lair Show for today, produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Amina Serna,

9:30called Boisband and Esperanza Rosenbaum, our interns this spring are Arlo Bivins and Jack Walker. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio, Julianna Fonda and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls.