Episode 238: Brain Zhuzh with Amanda Yesnowitz
“The industry is really becoming so much more inclusive in terms of the actual themes of the puzzles to the editors, to the constructors, and to the solvers.”
- Amanda Yesnowitz
Kate realizes she could have been the first butter influencer and Doree has a pod-sausage update. Then, Forever35 listener, cruciverbalist, and award-winning musical theater lyricist Amanda Yesnowitz joins them to chat about why humans love puzzles, how Will Shortz was involved in both her engagement and her wedding, and her upcoming feminist holiday musical comedy Christmas In Connecticut.
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Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I am Kate Spencer,
Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir
Kate: And we are not experts.
Doree: No. But we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Kate: And you can visit our website for 35 podcast for links to things we mentioned on the show, our Twitters Forever 35 pod. Our Instagrams forever 35 podcasts, Forever 35 Facebook group is on Facebook where the password to serums our favorite products can be found at Shop my.us/forever 35. And our newsletter can be found at Forever 35 podcast.com/newsletter Sign up. It goes out basically two times a month.
Doree: It does go out two times a month, Not even basically
Kate: <laugh> <laugh>. I'd like to caveat everything.
Doree: Yeah, no, I get it. And you can call or text us at (781) 591-0390 and you can email us at forever 35 podcast gmail.com. I also do just wanna mention our balance bound collab is at balance bound.co/shop/forever 35. It's the beginning of October, and I feel like it's around this time that I always see that meme. That's like the beginning of October. That means it's almost Halloween, which means it's almost Thanksgiving, which means it's almost Christmas, which means it's almost the end of the year
Kate: <laugh>. It
Doree: Is. But I also, I'm
Kate: Talking about yes, but I did have that feeling recently where I was like, Holy shit, this year is almost over. Also as I'm talking, I realized, I thought we were in 2023. Are we? Or is it 2022? I have no idea what year it is right now.
Doree: We are currently in 2022. Okay. We will be in 2023. I say this all because I'm just saying if you wanted to get some of our merch for your bestie for the holidays, it's not a bad idea to order it soon. Just putting that out there,
Kate: That's a really good call, which also means I need to start thinking about what I'm getting people for the holidays,
Doree: <affirmative>
Kate: God, the circle of life. It never ends. Well, look, I did just want to get onto my soapbox
Doree: And
Kate: This kind of speaking of holidays, because you could bust this out at the holidays. I did just want to note that many people have been sending me personally and sending the podcast links to the latest viral craze butter boards,
Doree: <affirmative> Now butter boards. For those of our listeners who are not familiar with a butter board, could you just describe what those are?
Kate: I would be honored to do so, Doree. So this month on TikTok, a recipe maker, developer eater, I think her name is Justine, ticked and blogged about butter boards. And I don't believe, I think she credits another chef for the idea. She was inspired by somebody else's butter board, but I think it's this person's justine snacks.com. I think her content is what went viral. And it's basically, essentially you take a cutting board. Let's say you smear a bunch of butter on it and then you add your Accra malls on top. Maybe you put some olive oil for a savory butter, maybe a smoked salt, a little bit of mm-hmm. <affirmative> cilantro or basil <affirmative>. You could make a sweet butter board with an unsalted butter and some honey maybe, and maybe sprinkle some almonds on it. I don't know. I'm pulling this out literally between my butt cheeks.
Oh, lovely. But I kind of just wanted to be like, yeah, everybody, I know a lot of people, One of my best friends, I'm getting together with my core group of best friends from college. We normally get together once a year, but we haven't done it in two and a half years because of Covid. And I haven't seen a couple of them for two and a half years. And we are gathering on an island for a weekend and more meal planning right now. And one of them was like madame, her nickname for me. She said, Are you jumping on the butter board trend? And I replied, I am not, because I feel like I was the OG butter babe. Get on my level everyone.
Doree: Oh shit. Kate was the OG butter babe.
Kate: I have revealed on this podcast that I eat butter plain. And now because it's on a board with some fucking rosemary sprinkled on it, everybody's like, Oh, cool. Butter.
Doree: I
Kate: Don't know, I just feel a little, Yeah, I know. I don't know when you feel like your superior to everybody else because you were aware of something before it became cool. Now it's suddenly cool to eat butter. Now granted, you are dipping bread or a cracker into the butter
Doree: Board. You're not taking a stick of butter and taking a cho out of it.
Kate: My butter board would just be sticks of butter and all my guests just have one to nibble on the corn kid.
Doree: I still regret not getting you a butter sculpture of your book. That was a real fail in my heart.
Kate: <laugh>. Yeah, it really was. It really was. For the next one, if you don't deliver a butter sculpture of the next book, I don't know if we can be friends. I don't know if we can be friends.
Doree: Honestly, this just speaks to my poor planning because I thought of it the week before your book came out in, But
Kate: Isn't that how everything is? I feel like I get my best gift ideas the day of someone's birthday.
Doree: Yeah. I mean, Oh, I just realized your paper back is out in February.
Kate: Get me that butter
Doree: Book. Well, I like
Kate: How you did this preorder my paper back. Every and maybe Doree will get a butter version of it made for me. I mean, that's also gotta be a billion dollars to get a butter sculpture of something, isn't it,
Doree: Kate? You're worth it.
Kate: Aw, thank you. I appreciate your friendship.
Doree: I mean, look, people get, I had a Cake of startup. You did
Kate: Was beautiful. It
Doree: Was beautiful. And that's a pretty common thing that people do. But why not butter sculptures?
Kate: I will say, I mean, why not? But maybe if I ever have some sort of book party, finally I should have butter. I should make butter boards.
Doree: Oh, a thousand percent
Kate: Only butter boards. Yes, you all should. You love to
Doree: Eat, that's all. Yeah. Refreshments, butter boards.
Kate: All right. Maybe I will offered to make a charcuterie tray for my girlfriends because I had such pleasure making one recently. I had friends over to watch a movie and I made, I had such pleasure going to Trader Joe's and then putting together this charcuterie board. Maybe I'll try a butter board for my friends and see what happens and document it. And maybe I should, now I'm having a change of heart. Maybe I should become a butter influencer before it's too late and other people take away my spot.
Doree: I mean, I'm just saying, Kate, you were on the butter train long before it. Now I not, I don't wanna be, Yes. I don't wanna be a party pooper Debbie Downer, negative Nancy, et cetera. But I do just want to gently remind you, and I do hate when people say gently remind, but I'm trying to say this in a spirit of friendship that we did discuss your butter habit in the context of your high cholesterol
Kate: <laugh>. I totally forgot.
Doree: I forgot. Not supposed
Kate: To be getting
Doree: Butter outta my concern for your health. I do just want, again, gently suggest that perhaps reigniting your passion for butter could possib possibly be detrimental to your overall health and wellbeing.
Kate: I truly forgot that that is the origin story that I was like, Hey, I have high cholesterol. Do you think it's because I take butter out of the fridge and slice off chunks of it and nibble on it? No, no,
Doree: No. That was not how that conversation went. The conversation was, I have high cholesterol, I have no idea why
Kate: <laugh> <laugh>. And then I was like, Oh, also I eat butter. And you were just a little right. And I was like, Oh no, I can polish off a stick of a Costco stick of Carrie Gold, which is really a brick by myself. And also the other truth that I take bites out of it and then put butter back with teeth marks into the fridge. Oh my God.
Doree: You're like a little butter mouse. I
Kate: Am. I'm like the butter squirrel that lives in your tree and sneaks in and gets your butter. Yes. Oh, okay. Well, I forgot that. <laugh>, I completely forgot. I haven't gotten my cholesterol. I have to go get blood work again because I haven't gotten my cholesterol tested in a while since that discovery of my high not good cholesterol. Good Lord. What a journey this has been.
Doree: Wow.
Kate: Next thing you know, people are gonna be using Butters skincare, and I'm gonna really have, and I told you, remember when everybody was picking, putting coconut oil all over their face and bodies?
Doree: Oh yeah, maybe they
Kate: Still are. <affirmative>
Doree: <affirmative>.
Kate: Well
Doree: Kate, before we get to our amazing guest, I have a request for our listeners, and it's a little in the weeds but I just wanna mention it. We have always kept this podcast free, and ideally I think we would like to continue to have it be free, but in order to do that, we need your help regarding our ads. And I bring this up, not to say go out and buy 10 away suitcases and five Casper mattresses, but we always used to say, Oh, if you don't wanna listen to the ads, just fast forward them. It doesn't matter. The thing is, it now does matter, <laugh>.
Kate: It does
Doree: Plot twist <laugh> stuff
Kate: Is changing here in the podcast's face
Doree: Everybody, It's changing in the podcasts. In the podcast world, advertisers now have the ability to tell if you a listener has listened to their ad, which is frankly between us, kind of annoying. So this is just like a little request. If you are someone who skips the ads, no judgment, but maybe every so often you could just listen to the ads. Maybe just turn down the volume. I don't think they can tell if you do that, if you don't wanna listen. Although I'll say our odds are pretty entertaining.
Kate: We are doing them together again. We
Doree: Do them
Kate: Together. And I have to say, I find us very charming when we do our, I
Doree: Have a good chuckle every time there's laughs, there's laughs, there's jokes. Yeah. So just in the spirit of keeping this podcast going, I just have that small request. The other thing that you can do to support the podcasts is just visit the URLs that we mentioned. Again, you don't have to buy anything, just visit the URLs and then the advertisers are like, Oh look, our ad worked. Someone visited our website from Forever 35. That's all. Yeah. We have a very special guest today.
Kate: Let's tell this origin story of how Amanda, Yes, no, it's came to be a guest on our podcast.
Doree: Sure. So this woman, Amanda Yesnowitz reached out to us. She said, I'm a listener of the pod big fan and I'm a crucifer list. I create crosswords. I've had crosswords published in the New York Times, Will Shorts was at my wedding N bd. And I especially, I think was like,
Kate: Oh yeah,
Doree: We need to have you on the show. So that was the origin story. And in case I didn't kind of just tell you enough about how amazing she is, here's her official bio. She's a New York Times published crossword puzzle constructor and a competitive speed solver. She's also a professional musical theater lyricist whose coveted honors include winning the hundred thousand dollars Cleman Prize, the Jonathan Larson Award, the Dramat Dramatists Guild Fellowship, and the Berkeley School of Music Alumni Achievement Award alongside Beyonce's choreographer, Ebony Williams and Game of Thrones composer Ramin gwa. Her upcoming project, a feminist holiday musical comedy based on the 1940s. Barbara Stanwick movie, Christmas in Connecticut, will have its world premier at the Good Speed Opera House this November. She's also a clinical professor of writing at NYU's Tish School of the Arts, where she's been on the full-time faculty for 25 years.
Kate: And boy is she charming.
Doree: I
Kate: Mean, we let's, before you're gonna hear the interview now, but just know we talk about her 18 year age difference with her younger husband turning 50, how she got into crosswords, why we love doing them <affirmative>, I confess a new musical theater interest. I mean, we just go there. Or that further ado, Here's
Doree: Amanda. Amanda,
Kate: We're very excited because our guests today reached out to us after we discussed a word. I still can't pronounce Cru. It's not cruciferous. Is it cruciferous?
Amanda Yesnowit...: That would be Brusselsprouts, I believe. Thank you. Our yes.
Kate: Yes. I'm always trying to describe a crunchy vegetable. Amanda reached out to us because she's a crossword creator and fan. A cruciferous, You've gotta tell me the word <laugh>. I just said it again.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah, Doree had it right. It is crucis. And if you just break it down, because Doree, you said, I believe that it sounds like crucifix and the root is actually the same. So cruc for cross verbal is for word crossword. It's actually pretty <laugh>. Yes.
Kate: So Amanda, when we got your email that you were like, I'm a listener, and I also, These are the things I do, it was an immediate yes. I believe our, my reply, my forward to Doree was like exclamation point and Doree's response was like, Yes. Immediately. Yes. And here you are. We're so excited to have you on the pod. Thank you for reaching out. We can't wait to dig into your life story <laugh>,
Amanda Yesnowit...: Dig away.
Kate: But you've heard the podcast, you've listened before, so you might know that we like to start every interview with guests asking about a self-care practice that is meaningful in their own life. So can we start with that? Do you have one to share?
Amanda Yesnowit...: Absolutely. And unsurprisingly, I'm going to talk about puzzles as self-care, and we can get more into the psychology of it a bit later. But I generally do like to start off with a puzzle. Now, for me, it might be a crossword puzzle, but it really can be any kind of puzzle. It could be a jigsaw puzzle, it could be Sudoku, it could be spelling be, it could be word all. And the reason why this is a form of self-care and a very satisfy, satisfying way to start the day is because people who do puzzles, it's a way of creating order out of chaos. And that's something that Steven Sonim has talked about that shorts has talked about. Now, here's a thing. You're both writers, you're both creators. And so in your creative lives you do this as well. You create order out of chaos. You take things that already exist, words, ideas, and you form them in a way that creates joy, beauty, logic, all the things. But the key difference is that generally when you're solving a puzzle, there's only one correct solution. And when you've gotten it right, <affirmative>, and that makes the brain feel really, really good and sort of empowers you to face the chaos of the day.
Doree: So what I'm hearing, Amanda, is that my rediscovery of my love of puzzles, crosswords mysteries during the pandemic was an attempt to impose order on the chaos of the world.
Amanda Yesnowit...: That is absolutely correct there. I mean, think about all of the things that you can control in your lives. There's not that much, right? <affirmative>. And so it's a form of control, especially during the pandemic. We think about ways that we can control things on a local level in your lives. You can take a shower, you can go to the store store, you can read a book. Those are things that are extremely local, right? Then when you think about the global, yes, we can do things that have ripple effects and affect social change and all of that, but during the pandemic, we all were experiencing this loss of control in a global way. And so people became attracted to, what can I do? What can I control? Now, think about a jigsaw puzzle. It's something, it's chaos that the joy of, we might break up a puzzle. So we're creating chaos in order to mm-hmm. <affirmative> make it into something whole. And that releases endorphins in the brain. So in that small way during a day where maybe we were hearing all kinds of bad news, it was like, here's one thing that that's gonna make my brain feel good.
Kate: I love that. Now, this is interesting, I haven't really told you this, but at night lately I will, I've been doing my wordle and then I do qu mm-hmm <affirmative>, Q U O R. And I used to do wordle in the morning, but now I save it as it's a Sunday, an ice cream Sunday. At the end of the day, now
Doree: Wonder, I do quar, wordle and global.
Kate: And you do it all at the end of the day. Okay.
Doree: Yes, I do all at night at the end. Is
Kate: There a thing, is that kind of just wrapping up and a satisfying, tying a little bow onto the end of the day? Do you think there's some psychology in that aspect of things as well?
Amanda Yesnowit...: Absolutely. It's a little something I might call alen y at the end of the day, just like a little, it's <laugh> making a a little treat at the end of the day. A little extra sort a imagine a little chocolate kiss on your pillow before you go to bed. Just a little bit of something that makes you feel good and makes your brain feel good before you go to sleep. Instead of thinking about the million things you have to do tomorrow, you give your brain just a little shshsh, a little joy. And yeah, it can absolutely set you up for a nice night of sleep.
Doree: Something, a brain
Kate: Story.
Doree: <laugh>. I love this idea of a brain ranges.
Kate: Is this something that you discovered about yourself as an adult? Has puzzling, always kind of scratched that itch for you your whole life? Or was there a moment where you came to it almost out of need?
Amanda Yesnowit...: I think for many people, puzzling is inherited. I think most people will have a story that it has to do with a relative. So for me, it was my dad when I was little and he would do the New York Times, The Sunday magazine puzzle was the one that really stuck out in my head. And I have this vision of being a little girl. I was very verbal when I was little and reading, writing very young. And I would just watch him doing it and he could generally finish the Sunday puzzle. And I noticed that the natural of order things took over. So as I got a little older, maybe he let me help, so maybe then I could fill in a few. And then as I got older and older, he then needed me to help him finish it because there would be things that he didn't know and then I no longer needed him and then I could start doing it on my own.
And when I was in college, and so it was always a source of pleasure. But when I was in college I went to Tufts in New England, my heart's hometown is Boston. And when I was in college, a friend of mine and I would sit in the campus center and we would do the toughs daily crossword puzzle and we would just race. And that's when the competitive part started and I realized, oh, I can do these pretty fast. So the pleasure turned into sort of dug at my competitive spirit and I started doing them very quickly. And then that led to a whole other part of my life. <laugh>.
Doree: Okay. So how did you then make the jump to creating crosswords? Because that is a fair, that's very hard. That
Kate: Puts you in a league of your own, right? <laugh> like
Doree: Yes.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Especially as a woman. Yes. Yeah.
Kate: Oh yeah, good point. So
Doree: Can you talk us through how was this just sort a challenge that you set for yourself? Or how did this happen and then how did you actually start doing it?
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah, well I will say, and you'll hear this from anyone who's in the crossword community, it's such a welcoming community. It's not that big. And it's a community where just people just wanna bring you in. And in 2008, I believe there was a documentary called Wordplay that came out. And if you haven't seen it, have you seen it? Has either of you seen it?
Kate: I've never seen it. Which I'm embarrassed to say that I have.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Clinton is in it, The Indigo girls are in it. You have to see it. So when that movie came out, a lot of people saw it. So it was a documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzle. And I watched that movie and I started to think that I could compete cuz it's all about this tournament. And I was watching these people and I said, Well, I can do a Monday in three minutes and I can do a Saturday under 10 minutes. And I thought, I think I could probably do this. And a lot of people the movie was very popular and the tournament, which used to take place in Stanford, Connecticut, all of a sudden all these people were interested because of the movie. So they moved the tournament to Brooklyn, it's now back in Stanford cuz it, it's kind of settled back down. But for a few years, because of the movie, people were so interested and wanted to partake. So as in Brooklyn, I'm based in New York City, so I said, I'm gonna go, I'm compete in this tournament and I'm gonna see what happens. And so I competed for a few years, about six or 700 people. And the way that I would describe a crossword tournament is just imagine a bunch of people in a room taking their SATs voluntarily. Oh my gosh. And that's what it's
Kate: Like.
Amanda Yesnowit...: And I got to a point I think I came in maybe in the top hundred one year and I thought, you know what? I peaked, what's my next challenge? So like you said, absolutely, I said, Well, maybe I could make one. Maybe that's the next part of this. And so I had made some friends in the community and I reached out and started collaborating. And my strength is really in coming up with themes and doing the clueing, and I tend to collaborate with people who are better at the visual of the gritting element.
Kate: Oh my
Amanda Yesnowit...: Gosh. Of it all. So that's how I made that transition.
Kate: This is one of the things that I get hung up on, crosswords, <affirmative>, which is how witty they are <laugh> your brain. Your brain isn't just throwing, you don't just throw words together that fit you're creating that my husband will be like, Oh, check out the blah, blah, blah and this today's puzzle. And I'm like, he loves, that's his favorite part when he solves. And Doree, maybe this is for you too, when you get the inside joke of the puzzle <affirmative> and you realize what the puzzle's doing. Like that to me. Yeah. That seems like a separate part of the experience, almost like
Amanda Yesnowit...: Aha moment.
Kate: Yes.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yep. What
Kate: Is that is satisfying about that? Because this doesn't scratch my itch, so maybe the two of you can tell me what is that for you?
Amanda Yesnowit...: Well, dor, I mean, you recently had this week where you completed the week, right?
Doree: Yes. Which does not happen every week. And I am not always consistent with doing the puzzle every day. But I do think it is a thing where you get better the more you practice. It just is because you see either the exact same clues or very similar clues, or when they say a certain clue, it's always going to be this one semi obscure answer. Or there's just like, there's specific themes and topics that come up all the time. And I keep trying to remind myself that I need to learn more Lord of the Rings trivia because there's always freaking Lord of the Rings shit in there. And I, I've never read Lord of the Rings. I know I have no interest in Lord of the Rings, but there's always something about Lord of the Rings. Am I wrong? Yeah,
Amanda Yesnowit...: That's true. No, no, no.
Doree: Thank you. Thank you
Amanda Yesnowit...: Miranda.
Doree: And I thank you for seeing me,
Amanda Yesnowit...: <laugh>. Yes, yes. I see you Lord of the Rings. And also you had mentioned, I think something about tides, right? The
Doree: Neat tide. Oh my God.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah. Story
Doree: Tide. But one thing that I will say is, especially with the New York Times crossword, is there is an assumed kind of class and cultural context that someone doing the crossword needs to have to complete this crossword. And if you do not have that, I think it is very difficult to complete a crossword Amanda thoughts.
Amanda Yesnowit...: But that is changing. That is changing. And it's something I noticed you talked a little bit about that. Yes, historically, it really has been, the industry has been run by old straight, white guys, <affirmative> and even the knowledge base from a certain socioeconomic status. Absolutely. But that is changing and it is changing fast. It is changing exponentially. So if you look at some of the crossword editors now take for example, USA Today is now edited by Eric Agar, who is just such an advocate of all kinds of inclusion. And those puzzles that he edits and publishes are filled with contemporary references. And the industry is really becoming so much more inclusive in terms of the actual themes of the puzzles to the editors, to the constructors and to the solvers <affirmative>, which is, it's great to see, We have seen so much change in a very short amount of time. Many more women at the helm, many more people of color, many young people. And you're seeing it show up on the page every day. Every day.
Doree: Yeah. I mean, we're starting to see that in the New York Times also. I know they've hired more younger and people of color editors. And you're starting to really see that in the creators that they have. And I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but it is always funny to me when I do a crossword that has more contemporary clues and answers, and then I go and read the comments on that day's article and it's filled with people being like, What were these clues? <laugh>, all the old people getting really upset about it. And I'm like, you know what? It's time to broaden your horizons here. Just accept this. So yeah, I don't know. This is something that I feel very strongly about and I'm glad you feel strongly about. But that also brings me to my next question, which is for someone who is perhaps a crossword, immature <affirmative>,
Amanda Yesnowit...: Hello.
Doree: What are some broad categories of knowledge that you would recommend, Excuse me, They familiarize themselves with,
Amanda Yesnowit...: Well, like you said, it's really true. The only way to get better is to practice. So I'm gonna answer your question in a roundabout way. There's something, there's a psychological phenomenon. I mean, I sort of call it the crossword puzzle effect. You, you'll see, you can substitute in something else for crossword puzzles, and I use this in my teaching as well. So if you sit down to do a crossword puzzle, and let's say, as you know, Monday is the easiest for the New York Times. So let's say you sit down with a Monday crossword puzzle and you're not a very patient person, and you, you're doing it for 15 and 20 minutes and you, you're done. You don't finish it, but you're just done doing it. And maybe you filled half the puzzle and you're convinced that's it. That's all I know. I guarantee you, if you come back to that puzzle 24 hours later, having slept, having eaten, having exercised, whatever, you will pick up that puzzle and you will know something that you didn't the day before.
Now why is that? Because again, going back to the way our brains work, our brains are designed to keep solving problems while we are living our lives. So it's a similar thing to when you're, let's say, writing a chapter of a book and you're like, I don't know how to make this thing work. And you're like, Maybe if I come back to it. And then you come back to it and you think, How did I not see this thing Well, because your brain, brain is this amazing organ that works in this way and it needs nutrients and it needs oxygen and it needs time. So I guarantee that if someone's interested in broadening and deepening their knowledge base, I would not recommend, Hey, go study the moons and tides charts so you have that knowledge that they're ready. I would say just start doing the Monday crossword puzzle or start doing the USA Today. Just do a puzzle here and there. Fill in what you can. Don't feel any shame about not finishing it into three minutes or not finishing it at all. Come back to it the next day. I'm telling you, I've done this with my students who don't. They're like, No, no, no, that's not true. And then the next day it's what happens. So that's how you get better at it
Doree: All righting. That's motivating, saying what you're saying is there are no shortcuts. <laugh>, That's fine.
Amanda Yesnowit...: No, I would say to that, I would say, But there are shorts cuts because of little shorts and good.
Kate: That's knows.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.
Doree: So we're just gonna take a short break and we will be right back. Okay. We're back.
Kate: You mentioned your husband and that you have an age difference, which I feel like is still something that we culturally or u and a over. I would love to know what your experience is being partnered to someone who's younger than you. And I don't know if it impacts the actual relationship at all, but I wonder if it impacts how you are perceived or how the two of you move through the world.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah, I mean, we have an 18 year age difference as I mentioned, and this is not necessarily information that I would share, but I am a pretty public figure, so I can't really hide my age, but by the time this has aired, I will have turned 50, which yay is someone said to me today, Congratulations. And I thought, Yeah, yeah, that's <laugh>
Kate: About, right? Wow. I mean, yeah,
Amanda Yesnowit...: Our age difference. My husband doesn't care about it at all. I mean, he's a really evolved human. Every once in a while, he'll listen to this podcast with me. And I remember there was a listener who remember it was someone who had gotten a short haircut that she really loved, but her husband wasn't so into it, right? There was a lot of, So I asked him, I said, Well, what do you think about that? And he said, Okay, let me understand this. The haircut makes the woman feel sexy and beautiful and empowered. And I said, Yeah. He said, Well, then I would love it. Why wouldn't I love it? I mean, that was it. There was no <affirmative> even hesitation. So a really pro-feminist, evolved, kind, sensitive person. I mean, I think for me, the age difference, I'm always doing the math, always, always, always. And he really isn't. Yeah. I mean, I'm used to it at this point, but our relationship, we have good humor about everything. I think the secret to the longevity of our relationship, we got married right before the pandemic, but we've been together for about 10 years. We have a lot of comedy bits between us. I mean, we just laugh all the time. And it feels like our relationship feel. It feels like we just met
Kate: <affirmative>. Are you having feelings about 50? Are you doing anything to honor this transition into your 50th year? Are you kind of meh when it comes to birthdays
Amanda Yesnowit...: Usually? I am trying to be more positive about this because I'm lucky to be celebrating my 50th birthday, and I have a really exciting project that's coming up in a couple of months, and I'm trying to see that as a birthday gift and as a way to celebrate moving into this next decade. I mean, what choice do I have? I don't have a lot of time to grieve it. <laugh>. Yeah. So it's hard. I'm not gonna lie. It's it, It's hard. Not easy forties. I mean, as you're gonna see in the next few years, your body keeps changing and you're not as resilient as you were. I will say that my 32 year old husband certainly keeps me young at heart, in mind, all the things. So I'm very fortunate in that regard.
Doree: Can we talk a little bit about your other career <laugh>?
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah. Yes.
Doree: As someone who writes musical theater, I mean, you have a lot going on
Amanda Yesnowit...: <laugh>,
Doree: And you have an upcoming feminist musical comedy based on a 1940s Barbara Stanwick movie.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah, yeah. So it's a movie. When I was approached to do this project, I hadn't heard of the movie, but a lot of people know it. It's called Christmas in Connecticut, and it started Barbara Stanwick. It's a Warner Brother movies from the forties. And yes, surprisingly a feminist holiday musical comedy. It was really ahead of its time. And so I am a lyricist and a librettist, and I, I was approached to write the lyrics for this project and Jason Holland is writing the music. He's a Broadway composer. People might be familiar with his work on little women in Paradise Square. And the book writers Patrick Pacheco and Eric Forrest Jackson. I wanna just give them all a shout out because musical theater is a very collaborative form. And so we've created this and the world premier production is happening this fall over Christmas in Connecticut at the ooh, legendary, good speed opera house where Annie started before it went to Broadway. So it's a beautiful, beautiful, magical place, and we're very excited to have the world premier production coming up.
Doree: Cool.
Kate: How do you think these two, does this overlap? What is it about the way that your brain works that kind of connects this creation of words in this way? Because there's a wordplay element to it, but there's also a little bit of math. There's just such an interesting cross section of the things you use in your brain. I would love to know just how did you land in this space? Yeah. What is it? I mean, Sorry, I keep rambling, so please. No, no, you're take me away. Me. But
Amanda Yesnowit...: You're absolutely right about the math and science of it all. Often people think about writers and artists just sort in this more dreamy space and a puzzling making puzzles and writing lyrics. There are acts of compression right there impose. Cause I could never do what you do. There are too many options. So for me, making a puzzle, the imposed constraints, same with writing lyrics, The imposed constraints are so liberating for me. I don't want to have a world of possibility. I wanna have maybe a village of possibility <laugh>. So yeah, acts of compression, that is absolutely what they have in common. And I grew up loving math. I never thought I would go into a more verbal field. And then in the third thread, I'm a writing professor at nyu, and when I meet my students, I always say, I can give you my life in three threads. I teach writing, I write musicals, and I make crossword puzzles. And they all intersect at the nexus of language. They all feed each other. Absolutely.
Kate: Do you think with musical theater, this is a selfish question cuz I'm kind of going through this right now. I feel like with musical theater, there's a narrative that people, if you're into it, you got into it when you were young, how do you get into musical theater as an adult? Because I will tell you, my nine year old and I are both getting very into the woods, which I had never heard as a kid. And I'm married to a person who works in musical theater as like a Sondheim fanatic. So for him, and he did musical theater his whole life. But yeah, is there an entry point for becoming a lover or a consumer of musical theater as an adult? And is there a place you recommend a newbie start?
Amanda Yesnowit...: I love that you're getting into the woods and Sondheim. I'm, I'm almost a little bit jealous that you're going to hear all these things that I've grown up listening to you and for you getting to discover it. Well, look, you saw that happen with Hamilton, right? <affirmative>? Yeah. Sometimes something will transcend the sort of preconceived limitations of it space, Oh, I don't like musical, so I'm not gonna go see one. And then something like a hair comes along or something like Rent comes Along or something like Hamilton, maybe they all need to be just one word. Titles, I don't know. But it transcends it. And then that brings in new audiences. So sometimes it takes someone to drag you and you maybe you don't even wanna go. But I mean, if you think back during the golden Age, pop music was theater music. And at some point during fifties or sixties when rock and roll sort of ruled the airwaves there became this separation.
And then theater ended up existing somewhere else on the periphery. So yeah, I think you just have to be minded. And especially if you're in a place like New York or London, you know, just gotta go have to, no way to replicate the experience of sitting there, the liveness of the experience. And I think that's something that we missed certainly in the past couple of years. It can't be replicated. It's not something you can get on TikTok. It's not something you can get in a movie theater. And if there's a big in many cities, even in smaller cities across the country, shows come through. Just you have to go and also understand if you don't like one show, it doesn't mean that musical theater isn't for you. It's sort of like if you go to one movie and you don't like it, would anybody say, I'm never going to one movie again?
Kate: That's a good point,
Amanda Yesnowit...: Right, <laugh>?
Kate: Yeah, that's a very good point. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that so much. Because I was playing into the woods alone in the car today, and I was like, I think I like this
Amanda Yesnowit...: <laugh>. What do you about it?
Kate: What I've saw it, I saw this is very in the weeds. I didn't see the recent Broadway revival, but I saw it when it toured a few years ago. And I was like, Yeah, this is fine. And then my daughter and I went to an opera group in la, performed it in a local botanical garden. And I was like, Yeah, I like this. I like the patterns of the way that the, There's a pattern to the music that I really like, the way that they tell the story. And then of course at the end I cry and the moral of the story is so deep, but it's all through these fairy tale. I don't know. It for some reason is hitting me real hard. And then also my nine year old is really into it. And that's just cute to watch her sit there. And I think it also brings my husband a lot of joy because that is, his love language is musical theater.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Wow. Wow. I love that. And it's to be able to experience something like that with your family, you know, just said that. That's also great advice though, if you're familiar with those tales, which who isn't familiar with at least one of those tales? A lot of musicals are based on movies. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of that. I would like to see more original stuff, but that also can be a gateway for people to, Beetle juice, I think is a great example. Well,
Kate: My husband wrote that. Did you know that? Oh my god. You know that, right? Did you know that?
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah. Oh my gosh. <laugh>. What? He co-wrote the book. Amazing. Oh, I did. Oh wow. That's so funny.
Kate: Wow. Way to nail it. You'd way to nail it, Amanda. I was gonna say Mama Mia personally. But yes, they, Beetle juice is very fun. Yeah, there are fun. There is so much now. Like Dora, you just said, didn't you just see jagged little pill <affirmative>? Yeah. You can really find your entry point right now with musical theater. That's a good point.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Oh well, right. Yeah, that too. I didn't even think of that. Is there an artist that you like? Oh look, Sarah Bras <affirmative> wrote Waitress, but also she's into the woods. I'm a fan. I should probably go see that. Or Alanis Morrison and there are so many others. But to find a gentle way of indoctrinating the <laugh> the masses
Kate: Into
Amanda Yesnowit...: Becoming a musical theater lovers, there is something for everyone.
Kate: Well, shall we switch gears and talk about possibly the most important topic, <laugh> of all <laugh> skin care, <laugh>. Do you have a skincare routine, Amanda, that you wanna share? Or any products that you are particularly loyal to?
Amanda Yesnowit...: I mean, I've learned so much from listening to the two of you so I'm very grateful for that. I am really into the Tacha Dew we Skin cream, which I would not have known about <affirmative>. And so I was using that for a while and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I see it. I see it. And then I thought, I wonder if there's a good DUP for that because it is a little pricey and <affirmative>, you can get that nice sale at Sephora twice a year. Oh, by the way, I ju because it's my birthday. I did go to Sephora to get my little birthday treat and it's a mini Tacha Dewey. Oh my gosh. Cream thing. Aww. Yeah. Amazing. But I looked for the dupe, which was, well I won't say what it was, but <laugh> a few. It was on the top of many lists. This is the DUP to use. Wait, why won't you say what the do? Oh, ok. Right. I'll say it <laugh>. It was Bliss Ex explosion, I think is what it's called. And no, not a fan. I did not, It didn't work for me at all.
Kate: Oh, the DUP didn't do it for you?
Amanda Yesnowit...: Nope, nope, nope. So I'm back on the Taja train. Yeah,
Kate: That's such a let down. When the doop doesn't doop. Yeah. You go into it thinking it's gonna be the answer to your problems and then it's like, well, I guess I'm stuck.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah, but it lasts a while, so it's not terrible value. So I really like that. And as far as makeup, I'm really digging Thrive now. I don't wear a ton of makeup. I try to keep it natural, but the Thrive, the brilliant Eye brightener sticks now I have tried these. Sephora has them, Clique makes them like that. They're come in, they come in different colors, and most of them you put them on and they dry out immediately. And the Thrive ones are a little pricier and I'm gonna be 50. I'm not putting this on 30 year old skin. And I find it stays on, goes on easily. It's so pretty and versatile and it's really easy and it makes you really put together. And I love their mascara also. Yes,
Doree: I love their mascara.
Kate: I like both of those products. I brought that stick with me while I try. It's a great travel thing cuz you can just rub it all over your eye and it does the trick, but it's also not a liquid. I love. Yeah, their stuff is so great. Yeah, I really like their products. Good.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah. So those are the two things that I'm really digging right now and definitely packed with me on this road trip.
Kate: <laugh>.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Well,
Doree: Amanda, before we let you go, if our listeners want to follow along with your work, perhaps do some of your crosswords
Kate: <laugh>,
Doree: Where can they do
Amanda Yesnowit...: That? Yes. So I guess if you just plug my name into the New York Times, my stuff will come up in there. My Facebook profile is pretty public so people can reach out to me there if anyone wants to or is in the area in the New England area. Christmas in Connecticut, tickets are already on sale and it will be running from November until the end of the year. I will be up there in residence. I'm very excited taking the semester off nyu. So I will be up there with the show. My husband is actually going to be in the show,
Kate: <laugh>. Oh my gosh.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah. Wow. I'm very excited about that. And eventually my memoir, which I've not started writing yet, but I just wanna share with you the title. I'm announcing it here. It will be called Yes. No, it's complicated.
Kate: I mean, of course you've got a name Play Pun.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yes, of course I do. <laugh>.
Kate: Oh, I love it. Well, this has been so much fun, Amanda. Thank you so much for coming on the pod.
Amanda Yesnowit...: Yeah, this has been great. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is all kinds of worlds colliding, and I love that you give voice to just underrepresented communities in so many ways. I mean, the sheer breadth of the guests that you have on is really, really impressive. And I couldn't imagine another arena where a serum loving cruc Verist could actually
Kate: Talk about
Amanda Yesnowit...: Her work, <laugh> and her life. So that's really exciting and it's kudos to you. So I'm sure I'm speaking for a lot of women who really appreciate just how far you're you reach.
Kate: Oh, wow. Geez. Thank Wow. Ending this on a real high note. Thanks.
Doree: All right. Thanks so much, Amanda. All right, thank you.
Kate: Well, Doree, wow. I have to say, I came around a little bit on crosswords after talking, after hearing you and Amanda kind of connect over the pleasure they bring. I felt okay. Yeah. Yeah. I came around. Now
Doree: When you say, had you been anti crossword before,
Kate: It's not that I'm, Or you're
Doree: Just like, this isn't for me.
Kate: I just find them a little bit inaccessible. But I think it's because the one I always go to is the New York Times, and I just find there's an Air of <laugh>. Oh, I'm look at me. Right.
Doree: Which we talked about in the, It's funny, weird play in the episode. In the interview. Yes.
Kate: With her. Yeah. Now the People magazine crossword, I'm all for. So I think it's just more the specific crosswords that I kind of have looked at in the past. I probably need to get a book of What about select
Doree: What the New York magazine crosswords. I bet you would like those.
Kate: Well, that's a good idea. I think I should maybe look a little bit more into crosswords for Kate Spencer crosswords. That might appeal to me.
Doree: <affirmative>. That being said, this is one of my life goals is to write, create a crossword.
Kate: You should do it. Is there anything stopping you?
Doree: No, it's just really hard.
Kate: <laugh>. Yeah, <laugh>. I mean, it seems like it would take a lot of time. <laugh>, I don't even get how you do. You just come up with the words and fit them all together and then you come up with the clue.
Doree: No, there's puzzling. I've looked into it. There's like online, There's online puzzle constructors that you can use that give you the grids. Yeah.
Kate: Well let me ask you this. Could you make a forever 35 themed crossword?
Doree: Oh, now we're talking. That
Kate: Mean, that could be kind of fun.
Doree: That could be very interesting. I will admit that I always have a little free song of excitement whenever serum is a <laugh> clue. Oh, totally. The times crossword <laugh>
Kate: That I get. I also get titillated. And people always share that with us too, which is always fun.
Doree: This is very interesting, Kate. I will put that into my hat of ideas that I may or may not ever do.
Kate: Good. I like that for you. I like that for your hat. Well, I know as we enter into the intention zone last week I said I would read paper books and I'm doing it, but I gotta say I, it's made me realize how much I love. So I ordered a new one. You may recall I left my Kindle on a flight, a Southwest Air Blind plane. You know what it is? I love my ritual at night of turning off the light and then reading on my e-reader and then closing my eyes and falling asleep. And I can't do that with a paper book. I've changed. Yep, I've changed. I'm with
Doree: You. I'm right there with you, Kate.
Kate: So unfortunately, I am now in, I've realized who I am and I am an e-reader reader. E-reader, reader. But I am still reading Bad Vibes only via paper book and it's hilarious. And my intention this week, Doree <affirmative> is to, and I'm gonna do it today, mail back the mountain of returns, the cardboard box mountain that is sitting shoved inside my closet. I need to mail them back or I'm going to truly be fucked because I'm gonna miss the return window. So
Doree: I also have, not a mountain, but I have a bunch of returns that I need to send back today as well. One thing that does help me with returns is once I get them all already, I just immediately put them in my car.
Kate: Okay, that's really smart. So they're just there haunting you something around. Right.
Doree: Well then they're just there because then it's like if I'm out and about and I pass a UPS store, I'm like, Oh yeah, I need to drop this stuff off. It just gets them sort of mentally, it's one more mental step.
Kate: <affirmative>.
Doree: I don't know. Does that
Kate: Make sense? That's smart. No. Yes. Instead of piling them by the door and being like, Eventually I'll move these to my car, you just do it. So it's
Doree: Done. I just put them
Kate: In my car and it gets you there. Yes. Smart.
Doree: Exactly. I like
Kate: It.
Doree: You're
Kate: Right, you're right.
Doree: <laugh>, Kate. I honestly do not remember what my intention was last week, cuz it's been a minute since we did intentions.
Kate: I
Doree: Know. So I'm just gonna start with a clean slate here.
Kate: <laugh>. Okay. Circum from
Doree: Scratch this week, actually, the day that this airs, I believe, Yes. The day that this airs is Yom Kippur,
Kate: Dave Atonement,
Doree: The Day of Atonement, where we really close the chapter on the year behind us and all of our missteps and bad things we did and said, they get kind of tied up and <laugh> put out to see.
Kate: So it's such a beautiful practice. I love that so much.
Doree: And we just start the new year off with a clean slate I'm doing with these intentions. So see how I brought that back. So yes, my intention this week is to just kind of be in that head space of starting a clean slate, letting go of whatever from the past year that I'm still holding onto that does not serve me. Whether it was something that I said or did, or also it Yo Kippur is also about forgiveness of other people who may have wronged you. So letting that go as well.
Kate: I love that. Doree,
Doree: Thank you.
Kate: I'll be, and I don't know, that seems like such a great way to start a new year.
Doree: Thanks. And I'll be in synagogue, my friend and I are going together and yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Kate: Well, on that note, let us just remind all of you that Forever 35 is hosted and produced by the two of us, Doree Shafrir and Kate Spencer, produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our managing partner is a cast. And we will talk to you all later.
Doree: Bye