Modern Loss

The surprising gift of no timeline, and what happens when you open the container. Last week's ‘Late Show’ pieces took on lives of their own. Somehow, I ended up on BBC World Service’s ‘Newshour,” CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter, and even CBC's national primetime news broadcast, in which I shivered my way through a conversation with its formidable host, Ian Hanomansing, soaking wet after coming in from a sudden storm two minutes before going live.

She died while I was working for him. I've never shared the whole story. Tomorrow, Stephen Colbert will tape the final episode of The Late Show. I’ve been dreading it in a way I couldn’t quite explain since the moment he announced its cancellation last July, until I realized that part of what I’m losing is my mom. I have photos and stories from across the years that I've mostly kept to myself, not wanting to come across as boastworthy.

Mother’s Day is almost here, which means it’s about to be a lot for a lot of people, and for more reasons than Hallmark would like you to think about. So in the spirit of feeling all of it anyway, I spoke with Gus Constantellis, a comedian and content creator who built a quarter-million-person Instagram following by impersonating his Greek mom, Julia, a force by all accounts. After she died, Gus figured out ways to keep the relationship going through memory, and comedy, and now, especially, food.

Noah Kahan: Out of Body Courtesy of Netflix I promise this newsletter has not been taken over by a 29-year-old from Vermont. But then The Great Divide dropped last week and here we are. I actually had an entirely different issue planned for today but some things are just too big to not address. By now I know better than to casually listen to a Noah Kahan song for the first time while I have an audience.

Map of Land and Sea by Oliver Jeffers David Gelles and I go way back
like, back to when our kids were babies tumbling around each other in living rooms, before his byline became synonymous with the most consequential beat in journalism. These days he’s a climate reporter for the New York Times, the author of The Man Who Broke Capitalism and Dirtbag Billionaire, and someone who has reported from Iceland to Patagonia to Cancer Alley in Louisiana.

Carroll Crater, the small bright crater near the center (courtesy of NASA) I did not expect to become someone who casually talks about orbital trajectories, but here we are. Iā€™ve been glued to the Artemis II crew since liftoff. Then I watched Project Hail Mary, in which an astronaut befriends an alien named Rocky by banging out math across the void together, and that pretty much sealed it.

Hi friends, This note is for the people who keep this going. Truly. Your paid subscriptions don’t just support Modern Loss in some abstract way. They make it possible for me to keep showing up, having these conversations with people like Anderson Cooper, bringing in smart people such as sleep expert Lindsay Scola for pieces like If You’re Awake at 3:17 a.… Keep reading with a 7-day free trial Subscribe to Modern Loss to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

The other night I went to Lady Gaga’s Mayhem tour and let myself get fully pulled into it. Sequins, Venetian plague doctor vibes, the kind of theatrical weirdness that briefly restores your faith in humanity. I came home wrecked in the best way, fell asleep while murmuring “Just Dance” to myself, then woke up an hour later. And again at 3. And 4. Sound familiar? Came home wrung out from this and still couldn’t sleep through the night.

Spring arrived at 8:46 am today; outside my window in Big Sky, MT The vernal equinox has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, which means we’re supposed to feel something like renewal. A shift. A soft reset. The daffodils are thriving. The group chats are optimistic. Someone somewhere is eating asparagus on purpose. Mostly, it just feels like more light on the same things. I’m finishing a week in glorious Big Sky, Montana, where I’ve pushed my body to its limits.

Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman On International Women’s Day, I keep thinking about all the women I know who are quietly holding entire ecosystems together. Families. Friendships. Communities. Group chats that would collapse without them. They’re managing careers while also remembering whose kid needs a ride, whose parent is in the hospital, whose birthday is tomorrow, whose grief anniversary is this week, and whose “I’m fine” text actually means I’m very much not fine.