"As seen on tv"

On being the punchline

It’s my newsletter and it’s in this weird interstitial space anyway so: a story, unrelated to much of anything.

Late Thursday night my phone started blowing up.

“OMG they just mentioned Soup & Thread on Colbert!”

Your reaction is likely the same as mine. WHAT? But it eventually became clear that somehow, someone in the writers room for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert seemed to have stumbled upon my community sewing bee project and included it in the show’s “Chicago Community Calendar” segment, in which Colbert and guest Sean Hayes run down local events of …note ... happening during this week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with all the flair and production values of the best of public access TV. Or at least that’s what we assume happened; we had nothing to do with it!

And yes, of course, they mocked our call for volunteers to "help construct and decorate the world's largest soup-themed tablecloth" as "the biggest object nobody asked for" but it's all good. Our event is dorky and wholesome, intentionally absurd and confounding, and you know what? People seem to love it.

The fact that people have shown up this summer at our events in the parks and at street fairs prove that, actually, it is something people are asking for. All summer long, people have joined us to sit and sew for a few minutes or an hour. They’ve shown up and asked "what are you doing?" And when we say "we're creating the world's largest soup-themed tablecloth" they don’t scoff and walk away. They’re curious, they ask questions, and often they sit down, and start sewing. They share stories and skills, teach each other some stitches, make surprising connections. It's been a great opportunity to build some gentle and yes, ridiculous, community across the city. And as any good comedian can tell you, the world is a lot better when it gets a little silly.

I am writing this from a hotel room in Champaign, Illinois, where I’m participating in a symposium on book banning, literacy, and censorship hosted by the Press and the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois. I’m sitting in bed watching the first night of the DNC on tv and I’m having, truth be told, some fomo. How can I not be in Chicago during such a historic event? How can I not have anything to do with it as anything but a punch line? I can’t even figure out how to get a ticket to the Colbert show taping!

When these insecurities start to swell I try to remind myself that I’m just doing the work, in this small, nonsensical way. My friends and I were doing this work long before this blip on the national stage and we’ll continue as the spotlight moves on — as it already has, as it should. Soup & Thread offers nothing to monetize or influence or commodify, just a chance to come together with others for a brief window and share an experience that maybe doesn’t make sense, but might create a memory and, perhaps, a sense of being part of something larger than oneself. Kind of like politics, in their best and purest form.

So, a PSA to any readers in Chicago, come out and join us at one of our remaining events this summer!

• Wednesday, August 21: 4-6 pm before the Opera-Matic performance at Kennicott Park, 4434 S. Lake Park Ave. in Oakland

• Saturday, September 14: 2-3 pm before Three Clowns Enjoying a Picnic at Unity Park, 2636 N. Kimball in Logan Square

In October we'll be hosting a Soup & Thread sewing bee as part of the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival in North Lawndale, inside a sukkah that we're designing for the Douglas Park Library. And then we'll move back inside for another series of bees at community spaces all across town. I’ve somehow managed to break our website but for now you can follow us on Instagram at @soup_and_thread for more on this — and see @soupbreadchi for news about the return of Soup & Bread the first Wednesday in November at the Hideout. And that Colbert segment? It is fucking hilarious.