If you didn’t read this week’s post “Dial 1-800-Cry-on-Cue” I will read it to you, dramatically and enthusiastically, below. 👇
Reading commences as soon as you hit play. Enjoy!
Notes from the Captain
Well, crew, I’m very late pushing out from the dock this week. Two days late. I won’t bother with excuses because I’m the Captain and I should be more disciplined and you deserve more from me. I have given myself a stern talking to and reduced my rations as punishment.
But maybe I was crying all weekend? (Feel sorry for me!) Perhaps I was overcome with feelings of helplessness and took some of my own medicinal concoctions as invented for Monday’s post? (Plug into your sympathy outlet!) Perhaps I’m practicing crying on cue to make my acting debut in some local production of… I dunno… The King and I? (It was none of these things. I was just working.)
Side note: The King and I is the first movie I ever remember crying at. I probably cried before then…I assume I watched Bambi at some point in my young life? I can’t remember that. I didn’t cry at E.T. as a child because I didn’t watch it until I was in my 40s. Yes, you read that correctly.
Do you have any memorable crying memories? That sounds weird, but I ask because I have a second cry memory that somewhat reinforces one of the things I talk about in today’s video: sometimes crying is a form of manipulation.
It’s a simple memory. I was coming out of anesthesia after having surgery on my leg when I broke it. I was fifteen I think. Anyway, I woke up crying in the recovery room. Bawling. In a daze. Just not even with it, but sobbing for some reason. I have a distinct memory of a nurse gently saying to me, “Why are you crying? Stop crying.”
I thought about it, then realized I didn’t know why I was crying—I felt OK—and so I stopped. Instantly. Thinking about this now, I think it was a sense memory of what we do as babies to get attention. We want to be acknowledged, and I wanted to get attention in that moment of groggy idiocy and potential pain. Even though I was fine, crying was the only tool I had in that moment.
It’s just a theory.
Human psychology. So interesting.
What makes you cry? Did you cry when you realized I didn’t send this out on Saturday, thus depriving you of MORE ME in your ears and eyeballs?
Understandable.
As the nurse said to me all those years ago: “Stop crying.”
To which I’ll add, “Now go make something this week. Make it so powerful it’ll make someone cry.”
See you on the high seas,
Your Captain, Janeen 🫡
Thangs from this episode…
👩✈️ All about crying
The Science of Crying - Time
Facts about Tears and Why Do We Cry? - American Academy of Ophthalmology
The Neurobiology of Human Crying - National Library of Medicine
One of the things I ‘half read’ for the video. Super interesting if you’re into science-y research-y stuff.
From the Abstract:
The production of emotional tears appears to be uniquely present in Homo Sapiens. Despite the ubiquity of this human behavior, research is only just beginning to uncover the neurobiological underpinnings of human emotional crying.
They conclude this study by saying:
Future research will be needed to understand the neurobiological basis of human emotional crying and how this complex behavior fits with overall emotional functioning and related expressive and social behaviors.
Which I think means we are not really any closer to understanding why we skin tubes cry emotional tears.
👩✈️ French Onion Soup
Just a heads up—French Onion Soup is not a Soylent Green situation. I was only joking and it’s not made of French people at all. Yay! That said, I was curious if it actually originated in France or was something like a French Fry situation.
It’s from France. Confirmed. There, it’s simply called "soupe à l'oignon."
The Curious History of French Onion Soup, Paris's Timeless Hangover Cure - Vice
Here. Martha would like to teach you how to make it.
The only song I know of that mentions cutting onions in relation to crying, which you may do as you make Martha’s French Onion Soup above.
👩✈️ Crying in movies
How to Cry on Cue - Backstage
Here are two standout scenes from actors who tap into something for sure.
Tom Hanks at the end of Captain Phillips gets me every time.
Margot Robbie in I, Tonya. Turning emotions on and off. Wow.
What’s crying scene in a movie has affected you the most?
👩✈️ That was the week that was
The last line in this week’s post was ‘That was the weep that was’, which was a nostalgic nod to my brits and colonials of an older generation. Here is the theme song from the original BBC show, That was the Week That Was. I did not know there was an American version, but it looks like it only ran for a year.
👩✈️ Dial a cry
The video won’t embed, but I found an ad for a dial in service where you can get on and have a bawl.
👩✈️ Songs for sobbers
Let’s kick it off with Prince Rogers Nelson.
And carry it on with a playlist I made of some of my favorite cry or cry-adjacent songs. And yes, the Joe Cocker version of Cry me a River is one of my all-times.
Fun side mission: The Willie Nelson song is from the Red Headed Stranger—a concept album I dig most heartily. So much so I wrote about it here.
Thanks for listening/watching and sharing this week. If you want to chat about any of the concepts in this week’s post—or just in general—feel free to leave a comment for the Captain (it me.)
Do. Make. Be.
Have a good weep about how amazing the world is.
I’ll see you out there.
🫡
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple
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