Real artists have day jobs : (and other awesome things they don't teach you in school)

Real artists have day jobs (and other awesome things they don't teach you in school)

Sara Benincasa

Book - 2016

While the practical aspects of new adulthood can be nerve-wracking--dating, job-hunting, money-managing--the most important task of all is figuring out who you are and where you fit in the world. Author and comedian Sara Benincasa, now in her mid-thirties, had an absolutely harrowing early twenties and now, on the other side, she has a LOT of hard-earned wisdom and common sense to share.

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2nd Floor 158.1/Benincasa Due Feb 8, 2025
Subjects
Affirmations.
Idea (Philosophy)
Self-actualization (Psychology) > Miscellanea.
Self-confidence > Miscellanea.
Published
New York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers [2016]
Language
English
Main Author
Sara Benincasa (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
ix, 259 pages ; 21 cm
ISBN
9780062369819
  • Introduction: There Are 52 Essays in This Book but Please Read This Part First
  • 1. Real Artists Have Day Jobs
  • 2. How to Read a Book
  • 3. Everything Is Intersectional
  • 4. It Gets Better, Mostly
  • 5. Do It Anyway
  • 6. Put Your Clutter in Purgatory
  • 7. When You Don't Know What to Do, Ask a Successful Woman
  • 8. You Can Do Magic
  • 9. Feel All the Feelings
  • 10. There Will Be Shit Days
  • 11. Elect Your Own Executive Board
  • 12. Take Care of Your Teeth
  • 13. Stop Apologizing for Everything
  • 14. Radical Overconfidence
  • 15. Join the Fancy Club at the Airport
  • 16. When You Can't Figure Something Out, Put Yourself in Water
  • 17. Take the Compliment
  • 18. Go Fuck Yourself (No, Really! Masturbation Is Important)
  • 19. Wear a Weird Hat
  • 20. Listen
  • 21. The Power of Being a Dork
  • 22. Everything's Not Alright (and That's Alright)
  • 23. Life Is Too Short for Shitty Friends
  • 24. Self-Care for Women in Comedy
  • 25. Prioritize Sleep
  • 26. Sleep Naked
  • 27. Ask Questions
  • 28. Surprise! You Don't Have to Love Your Family
  • 29. Breathe
  • 30. Give It Away Now
  • 31. Abuse Is Fucking Complicated
  • 32. Make Art Like a Little Kid
  • 33. Bridge the Gaps in Your Pop Cultural Education
  • 34. When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them
  • 35. Ask for Exactly What You Want
  • 36. Don't Buy Into the Marriage Myth
  • 37. Tell Your Partner What You Like in Bed
  • 38. Gratitude Ss Underrated
  • 39. Write Fan Letters
  • 40. Acknowledge That Having a Kid Doesn't Make You an Adult
  • 41. A Vagina Is Not a Time Machine
  • 42. Always Say Hello to Older People, Because They Are Invisible
  • 43. Identify a Personal Prejudice and Educate It into Nonexistence
  • 44. Let an Animal Adopt You
  • 45. Walk Your Way to a Solution
  • 46. It's Always Time to Play
  • 47. Realize Your Dress Size Doesn't Matter
  • 48. The Darkness Is Where the Good Stuff Starts
  • 49. Your Normal Is Not Everybody Else's Normal
  • 50. This Too Shall Pass
  • 51. Always Celebrate Rainbows
  • 52. Look in the Mirror and Say "I Love You"
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

While comedian Benincasa hits some of the same subjects here as in her previous book, Agorafabulous!, the 52 essays in this collection span a wider range of more relatable topics, such asking for a raise, using meditation and mindfulness, being nice to old people (but challenging them if they have "racist, old-ass beliefs"), dealing with physical abuse, and decluttering your home. She writes breezily, eschewing ornate literary language in favor of a conversational tone. Geared toward young women in their 20s, the advice Benincasa offers is grounded in her own experiences, recounted with humor, and punctuated with moments of earnestness; as she explains in her introduction, "The most authentic insight comes from those who acknowledge their own shortcomings." Benincasa's central message is one of radical confidence and self-acceptance. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Admitting that she is no expert at, well, anything, comedian Benincasa (Great; -Agorafabulous!) transforms her hard-earned experiences into fun and sound advice. Fifty-two essays, one for each week of the year, add up to 12 months of inspiring self-help guidance on just about everything: sex, love, self-esteem, even flossing. The author's oddball wit crackles on the page, yet it is the way that she pairs humor with sincerity that ultimately wins her readers over. She has battled severe anxiety and depression for most of her life and is the first to acknowledge that there will be "Shit Days." By taking this honest stance, she reminds readers that they are not alone. Outspoken and matter of fact, Benincasa points self-deprecatingly to her own failures to emphasize just how important they are to living a full, happy, and meaningful life. It's hard to imagine an actual self-help book could be more inspirational. VERDICT -Although most of these essays are a few, breezy pages in length, don't let the short form fool you-Benincasa's wisdom and humor will reverberate for days to come.-Meagan Lacy, -Guttman Community Coll., CUNY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Raw and ribald advice for growing up.Curiously, Benincasa's (Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom, 2012, etc.) 52-essay sampler of empirically based life lessons begins with a disclaimer touting her unworthiness as an advice giver. But what sets the latest collection from this comic apart from the rest of the burgeoning Everywoman's self-help library is the soundness of the advice given. Amid some hilarious descriptors and a proclivity for unleashing expletives that makes Amy Schumer's potty mouth seem reserved, Benincasa provides solid tips for relationships, health, wellness, and employment, many of which will be helpful for millennials feeling the crunch of keeping pace with modern living. Where a physician might remind one of the importance of prioritizing sleep, the author promotes the idea with all the subtlety of a drill sergeant: "Burning the midnight oil is fun until you burn right the fuck out." Encouraging readers to embrace their individuality, no matter how embarrassing or nerdy, Benincasa offers courage on multiple fronts: "Consider the thing you really want to do that you have not yet done because you are afraid you would suck at it. Now go do it anyway." The author draws on her experience with anxiety and depression, offering a refreshingly frank look at the difficulties of coping with mental illness and its remedies; at one point, she dubs a panic attack "the exact inverse of an orgasm." Readers would be hard-pressed to mistake sex for intimacy after encountering her admonishment that, contrary to popular practice, "a vagina is not a time machine": "sex cannot take you back in time to a simpler era." Throughout the collection, Benincasa's graphic yet pithy reflections cater to the 140-character attention spans of the Twitter-sphere while effectively instilling much street-smart wisdom. Raunchy and unabashedly unapologetic, this is useful, take-no-prisoners humor. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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