Hey, before we get going, I want to let you know about a special treat in your Slate Plus feed right now.

Think of it like an early New Year's holiday card from death, sex, and money, and the writer Heather Haverleski.

She reads me an essay, she wrote, about feeling stuck and foolish for trying new things, and what can happen when you let yourself do something just for fun.

Heather learned this taking singing lessons over Zoom and practicing a ballad from Jesus Christ Superstar in her dining room.

I felt like a regular person who cares so much about singing that she can care about it in almost any context.

And when I sang,

I never thought I'd come to this,

I lifted off from the mundane world into some sublime realm where vulnerability, frustration, and fear,

add up to something bigger, something transcendent.

I cry, Heather cries, it's beautiful.

And it might just change how you see everything.

This is in your Slate Plus feed right now, which you can sign up for in Apple Podcast or Spotify or at slate.com slash DSM Plus.

In our episode today, Jeff Hiller talks about his version of connecting to the sublime. For him, it's acting and making

people laugh and being on stage. Jeff Hiller has been a New York performer for 20 years,

teaching improv and performing on Broadway and TV, but it wasn't until the HBO show Somebody Somewhere premiered in 2022 that I

spent enough time with his work and realized, oh, this is someone who is right up my alley.

The show Somebody Somewhere is based in Manhattan, Kansas, the college town where about 50,000

people live. And over three seasons,

I've really come to appreciate its up-close intimacy on lives usually not depicted on TV,

certainly not prestige TV like HBO. Somebody somewhere follows a crew of people in middle age who are trying to find their place and resist feeling stuck or stifled.

And it's also about the life-giving force of friendship, especially between Sam, played by Bridget Everett and Joel, Jeff Hiller's character.

Like one of my favorite scenes of the whole series is when Joel and Sam are power walking around a public park together, looking around at the passers-by, and playing pound or pass.

...