I have some good news, everybody.

Let me start by sharing the email with you that I just received.

Lex, I’m writing to invite you to a new community called Penrose.

We’ll meet for the first time next fall beneath the powerful dark skies of far west Texas, October 22nd to 25th, 2024.

We’re convening 150 of the most intriguing people in the science world, researchers, inventors, funders, nonprofit and government leaders, entrepreneurs, executives, and storytellers.

The goal, to be with each other at the edge of our thinking against a backdrop of wicked interdisciplinary problems.

We’re also going to talk a lot about things like science literacy, declining trust and expertise and what we need to make sure is well known and understood.

Our mornings and early afternoons, blah, blah, blah.

To that point, because Penrose is an invite only group of true peers, we also hope that you’ll be able to let your guard down for a while.

Maybe you’ll even experience something approaching wonder, that odd and exciting feeling that likely drew you towards science in the first place.

May I have the best mailing address for you?

Starting in mid-January, we’ll be sending out formal printed invites via FedEx with more details on our vision, content, speakers, venues, lodging, and more.

And if you’re already thinking about logistics, please don’t worry.

We’ve hired a former director of advance at the White House to speed your path.

We’ll take place mostly in and around Marfa, Texas.

Much love, Josh.

It’s the much love that really kills me.

Oh, and the fact that the invitation isn’t for me.

If we’re in a Texas, a state that I loathe, I would consider going, consider just running with the ruse as long as possible, because it’s for the other guy, who I am not.

I’m me, the host of Your Daily Lex, but seriously, I cannot get over how funny I think it would be if I showed up there.

Hi, I’m Lex Friedman, the host of Your Daily Lex, happy to be here at this science retreat with you effing weirdos.

I don’t know why I’m mad at them, but I am.

I’m mad at all of them.

I haven’t replied to this one yet.

I could send him the song, or I could get a trip to Texas.

Although I think they’re going to charge all these people to attend, because that’s what it, I don’t know.

Who knows?

Anyway, here we are.

It’s Wednesday, January 3rd.

It’s Wednesday.

It feels like a Tuesday, because Tuesday felt like a Monday, because Monday was New Year’s Day.

You get it.

That’s just science.

Clearly, I am a scientist, as evidenced by my inbox.

Man, oh man.

I recently received the schedule now for misery rehearsals, and yeah, it’s a lot of rehearsing.

Some days it’s just me, which is hilarious, because it’s when we’re choreographing some of my intense rummaging around the house while my tormentor and captor Annie Wilkes is out of the home, and they’re sneaking through while largely incapacitated, so in my wheelchair and crawling around and whatever, so that’ll be fun.

I’ve gone through the script a couple times.

It’s not quite memorization time yet.

Right now, it’s just familiarizing phase, and Annie has these long monologues about her insanity, and then I have lines like, that sounds really interesting, or please don’t kill me, or oh my gosh, don’t hobble me, and I’m so nervous about screwing up any of my shorter lines after one of her lengthy monologues, like when she’s just going through these paragraphs.

If I don’t say the right thing at the right time, that’s mortifying to me, so I’m still debating exactly how I’m going to prepare these lines.

I think I’m going to go with recording my cues and then my lines like I did for Elf, because that really did seem to help with Elf.

There’s just help on the Elf.

There’s just a lot more lines to learn here, so yeah, good stuff.

Anyway, listen, some of you this isn’t for, and I get that, but you’re a listener of Your Daily Lex, so I have to assume you love me and thus love the things I’m interested in.

Of course, my new album with my son, the album is called The World Wasn’t Ready and the son is named Liam.

I’m excited about it, so I am going to share snippets, not whole songs necessarily, but snippets from the upcoming album.

I guess I’ll start with the lead-off song, and don’t worry, not every episode will be dedicated to a single song, but this one, since I’m already four minutes in, the first song was one that was inspired a bit by a guy named Danny Weinkauf.

Danny Weinkauf plays the bass in They Might Be Giants, but he also has a couple of kids’ albums of his own.

On one, he has a song called The Ballad of Ben, which is a song about Ben Folds, and a little bit inspired by that, and especially inspired by Liam’s love for Queen.

I wrote lyrics for him for a song called For Freddie.

I called it The World Wasn’t Ready for Freddie.

He decided to call it, or I called it Freddie was my alternative title, but he called it For Freddie.

Great.

And it’s about Freddie Mercury and how the world wasn’t ready for him.

So here’s a bit of that song, which features both my singing and Liam’s.

I like the ones that he sings best, but that’s okay.

So here’s the intro, the first verse, and the first chorus, and then we’ll call it a day.

Happy Wednesday.

He was born in Tanzania, which then was Zanzibar.

Little did he know that his career would go so far.

His first band was the Hectics, but his famous band was Queen.

He lived in Indiella, England’s where he burst onto the scene.

The world wasn’t ready.

The world wasn’t ready.

The world wasn’t ready for Freddie.

And just remember, he wrote and recorded all the music.

I don’t have that kind of talent.

Anyway, go check it out.

The World Wasn’t Ready, available wherever you stream your music.

Or just go to lexfriedman.com slash world.

Lex.