#97 Brandon Stosuy: The Crying Guy
Back in 2016, Brandon Stosuy began to notice something strange about many of the people around him. Seemingly no matter where he went - jogging in Brooklyn, riding the subway into Manhattan, waiting for a plane at JFK - he spotted someone crying. Stosuy has spent the past seven years thinking about those people and what brought them to tears, and now he’s become known to a number of his friends, thousands of strangers, and even a few famous rock musicians, as The Crying Guy.
On this episode of Paternal, Stosuy reflects on those first few people he saw in tears in New York and how he turned those observations into a collection of essays from more than 100 people about the last time they cried and why, including death, childbirth, breakups, or simply listening to the right song at the right time.
Sad Happens: A Celebration of Tears is available now wherever you buy books.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - 03:09 - Intro
03:09 - 05:51 - On seeing people all over New York City crying
05:51 - 09:33 - The origins of the book Sad Happens, and a history of crying
09:33 - 15:47 - Songs that make us cry, and The National
16:22 - 19:04 - Discussing why people cry on airplanes
19:04 - 21:55 - The connection between crying and your job
21:55 - 27:21 - On how to communicate to your kids about crying
