Practice Perfect

FOREWORD

In the summer of 2011, my wife, my parents, and I took a tour of a whisky distillery in Scotland. The tour guide seemed almost catatonically bored. At each stop, she’d recite a memorized script and then ask, “Are there any questions?” but of course there weren’t, because that would mean we’d been listening. And what I remember most about the tour—other than wishing we could skip ahead to the tasting—was that I spent most of my time thinking about Chris Rock.

I’d been reading a book (Little Bets by Peter Sims) that described Rock’s process in developing new material for his standup act. In preparing for one tour, Rock made between 40 and 50 appearances at a small club in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He’d show up, carrying a yellow legal ...