Don’t You Dare Mock Crystals Around Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak

Comedians Jacqueline Novak and Kate Berlant stopped by last night’s Late Night to promote the wellness podcast they host together, POOG, and the resulting conversation between Seth Meyers and the two self-described “hags” is an absurd delight. After Novak educates Meyers on the “power in freezing the head” with something called a headache helmet and Berlant talks a bit about her lifelong connection to wellness (“I have always been a hypochondriac. I’m in recovery, as many hypochondriacs constantly are”), the pair turn their attention to Meyers and how COVID-19 restrictions may have brought a certain brand of wellness to the late-night host. “I think the lack of audience has been deeply freeing for you in some senses,” Novak says. “Right after you say a joke, what happens in that space? What are you doing in that moment when there isn’t a studio audience to laugh at your joke? I think you’re talking to God.”

Meyers ends the chat by asking Novak and Berlant to share their thoughts on crystals, but they refuse to play into his little late-night game. “Well, they’re simply not a joke, if that’s what you’re going for, Seth. Perhaps you think I’m going to mock them; Kate will have a little jab here or there,” Novak says, noting that “to mock crystals is humiliation of its own, and we won’t go there.” “I think ‘more is more’ is really the approach here,” Berlant adds, “and if you think something’s working, it is. Maybe. And that’s good enough for me at least.” Can’t argue with the experts.