It’s a project for people who miss the curiosity-driven conversations and kindred company that made college so wonderful.
Artists Joel Newton, Jonathan Bernstein, and Paul Carlon, gang-tackling the question, 'What does it mean to make things that are elegant?'
Recording posted with their permission.
You arrive here via referral from someone already on the roster (welcome!).
I interview you over video chat.
Then I begin inviting you to three-person video chat conversations with people I’m confident you’ll genuinely enjoy talking to.
I’m sure I miss plenty of opportunities to gather trios who would’ve had a great time talking — I just don’t always see the signs. Or I do see the signs, but in the moment, I don’t trust my eyesight.
And yes, I sometimes assemble trios that don’t quite gel. But not often.
When a new trio does click, it’s usually because I’ve guessed right in two ways:
First, that they’ll naturally agree with one another about what’s funny and what isn’t.
Second, that they’ll uncover plenty of overlapping interests.
After each conversation, you'll receive a text with three no-questions-asked payment options:
$0, $7, or $16.
Choose whichever feels right for you in that moment.
Some almost daily. Some once in a blue moon. It's entirely up to them.
I'm Ted Pearlman.
I'm married to Allison, an architect. We live in Denver with our ridiculous, about-to-leave-for-college 18-year-old, Oscar, and our Newfoundland, Mabel.
Little Oscar and his first Newfoundland, Tatou, were a bit famous on Youtube for entertaining each other.
I have a BA in Music (Cornell University ’90).
Until 2012, I worked at technology companies, including Sony and IBM.
From 2012 to 2020, I helped a small cadre of technology CEOs find specialists to tackle acute business challenges.
One of my clients, CEO Phil Caravaggio, collaborating with Rodrigo Corral on the book design for Ray Dalio's New York Times bestseller, ' Principles.'
In 2012. It became a full-time effort during the first pandemic lockdown.
Yes. But much less frequently than we gather them in trios over video chat.
In-person gatherings range from neighborhood lunches...
Susan and Suzanne, both first-time novelists, having lunch at Biker Jim's Gourmet Hot Dogs in Denver.
...to elaborate destination retreats.
Katie, a set designer, and Eugene, a comedian and actor; knight in tarnished armor and Peggy, a bookseller; vegetarian pigs; and chef Cali; at a 3-day, 25-person, private-chef-equipped destination retreat at Temple Guiting Manor in the English Cotswolds.
The day after each conversation, we’ll send you a text asking if you’d like to remain on the roster.
If you say no, we’ll remove you and say thanks — no request for an explanation, no attempt to change your mind.
Nope. No one in a trio ever knows if there were folks who received invitations before them but declined.
No. The Trees is just a project to organize discrete gatherings. Each with a specific list of invitees...and a fixed beginning and end time.
No discussion forum, no messaging system, no member directory, no feed, no algorithm.
We love hearing your conversations — it helps us get better at assembling trios.
But we only record a trio if all three participants give explicit permission. Otherwise, the conversation evaporates into the ether.
Two-person conversations can feel too intense, like interviews. Four-person conversations can feel too rushed and inorganic, like panel discussions.
Trios strike the balance.
Yes, but in a way that allows any of the three participants to decline without the other two knowing that they did.
If you want to know more about how this works, ask me.
My journalist dad hosted New York City dim sum restaurant gatherings for people he thought would enjoy each other, 2,546 Saturdays in a row, from 1966 to 2015.
He started having me tag along in 1980, when I was eleven, after he and my mom split up.
Me on dad's shoulders, in Berlin's Grunewald forest, 1969.
I loved being dad's extra wheel. I'd never before been around grown-ups who got along that well or laughed that much.
Royal Seafood, dad's favorite venue during the naughts.
At my first tag-along, everyone there was wearing 'Hi Ted! I'm...' name tags.
The name tags were shaped like maple leaves (I think they were repurposed Thanksgiving Day decorations).
Somehow that turned into me calling his brunch participants, 'the trees'.
I named this project in honor of them.
Tommy Tomizawa, bringer of the maple leaf name tags, reporting for Stars and Stripes, Tokyo, 1957.
My dad, Sy (1930-2015), and his dad, Ted, had the same sense of humor.
During the weekend and after school, working together in the family’s Brooklyn candy store, dad and Ted spent much of the time trying to make each other laugh.
In the evening, they’d listen to radio comedy variety shows like Texaco Star Theater.
In New York's Central Park, near his Upper West Side apartment, 2001.
When Sy was 14, Ted died of leukemia.
Dad coped with the loss by becoming doubly obsessed with making people laugh. He started writing comedy skits with his high school friends, modeled on the ones he heard on the radio.
Samuel J. Tilden High School, Brooklyn.
In 1949, a year after high school, dad’s favorite comedian, Sid Caesar, got his first television show, the [Admiral Broadway Review](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdmiralBroadwayRevue).
By the time the first episode ended, dad had figured out what he wanted to do with his life. He was going to be a television comedy writer.
The next day, while working alongside his mom at the store, dad announced his plan —
“I’m going to be a comedy writer for Sid Caesar’s Admiral Broadway Review.”
She was not amused.
Anna, dad’s mom. Date and circumstances unknown.
Dad, however, was dead serious. He began to ply his craft by writing stand-up bits during the week and heading to the Catskills on the weekends (four hours each way, via subway, bus, and hitchhike) to hawk them to Borscht Belt comedians.
Fort Lee High School, next to the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. Dad hitched rides to the Catskills from the sidewalk out front. Weirdly, in 1986, I ended up graduating from there.
He was well on his way to a career as a television comedy writer. But the Korean War and the draft derailed him. Dad wanted to avoid combat at all costs, so he put his aspirations on hold and enlisted. With a plan.
Growing up in the rough, ethnically divided neighborhoods of post-Depression Brooklyn, and being the man of the house from age 14, he became exceptionally street smart. He could quickly assess people and their motivations, avoid pickpockets, trade favors, and talk himself out of any pickle.
Looking south over the Upper West Side of Manhattan, 1951.
He was also conversant in Russian, which his parents had spoken at home (along with Yiddish) when he was small.
All of this gave dad the idea to apply to the US Army Language School (now called the Defense Language Institute) in Monterey, California. This, he schemed, would enable him to finally become fluent in Russian, meet cute girls on the beach, and groom himself for a commission as an Army intelligence officer, based in Europe, in charge of recruiting and handling Soviet spies, a safe 4000+ miles from armed combat.
Monterey, CA, amazingly, is one of the world's most international cities.
13 years later, after his stint in the Army, a masters degree in Russian studies from NYU, another in journalism from Columbia, and a bunch of positions at small city papers, he landed his dream job as an editor for The New York Times.
New York Times building, 1909.
Right after he got to The Times, however, an old friend from his days inside the Borscht Belt got hired to write for [Get Smart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GetSmart)_, a TV comedy about a bumbling secret agent.
It seemed like some kind of omen to dad, and, for a few weeks, he contemplated sacrificing his career as a journalist to follow his friend out to Hollywood. For various reasons, it didn't happen.
Created by Mel Brooks, arguably Sid Caesar’s most important writer, and Buck Henry.
Funny enough, dad did eventually become a bonafide TV comedy writer (while still somehow remaining a serious journalist) when Reuven Frank, the President of NBC News, recruited him to join [Weekend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekend(1974TVprogram))_.
It was the first sardonic, long-form news show on network television, running once a month, in Saturday Night Live’s time slot, when SNL was taking the week off.
I'm convinced it's the (mostly forgotten) great grandfather of The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight.
An article about the show (and dad) from TV Guide.
Below is an excerpt from an episode. Dad co-wrote the script.
Still great (including the advertisements), despite the pops, clicks, and jitters.
Dad won many awards for his journalism. But he never displayed them.
He kept his Peabody medallion in a pen drawer.
Dad's favorite quote. From the poet Avvaiyar.
An illustration Howell created for the Cartoon Network.
