To Do ASAP

From a writer and performer described as “fiercely hilarious” by The New Yorker, a collection of absurd and intimate attempts to accomplish twenty-four pressing to-do items in an era of perpetual emergency and revolutionary possibility

We are all confronted with daunting tasks, each urgent in their own way.

• Act normal at a birthday party
• Honor Stonewall by having sex in the bathroom at Starbucks
• Assassinate a war criminal
• Log onto some new patient portal
• Seize state power once we decide if we want to seize state power
• Get a better attachment style
• Forgive people who are younger
• Don’t spend eleven hours on the phone

Every day more and more things to do. No wonder we are so overwhelmed!

To-do lists are the preferred genre of all sorts of people seeking control in a chaotic world. And yet they sadly do not ensure we’ll actually get to all the unfinished business that keeps on piling up. In To Do ASAP, comedian and organizer Morgan Bassichis takes action.

As Morgan tackles twenty-four of their own outstanding tasks, they invite all of us to B.Y.O. loose ends and imperfect selves to the messy collective work of building the world we long for.

Morgan Bassichis is a writer and performer who has been described as “fiercely hilarious” by The New Yorker and “I think an actor but hasn't been in anything” by their father. Morgan’s one-person show, Can I Be Frank?—about the groundbreaking queer comedian Frank Maya who died of AIDS-related complications in 1995—won two 2026 Obie Awards. They have performed in museums, gay bars, parks, and many precious New York institutions that have supported artists and writers for generations, including Danspace Project, the Kitchen, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and the Poetry Project. Morgan co-edited the anti-Zionist young adult anthology Questions to Ask Before Your Bat Mitzvah (Wendy’s Subway, 2023) with Jay Saper and Rachel Valinsky. They also edited and wrote the introduction to the 2019 Nightboat Books reprint of the 1977 cult classic, The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, written by Larry Mitchell and illustrated by Ned Asta, which they also adapted to performance at the New Museum in 2017. Morgan has been a proud member of Jewish Voice for Peace-NYC since 2014.

ISBN: 9798888907207

Publication date: April 27, 2027

Introduction

1. Open my heart to people who identify as clowns
2. Decide gender by EOD today
3. Reflect on why I haven’t been invited to anyone’s house to watch the Oscars
4. Ask DOGE for help cutting down on protein bars
5. Send dad stuff about Israel
6. Leave cult but don’t be intense about it
7. Is helping an old person with their iPhone activism?
8. Invent homeopathic nose jobs
9. Find a psychic who specializes in scalp issues
10. Clarify which government institutions we’re supposed to be defending
11. Write about anything other than wanting to be famous or being scared of being famous
12. Cram Internal Family Systems
13. Ask the cemetery staff if there’s wifi
14. Unconditionally love accept my body so I can really wow people
15. Find something from childhood to rehash with mom
16. Combine list of regrets into one master document
17. Ask someone to briefly explain satire
18. What if some feelings are facts?
19. Check spam again for MacArthur
20. Don’t make the activist meeting about me
21. Stop pulling my hair out
22. Find partner for remaining weeks of earth
23. Wake up as someone who loves groups
24. Consider victory