Good evening, Kibitzers! Before I say anything else, I’d like to thank Diana in NoVa for the use of her lovely teapots! The quote I’ve pasted beneath it is from a poem called Waking Without Alarm, by Karen Paul Holmes. It seemed right for both the image and the time:
a day without obligations
slivers of silver spilling from the shades
a small ceremony of jasmine tea
in the Japanese pot
ten minutes of Qi Gong, twenty rubbing Watson’s belly
in the evening, a pang of regret for a lazy day
then remembering
I deserve a chance to do something or nothing
innate joy rising
and Watson, smiling, asleep in his basket.
So, last week we had funny Covid-19 parody songs, and this week, to start, I’m drawing songs from a group that appears on Rolling Stone’s YouTube channel, in a playlist called “In My Room”. In it, the magazine has asked artists to perform a few songs from their homes, in solidarity with everyone else staying at home.
That channel has some other interesting stuff, by the way, if you find yourself at loose ends sometime and don’t have all night to binge-watch some TV series. They have substantial interviews with people like Samantha Bee and Stacey Abrams, for instance, and several different series exploring how particular songs are written or recorded. And there’s the rest of this list, since I won’t try to cram the whole thing in here. These are mostly around ten minutes apiece, give or take.
Graham Nash was the first of these videos I saw, that led me to see if they had more. (Not all the artists feel compelled to issue as many reminders that we should stay home. But he’s not wrong.)
And they did have more!
Nick Lowe (with his son Roy).
Angélique Kidjo.
John Fogerty (too-short cameo by his adorable dog).
Steve Earle.
I was unfamiliar with Yola, apparently because I live under a rock, but this is a very cool a cappella At Last. And I liked her other songs too. She’s singing here with the group Birds of Chicago.
I didn’t know Jim James of My Morning Jacket either, but his John Prine covers here bring a tear to the eye.
That was a segue, away from Rolling Stone’s series and over to an NPR “Tiny Desk (Home) Concert”, of young(ish) artists paying tribute to John Prine. The lineup:
Margo Price and Jeremy Ivey, That's the Way That the World Goes Round
Courtney Marie Andrews, Speed of the Sound of Loneliness
John Paul White, Sam Stone
Nathaniel Rateliff, All The Best
Brandy Clark, Speed of the Sound of Loneliness
Well, too much sadness, maybe. Time for a new episode of Some Good News with John Krasinski. (If you’ve missed the handful of previous episodes, they are here, and they have also parsed out just the Hamilton performance from the full original cast via Zoom, in case you’re in a rush.)
Okay, nice break! But I can’t leave out all the classical musicians who are using technology to send concerts out to us.
Here’s the New York Philharmonic, dedicating Ravel’s Bolero to healthcare workers.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra had to cancel a concert featuring this coda to Mahler’s Third Symphony. The notes under the video on the YT page describe how they got this remote performance to work — interesting! More online content at their website.
The Colorado Symphony offers Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. They have more music up under the YT #PlayOn tag.
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra plays Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.
Finally, here’s a wonderful concert from the Moscow living room of violinist Maxim Vengerov, carefully sitting 2 meters from cellist Boris Andrianov and pianist Peter Laul to play a nearly-2-hour program of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Schubert.
Crashing Vor has been serializing his ongoing documentary about New Orleans in the time of coronavirus. Prior episodes:
This week’s diary is here; YouTube is here — go give him some recs if you can.
I hope to hear in the comments that you are all well and remain safe! 💙
🦠 COVID-19 🧫
(I’m compressing this box a bit by removing some older links, which are still in older diaries. Newest links here are bolded.)
The Paradox of Preparation: “The only way to get ahead of the curve is to take actions that *at the time* seem like overreactions.” ~ Chris Hayes
Social Distancing
Hand Washing
Shopping for people 60+ and/or with other risk factors
Dealing with Illness
This is a roundup of items that may be of interest. I am not an MD and this post is not medical advice. Please use your judgment and/or consult your doctor.
AMERICA (The Borowitz Report)—In order to better coördinate their efforts to combat the coronavirus, the nation’s governors are considering the extraordinary step of forming a country. ...[snip]
“Mike and I were bidding against each other for masks and ventilators, and I was, like, ‘Mike this is crazy,’ ” Whitmer said. “ ‘It would be so much better if we just worked together and formed a country.’ ”… [snip]
While the idea of the fifty states coming together to form a country is still in the embryonic stage, DeWine said that the states would ideally create a “federal government” led by a “President.” “We’re all in agreement that it would be amazing to have a President right now,” DeWine said.
— The Borowitz Report, at The New Yorker
(Life imitates art.)
Sewing Face Masks
|
|
🌟 GOTV 🌟
🌟 VOTING BY MAIL: Some states (New Jersey is an example) don’t have vote-by-mail as their standard procedure, but issue absentee ballots with no questions asked. Now would be a good time to check into that for your state and those of your Democratic friends and relations — Google can help. In the case of NJ, one has to download, fill out, and mail in an application. I plan to switch over to automatically getting a mail-in ballot for every election from now on, which is one of the options here. No one who does not have to touch buttons in a voting booth should be doing so!
🌟 POSTCARDING: If you are looking for a way to help and can’t do things like canvassing or phoning, consider hand-writing postcards asking people to vote. It’s easy because you’re given specific talking points from the campaign you’re working with, so you don’t have to think up what to say, and no one will be coming back at you with questions. And if you like to color, you can get creative decorating the cards. Note that you are responsible for buying postcards (and stamps if you don’t use pre-stamped ones.) Postcard stamps are 35 cents each; pre-stamped postcards from USPS are 39 cents each; two different pretty designs. If you can spend a little more, the two postcarding sites below sell their designs; or, searching the phrase “postcards to voters” on Amazon will show you many designs.
To get started:
🌟 PERSONALIZED LETTERS: Similarly, you can do more good than you might expect by writing personalized letters (from a template) to Democrats who are unlikely voters, adding a brief personal statement about why you VOTE EVERY TIME. Studies have shown this can boost turnout by enough to make a difference. As with postcards, you get names/addresses for these voters in targeted districts from the website, fill in the letters, address/stamp/fill the envelopes, but then, you hold them and mail them on Oct. 27, a week before election day! Note that, as with the postcards, you are responsible for buying envelopes, paper (no special paper required), and stamps. First class letter stamps are 55 cents each. (A new Gwen Ifill stamp came out recently!) You can also buy pre-stamped business-size envelopes, also two designs.
For more info:
THESE MAIL PROJECTS ALSO HELP SUPPORT THE USPS, THE LATEST GOP TARGET!
🌟 CONFIRM YOU ARE REGISTERED, REPEAT REGULARLY, AND GET YOUR FAMILY AND OTHERS TO DO THE SAME!!! FIGHTING VOTER SUPPRESSION STARTS AT HOME!
- Many folks here have been surprised to find that their or a family member’s registration has mysteriously disappeared, even though it had been active. Don’t wait until too late to catch and correct this bullshit.
- HEADCOUNT.ORG will direct you to your state’s Department of State/Division of Elections (or similar) webpage, which is the horse’s mouth, as it were.
- Or, google something like “am I registered to vote” plus your state, and go to your state government’s page directly.
🌟 If you can do more, do it! These are just things you can do at home at 3 am. Some of us have the wherewithal to do more, and we should! No one is coming to save us. Act accordingly.
Remember we need the House and Senate, or no president will be able to help us. If you’re sad your presidential candidate wasn’t nominated (I was), please find some downticket races to get excited about. We all need each other.
|
It’s been 937 days since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. Full power has never been restored there, and many homes still have blue tarps for roofs. Earthquakes and now coronavirus have made recovery still harder. Sadly, this is the Trump model for handling any kind of disaster.
If you can help one of the organizations working to help the people of Puerto Rico or any of the subsequent disasters, please check out the diary of links.
⛈️ 🌊 💥 HURRICANE MARIA AND 2020 EARTHQUAKES 💥 🌊 ⛈️
🐨 🔥 AUSTRALIAN FIRES 2019-20 🔥 🐨
🚒 🔥 CALIFORNIA FIRES 2019 🔥 🚒
⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE DORIAN 🌊 ⛈️
|