links week nineteen

Ten loaves of sourdough! That’s how many loaves I have made thus far during the pandemic (or pan-demic if you’ll excuse my pun). Have you found a fulfilling hobby? Gotten really good at a driving simulator? Taken up amateur plumbing? I went out last weekend for the first time, albeit just down the street to sit in a friend’s yard, far from said friend. It was pretty nice, and I keep thinking I should perhaps do a little more biking and walking, but then I see a dozen people walking around massless, and I get some combination of furious and scared all over again.

Here’s hoping this week’s links will give you some chill times, and maybe even some laughs instead. Here’s some mood music:

Links

• Do you miss clubbing? Just getting hopped up on some fundrugs™ and shaking your booty in hopes you might get to swap spit with a cutie? Well, sans the spit bit, you might be in luck if you can make one of these. I love this bonkers concept, because it imagines a world in which people are somehow ok with wearing spacesuits to go to a bar.

• I don’t think any friends have taken me up on this, but I for sure wish they would try to cut their own hair with a shop vac. I love it.

• If the previous song is over, here’s a bit more mall music to tide you over as you read these next few pieces:

• The fantastic essayist Rebecca Solnit covered everything from pandemic profiteering to the hope that we come out of this with a greater respect and understanding of our interconnectedness.

I have often thought that the wave of privatisation that has characterised our neoliberal age began with the privatisation of the human heart, the withdrawal from a sense of a shared fate and social bonds. It is to be hoped that this shared experience of catastrophe will reverse the process.

Here’s so music to bring you back from the depths that essay may have taken you through:

Finally, I want to leave you with the single best video series I’ve seen in a while—a cat sleeping on a piano while their owner gently plays, the hammers massaging them.

I hope these links have brought you some joy, and led you through a few interesting paths. I’m off to enjoy Sonic the Hedgehog in preparation for listening to this week’s Flop House. You can follow along with my cinematic misadventures here, or here. If it’s sunny today, try to sit by a window or go on a chill socially distant walk. I went on my first bike ride since February yesterday, and though it was short, it really helped me feel a little more ok. It’s hard to remember, at least over here, that despite this feeling like forever, it’s only been two months. For how ever much time we have in lockdown, I’ll keep sending emails to you every week, and keep on baking very, very surprisingly good sourdough. See you next week, space cowgirls~