The COVID 19 pandemic has left many of us adrift, anxious, lonely and disconnected. The pandemic has been an inconvenience to all, and a catastrophe to many.

Art, literature, music, movies, essays,  television and podcasts provide some hope, meaning, perspective, inspiration, or refreshing entertainment during these trying times.

Here is the first of my weekly list of five things  that I’ve found particularly meaningful, inspiring, or just plain  fun and entertaining.

I hope you are able to check them out, and enjoy them as much I have!

(1) Sugar Calling Podcast

I loved “Tiny Beautiful Things”- the compilation of columns by Cheryl Strayed in which she wrote incredibly thoughtful, beautifully crafted responses to questions  about heartbreak, loss, love, existential angst, life. I enjoyed the podcast that followed – Dear Sugar radio. I was bound to check out this podcast, then, and the first episodes have been filled with some true gems of wisdom, and beautiful language.

In the first episode, Cheryl Strayed talks with George Saunders. He says  :”The world is like a sleeping tiger and we tend to live our lives there on its back. (We’re much smaller than the tiger, obviously. We’re like Barbies and Kens on the back of a tiger.) And now and then that tiger wakes up. And that is terrifying. Sometimes it wakes up and someone we love dies. Or someone breaks our heart. Or there’s a pandemic. But this is far from the first time that tiger has come awake. He/she has been doing it since the beginning of time and will never stop doing it. And always there have been writers to observe it and (later) make some sort of sense of it, or at least bear witness to it.”

Here is the letter by George Saunders to his students in the New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-letter-to-my-students-as-we-face-the-pandemic

And here is the podcast:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/podcasts/sugar-calling-george-saunders-coronavirus.html
(2) Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia album

Exuberant, glittering,  a counterpoint to the heaviness of these times.

Here’s the “Popcast” episode that analyses and extends your experience of the album!

I particularly love this retro video!

(3) Before Breakfast podcast

This podcast is full of tips on productivity and time management. Some gems from this podcast  – the idea of the distinction between the anticipating self, the experiencing self and the remembering self, and how it is important to feed all three selves. For instance, when you schedule a Virtual Happy Hour with friends next Tuesday, you are feeding your anticipating self.

Laura Vanderkam has a very abundant perspective on time. Her insistence that there is time, that we don’t truly want more time, just more meaningful and memorable time, can slowly shift your paradigms about time and what you want to do with it.

Of course, her recent episodes have talked about adapting to these times, and have both-  nuggets of wisdom and practical life hacks.

She epitomizes productivity so much that she just launched another podcast during the pandemic, about working from home and managing the challenges arising from that.

The New Corner Office Podcast

(4) Tiger King

Big Personalities and Big Cats!

He has a personality for reality TV, could be said of Joe Exotic. It could actually be said of most of the very colorful characters on this show, all of whom are really presented less as  people, more as caricatures. The shows blends reality TV style storytelling and editing with documentary footage.

The tigers are the most dignified part of this series that  essentially showcases narcissism, sociopathy, the good, bad and ugly in human nature against a backdrop of magnificent creatures whose best interests are completely eclipsed by the human drama.

This episode of Still Processing is a brilliant dissection of this show . Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris discuss how this show about a zoo is itself a zoo, and  how we as viewers gawk at the antics and absurdities of the characters featured on the show. They talk about how racial disparities and biases come to bear on the show. They talk about freedom, entitlement, and the uniquely American context that makes a show like this possible.

This is a truly enlightening podcast episode!

https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYXJ0MTkuY29tL255dC1zdGlsbC1wcm9jZXNzaW5n&episode=Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwLzVZc0lSSE0tQ3BzN2drVGJYZ0liSEsxZWN2R21pMXhXYWd0MlM2Y2RjMm8&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjt26fEm-noAhXUlXIEHb5tAvsQieUEegQIDhAE&ep=6

or https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/podcasts/still-processing-tiger-king.html

 

Here’s an analysis of this show in the Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/04/netflix-tiger-king-is-an-ethical-trainwreck/609568/

(5) Zoom, the app.

I know, I know. This isn’t a novel recommendation that will change your life. It is far more likely what your life has  been dominated by in the last few weeks – the platform you’ve been using for meetings, hangouts, Happy Hours, ad infinitum. This isn’t by any means a plug for the actual app, as much as an acknowledgement of how it symbolically represents how social interaction has changed in the last several weeks, whatever audio or video platform you happen to be using.

During these trying times in which there is so much uncertainty and loss, it is  heartening to see families and friends connect via videoconferencing or even old fashioned phone calls, and I for one have found Zoom meetings, both at work and at play, rituals that I look forward to – some human connection in a world of social distancing.

I would love to hear about what you’ve been doing to keep your spirits afloat during these times, and what you have found scintillating, inspiring,  or just plain entertaining!

I look forward to sharing more!! Until next week. Stay safe!