Well! Well! Well, I just simply do not know what to say about *waves hands* all this, except that we are at the end of a second week of Definitely Crisis Mode, and everyone but me seems to be making bread. An admirable goal! Drop into the comments and let me know what else you’re doing to get by. My two main things are listening to “Back to Before,” a Broadway standard from a musical I don’t know, watching The Repair Shop on Netflix, and coloring in my coloring app, which is called Happy Color (it’s worth investing in the ad-free version). Anyway, here are some links!
Remember I told you about bookshop.org, where you can order books and it’s like indie bookstore Amazon? Well, they have a wonderful list of March and April book releases, and we can help them gain exposure and visibility in this time of coronavirus! And here’s how to support indie bookstores in a time of pandemic. For my own part I have preordered four books that I’m excited about from the queer-owned SF indie bookshop Tubby & Coos, using Bookshop dot org. Thanks Bookshop dot org!
Speaking of March book releases, we interviewed Intisar Khanani, author of the brand new (and terrific!) YA novel Thorn, for the podcast this week! Listen and buy her book — it’s wonderful!
And in case you’re still not sure why March/April book releases matter, here’s Amy Klein on what it’s like to have a book released in the midst of coronavirus.
Nicole Chung will only have a few more opportunities to see her mother alive. So what should she do about traveling in a time of pandemic? (This, uh, is a slightly older article, in that it’s quite recent but still feels like it’s coming to us from the past. WHY IS CORONAVIRUS HAPPENING SO MUCH.)
The Decameron has become, um, extremely relevant allasudden.
An expert on gatherings answers questions about how we’re going to view our social lives, businesses, etc., during and after this time of pandemic.
That time JRR Tolkien got mad at WH Auden for trying to write a book about him. He found it very distracting from his important project of finishing The Silmarillion, because of course he did.
In defense of Jessica on Love Is Blind.
“To save you two hours of hearing Hooper explain over and over why cats are cats but also not cats, we’ve pulled out 20 highlights from the director commentary for you to enjoy.” Dispatches from the directory’s commentary on Cats.
This is a very useful Q&A about COVID19 as it relates to groceries, delivery, and getting takeout. This is also a very useful piece about not panicking re groceries and delivery services.
The downfall of a school of witchcraft and wizardry.
Triaging COVID-19 patients based on their presumed likelihood of recovery is wrong.
….What.
“I’m going to say a silent prayer for Mr. Ronald now and roll for him later.” So this is how this is going. tw: distressing COVID-19 content.
Looking back at these links, there are… more of them about coronavirus than I necessarily intended. I am tired of having incompetent national leadership, and I would like to go on break for that. Plus nobody seems able to tell me whether our stupid stimulus checks are going to be taxable income, but I assume that they are and it makes me want to punch everyone in the dick.
ANYWAY. Federal incompetence aside, I love all of y’all a great deal, and I hope you will drop a line to let me know what’s been keeping you sane. We could all use some good ideas!