A Healthy Dose of Art

Here in Hong Kong, our family has been practicing social distancing including working from home, attending school online, and saying no to almost everything fun or interesting since mid-January. As in eleven weeks of frantic tedium and anxious boredom. Several other places around the world are just now completing their first week of doing the same and believe me, I feel the weight of it all right through my screen.

I’m working on writing my personal story and first-hand experience with life in lock down due to the Coronavirus. It’s been perhaps the most strangely difficult thing I’ve had to write, and it’s taking forever. Trying to strike a balance between being honest and authentic and giving readers hope instead of panic is a task that takes a clear mind and a lot of skill. I might have the skill, but my mind is all over the place. I’m working on it, I promise. But in the meantime I wanted to share a trio of ways to help enrich your life with art and beauty instead of just passing the time with Netflix and panic. Sharing is caring, Friends. Unless you’re sharing a virus. Keep that to yourself!

One: Broadway is dark, theaters and cinemas are closed, theme parks are shuttered, concerts cancelled. The opportunity to see live entertainment is put on hold for the time being. Our family makes 100% of our income from the arts, so this does create a small bit of fear for our security and future. What better way to lighten our hearts and minds than to go see a show! Oh… never mind.

But wait! What’s this? Hampstead Theatre in London is offering a free, on demand viewing of ‘I AND YOU’ by Lauren Gunderson, starring Maisie Williams and Zach Wyatt, streaming for free until Sunday March 29 on IGTV! You just need an Instagram account and a device to watch it on! This production was specially performed, filmed and edited for Instagram’s mobile video platform IGTV, during its run at the theatre in 2018. Live entertainment is good for the soul. If we can’t be in the theater, at least we now have a theater in our pockets! Check it out here before it goes away!

Two: It only took us a month of staying home before we’d watched everything on our Netflix lists. It probably took less time than that for our brains to start melting a little. Mindless television has a place, but sometimes you want something deeper to capture your imagination. Enter MUBI with some cultural relief. With cinemas around the globe shut, they are extending the offer to watch three months of film for just $1! You can watch from most devices or online.

But how is this any different from Netflix, you ask? Each day the MUBI team chooses a new film which is available to watch for 30 days. Instead of mindless skimming, you’ll be deep diving into little-known treasures of the past, modern indies, quirky and strange and thought provoking. Your brain cells will thank you! Check it out here.

Three: My kids are nineteen and almost seventeen and I haven’t read a book to them in so long I can’t even remember what it was like. And if you’re a caretaker to little ones right now who are out of school while you are suddenly working from home (or spending more time there than usual), I’m sure you’re tempted to bend any and all rules you thought you might have about screen time. There is NO JUDGEMENT, Friends. As you move in and out of survival mode, you gotta do what you gotta do. And I’m here to give you one more tool in your Coronavirus Emergency Kit: Audible Stories.

While schools are closed, Audible is providing, free of charge with no sign-in or password required, a collection of stories for all ages. There are great choices for the littlest learners up to teens, with plenty of classics you might have missed or want to revisit in there as well. They offer stories in six different languages, so bonus feature: if your student is learning a foreign language and needs a little refresher while school is closed, they can listen to a story in English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, and Italian! Check it out here.

Bonus: And here’s an extra bonus because maybe you actually want to read all you can about disasters, pandemics, and post-apocalyptic dystopian futures we may or may not be heading into…

In early January when I first heard about the Coronavirus, I also heard about a book called Station Eleven a friend had to stop reading because it all felt too close to the headlines. With an intro like that, how could I not investigate further!

From the description: An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. 

And let me tell you, far from scaring me off, that description of ART surviving civilization’s collapse made me set down my current read and race for a copy of Station Eleven. When I finished it (way too quickly) I spent about an hour curled up on my bed feeling equal parts dread for what we in Asia, and now the whole rest of the world, are going through and what we still might face, and hope for a future where art is still a vital chapter in the story of humanity. I’d love for you to pick up a copy, and then maybe pass it on. Or just recommend it? I want the book and its message to spread, not the virus! You can get a copy here.

Hang in there, Friends! You are not alone. More to come soon!

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