Dear Reader
How was your Easter? Did you spend some of it with Andrea Bocelli? Or with Diddy, during his Dance-a-Thon? Or with DJ Premier and RZA? I was lucky enough to be on all three guest-lists so I consider myself quite the sequestered socialite.
For half an hour yesterday, I watched and listened as Andrea Bocelli serenaded people around the world on YouTube from the Duomo in Milan(o). It was hard not to get choked up at the images of empty Paris, London and New York. The streets here in NYC are not entirely deserted though — there are still those who venture out, in groups, sans masks, and it does not do much for the anger and frustration I feel about this situation. This time we’re living in right now is also an experiment in how to better manage one’s emotions. Talking to a friend or two over the phone, listening to some music, and to that lifesaver of an app, Headspace, which even has a special New York City section, helps me a lot.
Today’s online arts and entertainment events for these times of so-many-emotions:
1. Author Jason Reynolds — the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature — will be joining us live now too. He’ll be reading from his latest book Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in 10 Blocks, which was inspired by his own experiences of walking home from school each day, starting today, and every day this week, at 7:30am PST / 10:30am EST.
2. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the passing of jazz drummer Steve Reid, Gilles Peterson is hosting an all-day online memorial, on behalf of the Steve Reid Foundation, with DJs on Worldwide FM, who include the inimitable Charlie Dark, leader of Run Dem Crew in London.
3. La Blogotheque, the French session of beautifully-filmed music, is hosting #StayAwayShows every night at 7pm, Paris time, live on Instagram. Today it’s Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor.
4. Stop in at the Whitney Museum’s online portal, Artport, for its installation, New York Apartment, where artists Sam Lavigne and Tega Brain created a website that advertises a fictitious New York City apartment for sale.
5. The National will be going live on their YouTube at 5pm EST, with “an exciting communal event.” Also, the band’s Aaron Dessner has been working with Michael Stipe to release a demo of a song called No Time For Love Like Now.
6. Mark this down in your calendar now, as it is sure to be one of those unmissable moments of collective . The wonderful website, BrainPicking’s Universe in Verse is taking place on April 25. It’s dubbed as a “charitable celebration of science and nature through poetry” and will feature poetry performed by a cast of scientists and artists, astronauts and poets, Nobel laureates and Grammy winners. You can find out all you need to know about it here.
Thank you for reading. Please do share and subscribe if you found this useful.
I’ll leave you with a little song about isolation from singer Alec Benjamin, Six Feet Apart.
Stay safe, stay sane
Your neighbour
Nadia