As we are just starting our Memorial Day Weekend, below are the latest additions to “Stuck at Home Doesn’t Have to Mean Bored at Home.”
The purpose of the original post and these updates is to provide ideas for maintaining some quality of life while on lock down. Note that the original post is updated regularly to contain all of the suggestions, including the updates; these separate (now weekly) update posts are intended to provide an easy way to know what’s new. (I know that these posts are entirely unrelated to the general subject matter of the blog. But, given the circumstances and that I have received a surprising number of appreciative comments about it, I plan to continue for the foreseeable future.)
If you have found things not on my list that others may benefit from, please send them to me, and I will include them in the next update.
In the meantime, enjoy! . . .
Education
MasterClass, which offers classes taught by leading professionals in they career (for example, Annie Leibovitz teaches portrait photography), is currently charging only $15 per month for access to all of its classes.
This says it all: “It’s Real and It’s Spectacular: A Free Summer Class on ‘Seinfeld’ and the Law.”
Music
If you’ve never seen a concert at Fenway Park, whether because you have no interest in crowding in with tens of thousands of people or it’s just too far away, now’s your chance to do it with ample space. It turns out that the Dropkick Murphys and Bruce Springsteen are staging an historic Fenway Park concert with no audience called “Streaming Outta Fenway.” They ask that donations be made to Boston Resiliency Fund, Feeding America, and Habitat for Humanity, Greater Boston by texting “DONATE” to 404-994-3559.
The band, The Arcadian Wild, has a weekly live stream called “An Excellent Evening.” It starts at 6:00 PM EDT, but goes live at 5:30PM “for soundcheck and little preshow hang, so feel free to tune in early!” Tickets are $5 or $10 – but you can have as many as 3 or 10 people, depending on which of those you choose! Thanks to my son Tyler for pointing this out. (I’ve listened with him, and they’re quite good!)
Cooking, Cookies, and Other Food Options
Really bored? Here is Thrillist’s “Weekend Project: The Laziest Guide to Making Pickles” (or really any pickled vegetable).
Or maybe try brewing mead.
Need some fresh seafood? Try North Coast Seafoods.
Another fun option – particularly as grilling season is now officially kicking off – is Traeger Kitchen Live, a weekly live stream on Thursdays at 6pm EDT hosted by Traeger Grills featuring professional chefs and pitmasters walking through their favorite grilling recipes, while sharing tips and tricks and answering questions in real time. Past streams remain available, and include reverse-seared steak and stuffed burgers with pig candy bacon by Diva Q, and smoked brisket with burnt ends and glazed BBQ half chicken by Matt Pittman. Thanks Sarah for telling me about this!’
If you miss Barbara Lynch’s food, you can live stream “Stir at Home,” which offers (10-person max) virtual dinner cooking parties and (larger, up to 20 households) virtual cooking demonstration dinners.
Photography and Video
When all else fails, pets and other creatures are always a good subject for photographers. Nikon offers “Tips and Tricks for Photographing Cats, Dogs, Birds and Bugs.”
For those who prefer photo challenges and assignments, try “10 Flickr Groups you must join right now.”
Travel (Virtually)
Missing the national parks? Miss them no more! Here are “The 5 Best Virtual Tours Of National Parks & Wild Lands” according to mbgplanet.
English Heritage will be live streaming “Summer Solstice at Stonehenge: Live!” It will be on Saturday, June 20 at 8:30 PM – 5:30 AM UTC+01. That’s 5 hours ahead of EDT, which means that it starts at 1:30 in the morning for those on the U.S. east coast.
I have been wondering when someone would set up the equivalent of walking tours and now someone has finally done it: Secret Virtual Tours. They have a live online tours of Paris, as well as live talks about specific sites like the Tower of London, the Louvre, the Uffizi, and the Sistine Chapel. Enjoy!
Coping with the New (Ab)Normal
Technology Review also has some advice about “How to stay sane when the world’s going mad: New online tools aim to help treat people’s anxiety before it reaches a crisis point.”