BLANK’s music editor offers different strategies for self-isolating
Editor’s note: In the aftermath of the unfortunate yet completely understandable and responsible decision to scrap this year’s iteration of Big Ears, the BLANK staff was left grasping at straws for ideas of content that could replace the pre-festival coverage that typically graces our cover each March. It was Bill Foster who suggested that we write about some of our unheralded favorites – music, movies, books and other things that might fly under the radar of most folks – in order to provide our readers with touchstones for exploring new entertainment options during this protracted period of self-isolation. Today, BLANK music editor/regular contributor Luke Brogden takes our Homebound series in a wholly different and unanticipated direction with this novel, hilarious and thoughtful list of ways to keep mentally and physically sharp while practicing safe social distancing.
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In this unprecedented QuaranTime, the first impulse is to binge on consumables: snack foods and media like music, TV and movies. This entire series, in fact, is dedicated to unearthing some amazing hidden gems in those worlds that our BLANK staff recommends to make for stimulating listening/viewing during the long hours of inside time that COVID-19 has created for us.
On the other hand, if days on end spent in front of screens eventually starts to create a sense of burnout, you might want to recall the age-old adage, “There’s no boring things, only boring people.” Keeping that wisdom bestowed by many a mother in mind, peruse this list, bulleted for your convenience, of my suggestions for myriad ways – from the practical to the whimsical to the downright strange – of how to pass the time. Get creative, and have some fun while the world is on pause!
- Sort your mail for the first time since you moved into your current residence.
- Cut your fingernails and toenails.
- Meditate.
- Scrub the grout in the tub for the first time since you moved in.
- Sweep and mop for the first time since you moved in.
- Have a dance party with your pets.
- Practice impersonations of your favorite celebrities in front of the bathroom mirror. While you’re there, floss for the first time since you moved … out of your parents’ house.
- Do yoga.
- Beat all your video games.
- Paint still-life paintings of all the objects in your home.
- Make a pillow fort.
- Put on a fashion show for your partner (or pet).
- Invent a completely brand new dish in the kitchen.
- Invent a new machine in the garage. While you’re there, organize the garage for the first time since you moved in.
- Plant a vegetable garden.
- Call up everyone in your phone one by one and have meaningful conversations with them.
- Try to invent a new form of martial arts.
- Compose an aria on your child’s plastic toy instruments.
- Do KonMari. Look it up first if you’re unfamiliar with what it is.
- Build a sculpture out of the things you plan to throw away.
- Confess everything to your partner (or pet).
- Play your first show in front of your partner (or pet).
- Perform a one-man play for your partner (or pet).
- Throw away all the empty containers/expired items in your fridge.
- Clean your fridge for the first time since you moved in.
- Find all your missing socks. ALL OF THEM.
- Find all your missing sunglasses.
- Put everything in different drawers.
- Throw away all your pens that don’t work but that, for whatever reason, you keep putting back in the pen cup.
- Move the furniture and sweep behind it for the first time since you moved in.
- Organize all the crap in the decorative bowls that just serve to collect junk.
- Use your fireplace for the first time since you moved in.
- Start bathing and shaving regularly for the first time since … you moved out of your parents’ house.
- Do five pushups. Then double that number daily until you can do 1,000.
- Rearrange your furniture.
- Polish all the wooden things in the house for the first time since you moved in.
- Read all the books you’ve been lying about having read.
- Listen to all the albums you’ve been pretending you’ve heard.
- Confront your inner demons, accept them and make a plan to work them out.
- Let your wife apply makeup to your face.
- Stretch for the first time since … high-school gym class.
- Put all your belongings in the actual room in the house in which they are logically supposed to belong.
- Hug your partner, child (or pet) deep, long and often.
- Tell your partner, child (or pet) how much they mean to you.
- Try being vegetarian or vegan.
- Practice cognitive dissonance by thinking of someone or something you hate and trying to find empathy and understanding.
- Do a “cleanse.”
- Brush your teeth at least twice a day for the first time since … you moved out of your parents’ house.
- Lint-roll everything.
- Stay caught up on laundry and dishes for the first time since you moved in.
- To whomever needs to hear it.
- Make a list of your resentments and grudges and then let them all go.
- Make some big decisions about how you’re going to be different and better once you reenter society.
- Play all the long board games like Monopoly and Risk that everyone stopped playing when smartphones became commonplace.
- Register to vote if you haven’t already.
- Invent your own ideal utopian philosophy, political party and form of government. Then be honest with yourself about which candidates truly align with those beliefs. And then vote for those people in November.
- Brush up on the rules, recent history, news, statistics and player movements of all the different college and professional sports in which you’ve been feigning interest and knowledge at parties for the last few years.
- Memorize a monologue.
- Memorize a poem.
- Write a poem for your partner, child (or pet).
- Most importantly of all, though, love and accept yourself.
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