Good afternoon, POMEs! We’ve adopted the following as our new standard pandemic email greeting, which really gets to the heart of our experience at the moment:
This past weekend was supposed to be the best weekend of the year: TCAF 2020. We were so looking forward to debuting Going Steady and hanging out with all of our fellow comics-loving friends, and while nothing can replace that experience, our hearts were warmed by the outpouring of creativity and love on the #TCAF2020 hashtag. Pop on over to Twitter and check out not only some amazing comics that you can still buy, but also fond recollections of TCAFs of old!
Imagine, just imagine, the Real-Life Bishounen (friendly/thirsty) discourse that we could have enjoyed in Toronto. Big sigh.
Hey y’all, remember movies??? Last month, The Hollywood Reporter had a quirky little report on the boom in drive-in movies in Germany and South Korea, where there are apparently pretty good not only at protecting their populations from deadly viruses, but also at entertainment. Can you feel our longing?
As in Germany, pop-up drive-ins are being set up in public parks and parking lots across the country. In South Korea, local governments are getting involved. The Nowon District in eastern Seoul set up an 1,100 square foot screen in a local park and is showing older films for free to the car-bound public. Oh Seung-rok, the chief of Nowon District, suggested local citizens take advantage of the city’s drive-ins to relieve “emotional distress” caused by quarantine and social distancing measures.
On the bright side of our movie longing, Criterion has just announced a massive new box set collecting the entire body of work of cinema hero, genius, and beloved crone ancestor, Agnès Varda. Can’t think of a better way to spend a socially isolated month at home.
To all the girls and boys who were required to read Lord of the Flies and didn’t really know what to do with it, The Guardian has a sweet story about what happened when a bunch of schoolchildren from Tonga were shipwrecked for months on a deserted island. (Spoilers: contains lifelong friendship, distinctly lacks cannibalism.)
Do you have significant sewing skills and a desire to take on a slightly macabre challenge? Then treat yourself to this free sewing pattern for a quilted plague doctor mask! (And if you do make one, please show us, because holy crap.)
And finally, a very Texan edition of your Animal Crossing content for the week:
