Episode 124: That Thing You Do

Jessica and Michael talk this week about how artists, designers, actors, and other creative people are adjusting their practices and dreams to the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone is affected in different ways, says Jessica, but there’s a common thread:

It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, if you’re living alone or with 15 people, if your industry has been disrupted or it hasn’t and you never had so much work. Nothing is going to be the same.

And the only thing we have is to rethink how we might remap our expectations.

As I said to someone yesterday, you can’t recalibrate your feelings. You’re still you. But you can recalibrate your expectations.

Also mentioned this week:

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson Central, Essay on Self-Reliance
• Helen Shaw, Vulture, In Drama School, the Spring Showcase Is Everything. Now What?
• Aisha Ahmad, Chronicle of Higher Education, Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure
• Jenny Odell, The Myth of Self-Reliance
• The Lehman Trilogy
• Netflix, Abstract, Christoph Niemann
• Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark (2009)
• Star Slinger, Self-Reliance
• Scene from “That Thing You Do!”, YouTube
• Maria Elena Fernandez, Vulture, If I Wrote a Coronavirus Episode
• Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Larry David, Master of Quarantine
• Dan Ozzi, Curb Your Enthusiasm: “The Virus” 
• Adam Schlesinger, Fountains of Wayne

Jessica’s daily essay column, The Self-Reliance Project, focuses on what it means to be a maker during a pandemic. Sign up to get it delivered to your inbox here.

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