A virtual night out on the town

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Nowadays is livestreaming DJ sets and other events nightly. Photo: Julian Cassady 

A week ago, it was impossible to imagine a Friday night in Brooklyn without a comedy show, food event, reading, or screening to plug—I should know, I’ve been writing this weekly events column for the better part of a decade. Now it seems that all Fridays (and every other night of the week) in the foreseeable future will be spent within the confines of our homes, but it doesn’t mean that you need to be cut off from the vast assortment of cultural opportunities our incredible, resilient city still manages to provide. Did you know that Nowadays is streaming virtual DJ sets and other events every night from 8pm to midnight? Or that comedian/author/singer/host of Tinder Live Lane Moore is doing a nightly live broadcast called How to Be Alone which will feature tricks on coping with loneliness and isolation? Moore has described the show, which streams on Twitch starting at 8pm, as “Peewee’s Playhouse for lonely adults,” which pretty much fits the bill for me right now, and there’s even a kid’s version, Strawberry Milk, at 3pm every day. And, although it was an extremely annoying and long set-up process, I finally got the Met Opera On Demand app working on my Smart TV, so I can have a different opera recorded in HD playing in the background every night while I putter around aimlessly and try to get some writing done. While we’re at it, there are lots of recordings of Broadway shows available here, virtual museum tours here, and the Janus Films site has a lot of tough-to-find indie, foreign, and art films for when you get bored of Netflix and Hulu. Keep in mind that the societal shutdown we are all dealing with is particularly difficult for those who work in the arts, and please donate to the relevant Patreons and GoFundMes if you can to help keep efforts like these alive—we’re all going to need to be entertained in the days and weeks to come. 

More ideas for Your Ideal Week here ⇨