as requested (though this is more resources and less vibes) and with a bigggg caveat that, obviously, life looks very very different for all of us right now. hopefully something on the list below will be useful to you. (art)
this is gonna sound stupid but i really recommend deep-cleaning your house/apt, for a number of reasons. one, you’re gonna be spending some serious time in there, you deserve a nice space. two, you will inevitably unearth fun stuff you forgot you had. case in point: i found a deck of cards and now all we do is play rummy 500.
reading. so hot right now. trends really do come back.
comfort reads (and these) (and these). personally i’ve been alternating between bon-bon YA and slow, lush works by writers i already know i love, like melville & anne carson.
pandemic reads (and these).
scribd (unlimited ebooks & audiobooks) has a one month free offer rn; it’s usually $9/month. kindle unlimited also has a 2-month free subscription but i’m not linking to that, stop giving your money to amazon.
crafts!! producing an object with my own two hands feels like the best thing right now. i’ve been making kitschy potholders because i am emotionally in the third grade, but that spring cleaning will probably turn up all sorts of good crafty objects. if the adult coloring book your aunt gave you is lost for good, i recommend checking out #colorourcollections pages from years past.
go for walks/runs/whatever, but keep it local (no driving 4 hours away and infecting a new town with your old town’s germs), isolated (no popular jogging trails!), and legal (state parks & beaches are closed for a reason).
PC games: here + here
print-and-play boardgames (& also cards against humanity, family edition)
magazines (through RBD + your library)
tv/movie streaming: HBO is free rn! & here are 10 other free streaming services. feel-good show plug: leverage is available on IMDB tv :-)
academic books: biiig long list here; does not include de gruyter (not all books are free rn, but a lot are–i downloaded 27 the other night. you may need to use a university VPN in order to have access, i can’t quite tell); cambridge UP; or manchester UP.
free exercise classes (big list here; i hate working out so i’ve just been doing yoga with adriene.)
museum tours
theater & opera (the UK’s national theatre at home; the shows must go on; the met)
NPR has an ongoing list of free virtual concerts, sorted by genre & time.
nikon is offering all of their photography classes for free during april
fender’s offering 3 months of free online guitar lessons
adobe creative cloud is free for students until june
also there are a million academic MOOCs available right now, if your brain is in a place where that seems doable.
supercook lets you input the ingredients you’ve got and suggests recipes that make use of them! good for figuring out to do with those weird beans in the back of your pantry.
in my house: we’re working through the stupid big tea stash i unearthed and eating a lot of big-batch comfort food–soups, homemade mac & cheese, etc.
maybe this is only happening in california but we haven’t had flour in a full month so here is a roommate-approved chocolate cake recipe that only uses 1 tbs of flour
keep track of local food service strikes! if you’re ordering delivery from local businesses, please tip generously.
(wheeze)
i hate working at home because i am really, really bad at it. the only thing that’s done the trick for me is physically changing workspaces (i never work at the dining room table downstairs but i live there now), wearing headphones, and lighting a candle.
ambient sound: coffitivity; DIY mixer.
cold turkey.
in general i’m just trying to be gentle with myself and acknowledge that doing work right now is absurd–it’s has to happen but it doesn’t have to be good or graceful.
facemask template. this is the handsewing one i’ve been using, from the NYT; if you have fabric + a basic sewing kit (needle, pins, thread) you’ll be good to go. if you don’t have access to a sewing kit, the CDC has two new-sew options here.
healthdata.org. this website has been good for helping my brain be reasonable about the situation; data is saturating the news rn but this site has concrete region-specific projections about fatality rates and resource use and is good for reminding you that this thing has an end point.
While standing in line trying to get some food in the southern Gaza Strip, he yelled at the journalist Fakri Ibrahim, saying: 'Send this picture to Israel and the world.'
2022, oil on cradled wood panel
When I was younger and researching the autism diagnosis criteria and symptoms, I thought “oh I couldn’t POSSIBLY be autistic.” Because when I read “takes everything literally” I thought it literally meant EVERYTHING and I was like “I don’t take EVERYTHING literally, just most things!” And I just realized the other day that it didn’t actually mean EVERYTHING and that was an overstatement.
There's a super famous singing festival in italy that airs for a week every year. This year, one of the singers, Ghali, did some very remarkable things on that stage. Ghali was born in Italy from Tunisian parents, his career has been going on for a while, but this was his first time on that stage.
He made a song where he references Palestine where he sings: "how can you say everything is fine down here, where in order to trace borders with imaginary lines you bomb an hospital, for a piece of land or for a piece of bread there is no peace" . He also did a medley, singing also in arabic for the first time in the history of the festival.
Last night, during the final, he ended his performance asking to "stop the genocide!" I don't have to tell you that there's absolutely nothing pro-Palestine on italian media... and he used the biggest stage he could use to say that.
Today on a tv programme he was accused by the Isra*li ambassador of spreading hate and violence, to which he replied with those words in the following video (credits to the person who translated it here):
The italian TV broadcaster quickly posted a press release to distance themselves from this speech and to reiterate their whole support to Isr*el lol Towards the end of this tv programme, a few hours after Ghali said what you can hear in this video, they read the press release out loud. This is how Isra*li propaganda works everywhere, thanks to the complicity of our governments.
Just want to post about him because he really risked it all and I appreciate him incredibly for everything he did...if only everyone could do the same. And fuck italy and its fascist government.
Commission of the Fool for @9kinds. <3
If you're interested I have commissions for Palestine open - info in this link.
so. have you seen the pictures from Rafah of the blackened, charred infants? the toddler with no head?
i would like to ask a favour of everyone seeing this post, from one human to another. don't think about the things you can't do - because as it seems, nothing is enough, and nobody can do enough - there is no use to be paralyzed by these thoughts. instead focus on the things you are already doing and the things you can do. i will start by compile a small list of personal suggestions, and please add to it from your own resources! this list is not numbered, i will just add things that i can think of off the top of my head and if it is of any help to at least one person, thats good. take care of yourself - that includes taking care of others, and this world we live in.
this is obvious but keep listening to Palestinian voices. i am mostly active on twitter so i will give some examples from there: Hind_Gaza, HossamShabat, BayanPalestine (press). MuhammadSmiry, does community work with Care for Gaza. m7mdkurd. Everyone is saying mostly the same thing - keep talking, keep protesting, keep boycotting. so do it.
keep talking. humans are social animals and it's as simple as this: the ongoing genocide is dire, urgent and catastrophic - i dont think i need to tell you that. but when people, a lot of people, share posts with each other and reiterate this fact the urgency will be felt stronger by everyone, and reach people who would otherwise maybe not see the reports of the genocide on their screens. if people instead choose to stop sharing and stop talking because it's "been so long" or it's "too difficult", the suffering will become normalized and the only thing people will see on their feeds are mundane things - food, pets, fandoms, and it will send the message that oh, it's not that important after all.... sometimes, you SHOULD feel disturbed and uncomfortable. these feelings are not evil - they will be channelled into actions to better a situation and better the world. silence is violence.
search for protests near your town, sometimes they're hard to find but once you find your local organizations for the Palestinian movement, follow them and you will usually find them! this all depends on where you live of course - but most often there will be fundraisers and events and mailing campaigns etc, and the more people joining the better. and, most importantly i would say, share these events and pictures (no faces of strangers, ofc! from protests on your facebook, twitter etc - because that way people close to you will see them and that it's completely rational and normal to attend protests, and if they've been on the fence maybe they will reach out and join you.
donate if you are able and share links to the different organizations - some examples are Care for Gaza, Sulala animal rescue, the Gazan Municipality Life for Gaza project (https://gaza-city.ensany.com/campaign/6737), the PCRF.
individual gofundmes - here is the google doc with a lot of campaigns, but im sure there are lots of them that arent yet added: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-DDMFyn-ttboPXrz1bB3MFk7BlzCwfugh4259Wh7U1s/htmlview
donate e-sims, which will be sent by the Esims for Gaza team to people in Gaza, to help communicate with their families etc during blackouts. it's very quick and easy and on nomad you can get a referral code which gives someone else 25% off their first purchase, and there's also often different bonus codes. on the website there's tutorials for how to buy the different esims. https://gazaesims.com/
there's some different charity shops where you can buy Palestinian products and the proceeds help Palestinian artisans and people. here are some examples, please add more if you know any: https://handmadepalestine.com/ (based in Ramallah, Palestine), https://forpalestine.dk/ (based in Denmark), https://www.shoppalestine.org/ (based in the US)
boycott!! the BDS of course have their targeted brands (https://bdsmovement.net/) but there's also for example the witness website with lists of brands and the reasons for boycotting them (https://boycott.thewitness.news/) and some different apps that do the same thing, like the "no thanks" app. yes, the list of brands is very, very long. maybe all of it isn't feasible BUT i think a good start would be to go through them and decide which ones are unnecessary either way that you're better off without (mcdonalds, starbucks etc), and then which ones are part of your usual shopping routine, make a mental note of them and pick different options - see it as an opportunity to try new things, to support local brands and smaller businesses!
go do yourself a favour and give Palestinian-Canadian artist Nemahsis' new single "stick of gum" a listen, it's super good! <3 https://youtu.be/VsqYlmf3SAg?si=EK_TZjo0Ijny8hMT
please, add more tips and resources below or just share your own pictures or art or thoughts!
Guan Shan: He Tian, can you please put the dinner in the oven at 120 degrees.
He Tian: Sure babe~
TianShan Cooking: 1 - 2
I FILMED MYSELF READING THIS TWITTER POST AND I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO STOP LAUGHING