New 51st Way To Leave Your Lover Revealed! Tabs, Fri., March 13, 2020
It's Friday the 13th! We're all too scared to be superstitious. Go walk under a ladder as long as it's six feet away from another person.
The world is shutting down around us -- just in time for area schools to close for the next few few months. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has asked school superintendents to provide free child care for students whose parents work in the medical field or are first responders. (The Seattle Times)
The Portland, Oregon, teachers union wants schools closed, as well, because it's impossible for educators to distance themselves from students. Unfortunately, for a lot of vulnerable kids, it's only a matter of when not if the schools close. (The Oregonian)
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered an end to all gatherings of more than 500 people. That closes down Broadway theaters and other performing arts venues, including Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, and the Metropolitan Opera. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is also closing on Friday. The hit on the tourist economy is significant. Times Square is going to look like the beginning of Vanilla Sky, which (SPOILER) was just a dream. This is a Donald Trump-fueled nightmare. (NPR)
Broadway shut down for just two days after 9/11, but the theatre community was still hit hard from the significant decline in tourism. This is a nice piece about that difficult period. (American Theatre)
Movie theaters haven't yet been ordered to close, but they might have no real reason to stay open. Major Hollywood movies such as Mulan, No Time To Die, and F9: The Fast Saga are postponing their releases because of the coronavirus. Blockbusters usually want to play to packed theaters, not ones with empty seats between patrons. (Hollywood Reporter)
March Madness isn't happening, but TrekCore.com suggests that CBS fill all that air time with reruns of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." That's a brilliant idea. (Twitter).
A little twerp in the UK was suspended for selling “squirts" of hand sanitizer to his classmates. (USA Today)
The Walt Disney Company is closing Disneyland in California for the rest of the month. Disney World in Orlando, Florida, will close at the end of business Sunday, too. Before the Florida closing was announced, a mother of two told the New York Times:
Me and my husband have been monitoring things, but didn't feel like we needed to cancel our plans ... We have wipes, we have hand sanitizer, we aren't elderly and honestly, if you're going to get it, you're going to get it. If I'm going to get sick and die, I might as well do it at Disney World.
Sarah Palin “performed" “Baby Got Back" while disguised as a giant pink bear on Fox's “The Masked Singer." That really happened. (The Daily Beast)
Hundreds of hungry monkeys fought each other for food on a Thai street because the tourists who normally feed them are staying at home. This is less weird than Palin singing the words “you notice that butt was stuffed." (The Daily Mail)
There were also wild boars roaming streets in Italy. (Twitter)
Democratic leadership hopes that it can still hold its big fancy national convention in July. Let's hope the situation has improved by the summer and that wild boars and monkeys aren't roaming the streets. (The Washington Post)
The coronavirus outbreak could prove a cataclysmic event for the arts. Here are some Oregon and Washington-area theaters that would appreciate your support at this time:
Cafe Nordo (I write for them!)
Follow Stephen Robinson on Twitter.
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Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Portland, Oregon. He writes make believe for Cafe Nordo, an immersive theatre space in Seattle. Once, he wrote a novel called “Mahogany Slade,” which you should read or at least buy. He's also on the board of the Portland Playhouse theatre. His son describes him as a “play typer guy."
