Having rituals helps, so we’ve been watching the “Jeopardy!” College Championship each weeknight on DVR. Alex Trebek remains a (Canadian-American) national treasure, and I am proud to report that I crushed it in “The 1990s” category. I hope that you are finding your own small ways to unwind. Here are some stories from our culture pages this week:
1. “I’m not leaving. In fact, I feel that I am like the designated New Yorker. Everyone else can leave. This is beyond saddening for me, to see the town this way.” Fran Lebowitz talks to Michael Schulman.
2. Vinson Cunningham navigates the streets of Brooklyn: “Walking outside these days requires too much geometry, too much spatial intelligence.”
3. “The birds must think we’ve gone extinct.” Tyler Foggatt introduces a series of drawn postcards from illustrators around the world.
4. “They don’t get to work from home. God forbid that we’re anything but grateful.” Bryan Washington on the grocery-store workers of Houston.
5. Peter Schjeldahl speculates on why the Old Masters seem so much more soulful than contemporary painters: “I think the reason is a routine consciousness of mortality.”
6. “I’ve always been stunned by how well Prine wrote for and about women.” Amanda Petrusich on the singer John Prine’s legacy.
7. “Just as mud is a good place to find gold nuggets, Netflix, with some careful sifting, is a good place to find great movies.” Richard Brody selects forty of the best movies on Netflix.
8. “When I learned of the impending quarantine, I felt something like relief.” The Polish writer Olga Tokarczukon stepping back from the world.
9. “There’s a peculiar, grubby intimacy to doing Zoom yoga: you see people’s open closets, their messy offices, the views from their windows.” Jia Tolentino and other New Yorker writers recommend things to do in quarantine.
10. “For most of my adult life, I had secretly wanted to find myself in France: in a French kitchen, somehow holding my own, having been ‘French-trained.’ ” Bill Buford moves with his family to Lyon and befriends an amazing baker.