What Should You Do Tonight? Mar. 27

Weekend edition! See the tag for more suggestions.

Celebrate Mariah Carey

Today is Mariah Carey's "life anniversary" (not birthday, as per her instructions) and you should listen to her music before bed. "Underneath The Stars" is a perfectly written song. So is "Honey." Most of her catalogue and 19 #1s, too. — Myles Tanzer 

Learn How to Tie Your Shoes

Ok so something not a lot of people know about me is I'm pretty bad at tying my shoes!!! I had really bad fine motor skills as a child so I never really developed the muscle memory to...tie knots correctly. Instead of going out and having fun like people did in the days of yore, I'm going to spend all weekend watching YouTube videos on knot-tying until my brain oozes out of my ears! — Sophie Kemp

Brits in Greece

Tonight, you should watch The Durrells in Corfu, a charming, unexpectedly modern family sitcom set in Greece in in the 1930s. It's the real-life story of the Durrell family, who fled the dreary southern coast of England and moved to Corfu just because, and the resulting four season adventure is bright, witty and surprisingly familiar, as the titular family feels like one you know all too well. It's available on PBS Passport and Amazon Prime, and it's a fun adventure to leave your home where you live and spend all of your time and see the world with new friends. — Nick Andersen

Express Gratitude

Lately, my husband and I have begun sharing what we're grateful for before dinner each night. Expressing gratitude is something that can really help tune our heads to what is positive, especially amidst this endless torrent of tragedy. Our moods affect our immune systems, so taking care of our spirits in whatever ways we can is an additional method of staying vigilant during these times. — Sandy Allen

Attend the Theatre

Just because every theater on Broadway is closed doesn't mean you can't take in a show. Thanks to the YouTube channel TastySurrealBowl (the Joseph Papp of our times?), the 1984 PBS recording of Sam Shepard's Pulitzer-finalist play True West is available to stream in its entirety. Taking place in the desert 40 miles east of LA, the production stars Gary Sinise and John Malkovich as estranged brothers housesitting for their mother. Sinise plays the hack screenwriter, Malkovich the loose-canon house burglar, naturally. But over a couple long days and nights with nothing but their mother's booze and each other's company, the oppressive emptiness of the desert starts to get to the pair (“those are the most monotonous fuckin' crickets I ever heard in my life," Malkovich growls to himself) and slowly the brothers switch places, the vagrant selling a script, the screenwriter stealing every toaster oven in the neighborhood. Full of madness and claustrophobia and Malkovich whipping pieces of toast at Sinise's head, it's a perfect show for these times. In the words of a sloshed Sinise, “This isn't champagne anymore. We went through the champagne a long time ago. This is serious stuff. The days of champagne are long gone.” — Natalie Beach

Watch Instagram Cooking Videos

But specifically this Korean cooking channel. Going down the page and reading the captions of the video freeze frames is the only kind of poetry my brain can handle at the moment. — Clare Mao

Crispy red onion
sizzle~
do u want~?
kiya.. Hit by a car..
Eat me quickly
very easy ^^
very very easy ^^

Dystopian City Movies

American cinema uses New York as a vehicle for the aspirations or anxieties present in an era, and in our current moment, the city is the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak, a proxy for the country's fears. Aude and I have embarked on a movie marathon to see how filmmakers used the concerns present in American society to create dystopian visions for the future or alternative visions of the present. There's a comfort in knowing that their depictions of the years 1997 or 2022 look nothing like our current reality and what we are fixated on now will pass. We have expanded the concept to include how other cities are used in a similar fashion. Films include: "Soylent Green", "Escape from New York", "The Warriors", "Logan's Run" (Washington DC), "12 Monkeys" (Baltimore / Philadelphia), "Bladerunner" (LA), "They Live" (LA), and "Brazil" (London) — Michael Crommett

Italian Cinema

Open a heavy red wine you have been saving for a special occasion. This is the special occasion. Let it breathe. Rent La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) by Paolo Sorrentino through Criterion or Amazon Prime. Watch it on the largest screen you own, with the volume as high as you can put it without being a dick to your neighbors. Sit back, drink the wine, and weep as prolifically as you can. — Jennifer Schaffer

Farmers Markets 

I'm heading to the McGoldrick Park farmers market in Greenpoint on Sunday. The fish guy, pickle people and Orwashers bread will definitely be there every week until Down to Earth Markets suspends. — Jenn de la Vega