Well, we all know what's front of mind, back of mind, soaked through every pleasure center in the mind for this week: 4/20 kicks off this week in quarantine, and I'm certain more than a few people are going to try to stretch that out til next Monday if they can, and godspeed to them. But if you don't have the lungs to run that particular marathon, don't worry: There's a ton of great Things to Do from the comfort of your couch while you stay sheltered and safe this week. Hit the links below and plan accordingly.


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Monday, April 20

SPLIFF Film Fest
If you've never experienced the mind-altering fun of SPLIFF (from the crazy, creative minds behind HUMP! and SLAY) you are in for such a treat. This year you can expect 22 brand new wildly entertaining weed-inspired shorts (all 4:20 or less... of course) featuring funny psychedelic trip-outs, stoned flying cats, side-splitting animation, aggressive dolphins, sexy shenanigans, wandering potatoes, and... dancing Burger Kings? SURE, WHY NOT? Trust us, you've never experienced anything like SPLIFF before. Even better? Each of these limited, special online screenings of SPLIFF 2020 will be hosted LIVE by the fantastical, divine talents of Seattle drag queen duo BETTY WETTER and COOKIE COUTURE! Tell your friends, get baked, and share the glory of SPLIFF 2020 from the comfort of your individual couches!
(Mon April 20, 7 pm, $15-25)

The Cupcake Experience
Sure, your adventures with cannabis could start and stop with "get high. stare at wall." But why settle for such mundane experiences, when you could be surrounded by good people, listening to great music, and learning how to make delicious food? Jody Hall from Cupcake Royale, Greg Lundgren from Museum of Museums, and Lo Friesen from Heylo Cannabis are all coming together for this livestream that will teach you how to de-carb your cannabis, infuse it into butter, and then use that butter to bake, and then get baked.
(Mon April 20, 4:15 pm, $10-20)

The 420 Portland Smoke Out
Oregon's Finest is doing their part to share in the cannabis celebrations popping off all over the world today, with "The 420 Portland Smokeout," a livestream event that they promise will be a historical moment: The first-ever livestreamed smoke sesh on 4/20 in Portland, starting at 4pm with Oregon's Finest budtenders helping you with some rolling, prepping, and best of all—prizes! And, it's free to attend through Zoom!
(Mon April 20, 4 pm, Zoom, free)

Come and Toke It with Willie Nelson
At 4:20 (CST, not PST, but hey, it's always 4:20 somewhere, right? Looking at this roundup, it's 4:20 every second of every minute, really.) on 4/20 Luck and Willie's Reserve present this four-hour-and-twenty-minute livestream starring Willie Nelson himself, who recently retired from performing so its kind of a pretty damn big deal that he's headlining this virtual festival featuring "artists, chefs, comedians, and educators" teaching, toking, and turning up for a full day's worth of canna-fueled fun, all livestreamed through both Twitch and Facebook. Proceeds benefit The Last Prisoner Project, focused on freeing people unjustly convicted and incarcerated for selling a product deemed "an essential service" in 2020.
(Mon, April 20, 2:20pm, free)

Higher Together: Sessions From Home
One more toke for the road: If any of the above weed-focused celebrations isn't quite hitting the spot, or (and most likely) you're feeling like you need to indulge even more than you already have on this highest of holidays, then the Smoker's Club and Weedmaps are looking to blow out 4/20 in crazy livestreamed style with a party they're calling "The World's Biggest Virtual 420 Celebration," including a DJ set and smoke session with Wiz Khalifa, an acoustic set and video premiere from Billy Ray Cyrus, Berner doing a $5000 merch giveaway, comedy from Joey "Coco" Diaz, and appearances from Cam'ron, Dave East, Stephen Marley, Tycho, Alchemist, and many, many more.
(Mon, April 20, 12pm, free)

13th
As we mentioned earlier, Willie Nelson's big 4/20 celebration is a benefit for a program trying to get a lot of unjustly imprisoned people freed now that cannabis is legal and essential to quarantine living. And yet for decades, selling this essential product came with a prominent risk of arrest and long-term imprisonment. You probably have a pretty decent idea of just how broken America's justice system is, but the particulars of how unjust it is, and how disproportionate an effect it's had on multiple generations of Black Americans, is made crystal clear by Ava DuVernay's award-winning documentary 13th. Yes, 4/20 is normally a day for not having to think too deeply about anything and just having some laid-back fun, but it can (and should) also be a day where you educate yourself on the exorbitant price paid by people who never deserved this treatment, from a country who cares more about criminalizing its people than caring for them.
(Now Streaming, Netflix, $8.99 per month, free trial here)

Bob Marley: Rasta Vigilante
It might be technically, morally, and metaphysically impossible to engage in 4/20 festivities and not have Bob Marley involved in some way, but while many will just put Exodus on loop and leave it at that, why not also dig into this early episode from the Disgraceland podcast, which covers the well-known anecdote about how Bob Marley barely survived a home invasion, and covers the less well-known mystery surrounding every one of those gunmen meeting violent ends at the rumored hands of a Trenchtown legend named "Screwface," a man some believed to be...


Tuesday, April 21

Middleditch & Schwartz
Get ready for an evening of wild-yet-intimate improv comedy with Jean Ralphio from Parks and Recreation and Richard Hendricks from Silicon Valley—except they won’t be playing those characters because that was TV and this is real life. IRL, Ben Schwartz and Thomas Middleditch are maybe even funnier than their fictional counterparts! These two mumbly, bumbly comic geniuses share a hilarious history of playing off one another via longform improv and tender full-body spooning.
(Tues, April 21, Netflix, $8.99 per month, free trial here) SUZETTE SMITH

Rebecca Solnit
Six years after Rebecca Solnit added a few new words to the lexicon of sexist experience in her smash-hit essay collection Men Explain Things to Me, the longtime writer and activist is out with a new memoir about her formative years in San Francisco. In Recollections of My Non-Existence, Solnit gives the Beats the drubbing she felt she couldn't give them back in the day, tells the stories of the people and places that inspired her writings, and compares the violence women faced then to the violence they still face today.
(Now Available, ebook and audiobook, MultCo Library w/ card; Hardcover, Powell's.com, $26) RICH SMITH

Fetch the Bolt Cutters
You still listening to that new Fiona Apple that came out on Friday? Good. Keep listening to it. If you haven't listened to it yet, there's no time like the present, really. As author Bess Kalb best put it: "Fiona Apple was waiting for the entire world to descend into restless melancholic rage and then once we all started pacing our kitchens in our underwear in the middle of the night she was like, “You’re ready.” So... yeah. You're ready. Go ahead and just hit the "loop" button on whatever player you've got it cue'd up on now, too.
(Now Available, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, etc.)

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me
Speaking of the New Yorker's Bess Kalb, her ability to tweet good is dwarfed by her ability to memoir, as Nobody Will Tell You This But Me aptly, hilariously, and poignantly shows. A book that Kalb built from every voicemail and text message her grandmother Bobby ever left her, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me charts the physical and emotional journeys that four generations of women went through—including escaping pogroms in 1880 and fighting the power in the 1970s—to arrive at Bess, who leaned on her grandmother for support and wisdom when she moved to Los Angeles to make people laugh, and to make her dreams come true.
(Now Available, ebook and audiobook, MultCo Library w/ Card; Hardcover, Powell's.com, $25.95)

Horizon Zero Dawn
As the self-quarantine continues and the hours stack up, a lot of people are finally putting a sizable dent in their "I've been meaning to play that" list; and if you haven't gotten around to Horizon Zero Dawn just yet, you are in for one of the best gaming experiences of the last five years, and one that justified the purchase of a PS4 for millions of people. A beautiful and satisfying blend of classics like Metroid Prime, Monster Hunter, and The Legend of Zelda, Horizon is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland verdant wilderness where machine animals roam the earth, and humankind has gone back to its tribal, pre-technological existence. You play as Aloy, a rebellious daughter discovering the truth about herself and the world she was born into. The developers use a gentle hand on the story, the voice acting is just right, and the gameplay? So good.. Because it's just over three-years-old, it's cheap to pick up new—and if you did get it new back then, it'll probably feel that way when you revisit it now.
(Now Available, PlayStation Store, $19.99)

Go Thrifting with Princess Nokia
New York-based Boricua rapper Princess Nokia’s studio debut 1992 Deluxe is beyond impressive: With her malleable flows and tones, Nokia’s gritty hip-hop is made refreshing by its progressive, empowering lyrics. Identifying as a bi-sexual “Tomboy,” skater, and feminist, Nokia melds her influences of gothic punk and hip-hop while honoring her Afro-Latina heritage and celebrating femmes of color. On YouTube, her highlights include various insightful Q&As, footage from her visceral live shows, and an endless stream of visuals that’ll turn you into an instant Stan. JENNI MOORE


Wednesday, April 22

Earth Day Live
So of course, in this bizarre dystopian timeline we got shunted into somewhere around 2016, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day would be happening in the middle of a global pandemic, but: This might be the most important Earth Day of the last five decades, and that's why the 2020 version isn't just one day of livestreaming, but three, featuring a nonstop parade of artists, activists, scientists, and thought leaders, including Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Ndaba Mandela, Talib Kweli, Stacey Abrams, Patricia Arquette, Aimee Mann and Ted Leo, and many more. Day One is focused on community building and storytelling, Day Two is about reprogramming the economy entirely (because COVID-19 isn't going to let anything go back to "the way it was.") and Day Three will take a look at how best to affect political change through the youth.
(Wed-Fri, April 22-24, free, all ages)

The Stranger Presents: Silent Reading Party
Our big sister The Stranger has a Silent Reading Party so popular in Seattle that every seat is taken and there’s a line out the door before the party even starts. But now, in adapting to these self-quarantined times, not only is the party weekly, but you can attend from anywhere in the world. Make yourself a snack, pour yourself a drink, and read whatever you feel like reading silently, to yourself, as resident musician Paul Moore plays exquisitely soft piano music for you and everyone else in the party—everything from Erik Satie to Radiohead to Duke Ellington. A perfect way to make a solo night at home feel a little less lonely, it’s also great for couples or families who want an excuse to turn off the TV and get some reading done.
(Wed April 22, 6 pm, $5-20)

Mrs. America
If you’ve set a goal to better yourself and learn new things during this period of social distancing, then I can’t think of a more entertaining way to do so than by watching Mrs. America. The nine-episode series tells the story of the second-wave feminists who tried to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the 1970s—and the anti-feminist women who were ultimately successful in stopping them. Cate Blanchett plays toxic conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly with equal parts humanity and honesty, without veering into tired sympathetic antihero territory. Rose Byrne is criminally fun to watch in Gloria Steinem drag, and Uzo Aduba sinks her teeth into the tension of being first female presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm, caught between the Black rights and women’s liberation movements—and ultimately screwed by both. Beyond being enjoyable as hell to watch (I burned through the first three episodes after they dropped on Wednesday), Mrs. America also serves as an edifying lesson in 1970s American politics. It says something truly shameful about our society that I learned more about the dynamics of Chisholm’s campaign in an hour of television than I did in any K-12 or college class, but oh well, at least I spent an entire school year learning about the Oregon Trail!
(Wed, April 22, Hulu, $5.99 per month, free trial here) BLAIR STENVICK

Miss Americana
A different sort of look at feminism in America, set 40 years after the events in Mrs. America and filtered through the lens of one of the world's biggest pop stars; a woman who got her start as a child-country-star and then had to figure out how to still be herself, while also trying to be what millions of fans are projecting onto her. And then you add that whole Kim and Kanye complication to the mix, and oh yeah, one of the most repugnant, disgusting, and unqualified men in American history got elected president, too, forcing her to reexamine her own adherence to apolitical stances. Miss Americana isn't quite as warts 'n' all as many viewers might like, but it's still an enlightening look at the life of one of our most popular singer/songwriters.
Now Streaming, Netflix, $8.99 per month, free trial here

Jane Goodall: The Hope
A really good way to celebrate Earth Day and one of the most important women to ever live is to check out this new documentary about author, advocate, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace Dame Jane Goodall, focused not just on her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees, but on the hope she's inspired in millions of environmentalists, and the hopes she has for our future.
(Wed April 22, Disney+, NatGeo)

The Whiskey Sour Happy Hour with Ed Helms & the Bluegrass Situation
Steve Martin isn't the only funnyman with an affinity for bluegrass music. Ed Helms has been running "The Whiskey Sour Radio Hour" out of Largo in LA for a goodish spell now, combining the sounds of Americana with comedy and interviews, and now he's going to translate that experience to the quarantine livestream era, helping benefit MusiCares and Direct Relief, and welcoming some of their favorite musical artists to their virtual stage, starting with Lee Ann Womack, Billy Strings, and proceeding from there.
(Wed April 22, 8 pm, YouTube, Facebook, free)

Blossom
Blossom—AKA Keisha Chiddick—makes dreamy, mellow, and ethereal neo-soul. Her sultry vocals are particularly soft and gorgeous, wandering through twinkling, instrument-heavy production to eventually float in a space of exquisite self-reflection. Listening to it is like seeing a beautiful sunrise after a long night. JENNI MOORE


Thursday, April 23

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
There are a lot of things available on the virtually un-scalable mountain range of content comprising Hulu/Netflix/Prime/YouTube/etc., but you should definitely make sure you carve time out of your day to witness the rise of the prolific Nobel-winning author Toni Morrison, who holds forth on her life busting up the white male literary hegemony in Timothy Greenfield-Sanders's documentary, with appearances by Hilton Als, Oprah Winfrey, Russell Banks, and Angela Davis, among others.
(Now Streaming, Hulu, $5.99 per month, free trial here)

King Lear
A classic Shakespeare play, almost disturbingly appropriate for our current time, performed as brilliantly as possible by a cast that's—to borrow an overused-but-thoroughly-correct-in-this-case term—GODLIKE, in front of a very receptive audience. To clarify: A very receptive New York audience, in Central Park, in 1974. That cast, by the way? Oh, you know... James Earl Jones as Lear, with Paul Sorvino as Gloucester, Raul Julia as Edmund, Lee Chamberlin as Cordelia... and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Rene Auberjonois and Law & Order's George Dzundza popping up as well. If this doesn't open your eyes to how amazing properly-performed Shakespeare can be, nothing will.
(Now Streaming, allarts.org, free, all ages)

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Last week, Comcast/Universal propped open the door to their new streaming platform, Peacock, which isn't fully available to the public just yet, but if you're an Xfinity Flex or X1 subscriber, you've got access to it. If you have yet to choose a title to begin this illustrious Peacock experience with, might I suggest the highest grossing film of the 1980s, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial? Not because this saccharine-sweet Spielberg classic is one of the best movies at the platform's launch, but because its cinematographer, Allen Daviau, recently died due to complications from COVID-19. He was one of Spielberg's earliest collaborators, and went on to shoot Temple of Doom, Empire of the Sun, and The Color Purple for him. He also shot Fearless for Peter Weir, Defending Your Life for Albert Brooks... hell, this man shot Harry and the Hendersons! So why E.T. rather than those other films? Because Daviau's work on E.T. is some of the most iconic photography in modern history. Even if you've seen it a million times, watch it again, but this time and pay special attention to Daviau's craftsmanship, because it was something remarkable to behold.
(Now Streaming, Peacock on Xfinity, free w/ subscription)

Risky Business
Another '80s classic is new to streaming this month, and while it's primarily remembered for featuring a young Tom Cruise in his jockeys doing a lip-sync routine to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll," Risky Business is a surprisingly subversive entry into the teen movie canon of that decade. What looks like a bawdier, harder-edged spin around the teen movie block with one of the '80s myriad toothy privileged Reagan-era achievers is actually a low-key satire of that privilege, one that never really lets Cruise's character off the hook for every thoughtless assumption he makes and responsibility-ducking action he takes. It's also way more artfully made than most entries in the genre, features a star-making performance by Rebecca De Mornay, and was effectively the world's big introduction to the glories of Joey Pants as Guido, the Killer Pimp.
(Now Streaming, Hulu, $5.99 per month, free trial here)

Through the Looking Glass: Wonderland in Quarantine
The "progenitors of the spectacle of ecdysiastic pageantry," Verlaine & McCann, are taking their 12-years-running burlesque adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic online for 2020, complete with Lily Verlaine's choreography, Stephanie Seymour's costuming, and a live jazz score from the Aces & 8's. Each show includes some backstage time at the top of the show, an intermission, and a cocktail party Q&A. If you've been all mimsy and missing the sort of bold and brassy entertainment a good burlesque show can provide, this oughta cure what ails ya.
(Thurs April 23, 5 pm, crowdcast.io, $25)

Polyrhythmics
Seattle octet Polyrhythmics do this big-band Afrobeat/funk thing with proper zest and adventurousness. The group's 32 limbs work in intricate harmony to generate a sophisticated slinkiness and expressive brassiness; theirs is a bold, complex chiaroscuro of wind, keyboard, guitar, bass, and percussion instruments. Polyrhythmics set out to move you, of course, but not without also ensuring that your mind expands out of its usual dimensions. Polyrhythmics are one of Seattles most impressive sonic pleasures, able to deliver Fela Kuti-esque gratification as well as sublimely greasy, Meters-like funk. DAVE SEGAL