To Do 04.23.20

LISTEN: To Big Sur

The big outdoors is shrinking. Last week the U.S. Forest Service announced closures through June 1 of Big Sur trails and roads, punishable by big fines. So don’t go. Instead, listen to music about Big Sur, perhaps with friends and a drink. John Adams’ The Dharma at Big Sur is a meditative, modern classical piece by the New England composer who described the Pacific Ocean waves as “a slow, lazy rhythm of terrifying power.” Our own resident (but worldly) music composer John Wineglass crafted a profound symphonic homage in Big Sur: The Night Sun, which the Monterey Symphony premiered in 2017. The Beach Boys’ 19th studio album included a trilogy titled California Saga, of which Al Jardine’s “Big Sur” is a sweet, twangy number inspired by the Big Sur Folk Festival. Alanis Morissette, Jack Johnson, The Thrills, King of Woolworths and Adam Franklin all have done songs titled “Big Sur.” Death Cab for Cutie has an epic psychedelic number called “Bixby Canyon Bridge” and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ obscure 1999 acoustic “Road Trippin” talks about getting lost and surfing in Big Sur. It is all available free to hear online (YouTube had ’em all). Weekly Founder/CEO Bradley Zeve recommends a few more inspired listens: Roy Hargrove’s Moment to Moment; Bill Frisell’s album Big Sur (composed at Glen Deven Ranch); “Dancing Waters, Big Sur To Bahia (For Gilberto and Caetano)” by Charles Lloyd; and the 2019 album Dark Watchers by Jonas Bonnetta and Edwin Huizinga, written and recorded in Big Sur. It’s all beautiful music. How could it not be?

WATCH: New movies

Box Office Mojo tracks movie gross sales and compares them to the previous week’s gross sales. It’s like the Billboard Charts of movies. 2020 started off strong, with 81 domestic releases and $191,738,131 in overall gross sales in the first week; the number one movie was Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. January was dominated by Bad Boys for Life before it was displaced by the critically acclaimed but confusingly marketed Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Fast forward to March (you know what’s coming, but the numbers are startling): overall gross was $134,537,731 for the week of March 6-12, then plunged to $5,179 for March 20-26. That is a nearly 100-percent nosedive in three weeks. Well, Osio Theater may be temporarily closed, but they’re not quite dark. They and their film distributors are offering streaming of every new film release on smart TVs, smartphones or tablets, with portions of sales going to support the nonprofit moviehouse. Go to Osio’s website, find new releases, click “rent now,” and off you go. But first, you might pick up movie theater popcorn from Maya Cinemas in Salinas – for sale to-go from 2-5pm Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. osiotheater.org/now-playing; mayacinemas.com/popcorn-pickup.

LEARN: Everything

The kids are learning remotely now, but what about the adults? Open Culture believes that learning should be rigorous, exciting, immense and free. They compile free culture and education from all over the internet into one glorious place for us to ransack. Like 1,300 free online courses from the likes of Harvard, Stanford and Oxford; 1,150 free movies, from 1922 documentary Nanook of the North to 1974 martial arts flick The Street Fighter. They link to Michigan State University’s Celebrity Lecture Series featuring Amy Tan, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Jane Smiley (hello, neighbor) and others. You can hear recordings of T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien or Flannery O’Connor reading from their own work. You can browse art from The Met, The Tate, the British Library; there are tons of free classical music; 800 e-books and 700 audiobooks. And for Covid-19 home-schooling for K-12 students, and their parents and teachers, they have a list of 200 online resources including video lessons, apps, audiobooks and test prep materials. Again, all free, presented in a smart, orderly way in easily searchable lists, with interesting sidebars (like the favorite movies of directors Stanley Kubrick or Wes Anderson). And the website creators have a sense of humor, posting video of the Peanuts Gang “performing” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” openculture.com.

BINGE: Stranger Things

I’ve admired the Netflix sci-fi-thriller Stranger Things and its throwback 1980s references, synthesizer music, and the logo T-shirts at Target. But I’ve never seen the show. Weekly editor Sara Rubin has. Here’s what she says. “It’s small-town Indiana in the mid-1980s, and weird things start happening. A boy disappears, the lights mysteriously flicker, rats chew through fertilizer bags. In the backdrop of the supernatural story there’s a sinister Soviet-U.S. race to create or unleash a monster – and a team of nerdy teenagers who put their science skills to the test to solve a mystery. The creepy upside-down dimension where monsters lurk feels perfectly believable in the era of a pandemic, and satisfyingly easy to confront; there’s some good coronavirus metaphor material here, but it’s a good watch because it’s not your typical monster movie. A deal for Season 4 has already been inked, but production is delayed due to the pandemic. So now is a good time to catch up on the first three seasons. It’s delightful to watch teenage heroes get consumed by fun stuff – crushes, hairspray – while they’re also busy taming a monster that you don’t need a microscope to see.” On Netflix.

The Play List 04.23.20

BACK TO THE ROOTS: First, the bad news: The annual Cali Roots Festival, scheduled for Memorial Day, has been rescheduled (to Oct. 9-11). But the good news is they are still sharing the good vibes (and tunes) through The Couch Sessions­ – hours of recordings of live shows, and even a new 4/20 release by Cypress Hill (listen and watch at bit.ly/calirootscouchsessions). On Friday, April 24 from 6-9pm, there’s a live virtual concert at californiarootsfestival.com.