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Get some culture up ya!

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Nobody is crying him a river.

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Games and activities to keep you busy when you need a break from the TV.

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The NBA, ESPN, and National Basketball Players Association have teamed up to put on the first-ever NBA HORSE Challenge Presented by State Farm. The match-ups feature current and former NBA and WNBA players, and the path to the final looks tough for all participants. The first round will take place on Sunday, April 12 from 7-9 p.m. EST, and the semifinals and finals are set for April 16 from 9-11 p.m. EST.

The challenge will be happening remotely, and players must describe each shot attempt, specifying the type of score they intend to make before taking a shot. Dunking is prohibited — a major, major blow to Zach LaVine — and the first player in each game to accumulate the letters “H-O-R-S-E” after failing to match five shots is eliminated.

Here’s who we have winning each round (winners are in bold), all the way through the end of the tournament.

Round 1

Trae Young (Atlanta Hawks) vs. Chauncey Billups (Detroit Pistons legend)

Now, Billups always was a smooth shooter, but I don’t think this is much of a test for Young. As we’ve seen him do at Oklahoma and for the Atlanta Hawks, the 21-year-old can pull up from almost anywhere and I think he has some tricks in his bag that Billups simply won’t be able to match. Would be quite fun if Billups could provide an upset here, though.

Tamika Catchings (Indiana Fever legend) vs. Mike Conley Jr. (Utah Jazz)

This one is really tough, and some may argue that it comes down to the fact that Conley is still playing in the NBA every week — well, not right now — while Catchings has retired and is now the general manager for the Indiana Fever. But Catchings, arguably one of the greatest to ever play, only retired four years ago and I think she can brush off some of the rust to beat Conley here.

Chris Paul (Oklahoma City Thunder) vs. Allie Quigley (Chicago Sky)

I don’t care what anyone says, this is the most exciting matchup of the night. Paul and Quigley are some of the best shooters the game has ever seen, but I think Quigley is simply too good. Last season for the Chicago Sky, Quigley shot 49 percent from the field, and in 2018, she scored 29 out of a total 39 points in the final round of the WNBA three-point contest, breaking a record for most points scored in a WNBA or NBA shooting contest since the rules changed in 2014. I think Quigley will beat Paul here, and it helps that she’s already begun preparing.

Zach LaVine (Chicago Bulls) vs. Paul Pierce (Boston Celtics legend)

This one is really difficult to call, not that the rest were particularly easy to predict. I think LaVine is one of the more underrated shooters in the league, and he really does not like to be doubted. Before the 2019-20 NBA season was suspended, LaVine was shooting 45 percent from the field and coming up with clutch jumpers for the Bulls. Pierce’s mid-range game is is well-known, but I think LaVine might be able to hang with him shot for shot.

Semifinals

Trae Young vs. Tamika Catchings

Again, I think Young will prove to be no match for Catchings here. I expect him to show off his range and and come up with creative shots that Catchings will struggle to keep up with.

Allie Quigley vs. Zach LaVine

This will be a fun little Chicago showdown. But if Quigley can get past Paul in the first round, then the three-time All-Star will be able to handle LaVine without many problems. She is money from basically anywhere on the court.

Finals

Trae Young vs. Allie Quigley

This is incredibly tough. I could really see it going either way, but part of me thinks that Young might try to get too fancy and slip up here against Quigley, whose shooting ability I cannot overstate. The right side of the bracket is insanely tricky to get past, and I think that Quigley will make it to the final and surprise those who don’t watch the WNBA regularly. Quigley for the win.

Scores of songs have been tossed around as pandemic playlist must-haves, from “Stayin’ Alive” to “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” But one song that belongs on everyone’s list, for obvious reasons, is “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by The Police. HA.

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Sting joined forces with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots for a socially distanced performance of the song on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and it’s perfection. First of all, it’s easy to forget that Jimmy Fallon can seriously sing. Second of all, who knew you could use a Connect Four game, a pillow, and a pair of scissors as instruments?! I mean, it’s The Roots. I shouldn’t be surprised. They’re amazing. But still—impressive. Third, Sting is flippin’ 68 years old and out here looking like he’s never going to age like the rest of us. No fair.

The whole thing just works. Enjoy our new social distance theme song:

Jimmy Fallon, Sting & The Roots Remix “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” (At-Home Instruments)

www.youtube.com

Fifty years ago, when Paul McCartney announced he had left the Beatles, the news dashed the hopes of millions of fans, while fueling false reunion rumors that persisted well into the new decade.

In a press release on April 10, 1970 for his first solo album, “McCartney,” he leaked his intention to leave. In doing so, he shocked his three bandmates.

The Beatles had symbolized the great communal spirit of the era. How could they possibly come apart?

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Few at the time were aware of the underlying fissures. The power struggles in the group had been mounting at least since their manager, Brian Epstein, died in August of 1967.

‘Paul Quits the Beatles’

Was McCartney’s “announcement” official? His album appeared on April 17, and its press packet included a mock interview. In it, McCartney is asked, “Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles?”

His response? “No.”

via The Daily Mirror

But he didn’t say whether the separation might prove permanent. The Daily Mirror nonetheless framed its headline conclusively: “Paul Quits the Beatles.”

The others worried this could hurt sales and sent Ringo as a peacemaker to McCartney’s London home to talk him down from releasing his solo album ahead of the band’s “Let It Be” album and film, which were slated to come out in May. Without any press present, McCartney shouted Ringo off his front stoop.

Lennon had kept quiet

Lennon, who had been active outside the band for months, felt particularly betrayed.

The previous September, soon after the band released “Abbey Road,” he had asked his bandmates for a “divorce.” But the others convinced him not to go public to prevent disrupting some delicate contract negotiations.

Still, Lennon’s departure seemed imminent: He had played the Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Festival with his Plastic Ono Band in September 1969, and on Feb. 11, 1970, he performed a new solo track, “Instant Karma,” on the popular British TV show “Top of the Pops.” Yoko Ono sat behind him, knitting while blindfolded by a sanitary napkin.

In fact, Lennon behaved more and more like a solo artist, until McCartney countered with his own eponymous album. He wanted Apple to release this solo debut alongside the group’s new album, “Let It Be,” to dramatize the split.

By beating Lennon to the announcement, McCartney controlled the story and its timing, and undercut the other three’s interest in keeping it under wraps as new product hit stores.

Ray Connolly, a reporter at the Daily Mail, knew Lennon well enough to ring him up for comment. When I interviewed Connolly in 2008, he told me about their conversation.

Lennon was dumbfounded and enraged by the news. He had let Connolly in on his secret about leaving the band at his Montreal Bed-In in December 1969, but asked him to keep it quiet. Now he lambasted Connolly for not leaking it sooner.

“Why didn’t you write it when I told you in Canada at Christmas!” he exclaimed to Connolly, who reminded him that the conversation had been off the record. “You’re the f–king journalist, Connolly, not me,” snorted Lennon.

“We were all hurt [McCartney] didn’t tell us what he was going to do,” Lennon later told Rolling Stone. “Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it! I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record…”

It all falls apart

This public fracas had been bubbling under the band’s cheery surface for years. Timing and sales concealed deeper arguments about creative control and the return to live touring.

In January 1969, the group had started a roots project tentatively titled “Get Back.” It was supposed to be a back-to-the-basics recording without the artifice of studio trickery. But the whole venture was shelved as a new recording, “Abbey Road,” took shape.

When “Get Back” was eventually revived, Lennon – behind McCartney’s back – brought in American producer Phil Spector, best known for girl group hits like “Be My Baby,” to salvage the project. But this album was supposed to be band only – not embroidered with added strings and voices – and McCartney fumed when Spector added a female choir to his song “The Long and Winding Road.”

“Get Back” – which was renamed “Let it Be” – nonetheless moved forward. Spector mixed the album, and a cut of the feature film was readied for summer.

McCartney’s announcement and release of his solo album effectively short-circuited the plan. By announcing the breakup, he launched his solo career in advance of “Let It Be,” and nobody knew how it might disrupt the official Beatles’ project.

Throughout the remainder of 1970, fans watched in disbelief as the “Let It Be” movie portrayed the hallowed Beatles circling musical doldrums, bickering about arrangements and killing time running through oldies. The film finished with an ironic triumph – the famous live set on the roof of their Apple headquarters during which the band played “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down” and a joyous “One After 909.”

The Beatles – Don’t Let Me Down

www.youtube.com

The album, released on May 8, performed well and spawned two hit singles – the title track and “The Long and Winding Road” – but the group never recorded together again.

Their fans hoped against hope that four solo Beatles might someday find their way back to the thrills that had enchanted audiences for seven years. These rumors seemed most promising when McCartney joined Lennon for a Los Angeles recording session in 1974 with Stevie Wonder. But while they all played on one another’s solo efforts, the four never played a session together again.

At the beginning of 1970, autumn’s “Come Together”/”Something” single from “Abbey Road” still floated in the Billboard top 20; the “Let It Be” album and film helped extend fervor beyond what the papers reported. For a long time, the myth of the band endured on radio playlists and across several greatest hits compilations, but when John Lennon sang “The dream is over…” at the end of his own 1970 solo debut, “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” few grasped the lyrics’ implacable truth.

Fans and critics chased every sliver of hope for the “next” Beatles, but few came close to recreating the band’s magic. There were prospects – first bands like Three Dog Night, the Flaming Groovies, Big Star and the Raspberries; later, Cheap Trick, the Romantics and the Knack – but these groups only aimed at the same heights the Beatles had conquered, and none sported the range, songwriting ability or ineffable chemistry of the Liverpool quartet.

We’ve been living in the world without Beatles ever since.

Tim Riley is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director for Journalism, Emerson College

This article was originally published by The Conversation. You can read it here.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a great way for those currently shut in to do very simple things they currently cannot, like catch fish and bugs and pay off their housing loans. It’s also a great way, apparently, to protest Chinese interference in Hong Kong, which has led to the game’s import into China to be banned.

Among the many uses of the game’s robust pattern and design creator has apparently been to stage protests inside the Animal Crossing universe for pro-democratic activists in Asia. While Hong Kong protests may feel like they happened decades ago in our current news continuum, it was less than a year ago that the NBA was embroiled in a scandal because pro-Democratic protests drew support from Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey on Twitter.

Coronavirus and its impact on the world has made that a less visible issue internationally, but the movement hasn’t been silenced in China. In fact, players who have imported copies of Animal Crossing have actually taken the protests in-game and shared them on social media.

A quick search of Twitter can uncover a variety of protests that may not have context outside of Hong Kong, but are serious enough that the Chinese government has apparently taken steps to keep the game, not officially for sale in China, out of the country.

Activist Joshua Wong tweeted on Thursday that the game has disappeared from import sites, presumably as a result of the in-game protests and the ability for gamers to customize designs that could spread anti-government sentiment.

Though the game was never truly available in the country, this isn’t all that much of a surprise. But it’s still a fascinating look at how one of a game’s major strengths in many places — the ability to customize and replicate real life interests in the digital world — has made it essentially impossible to sell in others. If Nintendo ever sold it in China, much of the customization options that are a staple of gameplay would likely have to be removed.

As some have noted online, it’s still possible to get in China if you know where to go. But it’s clear the freedom to do pretty much anything in the game, while a feature in most places, is considered a bug in others.

(Via Vice)

Despite the fact that fast food and fast-casual restaurants are still operational thanks to various state measures country-wide that allow them to continue to serve take-out during the coronavirus quarantine, eateries are still being hit hard — with an increasing number of people adapting to a world in which most of their meals are made at home. According to the market research company NPD Group, total restaurant transactions are down by 42% compared to this the same week last year. And considering that we’re far from out of the weeds with this whole coronavirus thing, it’s likely that those trends will continue.

Throughout the shutdown, we’ve covered the innovative ways chefs and restaurants are adapting to the changing buying habits of the American dining public. Many independent restaurants have already cycled through multiple iterations — going from takeout service to delivery to meal kits. Now it looks like national chains like California Pizza Kitchen, Panera Bread, and Subway are following suit.

According to Food & Wine, since Monday of this week, Panera has been offering online orders of bread, milk, or produce products from their stock for pickup or delivery. California Pizza Kitchen is also selling basics like milk, flour, dry pasta, meat, beer, snacks, and other pantry items through what they are calling the CPK Market, which also sells meal kits and “build your own” pizzas. Across California, Connecticut, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington, Subway locations are selling bread rolls, 2-pound packs of their deli meats, and produce.

Will any of this work? Who knows. It’s a new world for the restaurant industry and uncertainly looms over every decision. We’re fully in the era of throwing things at the wall and hoping it works.