Sexy art and artful sex to keep you going in quarantine!

The Opening of Misty Beethoven, 1976 (What to do at home during COVID-19: from sexy art to artful sex)

This Arts Editor is staying in like you should be, so I’ve compiled this list of what to do at home during COVID-19.

A non-COVID pox on all who Netflix and Chill! So much time to consume with enriching (and bizarre) culture instead of some bleak TV binge. Here are some things to read, watch and jerk off to:

Read!

I recently ground to halt in Ulysses around 200 pages in, around the moment notorious fart-and-ass man Joyce started raving about “Three holes, all women” but the stream-of-consciousness is pretty soothing and comedic in times of chaos, so I’ll be seeing you again this week, Joyce, piss and cat-feeding and Latin and all, and not just because of all those dirty love letters to a fellow Nora, I swear. 

However, everyone knows about the fusty classics, so I want to go a little out of left field with this one. To begin: Hatred of Capitalism: A Reader, edited by Chris Kraus and Sylvère Lotringer. Do you, dear reader, hate capitalism? Do you want a series of poetic and sometimes high-falutin and sometimes supremely low-brow essays and essay-like things to keep you going? Yes, yes you do. This is how I discovered Bob Flanagan, the performance artist with Cystic Fibrosis and author both of The Pain Journal and The Fuck Journal, with his incredible diary account of the month of January the year before he died. Hatred of Capitalism also includes by far the strangest William Buroughs short story I’ve ever read, The Poppling, about a hyper-sexed swamp creature, and a riveting-if-horrifying account by Cookie Mueller of hitch-hiking with fellow John Waters regulars Mink Stole and Susan Lowe.

If these trying times have made you too anxious to commit to a big text, this is the perfect collection to dive in and out of. Better yet, here’s a PDF of the whole book! Monoskop, where the PDF lives, also has lots of other art and art theory texts to explore.

Meanwhile, Project Gutenberg has “over 60,000 free eBooks.” It’s a truly incredible multi-lingual project giving access to older works where the copyright has expired. You can even volunteer as a proofreader if you’re bored, with the added bonus of your own personal edification and some much needed time away from world news. 

Really Long Art Movies!

Have you ever wanted to watch all 566 minutes of Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 documentary about the Hollocaust, Shoa, told entirely through interviews with survivors rather than graphic images of the Hollocaust itself? I sure have, but something always gets in the way. Like enjoyment of life, like not wanting to steep my psyche in 20th century horror, but now my psyche is mired in 21st century paralyzing fear, so fuck it, back in time I go!

450 minutes of bleak Hungarian comedy? Yes please! Sátántangó, adapted from the novel of the same name, leaves literally nothing out from the original, in which plots are devised in grubby kitchens and never later resolved, where spiders weave webs over sleeping drunks and a little girl brutally kills a cat. A hysterically funny romp through the muddiest of countrysides. 

Fun if trashy British Voyeurism!

Once, staying with a family friend in London, I had the pleasure of catching Sex Inspectors during its 11 p.m. time slot. The British reality TV show features couples whose sex lives aren’t what they wish they were getting advice from hosts Tracey Cox and Michael Alvear about how to improve. The before and after thermal imaging of couples having sex is almost impossible to turn away from. The show was criticised for its lack of professional therapy and for its inherent appeal to voyeurism, but there’s also something very sweet about the idea that an unsatisfactory sex life doesn’t have to be forever, and that people who care about each other can work on better fullfilling one another’s sexual desires. Maybe a nice light-hearted way to start talking about all the hot quarantine and/or webcam sex you now have lots of time for!

Music!

This Saturday from 6-11 p.m., The Diving Bell Social Club and Hot Tramp will be streaming live local music in support of their fellow artists, with Stay Home Sessions: A Live Streamed Artist Relief Fundraiser. From people organizing small dinners over Skype, to seeing Tranna Wintour offer ten minute morale-lifting chats over the phone, to yoga teachers giving live lessons over Facebook, it has been truly heartwarming to see people reaching out to their communities, even if, for these surreal weeks, community has to happen in physical, but not emotional, solitude. $10 suggested donation, all proceeds go to supporting artists struggling from loss of recent revenue loss.

Laugh!

Some local comedians are streaming comedy live on instagram on Tuesday, March 17 at 7 p.m.! “Fun Quarantimes Volume 1” is bound to give you some gallows humour to ease into a couple weeks of solitude.  

Porn!

Did you ever watch My Fair Lady and think to yourself, if only the story of Pygmalion had also been done as a porn? Well, you are in luck! The Opening of Misty Beethoven has all the learning-to-love-sex montages you could want set to the goofiest of 70s soundtracks. A solid semblance of plot and, a delightful lead in Constance Money, and, with the exception one scene potentially read as being “turned straight,” the whole thing has held up to contemporary scrutiny better than these things usually do. Misty Beethoven is designed to get everyone at your home quarantine all worked up and sweaty, solo or in tiny groups. And hell, apparently orgasming makes your immune system better.

Next week: more recommendations for what to do at home during COVID-19. More reading, more incredibly long art movies, more fun trash, more stuff to laugh at, more porn. Every time you want to touch your face in public, resist so you can safely touch your genitals at home instead. ■

See more recommendations for what to do at home during COVID-19 here.

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