Tag: Quarantine

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

It’s (Not) Just Your Imagination

Something definitely happened. (Photo: visuals | Unsplash)

I went to Walgreens a few days ago to buy toilet paper. I go for the store brand because it’s decent quality (not the unfortunate shred-while-you-pull-it-off-the-roll kind) and a decent price (not the costly who-pays-this-much-for-TP kind). I was happy to see the four-packs on sale for $1.99 instead of the usual $4.99, so I grabbed a few. Thing is though, the four-packs used to be six-packs. And pre-Covid, those store-brand six-packs were $5.

Pondering this gave me flashbacks to the early days of the pandemic when everyone went insane over toilet paper — ordering in bulk online and clearing shelves in a frenzy as soon as stores restocked. I recall folks announcing on Facebook when they found the stuff, as if they’d struck gold, alerting the rest of us where we might find some if we went right now. Added to the stresses of a new deadly virus, the acquisition of masks, not knowing when it’d be safe to see our friends and family, and wondering if we should sanitize our groceries and mail, we now had to worry about what we were going to wipe with. I found myself counting squares and then painstakingly folding said squares into smaller squares to ration. (I’m still mad at y’all for that.) Rationing toilet paper. That’s so 2020.

That flashback reminded me of an article I read back then on medium.com. In “Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting,” author Julio Vincent Gambuto wrote: “ … as the country begins to figure out how we ‘open back up’ and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. … Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again.”

Everything that’s happened since 2020 has been like a smudge on glass. The timeline is so blurred, with a dotting of Covid variants to zap us back into confusion every now and then. It’s like 2021 didn’t even happen — it simply sits somewhere between The Collective Trauma and The Grand Reopening.

In that April 2020 essay, Gambuto also talked about a sort of awakening: “ … what the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped.

“… If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now.”

I listened closely to how I felt at that time. Took a lot of walks on quiet streets, made all my meals at home, adopted healthier habits, sat with the space and time to process all the big, loud feelings that surfaced. I believe a lot of us paid attention — to our personal lives, our jobs, the media, the healthcare community, the government response. We saw more clearly what was and wasn’t working — careers, relationships, societal structures.

Office meetings were traded for Zooms, birthday parties and graduations for drive-through celebrations — no more hugs or handshakes. As the community sacrificed for the safety of others, solidarity grew. “Stay Home” and “Quaranteam” banners splashed across profile photos. When we weren’t affixed to clocks or schedules, we took up new hobbies, fought for causes, and protested injustices that stood exposed under the spotlight. A magnifying glass was held to the healthcare system, the economy, essential workers, and all the things that made the world tick.

But as we opened back up, we sought those missed comforts, flocking to restaurants, bars, and stores as if we’d been released from solitary confinement. As quickly as the empathy grew, it vanished. Now there were too many customers, not enough employees, longer wait times, product shortages, increased prices — camaraderie exchanged for complaining, selflessness for selfishness.

Now that “quarantine” and “lockdown” are no longer part of our daily language, you’ll still find me pausing on my walks to trace the veins on a fallen leaf. But the background’s noisier now. The grind outside is rougher somehow. Much like a colony of ants whose hill has been disturbed, we’re scrambling, trying to get back to a place — a “normal” — that no longer exists.

As I fold my laundry and glance at the stash of old masks hanging behind the dryer like some relic of the plague, I can’t help but think we’ve all just moved to pretending it never happened.

But it wasn’t just your imagination. We’ve all been lulled back to sleep. As we near a new year, remember how you felt when the world stopped. Let the alarm rouse you. Time to wake up.

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News News Blog

Memphis Restaurant Association Releases Statement on New Health Directive

CREDIT: Memphis Restaurant Association

Memphis Restaurant Association

The Memphis Restaurant Association has issued a statement in response to the new health directive announced on Monday.

Restaurants are, in fact, among the safest places to be due to social distancing, mask requirements, and numerous other regulations ensuring the safety of our staff and guests. Local, state, and national data (see links below) bear out the truth that restaurants are not a significant source of transmission, yet our local officials continue to unreasonably single out the restaurant industry. We are disappointed with the Health Department’s decisions and continued lack of communication and are asking for the support of our membership, employees, and community by contacting community leaders to push back against this injustice. Shutting restaurants down drives the public to higher-risk, unregulated, private gatherings.

The statement ended with the tag #SafePlacesSaveLives and provided a myriad of links to back up their claims. Among the links were a Tennessee government link showing fatality rates in the state, a Democrat & Chronicle story from New York that looks at contact tracing data, a story from News 4 Nashville covering a statement from the Nashville Mayor, and a news story from Los Angeles covering the spread of COVID in restaurants.

Under Health Directive 16, restaurants are encouraged to close or operate at 25 percent capacity from the 26th of December to the 22nd of January.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Big, Loud, Quiet, Calm

I’ve walked nearly 300 miles over the course of quarantine. I’ve explored practically every accessible nook and cranny of my neighborhood several times over. I’ve come to know the jagged stretches of sidewalk, what houses have the best front-yard gardens, and what hours to expect the old dog Beau to be on backyard watch, dutifully canvassing the edges of his chain-link fence, limping over to say hi when folks pass. I don’t know his owner’s name, but I greet Beau and his sister Lucy (according to their name tags) several times a week.

I now have favorite trees — the ones that tower triumphantly, anchored with massive trunks, whose roots and branches know the history of Normal Station better than any of its current residents. I have favorite houses — the ones with bungalow roofs and big front porches with swings. I miss my coffee shop, Avenue Coffee, which closed early on during the COVID crisis; grabbing a pick-me-up there at the start of a journey was a pleasant routine.

I’ve lived in this neighborhood more than a decade, so taking a stroll here wasn’t a new thing. But during quarantine, the walks morphed into something more than just a stretch of the legs or a break from the laptop during work-from-home hours. More than just a time to soak up some much-needed vitamin D or clear the head. They have served all those purposes, but now I’ve really seen my neighborhood and gotten to know it more intimately. I stop to photograph little bursts of beauty: a particularly wondrous flower, a patch of moss, an interesting cluster of mushrooms growing on a stump.

I stand in awe when the sun’s shooting through limbs and leaves, casting shadows that dance erratically across the sidewalk. If I venture toward the University of Memphis, I pause when a train comes through at Southern, letting the blaring horn beat against my eardrums as it announces its arrival, followed by the clacking of its wheels on the tracks, and then the whir that, within moments, drifts into near silence as it passes. Big, loud, quiet, calm.

Trains aside, I think a lot of us have felt the big and loud parts of the past few months. From the panic and fear surrounding coronavirus to the protests that hit our streets following senseless killings at the hands of law enforcement — we’ve been flooded with overwhelming information, immense emotions, a desire to do something, to speak out, while simultaneously perhaps feeling helpless. What do you do when you feel helpless and overwhelmed?

I often admire my dogs as they lounge in the backyard, lying in a sunspot, gazing off into the distance or ears perked at the buzz of a bee or the sight of a squirrel. They’re so perfectly in the moment at times — just being. I envy that.

But I’ve found a new sense of being on my many walks — a deep gratitude for the people and creatures that inhabit our space, a better connection to my own thoughts and feelings. A long walk tends to help a person sort through what’s going on in their mind and heart — in some ways, to cope. At least that’s the case with me.

Have you ever stopped to watch branches sway in a warm breeze? Or followed the clouds as they move across the sky when a storm’s approaching? Or honed in on the shadow of your dog, tongue out, as you lead it (or it leads you) on an afternoon adventure? Have you followed the calls of birds to the source, to find a nest of squawking hungry babies poking their tiny beaks out in search of a bug or worm? I hadn’t paid too much attention to those types of things before. Not in the way that I do now.

Pre-quarantine, my camera roll was filled with random outings, concerts, gatherings of friends — and I miss that so much. I do. But scrolling through my photos since mid-March, I’ve seen so much beauty, really seen it, because I was made to slow down, to — as cliché as it is — stop and smell the roses. Even amid a worldwide pandemic, even with horrific injustices happening all too often, there’s a flower in bloom somewhere, a bird perched on a limb, just outside your doors. For even a brief moment, something as simple as that can bring you a small measure of inner peace, if you’ll let it.

Shara Clark is managing editor of the Flyer.

Categories
News News Blog

Navigating Addiction and Recovery in Quarantine

CREDIT: Photo by Thomas Picauly on Unsplash

Photo by Thomas Picauly on Unsplash

Memphis began a slow reopening this week, but many businesses are choosing to remain closed.

Many Memphians have voiced that they’ll continue to stay at home — even as orders are lifted — until science-backed data proves the coronavirus threat has waned. While most of us have already been sheltering in place for seven weeks and have felt the strains of isolation, some in recovery have found it harder to stay sober.

“We’ve been told — mandated — to isolate, yet they tell us to isolate as an alcoholic is basically to dig your own grave,” says Jim, who has 24 years of sobriety and before the pandemic attended in-person, 12-step meetings daily. He understands the added pressures amid COVID-19.

“We’re going against everything the program has taught us as far as not being that lone wolf and being open and transparent to others,” Jim says. “Now, we’re kind of in a position where we can’t do that. It’s a tough time.”

Jennifer* had been sober for 116 days before she cracked open a beer in April.

“It was partly out of boredom,” she says. “But there was a lot of anxiety there, too, that built up over a couple of weeks of reading news stories and seeing stats. It has been a scary time. I felt like I needed a reprieve.”

She also saw a lot of people posting on social media about day-drinking or having a nightly glass of wine to get through the stress.

“I thought, ‘It should be OK for me to do it, then,’” Jennifer says. “But I ended up falling right back into my binge-drinking. Where some people can just have a couple, I have six or seven. It does not feel good the next day.”

Jennifer did not attend support meetings, but others who normally do have felt the pang of missing personal interactions with fellow addicts in recovery.
[pullquote-1]
Robert* is a recovering heroin addict who regularly attends 12-step meetings here in Memphis.

“Just about every meeting right now is being run on Zoom,” he says. “It’s definitely a thing being shared about — how hard it is staying sober and working a program during this time.

“You don’t get to feel the energy that’s in certain rooms, but I and plenty others are grateful for the Zoom platform. The step work that comes with working a program and the fellowship in general is a lot more difficult to navigate because most people don’t really want to meet [online], but people stay on Zoom after meetings for people who want to talk and need to talk.”

Dr. Joseph Sitarik, a medical director at Addiction Campuses, which operates the Turning Point alcohol and drug rehab center in Southaven, Mississippi, agrees that these are trying times for addicts.

“The basis of this disease is that it feeds on fear, isolation, separation, boredom — and the whole country is going through that right now,” says Sitarik. “So, people in recovery, especially, need to focus on their mental, physical, and emotional health; develop routines, get up, get dressed, get out of the house if they can, go walk in the park or a rural area, get some exercise, but also try to remain connected.

“Just certainly resist the urge to self-medicate,” Sitarik says. “Reach out to people, call … I’m in recovery, and I call my sponsor often. Stay connected with your support groups that have helped your sobriety.”

Jim points out that it’s hard for all addicts right now, not just those in 12-step programs for alcoholism.

“It’s not only [alcoholics] who are struggling,” Jim says. “There are people in [other programs] who are coming off the needle and they can’t find a meeting and they don’t have a laptop or a phone.

“So, all the fellowships are seeing it. All the casinos are closed now, what about the gambling addicts? Is it a flip of the coin, literally, for a gambler — ‘do I go to an online meeting or an online gambling site?’”

He also points to those who normally attend support groups for families.

“Those who have to live with a guy who hasn’t been to a meeting in weeks, who’s going nuts,” Jim says. “The families are affected and are getting the brunt of it, too.”
[pullquote-2] Sitarik says those in addiction may certainly feel a greater need to self-medicate as they’re made to sit alone with feelings of fear and uncertainty.

“This is a disease that hijacks your brain, and when you’re out there alone with your disease and active in your addiction, you’re not in control,” he says. “Your disease pretty much dictates where you go, who you’re with, what you do, and how long you’re going to do it.”

Sitarik says there is no shame or guilt in receiving treatment, if needed.

“Getting into a facility is as safe as it’s ever been and certainly safer than it can be at home,” he says. “If there’s a fear and a resistance to come into a facility at this time, it may be the safest place for them right now.

“Many of the barriers to treatment have been removed. Some people are off work. Some people do recreational activities, their vacations have been canceled.”

In the meantime, Sitarik recommends to “stay healthy, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Stay connected. Reach out. And don’t be afraid to ask for help if you slip.”

If you’re struggling with alcohol addiction, the Memphis Area Intergroup Association of Alcoholics Anonymous is answering phones 24/7 during the COVID crisis. They can be reached at 901-454-1414. For information on local online support meetings, click here.

*Some names in this story have been changed for anonymity.

Categories
Music Music Blog

The Sweet Solace of Safe @ Home

Just about everyone is working from home these days — even musicians. Today marks the release of Safe @ Home, an album made by two musicians sheltering in place in separate locations. Multi-instrumentalists Jeff Hulett and Jacob Church recorded the songs — in pieces — from their respective Midtown homes, and all proceeds from the sale of the album will benefit Music Export Memphis (MEM) and their COVID-19 Fund for musicians.

Jacob Edwards

“We made this album all in quarantine over the past six weeks,” Hulett says. He used GarageBand and his smartphone to record acoustic guitar, vocals, drums, and keyboard sounds. Hulett then sent his tracks to Church, who used Pro Tools to record electric guitar, bass, drums and percussion, vocals, and more. Church mixed and mastered the album — with the exception of “N. Belvedere,” which was recorded and mixed by Andrew McCalla.

“This was a great opportunity to get to know Jacob Church more and try something completely different,” Hulett says. “His musicianship is top notch. I’m more of a rough-around-the-edges-type musician, so that pairing worked quite nicely. I’ve known Jacob for several years peripherally as he’s mixed and mastered some solo stuff and Me & Leah stuff. Then in February we did an in the round at DKDC with Graham Winchester. Little did we know then we’d be releasing an album together on May 1st. Strange how things come together sometimes, I guess.”

Samilia Colar

Safe @ Home is suffused with a longing that speaks to the loneliness of life under lockdown. It’s a loneliness cut with sweetness, though — these are songs about friendship and love. Their sweetness and the wonderfully lo-fi pop production call to mind youthful friendships and long summer days when hours stretched, thick as honeysuckle-scented August air. In some ways the album feels like being grounded on a summer day in middle school — it’s the frustration of FOMO mingled with the satisfying certainty that, when this is over, the reunions will be twice as sweet. “Watch Out,” the album closer, is a stand-out track on an album that, except for the immediacy of the emotional content of the songs, does not feel as though it were only six weeks in the making. 

Amanda McKnight

Andrew Costen

Further underlining the themes of collaboration and togetherness in spite of separation, each track on the seven-song album has a corresponding piece of art by a Memphis-based or formerly Memphis-based visual artist. “I’m an extrovert by nature so I’m always eager to collaborate and be in community with people,” Hulett says. “The biggest honor for me on this album was bringing as many people together as possible. From artists, to musicians to graphic designers to videographers this thing — all done in isolation — has brought so many people together.”


Between them, Church and Hulett have played with a multitude of noteworthy Memphis bands (think Snowglobe, The Ammunition, Me & Leah, and more), and the Memphis connections show. There are shades of Snowglobe, Chris Bell, and, at least to this listener’s ears, Shannon McNally’s pitch-perfect cover of Jim Dickinson’s “The Outlaw” from The Wandering. In all, Safe @ Home is an album that embraces both the bittersweet sadness of separation and the comfort of connection. 


Jeff Hulett and Jacob Church’s Safe @ Home is available via Bandcamp. All proceeds benefit Music Export Memphis.

Categories
Blurb Books

Your Quarantine Reading List

Since we’ll all be socially distancing and sheltering in place for a while, we thought we would put together this Memphis-centric reading list. This list is by no means comprehensive. Depending on how long we’re on lockdown, there may just be time to do a series. And with all the storytelling talent in Memphis and the nearby Mississippi Delta, it would be a long time before we ran out of books to write about or had to use two books from the same author. There are some classics included, of course, but we’ve also made a point to include a little something for everyone. There’s popular fiction, mystery, history, grit-lit, young adult, fantasy, absurdism, and an essay collection.

Memphis

Chanelle Benz

Chanelle Benz
The Gone Dead, 2019 (Fiction, Mystery)
When I accepted this assignment, it was with the understanding that I would, once again, rave about The Gone Dead by Chanelle Benz. The book has everything one could want from a rural noir — mystery, murder, coverups, family intrigue, a dog, and a deeply timely meditation on memory and legacy. “I got interested in the things that we think that we remember and whatever that truth might be and the space between the two,” Benz told me back in 2019. “Our memories are reconfigured based on the story that we’re telling ourselves about ourselves, our own mythology.” Read it. You can thank me later.

Shelby Foote
The Civil War: A Narrative, 1958-1974 (Nonfiction, History)
This one’s a classic. In this series of three hefty tomes, Foote creates the definitive guide to the Civil War.

Daniel Connolly

The Book of Isaias: A Child of Hispanic Immigrants Seeks His Own America, 2016 (Nonfiction, Sociology)
This book won first place for the Best Political/Current Affairs Book in the International Latino Book Awards 2017, and it was listed as one of Southern Living‘s Best Books of 2016.

Robert Gordon
Memphis Rent Party: The Blues, Rock & Soul in Music’s Hometown, 2018
(Nonfiction, Music)
Memphis is weird, and Robert Gordon gets it. This collection encompasses the vast breadth of the myriad of musical moments for which Memphis (and the Delta) is known. From raucous parties at bluesman Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint to Jeff Buckley hitchhiking in the rain, from Tav Falco’s Panther Burns to Cat Power, Memphis Rent Party embraces the many sounds of Memphis.

Alice Bolin

Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession, 2018 (Nonfiction, Essays/Criticism)
Dead girls were having a moment in American fiction. The runaway success of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girls is just one example of America’s weird obsession with dead girls.


Richard J. Alley
Five Night Stand, 2015 (Fiction)
Three seemingly disparate characters come together, drawn by the power of music. This book by former Memphis magazine contributor Richard Alley has jazz, journalism, estranged families, regret, secrets, and a search for meaning.

Michael Williams and Richard Cahan

Revolution in Black and White: Photographs of the Civil Rights Era by Ernest C. Withers, 2019 (Nonfiction, Biography)
This meticulously researched biography-meets-photo-collection is a mesmerizing look into the life of photographer Ernest C. Withers. Though the writers are Chicago-based, their subject, Ernest C. Withers, was a Memphian, and his photographs make up a good deal of the book.

Preston Lauterbach

Bluff City: The Pictures Tell the Story, 2019 (Nonfiction, Biography)
In this biography, author Preston Lauterbach gives a reasoned examination of the complicated legacy of Ernest C. Withers — photographer, chronicler of the civil rights movement, and FBI informant.

Kaitlin Sage Patterson
The Diminished, 2018 (Young Adult, Fantasy)
New rule: No one can be judged for seeking a little escapist entertainment while hunkered down and self-isolating during a global pandemic. Actually, I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, and, much as I love a well-researched history or a weighty work of literature, I have a mile-wide soft spot for good genre fiction. And if you’re hooked and need more, The Exalted, the sequel to The Diminished, was released last year.

Barry Wolverton and Dave Stevenson
Vanishing Island, 2015 (Middle Grade, Adventure)
In the first book in The Chronicles of the Black Tulip series, 12-year-old Bren gets more than he bargained for when he runs away to adventure on the sea. He’s stuck cleaning the vomitorium — at least, until a strange sailor gives him a curious coin.

Corey Mesler
Camel’s Bastard Son, 2020 (Fiction)
Absurdist, time-traveling love story from Memphis-based novelist, poet, and owner of Burke’s Book Store, Corey Mesler.

Various authors
Memphis Noir, 2015 (Mystery)
Uncertainty seems to be the new normal, so why not double down with this hardboiled collection of Memphis mystery fiction?

The Delta

Jesmyn Ward
Sing, Unburied, Sing 2017 (Fiction)
This is one of the best books published in recent memory. For Southern readers who missed this novel when it took the literary world by storm, can there be a better time to catch up?

Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, 1980 (Fiction)
Everyone should own this collection of short stories. End of story.

Donna Tartt
The Secret History, 1992 (Fiction)
Scandal, youth, friendship, murder. Donna Tartt’s first novel is set in New England, but she’s a Mississipian, so we’ll claim her for the Delta. The Secret History tells the tale of six close-knit college students — and one murder.

Larry Brown
Dirty Work, 1988 (Fiction)
Two men — one black, one white — share stories from their adjacent beds in a VA hospital. Both men were born and raised in Mississippi, and both fought in Vietnam.

Katy Simpson Smith
The Everlasting, 2020 (Fiction)
Why not trip the light fantastic through a four-part, epoch-spanning story set in Rome? Smith explores the primordial power of love and faith through the shifting lens of history. And, as Smith told me in a recent phone interview, “Looking at the world in terms of 2,000-year chunks of time instead of two-week chunks of time is maybe a healthy way to approach this current crisis, too.”


William Faulkner
The Reivers, 1962 (Fiction)
Some Faulkner fans discount his final novel because it eschews the complicated structures he’s famed for in favor of a more straightforward narrative. But this story of Mississippi country boys stealing the first car in Yoknapatawpha County to drive to Memphis is right up there with Absalom, Absalom! for me.

Lee Durkee
The Last Taxi Driver, 2020 (Fiction)
Absurd. Hilarious. Brutally honest.

Ace Atkins
The Ranger, 2011 (Mystery)
Ace Atkins’ Quinn Colson novels have achieved verified page-turner status. Former Army Ranger Quinn Colson returns home — only to have to clean up Tibbehah County.

You can find these books (and others) at local bookstores Novel and Burke’s Book Store. The Ask Vance Collection is available here.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Stay Home, Advice from Cox Street Bigfoot

Flow Chart Help

The Memphis Fire Fighters Local 1784 tweeted this helpful flow chart for anyone out there still confused about how to help during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bigfoot Help

A Bigfoot statue on Cox in Cooper-Young dresses for many occasions, like Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day. He did his part last week to educate the public on coronavirus best practices.

Posted to Twitter by the Cooper-Young Community Association

Cox Street Bigfoot says “STAY HOME. GO OUT BAD, STAY IN GOOD. BE SAFE. 6 FEET GOOD.” Listen to Cox Street Bigfoot.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Director Seeks Dancers/Singers for Music Video for John Kilzer’s “It”

Almost exactly a year after John Kilzer’s death at 62 last March, award-winning Memphis director/producer/editor Laura Jean Hocking is seeking friends and fans of Kilzer to appear in a music video for his song “It” from 2019’s Scars — all from the safety of their own homes.

Kilzer, the former University of Memphis basketball player who later created a music career and a beloved ministry at St. John’s United Methodist Church, died Tuesday, March 12th, 2019, before Hocking could finish a series of music videos they had discussed.

“This will be my fourth Kilzer video I have directed,” Hocking says. “This was actually one of the first songs I wanted to do a video for off of Scars. After ‘Hello Heart,’ I had come up with a concept for the ‘It’ video that Kilzer had liked, but we obviously never got to make it.”

John Kilzer

For the video, Hocking is recruiting dancers, singers, and Memphis musicians and artists who, she hopes, will film themselves dancing or singing along to “It.”

The method of music video-making is particularly suitable to life in the midst of the soft quarantine to help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. Dancers can safely participate while observing social distancing guidelines — and still manage to come together via the connectivity offered by music.

“I like the idea of a bunch of different people contributing to the whole piece, creating some connection especially now when we are all so separated,” Hocking explains.

Laura Jean Hocking

“Love is light, love is strong, love is right here in this song,” Kilzer sings on “It.” The song is warmly optimistic, a balm in these uncertain times.

Though minor chords and a progression that walks the melody down the scale give the song a gravitas that seems to acknowledge the challenges inherent in embracing love, Kilzer’s lyrics are an affirmation of love’s power.

That spirit is lifted up by simple, elegant instrumentation, lighthearted piano runs, and even, at one point, a whistled melody. Life can be challenging, the song seems to say, but love gives us the strength to face those challenges with courage and grace.

“I’ve often said that Kilzer sounds great whether unaccompanied or with a full band backing him,” says Ward Archer, founder of Archer Records and Music+Arts Studio, where Scars was recorded. “In this instance, ‘It’ arrived fully formed via his iPhone with just John playing the ukulele, which I didn’t know he played. It’s classic Kilzer. Less is more.”

Ward Archer

“It all goes back to love,” Hocking adds. “I hope if people don’t want to lip-sync, they can dance with their kids or their cat or just by themselves and express some love for life. The world is upside down right now; it’s hard to conceptualize what the other side of this might look like, and it’s scary. Hopefully, the opportunity to ham it up and dance around will be good medicine.”

Scars

“I also want to add that if there are any local musicians/artists who would like to participate, we’d love to link to their website/Bandcamp/etc. in the credits,” Hocking says. “It’s really important to me that we all lift each other up right now.”

Hocking has some helpful suggestions for those ready to dance or sing along for the video.

“Set up your phone in landscape mode (that’s sideways, or horizontal),” she says. “Open your camera app and record video. Rehearse it a couple times. Lip-sync to part or all of the song. Dance by yourself, dance with your kids, dance with your pet!” Her last piece of advice is perhaps the most vital: “These are difficult times; let loose and have some fun!”

Submissions should be uploaded to musicartsstudio.com/it-video-release