Monthly Archives: May 2020

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business

The coronavirus pandemic has been, to say the least, grim for business. Widespread layoffs and furloughs have prompted about 21% of the US labor force to file for unemployment benefits since mid-March, and economists say the United States is likely already in a recession. And even as states begin to reopen, many of the jobs that have been lost may never come back.

But during this upheaval, some companies been thriving because of dramatic shifts in consumer behavior.

Restaurants, bars, offices and gyms are largely empty as millions of Americans stay home to halt the spread of the coronavirus. That's created new opportunities for several companies.

Popular video games like first-person shooters, football and cute animals have been a boon for the top gaming companies.

Activision Blizzard said "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare," which came out in September, has sold more copies than any other "Call of Duty" title at this point after its release. Sales were $1.52 billion in the first quarter, up 21% compared with last year's $1.26 billion.

For Electronic Arts, fourth-quarter revenue grew 12% compared with last year. It was buoyed by FIFA, Madden NFL, The Sims 4. Like Activision, it also benefited from people staying at home and looking for a distraction.

Nintendo said Thursday its annual profit surged 41%, its highest in nine years. And profit in the first three months of 2020 more than tripled compared with the previous quarter.

Sales this spring were driven by the breakout success of "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," a game set on an island utopia. The company sold more than 13 million units of the game in its first six weeks. The Nintendo Switch console also continues to be hard to find, with the company selling more than 21 million units during the last fiscal year.

People can't stop sanitizing, bleaching and cleaning every nook and cranny of their dwellings. That's benefiting Clorox and Reckitt Benckiser, the makers of the world's top cleaning products.

Clorox said last week its overall sales jumped 15% for the first quarter. Sales of Clorox's cleaning segment, which includes its wipes and beaches, jumped 32%. There was also "increased consumer demand" for cat litter and grilling necessities, which fueled a 2% sales increase in its household segment.

Reckitt Benckiser, the British company that makes Lysol and Dettol, is also seeing record sales. First-quarter sales rose 13.5% because of "strong consumer demand" for disinfectants. (The company has also found itself in the spotlight for more than just strong demand for its products.)

In March and April, the sales of aerosol disinfectants jumped 230.5% and multipurpose cleaners 109.1% from this time last year, according to research firm Nielsen.

Peloton makes in-home workout products, including bikes and treadmills. Unsurprisingly, it reported Wednesday a blowout quarter: Revenue grew 66% and membership for its app rose 30%. The company, which has a loyal following, also raised its full-year forecast because it doesn't expect demand to decline anytime soon.

The need for household necessities and food has benefited some of the country's largest grocers, which remained open as essential businesses.

Publix recently said that sales for the first three months of the year jumped 10% to $1 billion. Sales at stores open at least a year grew 14.4%.

Kroger also benefited from the pandemic. The grocery store recently said sales at stores open at least a year surged 30% in March. Its best-selling items were boxed meals and cleaning and paper products. As a result, Kroger said it expects its first-quarter results to be better than expected.

Beyond Meat's revenue more than doubled in the first quarter, the company reported Tuesday. In the first three months of the year, sales reached $97.1 million, up 141% from $40.2 million in the same period last year.

The results "exceeded our expectations," said CEO Ethan Brown. In the United States, retail sales grew 157% compared with the same period last year. The plant-based meat company is in a strong position as it moves into the Chinese market and as the US faces a national meat shortage.

3M said the virus spurred "strong growth" for its personal safety products, including gowns and the N95 respirator masks needed by medical professionals. First-quarter revenue grew nearly 3% to $8.08 billion. That was bolstered by a 21% growth in its health-care segment and 4.6% in consumer goods, like Scotch-Brite sponges

With much of the country working from home, it leaves a lot of time to think about room refresh.

Wayfair's sales for its most recent quarter increased 20% compared with the same period last year. The online retailer said it's seeing " strong acceleration in new and repeat customer orders," with the number of orders growing 21% to 9.9 million.

Rival Overstock also said that its April retail sales were up 120% compared to the same month last year, with growth occurring in its "key home furnishings categories."

For people who can work remotely, Slack and Zoom have become ubiquitous communication tools.

Slack Technologies said it added 9,000 new paid customers, an increase 80% compared to the previous quarter, between February 1 and March 25. Not only are they adding more people, users are becoming chattier: "The number of messages sent per user per day increased by an average of 20% globally," Slack said in a press release.

Zoom, a video conferencing tool, has clearly been the biggest brand to break out. The company hosts 300 million meeting participants a day, according to CEO Eric Yuan. Zoom previously said it crossed 200 million daily meeting participants in March. Its stock is up 120% for the year.

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Business is booming for these 14 companies during the coronavirus pandemic - KTEN

I am less than pleased with the sponsored advertising-to-content ratio on Instagram. And yet that social media platform is still the best for looking at art and witnessing the creative process of an artist. (And I use the word artist loosely: Im an avid consumer of memes.) I once described Instagram to a fellow critic as the show-me-the-money platform, and she agreed: substance (or lack thereof) is revealed pretty quickly, since youre generally looking at one image at a time with minimal captioning. I overhaul my feed frequently, unfollowing accounts that fail to amuse, inspire or inform. Here are five Instagram accounts I consistently view; New York Times critics will be posting their own picks every week.

OlaRonke Akinmowos project is a mobile, pop-up library that showcases literature written by black women. It could be described as a social practice artwork, but also a participatory one: to borrow a book, you must give a book. I have learned about overlooked writers here, but also about Regina Anderson Andrews, who headed a library in Harlem and was friendly with Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. Ms. Akinmowo, who lives in Brooklyn, has taken the library to the NY Art Book Fair. During the quarantine shes focused on authors like Octavia Butler, the science fiction writer who predicted some of the dystopias were now experiencing. Ms. Akinmowo also posts some of her own collages, like one devoted to Harriet Tubman, which combine black and white found images with bright, almost psychedelic flourishes.

How to live? Andrea Zittels Instagram profile asks. Great question. Ms. Zittel offers a model in A-Z West, her Institute of Investigative Living on 70 acres in Joshua Tree, Calif., that serves as a self-actualized art-in-the-desert fantasy. You could name many precedents for Ms. Zittels project: Drop City in Colorado, with its dome architecture inspired by Buckminster Fuller; Arcosanti in Arizona; or Georgia OKeeffe and Agnes Martins art studios in the American Southwest. Ms. Zittels version of semi-off-the-grid, live-work-create utopia can be experienced close-hand(ish) on Instagram. Modernist-influenced buildings, furniture, weavings and clothing function here not just as daily trappings but also as an ongoing investigation into human nature and the social construction of needs. Ms. Zittel has been working on these concepts for more than 20 years. The rest of us are getting a crash course.

I know a lot about art, the Canadian painter and writer Brad Phillips brags on his Instagram profile. OK, so whatve you got, smart guy? First of all, Mr. Phillips works best with words, arranged into minimal acerbic poems on his account @brad_phillips. (One reads America is my favourite movie.) The other account, @brad_phillips_group_show, is an agreeable reminder that artists often make the best curators. Here you can see the work of Cristine Brache (Mr. Phillipss wife), who also twists words into artworks, or Lon Spilliaert (1881-1946), an outr Belgian Symbolist painter who worked as an illustrator for Edgar Allan Poes publisher and shared a similar creepy, horror-tinged approach. Like those of most artist-curators, Mr. Phillipss picks are highly idiosyncratic and reflect his own works proclivities. But unlike many artists who think they can school you on art, Mr. Phillips actually delivers.

David Adjaye is the world-renowned architect who led the consortium that designed the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. More than practically any other account I follow, his Instagram visual sketchbook allows you to see inside the mind of a great designer. You get to travel the world like an international starchitect, and view the built environment from a technical angle. Mr. Adjaye, of Ghanaian descent, marvels over modernist buildings and palm-roofed structures in Ghana. He also analyzes high modernist architecture, and structures made by non-humans, like a termite tower in Africa constructed to avoid floods. Humans, Mr. Adjaye informs us, use these astonishing towers as a marker of where to construct their own dwellings. Talk about organic architecture, one commenter marveled.

Funny is good at this moment. David Shrigley, a British artist who creates posters, books, cartoons, tattoos and other stuff, as his website describes it, long ago mastered the art-as-comedy angle. His crudely drawn illustrations are wry, smart, sometimes angry, sometimes self-effacing but almost always absurd. They parallel a generation of dry, weird comedy from Britain, including Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Izzard or Little Britain (Matt Lucas and David Walliams). His creations work equally well on the gallery wall, hung salon-style at Anton Kern in New York, or on Instagram, where the images are stripped down, even more existential and sometimes naughtier. One recent drawing declares It Wont Be Like This Forever. Styled as a tabloid newspaper cover, this message registers as reassuring, but with a hint of menace.

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Five Artists to Follow on Instagram Now - The New York Times

The New York Film Festivals Dennis Lim delivered director Albert Serra to me in the lobby of the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center during the 57th edition of the festival last fall. Serra was traveling solo for the American debut of Libert, which picked up a Special Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival when it premiered in the Un Certain Regard section.

We didnt know where to record our conversation so we intruded on the festival staffs lounge. Serra set up two U-shaped leather chairs facing each other. He grabbed us drinks from the bar and moved in close. Talking to the director is a lot like watching his movies; you listen and watch closely for long, unbroken amounts of time. You dont analyze Serras filmthey analyze you. Some directors refuse to speak about their own workespecially with the pressbut Serra will gladly dissect his own, even if he objects to your questions, as you will see in our conversation.

Libert follows Madame de Dumeval, the Duke de Tesis, and the Duke de Wandlibertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI in 1774who intend to spread libertinage from Paris to Berlin. To further their cause they need the help of Duc de Walchen (Helmut Berger), a German seducer and freethinker, who is lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign.

In our conversation, Serra discusses his artists sexual language, Liberts utopia of liberty, not knowing whats real and whats fake in his movies, upsetting uptight liberals, and what it means to create contemporary trash.

The Film Stage: The groups sexual language involves bondage and capture. Can you discuss the inspiration behind these elements?

Albert Serra: The film was inspired by Marquis de Sade. Theres complexity to this idea of freedom and desire how these two concepts can be matched if they can. If you think about sex, its always a relationship with somebody else or a lot of people or several people, whatever. I was talking yesterday about this friction and it is inevitable friction. Sometimes it can be very harmonious, but perfect harmony doesnt exist. Friction in itself creates more possibilities. Maybethere are people that can be super happy to live without desire, but with time, things tend to change, and the proper nature of desire is to get tired of the same practice with the same people in the same body. If you have a harmonious moment, in general, it will not last. This is our psychological experience as human beings. The permanent non-satisfaction of desire. Give a man everything he desires and everything will immediately not be everything. It means that you always need something else.

To create utopia you have to force things, it never happens naturally. There is some first moment where there is some resistance. Maybe forcing something, you will get yours and you realize the value of what youre doing and maybe your desire and your body adapts to this idea of inevitable friction in a pleasant way. Sometimes pain and pleasure get confused because its the first moment of you dont not knowing exactly what you are feeling. You dont know exactly if youre being forced to feel something or if you really like it. In this moment of confusion that is something nice.

Its part of the utopia of liberty, because not everybody can feel the same things at the same time. So there is always somebody that is feeling less or feeling differently.

Is that why you created an intimate environment and let improvisation happen?

I will not say improvisation. That sounds like we didnt know what we are doing and, in fact, we know what we are doing and the name of what we are doing is performance. Its really accepting the fatality as the characters of the film accept the fatality of their desire, the arbitrary weight of their desire. We accept the fatality even if its a film with a budget with some constraints. We accept the fatality of living unique moments. Its not improvisation. It starts from the very beginning with accepting that what you do at that moment wont happen again, we wont be able to shoot in the same intensity so every new moment will be different. Its totally acceptable as we dont know what we are doing. As we dont know what we are looking for, even.

Its not about improvisation. We have a very close and conceptual setup. The people, the place, the aesthetics. Its quite strong to think before the frame of where we will play this game. But then, everything gets forgotten and everything can happen. The non-communication aspect of my way of working, its fatalityits really a vision of fatality, but genuine fatality. Its not how we are pretending to accept these as if it were real, but the fact we are controlling through the process of production. No, we really accept this, thats all. These actors for me are not just actors representing somebody, but they are real artists themselves, working with their own fatality in front of the camera that is very subtle but its very precise. Thats all. This is a very different approach not common in cinema.

The actress who was hung by her hands from the tree and the actor who was whipped and screaming, was that really happening?

You never know until which point. I think this is the magic of the thing; because there is representation, its boring, since there is the real. Its like a documentary, people here are enjoying what they are doing. So here we are at a strange point. But even if I dont know myself, as I never asked anyone to do anything, people were enjoying it and somehow suffering. For me because of intimacy, again, this concept, its very personal to say, How is somebody enjoying it?

Obviously there are a lot of fake things, but there are also some real things. This idea corresponds with our idea of the night, the logic of the night. Sometimes we wake up the day up after and we say, Fuck, I dont remember what I did or what was real or if I said something wrong. It was very confusing and it was nice because the film reflects this confusion and the confusion of the night. But I am not capable of saying how much of this is real. It looks real, no?

Talking about the logic of the night, which has to do with the removal of the hierarchies, so on what basis are the characters choosing to sleep with each other?

Its arbitrary, because of this idea of giving, not receiving. This idea when you are in a place where its totally arbitrary, it means that you have not focused on what you are expecting, what you are feeling, what are your desires or what are your rights. You think about what other people feel, so you make a strange combination, and you simply act as a base. Add in the confusion of the points of view. This idea that you are a hunter but you are also the prey.

When its about giving, I think the arbitrary aspect is stronger. Okay, give to simply give. This gives the egalitarian aspect of the film. At the beginning, it looks like there is some hierarchy because there is some like some aristocrat. Gradually, slowly, this is totally destroyed and you see that there is no hierarchy at all.

What youre wanting to give the audience in Libert isnt necessarily a pornographic type of pleasure or eroticism. Your average film festival audience is kind of uptight liberals

Im trying to provoke them. Also with the title, Libert, it means if you dont do this, you are not free. All of these people that have sex in the movie are free. So its pushing the mental borders on people, I have to admit that its a provocation. Why dont you do this, why are you so boring? The confrontational aspect of this is important. I want them to be a little bit confronted. Its always true with this subject of sex. When people talk about sex in film they are not talking about the film itself, but about themselves. The very personal way the film is dealing with its subject. It touches something, and I was happy with this because it opens, in a weird way, I think in a very healthy way. The film allows you to project your own things because of its confused points of views.

In one of your interviews, you said with Libert youre creating contemporary trash. What does that mean?

Its not just a decorative historical film. Its more about the totally rotten way we relate to each other nowadays, physically. Harmony is lost. The possibility of harmony in the relation with bodies, I think its lost in general and I think its because of social media. It creates a lot of pain in people because they have such a strong control of their own image they are scared of everything. They are scared of everything you are not able to relate to give in a general or arbitrary way. It will not be nice anymore. Probably.

Its a very pessimistic approach. Its totally insane to think like this because I like to be optimistic but I dont see the way out of this problem of extreme difficulties of creating harmonies with bodies in the future. But maybe its my opinion, maybe Im wrong. I dont know, Im not a prophet or a visionary, but from what I feel, people are so in control of their own image. Being in control of your own image is worse than being in control of your own body or yourself, in general.

Libert is now playing in Film at Lincoln Centers Virtual Cinema.

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Albert Serra on the Utopia of Libert and Pushing the Mental Borders of His Audience - The Film Stage

Norway wants to increase the Norwegian cultivation of grain, fruit and vegetables in order to make the country more self-sufficient. This became clear when agricultural organisations and the government agreed on a new agricultural decision last week.

Negotiations between the growers' unions and the government started on the weekend of 25th of April and the deadline to come to an agreement was Thursday, but the parties had already reached an understanding on Thursday morning. Agreements were made easily. There were no requirements on the table, but negotiations were underway to amend agreements that already existed.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Olaug Bollestad: The parties agree on renewed agreements to give growers and food production more certainty. Agriculture is still relatively unaffected economically by the corona pandemic, but food production is of such great social importance that it was important to reach an agreement as soon as possible. The agreement puts grain, fruit and vegetables cultivation first, but also contains agreements on climate and environment.

The reason that grain, potatoes, fruit and vegetables are now given priority is to improve the economy and increase self-sufficiency as it is lower in this area than in meat production. The new agreement will apply from 1st of July and the prices of food products will also be adjusted.

More focus on Norwegian foodThe Corona crisis has also increased Norwegian food production, something that Lars Petter Bartnes, chairman of Norges Bondelag, the largest union for Norwegian growers, is pleased with: More and more people are seeing the value of Norwegian agriculture and the need for Norwegian growers. That is why it was important for us to start the negotiations this spring and not to wait until autumn. Agriculture is lagging behind other industries in terms of income development, but it was not time to have that discussion. We will come back to that matter in 2021, when we can conduct 'normal' negotiations.

But while there is more demand in supermarkets for food grown in Norway, the industry has faced challenges since the catering industry has closed. Kjersti Hoff, leader of Norsk Bonde- og Smbrukerlag, one of the interest groups for farmers and growers, believes that the new agreement shows that there is a need for more farmers and growers in Norway. It must therefore pay to be a farmer/ grower, so that more people choose this career.

Glad that potatoes are also given priorityIvar Skramstad, a grain and potato grower in Eastern Norway: I am happy that new agreements have been made so that we do not have to continue with the old agreement. At first glance, it looks positive, but we have yet to see the details. I am happy that grain and potatoes are also a priority in the deal. They are often forgotten when talking about fruit and vegetables. The agreement is important because agriculture is likely to be hit for the third year in a row: last year the rains washed us away, the year before that was much too dry and now we are in the Corona crisis. The situation is particularly critical for fruit and vegetable growers, with regard to labour.

Higher costsAs has been known for some time, due to the pandemic, Norwegian growers are facing the challenge of obtaining enough manpower this season. The Norwegian state has already relaxed the rules to make it easier for growers to recruit. There is still great uncertainty among growers: many have chosen to grow less, while others have managed to gather enough manpower for sowing.

The collapsed Norwegian krone also poses challenges, says potato grower Skramstad: The price of technical equipment has risen by about 20 to 30 percent since mid-March and I expect fertiliser prices to rise just as fast. Then the grain price would have to increase by at least 20 percent to match the costs, but I see that as a utopia.

However, compensation for the increased expenditure resulting from the Corona crisis was not discussed in the negotiations last week. Chairman of Norges Bondelag, Bartnes: "We know that vegetable growers have higher costs and face uncertainty, so we have to keep a close eye on that."

Source: nrk.no

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Norway wants to expand local fruit and vegetable cultivation - hortidaily.com

The Fan Carpet are delighted to share with you the brand newTrailer and Poster for the official Suzi Quatro documentary releasing this summer - "SUZI Q" - featuringAlice Cooper,Deborah Harry(Blondie),Joan Jett, Cherie Currie(The Runaways),Tina Weymouth(Talking Heads),Donita Sparks(L7),Henry Winkler(Happy Days),Kathy Valentine(The GoGos),KT Tunstall,members of the Quatro family, and many more.

SUZI Q is the definitive, unexpurgated story of the girl from Detroit City who redefined the role and image of women in rocknroll, when she broke through around the world in 1973. Singer, songwriter, bass player, author, actress, radio presenter, poet, still touring and recording music there is only one Suzi Q.

From Australian filmmakers Liam Firmager and Tait Brady, SUZI Q positions Suzi as the trailblazer and inspiration for a generation of women who were to follow after her in the next decade, but whose trailblazing status was not sufficiently recognised by the music industry and contemporary audiences, especially in North America. SUZI Q reminds contemporary audiences of her pioneering influence, white-hot talent and string of incandescent rock hits, like CAN THE CAN, 48 CRASH and DAYTONA DEMON that were the vehicle for her explosion of gender stereotypes in rock n roll, rewriting the rule book for the expected image of women in rock music and reaching millions of people worldwide in the process.

With theaters closed, Utopia Distribution will host a "SUZI Q" virtual event on July 1st featuring the film and an exclusive Q&A featuring Suzi Quatro and a Special Guest (available for 24 hours only) in advance of the film's traditional release on VOD and DVD on July 3rd. To buy your ticket for the July 1st event powered by Altavod, visit:

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Utopia Distribution Unveil The New Trailer For Suzi Quatro Documentary SUZI Q Featuring Debbie Harry, Alice Cooper And More - The Fan Carpet

Josh Whitehouse is excited to get the band back together.

In mid-March, the actor and musician was in Los Angeles and in the middle of pre-production for Daisy Jones and the Six when COVID-19 caused production to stop. The literary adaptation follows an acclaimed, but fictional, band from the Seventies. Whitehouse came into the project a real musician he fronts his own band, More Like Trees, although the role required him to learn bass. Some of his costars were learning their instruments from scratch. Preproduction meant band rehearsal, and they were just starting to get good.

But acting is often a waiting game, and in the meantime Whitehouse is continuing to hone his skills and write his own music. He also has another film making its at-long-last debut. The 30-year-old actor is the lead in Valley Girl, a musical film remake of the 1983 Martha Coolidge-directed film starring Nicolas Cage. They were big shoes to fill, says Whitehouse.

A still from Valley Girl.Courtesy

Whitehouse plays Randy, a punk kid from Hollywood who plays in a band and falls in love with Julie, a girl from the Valley. Its a Romeo and Juliet plotline, and the reboot is a candy-colored, upbeat PG-13 version of the original. Theres lot of stuff in the original [film] which maybe you wouldnt want your kids watching, says Whitehouse.

The movie is being released on demand and in select drive-in theaters, a particularly appropriate setting for its play on nostalgia. The story lives in a nostalgic flashback for the main characters memory, who retells the story of her first love to her teenaged daughter. Time tends to smooth the edges of memory, and Valley Girl is hoping that fact will work in its favor. Although filmed four years ago and originally slated for a 2018 release, the movie was delayed due to controversy over inappropriate posts and behavior by supporting actor Logan Paul, a YouTuber who, coincidently, is the antagonist of the film.

Music has become the through-line of Whitehouses career. But despite that, Whitehouse isnt trying to typecast himself as Mister Music Man.

A still from Valley Girl.Courtesy

When he first moved to London at age 18 to pursue music, acting wasnt even on the radar for the now 30-year-old Brit. He got scouted by a modeling agent, and ended up doing a few campaigns for preppy teen clothing brand Jack Wills. The photographer Elaine Constantine cast him in her feature film Northern Soul, he got an agent, and the roles kept coming. (As did the campaigns he was the face of Mr. Burberry in 2016.)

Actings become the main steering wheel in my life, says Whitehouse. My music is my passion, and if I make money from film I tend to use that to then go and support my ability to make music.

Some of Whitehouses music has ended up in the movies hes acted in. It just kind of happens, I become inspired by the film Im working on, so I tend to write as the character, he says. One of these songs ended up in the credits of The Happy Worker.

Theres a musical element and Cage connection to The Happy Worker. Whitehouse stars in the David Lynch-produced film (he originally planned to direct it several decades ago, but did Twin Peaks instead) shot by the auteurs longtime collaborator Duwayne Dunham. Tight-lipped about details, Whitehouse described the film as a steam-punk utopia, and the plot as a bunch of down-and-outs living in the Utah desert, working together to dig a huge hole. And theyre all really, really happy. Theyre singing and dancing, and you dont know why theyre digging for the whole film.

While in quarantine, hes been continuing to write and play for More Like Trees. The drum-and-bass trio, which also includes his older brother Matt Whitehouse, released a new album in January and theyve been releasing videos. Whitehouse has been keeping busy; hes also working on preproduction for a short animated film with his brother, performing on Instagram Live, and continuing to hone his bass skills.

Whitehouse is looking forward to the day he can get back on stage. And hopefully hell soon be reunited with his other bandmates his Daisy Jones costars, including Riley Keough, Sam Claflin, and Suki Waterhouse.

We have a WhatsApp chat group, so we can all stay in touch, says Whitehouse, who moved to L.A. at the start of the year. Theyre such a lovely bunch of people. Its been really nice making some new friends in L.A.

Josh WhitehouseCourtesy

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Josh Whitehouse Talks 'Valley Girl' Remake, 'Daisy Jones and the Six' - WWD

Shedding the cowboy antics of Star Wars and the utopian idealism of Star Trek, Amazon Prime Video's The Expanse highlights how royally we can screw things up, which is made only worse by being in the vacuum of space.

Rather than slick spaceships and operatic overtones, The Expanse takes a hard, cold look at what colonizing the solar system could look like in the next few centuries.

I'll admit I'm only a couple of seasons in so far, but I haven't been able to watch anything else since I started. It's so damn watchable.

The story centres around Jim Holden (Steven Strait) and his crew of misfits as they bounce from one crisis to another in the colonized solar system. Things go from bad, to worse and then much worse.

Holden is a reluctant, but capable leader. Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar), Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper) and Amos Burton (Wes Chatham) make up the rest of the team, each with their own can't-help-but-root-for-them attitudes.

Luckily, they have each other (for the most part) and a relatively stable moral centre.

The expanded cast includes some fantastic performances from Thomas Jane, who plays a hard-done-by detective and Jared Harris as a gang/rebel leader with an impossible accent.

But the highlight is easily Shohreh Aghdashloo as Chrisjen Avasarala, a powerful diplomat looking after Earth's interests. She doesn't suffer fools lightly, performing delicately when she needs to, but able to flip the switch to badass in an instant.

The series, based on novels of the same name by James S. A. Corey, is set during a solar system-spanning Cold War. On one side is Earth, governed by the decadent UN, and the other is Mars, a militaristic but fragile state which is bound in a tenuous peace. However, one little provocation and that could all come crashing down, along with all of human civilization.

Originally released on American channel Syfy, the series was picked up by Amazon after it was cancelled following its third season. Prime released the fourth season in 2019 and announced a fifth is already in the works.

And thank goodness Amazon scooped it up. The mystery surrounding an unusual and dangerous alien substance that can alter matter (being experimented on with the most Machiavellian way imaginable) is the main throughline for the plot.

But The Expanse is about much more than this existential threat, it's about the incredible world it's set in.

This isn't the idealized universe of Star Trek, where money and hunger have gone the way of the dodo, in The Expanse, water has become more precious than gold. It's a world full of greed, corruption and inequality. It is capitalism gone mad in the far reaches of space.

People have inhabited asteroids in the belt, which is being taken advantage of by the dominant planets in the system, Mars and Earth.

Mars, with the know-how to turn their rusty-red planet into a garden, is low on resources because of their spending on the military, just in case there's a war.

And Earth, after years of degradation and sea-level rise is changed (but all too familiar) with an elite pulling the strings for selfish ends.

One also has to admire the writers (both screen and novel) restraint when it comes to the technology. Yes, humans have been able to reach the other planets and stellar rocks in the solar system, but the ships people use are definitely built for speed, not comfort. They're blocky, with wires and scaffolding unceremoniously strapped to their sides.

New languages and phrases seem so natural. Yes, a group of people living on asteroids probably would develop their own culture and a sizeable chip on their shoulders.

Differences in gravity, resources, time, it's all taken into account and given its due. Sometimes I'll pause an episode just to remark, wow, they've thought of everything.

It also doesn't hide the audience from the cruelty and inequalities, and it doesn't pull away from the atrocities that could happen. It's a warning of what we could become.

It's science fiction without the utopia, and although somewhat depressing, it adds a layer of realism that is so compelling to watch.

Needing an escape from planet Earth? I get it. Here are some other sci-fi shows worth checking out I haven't already recommended (like The Mandalorian, Star Trek Discovery and Picard).

Battlestar Galactica (remake), available on Amazon Prime Video. A deep, though sometimes convoluted plot that touches on humanity and artificial intelligence. An excellent musical score that reverberates throughout.

Westworld, available on Crave (with HBO add-on). A theme park made for the elite with no limits, the characters within the fantasy are highly intelligent robots, what could go wrong?

Space Force, available on Netflix on May 29. Needing something a little lighter? Steve Carell is tasked with forming the Space Force (an actual real thing), a new branch of the American Armed Forces with no idea of what it's supposed to be. Hopefully, it will be a sufficient replacement for The Office for the streaming giant.

For All Mankind, available on Apple TV Plus.What if the Soviets landed on the moon first? This alternate history drama takes a look at what could have been and what it would mean for America's psyche.

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STREAMING WARS: The Expanse trades sci-fi fantasy for realism and it works - SaltWire Network

Books are just about the only part of our culture right now that is chugging on, more or less as normal. And thank goodness for that, because summer reading is going to be excellent this year (and not just because we're potentially going to be spending most of it still in quarantine). From books about outbreaks to books that offer complete escape, here's what you'll want to have on your nightstand for those warm summer nights.

And if all else fails, there's always Midnight Sun.

1. The Brothers York, by Thomas Penn (June 16)

I have a vast, sad void in my life now that I've finished Hilary Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, and I can't wait to fill it with this War of the Roses biography about the house of York. Already out in the U.K. where it was named one of the best books of 2019 by The Guardian and the Telegraph The Brothers York also earned an endorsement from Mantel herself, who writes that "with insight and skill, [author Thomas] Penn cuts through the thickets of history to find the heart of these heartless decades." One might recognize the biography's central trio of brothers Edward IV; George, Duke of Clarence; and Richard III from the works of Shakespeare, yet the history behind the plays is well worth your time; Lit Hub calls it a "juicy, impeccably researched work."

2. Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (June 30)

This is maybe less of a "beach read" than it is a great book to take camping, if only because its spooky Bram Stoker-esque atmosphere is way better for reading by the light of a campfire. (For a quarantine-appropriate alternative, try reading it under the covers with a flashlight). The book begins in Mexico City in the 1950s, when the beautiful bachelorette Noem is summoned home from a party by her father due to his receiving a concerning letter from Noem's cousin, Catalina. Though it is rambling and strange, Catalina claims in the note that her new husband is trying to poison her and that their grand home in a remote mountain village is "sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment." Off Noem goes to find out what's happening, only to be pulled deeper into the nightmare.

3. The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones (July 1)

The Only Good Indians earned the rare triple crown of starred reviews from the trades, and its author, Stephen Graham Jones, has been described as "the Jordan Peele of horror literature." But if that weren't enough to get you hyped, the novel follows the supernatural events that unfold after four young Blackfoot men kill a pregnant elk on forbidden tribal land. Years later, a demonic force comes to take revenge for the bloodshed in this story that, in the words of Publishers Weekly's starred review, "works both as a terrifying chiller and as biting commentary on the existential crisis of indigenous peoples adapting to a culture that is bent on eradicating theirs."

4. Utopia Avenue, by David Mitchell (July 14)

Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell has made us wait five years for his next novel, but at a chunky 600 pages, Utopia Avenue sounds like it's going to be worth it. The book presents itself as the "unexpurgated story" of a British psychedelic rock band that "released only two LPs during its brief and blazing journey from the clubs of Soho and draughty ballrooms, to Top of the Pops and the cusp of chart success, to glory in Amsterdam, prison in Rome, and a fateful American fortnight in the autumn of 1968." Each chapter title is apparently taken from the name of one of the band's songs, and focuses on one of its four members. Addressing the ambitious undertaking, Mitchell has said, "Can a novel made of words (and not fitted with built-in speakers or Bluetooth) explore the word-less mysteries of music, and music's impact on people and the world? How? Utopia Avenue is my rather hefty stab at an answer."

5. The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donoghue (July 21)

Emma Donoghue's novel about the 1918 influenza had its publication date bumped up to this summer because, well, duh. "Back in October 2018, the centenary of the Great Flu prompted me to start The Pull of the Stars, set in a Dublin maternity ward at the height of the misery in 1918," the Room author told the Irish Times. "Two days after I delivered my final draft, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic." Admittedly, the misery of disease might be the last thing you want to read about right now, but Donoghue's book which centers on health-care workers in a city hospital under quarantine is described as "deeply involving and profoundly moving." Read if you're an enthusiastic 7 p.m. applauder (and if you're looking for more coronavirus-adjacent literature, start here).

6. The Queen of Tuesday, by Darin Strauss (August 18)

Publishers solicit blurbs in order to sell books the quotes are essentially advertising material but when two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Colson Whitehead gets behind a novel, you sit up and listen. His endorsement of the "gorgeous, Technicolor take on America" sits on the cover of Darin Strauss' forthcoming Queen of Tuesday, which weaves together memoir and fiction as it circles around its central character, actress and I Love Lucy star Lucille Ball. Strauss' grandfather was at a party with Ball (hosted by Fred Trump!) in New York in 1949, and the novel imagines an affair between the two. While fictionalizing a real person in such a way can be fraught, Strauss is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award (for Half a Life) and I trust that Lucy is in good hands.

7. Sisters, by Daisy Johnson (August 25)

If you're not aboard the Daisy Johnson train yet, well, where have you been? Johnson became the youngest author to ever be shortlisted for the hyper-prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2018 at the age of 27 for her debut novel, Everything Under, and she follows it up with Sisters, a story about teenagers July and September who move to a remote family home on the seaside with their single mother. While we don't have too many details about the book yet this far out, her publisher calls it "alive, original, and surprising" as well as a "seriously smart and compulsively readable novel about a young woman attempting to find her own agency within an all-consuming relationship." The Guardian hails Johnson as being "the next generation," writing that Sisters is a "short, sharp explosion of a gothic thriller whose tension ratchets up and up to an ending of extraordinary lyricism and virtuosity." Sold.

8. Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy (August 25)

Don't judge a book by it's cover, although if you must, it might as well be the gorgeous Migrations, the U.S. debut of Charlotte McConaghy. Franny Stone arrives in Greenland with the goal of finding the world's last flock of Arctic terns as they make their final migration, and convinces the captain of the Saghani to ferry her in the pursuit. (There is, as you might expect, more to Franny than she initially lets on to the captain). Early descriptions make it sound like a novel with a topical climate change theme and a plot that examines the slippery brink of extinction. Shelf Awareness praised it as "brimming with stunning imagery and raw emotion" and "the incredible story of personal redemption, self-forgiveness, and hope for the future in the face of a world on the brink of collapse." Bonus: In the sweltering days of August, its descriptions of the frozen Arctic can cool you down.

9. This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire, by Nick Flynn (August 25)

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City author Nick Flynn is publishing yet another memoir with a fantastic title, this one called This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire. The book appears to reference the fire set by his mother in their house when he was seven years old, a story he revisits now that he is a parent himself. The book also deals with him excavating the emotions around his mother's suicide when he was 22, and cheating on his wife. Flynn is never not terrific I sometimes can't make up my mind if I prefer his prose or poetry more and This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire is already garnering early praise that reflects that fact. "Readers will devour this powerful memoir of letting go," Publishers Weekly promises in its starred review.

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9 books to read this summer - The Week