Making the Most of Social Distancing: Recommendations from the Kelton Team
March 23, 2020
Crowd-sourced recommendations to help you stay entertained, informed, fit, and well-fed!
Social distancing: A few weeks ago, the phrase meant nothing to most of us. Now, it’s our new reality. To help slow the spread of COVID-19, people across the world are doing their part by working from home, avoiding social gatherings, and only going out for the absolute essentials. Suddenly and collectively, we find ourselves with more time to fill and new anxieties to manage.
Enter the ever-resourceful Kelton team: soon after our offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia began their WFH (Work From Home) journey, a shared doc appeared in Slack — “Tips and Tricks to Social Distancing.” It’s a place for us to recommend movies and TV shows to watch, books to read, at-home exercises to try, recipes to cook, and more.
It’s one way we’re looking after one another — and we wanted to share. If you’re in need of some new ways to get through this period of social distancing, check out the highlights from our crowdsourced list!
TV Shows and Movies
The TV shows Keltonites deem the most bingeable span just about every genre:
SciFi:
- Westworld (HBO)
- The Mandalorian (Disney+)
- Altered Carbon (Netflix)
- Travelers (Netflix)
Fantasy:
- The Magicians (Netflix)
- Carnival Row (Amazon Prime)
- Good Omens (Amazon Prime)
- Lucifer (Netflix)
- Sense8 (Netflix)
Crime Dramas:
- Mindhunter (Netflix)
- The Sinner (Netflix)
- The Stranger (Netflix)
- Narcos (Netflix)
New-school Reality:
- The Circle (Netflix)
- Love Is Blind (Netflix)
Comedy Classics:
- The Office (Netflix)
- Parks & Recreation (Netflix)
- Veep (HBO)
Worth noting: Tiger King (Netflix) generated some especially lively digital discussion.
Movie recs weren’t as plentiful, but action-packed trilogies (“Star Wars,” “Batman”) and recent Oscar noms (“Marriage Story,” “Little Women”) ranked high.
Books
Keltonites’ taste in books also proved varied, ranging from the dystopian (Karen Thompson’s “The Dreamers” and “The Age of Miracles”) to the literary (Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”) and everything in between (like Ling Ma’s literary dystopian novel “Severance”). Historical fiction made a strong showing (Amor Towles’ “A Gentleman in Moscow,” Laila Ibrahim’s “Paper Wife”), and so did nonfiction (Michelle Obama’s “Becoming,” Rachel Maddow’s “Blowout”). And for those in need of some humor, there’s BJ Novak’s “One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories.”
Comedians
Speaking of humor, a true Kelton hero recently added a new tab to our doc, listing dozens of his favorite comedians (someone clearly takes his stand-up seriously). Categories include:
(Mostly) Clean:
- John Mulaney (Netflix, Spotify)
- Mike Birbiglia (Netflix, Spotify)
- Nate Bargatze (Netflix, Spotify)
- Tommy Johnagin (Spotify)
Silly and Irreverent:
- Rory Scovel (Netflix, Spotify)
- Sarah Tollemache (Spotify, YouTube)
- Hannibal Burress (Netflix, Spotify)
- Demetri Martin (Netflix Spotify)
Dark or Dirty:
- Nikki Glaser (Netflix, Spotify)
- Michelle Wolf (Netflix, Spotify)
- Bill Burr (Netflix, Spotify)
- Dave Attell (Spotify, YouTube)
Just Plain Jokes:
- Nate Fernald (YouTube)
- Joe List (Netflix, Spotify)
- Mitch Hedberg (Spotify, YouTube)
- Nick Thune (Netflix, Spotify)
Cerebral:
- Stewart Lee (YouTube)
- Reginald D Hunter (YouTube)
- Gary Gulman (HBO, Spotify)
- Dave Chappelle (Netflix, YouTube)
Social Commentary:
- Beth Stelling (Netflix, Spotify)
- Taylor Tomlinson (Netflix, Spotify)
- Jen Kirkman (Netflix, Spotify)
- Dan Soder (Netflix, Spotify)
Podcasts
We might have temporarily lost our commutes, but podcasts aren’t going anywhere. Political shows were the clear winners on Kelton’s list (“The Weeds,” “Left, Right and Center,” “The Argument”), but we’re also fans of shows covering the internet (“Reply All”), sports (“The Bill Simmons Podcast”), history (“The Memory Palace”), and America life (er, “This American Life”).
Home Workouts
Of course, all those hours spent consuming media need to be balanced with some physical activity — hard to do with gyms suddenly closed. For those trying to stay fit and healthy at home, Keltonites recommend some basic equipment: yoga mats, resistance bands, foam rollers, and dumbbells (body weight also works!). And to put those things to the best use, check out Yoga with Adriene and FitnessBlender on YouTube.
Recipes
Looking for something new to cook? We recommend checking out:
