Our FIVE. OH! TOO... newsletter is sent out every Friday and posted here every Monday. Subscribe here. View past newsletters here.
—————————

5.1.2020

“What have you been doing every day?”

“Just the same thing over and over.”

— overheard on a FaceTime call between two kindergarteners

This week’s question, in honor of what would have been Derby 146 tomorrow: Who is “winning” quarantine, and why?
            Email me with your name and neighborhood, and I’ll use several responses in an upcoming newsletter, and possibly in the next issue of Louisville Magazine. Know somebody who’d have fun answering the question? Please forward. And please let me know how I can improve future newsletters.

Josh Moss
editor, Louisville Magazine
jmoss@loumag.com

Last week’s question: What’s something unexpected that has given you joy during quarantine?
 
“After years in a custody battle, my daughters are in elementary school. I have all this extra time to plug back into them. Despite working from home, schooling from home and sibling fights, it’s worth it. It feels like I’m getting to know them all over again.”

Teri 
Clarksville

“I never realized how many and how many different types of birds hang out in my backyard until watching them out the window as I work from home.” 

Chad Reischl
Downtown Jeffersonville

“My roommate and I usually work opposite shifts, so despite living with each other for more than a year, I am just now starting to feel like we’re friends.” 

Emma H.
Hurstbourne Acres

“Watching my boyfriend, who is not a cat person, fall in love with my cat. And my cat falling in love with him.”

Hayley
Clifton

“Seeing a note from my kids written on the bathroom mirror. It reads: Thank you mum for everything you do, we love you.” 

Jennifer LeBlond
Virginia Beach (formerly lived on Six Mile Lane)

FIVE.

1. 

That’s last month’s cover of 2019 Derby winner-by-disqualification Country House.
            Photographer Ted Tarquinio captured the image during a fog-haunted dawn in the days before last year’s Run for the Roses, and it spoke to us as the coronavirus pandemic put this year’s race into question. “It shows the muddled ending to last year’s race” — Maximum Security was disqualified — “but also conveys the unsettled feelings we all have about the 2020 Derby in this new age of COVID-19,” Tarquinio says. “As a lifelong Louisvillian, let me just say: We shall return, because that’s what the Derby does.”
            I asked Tarquinio to share another of his favorite photos, and he picked this one of Maximum Security leading the field through the first turn last year:

“This image has taken on an instantly nostalgic life of its own as a non-socially-distanced Derby,” he says.
            For now, we’re still holding out hope for the first Saturday in September. And tomorrow, if you’re going to watch Churchill Downs’ computer-simulated race with the 13 horses who have won the Triple Crown, turf writer Bill Doolittle says, “My handicapper’s mind says Citation edges Seattle Slew, with Gallant Fox along for third.” Oh, and one more thing: Hey, weather, how dare you pick this year to be 80s and sun on the first Saturday in May. Of all the years we could have dealt with some rain….

2. The Louisville Independent Business Alliance told WDRB that nearly 30 percent of bars may never reopen if closures stretch past June.

3. I mentioned C-J photojournalist Alton Strupp last week and have to again, this time for his story about 71-year-old Rick Long, who died from COVID-19. From the piece:
            “His casket was filled with the off-humor T-shirts he liked to wear. Family photographs and a Mick Jagger playing card were tucked into his hands. He wore a cardinal-red sweater with ‘Louisville’ across the chest. 
            “Brenda, wearing a mask, fought back tears as she made her way toward the man that swept her off her feet. She whispered words to him. She gently adjusted and pushed back his hair. It was her first time touching him since saying goodbye at the hospital more than three weeks ago.”

4. Stephanie Wolf’s WFPL story tells how Louisville Orchestra music director Teddy Abrams and nearly 30 local musicians created the song “Lift Up Louisville,” with proceeds benefitting the One Louisville: COVID-19 Response Fund. (Cellist Ben Sollee talked to Louisville Magazine about the project.) I can’t stop rapping Jecorey “1200” Arthur’s line: “Lift up my city like Teddy — Bridgewater or Abrams.”

5. On Monday, Gov. Andy Beshear called out a “bad apple” who filed for unemployment under the fake name Tupac Shakur. Turns out, Tupac Shakur is a 46-year-old cook in Lexington who goes by Malik. Beshear apologized to him over the phone. 
            All of which is to say: We asked DJs at ARTxFM (97.1) to recommend Tupac songs for quarantine. “Our DJs have now established over 80 home studios across the city,” GM Sharon Scott says. “Basements, porches and dining rooms have become mini radio stations.”

“‘Changes’ is a great song to listen to no matter the occasion. ‘Let’s change the way we eat. Let’s change the way we live. And let’s change the way we treat each other.’’’ — DJ Chill Will

“‘Keep Ya Head Up’ is about sustaining in the face of adversity.” — DJ Tone Def

“‘I Ain’t Mad at Cha’ reminds you to rise above and succeed.” — DJ Roxy York

“‘Better Dayz’ forces you to question your choices. It could be the choices you made in early age or recent years. This pairs perfectly with our current situation, when conversations always circle back to when things were better. Tupac discusses the struggles of making ends meet. With so many people being out of work and worrying about how to put food on the table and how to pay rent, the relatability is chilling.” — DJ Wild Bill

OH!

Amazon and UPS trucks have become daily sightings at my house. Which made me think of history’s greatest thank-you to delivery drivers: a December 1996 Louisville Magazine Christmas fashion shoot with those “buff, brown-clad fellows,” aka — sorry about this — “the daydream idols of working women everywhere.” And why the silhouette in the last image? “We photographed our model in a pair of silk boxers, and he was discreetly tucked behind the door he’s opening for a UPS delivery woman. We thought it was cute, but the folks at UPS said it was compromising.”

TOO...

My wife was on a conference call in our bedroom. I was on Zoom in the hallway. Our kindergartner and her younger brother were downstairs alone for maybe 10 minutes. I came down and discovered this:

And earlier this week my kindergartner drew an eight that looked like this:

Not sure I’m cut out for homeschooling.

Our editors and contributing writers, photographers, illustrators and designers wouldn’t be able to do the work we do without the support from hundreds of businesses and organizations over the years. Too many to thank in this newsletter. But here are 26 of them, one for every letter of the alphabet. 
            Actors Theatre, Bittners, Centre College, Derby Dinner Playhouse, the Eye Care Institute, Four Roses, Gilda’s Club, Hotel Distil, the Irish Rover, Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse, Kindred Healthcare, Louisville Surgical Associates, Main Street Realty, Norton Healthcare, Omni Louisville, Phocus, Quest Diagnostics, Republic Bank, the Speed Art Museum, Treyton Oak Towers, the University of Louisville, Vincenzo’s, Wild Eggs, Exceptional Dentistry (what, there’s an x in exceptional), the YMCA, Z Salon & Spa.

Note: This newsletter used to be called the Weekender. We hope you’ll subscribe and continue reading every Friday.

A current copy of Louisville Magazine is included with every delivery order from Carmichael’s Bookstore. Or get one on newsstands or by emailing circulation@loumag.com.

View past FIVE. OH! TOO... newsletters here.