As many businesses around the world struggle, a Canadian disinfectant company is increasing production to keep up with demand during the novel coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Ron Kolumbus/WSJ
Tag Archives: Wall Street Journal
Exercise: “Shelter In Place” Home Circuit Workouts For Older Adults (WSJ)
From a Wall Street Journal article (March 21, 2020):
As we age, our balance declines, says Dani Johnson, a physical therapist with the Mayo Clinic’s Healthy Living Program in Rochester, Minn. Implementing balance exercises as simple as standing on one leg as you brush your teeth can help prevent falls. Getting a daily dose of cardio can boost the immune system.
This at-home circuit routine will get your heart rate up while also challenging strength and balance. Perform the circuit three times. Walk up and down steps or march in place for two to three minutes between sets. To up the effort, she suggests adding dumbbells or improvising with cans or tube socks filled with coins or rice.
Chair squats
Stand in front of a chair with your feet shoulder-width apart. Bend your knees, lowering your hips back, keeping weight in your heels and your chest upright. Start by sitting into the chair and standing back up 10 to 12 times. If this is easy, hover above the chair then return to standing.
Counter push-ups
Place your hands on the edge of a counter, just beyond shoulder-width apart. Lower into a push-up then press back up. Repeat 10 to 12 times. For more of a challenge, walk your feet farther away from the counter.
Chair triceps dips
Sit upright in a chair with your hands on the armrests, elbows bent at 90 degrees. Straighten your arms, lifting your body off the chair. Hold briefly. Then lower yourself down. Use your legs to balance. Repeat 10 to 12 times.
Calf raises
Begin in a standing position. Rise up onto your toes, hold briefly, then lower back down. Repeat 10 to 12 times. Place one or both hands on a table or chair for more support. For an added challenge, perform on one leg at a time.
Health: “How Coronavirus / Covid-19 Became A Global Pandemic” (WSJ Video)
On Dec. 1, 2019, a patient in Wuhan, China, started showing symptoms of what doctors determined was a new coronavirus. Since then, the virus has spread to infect more than 100,000 people. Here’s how the virus grew to a global pandemic. Photo illustration: Carter McCall/WSJ
Health: “What It’s Like to Take a Drive-Through Coronavirus Test” (WSJ)
As coronavirus spreads across the world, countries are setting up drive-through clinics to make it easier for their citizens to get tested. WSJ’s Andrew Jeong visited a test site in South Korea to see how it works.
Profiles: 82-Year Old American Abstract Painter Larry Poons
From a Wall Street Journal online profile (March 3, 2020):
I had a handful of school friends, including Francis Ford Coppola, who was in the grade behind me. He was known then as Frank. He directed school plays, such as “Finian’s Rainbow.” That’s where I fell in love with the girl. She was a dancer in the cast.
Painting, music and poetry all spoke to me, especially music. I applied to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
Larry Poons, 82, is an abstract painter best known for his “dot” and “throw” paintings. “Larry Poons” (Abbeville), a book-length monograph of his work from the 1950s to the present, will be published in September. He spoke with Marc Myers.
The first time I painted on canvas board, I was lovesick. I had a crush on a girl in high school and had just finished reading Irving Stone’s Van Gogh biographical novel, “Lust for Life.”
I took my easel to a nearby park and painted trees. As I worked the paint with a small brush, it helped get my feelings out.
Surrealism: “Midnight In Paris, 1929″(Dalí Museum)
Excerpts from a Wall Street Journal online review (Feb 25, 2020):
Masson, a founding Surrealist, saw the movement as an immersion “into what the German romantics call the night side of things.” However, “towards 1930,” Masson wrote, “a formidable disaster appeared in its midst: the demagogy of the irrational.” “Midnight in Paris” touches on Surrealism’s highs and lows, its darkness, poetry, beauty and banalities, reminding viewers—at the heart of the Dalí Museum, no less—that the movement is much, much more than melting watches.
In 1920s Paris, Surrealist revolution and transgression were in the air, but not everyone agreed on how to make Surrealist works or what they should look like. “Midnight in Paris: Surrealism at the Crossroads, 1929,” an exhibition of 80 paintings, prints, sculptures, drawings, collages, photographs, films and documents at St. Petersburg’s Dalí Museum, proposes to examine Surrealism’s rich visual fabric, conflicts and rivalries during the movement’s heyday in the City of Light. Organized by Didier Ottinger, deputy director of the Musée national d’art moderne at the Centre Pompidou, and William Jeffett, chief curator of special exhibitions at the Dalí, it focuses on the moment just before Surrealism burst onto and began to dominate the world stage.
Interviews: 57-Year Old Actor Bob Odenkirk On Aging, Getting “Nicer”
From a Wall Street Journal online article (Feb 21, 2020):
“I don’t have this precious career as an actor that I had to preserve. I’m an older guy, I’ve had a career, and the most personal thing I’ve ever done was Mr. Show, so, in a way I’ve said my piece, so I just don’t have all that much to lose really compared to somebody who’s an actor for a living and dreaming of their own show. My daughter asked me this question. This was a kid who grew up in Hollywood. She said, “If it’s bad, how bad would it be?” And I thought, Well, it’s Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. The worst thing it would be, would be an experiment that just didn’t pan out, but an interesting one at the very least.”
It’s fair to say that in 1998, no one who saw Bob Odenkirk perform a Mr. Show sketch buck naked on the stage of Radio City Music Hall for Comic Relief VIII—a cupped hand his only nod to decency—would have predicted his turn to drama. Odenkirk is now critically celebrated for his portrayal of greasy lawyer Saul Goodman in AMC’s Better Call Saul.
The 57 year-old stars on the fifth and penultimate season of the show, which premieres this weekend and has moved far away from its first season branding as “a Breaking Bad spinoff.”
