Links and videos since mid-March 2020, Part 1

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Site Updates – starting with May 15, 2020
Links and Videos, Part 1: Highlights | Volunteer | Donate | Performances | Sports | Streaming | Parodies | Local Events
Part 2: Lists | Books | Games
Part 3: Nature | Culture
Archive – Performances
More Videos
Even More Videos (includes Bela Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart – Discs A and B)
Even More Videos, Part 2 (includes Bela Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart – Concert Extras and Full Concert Performances)

September 11, 2025

Highlights – a rotating list of some items appearing below which are new/upcoming and/or favorites of mine
  • Bela Fleck: My Bluegrass Heart – From the bio: “My Bluegrass Heart is the third chapter of a trilogy which began with the 1988 album, Drive, and continued in 1991 with The Bluegrass Sessions. The project features a who’s who of some of the greatest instrumentalists in bluegrass music’s history alongside some of the best of the new generation of players mandolinists Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, and Chris Thile; fiddlers Michael Cleveland and Stuart Duncan; celebrated multi-instrumentalist Justin Moses, bassists Edgar Meyer and Mark Schatz, and the amazing Bryan Sutton and Molly Tuttle on guitar.” The bio didn’t mention the other performers: Jerry Douglas, Billy Strings, David Grisman, Tony Trischka, Noam Pikelny, Billy Contreras, Cody Kilby, Paul Kowart, Andy Leftwich, Dominick Leslie, and Royal Masat – an unbelievable collaboration!! Then Bela took the new music on the road with TWO bands, culminating with performances in January at Ryman Auditorium and Carnegie Hall with at least a dozen of the record’s performers. Thank you, Bela, for a historic collaboration. You can watch performances from both touring bands and more on the Even More Videos and Even More Videos, Part 2 pages.
  • The Cornell Lab of Ornithology – I love their Merlin app, especially when in July they added a Song ID feature along with the Photo ID and Bird ID Wizard tools. I now know what kind of bird is hidden in the tree before me, so I know what to look for if the bird emerges.
  • Live Hummingbird Feeder Cam, Bird Feeder, Studio City, California – this video is provided by Hummingbird Spot, which is also currently hosting nest cams and other hummingbird-related videos.
  • Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra – I was introduced to many bands during IBMA’s World of Bluegrass 2020, and this group from Oslo, Norway, is one of my favorites. Who knew an accordion would fit in beautifully with the traditional bluegrass instrument set? Here is part of their fantastic IBMA Bluegrass Ramble performance:
  • Mary Chapin Carpenter: Songs From Home: Live From My Kitchen – with squeak toy master Angus and the recently deceased White Kitty. The series concluded with Episode 62 (March 21, 2021) – thank you so much, Mary Chapin Carpenter, for providing a contant, uplifting presence for the first year of the pandemic:
  • Grey Fox Bluegrass: Spirit of Grey Fox – concert links also on excellent summary page – (July 16, 17 – part 1 and part 2, 18, 19, 2020) – We’ll have unique, one-of-a-kind performances by our 2020 artists, photos and videos from over the years, and some of the most memorable sets from the recent past, all streamed to you in your living room, back yard, patio, or wherever you choose to be. Some of you have asked how to get tickets. Well, it’s FREE. You can watch on NUGS.TV, YouTube, and Facebook. It’s a fundraiser for the IBMA Trust Fund for COVID-19 Relief (ibma.org) and if you’re extra generous, you can also donate to keep Grey Fox going through this “dry spell.”
  • ResortTV1: Join Jenna and Josh as they visit the Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Theme Parks here in Central Florida. They do Live Streams in the Parks, Vlogs, Park Tours, Resort Hotel Tours, and Resort TV all in very high quality with many videos in 4K! They do a live stream in a park every Friday at 6:00 or 6:30pm ET, and we have new videos every day at 9:00am! Be sure to subscribe and join the Resort Hopper Family so you don’t miss anything!!
  • Wingspan: the board game phenomenon (How a Board Game About Birds Became a Surprise Blockbuster – Slate, August 15, 2021) is also available in digital versions – I have the Steam version on my PC and the Apple app too. They do all the setup and game management automatically – it’s great!
  • Lincoln Center – #Memorial For Us All: Brian Stokes Mitchell
  • Jigsaw Explorer and Kennections
Volunteer – digital volunteer projects from home
Transcribing

Volunteer at Home by Transcribing Historical Documents (AARP, March 9, 2020)

  • Library Of Congress By The People – Be a virtual volunteer! Anyone can contribute. Improve access to history by transcribing, reviewing, and tagging Library of Congress documents.
  • National Archives – Citizen Archivist – You can contribute to the National Archives Catalog by tagging, transcribing and adding comments to our records, making them more accessible and searchable. Join us! Every contribution you make helps unlock history.
  • Smithsonian Digital Volunteers – Transcription Center – Be a virtual volunteer! Anyone can contribute. Improve access to history by transcribing, reviewing, and tagging Library of Congress documents.

Additional transcribing projects:

  • From The Page: Transcription Projects – many institutions represented including Folger Shakespeare Library, Harvard Library, Iowa State University Library, LA County Library, Maryland State Archives, Mount Auburn Cemetery, National Archives of the United Kingdom, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (I ahve transcribed scouting reports), Phillips Academy Archives and Special Collections, Queen’s Unioversity Archives, South Australia Maritime Museum, Stanford Libraries, Stanford University Libraries, Syaye Archives of North Carolina (transcribed there too), The Library of Virginia, University Libraries of UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia Library, Utah State Archives, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum, and many more …
  • New York Public Library – What’s on the menu? – We’re transcribing our historical restaurant menus, dish by dish, so that they can be searched by what people were eating back in the day. It’s a big job so we need your help!
  • Royal BC Museum – Transcribe – Transcribe gives you the opportunity to make the Royal BC Museum’s extensive collections more accessible, all from the comfort of your home! The transcriptions you create will become searchable data, facilitating learning and research around the world. Whether you choose to transcribe one page, one hundred pages, or just browse our collections, you’re helping us share the stories that matter.
  • TED – Transcribe TEDx talks – Monolingual volunteers can help spread the ideas in TEDx talks by transcribing them! Transcribed talks can reach a wider audience because they are accessible to Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, indexed on search engines like Google, and able to be translated by TED Translators.
More
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Donate – a small fraction of organizations and funds
Actors Fund
Catholic Parish Outreach
CDC Foundation Center For Disaster Philanthropy
CMMB COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO (UN Foundation with Swiss Philanthropy Foundation)
Direct Relief Durham Rescue Mission
Feeding America Feed The Children
First Book Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC
GlobalGiving Inter-Faith Food Shuttle
Meals on Wheels: National | Wake County MusiCares
Music Maker Relief Foundation NC Artist Relief Fund
NC Restaurant Workers Relief Fund No Kid Hungry
Raleigh Rescue Mission REX Healthcare Foundation
Triangle Community Foundation UNICEF USA
United Way of the Greater Triangle Rapid Response Fund
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Performances – Concerts and more to stream (all times ET, of course) – recording usually available to watch later; older performances that have not be updated lately can be found on the Archive – Performances page
The Shows Must Go On!THE SHOW MUST GO ON! – LIVE AT THE PALACE THEATRE will be broadcast live from the West End on Sunday 6th June at 7pm BST! (2pm ET / 11am PT)
IBMA Online Concert Calendar – includes one-time, multi-day, and recurring events
NPR: Tiny Desk and Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts – started in 2008, closing in on 1000 concerts and going strong – YouTube archive – I needed this one from April 24, 2020:
Daily/Weekdays
Weekly
Recurring – occasionally, frequently
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Sports – simulations, broadcasts, videos, …
Strat-O-Matic: 2020 Season Simulation (the day’s results are available at 2:00)
7th-Inning Stretch – Josh Kantor, Red Sox organist (Daily, 3:00)
One Shining Moment 2020 – Quarantine Edition – Brandin Gaudin (April 6)
League Packages: NFL Game Pass (through July 31) | NBA League Pass (“during the NBA hiatus”) | MLB.TV (all 2018 and 2019 games free) | NHL.TV (all 2019-2020 season games free), plus the NHL Pause Binge, a vault of classic games, all-access programs and more to binge during the pause
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Netflix alternatives: The 10 best free movie streaming services (CNET, March 28)
Crackle IMDb TV
Hoopla Internet Archive
Kanopy Plex
Pluto TV The Roku Channel
Tubi TV Vudu
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Parodies (besides the one directly above)
Dee Roscioli: Defying Quarantine
Mr. Show Zoomtacular Annual Business Call Event for Charity: We’re All In This Together

Featuring: Scott Adsit, Al Yankovic, Fred Armisen, Rachel Bloom, Amy Carlson, Bryan Cranston , David Cross, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, Al Franken, Heidi Gardner, Tony Hale, John Hodgman, Jack Black, Michael Mando, Michael McKean, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Bob Odenkirk, Alison Pill, Phil Rosenthal, Paul Scheer, Rhea Seehorn and Amber Tamblyn.

Ben Marsh and Family: One Day More
Chris Mann: Hello (From The Inside)
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More Videos
Local events of note – 2022
NC Symphony: Beethoven Eroica (10/14-15/2022)
NC Symphony: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 (10/21-22/2022)
NC Symphony: Handel’s Messiah (12/2-3/2022)
NC Symphony: Holiday Pops (12/9-10/2022)
More local events – 2022
NC Symphony: Cirque Dances with Troupe Vertigo (10/7-8/2022)
NC Symphony: The Music of Harry Potter (1/28-29/2022)
NC Symphony: Barber Violin Concerto (11/4-5/2022)
NC Symphony: Korngold Violin Concerto (11/18-19/2022)
NC Symphony: The Polar Express (11/23-25/2022)
Event Calendar
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