[Chicago Public Square is happy to welcome Chris Badowski Koenig as a contributor. She’s cooked up a special holiday edition to keep you sane and celebratory through the weekend.]
Egg-ceptional alternatives. Stay-at-home mandates require creative ways to mark the holidays. Find restaurants in Chicago and suburbs serving Easter brunch and dinner to go.
■ Chicago pastors are planning virtual services for Easter Sunday.
■ WLS-TV provides an online version.
■ Decorate eggs with stuff you already have in the house.
■ Watch The Ten Commandments in full online: Disk 1, Disk 2
Virtual getaways. Cabin fever setting in? Sulking about aborted vacation plans? Get “out of town” with virtual spring break trips.
■ Virtual Disney rides can make your couch the happiest place on earth.
■ Take a virtual Florida vacation, explore the Grand Canyon or Rancho Mirage, California (featuring past Coachella performances).
Staying home from the ballgame. There’s hope for baseball fans: With new cases of the coronavirus falling in South Korea, that country’s baseball league hopes to play preseason games as early as April 21.
■ Chicago’s home teams aren’t there yet, but you can watch past games on the White Sox and Cubs YouTube channels.
■ Stream the 2018 and 2019 archives free on MLB.TV for a limited time.
■ Check out activity pages for little Cubs and Sox fans.
■ Look back longingly at The Friendly Confines with A View from My Seat.
Need a laugh? Watch some of The Second City’s best performers improvise their hearts out during shows livestreamed from their homes.
■ Saturday Night Live is back this weekend with a new show that may not be live.
Oh, THAT Zoom. If you grew up in the ’70s or the ’90s, the word Zoom conjures memories of a PBS show for kids—original cast members of which recently gathered for a mini-reunion on WATD-FM’s The Dr. Joe Show.
■ See some of the original cast online: Joe Shrand, Nina Lillie, Tracy Tannebring, Tommy White and Jon Reuning.
■ Chicago Parent offers nine fun backgrounds for Zoom video calls in the 21st Century.
■ Have Zoom video conferences stuck Aretha Franklin’s 1985 hit Who’s Zoomin’ Who? in your head? Unfortunately, the coronavirus shutdown of production has pushed back the premiere of National Geographic’s forthcoming Genius: Aretha.
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Thanks, Deborah J. Wess, for the reminder that Zoom—the TV show—returned in the ’90s.