Alyssa May Gold here. I hope you all remain safe, and well, and overwhelmingly at home.
 
I have been racking my brain for how Pocket Universe might reconsider and reimagine the convention of theater for this time of social distancing and self-isolation, two notions which are the absolute antithesis of what we do. I don't have an answer yet, and that feels like a bit of a relief—I would be pretty devastated to discover multiple millennia of hearts beating together in a room over a story was digitally replaced with two weeks and a Zoom account.
 
That said, I have found immense comfort from virtual gatherings these last few weeks and while I’m still thinking on more artistic ways in which Pocket Universe will able to contribute in the coming months, I would like to facilitate a space to gather and explore a story together sooner than later. Maybe for now instead of reconsidering the stories we tell, we look to stories that tell us how to reconsider our circumstances and mindsets, and aid us in finding resilience and forward motion.
 
So I am starting the
Pocket Universe Survival Club.
Over the next however many weeks our cities remain on pause, we will explore aspirational stories of survival and feats of the human spirit. We'll be starting with Miracle in the Andes, Nando Parrado’s incredible account of his climb through the Andes to get help and save his Rugby team and their families after their plane crashed in the mountains. I have been thinking and talking about this book nonstop for the last two weeks and several of you have already reached out to tell me you are now currently reading it as a result so I thought we could read it together. 
THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM A BOOK CLUB because I called it something else.
 
If you are interested in joining, send an email via the contact form to be included on the Survival Club list for the next cohort.You can order hard copy and digital versions of the book here and here (and likely other places, too)
 
I’ll leave with you with the quote from Nando Parrado that I’ve been repeating to anyone who has been foolish enough to surprise FaceTime me this month:
 
"I began to understand that my ordeal in the Andes was not an interruption of my true destiny, or a perversion of what my life was supposed to be. It simply was my life, and the future that lay ahead was the only future available to me.” 
 
This is the only 2020 available to us. Let’s spend it apart together over a story.
 
~Alyssa