Before Sam Haller’s “anchors aweigh” booty shorts graced the pages of The Guardian this week while he pretended to eat a doll’s head, before they were written up around the world, and before comforters were recognized as accurate renaissance garments, four roommates were chatting on a Google hangout in quarantine.
Sam Haller, Max Sutter, Jeannette Penniman, and Cary White — who live in East Rock — were chatting with several friends in the beginnings of social distancing on March 18, when someone across the series of tubes that is the internet — currently society’s only real mode of connection — suggested everyone don a hat. Sutter, chapeau-less, improvised with a towel. The rest is art history.
Haller noticed he looked very similar to Marat as depicted by Jacques-Louis David in the famous painting Death of Marat. He then proposed that the roommates immediately recreate the painting. After considerable effort to get the lighting right with household lamps and props to ensure accuracy, the group took the shot.
“We thought it looked good,” said Haller.
So the next night, they did it again, this time featuring a scantily clad Haller devouring a baby doll, imitating Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. One shot a day was plenty; the group took their time preparing each shot, spending hours finding lighting, household items like pots and comforters as props, and choosing a different major work of art history every day to focus on.
After a week, Haller posted the accumulated shots to his Facebook page, and made the post public on request. They created an Instagram account and called it Covid Classics. And thus, fame flew into the lives of the roommates, as their associated likes, shares, and comments exploded exponentially. They went viral, but the good kind.
In the ensuing two weeks or so, their web presence skyrocketed, making news around the world and Twitter, even being featured in a Guardian article a few days ago. And what of fame?
“It’s so absurd and arbitrary,” said Penniman. Their social circle all do similar things — making things from household items, so for the roommates, “that’s a normal part of our social experience.”
For Sutter, “life is mostly normal except for the few times a day I get a lot of instagram notifications and comments.” He runs the @covidclassics account, and often will field timely requests from teachers. Haller said he’s thriving.
“This lies at the intersection of two things I love: being publicly praised and exhibitionism,” Haller said. White noted that the addictive factor of checking likes and shares on social media is new, and that it’s “pretty exhilarating.”
For the roommates, a key factor was that they had been good friends for years before settling into a prolonged quarantine together, and even though some still worked — Sutter runs Escape New Haven, White works for Save the Sound, and Penniman is a biologist — they made the time to be creative together. Haller, as a bartender, has more time on his hands, which he says he has devoted largely to reading.
As for suggestions for others feeling stir crazy in quarantine? Penniman suggested routine, and connecting through video chats. The group noted that many of their friends have organized virtual craft experiences, in which a group draws, does needlepoint, or crafts together. Everyone is making do with what they have, but that’s where the creativity comes out.
They also plan on continuing to produce one shot a day for the duration of social distancing. They’re keeping a list of follower suggestions and their own ideas in a Google doc, picking their next piece based on feasibility.
“We are limited by subject and prop availability,” Haller said.
“Some of them [the works] require beards longer than anyone can do in this apartment,” Penniman said. Then again, it might be a long quarantine.
To follow Covid Classics, check in with the roommates’ Instagram page.
Sam Haller is a New Haven treasure and the fact that we don't allocate at least 5% of the city budget to his preservation is an indictment of our priorities.