TV: How to Win with John Wilson

In this HBO series, documentarian John Wilson explores New York City, striking up conversations with (and capturing found footage of) strangers—casually dressed Vikings, an unaware Kyle MacLachlan attempting to scan a MetroCard. … He organizes the clips around innocuous topics like “How to Split the Check.” But detours happen: “How to Improve Your Memory” ends up at a Mandela Effect conference in Idaho, while a bit on plastic furniture covers leads to an anti-circumcision activist. The resulting episodes are funny, sad, cringeworthy, compassionate and unlike anything you’ve seen before. HBO/HBO Max. –Geoff Carter

Podcast: Stories with Sapphire

“There is so much more to the spirit realm than the white figures (living and dead) we currently see on TV and in movies,” Sapphire Sandalo writes on her website, Stories With Sapphire. So she created a podcast to encourage more cultural diversity in supernatural storytelling, starting with stories from her Filipino heritage. Sandalo, a recurring paranormal expert on the Travel Channel’s Paranormal Caught on Camera and Paranormal Nightshift, truly knows how to tell a ghost story—so turn off the lights, pull up the covers and get ready for a chill ride. Apple Podcasts. –Genevie Durano

Book: The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)

There’ve been lots of jokes about the apocalypse this year, how 2020 is the End Days or how we’re just all doomed. But if you really want to peek to the final page of our story, read The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by astrophysicist Katie Mack, who guides the casual reader through five possible endgames for our universe. The stars might expand outward into nothingness or snap back into each other like they’re a cosmic rubberband, but, thankfully, none of these scenarios involve a pandemic. Astrokatie.com/book. –C. Moon Reed

TV: Selena: The Series

It’s been 25 years since the late queen of Tejano music was murdered at the hands of her former manager, but her legacy lives on in songs like “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” and “Como la Flor.” If you’ve seen the 1997 biopic starring Jennifer Lopez, now’s the time to turn to Netflix for its new series on the Mexican American star and her family as they ascend to stardom, singing and hustling their way into the limelight. Netflix. –Leslie Ventura

Livestreams: Three Concerts

Don’t end 2020 without “attending” at least one more show. This week features a number of promising streaming options, including a condensed version of Yo La Tengo’s annual eight-night Hanukkah run, December 18 at 5 p.m. Vegas time (reairing twice December 19). Per YLT tradition, the event will feature surprise musical and comedy support acts, followed by a headlining set from the Jersey indie vets. Tickets cost $20 at thegreenespace.org/series/ylt, with proceeds benefiting the National Independent Venue Association.

December 19 at 1 a.m. Vegas time, Australian electronic faves The Avalanches will celebrate the release of new album We Will Always Love You—just their third since 2000—with a livestreamed DJ set from Melbourne. Included in the price of a $10 ticket (available at momenthouse.com/co/australia): a screening of the Jonathan Zawada film Carrier Waves, described as a “visual companion piece” to the new record.

And December 21 at 6 p.m. Vegas time, Robin Pecknold—whose folk-rock band Fleet Foxes released one of the year’s most acclaimed albums, Shore, in September—will perform solo-acoustic from St. Ann & The Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn. Tickets cost $20 at noonchorus.com/robin-pecknold. –Spencer Patterson