“What the f---?!” It’s a line repeated often enough in HBO’s “WATCHMEN” to become a catchphrase for Angela Abar (REGINA KING), the miniseries’ de facto protagonist. It’s also what viewers found themselves asking again and again in the course of the show’s nine dizzying, brilliant episodes. Plenty of TV series can throw you for a loop time and again (see “WATCHMEN” show-runner DAMON LINDELOF’s own “Lost”), but this one is a rare show that can toss you into the whirlwind and ultimately land you on solid ground.

All stand-up is curated confession, a chance for the person behind the mic to spill their guts but still shape their own narrative — to both tell the audience a story but also let us know how we should be thinking about it. We appreciate great comedians for their humor, of course, but also for their mastery. Like mentalists or con artists, stand-ups know how to pull our strings, how to put us at ease or discomfit us.

No one has had more occasion in recent years to think about the structure of stand-up than Hannah Gadsby. The Australian comic made waves in 2018 when Netflix released Nanette, a special in which she publicly processed her trauma about instances of sexism, assault, and homophobia she’d experienced in her life, all while deconstructing and questioning the format of joke-telling as a way to tell stories about ourselves.

The poet MAYA ANGELOU once said: "To grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed."

That’s true in life, but it’s especially true in the FILMS OF HAYAO MIYAZAKI. The legendary Japanese animator, screenwriter, and Studio Ghibli co-founder is responsible for some of the most imaginative, open-hearted films of the last few decades, among them “MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO” (1988), “PRINCESS MONONOKE” (1997), and “HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE” (2004), to name a few. Throughout his work, Miyazaki returns to the same themes and imagery again and again: the persistence of nature, the beauty of flight, the food that nurtures us, and the role of spiritualism and magic in the seemingly mundane.

June is Pride Month, commemorating the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots, a galvanizing moment in the history of LGBTQ rights. It’s usually an occasion that is marked by weeks of celebrations — parades, parties, concerts, drag shows, the whole shebang. But, like every other public gathering, Pride demonstrations across the world have been canceled due to the CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC.

Even though the queer community can’t take to the streets right now, there are still ways to celebrate remotely, whether it’s streaming TV shows and MOVIES, getting caught up in a game, or blasting music and dancing around your living room. Here are some of the best recent pieces of media by and about LGBTQ people to share with your friends this June. Because at its core, Pride is about connection — however we can find it.