Issue 12 - Inflection?
For a long time, it was evident that we (at least, the collective “we” of the Western world) had become pretty freaking bad at operating as a functioning society. It was evident, long before anyone ever uttered the syllables “Co-vid”; before anyone outside the field of epidemiology had any hint of what was coming.
In part, I suspect, that’s because we (again, in “the West”) haven’t had to live through a real non-local emergency for a couple of generations now, more-or-less since the end of the Second World War.
The crises we have endured – 9/11, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis… even when they’ve been serious, even when they’ve taken thousands of lives, have remained eerily distant for most of us. We watch the news a bit more intently for a few days or weeks. We donate to the Red Cross, maybe. Or organize a food drive. And then we carry on.
And because real, acute need is only ever focused locally; generally for a limited period of time, the broader currents of our culture(s) have continued to flow relatively uninterrupted, trending in the ways they’ve been directed to trend.
Unfortunately, those ways, especially in the US, have often leaned towards selfishness (whether the tedious, childish Libertarianism of Ayn Rand Republicans and most British Conservatives, or the more garden-variety selfishness of whining whenever the slightest momentary inconvenience wanders our way). And, without going too “Yoda” on this, selfishness quickly leads to other negative traits–anger, greed and bigotry in particular.
There is, of course, no more obvious example of a selfish, greedy bigot than the current President of the United States, and that offers an interesting thread of… wait, stop, ugh. I want to say “a thread of hope”, but in the current context that seems too flippant; too dismissive of the real, massive and exponentially-increasing growth in misery caused by this crisis. Already, over 16,000 people have died. And for each of them there are family and friends who are grieving.
And there is still plenty of awfulness to go around. For example, there’s the patent trolls trying to block Covid-19 test development. Or perhaps you’re more enraged by these jackasses buying out an entire store’s toilet paper in order to proudly price-gouge. Or perhaps you’ll join me in enraged teeth-grinding at the shitgibbons who are using the virus as an excuse for anti-Chinese racism.
And yet… this crisis has made it increasingly clear just how severely Trump isn’t fit for his job. Anthony Fauci has gone from a little-known background figure in no less than 5 US Presidential administrations to a public hero almost overnight; to the point where he feels free to be more honest about his nominal boss than anyone else at the White House has ever managed to be. This is good, in a “the moral of The Emperor’s New Clothes” sort of a way.
Everywhere, people are volunteering to get groceries for their elderly neighbors, or arranging karaoke sessions in quarantine centers, or simply showing up to work as doctors, or delivery drivers, or grocery store clerks. And yes, while it hasn’t gone perfectly, people are mostly listening, and practicing social distancing–we’ve nearly shut down an entire civilization in a matter of days, mostly through the individual action of each of us. We’ve never done that before! It’s amazing!
Just check out these pictures of US cities, or the New York Times‘s damn-near poetic round up of deserted spots across the world.
And we’ve begun to make jokes about the isolation. And we’re finding new ways to play board games, or host dance parties, or group-watch Westworld together online. For its many flaws, the web has lent a plasticity to culture which we’ve never had before, and we’re already remixing this crisis into new and interesting cultural offshoots. It’s fascinating, and heartening.
This situation remains frightening. It is isolating. It is sad, and will likely cause a lot more misery before it’s done. But it is also an obvious inflection point. And perhaps, if we all help each other along, it will come to be seen–a long time from now–as a moment in time when we relearned how to work together, to take care of one another, and to sacrifice a little for the greater good. This could usher in an era in which we learn to be a better society again.
So, let’s try not to screw it up, and in the meantime…
(This sketch has been popping into my head 5 times per day since this whole thing started. I’m still not sure whether it’s in poor taste or not, given our circumstances, but… uh… probably not?)
Project Updates
Funny story… I was trying to work on a potentially-amusing idea for a party game, but then they cancelled all the parties, everywhere, until further notice.
One could argue that preparing to launch a party game once we can have parties again would be a smart move, but… it just feels kinda off right now.
Luckily my wonderful former editor/writing coach Marisa reached out last week to ask me if I ever made any progress on my irritatingly progress-free project, the Young Adult Sci-fi novel I wrote a couple of years ago, Planet 67 Alpha.
So, if that’s not a kick in the ass to do something about it, I don’t know what is. And since we all have more time indoors right now, dear reader, I’d like to start “doing something with it” by sharing it with all of you You are now “beta readers” - congrats!
Any feedback you have will be gladly-received!
You can download it as a .mobi (which is Kindle compatible – instructions on uploading it to your device are here; it says “paperwhite”, but the same method will work on most kindles).
A Thing of Beauty
I share a lot of stuff from Colossal in this section of the newsletter, but that’s because they are so good at finding examples of incredible art. This week, the dining-journals of Japanese Chef, Itsuo Kobayashi. All hand-written and illustrated, he’s been making them for 32 years, and they are spectacular.
See also, the breathtaking journals of Spanish artist José Naranja. His latest work, The Nautilus Manuscript is actually available for sale as a limited-edition for the princely sum of €325 (about $350).
Ephemera
A lot to cover this week. So much so we’re going to experiment with (drum roll)… sections!
Things by Friends
My long-time friend, former London housemate and Lego-fiend Paul Mison has started making utterly charming videos with his wife AK, exploring some of his favorite Lego sets from his extensive collection. It’s great in twenty different simultaneous ways. (YouTube).
Meanwhile my incredibly talented friend Emily Dubberley has a good roundup of encouraging advice about remaining indoors (GrowEatGift).
And Paul Carr, with his usual uncanny knack for off-kilter timing, just launched a new assistance-sharing app called Needhop, which seems like it might be a genuinely useful thing for quite a few people right now.
Coronaphemera
I mean, it’s all any of us are really thinking or talking about right now. Hopefully the things I dig up are some combination of uplifting and useful. This subsection might be here for a few issues yet…
I can’t remember the exact thought-train which led to me looking this up, but it felt calming at the time to spend a few minutes thinking about ways in which we’ve co-opted viruses to work for us. This 2017 paper outlines some.
Alexandra Petri wrote an especially moving meditation on our current predicament, through the lens of Newton’s plague-time pursuits (WaPo)
You might have already seen it, but I defy anyone to not be delighted by Neil Diamond playing a lightly filked acoustic version of his classic Sweet Caroline to fit the moment… Hands… washing hands / Reaching out / Don’t touch me / I won’t touch you…”
Finally, it’s even more likely you saw this, but it’s a simultaneously practical and soothing rundown, and it’s by J. Kenji López-Alt, who, if I were ever to build a shrine to culinary heros, would be right up the top next to Tony Bourdain. Food Safety and Coronavirus: A Comprehensive Guide.
Everything else
The fascinating way in which the Japanese Sayonara differs from other languages’ farewells, from the always-engaging Spoon and Tamago.
For example, someone might say, “I must become a priest, and if it be thus, we shall part ways today.” For the Japanese, parting ways represented a dividing line that separated how things were before and how they will be. And the phrase sayo-de-arunaraba, which was eventually shortened to sayonara, encapsulated the many feelings and emotions of how things used to be (prior to parting) and how things will be after the parting.
This animation is unsettling, and yet cute at the same time, and somehow manages to end on a very upbeat note. Still, if you’re easily prone to body-horror, you might want to skip it.
Finally, it’s National Puppy Day so go look at these dogs. Look. At. THE. DOGS (The Atlantic)
(Bonus dog; he’s no longer really a puppy, but still acts like one, our Toy Poodle, Bazby. If you want to know where his name came from, download my book from the Project Updates section above!)
Endnote
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