“Meaning everyone”
In The New York Times, Virginia Heffernan writes about attending virtual Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the time of the coronavirus.
“Pathogen Resistance”
Today’s xkcd is beautiful and moving and hopeful.
Hair and what to do with it
The perfect tool for giving yourself a uniformly short haircut, the Remington ShortCut Pro Self-Haircut Kit, is sold out at the manufacturer’s website and Amazon.
Margaret Atwood on pandemics
“So here we are again”: Margaret Atwood writes about pandemics and this pandemic.
Adults? Anyone?
The adults in the room must step forward — or, if necessary, leave the room — and tell the truth, plainly and clearly. There’s too much at stake.
“Opening up”
Donald Trump* just acknowledged that medical experts do not agree with his idea of “opening up” the country just weeks from now. The mind blanks at the glare, as Philip Larkin wrote.
As if 9 were 15
If six days have already gone by, why does Mike Pence continue to say “fifteen days to slow the spread” and not “we now have only nine days”? Instead of urgency, we get a special blend of stupidity and dishonesty.
Poor Dr. Fauci
Now with music.
“Life was never normal”
Mark Hurst: “Life was never normal, and life certainly isn’t normal now. I’m going to wash hands, sit at home behind this screen, and get on with creating good online. And we will get through this.”
Blinks
I think that Deborah Birx is blinking out a coded message from the podium this morning.
Six of them
Asshats.
Social-distancing Q. & A.
“How to Practice Social Distancing,” questions from The New Yorker, answers from Asaf Bitton, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
A movement for these times
It’s #StayTheFuckHome. Not a joke. With twelve guidelines, in order of increasing difficulty and effectiveness.
Store talk
“Go and buy. Enjoy it. Have a nice dinner. Relax”: Donald Trump*.
“Not a snow day”
“The only strategies that can get us off this concerning trajectory are those that enable us to work together as a community to maintain public health by staying apart.”
Flattening the curve
“If people are less mobile and interact with each other less, the virus has fewer opportunities to spread.”
130, 130
Driving on Illinois Route 130 yesterday, Elaine and I listened to Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 130.
A Sonny Rollins interview
“This world is not what it’s cracked up to be”: Sonny Rollins, interviewed for The New York Times.
“What the future is for”
From Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
Another circuit
Cf. the Chitlin ’ Circuit.
No deal
Donald Trump’s fixation on making deals, great deals, betrays a mindset that has no room for the deep truth of what it means to be human. Because to be human is, finally, to lose. Every hand is a losing hand; every life, a losing proposition.
Helping the Bahamas
The New York Times has a list of organizations accepting donations.
Found in an old pocket notebook
Two details from a talk by Eva Kor.
A compliment
“I see the two of you walking all the time. You both slimmed up tremendous.”
Shade
Oh, look, it’s shade, the only shade in the parking lot.
OUZO in the morning
A clue in this past Saturday’s Newsday crossword, “Spirit in Cyprus,” made me remember a moment from my grad-student days.
Eva Kor (1934–2019)
I remember vividly something Eva said to a group of east-central Illinoisans visiting her museum: “Never give up.”
The challenge and responsibility of personhood
John Green: “The challenge and responsibility of personhood, it seems to me, is to recognize personhood in others, to listen to others’ pain and take it seriously, even when you yourself cannot feel it.”
Islands for sale
“I thought I would have great thoughts out here.”
Spotted on a walk
A lost leopard cub.