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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: Giving The Finger To “Time To Meditate… Slow Down… Reflect”

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Apr 06, 2020
Category: Pandemic: Dispatches and Essentials

I’ve pretty much had it with rich white people who describe this catastrophe as an opportunity for personal growth and rich white people who are launching websites for writers to share their experiences because “We found time. Let’s spend it together.”

I understand the desire to serve. And the need to push away or acknowledge or share fear and panic. But after all you have to do each day, do you have extended time to go inward? Or are you like me…busy?

In Craig Lambert’s landmark profile of Harry Parker, the legendary Harvard crew coach, he writes about the unique brevity of Harvard crew practices:

Workouts at Harvard are extremely efficient, tightly organized affairs. While Brown trains three or more hours daily, a typical Harvard practice lasts 90 minutes. Says Tom Tiffany ’71, coxswain and co-captain of the 1971 varsity, “The idea is: `We’re doing this just a little bit better than anyone else because there are other things we have to do.’ You won’t have to give up your academic aspirations because you row.”

Update: We have somehow figured out that we don’t have to give up our aspirations because we have people who need us, homes to disinfect, children to educate and comfort, and more, and more.

Update: We just might already be rowing stroke on the Harvard varsity.

Today’s photo (above) is of my book table. On it you’ll see maybe half of the books I sourced for my JFK/Mary Meyer book. They now form a tower in the corner of my living room. Replacing them: four stacks of books — 61, so far — that are source material for my new book. I need to go through them, make a briefing book, create a timeline — and start writing. I was about to do that in mid-March. Now I curate daily pandemic posts. Because I too want to be — need to be — useful.

Another way I can be useful: curate Butler more efficiently so I can write a book that has everything to do and nothing to do with what’s happening now. And if I do that right, I believe I can spook a publisher who’s sick of the millionth plague manuscript into paying me a fortune. And then I can give some of my windfall — ideally, a lot of it — to people who will need it much more.

I’ve wondered why I haven’t cried yet. At all. This morning, when I had my weekly call with my therapist, who’s just endured ten days of the virus, I suddenly understand when I will. The crisis will have passed. I’ll be well into my book. I’ll step into her house and hug her. Then, because I’m so relieved, I’ll shed tears.

Until then, I’m busy.

And I wish the same for you.

NEED FACE MASKS?
Go to etsy.

“JOY COMES AT SEVEN”
David Remnick, in The New Yorker. This is how his piece ends:

Joy comes at seven. (Or is it sheer catharsis?) Every evening, in many neighborhoods across the city, cheering breaks out, the way it would when the Yankees clinched another World Series title. It spills from the stoops and the sidewalks, from apartment windows and rooftops, for all the nurses, orderlies, doctors, E.M.T.s––everyone who cannot shelter in place and continues to go about healing the people of the city….

These next weeks and months will be demanding in ways that are hard to fathom. If New Yorkers are in hiding, the virus has shown a knack for seeking. But, with time, life will return to the city. Our city and your city. The doors will open and we will leave our homes. We will meet again. We will greet our friends, face to face, at long-delayed Easter services and Passover Seders. Children will attend class with their teachers. Sidewalks and stores and theatres will fill. Remnants of the crisis—a box of nitrile gloves, a bag of makeshift masks; containers of drying Clorox wipes—will be tucked away, out of sight and out of mind. We’ll forget a lot about our city’s suspended life. But we will remember what, and who, we lost. We’ll remember the cost of time squandered. And we will remember the sound of seven o’clock.

YESTERDAY’S TRUMP SHOW IN 40 WORDS (YOU’RE WELCOME)
from Twitter: Media sucks, states are lying, IC Inspector General was a DISGRACE, Ukraine call was perfect, fake whistleblower, sham impeachment Captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt sucks; it’s his and his crew’s own fault they got the Rona. *sniff* HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE!! ZPAK!!

“WHAT’S THE POINT OF HAVING A SHOWMAN FOR A PRESIDENT IF HE CAN’T PUT ON THE RIGHT KIND OF SHOW?”
Frank Bruni, in the Times:

He’s not rising to the challenge before him, not even a millimeter. He’s shriveling into nothingness.

On Friday, when Trump relayed a new recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that all Americans wear face masks in public places, he went so far out of his way to stress that the coverings were voluntary and that he himself wouldn’t be going anywhere near one that he might as well have branded them Apparel for Skittish Losers. I’ve finally settled on his epitaph: “Donald J. Trump, too cool for the coronavirus.”

This is more than a failure of empathy, which is how many observers have described his deficiency. It’s more than a failure of decency, which has been my go-to lament. It’s a failure of basic humanity.

TODAY’S HERO: JOSÉ ANDRÉS
Famed chef José Andrés promises doctors and nurses will eat free at his restaurants for a year
This is my promise! My mom and dad, and uncle, and godmother were nurses, doctors, pharmacist! When I reopen my restaurants, I hope I will, every active Doctor and Nurse will eat for free for the rest of the year!

TODAY’S MUSIC
Bill Withers (1938 – March 30, 2020), “Stand by Me”

MICHAEL ATKINSON: TRUMP FIRED ME BECAUSE I HANDLED A WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT PROPERLY
from Politico: “It is hard not to think that the President’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General,” Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general said, “and from my commitment to continue to do so. It is hard not to think that the President’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations…”

TODAY’S POEM: DONALD HALL
from my Head Butler review:
In 1972, while teaching at the University of Michigan, Hall married Jane Kenyon, one of his students, 19 years his junior, A few years later, he quit teaching and they moved to his family’s farm in New Hampshire. He endured her depressions, adored her mind and libido; they were a great match. In 1989, Hall was diagnosed with colon cancer, which metastasized to his liver. Although he went into remission, he had no illusions that he would live long. So it was, as you may imagine, quite the stunner when Jane died. He wrote often about his wife. My favorite is a haiku:

You think that their
dying is the worst
thing that could happen.
Then they stay dead.

In another poem, Hall defines what life demands: “Work, love, build a house, and die. But build a house.”

MY TWITTER FEED
ALBERT BROOKS: When I’m feeling worried and stressed I simply ask myself: “What would Jared Kushner do?”
JASMINNE MENDEZ: I just need it to be known that if I catch this virus and I die (which is likely given my preexisting conditions) that I have no regrets in this life. I have lived a full life. I have loved. I have a family. I wrote and published things. I taught and inspired others. I advocated for those who are too often silenced. I used my voice to tell the stories that needed to be told. I persevered in the face of illness. I took chances. I dared to dream dreams Afro-Latinx girls are told not to dream. I have no regrets. I have lived a good life.
JASON DIAMOND: Eating a bagel. Wearing a Sandy Koufax jersey. Complaining about things. Listening to “Graceland.” I’ve hit peak Jewish guy.
MOLLIE KATZEN: If in fact there really is a Deep State tasked with bringing down the Trump regime, it sure sucks at it.
MICHAEL McKEAN: Possible December release announced for “1917 2: The Next Shot.”
BRADLEY WHITFORD: Hey, I wear makeup for a living too and I hear Sudafed and Diet Coke cures colon cancer.

ESSENTIALS
Forgive me, but I ordered the “lounge pants.” For supplements, creams, and other possibly necessary items, click here.

TRUMP IS VISITED BY THREE GHOSTS
Early in the night, FDR appears.

Trump asks him how can he make America great again.

FDR replies, “Think only of the people; do not make laws based on hatred, bigotry, or with thoughts of lining your own pockets.”
Trump’s face sours, and he yells, “FAKE NEWS!”

A few hours later he is awakened by George Washington’s ghost.
Trump asks, “How can I make America great again?”
Washington replies, “I would suggest you never tell a lie.”
This infuriates Trump even more.

Around three in the morning, he is visited by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
Again, he asks, “How can I make America great again?”
Lincoln responds, “Go to the theater.”

GLOBAL RADIO
A friend writes: “Listening to Radio Garden presents many such opportunities for learning about the peculiarities of foreign cultures, and the extent to which they have embraced the accordion. It is a website — conveniently located at radio.garden — that allows users to tune in to live radio around the world. That sounds very simple, and in one sense, it is very simple. The interface is basic and easy to use: Spin the 3-D globe, click on a glowing green dot that represents a city or small town, and choose a radio station. In just seconds, you can go from Klaksvik to Yamoussoukro, the capital of Ivory Coast, where at 10:45 a.m. local time that same day, a station called Radio de la Paix was playing a Francophone cover of “Chimes of Freedom,” also heavy on the accordion.”

LATE NIGHT: MARK KNOPFLER, “PUNISH THE MONKEY”
From one of the most enjoyable interviews on Head Butler:

JK: “Punish the Monkey” — if I put a political interpretation on that song, would that be vulgar and wrong?
MK: Yes. Although from the point-of-view of politics and business, it’s accurate from the things that have happened in both our countries — they never get the guys who really do it. I try to keep this stuff out of my CDs, but it creeps in. Please make my apologies. And tell people that, next time, I really will try to record “You Are My Sunshine.”