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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: Despair is contagious. There’s a lot of it going around. For a good time, call…
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Published: Apr 22, 2020
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Pandemic: Dispatches and Essentials
The Stanford marshmallow experiment was a 1972 study on delayed gratification. In this study, 32 children were offered a choice between one marshmallow or pretzel or two marshmallows or pretzels if they waited for 15 minutes. Then the researcher left the room. In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who were able to wait longer tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment, etc.
Later research found that kids had very different reasons for postponing gratification. Self-control alone couldn’t overcome economic and social disadvantages. “Poverty can lead people to opt for short-term rather than long-term rewards; the state of not having enough can change the way people think about what’s available now. In other words, a second marshmallow seems irrelevant when a child has reason to believe that the first one might vanish.”
You have already grasped why I’m telling this story. By an overwhelming margin, Americans are delaying gratification, choosing life, self-isolating. In the South and Southwest, governors are urging their residents to gobble everything in sight. I’m reminded of this:
Melissa Berman makes a key point: “We are seeing a lot of photos of imbeciles out in crowds making a ruckus because they refuse to accept reality. But what we don’t see is all of us who are at home.” Yes. And good for us. Now the question is: Will the suckers in the red states bet there are only 5 bullets in the virus gun — and, if they’re wrong, cause a second wave of the virus? And if they do, will it spread to us — will there be absolutely no reward for doing the right thing?
INTRODUCING HELEN KORNBLUTH’S WEBSITE, KORNOFFTHECOB.COM
Helen Kornbluth bit the obstetrician’s finger — twice — on March 9, 2002, and it’s been pretty much like that ever since. As Butler lifers know, I developed an interest in children’s books and children’s movies soon after I launched in 2004. I never wrote about anything we hadn’t used and liked, and I often shared Helen’s opinions, which were as tart as they were smart. In this way, Butler readers watched her grow up. She was “the child,” then “the small person,” and then “the young adult.” Privately, the description has never changed: “favorite person in the world.”
Now Helen is 18, soon to not graduate at a Manhattan school that closed down a few days before Spring Break. There’s something else she’s missing: the internship she scored for the April/May semester called Bridge — essentially, a smart way to get an entire class of college-bound, almost-out-the door achievers out of school before they infect juniors and sophomores with the don’t-give-a-shit virus. Helen had scored a dream internship in the video production unit of iHeart. Even if all she did there was get coffee, she’d be meeting the people she wants to know and work with.. later.
No internship? (If you’re thinking “What a privileged/First World tragedy,” back up the truck. You never lost graduation. You knew where you’d be after. And you were once 18, right?) Helen had two choices: invent a project or attend a bunch of school-sponsored Zoom seminars. Helen is welded to her devices, but not to Zoom. To say nothing of seminars. So… a project.
It’s called kornoffthecob.com.
The school approved her proposal, with me as her supervisor. Which made a kind of sense: her site as a chip off the old blockhead, Head Butler Jr. That is a laughable idea. The key word in the name of her site is “off.” I supervised nothing. She rejected my offer to pay for the building of the site; she built it herself on a free platform. My request to see the site before it launched was rejected. All of this delights me: Helen can still bite a finger.
The idea of the site, she says, is to showcase influencers and creators. You may not care about her music offering, which is impeccable: Mack Miller. But just look at her interview with Karina, a Toronto-based artist who sells her work on bangeroo. It’s not an interview, as old media defines it. It’s a conversation. The 18-year-old and the 24-year-old know the same music, and not just “Yes, I like him too,” but specific songs, specific lyrics. There’s no way this kind of intimate connection can be faked. And once it’s established, the conversation turns useful to the kids who follow Helen: What kind of tablet do you work on? What apps do you use? This is sharing, not marketing. And sharing as if no one is watching and listening.
There are two ways to access the interview. Go to the site. There’s a drop-down bar on the upper right corner that works on any browser. It says INTERVIEWS. Click. Or — this is easier — go direct. The sound is soft in the beginning, but it gets stronger. And so do they.
Fathers can be bores on the subject of their daughters. I’ll spare you. But I will ask a favor. Despite the fact that Head Butler readers represent a psychographic Helen avoids — she has resisted black-and-white films on Turner Classics all her life and suffered permanent trauma during the obligatory 40-minute concert at Preservation Hall in New Orleans — it would be terrific if you would subscribe to her newsletter. I mean: by the hundreds. Just to jam her signals. Just to let her know that her too-late-for-early-onset father actually has friends, even if they’re mostly virtual and might like him a lot less if they knew him the way she does.
LET’S TAKE A TRIP
Katsura was built as a residence for Prince Hachijo no Miya Toshihito (1579-1629). But “residence” doesn’t convey the high esthetic quality of this retreat. It looks as if the buildings have been set in an exquisite natural park. In fact, there is nothing natural about Katsura — everything about the place is as carefully staged as a play. Streams were re-routed, landscapes shaped. Tea houses that look almost raw in their simplicity are made from the rarest of timber.
Here’s how extreme the planning went: Most palaces face south, but Katsura faces southeast. Why? So residents and their privileged guests could enjoy a better view of the rising moon. This is one totally integrated fairyland.
In the middle of bustling Kyoto — the villa and gardens are a 15-minute walk from the railroad station — Katsura offers unparalleled relaxation. But by “relaxation”, we must apply a Japanese interpretation. Katsura also provides an exquisite opportunity for contemplation. To stroll the grounds is to experience a myriad of emotions, all carefully planned by its creators. “Katsura makes the eyes think.” [To read my appreciation, click here.] And… watch.
FIONA APPLE: “FETCH THE BOLT CUTTERS”
Bob Lefsetz: “This is not a record you play in the background, it demands attention. To say it’s got edges…it’s only edges! … A picture of Apple shines through. She’s her own woman. She is affected by her relationships. She’s thinking about her relationships. Men are an important focus of her life, seemingly the main focus in her life.”
[To stream it on Amazon — free for Prime members — click here.]
RINGO STARR… AND PAUL McCARTNEY?
A message from Ringo: “Just giving you all a heads up if you tune in to the Beatles YouTube channel on Saturday the 25th at 9 AM Pacific 12 noon Eastern. You are in for a big surprise and fun and peace and love.
TODAY’S CREDIBLE WISDOM
There was a Buddhist practitioner, Lam-Chung, who joined the monastery with his brother to study the Dharma. Unlike his brother, a star student, Lam-Chung quickly discovered that he had little aptitude for study, and he became very discouraged. The abbot very kindly gave Lam-Chung the task of keeping the monastery grounds swept.
Every day, working with his broom, Lam-Chung thought to himself, “Abolish the dirt, abandon the stain,” and soon began to think of abolishing the stains of negative karma in his mindstream. His daily sweeping became a daily purification practice. In this way, he became enlightened in a single lifetime.
PLEASE, GOD, NO!
from the New York Post: Testicles may make men more vulnerable to coronavirus: study
The virus attaches itself to a protein that occurs in high levels in the testicles. This protein, known as angiotensin converting enzyme 2, or ACE2, is present in the lungs, the gastrointestinal tract and the heart in addition to large quantities in the testicles. But since testicles are walled off from the immune system, the virus could harbor there for longer periods than the rest of the body, according to the study. The mother-daughter researchers said these findings may explain why women bounce back from the virus more quickly than men.
ESSENTIALS AND DISPATCHES
Everything, all in one place.
UPDATE: EO Hand Soap is available again.
UPDATE: I spoke with a NYC lung specialist. He endorses Vitamin D, but warns you not to double/triple dose. In large doses, Vitamin D becomes toxic.
