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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: “I need to get out more,” plus Easter music so fabulous a 17th century Pope kept it for himself
By
Published: Apr 10, 2020
Category:
Pandemic: Dispatches and Essentials
CAPTION: Alice Glass, a Head Butler reader, is an out of work theatre artist in Berkeley, now making high quality masks with a filter pocket. She wrote me: “I’m a one-woman operation. I don’t have super high volume, but I would love the boost.” You gave her a boost: 100 masks sold, so far. These are some of them. Available on etsy.
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The line outside Costco is orderly, masked, distanced — these are model citizens. But the line is long and the wait is longer, so although Costco is just a hundred yards from home, I get in the car. Five blocks away is a suburb-worthy market. With Costco etiquette outside: although only 15 people can shop at a time, the line is short, masked, distanced.
I’m assessing degrees of hotness of the salsa in the tomato/pasta aisle when a woman appears next to me. Late 30s. White. Chubby. Wearing a mask, but it’s pulled down, it’s now a paper necklace. I say, “Excuse me, but you’re not distancing. And you should be wearing that mask.”
I know, I can have a “tone” problem. But I’ll call my tone here “surprised.”
Her tone is sharper. She says, “Fuck off.” And she moves on.
I think: Hang back. Don’t run into her again.
Now I’m at the end of the aisle, maybe ten feet from checkout. There she is again. With her boyfriend. He’s about 40. Large. Unmasked. Black.
“That him?” he says.
She nods.
“Fuckin’ white boy,” he says. “I …”
I do not say what I think: “Listen, asshole, your fat girlfriend is sashaying through the market endangering everyone’s life — and you’re not wearing a mask, either.”
Instead, I say, “I want to stay alive — and I want you to stay alive.”
The first part of that is just what he expects from a fuckin’ white boy. He’s not accustomed to hearing the second part from a fuckin’ white boy. He decides not to pound the shit out of me in front of three clerks and a dozen shoppers.
On the street, loading my car, I notice that there are more people not wearing masks. Driving home, I see more. This is not a large sampling, but unlike the Costco shoppers, who were middle-class and mostly white yesterday afternoon, these unmasked strollers are mostly African-American.
I’m thinking now of what my friend P, a media executive, said when the unemployment numbers started to pinball last week: “Americans are more afraid of losing their jobs than losing their lives.”
Last week, texting from our comfortable homes as we fielded invitations to competing Zoom cocktail parties, I agreed. And chalked it up to white privilege — we’re okay, and are likely to continue to be — and a media-induced inability to comprehend reality: in movie after movie, the hero kills a trillion bad guys and barely gets a scratch. Mark Knopfler saw it more clearly: “Even the hero takes a bullet in the chest.”
Today, I’m thinking about my fellow residents of East Harlem, and I have a different insight. The jerk in the supermarket … think he never got arrested? Never had a friend die young? Never saw an uninsured friend or relative die for lack of medicine or care?
That guy has been looking into the barrel of death all his life.
A lot of what’s happening now — the Supreme Court becoming the bitch of the Republican Party, the banks that somehow can’t dispense government-guaranteed money to small businesses, the grift in the Oval Office — still shocks this white boy. My African American antagonist may not be up on the headlines, but I suspect he knows the news. And how the story ends: He’s gonna get fucked. “New normal?” Bullshit. Same as it ever was.
I woke this morning to an email from a publicist I don’t know: “With Easter this weekend and a lot of us stocked up with food and stuck in confinement, this could lead to indulgence and ‘unhealthy’ food intake. Snacking and overeating may feel great at the time, however it might just throw you off track from your regular eating routine and diet.” I don’t blame her. I know, like everyone, she’s doing the best she can.
Different world, different facts. Like these:
Even before the current economic crisis, the Federal Reserve found that four in 10 American adults did not have the savings or other resources to cover an unexpected $400 expense.
In New York City, where more than 19 billion pounds of food are distributed under normal circumstances, and the virus poses an enormous test to the system, 49 percent of respondents to a recent Siena College poll in the city said they were concerned about being able to afford food.
Easy to say: The “haves” need to do more. I feel this acutely. Always have. And I often spend time brainstorming. That’s an elite, privileged activity. Right now I think I need to get out more.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES!
Yesterday’s headline: Federal Support Ends For Coronavirus Testing Sites As Pandemic Peak Nears
Today’s headline: In Reversal, Federal Support For Coronavirus Testing Sites Continues
REMEMBER THOSE RUSSIAN TRUCKS DELIVERING “AID” TO ITALY? A RUSSIAN TROJAN HORSE
From La Stampa: “There is documentary evidence of suggestions put forward by La Stampa proving that 80% of Russian aid sent to Italy is, in fact, useless, while troops deployed are…also intelligence operatives, spec-ops officers, and military chemists.”
TODAY’S MUSIC: “MISERERE”
Allegri’s masterpiece, performed by the Tallis Scholars
Rome. Easter Week, hundreds of years ago. The Matins service at the Vatican. 3 AM. Twenty-seven candles are lit. One at a time, they’re extinguished. One candle left. The Pope kneels before the altar and starts to pray.
Music begins. And what music! The words are familiar: Psalm 51, David’s account of his affair with Bathsheba and his plea to God: “Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me.” It’s the choral work that stuns. Sweeping harmonies for the choir. A top C sung by a single castrato. And, connecting them, the simplest of chants. It is such exquisite music that one of the 17th century Popes decided it should be played only on Wednesday and Good Friday of Holy Week, and only in the Sistine Chapel. No one dared to copy it —– the penalty was excommunication.
And then? Mozart, 12 years old, came to Rome, and… click here.
MY TWITTER FEED
Connie Schultz (columnist, wife of Sherrod Brown — and teacher): “At the end of every Zoom session with my students, I tell them I won’t hang up until each of them has vanished from the screen. ‘I just want to see your faces,’ I say. Their shy smiles as they wave good-bye stay with me, like scribbled notes after a happy dream.”
ROGER SHERMAN, PHOTO DETECTIVE
Roger Sherman makes prize-winning documentaries, one after another. He’s not shooting now. He did the usual household projects. Then he turned his attention to his 2,000 iPhone pictures. Where did he take them? He started to look.. and connected the dots. Take a trip with him here.
TODAY’S ESSENTIAL
Organic Aloe Vera Gel Original Lavender
Let it never come to this. But just in case, consider getting this, posted by a woman who nursed her husband back to health: “Along with the fever he had something we had not read about: sensitive skin. His skin felt like it was burning – even when he barely had a fever of 99+ We literally used aloe gel for sunburn to soothe it. The NP later told us she had heard others say that too.”
ESSENTIALS AND DISPATCHES: everything, all in one place. Click here.
TODAY’S HERO: JACK DORSEY, CEO OF TWITTER
from Yahoo News:
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey just raised the bar for the ultra-rich when it comes to donating to Covid-19 relief efforts. The billionaire has pledged to use $1 billion from his stake in Square Inc. to help fight and treat the global pandemic.
The tech entrepreneur announced on Tuesday that his gift, which represents over a quarter of his $3.89 billion personal fortune, would be used to start the Start Small fund. Any money left over after the pandemic will be donated to girls’ health and education charities and to the campaign to expand universal basic income.
TODAY’S POEM
Jane Kenyon, “Otherwise”
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
LATE NIGHT
Barber, “Agnus Dei” (arr. Adagio for Strings), Rotterdam Symphony Chorus
