COVID
Feel free to skip this category (I know we’ve maybe all read too much on the topic), but here were some of my favorite pieces about the crisis, which are not 100% doom-and-gloom:
“In Veep’s coronavirus episode, Selena Meyer would be… competent?” (Vulture): For fellow fans the White House parody, one former show writer penned a plot summary of what would have happened in the coronavirus episode. It provides some much-needed humor.
“We put too many people behind bars. This pandemic shows why that’s not necessary.” (Mother Jones): I wonder if one of the interesting ramifications of the pandemic will be whether we stop over-policing? (Then again, violently racist policing hasn’t stopped…)
“Hotel Corona” [PODCAST EPISODE] (Rough Translation): I know that in the US, the pandemic has shown the socioeconomic divide more than it’s been an equalizer. But this is a story of how, in one building in normally-divided Jerusalem, it has managed to create community. All the warm and fuzzy feels.
So many Planet Money episodes. Honestly, I felt like the podcast team was hitting a bit of a wall pre-corona, but its coverage of COVID issues has been spectacular. I particularly enjoyed “The Mask Mover,” “Making it Work”, “Buybacks and Bailouts”, and “J Screwed.”
“I tried hypnosis to deal with my coronavirus pandemic anxiety, and got something much weirder” (Vice): I know, this title/story is so Vice, but I fell for it. And honestly, it provided me with an entertaining read that was sort of akin to watching reality TV. I was fascinated by what people think they will get from “past life regression” (when a hypnotist helps you “remember” your past lives) and the techniques used to get patients to this kind of suggestible state. I also found it fascinating that they draw this clear moral red line against helping patients “remember” occurrences from this lifetime, as it’s been proven that people can easily fool themselves into false memories. (The strength of belief and the delicacy of memory are topics I could read about endlessly.)
GOOD THINGS COME IN… PAIRS 👯♀️
Here are pieces I read that I think are better together, than apart:
Whale song: Invisibilia’s “Two Beats a Minute” discusses how machine learning might help us decipher whales’ language. Then, the first half of 99% Invisible’s “The Natural Experiment” discussed how whale researchers will be able to listen to how whale song/communications might change when the animals are not constantly navigating around noisy cruise ships in Alaska.
Swimming extremes: Men’s Health’s “What it feels like to compete at the biggest ice swimming race in North America” is a joyous romp with a band of crazy misfits (think: Hash runners crossed with ultramarathon runners). And Hakai Magazine’s “Born to Swim” takes a look at the physiological research on the Bajau sea nomads in Indonesia, including what makes humans capable of free-diving and whether it has evolutionary roots. (I have literally never given my spleen so much thought. I also never considered that humans, unlike other primates, have a layer of fat under our skin, like marine animal blubber.)
Death and invincibility: Perhaps more of us are contemplating our mortality now than ever before. And perhaps that’s why these twin stories were particularly interesting to me: Invisibilia’s “The Reluctant Immortalist” (about a scientist who discovered a small creature that the scientific community believes to be immortal) and Outside Magazine’s “The frontier couple who chose death over life apart” (about end-of-life decisions and the beauty/pain of getting to decide when enough is enough).
THE (POLITICAL) SHOW MUST GO ON
“The agonizing story of Tara Reade” (Vox): The journalist-author learns of the Tara Reade story a year ago, but didn’t find enough to corroborate a story that, perhaps unfortunately, requires an insane burden of proof in order for the public to believe. Regardless of whether you believe the accusations, I find the actual journalistic ethics of the story interesting. When do you publish this kind of accusation? What the burden of proof needed? Is that right?
“Putin is well on his way to stealing the next election” (Atlantic): Like many Americans (and others), I’ve been reading bits and bobs about Russian interference, but this article lays things out in a stark, startling way that frankly, freaked me out a little. If 2016 was just Russia “casing the joint,” what will the 2020 elections bring?
SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIES
My partner Werner and I have brought back an old South African tradition from his youth: Sunday night movies at 8pm (previously shown on MNET, now streamed from Netflix). As a result, I’ve been watching more movies than usual and these two have been my favorites:
Dark Waters: A based-on-a-true-story movie on Dupont chemicals, Teflon, and the awful inadequacy of “self-regulation”
The Peanut Butter Falcon: A feel-good, laugh-out-loud indie movie, from the same writers/directors who brought the world Little Miss Sunshine
LONGER THAN LONG FORM (aka BOOKS)
I’ve read five books in a row that I’ve quite liked:
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens: Not even going to explain since everyone seems to have read it
Running with Sherman by Christopher McDougall: This was actually on the plane ride back from Ecuador, and it was the perfect, page-turning delight. From the same author who wrote Born to Run (which led both barefoot running and ultrarunning to take off), an older (and thankfully less bro-ish) McDougall decides to rehabilitate an adopted, formally maltreated donkey by teaching it to run.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (h/t Netta): This book is a bit like a twisted modern Cinderella story, but where happy endings don’t really exist, and where Cinderella is actually a pair of siblings, and the book is about their bond to each other and to their childhood. That’s a very bad explanation, and mostly it’s because the plot doesn’t really matter (and is actually pretty dull). Instead, it’s all about the characters, who come to life and are so fully and clearly drawn that you inhabit their lives and world incredibly easily. I could barely put it down; despite long workdays, I finished it in 3 days flat.
And two books by Mexican authors:
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli: This great-American-road-trip book was on just about every Top 10 Books of 2019 list, so I was determined to finish it, but not gonna lie: it was a bit of a slog. That said, I 100% understand why it’s so critically acclaimed. It’s one of those novels that’s also a set of random philosophical essays, that “samples” from other famous literature/essays in a way you might see in music (songs sampling other songs) but is rarely done in books. It also shape-shifts. About 70% of the way through, it switches gears, from the slow meandering rhythm of a Richard Linklater movie, to a plot-driven adventure story. And the ending was just so perfect that I was tempted to read it again, this time knowing where Luiselli was going. I very rarely feel this way about endings, but it was absolutely perfect.
The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia: A Mexican magical-realist fable about a strange orphan boy who gets adopted by a wealthy farming family in northern Mexico, with the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, Spanish Flu, and socialist/agrarian reforms. It’s supremely well done. It manages to create the same feeling (bewitching righteousness?) that great fables bestow on children, but in an adult audience. The plot moves at a quick pace. At the same time, there’s an interesting political/philosophical undercurrent: You’re made to root for the wealthy landowner, but also morally compromised for doing so.