With physical distancing the order of the day as COVID-19 spreads, cultural locales — sites for communal experiences, like museums and theaters — are emptying out. What are we sharing if we’re not sharing these spaces? And were we really sharing them to begin with?
Current Events
Posted inCurrent Events, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘This Thing Grinds You Like a Mortar’: How Jessica Lustig is Fighting Coronavirus
‘“You shouldn’t stay here,” he says, but he gets more frightened as night comes, dreading the long hours of fever and soaking sweats and shivering and terrible aches.’
Posted inCurrent Events, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
COVID-19: Dispatches from Sing Sing
“Sing Sing was going into quarantine. Our movement was limited. No gym. Hospital and commissary runs limited to groups of ten. Staggered seating in the mess hall.”
Posted inBusiness & Tech, Current Events, Highlight, Nonfiction
What Does a Post-Apocalyptic Gated Community Look Like?
For wealthy Americans, a dystopian future includes underground golfing in South Dakota.
Posted inBooks, Commentary, Culture, Current Events, History, Nonfiction, Science & Nature
This Week in Books: This Moment Doesn’t Remind Me of Anything
Lawrence Wright did it again; Jordan Peterson in a coma?; Myriam Gurba forced out of her job; Woody Allen canceled by his publisher’s employees; THE VIRUS; and more.
Posted inCurrent Events, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Coronavirus Could End Trump’s Chance at Reelection, But Things Are Too Terrifying Right Now To Feel Hopeful
One Republican offers a ray of light during these dark times: That this pandemic will end the Trump presidency.
Posted inNonfiction
The Strange and Dangerous World of America’s Big Cat People
A headline-grabbing murder-for-hire plot helped expose the dark side of exotic animal ownership in the U.S. Is there now enough momentum to reform the industry?
Posted inCurrent Events, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
An Unenviable Week of Firsts in Seattle Under COVID-19
“We didn’t know it yet, but we were living in a kind of laboratory of the country’s future. We were the first.”
Posted inNonfiction
A Crying Public Shame
Dialogue, Twitter-style: you get called out on social media. People pile on to you. Other people pile on to the pile-oners. Soon everyone’s anxious or angry or both, no one’s really talking (or listening), and a few tech CEOs are buying new houses in Jackson Hole.
Posted inReading List
This Month in Books: The Decameron Is Online
We can all quarantine alone, together, in one big villa in the cloud.