Tag: COVID-19
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The YouTube curios of COVID quarantine
I’m not sure how it started, but I got sucked into a YouTube wormhole of the videos I watched in that early-COVID quarantine phase, like: The first two especially were appointment viewing each week, because you never knew what celebrities would pop in. Then there were the virtual choirs: As with mask-wearing, I felt a…
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How ‘In the Heights’ explains the COVID era
Originally published at Cinema Sugar. Scheduled to be released in theaters June 2020, the film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical In the Heights was in the first wave of movies that were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It got pushed back a full year to June 2021, when as part of a slate of Warner…
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A COVID movie journal
As I’ve been going through my old journals and digitizing the entries—a tedious and time-consuming process that will eventually yield a much more accessible and searchable archive—it’s been fun and enlightening to rediscover things I was thinking about at any given time. Like this entry from March 10, 2020: I hadn’t seen Contagion at that…
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Six movies at the end
The small movie theater near me temporarily closed in March 2020 due to COVID, but then sadly never reopened. (The one movie I got to see there before the end was Knives Out—not bad…) Whoever closed the building for good clearly didn’t take a peek around the corner, because these movie posters are still on…
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Marveling at masks amidst the plague experience
In his latest column “Are Face Masks the New Condoms?” (paywalled), Andrew Sullivan reflects on how difficult it is to change pandemic-induced behaviors: With HIV, as with Covid, a transformation of the facts did not necessarily mean a transformation of psychology. Human psyches take time to adjust to new realities; fear and trauma have a…
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4 lessons from the Trump years
It’s been a tradition on this blog since its inception to do a kind of presidential postmortem for the outgoing commander-in-chief (see Bush and Obama), assessing both the political takeaways and my personal life during their administration. (I planned to publish this on Inauguration Day, but as the actual end date of the Trump administration…
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Mitigating 2020 tarnished legacies is our reality
Magazine mashup from American Libraries, Jan/Feb 2021. More mashups here.
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Send everyone all your vibe
Magazine mashup from the Shutterfly 2020 Cards & Gifts catalog. More mashups here.
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American Virus-Response Solutions
Magazine mashups from American Libraries, September/October 2020
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Playing havoc
Jay Rosen, writing back in May about the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19, remains accurate: To wing it without a plan is merely the best this government can do, given who heads the table. The manufacture of confusion is just the ruins of Trump’s personality meeting the powers of the presidency. There is no genius…
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Refer Madness: Various Vignettes
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy stories from the library reference desk. Since transitioning to a new position at work last year, I’m no longer on the reference desk. (Also the library is currently closed due to COVID-19, so there’s that.) But I didn’t want to let my list of ideas for this…
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Songs for Singin’
The Okee Dokee Brothers (probably my favorite band right now) are releasing their new two-disc album Songs for Singin’ two months early “so families can listen to some positive tunes while they stay home.” The first single is “Hope Machine”, a jaunty tune that was written before COVID-19 but still pointedly speaks to the current…
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Toddler view askew
We really try to keep our smartphones away from Mr. 13 Months. He’s elated when he does get his hands on one—usually just for photos or FaceTime—but then turns into Ring Withdrawal Bilbo when we take it away from him. And when he seizes the reins during FaceTime, he generates footage shakier than a Bourne…
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Homeworking, day one
Thanks to COVID-19, today was my first day working from home. (That’s my new makeshift workspace above, squished into the space between the closet and extra bed in our guest room. I’ve since added a second work laptop.) My library is closed to the public indefinitely, along with most everything else, but as my work…
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We’re in this together
Via Kottke, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom’s opening remarks at today’s media briefing on COVID-19 officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Despite the alarm that word may raise raises, Adhanom concluded his remarks with some wise words: Let me give you some other words that matter much more, and that are much more actionable. Prevention. Preparedness. Public…