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 there, only a damaged human being playing havoc with our lives.
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 series languish, so here are a few short vignettes from desk shifts past.
1. A woman told me of sending a picture of a painting she made to a friend, to which the friend replied “It’s not my taste.” “I think she’s a bitch,” the woman said. She goes on about how she thinks the friend is jealous, and that she’s not sure what she’s getting out of this friendship. She’s more disappointed than anything. The friend is very rich but her other friends were nice about the painting.
2. An older woman who’s a regular patron from eastern Europe told me about her son, who’s a physicist: “…but you wouldn’t believe how much asshole he is.” After I helped her with her question, she said, “Thank you. What a country.”
3. The dad who wanted to check out Scythe so he could keep up with what his teen daughter was reading.
4. The dad taking note of titles on the New Books shelf for when his kids are older and he can read for pleasure again: “I don’t want to miss any good ones.”
5. A regular asked for recommendations for movies about psychopaths. I rattled off a few that came to mind, which she was grateful for but also replied, “You’re eerie…”
6. The nerdy 10-year-old kid who was so excited to find books on the subjects he loved: baseball and Star Wars.
7. The teen girl talking to her dad on the way out of the library: “I texted Kelly to ask if she wanted me to pick her up a book from the library and she said ‘You’re funny; I’m watching Netflix.'”
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 moment:
Loved these lines:
Talk quiet and listen loud
Teach humble and learn proud
Scuffle with the struggle
And wrestle with the pain
There’s lots more sophisticated and pithy life advice that’s both timely and timeless tucked into a song supposedly written just for kids. But that’s the Okee Dokee Brothers for you.
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 movie, with occasional unflattering but funny shots of his chubby face from below.
Yesterday, though, while on the move with phone in hand, he accidentally opened the camera and managed to take a series of photos documenting his short trip from the hallway to the guest room:
Look at that natural progression from dark to light and from blurry to focused. Perhaps it’s meant to reinterpret common household fixtures in the abstract with askew angles as a comment on our uncertain post-COVID-19 world?
When reached for comment, he said, “*incomprehensible toddler babble*”
Genius!
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 mostly happens online I can continue relatively unaffected.
A few days ago I joked that my life isn’t going to change much because all I do is go to work and come home. Thanks to Mr. Almost 13 Months, we don’t travel or have much of a social life. The biggest change will be adjusting my schedule with an active toddler around. But I’m excited for more time with him and my wife and for a much shorter commute.
I feel extremely fortunate to (1) still have a job (2) that I can do from home and (3) will continued to be paid for. I know that’s not the case for many, many people.
Stay strong. 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 health.
Political leadership.
And most of all, people.
We’re in this together, to do the right things with calm and protect the citizens of the world. It’s doable.
Burn this into bronze: We’re in this together, to do the right things with calm and protect the citizens of the world. It’s doable.