So–it’s been a strange day, week, month, year…hell, a long strange trip, it has been.
I’ve been having a tougher than usual time–part of my cycle, in which the dive into work to ward off the current evil in all its forms relaxes just a bit, and all the rage, fear, and bitter sorrow rushes back in all at once. I’m guessing I’m not alone in that dynamic.
John’s post below didn’t help. I’m dreading what’s going to happen with the biggest industry in my damn-near-one-industry town shudders back into operation in about six weeks. We seem likely to see the return of some large fraction of the ~140,000 college students who usually show up in greater Boston, and as many of our universities and colleges draw on national pools, this is going to be fun, in exactly the opposite sense usually meant by that word. My personal good news is that I’m on sabbatical (long planned) in the fall, but my colleagues and friends are not–and the risks imposed by a resumption of on-campus activity aren’t confined to the young and self-presumptively immortal.
So it was that this rendition of a familiar song hit me in all kinds of strange ways when I encountered it for the first time early this week. Been listening to it at least once a day since. It’s just mesmerizing to me, and beautiful, and so damn sad. And I miss David Bowie. Enjoy:
Over to y’all. Open thread, though if I may suggest a theme: what are y’all doing to recenter when some large or small evil or absurdity throws you off your meta-stable equilibrium?
Also: what is it with semi-retired middle-age-and-up white guy celebrities and the beards of the prophets?
Luciamia
8pm, on CBS, having a tribute to Carl Reiner.
HumboldtBlue
I’m in no way semi-retired but I wore a Santa beard for about three years, in fact, it’s my DL photo from 2015.
My niece could never understand how I had a huge bushy snow-white beard and dark brown hair.
I just got tired of shaving while on vacation and let the chin-fro grow and it looked remarkably like Mr. Stipe’s. I technically haven’t shaved with a razor since last summer but I keep the stubble close.
And I am thankful that neither I nor my cat have to return to school in the fall.
WereBear
We don’t go too long without my rescue kittens, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, doing something to make us laugh.
They are such a comedy team.
debbie
Boy, is Stipe feeling Bowie.
Similarly, earlier today I heard Steve Forbert’s cover of the Dead’s Box of Rain. Also a feeling-ish rendition. I really need to stop listening to news all the time.
CaseyL
I just watched Hamilton, and it was even better than I expected. That’s seeing it on a computer screen; I can’t imagine what it would be like to see in person. I’d probably be a soggy mess.
What do I do to re-center when rage gets me? Something I learned years ago, in order to avoid throwing large heavy objects at my boss: get up, take some deep breaths, and go for a walk. Just get away for enough time to calm down again.
(Deep breathing is under-rated, BTW. I think there’s something about a big infusion of oxygen that simply slows down one’s pulse and relaxes the muscles. It’s not magic, it’s physiology. But it sure seems like magic.)
evap
At my private R-1 university in the south, the current plan is to have a mix of online and in-person classes in the fall with some students in the dorms. The plan is for in-person classes to be taught with students in masks and socially distanced, faculty behind a clear barrier and wearing a face shield. I was planning to teach one in-person class and one online. Given what is happening with COVID in my state, I’m expecting that this plan will be scrapped and we will go to 100% online. I’m not looking forward to it.
All of my life I have been an upbeat, happy person, but even my “happy gene” can’t cope with what’s happening in the U.S. and in the world.
JPL
Tomorrow I’m grilling some ribs, and watching Hamilton again. That’s about as much as I can take this holiday.
Leto
So I’m fully retired, at 44, and after having to shave constantly for the past 30 years (yes, I’ve been shaving since I was 14 and my ROTC instructor made me)… it’s liberating. I’m going to say that it’s probably the same feeling that a woman has when she doesn’t have to shave her legs/pits anymore. Or just doesn’t want to. After letting it get to ridiculous lengths, I whacked it back to a reasonable long length stubble and keep it neat and tidy, but fuck I just don’t want to shave anymore. Sometimes I get an itch and I break out my nice shaving kit, shave it all off, but let the cycle begin anew.
Maybe it’s also a generational thing? My grandfather shaved every day. My dad is basically the same. Me? Nah. My kid: he does while he’s in the Air Force, but during his 2 month COVID lock down, he went full cave bear. So he’ll probably be another Nah. BUT! Hit me again in, say, 10 years. Who knows?
eddie blake
i was CRUSHED when bowie died of cancer. i’d seen him more times live than any other performer.
good god, that man had TALENT.
that’s an awesome tune, one of my favorites.
Leto
@JPL: Avalune and I just finished Hamilton a little while ago. Fucking superb! I wish that I had this during my high school history classes. Kids don’t know how lucky they are! #uphillbothways
satby
I’m surrounded by morons refusing to wear masks in red Indiana, but at least the circle of people I loosely associate with wears them. I’ve become a huge fan of naps ☺, especially since we’re having a heat wave. I heartily recommend them.
Tom Levenson
@evap: I may do a post on this, just to collect plans from the multitude of academics on the blog, but MIT is pushing hard to minimize in-person interation. Any class and anything else that can be done online must be. No more than 60% UGs back in campus housing, and likely much less. Lots of testing.
MA has been improving, though we seem to be stalled at low but persistent numbers for new cases, deaths, and positivity rate. (Hospitalizations are ticking down, however, with still some pressure on ICUs.) When you bring back even a fraction of a national/international studen population, I just don’t know what will happen. Very glad to be off next term.
joel hanes
two strategies for coping :
1. Think about ways to help or comfort someone else, and do one of those things.
2.
joel hanes
@Leto:
The historians I read online kinda indicate that the music is solid, but the history a bit less so.
joel hanes
@CaseyL:
I can’t imagine what it would be like to see in person. I’d probably be a soggy mess.
I wept.
(I did not weep at Les Mis)
Villago Delenda Est
I blame Thor.
Cheryl Rofer
I ordered some things online today and picked some of them up at Target and Office Depot. Well done, at both places.
Every time I go to the store, I almost cry for what we’ve lost. It will be back someday, but we cannot predict when.
I find the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations very comforting. I play it when I particularly need comforting. Keeping with the piano is generally satisfying, but that one is particularly comforting.
Villago Delenda Est
@satby: It helps if you have a cat or dog to assist you with the nap.
joel hanes
@eddie blake:
A Bowie tune appropriate to the present circumstance
(duet with another genius)
trollhattan
Can we get a welfare check on Amir?
NotMax
Tiny spark of glee.
Ordered on June 20, have since been checking the tracking number for a package containing a replacement flessenlikker. To no avail; every check led to a dead end and it seemed to have absconded to limbo.
Until five minutes ago, when contrary to all previous information – including yesterday – it is listed as on the truck for delivery to this address today.
joel hanes
@NotMax:
flessenlikker
And there’s my new word for today.
eddie blake
@joel hanes:
lolol…that is ALSO one of my favorite books. my edition is being held together by tape and prayer, at this point.
ahh, yes. and great choice on the song. try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23IdK0yZMvE
heathen was a really good record.
NotMax
@Leto
As have been saying since my teens, there’s a host of other things I’d rather do in the morning than attack my face with a sharp object.
;)
Tom Levenson
@joel hanes: +++
Dorothy A. Winsor
@joel hanes:
The quote from White is one I hang onto too. “Learn something.” I feel better every time.
We just finished watching Hamilton too. I feel drained
ETA: There’s something relevant to that fact that Act 1 of Hamilton is about war, but it’s Act 2, about the politics of the following years, that’s the real downer.
Azelie
I think Ashes to Ashes may be my favorite Bowie song, and I love Michael Stipe being the beautiful weirdo he is in this rendition of it.
I’m at a big state uni in a state that’s definitely going in the wrong direction. We’re doing remote teaching or hybrid for all but the smallest classes. I’m trying to use this as an opportunity to really think about what is essential in my big survey class and what I’ve kept in because of habit. My optimistic approach (which isn’t necessarily natural for me – I identify strongly with Eeyore) is to try to find technological strategies that I can use in some future world where we’re meeting face to face, especially ways to have small group interaction in the giant lecture class I teach once a year.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Had never heard of a flessenlikker, so looked it up and now I want one.
:-)
Glad yours is on its way to your kitchen.
Wag
What an amazing version of that song.
What an amazing version of that song.
And I agree. What the heck is up with Michael Stipe, David Letterman, and John Stewart?
Punchy
What ever happened to Tim F.?
dexwood
@joel hanes: Mine, too, and it sounds so dirty! Now I want one.
JPL
@Cheryl Rofer: Our Publix still has rolls of empty shelves. Since GA is going the way of FL and TX, I’m going to rearrange my freezer and see what I need for the next month. The pantries are full and I have been relying on Amazon a lot. So much for shopping local.
Robby-D
@Tom Levenson: I just wanted to wish you (and everyone else here) the best.
Things will ultimately be ok for the vast majority of people – bumpier than it should, and unfortunately not ok for too many. The one thing that can keep us sane is focusing on what we have control over. Not whether schools re-open, but whether our kids are in them and who we interact with who may be. Not whether Trump is president today, but whether he still is in 2021. Not what crimes he has committed, but whether we push for those in power to investigate and prosecute. Not whether he gets away with it, but whether we learn from this to strengthen the systems and protections so a second Trump would do far less damage.
Happy 4th tomorrow everyone! Stay safe! The best of health to your body, mind, heart and soul!
eddie blake
@Wag:
they’re getting ready to audition as tevye.
Patricia Kayden
WTH?
Miss Bianca
Wow, unexpectedly lovely version of that song, tho’ I have to admit that I found Michael Stipe’s physical tics even more distracting than his beard.
As for me, the antics of my doggoes are helping me cope. It’s just impossible to give in to melancholy completely when Watson and Roxy are doing their thang.
Also, too, the antics of online doggoes like Olive and Mabel. Apparently I’m far from the only one – Andrew Cotter has a new book coming out starring Olive and Mabel!
Aleta
re: return to college
RSA
Several years ago I read a popular science piece about the neuroscience of happiness, and one of the recommendations stuck with me: Think about what I’m grateful for.
It works for me. Not right away, after a big downer of an event, but when I’m ready to think about feeling better.
NotMax
Personal all-time favorite Bowie appearance. If don’t care to watch the entire episode, jump ahead to the scene starting about 48 minutes in to get the flavor of his role.
Kristine
Loved Bowie since those first videos appeared over here, either on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert or The Midnight Special. 1973. Damn. Still miss him. I used to pick up copies of New Musical Express at a St Pete record store when I would accompany my dad on his VA hospital visits, just to keep up with the latest news.
The beard isn’t Michael’s best look, but it’s a good cover.
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
I apologize for being indelicate, but most Americans wouldn’t fit in such a tight row.
RSA
@Aleta:
An open letter from Georgia Tech faculty:
Yutsano
@Leto: I have yet to meet a Marine who didn’t go full Gandalf as soon as he got out. And some of the beards get epic. My friend Joe has gone all out in keeping his pointed. He does trim it.
The only exception is the ongoing project, But he A) just got out and B) works security so he thinks he has to look professional. I don’t care. He’s cute without it. :P
JPL
A young man has been walking my dog, since he was in third grade. He’s suppose to enter his first year of high school and they decided to home school him, but not for the reasons that you might think. They believe the virus is just over hyped and refuse to let him wear a mask. I just found out and no longer let him help me weed even from a distance, but now I wondering about the dog walk.
There is little evidence of spread and I do clean everything touched including the gate handle. I’m wondering if using a baby wipe on the dog would help. If not, I’m going to really hurt someone’s feelings. I hate this shit.. The dog walker was excited because he figured out a way he could be in band and orchestra and now he has none.
joel hanes
relevant
Geminid
I’ve been knocking off work at 2pm, going home and reading civil war history. When I’m not been messing with this damn blog. And it’s been hot, so I’m trying to stay hydrated. Hydration mix: cool water, lemon juice, and sea salt.
JPL
@RSA: hey Gov. Kemp did say wear your masks or no college football, so there is that.
Aleta
what are y’all doing to recenter
Was doing semi-OK with that, surprisingly, but for the last two weeks it seems like I’ve stopped ability to recover.
Hog Island Maine Audubon camera on a pair of ospreys and their eggs. (Soothing ocean scene.) You can see both osprey at about 1h40 m back rn. For contrast, one of the other live cams on that page is an osprey nest in Montana.
joel hanes
@JPL:
Spread of the virus on touch surfaces does not seem to be a major vector. Maybe minor. Dogs are not implicated (cats may be; they can get it).
If you’re going to obsess, obsess about exhalations, especially unmasked, especially recent, especially strangers.
Catherine D.
@Aleta: I work at Cornell and am not looking forward to the return of the walking petri dishes. When I’m at work, I have to wear mask, gloves, and surgical gown. Do not see compliance from students.
Redshift
I’m pretty hard to knock off my equilibrium, but the few times it’s happened here in the darkest timeline, my most effective treatment is to get active, either in an election (we have elections every year in Virginia) or in indivisible-style bugging my reps. Even if I’m only having a small effect, having some effect lets me sleep at night.
And Bowie is one of the few public figures whose death hit me hard. Good treatment of his work.
JPL
@joel hanes: In the past he would come in the house and return and have a treat. He could share stories with me that he couldn’t with his parents like any kid. Now he has to get the leash off the table off side and enter and leave from the backyard. The dog is the one who resisted the change. He just new that N was suppose to come inside.
How can someone really think this just like the regular flu.
Robert Sneddon
@Yutsano: I used to have a photo of my father during his service in the Royal Navy in the Med during WWII, wearing a “full set” of beard and whiskers. Sadly the photo was lost after a break-in and theft of things like his service medals.
japa21
As most of you know, I am (was) a demonstrator at Costco. Some demos have opened back up in a few states. Illinois is currently on tap for end of August.
I am just trying to figure out if they will continue to do so. We hit 937 new cases today, highest since June 6. NY was close to 1000 today and just over it yesterday. Mask usage is pretty much universal here (we’ve had it required since March for when in public places). Chicago is requiring people who fly into the city from 14 states to quarantine for 14 days.
My point is that even with things being done fairly much correctly, it is growing. I am concerned about schools opening but understand the angst Kay was expressing. School is so necessary, specially for younger kids.
As to what I do to back away, I do something I normally totally hate. I go out and weed. After pulling those Trump stand-ins out by the roots for an hour or so, I do feel calmer.
Yutsano
I’ve just been in the hospital for 20 days. I’m still trying to figure out walking again, much less equilibrium. And I might be forced back into my office on the 13th. I’ll know more on Monday.
Martin
@Tom Levenson: I will share the direction of my current work with you.
I am working on inverting many of the traditional administrative structures to create population cohorts – students that are taking the same or largely the same sets of classes. Instead of having them enroll in classes at specific times, we have them simply tell us what classes the want to take, with no schedule.
Most classes will be hybrid – but smaller ones can be done entirely conventionally. We’re using machine learning with a fuckton of rules to cluster students into cohorts that would keep them together through all of their courses in the term. Sizes vary slightly, mainly constrained by available classroom space, but we’re trying to keep them no larger than 30. For students living on campus, it also organizes the dorms so a given cohort will also live together in 1-2 residence halls. The course schedules are then built off of the cohorts, generally keeping them in one classroom consecutively for all of their classes and having the instructor come and go. Because we’re scheduling at the end of the process, we can stagger class start/end times to ensure a continuous flow of students in and out of buildings without the normal bunching up when class modules usually start or end. Because of the hybrid nature, we would expand meeting hours in this format where we can.
A few problems trying to be addressed here. Students remain on campus more when they have breaks in their schedule. We eliminate those. They come to campus, go to class, and can leave from campus for the day. The staggered classes reduce congestion outside buildings, in elevators, and the like. Less incidental interaction. For students on campus, their dorms double as more effective study spaces since they’re all taking the same classes in that dorm. We’re trying to see if we can make dining work similarly – where students also eat together – we have some flexibility there.
The idea is that within your cohort you are WAY more likely to get infected if one of the other 30 is sick, but, that is very unlikely to spread to other cohorts so long as proper social distancing is enforced because there is no necessary interaction between cohorts. We would have temperature checks at building entrances or in classrooms (we have a LOT of exterior classrooms here in CA), some kind of regular testing schedule for cohorts, etc. Increased policing of social distancing and mask enforcement (not unlike what we did when we switched to a no-smoking campus).
We would probably encourage and sponsor outdoor activities that allow cohorts to interact while masked since that appears to be relatively safe. Again, our weather permits that.
It’s a very different structure and experience, but it allows a certain degree of social interaction, just very compartmentalized, it allows labs and group discussions to happen in a more natural environment with instructor interaction. Students when with their cohort can be unmasked. If anyone in a cohort gets sick, that cohort gets shut down – their classes immediately move to online until they’re tested and no longer contagious, etc. they’re quarantined in the dorm, or restricted from campus. We would also contact trace back through roommates in off-campus housing, etc. and shut down cohorts as needed. Part of the process is to create a certain degree of peer pressure to stay healthy, because if you are reckless, your whole cohort is going to be shut down because of it. If too many cohorts get infected, then we have to pull the plug and switch back to purely online, and nobody wants that. The students hate it. They want to be on campus, but that requires a certain level of responsibility.
We’re looking at 1000-2000 cohorts. Not a small undertaking. All of the problems are at the margins. To what extent do we mismatch students. Can we afford any mixing of cohorts or does a student with an outlier class need to do that entirely online. We have a number of students that are immunocompromised and have to do everything online. Some classes may need to be that way as well because the instructor is immunocompromised or they have a child that is, etc. The goal is to build something that can respond rapidly to change, where we can have much of the contact tracing puzzle assembled before anyone gets sick, where staff have responsibility for specific cohorts so that when something happens we know exactly who has the lead on that, and so on. And something that allows us to good ways to measure what is and isn’t working and tighten or relax measures as necessary.
The problem isn’t that you had 30 people at the party who got sick. The problem is that they left the party and mixed back into society and got 100 more people sick. Had they all stayed at the party, it wouldn’t have been great, but it wouldn’t have grown. If we keep it from growing, we win, eventually. That’s the concept.
prostratedragon
flessenlikker
So, they exist! I’ve been wanting one lately. Must order.
hitchhiker
In the past couple of weeks I’ve had a couple of days when I had to just rush out of the building with mask on and dog beside me, taking the big long hills of Seattle until I stopped feeling like swearing at everybody in sight.
It generally takes a half an hour before I start feeling like myself. Then I keep going for another hour, until I can breathe normally and find pleasure in the swaying of trees.
I listen to stories set in the past a lot, mostly books I know and love. A Gentleman in Moscow, Wolf Hall, Persuasion, The House of Mirth, Room with a View, etc … the combination of good writing & distant-in-time people soothes me.
And I’m learning to play a guitar mr hitchhiker gave me. I suck at it so far, but you never know.
ETA: Our children are in their 30s, none of us are teachers, and we’re expecting our first grandchildren (twins!) in January. Which is to say, the question of school is one I don’t have to confront personally. If I did, the answer would be no. Not in person until there’s a vaccine and most people have gotten it.
scav
Gardening and that’s even in neighbors’ yards (large plots, in their 70s & 80s, heart and knee issues so welcome) and in the ditch along the pasture. Il faut cultiver, taken rather concretely with a wealth of potatoes and onions in the offing. The NTLive Midsummer Night’s Dream (alas, just ended) was a bonus bright spot just in time. General hiding.
JPL
@japa21: Weeding is good. It’s hot here, so I need to arrange an early hour and just do it everyday.
Aleta
@JPL: Our vet (married to a public health nurse) makes us take dog collar and all else off him in the car. They put a cheap lasso leash around him in the car, take him in, return him and leave the leash they had on him behind. They only handle him with gloves and (they say) they sanitize his fur (done on all animals) as needed. You could call your vet about the fur /collar /wipe-the-dog question. If you asked the parents if you can hand him a mask and gloves to wear when he comes, and they refused, to me that would be a deciding factor b/c they’re not protecting him. (And don’t care about protecting you.)
Humdog
I beat back despair by spending time outdoors with my dogs. I’m soooo lucky to have a personal forest. Online, I find Bertie Lakeland twitter just the thing to take my thoughts away to pretty scenes and no visible virus stuff. I also have a guilty pleasure movie, the only movie I’ve ever purchased, that always brings a tear of joy to my eyes with the music and beautiful colors and textures. Bride and Prejudice, a Bollywood type English musical.
RSA
@Martin: Wow! What a fascinating experiment in digital society. Good luck, and I hope it works out well.
japa21
@JPL: I have let it go this year and just started redoing everything, area by area. Still have about 1/2 to do. Every day for the next week or more is going to be 90+ with next Thursday currently forecast for 97. And in Chicago there is no such thing as a dry heat.
So yes early and for only about an hour. The good thing is once I get this done, keeping up with it will be easier.
Brachiator
I was going to throw in that some of the early Reviews of Hamilton have been very positive, noting that it is staged and photographed very well. This is not always the case with adaptations of stage productions.
Good to see that viewers are having a grand time being in the room where Hamilton is happening.
JMG
I play golf every day it’s not raining. Many people make fun of the sport, and I certainly understand why, but it’s such a damnably frustrating game that it takes your mind off all other frustrations, at least until the last hole. Also it’s a nice form of socially distant socializing with others. I’m lucky to have a loved one to isolate with, but no matter how much two may love one another, you wear on each other too if you only see each other for three months.
It’s the start of the summer season here on the Cape and our little town is mobbed. Many out of state plates. We’ll see if our exemplary virus record (only one death off of like 50 cases, which is amazing as median age of permanent residents is 61) holds.
PS: Alabama Dept. of Public Health has said no evidence of coronavirus parties. Story was bullshit.
Wyatt Salamanca
Tom,
Thanks for the Michael Stipe video and Long Live David Bowie, especially the Ziggy Stardust period!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwnmVialMI4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I71sQkFIe_c
@eddie blake:
How many times did you see Bowie? I never had the pleasure of seeing him, but I did see the “David Bowie Is” exhibition which was fucking amazing
@debbie:
As a longtime Grateful Dead lover and especially that song, many thanks for sharing that cover
les
The whole fucking slow dissolution of my country sapped me, pissed me off, made me hate pretty much everybody.
Got paid for a project I thought dead. Bought a big beautiful motorcycle. Ride it.
Helps. Some.
Scott Alloway
@HumboldtBlue: My face rug turns 39 in September. My moustache has been on the upper lip since Memorial Day weekend, 1972. I hated shaving.
Mary G
@CaseyL: This is so simple and so powerful. Years and years ago I had some biofeedback to learn to cope with arthritis pain. It was magnitudes better than the massive dosages of opiates my doctor was giving me, and to this day, all I have to do is stop and really pay attention to breathing and my body just unwinds itself.
Naps have also been essential to me. My sleep cycle is so screwed up it’s a blessing to be able to just lie down when I’m tired.
Tom’s using a Bowie song in the post and all the comments about him remind me why I love Balloon Juice so much, as Bowie is probably the music I’ve gone to during the quarantine more than any other. I’ve been streaming albums I was never able to afford in my youth and following along the lyrics online and it is so emotionally filling.
@joel hanes: “The Once and Future King”! I was obsessed with that book in my youth and haven’t thought about it in decades. Just bought the Audible version of all five books (33 hours) with an extra credit I bought for $11.96, which seems like a great deal to me. I’d just used this month’s credit to pre-order Tom’s “Money for Nothing,” out next month.
That’s another thing I’ve let myself do during the pandemic. I lived cheap for many years first because I was poor, and then because I never knew when I’d have to go on disability that doesn’t pay much. Plus my dad’s dying leaving my mom and myself $9.50 in the checking account and $7,500 in debts left a mark on me so that I was a big “save and invest 10% of my income no matter what for coming hard times” practitioner.
So I find myself at 64 with more money than I ever dreamed of having, because following my mother’s example I bought the crappiest house in the nicest neighborhood and it just happened to be Southern California where I lived. Just out of habit I have tried to live within my Social Security income and fretted because it’s hard. I always worried about having to go into an assisted living situation and my house, though valuable, won’t pay for more than ten years of that.
With COVID19, though, I’ve tried to change my outlook and spend without so much stressing on important things, like contributing to Democratic Senate candidates, GoFundMes and food for the soul like streaming music. I am very likely to die if I catch it and what’s the use of having money when I don’t have children?
NotMax
@Brachiator
Reviews in Hollywood Reporter are, generally speaking, a reliable touchstone. Here’s theirs, from June 30.
rikyrah
Haroldo
@joel hanes:
@SiubhanDuinne:
Likewise, I’m sure!
rikyrah
@Humdog:
I love Bride and Prejudice ??
NotMax
@JMG
Presumably no longer wind-down time at the 19th hole?
;)
Kristine
When did Steve Forbert get old! I hear his name, and see a slight, dark-haired young man with a turned-up nose.
I don’t know about this aging thing.
CarolPW
@JMG: Your reason for playing golf, the driving out of other thoughts, is the reason I started learning steeplechase riding when was teaching at Clemson. For me, all thoughts other than what I was doing were obliterated by the fear of death. It’s very clarifying.
Brachiator
I have not got to the re-center point yet. I may not get there until Trump has lost the election and I feel certain that he will be done and out the door as president.
I still have some major work projects capturing my attention, and sometimes feel like I cannot catch a breath or relax. I used to be able to get out and catch a movie in the theater on Sunday, but that’s been gone for a while.
I have been able to spend a little more time talking to friends and family, and this helps.
But Trump screwed up the reaction to the pandemic far more wretchedly than I could have imagined, and he has shown a sullen and callous disregard for the lives of people he should be protecting.
To see this played out so starkly continues to be unsettling.
ETA. Funny. I clean forgot that one of the things that helps relieve the gloom are episodes of the British comedy panel show QI: Quite Interesting, on YouTube and elsewhere.
JPL
@Aleta: That’s what makes me sad. These are neighbors that shared X-mas eve with us for the last decade and we did visit often. They never watched Fox but when they cut their cable, they found youtube
I do think I’ll call the vet
JPL
Since trump’s new message is we just have to learn to live with this, something drastic is going to have to happen to wake up his sheep. I’m not sure what that is but Vote Vets sure has a good ad. link
John Revolta
@JMG: “I defy anny man in the wurruld to get a bad lie in a bunker an’ think iv annything else. He’s that mad all his other sorrows, his debts, his sins, an’ his future, disappears…………I’m that onhappy nawthin’ bothers me. If a man come up an’ told me me house was afire I’d not hear him.”
-Mr. Dooley on Golf
Suzanne
Spawn the Elder isn’t going to school in the fall no matter what, because he’s not dealing well with the social aspects of school anyway, so I told him that he could do his GED and then take community college classes online. Youngest isn’t going to daycare. But I was really hoping to get Spawn the Younger back to school. She’s really having a hard time without it. She started having panic attacks this week. And the online shit is exactly that—SHIT. She needs friends and human engagement. Anyway, we’ll see what happens. The districts back in AZ were looking to go back on August 3, and Gov. Douchey pushed that back two weeks. They start later here in PA. So let’s see what happens.
But for now, I am going to watch HAMILTON and enjoy something.
opiejeanne
What am I doing to center myself?
Gardening.
And Gardening.
and then gardening some more.
I go out and swear at the slugs in the garden, and viciously pull weeds, but they are vicious weeds and totally deserve it.
I startled myself recently when I found a very large, trophy-sized slug mowing down a row of seedlings, by saying to it: “you fucking shit-weasel!” I was embarrassed and looked around to make sure no one had heard me.
Dave has reinforced and repaired the greenhouse and helped me reorganize it, and it’s a little haven on cool rainy days, which we’ve had a lot of for the past six weeks. I go in there, check the temp, make sure no one is thirsty, and look for signs of life in some of the recently seeded pots.
For something really calming and soothing I watch Gardener’s World, but even that cheerful program has been affected by sadness. The host’s dog, Nigel, a lovely old golden retriever died in May, they’re inserting bits of video shot over the past two years, interviews and garden visits, in order to have enough material to present. They’ve asked viewers to send short videos of their own gardens to share on the show, and a few have come from the US.
The other presenters have all said that not being able to work the way they have been has given them a chance to work on their own gardens, so we get to see those spots.
All of the current video is being recorded on what they’re calling a “remote camera” system. It seems to be several cameras set up at different spots and the resulting video is edited to resemble their usual camera work. Or maybe someone is there to operate the cameras. It looks the same as previous years.
NotMax
@Brachiator
QI (at least the Stephen Fry iteration) is positively addictive. Even the occasional clunkers are intermittently amusing enough to stick with.
Tim
I’m in medical equipment business. This is a long weekend. Today the wife and I enjoyed “Hamilton”.
It cleared some space.
Mike in NC
I didn’t recognize the photo of Michael Stipe at first glance. Thought it might have been Brad Parscale, Trump’s neo-Nazi numbers ‘guru’.
Mike in NC
I didn’t shave for a week after heart surgery in January. I couldn’t wait to go home, shave, shower, and brush my teeth. Hospitals suck.
eddie blake
@Wyatt Salamanca:
glass spider, sound+ vision, tin machine II, birthday show. i was supposed to see the outside NIN/ bowie show, but it was cancelled at the last minute.
i’ve seen a bunch of other live unsigned bands far more often, like one of my lowbrow faves, the bloody muffs, but still..
bowie was a goddamn genius. his records were genius. dude needs statues.
Leto
@Yutsano: realize I’m late on this reply but I just don’t quite have the patience for a full Gandalf. I get tired of trimming the upper lip to keep the soup strainer out of food, plus i think if it’s not groomed enough that it just looks bad. I’m thinking Duck Dynasty style bad, and I just don’t like that. Right now, during the summer, I keep it shorter just to reduce heat retention but once winter returns it’ll get thicker again because it helps protect against the cold wind.
Also I’ve spent way too much time, over the years, thinking about all of this :)
Wyatt Salamanca
@Brachiator:
I’ve never heard of this program, but it sounds interesting.
Speaking of British panel shows, have you seen The Last Leg?
opiejeanne
@scav: I was considering asking the youngish neighbors across the street to the north if I could use their weed patch -er- garden in their front yard to grow some things, like beans and onions and garlic. They dug up some beautiful flowering trees when they moved in, killed the grass in a large area and fenced it, planted some things, and then ignored it. Everything bolted last summer and they haven’t done anything since.
What’s holding me back is I’d have to go over there to ask.
He has chickens and we laugh every time one announces that she’s laid an egg. Hens are always so proud of their achievement. I bought a dozen eggs from him a couple of months ago but felt very uncomfortable being close enough to have them handed to me because I am that way now, can’t stand to get too close to anyone except my husband.
Leto
@Suzanne:
I’m sure you’ve read this, but if not here you go: Preliminary Guidance: Phased Reopening of Pre-K to 12 Schools
CaseyL
@Brachiator: I love that show, and also watch it on YouTube! The latest one posted was shot in March/April, so even though the panelists are on set, there is no studio audience.
YouTube – free YouTube, mind you – has a treasure of content. I haven’t turned my TV on in months.
Wyatt Salamanca
@eddie blake:
I know of at least one Bowie statue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_David_Bowie
eddie blake
@Leto:
in case you didn’t see, i wanted to thank you for elucidating what i clearly could not articulate on the other thread, to kay about, well, the teachers who might not wanna die just yet.
there HAS to be a better way.
eddie blake
@Wyatt Salamanca:
first of all, that’s AWESOME.
second of all, yeah, but we have MANY confederate statues to REPLACE…
more bowie-ness to spread AROUND.
CarolPW
@JPL: Those kids really need rational adults in their lives, and I think you should do as much as you feel comfortable about to keep talking to the kid. You could keep a separate leash for the kid’s use that was left somewhere only he would touch it. Get a mask for him to keep with the leash, and tell him he has to wear it when walking the dog. I think figuring out a way to keep talking to him (outside both masked?) would be a gift to him.
Had a kid that lived a couple of houses away that started helping me with my yard many years ago in the before times. We talked the whole time while weeding or pruning, he was like a sponge desperate for information. He lived in an abusive home, with no care for the health or well-being of the kid. I paid him real money for his work. Neither of us told his mom about his earnings because she would have taken it (mom was living with a boyfriend so no dad around).
Mary G
Watching everyone’s Bowie YouTubes led me to this one, which has a couple of minutes of footage of a live show in 1972 from both backstage and the audience coming in, then he sings Hang on To Yourself.” Really took me back. That was the year I left my suffocating home for college in the big city and decided life was worth living after all.
ETA: added forgotten link
Wyatt Salamanca
Another great performance, this time with Marianne Faithfull
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OX2nelvhIE
NotMax
@Mary G
Fair amount of programming of and/or about Bowie free on Prime, also too.
Miss Bianca
@Humdog: I love that movie and the last library job I had, I insisted on buying the soundtrack CD for the collection. I should listen to it again. : )
Aleta
@Wyatt Salamanca: His performer chops are beautiful there.
Amir Khalid
@trollhattan:
I’m fine. Liverpool are still in track for a record points total. As long as they finish with at least 101 points, it’s cool.
J R in WV
@Leto:
I haven’t shaved my whole face since not long after I completed boot camp at Great Lakes IL, in 1970. CNO Admiral Zumwalt decided well groomed beards were in keeping with Naval History. I do trim it close in spring, to help deal with hot weather, but by fall it is getting pretty bushy.
Right now I’m keeping it trimmed so the respirator fits better.
Regarding keeping my spirits up… I’m pretty consumed with repairing the damage caused by the tree falling on the house. Pretty worrying, but not politics. I do wake up some nights with upsetting dreams.
The pets help a lot, petting two or three dogs at once! Cat sleeping on my chest, etc. Reading fiction, nothing is as bad as current events!!
joel hanes
@Mike in NC:
Hospitals suck.
But almost always suck less than no hospital at all.
Which some places will be facing soon.
Aleta
@RSA: Powerful. Thanks.
Greg Ferguson
Michael is turning into Edward Gorey (which is kind of cool, if you ask me). Yeah, that is lovely and sad – but we need every bit of beauty we can muster, because some vandal is out there, sniffing it out to stomp on. Mt. Rushmore sounds like a horrorshow….
Stay strong, Tom…
villiageidiocy
Followed one of the Bowie links to get to a Patti Smith one appropriate for the general theme: People Have the Power. And a wonderfully charming – and inspiring version with Choir Choir Choir!