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On Jimmy Kimmel the other night, F-bomb maestro Samuel L. Jackson read a new short story/poem by Adam Mansbach (author of Go the Fuck to Sleep) called Stay the Fuck at Home to promote safe behavior during the pandemic. You can skip to about 6:00 to hear the story:
The book isn’t available for sale, so Jackson, Kimmel, and Mansbach are asking people to donate to Feeding America.
From Dr. Aisha Ahmad, some advice for how to adapt to conditions of a long-term crisis like the pandemic we are currently facing. (This was written specifically for educators, but applies to anyone.) First, the necessary sobering bit (italics mine):
The answer to the question everyone is asking — “When will this be over?” — is simple and obvious, yet terribly hard to accept. The answer is never.
Global catastrophes change the world, and this pandemic is very much akin to a major war. Even if we contain the Covid-19 crisis within a few months, the legacy of this pandemic will live with us for years, perhaps decades to come. It will change the way we move, build, learn, and connect. There is simply no way that our lives will resume as if this had never happened. And so, while it may feel good in the moment, it is foolish to dive into a frenzy of activity or obsess about your scholarly productivity right now. That is denial and delusion. The emotionally and spiritually sane response is to prepare to be forever changed.
I’ve had a few weeks to process the fact that this will never end, but seeing it stated like this, so matter-of-factly, is still shocking. Luckily, Ahmad spends the rest of the piece gently and generously advising us on how to handle this changed state of affairs.
Now more than ever, we must abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. Focus on real internal change. These human transformations will be honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine. And they will be slower than keener academics are used to. Be slow. Let this distract you. Let it change how you think and how you see the world. Because the world is our work. And so, may this tragedy tear down all our faulty assumptions and give us the courage of bold new ideas.
In a Twitter thread, Ahmad shared some further thoughts on adapting to our new reality.
To start, know that your feelings today are not going to last all summer. It’s just a transition period. Right now, it feels like your whole world has been taken away, but that’s just because you haven’t hit your creative adaptation phase yet. Trust the process.
It’s upsetting when our expectations & plans are overturned. Give yourself a moment to grieve. But don’t let your grief trick you into thinking you’re going to suffer every day. That’s not happening. Your mind & body will adjust. Joy & freedom are still on the table.
And this was my favorite bit:
Second, embrace radical acceptance. Let go of expectations and control. What you did last month doesn’t serve you today. Let the world, today, teach you a new way to be happy, joyous, and free. If we live in denial, fear, or self-pity, we will miss the gift.
See also how to deal with our collective pandemic grief. (thx, meg)
How South Korea Solved Its Face Mask Shortage. “Neighborhood pharmacists and government intervention were the secret weapons.” Good government matters.
Jennifer Baer of the “Coronavirus Tourism Bureau” made some travel posters designed to get you interested in staying inside and exploring your own home during the pandemic. Posters are available for purchase.
Before he begins filming any of his movies, director Bong Joon-ho draws out storyboards for every single shot of every single scene of the film. From an interview with Bong in 2017:
I’m always very nervous in my everyday life and if I don’t prepare everything beforehand, I go crazy. That’s why I work very meticulously on the storyboards. If I ever go to a psych ward or a psychiatric hospital, they’ll diagnose me as someone who has a mental problem and they’ll tell me to stop working, but I still want to work. I have to draw storyboards.
For his Oscar-winning Parasite, Bong has collected the storyboards into a 304-page graphic novel due out in mid-May: Parasite: A Graphic Novel in Storyboards.
Drawn by Bong Joon Ho himself before the filming of the Palme d’Or Award-winning, Golden Globe(R)-nominated film, these illustrations, accompanied by every line of dialog, depict the film in its entirety. Director Bong has also provided a foreword which takes the reader even deeper into the creative process which gave rise to the stunning cinematic achievement of Parasite.
The book has already been released in Korea, and Through the Viewfinder did a 5-minute video comparison of the storyboards with the filmed scenes for the peach fuzz montage scene (and another video of the flood scene).
Amazing. That’s a whole lotta film school packed into five minutes of video.
Stop Trying to Be Productive. “Staying inside and attending to basic needs is plenty.”
Back in November, Patrick Tanguay and I posted about Xavi Bou’s Ornitographies project, photographs of the paths traced by birds in the sky. Now Bou has released a video extension of the project, which shows the paths of starlings wheeling & swerving through the sky in huge groups called murmurations. Soothing soundtrack by Kristina Dutton. (via dunstan orchard)
Wimbledon has been cancelled due to COVID-19. First time since WWII. “There will be no professional tennis anywhere in the world until at least 13 July.”
Damon Lindelof is writing a serialized story for Nextdraft called Something, Something, Something Murder. “I heard them whispering… I heard them say murder and then the floorboard creaked and they stopped.”
Overly descriptive color palettes. Colors include “isotopic light periwinkle”, “unstatesmanlike reddish grey”, and “acanthoid bubble gum pink”.
A couple of weeks ago, Sarah Pavis (who has guest edited here in the past) shared some of her favorite YouTubers that post videos of themselves walking around as a way to ease our lack of mobility during the pandemic quarantine. (Remember walking around outside among other people? Ahh, those were the days…)
Most of these are of city walks, the kind of walking I miss most acutely.1 Some of the videos are narrated, but most contain just ambient city noise. You can find lots more walks, including those in more natural settings, by searching YouTube for “4K walks”, “binaural walks”, or similar terms.
See also Virtual Travel Photography in the Age of Pandemic.
Here in Vermont, I feel very lucky that we have access to plentiful uncrowded outdoor spaces to exercise in. And our statewide shelter-in-place order allows people to leave the house for exercise (which is essential for many people’s physical and mental health).↩
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