Phil Donahue + Albert Speer
The urges circle each other—to run through the streets, to never get up from this chair, to figure out exactly which corrupt official to blame, to remember every surface you touched two weeks ago, to quietly admit that you don’t mind the stasis and calm, to loudly admit that suffocating is your worst fear.
I was panicky when I came back from a short bike ride yesterday, in late afternoon air that was colder than I expected. I hadn’t eaten enough and my new mask felt restrictive and thick. I saw twenty-somethings lining up for “to go” drinks at Horseshoe Bar, clumped together, none of them wearing masks or gloves, not even the bartender, and I thought, “Alcoholics are going to get us all killed.”
We joke as much as possible. “Got the ‘rona,” we say, bending over to pick up a plug. Ariana Reines brought us a new moon report today. There is an historical practice of finding fruit in solitude, and comfort isn’t always the answer.
Anne Boyer’s Substack is necessary, like Reines’s moon reporting. In the latest entry, Boyer sews masks at home and considers service.
Some of my maintenance is just drifting and clicking. I don’t have any opinion of Harry Styles but I love this cover of “Sledgehammer,” that he cares so much about the sound. His band plays with an eye to replicating the mannerisms of a compressed and mutated studio recording, and they succeed. It’s adorable and hypnotic.
I also found this, which I’ll let you experience. There is an interview like this coming in twenty years or so, maybe with Fauci, maybe someone else. Wait for the kicker.