Pandemic winners

If there are enough losers around surely there has to be a few winners somewhere. In this Covid-19 Pandemic there are, and are going to be, an awful lot of losers. Don't look, but we might be ones now.

So who wins?

Pet dogs. Pet dogs are the winners here.

I went out for my morning walk. I kept my distance. I went down to the river. I took all my explorations. Maybe there will be other posts to tell you about the peace and the anger and the birds and the garbage and the art. But here, for now, I will just tell you that everyone was out walking their dog.

So many people are home, and I suspect the great majority of their dogs are very happy about it. And after an hour or two of being home most of those people say "Well, I guess I'll go walk the dog again." And so I see them in the neighborhoods. I see them on the sidewalks. I see them on the river.

Being neither a huge fan of strange dogs or coronavirus I give them all a wide birth; six feet for the dog and six feet for the virus.

Twelve feet is pretty far. 

But even from there I can still see that all the dogs look really happy.

100 greatest albums in the days of the pandemic: Gone Again

There is a kind of pattern in these 100 greatest albums I'm writing about, with each album being individually the greatest album ever. A seminal artist makes an album that revolutionizes music, that is essential, and revolutionary. 

And I set that aside. 

A decade or two later they make something else. It's just a little more personal and somehow deeper, with nothing to prove, but it doesn't add much to the evolution of music and its genres. 

And who cares. 

That, that later album, rarely written into the sacred book of the culture, is the album. 

At least, for me.

And so it is with this one. Patti Smith made an essential album that went some long way into ushering in all of punk rock. It also included maybe the greatest line of Rock N' Roll history: 

"Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." 

But... whatever.

Let's move a couple decades forward. 

Let's talk about the people she loved dying; husband, brother, close friend. 

Even Kurt Cobain takes his place:

Boy boy
Just a boy
Just a little boy
Just a little boy
Who will never grow 

Let's talk about Gone Again. All chants and hypnosis, rage and wisdom, grief and, oh, I wanted to say redemption because it sounded good. I don't know about redemption, almost nothing at all. Death is the bottom falling out. Falling out forever. There are some things we will never, ever, ever get back. 

In the end, all of them.

Hold on.




If there's one thing could do for you...

Avoid gatherings of ten or more!

(As an update: my library system has closed now, but had not yet at the time this was written. It's a bit dangerous writing anything about coronavirus even on a short delay. Things have had a tendency to develop... quickly. On Tuesday I went to work in an empty library.)

 



The size of the gatherings everyone was supposed to avoid dropped precipitously over the last week. I vaguely remember a 1,000 figure, though that seems like a bit of a warm up from my current perspective looking back to those carefree six days ago. There was an urge against gatherings of 250 around the time when the sports and concerts were all getting cancelled. Then the Governors sporadically started calling for an end to gatherings of 100 or more, albeit on a voluntary basis. Barely any time had passed from that level to when that broken... President... troubled... guy said we're now advising no gatherings of ten or more. 

And now, as I write, we seem to be, piece by piece, getting into something more like "Just stay away from everybody else for god's sake!"

Of course in some bizarre glitch this doesn't apply yet to the majority of libraries around here, and so I am calling in sick at my library still. 

Not only is it the ethical, right thing to do, but I also enjoy not working.

I did go out though for a walk. I kept a lot of distance from people. I even climbed down a bluff and followed a creek to the river. Soon I was a thousand very safe feet away from any humans. I stood on the muddy, early Spring shore of the Mississippi doing my part.

I thought of my dead friend Matthew who loved the Mississippi and always wrote the nicest things about my river posts.

I breathed in and wondered what would happen in the world.

And then I saw a great gathering.

I tried to count the members of this gathering because I couldn't tell just by looking at them. It was hard because they were moving. I got to 184 of them, all together in close proximity. They were heading west. When they got far enough away that I couldn't count them individually anymore they became a shimmering line.

And then two other geese swam up the river and stopped in front of me.

I decided the three of us were probably safe enough as long as we just waved.

Bald eagle encounter in the pandemic of 2020

Gather around my friends and I will tell you the glorious tale of my bald eagle encounter during the great pandemic of 2020!

Except it should be noted that the pandemic doesn't much come into it. And "glorious" is a bit of an overstatement. 

Oh, and it's really not that "great" of a pandemic. Indeed, it has many negative features to it!

So is everybody ready?

I went out for a walk on the river this morning. And in a tree up over the Mississippi River, straight in front of me, was a enormous bald eagle. He was about 30 percent scuzzy and 70 percent majestic. His feet were kind of scabby and all his lower feathers bedraggled. His white head was clean and very fine. That's about how it usually is when one gets a good look at a wild animal. It's dirty out there in the world and a little rough. The eagle had his back to me with his head turned to the side. Bald eagles always look like they're posing for a portrait, chin held high, trying to look imperious. It mostly works. This eagle looked 30 percent ridiculous, 70 percent inspiring.

Then the eagle turned his head all the way around so his beak was over his back. Imagine if your chin were directly aligned with your spine. Standing there I could almost imagine that, but the difference with my imagination was that there was no apparent twist to his pose, no stretching, the eagle's head just neatly swiveled 180 degrees with no tension.

Oh, was he looking at me?

Maybe.

Really I was just standing there, very politely.

He turned to look over the river. Then he started screeching. This was pretty exciting. He screeched a lot, like he was trying to say something. Then I noticed a bird was flying by, heading upriver. At first I thought maybe it was all a "between eagles" thing. But it wasn't an eagle. 

It might have been a heron.

The eagle leaped out of the tree and flew towards the heron. The heron picked up the pace. The eagle chased the heron. My view was clear and I watched them for a long time. The eagle never gained ground that I could tell, and they both never stopped beating their wings. Finally they disappeared into the northern horizon, one after the other.

Like so much these days: who knows what will happen?

CV

CV

Coronavirus or Covid-19, your choice. There's even something about SARS in there if you want. I'm guessing we're all at least sort of informed on the subject here, even if the details can get a little debatable as we dig down. No one is too put out about the names. There are bigger fish to fry.

On Sunday I went to work at the library. I wasn't sure whether I was willing or not because I genuinely believe the libraries should close. All of them. Everywhere. They are wonderful, wonderful places and also festering pools of disease spreading like few other places anywhere.

The first thing I did upon arriving at a workplace that had taken nearly no action whatsoever was to close every other public computer to create social distancing. All around me co-workers said "Oh, I heard maybe we were going to do that."

I guess maybe we were I found out later. It was in some vague multi-day discussion phase when I expedited the process.

Then I washed my hands.

I sanitized them.

Then I put on blue gloves.

Then I just refused to touch anything on principle for awhile.

They say if you don't look a little crazy now you probably aren't being careful enough. 

I don't know who said that. It might just be the voices in my head... whispering... 

The library is crowded today. People ask "Will the library be open this week? Do you have any plans to close?"

I say "We have no plans to close. None of the information I have received suggests anything about closing. Nevertheless I personally expect that we'll close sometime in the middle of the week."

"Oh." They respond.

My sense of fatalistic doom hasn't been the best thing for me in my life, but all of the sudden lately it's getting things eerily right.

The thing I didn't anticipate so well is how I feel about the library patrons. In my storied career I have managed to hold a kind of love for them somewhere deep in my, well, if not heart, maybe elbow or something. And that love gives me the strength to carry on, a warmth to keep me going and give my best.

But today I am so disappointed in them. "Why are you here?" I want to ask. "This is not really a good idea." I want to say.

But I can't. 

So I say it to myself.



I'll be staying home now for a bit.

An only lightly sad story from the early days of the pandemic

What's the old curse?

May you live in interesting times.

This pandemic sure is interesting, and everyone alive and old enough to be aware will remember things about these days of the pandemic for the rest of their lives.

Some of those things haven't happened yet, maybe most. 

It's too interesting.

Today is an impossibly gray day in Minnesota, the one day off I have alone. As a rule I'm a little too interested in the news of the World, but today I turn away from it for awhile. It's just a bit too dark for me. It's too interesting indeed.

As I have told you, as your friends and colleagues have joked on the square, as the CDC insists, as your workplace advises, as the mass media urges, as is faultlessly correct and beyond debate:

Wash your hands.

So in the course of the past week I have washed my hands.

At the library I work at I wash them so often they become dry and red. They crack and burn. By the end of the day just the water of the sink hurts them. They sting. I try using gloves, but when I take them off I always sort of feel like I should wash my hands. 

Ow.

And washing my hands, to make sure I do it long enough, I sing the Happy Birthday song.

I like my birthday, and one day I came to the sad realization that though I'd sung Happy Birthday dozens of time to myself, it wasn't, indeed, my birthday. This made me feel a little sad.

On Monday my friend Richard was volunteering at the library. It was his birthday. I tried to buy him a drink at our coffee shop, but they insisted on giving it to him for free. We sat and had pleasant conversation, much of it not about coronavirus even. Then I had to get back to work. 

I have one regret.

Would that I had said to Richard "Before you go I have one small favor to ask. Come with me to the sink."

Library at night

Shelving at night can be strange. My colleagues are thinned out for the day and those that remain are on the front lines. I'm alone and unnoticed in the stacks. I feel like I have a lot of time. I feel like I have nowhere to go and nothing to do. The shelving is just another kind of idling. So I open a short book by a Chilean author, Roberto Bolano. It's slow and extraordinarily sad and beautifully written. I read almost half of it and think "What am I doing to myself?" as it quietly breaks down my spirit. And then I shelve it.

I shelve many, many books. It feels like several carts worth, but I suddenly notice almost nothing is gone from my cart. I find myself merely in the "C's" and am quietly amazed. After all this I've barely shelved a thing.

I think from out of nowhere "I have spent most of my adult life working with books. I wish it were ridiculously easy to make a perfect book. I would make one, just one, and put it on the shelf here."

I shelve the rest of my cart. It takes just a few seconds, but that doesn't mean much where there is no beginning and no end.

Choosing the right club to belong to

The Orienteering Club is meeting at the library tonight. Two of the club members came up to me at the front desk. "Where is The Orienteering Club meeting?" They asked.

The Orienteering Club is meeting in The Board Room, which is located behind me and over my head and requires a few simple directions, most of them having to do with turning left all the time. "You go left, left, left and left." I said. They thanked me and headed off to the stairs. At the top of them they wandered uncertainly to the right. I can see them right now, wandering confusedly in circles on the wrong side of the library.

I'm tempted to just dash up the stairs and give them some help, but what if finding the room itself is a prerequisite?

A frank assessment

I have my moments. And then I have a lot of other moments.




 

Dylan and fame

Bob Dylan and I went out for a cocktail at a new place on Grand Avenue in St. Paul called Hyacinth. The drinks sounded good and we were instantly delighted with how the hospitality was included in the prices. The downside was that because we were new there Dylan's fame caused a small ruckus. He handled the small spate of questions, autographs, and lingering people a little better than usual. To a neutral observer he would have appeared thinly polite, begrudging, and churlish, but there weren't any neutral observers. There never are.

Dylan had a Black Manhattan, black because it was made with an Italian liqueur called Averna. I had an Ultimate Parola, finding the pineapple tequila and Yellow Chartreuse irresistible. After we ordered I said to Bob "I used to want to be famous."

He sort of scoffed "When did you stop wanting to be famous?"  Bob is not exactly my nicest friend from The Iron Range. My nicest friend from The Iron Range would be Richard Tomassoni, who would ask the same question maybe, but without any scoffing. He doesn't drink cocktails though. But I have to admit that either way those Iron Range people are pretty interesting.

"Three days ago." I answered.

Bob looked more seriously at me, like if I stopped wanting to be famous three days ago it wasn't deserving of scoffing. "I used to want to be famous too." He said.

It sounded very poetical when he said it. He's like that. 

"How's your drink?" I asked.

He perked right up, and then he talked about it for a pretty long time.








  

Why does death smell so good?

This morning I was walking by a parking lot where a recently murdered tree had been ground up into tiny bits. It smelled wonderful! It was fresh and piney, invigorating, hopeful, and magical. It instantly made me twice as happy as I was. And though that isn't very much happiness because I was not feeling very happy at that moment, it was still something. 

The smell of a dead, macerated tree was beautiful.

Kill a cow, a nice, friendly, peaceful cow. Hack out a thick chunk of its warm flesh, throw it over some tree you killed and burned into glowing red hot coals. The fat and blood drips from the dead animal and sizzles and sputters and smokes and... oh my god, it's fantastic; evocative, appetizing, indescribable. Rip a garlic plant out of the earth that gives it life, crush its roots. Throw it in boiling oil. Slash at the grass beneath your feet with a sharp knife until the field is littered with your hacking. Rip off part of a sage plant and light it on fire, practically burning it to death, until the smoke of its demise floods into the air. Crush a lavender flower in your hands and smear its purple blood.

Decapitate a rose.

Bring it home.

Breathe it in.

Death death death death death.

And heaven.

Five coronavirus questions

Yesterday I mainly answered questions about the coronavirus. 

Maybe it was helpful.

Today I have mainly questions about coronavirus.

I doubt this will be helpful at all...




1. I am washing my hands so much that the skin is starting to rash and blister on the back of my right hand. I have begun to wonder: If my skin is so raw and cracked with over washing can infected droplets of coranavirus enter directly into my bloodstream through my bleeding skin?

2. The Purell that I use when I am at the front desk of the library and cannot get to a sink burns my torn apart hands so much that I am screaming in agony when I rub it in, but it also smells pleasantly of the key lime flavored Knutson yogurt I used to enjoy as a kid, and it supposedly protects me from a deadly disease. So that's two to one in favor. Is this a reasonable trade off? 

3. I consider this time period the "still in denial" period. The library is very crowded. Co-workers mysteriously come to work coughing despite having sick time to burn, and hardly anyone I see is wearing a mask. The biggest, most overwhelming mask I saw all day while I was working the front desk at the library was worn by a man who was also wearing a t-shirt that curiously said:

"NO FEAR".

Did he have no other shirt?

4. If you touch the faucet handle with germy hands, wash the appropriate "happy birthday to you twice" length of time, and then turn off the germy faucet handle with your clean hands, won't you just re-infect your hands?

5. Despite the casual use of "OCD" in cultural parlance, it is a serious mental disorder that profoundly diminishes the quality of life for many people. Nevertheless won't this disease, Coronavirus COVID-19, encourage the survival of people who, for instance, fanatically, obsessively wash their hands?

In the long run, won't everyone alive, through the process of evolution, be OCD?

I cannot ask this last question enough! 

More coronavirus tips

I AM NOT HYSTERICAL ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS!


I'm just cautiously interested, prudently informed, quietly in thrall, and vigorously hypochondriacal. And as such, I have learned a few useful things. And I want to inform you so you don't get sick and spread disease and kill everyone. 

Almost no one wants to kill everyone. 

After all, there are several very nice people out there. 

Why, just look at you!

When I started writing this all my tips were going to be hilarious joke tips, but then I realized: I am on the Internet. One joke tip taken seriously could kill a million people! Or, on the other hand, it could make a couple of people get a light fever maybe instead. I don't want to be responsible for either of those things even if there are notable points of difference between them. So I decided to tighten up the ship here and provide five calm, sensible, genuine tips for you in dealing with the coronavirus.


1. Don't Panic! I mean, unless you work at a library or something, or a school, or in an office, or if you are over 70, have pre-existing health conditions, have no health insurance, don't trust your government, or, you know what, just don't panic, okay?


2. Wash your hands. Wash your hands in hot soapy water for 20 seconds. Get the nails too. If you've read one thing about what to do about coronavirus it's "Wash your hands." Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands. Ugh! Why do you keep having to hear this? Why do you keep having to read this!

Because you need to wash your hands!

Go, now! Don't worry about finishing with the rest of my tips. Everything else I'm going to say will pale in comparison. Just wash your hands.


3. Don't touch your face. This is hard for me. I touch my face 145 times every ten seconds. What can I say, it itches. And there's a crumb on it. And I have something in my teeth. And an eyelash is falling in my eye. And it itches. And I have to rest my chin on my hand. And I have a tear falling on my cheek because I am so sad that I'm not allowed to touch my face. 

But if I go wash my hands, in warm soapy water, and sing all I can of "Stayin' Alive" while I do it, you know what I can do after?

I can touch my face!

But then I should wash my hands again. 

And not touch my face.


4. Forget about masks. Masks are kind of... questionable. Okay, if you're sick and you have to go out in public, which you really shouldn't unless it's to the Doctor or Hospital or something, then, if you happen to have a mask, it might help other people. And magically used, very correctly by everyone, if we had anywhere near enough, they might even be great, mainly in the sense of helping stop the spread of the virus out from people. But you should still mostly forget about them because those provisos are not in the cards. They are not looking likely to help you not get sick. Maybe put all that mask energy into hand washing and not touching your face?

Actually, this is the most contentious issue in the field of lay coronavirus advice. Can we just pretend I never mentioned it?


5. Stay home. Maybe just stay home a little more for awhile? And if you feel a little sick, maybe stay home a lot. And for longer than you think? Did you know 80 percent of people who get coronavirus don't really get very sick? That's good news, don't you think? You might just get a very little fever, and feel a little tired and that's it. 

"That's it?" You ask.

That's it.

"How can I show my appreciation for how simple this all turned out for me and for how lucky I feel?"

Stay home.

Home is nice. You'll like it there. You can read through all my 2,642 blogposts. They are full of useful information just like this! Well, sometimes it's useful... I mean... not usually this useful, more useful in an oblique way.



Stay strong out there my pandemic pals! 

Mozart

In the morning when I was walking around getting dressed for the day I had a couple of important thoughts, and in between those thoughts I had an unimportant thought which I would like to tell you about.

I would love to tell you about the important thoughts, but I don't remember them. They have gone to the beautiful heaven of forgotten thoughts where they lounge comfortably on the clouds and listen to harp music.

You don't like harp music?

Oh, harp music can be very lovely. 

Here, just listen to a few seconds of this:

Harp!

See!




Now where was I?

Ooops. Now I forgot the unimportant thought I was going to tell you too!

Where does it go?

Don't worry. It goes to the candyland of forgotten unimportant thoughts where it lounges upon a velvet recliner listening to flute music.

Quiet night

Here I am at the front desk of the library. Maybe I can help someone. Anyone.

Anyone?

Around eight, in the start of March, it can get a little quiet around here, just in spots.

I took $2.50 from a polite man. "Sharp jacket." He said to me. I am wearing an iridescent blue tuxedo jacket that makes me look like I might be sitting in on a jazz session later, or showing people to their tables. I wish I had one of these jackets in red and green too. I thanked him for his compliment and for his money too. His fine is now down to three dollars.

Then it was quiet again. I thought for a while about a lot of things.

Maybe one day I'll tell you about them.

My co-worker showed me pictures of Thailand. They were mostly pictures of fruit. They have a lot of interesting fruits that I've never heard of in Thailand. 

Now I have heard quite a bit about a lot of fruits in Thailand!

It got a little busier. I found a video game disc involving dancing for a library patron. I was very proud to have found it because it was in the wrong place and I had to sleuth to find it. Then I got into a situation where I was loaning out office equipment for awhile, scissors, tape, highlighter, scissors again, a black pen. Then it got quiet again and I tried to write. Then I had to do some math for someone. And before I knew it the night was over.

Now I am home. 

I sat here listening to the night through our windows. I thought about a lot of things.

Maybe one day I'll tell you about them.

A sick joke

Working in such a locus for both public information and the transmission of diseases, a library, I have been following the Coronavirus news very closely. And though I am worried about getting sick and what steps to take in preparation, I am also fascinated by how it is all playing out. All the politics, science, information and even contagion math is captivating me as this virus works its way across the world. One might say I've even gotten a bit obsessed with the subject. Or maybe even more than "a bit".

One might say I've got Coronavirus fever!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

What did you say?



Yes, thank you, some chicken soup would be lovely.

Election humor

In honor of Super Tuesday (I don't know who won, but I hope you do by now) I have decided to assemble all my favorite election day jokes. Nothing brings a divided country together like laughter!


1. 

Someone gestures to my "I Voted" sticker. "I see you voted." They say.

"Seven times!" I reply. "It's really the process that I love."


2. 

"How'd your voting go?" Someone asks me.

"I meant to vote for Bloomberg, but I think I accidentally voted for Coronavirus instead. I got confused by the wording."


3. 

"This may be my last election." I proclaim.

"Oh, are these campaigns driving you crazy?"

"Yes. Yes they are. I think I'll probably be convinced I'm Emperor before there's another.


4.

"You voted!"

"Yes." I respond sadly. "But what point is there in my tiny vote among all the millions of votes?" I muse. "If only there were some way for my vote to count along with those of others!"

-------------------------------

Yes, laughter can bring this divided nation together! I'm sure that as soon as someone actually laughs at one of these jokes we will be healed.

Favorite color

I guess the question I am most frequently asked is "What is your favorite color?"

To which I reply "Oh, I like all of them. They're all so nice."

"Even gray?" They say.

"Yes. I like gray a lot too." I say. "Though is it really a color?"

"I think so." They say.

"Well, either way I like it." I say.

"You don't like one color better than the others by just a little though?" They ask all the time. Usually four or five times a day.

"Sometimes yes, on an individual temporary basis, but as an overall thing it is a three million way tie for favorite color."

"There are three millions colors?" They ask.

"I don't know for sure. Let's look it up on the Internet." I suggest.

So we type in: "How many colors are there?"

And the Internet says "Three million".

"Where, where on the Internet does it say that?" They want to know.

"Right here." I say, pointing.

"Oh." They say. "Is that me?" They ask, pointing to this line.

"Yes it is." I say.

"Wow. I'm on the Internet then?"

"Yes you are. It is not hard to get on the Internet. The hard part is to get anyone to see you there." I say.

"Oh, don't be like that." They say.

"I was going to make a joke at the end about "read"." I said. "But it got messed up because "read" and "read" are spelled the same but pronounced differently, and "read" and "red" are pronounced the same but spelled differently."

"So how will you end this?" They ask.

"My favorite color is iridescent." I reply.

"Like raku?" They ask.

"And turkeys." I add.

More of the burdens of fame

My wife and I were mildly out and about on the town over the weekend. There were a couple of interruptions to our harmonious togetherness.

The first time we were at a cafe having beer and wine. Kind of a lot of it for us. It was fun. We had the good table. A lady walked by. She was very nice. She said "It's my favorite librarian!" She was talking to me. I function occasionally as a librarian though it's not technically true.

I said "That's very nice of you to say."

She said "You are such a cute couple."

I said "I'm glad you think so."

The next day we were at a bakery. A man came up to me and said "I recognize you from the library. I don't get over there very often lately. I'm reading a lot of e-books, project Gutenberg and all that."

I replied "I recognize you too." Which I did. "Have you checked out our library's e-book collection? It's pretty useful if you like them."

He said no, but that he should check it out.

There is a scene in a movie I have see 20 times called The Holiday. Jack Black is a composer who does movie soundtracks. He is with Kate Winslet who plays a obit writer on home exchange holiday in L.A. They are in a Blockbuster, which shows that the movie is far older than I think it would be. Jack Black is holding up DVD's with great soundtracks he admires, ostentatiously singing the scores to her. He holds up The Graduate and sings a bit of Mrs. Robinson and then informs her that it was written for the movie and so technically is a score. The camera cuts to Dustin Hoffman, who is only in the movie to make this one brief cameo. He mutters to himself "I can't go anywhere."

Totally.

If only there could be a picture of it

I have a pretty strict rule about not showing images here. They feel too easy somehow. They feel like cheating. But I ran into an old photo of Minneapolis, the city we gaze out our windows at. The picture is from almost a hundred years ago and I was so taken with it that I started thinking about making an exception to my rule so that I could include it in this very post. But to allow for an exception I felt I had to come up with a reason. So I tried the following reasons without success.



1. I write about Minneapolis quite a bit and this so perfectly and uniquely expresses the spirit of the city!

Alas, it actually expresses almost nothing about the spirit of the city.


2. It's Christmastime!

No. Unfortunately its not at all Christmastime. It's months past Christmastime.


3. I really really like elephants!

Fair enough, but I'm free to write about elephants all I like, which, after a 17 hour perusal of my 2,500 essays, I am embarrassed to say I have sorely neglected. So there is much left to say about them before I resort desperately to pictures.


4. My prohibition on pictures unfairly inhibits my marketing abilities for my blog.

I don't actually have any marketing abilities to inhibit.






So in the end I just sort of had to give up. No picture. If you were looking forward to it, well, I'm sorry, but it's not that great anyway, and as we have seen it's not that relevant to anything I have to say. In the end I don't want to just allow my carefully composed blog to descend into a loose-limbed, silly anarchy.


Oh.


Wait.





That already happened years and years ago! In fact, that's how it all started! My blog is like a, like a, like a...









Santa on a smiling elephant in The Twin Cities!