A friend writes from Brooklyn: “I’ll spare you our preparations for Passover, which begins tonight. It seems weird to celebrate God deciding a plague should pass over the Jews when we’re sitting around with the coronavirus on our heads.” I agree. His comment called to mind my own thoughts about a different observance.
Archives for April 2020
Coping With the Shitstorm #3
A friend writes from the French countryside: The invisible threat casts a shadow over an otherwise idyllic springtime. When normally one’s own sorrows are cast aside, albeit temporarily, by the blossoming of nature and its infectious sense of hope, this year comes with a malaise which seems to leach all sense of renewal; and so I find myself hesitant in all I do.
Coping With the Shitstorm #2
A friend writes from Berlin: Good news … I received 5000 euros from the city. I could hardly believe it when I looked at my bank account. That will come in handy. Now we simply have to survive. It was very generous to artists who live here, many of whom are wiped out by what has happened. The decisions were made quickly, based simply upon the evidence that an artist truly has been living and working on their art here. It all seems unreal…everything does now.
GC CUNY Keeps the Conversation Going:
Roxane Gay and Katia D. Ulysse
GC Presents: Roxane Gay, a powerful literary voice and one of today’s most-watched cultural critics, joins in a reading and conversation with acclaimed fiction writer Katia D. Ulysse. (Courtesy of GC CUNY’s Public Programs archive.)
Shared Thoughts
The grand pyannah, glorious
but somewhat out of tune,
awaits my amateur tickling.
It‘s a great distraction.
Tell me you’re distracted,
mowing down the pages
of your rare old books.
GC CUNY Keeps the Conversation Going:
Milanovic, Piketty, Stiglitz, and Krugman
While events are postponed at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York in the heart of Manhattan, videos of recent public programs will be featured from its archive for your enjoyment. The videos provide illuminating discussions in two main categories: insights into current events and conversations with leading writers and artists. (Courtesy of GC CUNY’s Public Programs archive.)
Twitter Fingers Has It ‘Totally Under Control’—Oh Yeah.
As of two weeks ago, about a million people saw this. Some three hundred million more need to see it. Now he’s trying to kill ads that use his own words against him.