newyorker--2020-05-05--“This Is What Happens to Couples Under Stress”: An Interview with Esther Perel

Also , make a request and not just a protest .
Tell your partner , “ I really wanted you to do this .
I counted on you .
Can we agree you ’ ll do it by twelve o ’ clock today ?
” Fight from a place of enlightened self-interest , as [ the family therapist ] Terry Real says , not just to get it out of your system .
To get it out of your system , call your friends .
Vent as much as you want .
And then go back to your partner and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t just want to get it out of your system .
You actually want a change .
How about sex : There are jokes going around about how many babies will be born in nine months , just so many babies , but how do you create space for sexuality when you are trapped indoors with pets , kids , jobs , etc.
?
There are such myths that need to be debunked around what actually preserves erotic interest in a couple .
The idea that there is no mystery because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with you is somewhat true , if you simply think that being away from the person is enough .
By definition , we need to create that space .
For those who have little kids in the house , look at what they do : they don ’ t need to leave the house to suddenly become the captain of a ship , or the officer of the fortress , or the driver of the truck .
They just enter into a character , and , from that “ play mode ” through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ borders and the limitations of reality .
It is the same with the erotic mind .
It is the adult version of what children do when they play .
There ’ s a couple you interviewed on your podcast , a married couple in New York City .
They are nearing divorce , and the husband has a girlfriend , and even under quarantine he still wants to go out to visit her .
What are you seeing or hearing about issues of infidelity while people are in lockdown ?
How is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of infidelity is the same as it always is .
It starts with “ What do people define as infidelity ?
” We know that people are spending a lot more time on porn right now .
If you consider that an infidelity , well , then there is more of that .
Do people have the opportunity to go and meet their lovers in physical terms ?
No , many don ’ t .
But do they have access , online , to connect with hosts of people ?
Of course they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re next to their partner ?
That ’ s the whole issue with modern infidelity : you can have a full-blown affair with somebody while you ’ re lying next to your partner in bed .
So there ’ s not that much of a change in that respect .
For people who do have another partner and can ’ t go see that person right now , I think what ’ s happening is that , in some cases , people are reconnecting with their partner and disconnecting from their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases , people are disconnecting from their partners and becoming more eager to connect with all the other opportunities that they may have on the outside .
Yes , in another episode of the podcast , there ’ s a German couple where the woman has returned to the man after a period of painful separation , because she wanted to be back home during the outbreak .
Before the lockdown , they couldn ’ t resolve their standoff .
“ You abandoned me , ” she said , and he said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were in a real lockdown .
But the virus made the decision , and so nobody won .
Nobody had to give in .
It ’ s the virus who made it happen , and they could say , “ Because of the virus , we are together.
” And then , on top of it , once they are together , they realize how much they do appreciate each other .
Let ’ s talk about other positive stories .
Are there ways in which this could be an amazing time for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ times of distress , our priorities get reorganized , and the superfluous often gets thrown overboard .
And disasters function as accelerators as well .
So people are making decisions : “ We will move .
We will change jobs .
We will go live closer to our parents .
We will have another child .
We will start to do the thing that we ’ ve been meaning to do for so long.
” These things are happening a lot .
There ’ s a lot of wonderful , positive things going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ openings .
But they often don ’ t get the same media time as the bad stories .
I think , in general , when people live in acute stress , either the cracks in their relationship will be amplified or the light that shines through the cracks will be amplified .
You get an amplification of the best and of the worst .
I want to hear your thoughts on people who have recently started dating .
How are you advising them to spark new relationships during this time of isolation ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ re talking more , a lot more than the typical dating has allowed us ; you ’ re not able to hook up so quickly , so you actually want to have conversations .
And the conversations are deeper .
New couples talk instantly about “ Where are you ?
Are you safe ?
How ’ s your family ?
Have you had contact with them ?
” People are sharing a lot more important parts of themselves .
Are you saying that relationships are deeper when you don ’ t have sex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the beautiful sexual formulas is attraction plus obstacles equals excitement .
This is what happens in affairs all the time .
It ’ s what people who are apart from each other do .
They pine .
They gush .
They fantasize .
They dream .
When you can ’ t meet the person right away , you are prevented from doing the shortcuts , and everybody has their own versions of shortcuts—maybe you have hookups where you don ’ t even know the person ’ s name .
But , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mood to meet somebody .
And I am amazed by how many people are starting real love stories .
There was a great essay in the Times by an editor whose husband got very sick with the coronavirus , describing the incredibly intense experience of caring for him .
What would you say to people who are suddenly having to care for each other in this new and incredibly anxiety-making way ?
Look , thirty-seven million Americans are caregivers at home on a daily basis , in normal times .
[ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . ]
So we shouldn ’ t idealize the world before COVID-19 and suddenly think that all of this is new .
You need three things : you need help for the person who is sick , you need help for the person who is taking care of the person who is sick , and you need structural support .
Right now the ones you ’ d normally rely on may be living too far to actually come to you .
So your support system is no longer just your familial group or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be whoever is physically able to come to you .
And since so many people want to be helpful , want some sense of purpose , want to feel less guilty about the fact that they have more than others right now , it ’ s about engaging people around you like that .
You have to geo-locate strangers .
And that ’ s new .

Some of my friends have commented that being at home with their partners has made some of the “invisible work” they do, which their partners took for granted, quite visible. For example, they’re, like, “Who did you think cleans the house and does the dishes? Suddenly, you see all that that I’m doing.” Or, vice versa, maybe someone says, “You have finally seen what I do at work. And you see how hard I work. And you’re not acknowledging it.” What effect does that have, to have these things suddenly visible in a new way?
What is happening now, in this expanded view of ourselves and of our partners, can go in two directions. In one direction, you say, “I’m curious. Tell me more. I never knew. I really appreciate it. I realize how clueless I was, how I let you do everything.” And it becomes really a source of connection. In the other version, it becomes a source of blame: “You want me to tell you how much I’ve been doing? I just did the laundry! I just cleaned the sinks! You would just live in a pigsty! What’s the matter with you?” You begin to complain in such a way that insures that the other person is going to try to chew you out as fast as possible, and you’re not going to get the help.
This brings me to the question of how people should fight. Couples are going to get into arguments and log jams during this time. But you literally can’t walk away. I’m wondering how you are seeing couples work through things when they cannot physically separate.
You don’t need to have a door to leave the house. You can be somewhere there without being absolutely present. I think that couples, by definition, go through harmony, disharmony, and repair. This is a dance that we do no matter what. By definition, we fight. What matters is how you fight. When you get really mad at something, can you afterward say, “O.K., got that out of my system—how are we going to solve this?” or “Look, I realize I was quite unfair. Let me first say what I do appreciate about what you do before I dump on you the whole list of stuff that I don’t think you do”? That’s why I play this little exercise of ten yeses and ten nos, which my colleague Dan Siegel taught me. It’s so powerful. Because, if you start with the yes, you will fight differently. You will actually have a different argument. You can defuse it with humor.
Begin by saying to yourself, “What are the one or two things that they have done that I can appreciate?” Otherwise, it’s whatever is negative I will highlight, and whatever is positive I will take for granted. If we made it on time, it’s because there was no traffic, and, if we got there late, it’s because of you. The negative is attributed to the other person, and the positive is just taken as “that’s the way it should be.”
And you can be all entitled about this and say, “Well, there’s no reason I should appreciate that, because I have done a whole bunch of things, and you haven’t appreciated them either.” But the productive thing is to start with you. You want to change the other? You change you.
What else can you say about how to fight better?
Stay focussed on the task. When you want to talk about the dishes, don’t end up talking about five different things, two of which are years old. Don’t “kitchen sink” it. Keep yourself to the one thing that you’re upset about at this moment.
Also, make a request and not just a protest. Tell your partner, “I really wanted you to do this. I counted on you. Can we agree you’ll do it by twelve o’clock today?” Fight from a place of enlightened self-interest, as [the family therapist] Terry Real says, not just to get it out of your system. To get it out of your system, call your friends. Vent as much as you want. And then go back to your partner and be strategic about it. Because you don’t just want to get it out of your system. You actually want a change.
How about sex: There are jokes going around about how many babies will be born in nine months, just so many babies, but how do you create space for sexuality when you are trapped indoors with pets, kids, jobs, etc.?
There are such myths that need to be debunked around what actually preserves erotic interest in a couple. The idea that there is no mystery because I’m in the same room with you is somewhat true, if you simply think that being away from the person is enough. By definition, we need to create that space. For those who have little kids in the house, look at what they do: they don’t need to leave the house to suddenly become the captain of a ship, or the officer of the fortress, or the driver of the truck. They just enter into a character, and, from that “play mode” through their imagination, they transcend all the borders and the limitations of reality. It is the same with the erotic mind. It is the adult version of what children do when they play.
There’s a couple you interviewed on your podcast, a married couple in New York City. They are nearing divorce, and the husband has a girlfriend, and even under quarantine he still wants to go out to visit her. What are you seeing or hearing about issues of infidelity while people are in lockdown? How is that playing out?


newyorker--2020-05-05--The White House’s Push to Reopen the Economy This Early Is a Dangerous Gamble

At the start of last week , Jonathan Swan , of Axios , reported that the “ White House plans to shift its coronavirus messaging toward boosting the economy and highlighting ‘ success stories ’ of businesses , reducing its public emphasis on health statistics.
” The story proved to be accurate .
Rather than having Donald Trump appear at a daily coronavirus briefing , his staff set up a series of meetings with business leaders for him to attend .
And this past weekend , the White House dispatched two of its economic advisers to appear on television .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost every state will be mostly open economically , ” Kevin Hassett , a former head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers , who recently rejoined the Administration , told Fox & Friends .
“ We are going to monitor the situation closely , but make no mistake about it , it ’ s really , really good news that we ’ ve been able to open up as soon as we have , and to do so according to the guidelines that doctors ” —Deborah Birx , the coördinator of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Anthony Fauci , the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases— “ set out.
” Larry Kudlow , the head of the National Economic Council , echoed Hassett ’ s message .
In appearances on CNN and Fox Business , Kudlow predicted that the economy would rebound strongly in the second half of the year , and he said that 2021 could be a “ spectacular ” year .
During a virtual town hall held at the Lincoln Memorial , on Sunday night , Trump didn ’ t go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insist that it is possible to end the shutdowns and reopen the economy while protecting the vulnerable .
“ I think you can really have it both ways , ” he said .
With Florida , Missouri , and a number of other states allowing many businesses to reopen on Monday morning , the White House ’ s pivot from messaging about fighting the virus to promoting the economy seemed to be complete .
According to a running tally that the Times maintains , twenty-four states in total had already ordered a partial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came a pair of shocking developments .
At lunchtime on Monday , the Times published some details of an internal “ situation update ” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
The update , which also bore the seal of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security , included a chart showing the number of daily deaths caused by COVID-19 rising steadily over the next month and reaching about three thousand—which is roughly seventy per cent more than the current level—by the start of June @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of new cases rising to more than two hundred thousand during the same period , which would represent an even bigger increase in relative terms .
In the past few days , the number of positive tests in the U.S. has averaged about thirty thousand , according to the Covid Tracking Project .
The White House quickly issued a statement distancing itself from the new projections and saying they hadn ’ t even been submitted to the coronavirus task force .
“ This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the task force has analyzed , ” the statement said .
“ The President ’ s phased guidelines to open up America again are a scientific driven approach that the top health and infectious diseases experts in the federal government agreed with.
” Later on Monday , the Washington Post reported that the projections were the work of Justin Lessler , an associate professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins , who had showed his data to the C.D.C .
“ as a work in progress.
” Lessler told the Post that his projections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and he didn ’ t know how they ended up in the C.D.C .
update .
But Lessler also said that while “ the exact numbers and charts in the CDC document may differ from the final results , they do show accurately how Covid-19 cases could spiral out of control.
” According to the Post , “ He said 100,000 cases per day by the end of the month is within the realm of possibility .
Much depends on political decisions being made today.
” One thing we ’ ve learned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not to place too much stock in any single set of projections .
All such predictions are acutely sensitive to assumptions about things like social distancing , travel , and ease of transmission .
But even if this particular set of simulations should be treated with caution , the consensus among medical experts is that reopening the economy while the virus is still spreading represents a risky strategy , and the earlier the reopenings take place , the greater the risks .
Also on Monday , the influential Institute for Health Metrics and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , issued a new projection that showed the cumulative death total rising to a hundred and thirty-five thousand by early August—a big increase over the institute ’ s previous forecast , which was issued in April and predicted about sixty thousand deaths .
“ The revised projections reflect rising mobility in most US states as well as the easing of social distancing measures expected in 31 states by May 11 , indicating that growing contacts among people will promote transmission of the coronavirus , ” the institute , whose model some states rely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , said in a press release .
“ Increases in testing and contact tracing , along with warming seasonal temperatures—factors that could help slow transmission—do not offset rising mobility , thereby fueling a significant increase in projected deaths.
” These warnings echoed statements by other experts and public-health officials , including one who used to work for the Trump Administration .
In an op-ed published in Monday ’ s Wall Street Journal , Scott Gottlieb , who was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 2017 to 2019 , pointed out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have had a big effect in places like New York City , the national figures for deaths and new infections have stayed pretty steady over the past month .
“ Mitigation hasn ’ t failed ; social distancing and other measures have slowed the spread , ” Gottlieb wrote .
“ But the halt hasn ’ t brought the number of new cases and deaths down as much as expected or stopped the epidemic from expanding.
” He added , “ as states begin to open up their economies and Americans return to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expand.
” That doesn ’ t necessarily mean that reopening some parts of the economy is unjustified .
The economic shutdown is also imposing huge costs , and governments throughout the world are looking for ways to reduce those costs while protecting the vulnerable and continuing to reduce the infection rate .
The reopening guidelines that the White House task force issued in mid-April said states that want to relax their stay-at-home orders should meet a number of requirements .
Among them were having a “ robust testing program in place for at-risk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” and insuring that “ sentinel surveillance sites are screening for asymptomatic cases .
.
.
at locations that serve older individuals , lower-income Americans , racial minorities , and Native Americans.
” In many parts of America , this essential preparatory work simply hasn ’ t been done .
Nationwide , the level of testing is running at about two hundred and fifty thousand a day , which is far below the level that many independent medical experts recommend .
Last week , some Harvard researchers and the health-news site STAT @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including ones that were planning to reopen soon .
“ To catch hot spots before they turn into wildfires of disease , Georgia must do 9,600 to 10,000 tests per day ; it has been averaging around 4,000 , ” the study said .
“ Florida will need 16,000 ; in the last week it has been hitting just above 10,000.
” Texas , which allowed many stores and restaurants to reopen last Friday despite a new case count that is still rising , is another big state that is doing far less @ @ @ @ @

At the start of last week, Jonathan Swan, of Axios, reported that the “White House plans to shift its coronavirus messaging toward boosting the economy and highlighting ‘success stories’ of businesses, reducing its public emphasis on health statistics.” The story proved to be accurate. Rather than having Donald Trump appear at a daily coronavirus briefing, his staff set up a series of meetings with business leaders for him to attend. And this past weekend, the White House dispatched two of its economic advisers to appear on television.
“By the end of May, almost every state will be mostly open economically,” Kevin Hassett, a former head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, who recently rejoined the Administration, told Fox & Friends. “We are going to monitor the situation closely, but make no mistake about it, it’s really, really good news that we’ve been able to open up as soon as we have, and to do so according to the guidelines that doctors”—Deborah Birx, the coördinator of the White House coronavirus task force, and Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—“set out.” Larry Kudlow, the head of the National Economic Council, echoed Hassett’s message. In appearances on CNN and Fox Business, Kudlow predicted that the economy would rebound strongly in the second half of the year, and he said that 2021 could be a “spectacular” year. During a virtual town hall held at the Lincoln Memorial, on Sunday night, Trump didn’t go quite that far. But he did insist that it is possible to end the shutdowns and reopen the economy while protecting the vulnerable. “I think you can really have it both ways,” he said.
With Florida, Missouri, and a number of other states allowing many businesses to reopen on Monday morning, the White House’s pivot from messaging about fighting the virus to promoting the economy seemed to be complete. According to a running tally that the Times maintains, twenty-four states in total had already ordered a partial reopening of their economies. But then came a pair of shocking developments.
At lunchtime on Monday, the Times published some details of an internal “situation update” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The update, which also bore the seal of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, included a chart showing the number of daily deaths caused by COVID-19 rising steadily over the next month and reaching about three thousand—which is roughly seventy per cent more than the current level—by the start of June. Another chart showed the daily number of new cases rising to more than two hundred thousand during the same period, which would represent an even bigger increase in relative terms. In the past few days, the number of positive tests in the U.S. has averaged about thirty thousand, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
The White House quickly issued a statement distancing itself from the new projections and saying they hadn’t even been submitted to the coronavirus task force. “This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed,” the statement said. “The President’s phased guidelines to open up America again are a scientific driven approach that the top health and infectious diseases experts in the federal government agreed with.”
Later on Monday, the Washington Post reported that the projections were the work of Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins, who had showed his data to the C.D.C. “as a work in progress.” Lessler told the Post that his projections weren’t intended as a forecast, and he didn’t know how they ended up in the C.D.C. update. But Lessler also said that while “the exact numbers and charts in the CDC document may differ from the final results, they do show accurately how Covid-19 cases could spiral out of control.” According to the Post, “He said 100,000 cases per day by the end of the month is within the realm of possibility. Much depends on political decisions being made today.”
One thing we’ve learned over the past couple of months is not to place too much stock in any single set of projections. All such predictions are acutely sensitive to assumptions about things like social distancing, travel, and ease of transmission. But even if this particular set of simulations should be treated with caution, the consensus among medical experts is that reopening the economy while the virus is still spreading represents a risky strategy, and the earlier the reopenings take place, the greater the risks.
Also on Monday, the influential Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, at the University of Washington, issued a new projection that showed the cumulative death total rising to a hundred and thirty-five thousand by early August—a big increase over the institute’s previous forecast, which was issued in April and predicted about sixty thousand deaths. “The revised projections reflect rising mobility in most US states as well as the easing of social distancing measures expected in 31 states by May 11, indicating that growing contacts among people will promote transmission of the coronavirus,” the institute, whose model some states rely on to help plan their medical needs, said in a press release. “Increases in testing and contact tracing, along with warming seasonal temperatures—factors that could help slow transmission—do not offset rising mobility, thereby fueling a significant increase in projected deaths.”
These warnings echoed statements by other experts and public-health officials, including one who used to work for the Trump Administration. In an op-ed published in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Scott Gottlieb, who was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 2017 to 2019, pointed out that while the shutdowns and social distancing have had a big effect in places like New York City, the national figures for deaths and new infections have stayed pretty steady over the past month. “Mitigation hasn’t failed; social distancing and other measures have slowed the spread,” Gottlieb wrote. “But the halt hasn’t brought the number of new cases and deaths down as much as expected or stopped the epidemic from expanding.” He added, “as states begin to open up their economies and Americans return to traveling, the disease will continue to expand.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean that reopening some parts of the economy is unjustified. The economic shutdown is also imposing huge costs, and governments throughout the world are looking for ways to reduce those costs while protecting the vulnerable and continuing to reduce the infection rate. The reopening guidelines that the White House task force issued in mid-April said states that want to relax their stay-at-home orders should meet a number of requirements. Among them were having a “robust testing program in place for at-risk healthcare workers, including emerging antibody testing,” and insuring that “sentinel surveillance sites are screening for asymptomatic cases . . . at locations that serve older individuals, lower-income Americans, racial minorities, and Native Americans.”


newyorker--2020-05-05--Murder Hornets Doubt They Can Do as Much Damage as Trump

WASHINGTON STATE ( The Borowitz Report ) —Calling it “ a tall order , for sure , ” a swarm of murder hornets are openly questioning whether they can do as much damage to the United States as Donald J. Trump has .
In an unusually candid interview , the deadly winged insects said that their initial plans to invade North America , spreading terror and carnage in their wake , have been largely upended by Trump ’ s performance this year .
“ We had been talking about coming to America for , like , forever , ” one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obviously a huge market , and we wanted to make a big splash over here .
And now this.
” The hornet said that , when it became clear that Trump was causing headline-grabbing destruction , “ a bunch of us were , like , ‘ Should we postpone our whole deal ?
It seems like we ’ re not going to get the attention we ’ ve been shooting for.
’ ” Ultimately , the hornets decided to stick with their original launch date , but they are now confronting the unpalatable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us in the dust , threat-wise.
” “ Look , we ’ re murder hornets , ” the hornet said .
“ We ’ re going to do what murder hornets do .
We ’ re going to sting people .
We ’ re going to terrify them .
But are we really going to engulf the United States of America in terror and existential despair ?
Trump has set the bar very high .
”

WASHINGTON STATE (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it “a tall order, for sure,” a swarm of murder hornets are openly questioning whether they can do as much damage to the United States as Donald J. Trump has.
In an unusually candid interview, the deadly winged insects said that their initial plans to invade North America, spreading terror and carnage in their wake, have been largely upended by Trump’s performance this year.
“We had been talking about coming to America for, like, forever,” one hornet said. “It’s obviously a huge market, and we wanted to make a big splash over here. And now this.”
The hornet said that, when it became clear that Trump was causing headline-grabbing destruction, “a bunch of us were, like, ‘Should we postpone our whole deal? It seems like we’re not going to get the attention we’ve been shooting for.’ ”
Ultimately, the hornets decided to stick with their original launch date, but they are now confronting the unpalatable reality that “Trump has definitely left us in the dust, threat-wise.”
“Look, we’re murder hornets,” the hornet said. “We’re going to do what murder hornets do. We’re going to sting people. We’re going to terrify them. But are we really going to engulf the United States of America in terror and existential despair? Trump has set the bar very high.”


newyorker--2020-05-05--The Political Consequences of Loneliness and Isolation During the Pandemic

For many of us during the coronavirus pandemic , self-isolation describes the extent to which we can act to protect ourselves and others , solitude describes the best we can hope for , and loneliness describes what we actually feel .
By “ us , ” I mean people who have the luxury of self-isolating , and the luxury of striving for solitude .
Those who are not self-isolating—the doctors and nurses , the delivery workers who make the self-isolation of others possible—are , for most of their waking hours , often in a state of both isolation and loneliness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ability to choose their own company .
The most complicated and precise descriptions of isolation , solitude , and loneliness are offered by Hannah Arendt , in the last chapter of “ The Origins of Totalitarianism.
” Loneliness , Arendt posits , is the defining condition of totalitarianism and the common ground of all terror .
Isolation and solitude flank loneliness as two related but distinct conditions .
Arendt ’ s examples—slaves and the subjects of modern totalitarian states—are both isolated and lonely , but not alone .
Isolation , she writes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; it certainly is its most fertile ground ; it always is its result.
” Isolation is the inability to act together with others , which , according to Arendt , is the source of a person ’ s political power .
Isolation renders people impotent .
One can be lonely and not isolated , or isolated and not lonely .
A person who is isolated can not act with others , but still can act—still can create and send those creations out into the world .
Loneliness is the inability to act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Arendt links loneliness to the states of uprootedness and superfluousness : having no place in the world , nothing to give to the world .
This , in turn , is linked to the loss of what she calls “ common sense ” —the shared reality that allows us to know ourselves , to know where we end and the world begins , and how we are connected to others .
“ We live without feeling the country beneath our feet // our words are inaudible from ten steps away , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1933 , summing up the state of totalitarian loneliness , the loss of sense of time and place , the disappearance of society and of any hope of being heard or seen .
When there is no connection to others , there can be no voice .
Arendt writes about isolation and loneliness as the preconditions , instruments , and products of tyranny .
We , in the virtual “ here ” today , are not the subjects of a tyrant or a totalitarian regime , and the terror we have experienced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ although it is exacerbated by them .
Yet Arendt ’ s observations on isolation and loneliness have a piercing resonance today that they didn ’ t have eight or twelve weeks ago .
Every Sunday , I meet my best friends in Moscow on Zoom .
The loss of sense of time and space means that a seven-hour time difference has little impact on our ability to drink simultaneously , and the distance between us—a distance that used to be measured in kilometres , hours , and dollars required to traverse it—has become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are functionally as close and as far as my friend whose house is a short bike ride away .
( Her house is , but she is an image on the screen . )
More strikingly , it has been a long time since my friends in Moscow and I have inhabited a shared reality—have had as much of a “ common sense ” —as we do now .
We experience similar isolation , fear , helplessness , and anger .
We compare notes on schools that do not teach , hospitals that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ betray us .
Our conversations revolve around absences .
We talk about the ways in which we don ’ t see people .
I have been staying in the same town as my father and my oldest friend , without seeing them .
When I finally saw my father , after seven weeks , we wore masks and stood far apart , making the familiar details of our faces invisible .
Our muffled voices were barely audible ten steps away .
With my friend on Zoom , whom I see more clearly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frame , we talk about the not seeing , the many ways of not knowing : what the tests mean , if anything ; when this pandemic will be over ; what the world will be like when it is .
Gradually , though , the ground seems to be seeping out from under those conversations .
Our common sense is wearing thin .
Or perhaps it ’ s becoming too thick : what we experience during our weeks of isolation may be a matter of common sense in that we are experiencing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internal , intimate , difficult to articulate—it ’ s difficult , too , to know whether they should be put into words .
For the first few weeks , we traded news and impressions of our lives , updating one another on the speed and manner of the shutdowns in our respective cities .
We traded notes on experiencing shock or nostalgia at the intrusion of a sound or a sight from life before the pandemic , such as hearing the voices of a few drunken men together out in the street .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ constitutes a new experience now ?
A man I barely know tells me , during a professional conversation over Zoom , that he has not touched anyone in weeks and that his sexuality is atrophying .
Another acquaintance , the art curator Ruth Noack , posts , on Facebook , “ I just realized that I have not touched another living being , nor have I been touched , for more than 4 weeks .
I wonder whether we will later on have split humanity into those who were touched and those who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the company of others , meanwhile , have fights , doubts , highs and lows in their relationships , clashes about child rearing—all of the ways in which happy , unhappy , and fluctuating families , following a finite number of patterns under quarantine , create what common sense we have .
We have always had these fights , fears , and heartaches in the intimate sphere , but they were generally shielded from the eyes of others .
Now private lives are the only ones we are living .
What does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in its many meanings , straddles the boundary between private and public ?
Where is the boundary now , when all communal space is gone ?
And what happens to the physical public spaces , while we leave them vacant ?
At the dawn of the era of self-isolation , in the initial burst of memes , songs , and other cultural productions , a Russian Web-based cartoon called “ Masyanya , ” which is now in its twentieth year of existence , posted an episode on the coronavirus .
In it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grumpy and sarcastic stick figure , self-quarantines for a year with her husband and two kids .
They nail boards across their door , leaving only a thin horizontal slot for pizza deliveries , and Masyanya ponders the Russian word for “ outside , ” snaruzhi , which she converts to a noun : naruzha .
It sounds repellant .
“ ‘ Naruzha ’ is violence , illness , politics , filth , viruses , rudeness , crime , and other crap , ” Masyanya announces , at the beginning of the family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they peek out of their house .
“ What is that ?
” Masyanya asks .
“ The sky ?
That ’ s a piece of crap .
Screw it , this naruzha—it ’ s nothing but trouble .
I can show you the woods in V.R.
, and it will blow you away.
” With that , she nails the door shut again .

For many of us during the coronavirus pandemic, self-isolation describes the extent to which we can act to protect ourselves and others, solitude describes the best we can hope for, and loneliness describes what we actually feel. By “us,” I mean people who have the luxury of self-isolating, and the luxury of striving for solitude. Those who are not self-isolating—the doctors and nurses, the delivery workers who make the self-isolation of others possible—are, for most of their waking hours, often in a state of both isolation and loneliness, because they are deprived of the ability to choose their own company.
The most complicated and precise descriptions of isolation, solitude, and loneliness are offered by Hannah Arendt, in the last chapter of “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” Loneliness, Arendt posits, is the defining condition of totalitarianism and the common ground of all terror. Isolation and solitude flank loneliness as two related but distinct conditions. Arendt’s examples—slaves and the subjects of modern totalitarian states—are both isolated and lonely, but not alone. Isolation, she writes, “may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result.” Isolation is the inability to act together with others, which, according to Arendt, is the source of a person’s political power. Isolation renders people impotent.
One can be lonely and not isolated, or isolated and not lonely. A person who is isolated cannot act with others, but still can act—still can create and send those creations out into the world. Loneliness is the inability to act altogether, either with others or alone. Arendt links loneliness to the states of uprootedness and superfluousness: having no place in the world, nothing to give to the world. This, in turn, is linked to the loss of what she calls “common sense”—the shared reality that allows us to know ourselves, to know where we end and the world begins, and how we are connected to others.
“We live without feeling the country beneath our feet // our words are inaudible from ten steps away,” the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam wrote, in 1933, summing up the state of totalitarian loneliness, the loss of sense of time and place, the disappearance of society and of any hope of being heard or seen. When there is no connection to others, there can be no voice. Arendt writes about isolation and loneliness as the preconditions, instruments, and products of tyranny. We, in the virtual “here” today, are not the subjects of a tyrant or a totalitarian regime, and the terror we have experienced is not wielded by human hands, although it is exacerbated by them. Yet Arendt’s observations on isolation and loneliness have a piercing resonance today that they didn’t have eight or twelve weeks ago.
Every Sunday, I meet my best friends in Moscow on Zoom. The loss of sense of time and space means that a seven-hour time difference has little impact on our ability to drink simultaneously, and the distance between us—a distance that used to be measured in kilometres, hours, and dollars required to traverse it—has become an abstraction. My friends in Moscow are functionally as close and as far as my friend whose house is a short bike ride away. (Her house is, but she is an image on the screen.) More strikingly, it has been a long time since my friends in Moscow and I have inhabited a shared reality—have had as much of a “common sense”—as we do now. We experience similar isolation, fear, helplessness, and anger. We compare notes on schools that do not teach, hospitals that do not heal, and governments that betray us.
Our conversations revolve around absences. We talk about the ways in which we don’t see people. I have been staying in the same town as my father and my oldest friend, without seeing them. When I finally saw my father, after seven weeks, we wore masks and stood far apart, making the familiar details of our faces invisible. Our muffled voices were barely audible ten steps away. With my friend on Zoom, whom I see more clearly, as long as she stays in the frame, we talk about the not seeing, the many ways of not knowing: what the tests mean, if anything; when this pandemic will be over; what the world will be like when it is.
Gradually, though, the ground seems to be seeping out from under those conversations. Our common sense is wearing thin. Or perhaps it’s becoming too thick: what we experience during our weeks of isolation may be a matter of common sense in that we are experiencing similar things, but these things are internal, intimate, difficult to articulate—it’s difficult, too, to know whether they should be put into words. For the first few weeks, we traded news and impressions of our lives, updating one another on the speed and manner of the shutdowns in our respective cities. We traded notes on experiencing shock or nostalgia at the intrusion of a sound or a sight from life before the pandemic, such as hearing the voices of a few drunken men together out in the street. Then the world faded away.
What constitutes a new experience now? A man I barely know tells me, during a professional conversation over Zoom, that he has not touched anyone in weeks and that his sexuality is atrophying. Another acquaintance, the art curator Ruth Noack, posts, on Facebook, “I just realized that I have not touched another living being, nor have I been touched, for more than 4 weeks. I wonder whether we will later on have split humanity into those who were touched and those who were not.” Those who are self-isolating in the company of others, meanwhile, have fights, doubts, highs and lows in their relationships, clashes about child rearing—all of the ways in which happy, unhappy, and fluctuating families, following a finite number of patterns under quarantine, create what common sense we have. We have always had these fights, fears, and heartaches in the intimate sphere, but they were generally shielded from the eyes of others. Now private lives are the only ones we are living. What does this do to friendship, which always, in its many meanings, straddles the boundary between private and public? Where is the boundary now, when all communal space is gone?
And what happens to the physical public spaces, while we leave them vacant? At the dawn of the era of self-isolation, in the initial burst of memes, songs, and other cultural productions, a Russian Web-based cartoon called “Masyanya,” which is now in its twentieth year of existence, posted an episode on the coronavirus. In it, the titular character, an eternally grumpy and sarcastic stick figure, self-quarantines for a year with her husband and two kids. They nail boards across their door, leaving only a thin horizontal slot for pizza deliveries, and Masyanya ponders the Russian word for “outside,” snaruzhi, which she converts to a noun: naruzha. It sounds repellant. “ ‘Naruzha’ is violence, illness, politics, filth, viruses, rudeness, crime, and other crap,” Masyanya announces, at the beginning of the family’s self-isolation. At the end, they peek out of their house. “What is that?” Masyanya asks. “The sky? That’s a piece of crap. Screw it, this naruzha—it’s nothing but trouble. I can show you the woods in V.R., and it will blow you away.” With that, she nails the door shut again.
One knows how she feels. The outside, the physical public space, is now full of treacherous negotiations and shifting rules of social interaction that leave you at the mercy of other people. The outside is the sound of sirens; it is the place you go if you become gravely ill. It is the site of battle and the source of the news. Things that exist in the public realm—the President, the F.D.A., the C.D.C., the governor, the mayor, the newspapers—have a greater and more immediate impact on our lives than at almost any other time save for a natural disaster, a war, or a revolution. And yet our separation from them is greater than at any other time: cut off by the hollowed-out public space, we become an anxious but passive audience.
And what happens to politics at a time like this? Less than a month ago, we saw Democratic-primary voters in Wisconsin risking their lives for the possibility of acting together with others—acting politically. Then we saw the Presidential campaign effectively go into a state of suspended animation. It is impossible to give anywhere near a complete accounting of all the political acts that are not happening: school boards that are not meeting, college-campus organizations that are not forming, protests that are (for the most part) not occurring, journalists who are not travelling to the scene, and, most important, connections that are not being forged. Of course, there are Zoom organizing meetings and protests that follow social-distancing guidelines. There are Webinars attracting record-breaking audiences for a talk by, say, Naomi Klein, and there are lawyers arguing crucially important cases from their apartments. But it matters that these events are not happening in shared public spaces. We have read by now about the myriad psychological reasons that Zoom is exhausting and frustrating: we can’t look one another in the eye, we can’t read facial expressions, we are intensely and fruitlessly aware of performing, and we cannot reconcile our words, intentions, and environment. There are other ways in which virtual communication falls short of becoming political. It is too easy to leave, to tune out, to give up. You are not in a room with people with whom you must reach agreement, and your exit involves no awkwardness, no physical barrier—it’s always a (not even audible) click away. And there is little serendipity. We connect technically without ever connecting by accident (unless, of course, the Zoom meeting is “bombed”). We make no new personal or mental connections of the sort that actually make us think. Our common sense is getting neither thin nor thick; it’s simply going stale.
Thinking, Arendt wrote, happens in solitude. “Loneliness is not solitude,” she wrote. “Solitude requires being alone whereas loneliness shows itself most sharply in company with others.” My own internal distinction is simpler, and it will probably sound familiar to any writer. Loneliness, which I have experienced on several book leaves, makes me sad and stupid. Solitude—the opportunity to work alone while still being able to feed on human connection—makes me think. Arendt wrote that isolation is the enemy of solitude: when we cannot see our reflection in the eyes and ideas of others, the self disappears, and solitude turns into loneliness. “What makes loneliness so unbearable is the loss of one’s own self which can be realized in solitude but confirmed in its identity only by the trusting and trustworthy company of my equals,” Arendt writes. “In this situation, man loses trust in himself as the partner of his thoughts and that elementary confidence in the world which is necessary to make experiences at all.”
The loneliness of our self-isolation is compounded by anxiety and fear. These are lonely states. It may be possible to be brave with others, but in fear, as in illness, each of us is alone. Living in a constant state of dread, living under extreme constraint on the one hand and with extreme uncertainty on the other—these, too, are conditions of life in a totalitarian state (in which, I repeat, we do not live), and they make it almost impossible to think one’s way beyond immediate survival. We fight these obstacles, of course. My colleagues in the media have done an extraordinary job of assimilating and disseminating unfamiliar ways of conceptualizing reality, from facts about viruses, antibodies, and herd immunity that we all should have studied in middle school to more complicated and specialized ideas, such as the virus’s positivity rate or flattening the curve. This work allows us, the lay public, to grasp systemic approaches to understanding the pandemic.
So far, this virus has upset scientists’ assumptions in major ways. One was the possibility of asymptomatic spread, a phenomenon that seemed at once so unlikely and so frightening that scientific consensus might have lagged behind the evidence. We are also watching scientists adjust their assumptions about immunity. But I am not terribly worried about the medical and public-health scientists. Unlike most of us in this moment, they have both purpose and community: they have the world, which needs them and informs them. The scientists will be all right.
I am much more worried about lonely educators and lonely politicians, lonely writers and lonely economists, lonely architects and lonely filmmakers, lonely organizers and lonely artists, and all the other lonely people whose job it is to imagine the future. Arendt wrote that the only work that the mind can perform in a state of loneliness is “logical reasoning whose premise is the self-evident.” She meant the relentless, encapsulated logic of totalitarian thinking. Our common sense, such as it is, tells us that this intersection of social, political, economic, and public-health circumstances has never occurred before, and yet we are resorting to naked logic in our response. When we should be thinking about an interconnected world and shared resources, we hoard, individually and collectively, and reinforce the borders of the nation-state. When we should be thinking about the way we support one another’s lives and questioning the very assumption that there is a giant monolith called the economy that requires our commitment and our resources more than public health and individual well-being do, we are pouring unimaginable monetary and intellectual resources into trying to buy and sacrifice our way to the economic status quo ante. When it should be clearer than ever that we are only as well as our sickest member, we are allowing health care to continue to function as a business, with minimal intervention. Some of this, of course, is happening because our federal government has been captured by a deranged malignant narcissist and his enablers, but that is not the only reason. All of us are lonely right now—and, to some extent, at least, sad and stupid.


newyorker--2020-05-06--A First Date Immediately Following Quarantine

Man and Woman are seated together in a restaurant .
She has lipstick on her forehead .
His tie hangs down his back .
It is clear that they have not done this in a while .
Woman : It ’ s so nice to meet you .
Man : You , too .
You look a little different from your pictures ; did you— Woman : Not shave for six months ?
Absolutely .
Woman lifts her arms over her head to reveal impressive armpit hair .
They laugh , and laugh , and laugh .
Woman : So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Man : These days ?
I leave the house and touch my face , now that I ’ m allowed !
Sometimes I even bathe in Purell , since it ’ s no longer an endangered species .
They laugh , and laugh , and laugh , and laugh .
Man : I ’ m really funny , yeah .
It ’ s actually one of my main qualities .
Woman : I love that about you .
What ’ d you do for fun in .
.
.
Before Times ?
Man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all the pennies in my coin jar seventeen times , or rearrange my stack of toilet paper to look like the ships in that Manet painting of the Civil War— Man ( pauses , stoic ) : Oh .
Those times .
I think I .
.
.
did yoga ?
Woman ( lights up ) : I think I did yoga , too !
Before I spent six months locked in my apartment .
Man : I also just spent six months locked in my apartment .
It ’ s nice to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in common with .
Woman : You know , my friends said I was crazy .
They said , “ Why do you keep talking to that guy from Tinder ?
You won ’ t see him for months , and you ’ ve never met , and he has a photo of himself beating his chest while holding a knife.
” But I said , “ You guys just don ’ t get it.
” Man : So do you have any siblings ?
They laugh , and laugh , and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m not used to talking to people .
Woman : I know .
I feel like there should be a screen right now , stopping me from actually touching you .
She holds her hand out , flat , in front of his face , like a mime .
He ’ s clearly uncomfortable , but , still , they laugh , and laugh , and laugh .
It ’ s obvious that neither of them has laughed in months .
It ’ s also obvious that neither of them finds the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Waiter : What can I get you started with to drink ?
Man and Woman look at each other and then speak in unison .
Man and Woman : Anything but beans !
They laugh , and laugh , and laugh .
Like , so much .
Like , a lot .
It ’ s weird .
The waiter does not laugh .
Waiter : That ’ s not actually a beverage , anyway .
Man and Woman ( in unison ) : Vodka on the rocks , please .
Double .
Triple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did your entire world view flip on its head in response to this global pandemic ?
Woman : Let ’ s skip the small talk .
I haven ’ t touched a man in six months !
Woman jumps up onto the table and starts making out with Man .
Man kisses her , but then pulls away .
Man coughs twice .
Woman jumps down in terror .
Woman : Is that a dry cough ?
I knew I couldn ’ t trust you !
Man : I already had it !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ We don ’ t know that for sure !
Were you coughing before this ?
Woman : You didn ’ t drink water !
You ’ re a liar .
You ’ re just not who I thought you were , when I projected a whole personality onto you to keep me going through quarantine .
My friends said that I was crazy , but I said , “ Sheila , he ’ s only holding a knife in two of his Tinder photos—shut the heck up !
” I should have listened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idea .
Their phones light up .
They look down at them .
Man : Oh , it ’ s an emergency alert—apparently we ’ re supposed to go back into quarantine .
They let us out too early .
Wave two .

Man and Woman are seated together in a restaurant. She has lipstick on her forehead. His tie hangs down his back. It is clear that they have not done this in a while.
Woman: It’s so nice to meet you.
Man: You, too. You look a little different from your pictures; did you—
Woman: Not shave for six months? Absolutely.
Woman lifts her arms over her head to reveal impressive armpit hair. They laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Woman: So what do you do for fun?
Man: These days? I leave the house and touch my face, now that I’m allowed! Sometimes I even bathe in Purell, since it’s no longer an endangered species.
They laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Woman: “Species,” that’s funny—
Man: I’m really funny, yeah. It’s actually one of my main qualities.
Woman: I love that about you. What’d you do for fun in . . . Before Times?
Man: Oh, I’d count all the pennies in my coin jar seventeen times, or rearrange my stack of toilet paper to look like the ships in that Manet painting of the Civil War—
Woman: No, Before Times.
Man (pauses, stoic): Oh. Those times. I think I . . . did yoga?
Woman (lights up): I think I did yoga, too! Before I spent six months locked in my apartment.
Man puts hand on Woman’s hand.
Man: I also just spent six months locked in my apartment. It’s nice to finally meet someone I have so much in common with.
Woman: You know, my friends said I was crazy. They said, “Why do you keep talking to that guy from Tinder? You won’t see him for months, and you’ve never met, and he has a photo of himself beating his chest while holding a knife.” But I said, “You guys just don’t get it.”
Man smiles. There is a long pause.
Man: So do you have any siblings?
Woman: One brother.
Another long pause.
Man: Brothers, am I right?
They laugh, and laugh, and then suddenly fall quiet.
Man: I’m not used to talking to people.
Woman: I know. I feel like there should be a screen right now, stopping me from actually touching you.
She holds her hand out, flat, in front of his face, like a mime. He’s clearly uncomfortable, but, still, they laugh, and laugh, and laugh. It’s obvious that neither of them has laughed in months. It’s also obvious that neither of them finds the other funny. The waiter enters.
Waiter: What can I get you started with to drink?
Man and Woman look at each other and then speak in unison.
Man and Woman: Anything but beans!
They laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Like, so much. Like, a lot. It’s weird. The waiter does not laugh.
Waiter: That’s not actually a beverage, anyway.
Man and Woman (in unison): Vodka on the rocks, please. Double. Triple.
Waiter exits. There’s another long pause.
Man: So, uh, did your entire world view flip on its head in response to this global pandemic?
Woman: Let’s skip the small talk. I haven’t touched a man in six months!
Woman jumps up onto the table and starts making out with Man. Man kisses her, but then pulls away. Man coughs twice. Woman jumps down in terror.
Woman: Is that a dry cough? I knew I couldn’t trust you!
Man: I already had it! I’m immune!
Woman: We don’t know that for sure! Were you coughing before this?
Man: It’s water caught in my throat! Water, I promise!
Woman: You didn’t drink water! You’re a liar. You’re just not who I thought you were when I projected a whole personality onto you to keep myself going through quarantine. My friends said that I was crazy, but I said, “Sheila, he’s only holding a knife in two of his Tinder photos—shut the heck up!” I should have listened to her. This was a bad idea.
Their phones light up. They look down at them.
Man: Oh, it’s an emergency alert—apparently we’re supposed to go back into quarantine. They let us out too early. Wave two.
Woman: Yeah. Bummer. Text tomorrow?
Man: Sure.


newyorker--2020-05-06--The Best Television Shows to Stream Now

The Best Television Shows to Stream Now

Troy Patterson : Hi , Doreen !
Our original brief was to contrive a list of “ forty underrated TV shows to stream , ” but this isn ’ t quite that .
What is it ?
Doreen St. Félix : I ’ ve found myself balking at the suggestion that TV watching should be escapist or transportive ; I find that I can ’ t focus on series that require the sort of oppressive immersion that I usually enjoy .
So I looked for shorter series that felt like jaunts rather than commitments .
What about you ?
T.P @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have privileged brevity .
This was perhaps less a conscious choice than the natural reflex of a damaged attention span .
But also it seems connected to my apparent affection for sitcoms so absurd as to meet a quick cancellation .
D.S.F .
: I had a couple of cancelled shows on my list , too .
“ Enlightened , ” “ Sweet/Vicious.
” I also thought about including “ How to Make It in America.
” I guess we are both drawn to that which is too good to last .
Are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would you say ?
T.P .
: I like to argue about lists .
I like to be provoked by them .
I have bookmarked Robert Christgau ’ s accounting of the Village Voice ’ s Pazz & Jop polls .
I enjoy them as games and puzzles and expressions of personae , but I am unwilling to take them very seriously , lest I develop a case of , what would you call it ?
“ High Fidelity ” –itis ?
A list is always a self-portrait but never an identity .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not .
I can never commit to hierarchies or to organizing logic .
Actually , I ’ m realizing that my selections reflect the chaos of my roving , distracted mind .
Among beat critics , television critics , in some ways , have been the least affected by the pandemic , but this won ’ t last forever , of course .
Dozens of shows have had to halt production , and we have no idea when filming can resume .
Our font may turn to a trickle .
Are you thinking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I am not thinking about that .
I ought to be , but I am paralyzed by existential despair .
In the event that my television stops playing reviewable things , I will pivot to writing detailed responses to old cooking shows and noting where to substitute ingredients common to survivalists ’ pantries .
And you ?
D.S.F .
: I ’ ll wish for an early senescence .
Many years of rest and relaxation , à la the unnamed narrator from the Moshfegh novel , interrupted intermittently to watch “ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which hopefully never comes , here ’ s our list .
The “ 120 Minutes ” Archive : Here , assembled with obsessive love and exhaustive YouTube links , is a near-complete , completely unofficial playlist of the MTV show that , beginning in 1986 , documented the metamorphosis of alternative rock .
To play along and sequence your viewing as the network did , with Simple Minds giving way to Throwing Muses , say , or New Order to Pere Ubu , is to discover wonderful juxtapositions , while admiring a variety @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constraints.—T.P .
“ Andy Barker , P.I.
” ( various via NBC ) : If Jeff Lebowski were not a shaggy stoner of uncertain employment but rather a C.P.A .
with a round head and square personality , he would be Barker , played by Andy Richter in this 2007 sitcom .
An accountant is mistaken for a detective , and punctiliously begins working cases .
Its noirish comedy of errors is like a spore of a James M. Cain story blown into a strip-mall road verge and grown into a weird flowering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( various ) : It is already stale to observe the graphic similarity between the gallery view of a Zoom meeting and the title sequence of this vintage blended-family sitcom .
But “ The Brady Bunch ” itself , suffused with the preservatives of high-fructose corniness and processed cheese , remains entirely palatable as family viewing , forty-five years after the conclusion of its initial run .
The gags and tidy lessons are shelf-stable , and contemporary children will eat them up.—T.P .
“ Call the Midwife ” ( Netflix via BBC ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ watching this British medical drama , which is set in impoverished East London in the nineteen-fifties , but I ’ ve already been stunned by its wholesome story lines of sororal connection and its acute critique of social inequality ; this is a show that does not sanitize the labor , physical and psychological , that is required of its subjects .
The dogged warmth of “ Call the Midwife ” suspended my natural cynicism toward feminist television , and for that I am grateful.—D.S.F .
“ Chewing Gum ” ( Netflix ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Michaela Coel , is supposed to be twenty-four years old , but her energy is strictly pubescent , much to the credit of the series and its strong comedic voice .
Tracey is a Londoner devoted to the Pentecostal God of her Ghanaian parents .
She is a virgin , and her devotion to the Lord is at odds with the demands of her libido .
The series , which débuted on Netflix in 2016 , charts her hapless quest for sex by way of many inventively rude not-quite-sex scenes and tangy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bedroom farce.—T.P .
“ Clean House ” ( various ) : “ Clean House , ” which aired from 2003 to 2011 , is a true relic—Style , its original network , no longer exists .
For nine of its ten seasons , the marvellous Niecy Nash captained a team of designers in the soulful work of decluttering the homes and decongesting the souls of their sad charges .
The tenor of contemporary home-improvement television can be too woo-woo for me , so , if you like to pair kitchen renovation with light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the kind of binge that cleanses.—D.S.F .
“ Cowboy Bebop ” ( Hulu via Sunrise ) : Once a fishing trawler , the Bebop now hauls Jet Black , Faye Valentine , and Spike Spiegel , a motley crew of intergalactic bounty hunters , across the galaxy .
Earth is dead and the phlegmatic Spiegel never feels as alive as when he is broaching oblivion .
The anime “ Cowboy Bebop ” is a masterwork sci-fi Western , a classic noir thrust into the shadowy atmosphere of a future apocalypse .
Choose subtitles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ performances , in Japanese , convey a hypnotizing malaise.—D.S.F .
“ Danger Mouse ” ( various ) : From 1981 through 1992 , this merry British cartoon followed the rodent analogue of James Bond .
( His sidekick is a hamster , the M figure a chinchilla , the gloating archenemy a toad who strokes a white caterpillar like Ernst Blofeld petting his cat . )
Each installment finds the hero running a maze of international intrigue while nibbling on cheese cubes of political satire.—T.P .
“ Dead to Me ” ( Netflix @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gulp wine with hypnotizing vigor in “ Dead to Me , ” a saucy soap on the extreme sport of trauma bonding .
As Jen , a recently widowed real-estate agent , Applegate is nasty but sweet , an ideal partner to Cardellini ’ s Judy , a pathological people-pleaser .
They lie to each other , but sometimes friendship requires deception ( not to mention murder ) .
Applegate and Cardellini are as heavenly a pairing as Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin on “ Grace and Frankie.
” I ’ ve already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in May , and it ’ s perfect.—D.S.F .
“ Don ’ t Trust the B -- -- in Apartment 23 ” ( various ) : The sitcom ’ s titular B -- -- , played by Krysten Ritter , is a riotous nihilist , a party-girl grifter initiating her country mouse of a roommate to the particular frustrations of New York City and the general torments of a hilariously uncaring world .
She is as mean as the show , created by Nahnatchka Khan , in 2012 , is sharp .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into sublime foolishness.—T.P .

Troy Patterson: Hi, Doreen! Our original brief was to contrive a list of “forty underrated TV shows to stream,” but this isn’t quite that. What is it?
Doreen St. Félix: I’ve found myself balking at the suggestion that TV watching should be escapist or transportive; I find that I can’t focus on series that require the sort of oppressive immersion that I usually enjoy. So I looked for shorter series that felt like jaunts rather than commitments. What about you?
T.P.: I notice that I also have privileged brevity. This was perhaps less a conscious choice than the natural reflex of a damaged attention span. But also it seems connected to my apparent affection for sitcoms so absurd as to meet a quick cancellation.
D.S.F.: I had a couple of cancelled shows on my list, too. “Enlightened,” “Sweet/Vicious.” I also thought about including “How to Make It in America.” I guess we are both drawn to that which is too good to last. Are you a “list person,” would you say?
T.P.: I like to argue about lists. I like to be provoked by them. I have bookmarked Robert Christgau’s accounting of the Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop polls. I enjoy them as games and puzzles and expressions of personae, but I am unwilling to take them very seriously, lest I develop a case of, what would you call it? “High Fidelity”–itis? A list is always a self-portrait but never an identity. And you?
D.S.F.: Decidedly not. I can never commit to hierarchies or to organizing logic. Actually, I’m realizing that my selections reflect the chaos of my roving, distracted mind. Among beat critics, television critics, in some ways, have been the least affected by the pandemic, but this won’t last forever, of course. Dozens of shows have had to halt production, and we have no idea when filming can resume. Our font may turn to a trickle. Are you thinking about that?
T.P.: No, I am not thinking about that. I ought to be, but I am paralyzed by existential despair. In the event that my television stops playing reviewable things, I will pivot to writing detailed responses to old cooking shows and noting where to substitute ingredients common to survivalists’ pantries. And you?
D.S.F.: I’ll wish for an early senescence. Many years of rest and relaxation, à la the unnamed narrator from the Moshfegh novel, interrupted intermittently to watch “The Golden Girls.” Until that time, which hopefully never comes, here’s our list.
The “120 Minutes” Archive: Here, assembled with obsessive love and exhaustive YouTube links, is a near-complete, completely unofficial playlist of the MTV show that, beginning in 1986, documented the metamorphosis of alternative rock. To play along and sequence your viewing as the network did, with Simple Minds giving way to Throwing Muses, say, or New Order to Pere Ubu, is to discover wonderful juxtapositions, while admiring a variety of lo-fi visual styles developed under low-budget constraints.—T.P.
“Andy Barker, P.I.” (various via NBC): If Jeff Lebowski were not a shaggy stoner of uncertain employment but rather a C.P.A. with a round head and square personality, he would be Barker, played by Andy Richter in this 2007 sitcom. An accountant is mistaken for a detective, and punctiliously begins working cases. Its noirish comedy of errors is like a spore of a James M. Cain story blown into a strip-mall road verge and grown into a weird flowering weed.—T.P.
“The Brady Bunch” (various): It is already stale to observe the graphic similarity between the gallery view of a Zoom meeting and the title sequence of this vintage blended-family sitcom. But “The Brady Bunch” itself, suffused with the preservatives of high-fructose corniness and processed cheese, remains entirely palatable as family viewing, forty-five years after the conclusion of its initial run. The gags and tidy lessons are shelf-stable, and contemporary children will eat them up.—T.P.
“Call the Midwife” (Netflix via BBC): I’ve only just started watching this British medical drama, which is set in impoverished East London in the nineteen-fifties, but I’ve already been stunned by its wholesome story lines of sororal connection and its acute critique of social inequality; this is a show that does not sanitize the labor, physical and psychological, that is required of its subjects. The dogged warmth of “Call the Midwife” suspended my natural cynicism toward feminist television, and for that I am grateful.—D.S.F.
“Chewing Gum.” Photograph by Mark Johnson / Netflix
“Chewing Gum” (Netflix): Tracey Gordon, created and played by Michaela Coel, is supposed to be twenty-four years old, but her energy is strictly pubescent, much to the credit of the series and its strong comedic voice. Tracey is a Londoner devoted to the Pentecostal God of her Ghanaian parents. She is a virgin, and her devotion to the Lord is at odds with the demands of her libido. The series, which débuted on Netflix in 2016, charts her hapless quest for sex by way of many inventively rude not-quite-sex scenes and tangy monologues. It’s a one-woman bedroom farce.—T.P.
“Clean House” (various): “Clean House,” which aired from 2003 to 2011, is a true relic—Style, its original network, no longer exists. For nine of its ten seasons, the marvellous Niecy Nash captained a team of designers in the soulful work of decluttering the homes and decongesting the souls of their sad charges. The tenor of contemporary home-improvement television can be too woo-woo for me, so, if you like to pair kitchen renovation with light castigation, “Clean House” is the kind of binge that cleanses.—D.S.F.
“Cowboy Bebop” (Hulu via Sunrise): Once a fishing trawler, the Bebop now hauls Jet Black, Faye Valentine, and Spike Spiegel, a motley crew of intergalactic bounty hunters, across the galaxy. Earth is dead and the phlegmatic Spiegel never feels as alive as when he is broaching oblivion. The anime “Cowboy Bebop” is a masterwork sci-fi Western, a classic noir thrust into the shadowy atmosphere of a future apocalypse. Choose subtitles over English dubbing; the native vocal performances, in Japanese, convey a hypnotizing malaise.—D.S.F.


newyorker--2020-05-06--The Medical Students Who Joined the Battle Against the Coronavirus

In medical school , the third Friday of March is a day of judgment .
During their fourth and final year , students commit to a busy courting ritual , called the Match , which dictates where , and in what specialty , they ’ ll spend the next phase of their training , as medical residents .
They ’ ve ranked their favorite programs , and the programs , in turn , have ranked them ; an algorithm at the National Resident Matching Program ’ s headquarters has worked out the pairings .
The climax of this ordeal is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at formal celebrations to learn who will go where .
At some schools , students open their white envelopes one by one on an auditorium stage , in front of a crowd of their peers .
New York University ’ s Grossman School of Medicine gathers the class in a restaurant near Bellevue Hospital , where faculty advisers fan out batches of letters , like playing cards , for the students to draw in small groups .
Those who get left with programs on the low end of their rank lists can slip @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peers pop bottles of champagne .
( Students who match nowhere at all learn their fates earlier in the week and scramble to clinch a slot wherever they can find one . )
Early this March , as social-distancing measures to control the spread of the novel coronavirus took effect in New York City , members of Grossman ’ s graduating class began to sense that their Match ceremony might not proceed as usual .
Two weeks before Match Day , administrators notified them that the event would be limited to the graduating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allowed .
Sam Dubin , a twenty-six-year-old fourth year , called his parents , in Cincinnati , who had planned to fly in for the occasion .
At first , it still seemed possible that they could travel to New York anyway ; Dubin and his boyfriend , an editor named Jeremy , had planned to have their parents meet on Match Day , at a Shabbat dinner after the ceremony .
Then the flights stopped , and the restaurants closed .
The Sunday before Match Day , N.Y.U .
called off the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in the Greenwich Village apartment that the couple shares , Dubin received his Match results over e-mail , patching in his family on FaceTime to share the news : he ’ d be remaining at N.Y.U.
, to complete a residency in primary-care internal medicine .
Dubin is tall and talkative , with a crewcut and a silver ring in the cartilage of one ear .
Whether out of bashfulness or Match Day etiquette , he was hesitant to admit that the N.Y.U .
program had been his top choice .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t want to open that envelope around other people , ” he told me , adding , “ I guess I got what I asked for.
” By then , the vast majority of medical schools had already cancelled classes and dismissed students from their clinical rotations .
Dubin ’ s final course , a health-policy elective , had migrated online , but the pandemic soon pulled many guest speakers away , into more urgent tasks .
“ It was like , ‘ Oh , the C.M.O .
of Bellevue can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s busy restructuring the hospital , ’ ” Dubin said .
He and his classmates looked for ways to join the fight against the virus : he signed up for New York City ’ s Medical Reserve Corps ; other students volunteered through N.Y.U.
, organizing P.P.E .
collection .
To combat a shortage of health-care workers , hospitals in the city were redeploying specialists from fields like dermatology and orthopedics to work in emergency rooms and intensive-care units .
Governor Andrew Cuomo had called on retired physicians and nurses to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health-care workers from out of town .
On March 24th , Dubin e-mailed Linda Tewksbury , an associate dean at the Grossman School of Medicine , to ask whether he should schedule volunteer slots with the Medical Reserve Corps or stay tuned for opportunities at N.Y.U .
Tewksbury wrote back an hour later : “ There will be an email going out about this before the end of the day .
.
.
.
” That evening , N.Y.U .
became the first medical school to mobilize its fourth-year students .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dean wrote , in bold letters , in a message sent to Grossman ’ s graduating class .
If enough students expressed interest , the note explained , the school would move to graduate fourth years early and send them to work as new physicians in the city ’ s overloaded hospitals .
In a normal year , the months after matching serve as a future doctor ’ s “ senior spring , ” a respite between the slog of coursework behind and the extreme demands of residency ahead .
Dubin had planned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parents , then fly to San Francisco for a wedding that Jeremy had agreed to officiate .
One of his peers , who was looking forward to an overseas trip , recalled thinking , when he first saw Tewksbury ’ s e-mail , I don ’ t want to fucking do this .
But with travel restricted and lockdowns taking effect across the globe , any vacation plans now seemed impossible .
Rather than “ bake sourdough and play computer games , ” Dubin told me , he wanted to contribute .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s request went out , more than forty of his classmates expressed interest .
In the end , fifty-two fourth years—almost half of the class—decided to graduate early .
On April 3rd , they positioned themselves in front of their screens for an ad-hoc commencement ceremony conducted over a video-conferencing site .
Dubin logged in , with Jeremy seated beside him , from a small second bedroom that they use as an office .
Several graduates wore caps and gowns ; one had fashioned a makeshift diploma from a manila envelope .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , their teachers and advisers appeared onscreen to offer words of encouragement ; some addressed them from the hospital , wearing P.P.E .
Steven Abramson , the chair of the Department of Medicine , welcomed them as “ members of what we now call the COVID army.
” To conclude , Tewksbury asked the new doctors to unmute their microphones and recite the Hippocratic oath .
A few hours later , an emergency push alert lit up the phones of New Yorkers , calling on licensed health-care workers to volunteer .
When Dubin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself , I ’ m on my way .
A bit of conventional wisdom within medicine holds that the most dangerous time to be a patient in the hospital is July , when a new class of interns enters the workforce and the previous year ’ s class assumes new responsibilities .
In America , this is known as the July effect ; in the United Kingdom , where new doctors start in August , it ’ s called the Killing Season .
It ’ s unclear how much of an actual risk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempted to compare outcomes , with conflicting results—in part because the hospital hierarchy is designed to limit the responsibilities of new doctors .
Under normal circumstances , medical training involves a formal system of apprenticeship , in which interns work under the supervision of junior residents—who , in turn , work under more senior ones—and whole teams of trainees report to attending physicians .
Interns “ present ” patients to their teams , relying on experienced doctors to review their notes and treatment plans .
The pandemic , and the strain that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has reconfigured both the physical layouts of hospitals and the teams that staff them .
During Dubin ’ s first week as a new doctor , in a unit on the sixteenth floor of Bellevue , his team included an older resident in psychiatry , a rheumatology fellow , and a gerontologist who normally works in one of the hospital ’ s outpatient clinics .
Having completed rotations at Bellevue during school , Dubin knew the setting better than some of the doctors and many of the travelling nurses who heeded Cuomo ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him , the I.C.U .
appeared unrecognizable : I.V .
stands had been stationed outside closed doors , he said , creating the look of a “ ghostly arcade , ” so that nurses could treat patients without exposing themselves to the virus .
One of Dubin ’ s classmates , Lizbeth Hu , graduated early and now works in an oncology unit at Tisch Hospital .
Though her team doesn ’ t treat COVID-19 patients , Hu said , they still suffer from personnel shortages brought on by the pandemic .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordering a blood transfusion , or tailoring antibiotic regimens—these are things that last week I would never have imagined doing on my own , or being able to do correctly , ” Hu told me at the end of her third shift .
“ And I ’ ve done all of those things this week .
Really everybody you ’ re working with is doing something they ’ re not used to.
” Adjusting to less oversight is a standard part of the learning curve for new physicians : submitting medication orders no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had better not be an extra zero on the dosage ; signing off on a patient ’ s D.N.R .
status may suddenly fall to them .
The pandemic has made the decisions faced by new doctors more complicated , and more perilous .
Janna Minehart , another N.Y.U .
graduate , started work in a COVID-19 ward at Tisch , two floors above Hu .
A native of San Jose , California , Minehart is calm and forthright , with long red hair that she wears in a loose bun during work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was assigned a middle-aged patient with both COVID-19 and metastatic cancer .
Less than an hour into her shift , Minehart received a page from a nurse : the patient had developed a gaze deviation and weakness on one side of her body .
“ Oh , shit , ” Minehart recalled thinking when she reached the room .
“ She ’ s having a stroke.
” Because of the limits on patient contact , Minehart hadn ’ t conducted a full neurological exam ; because the patient was new , she couldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ condition deviated from her baseline , either .
“ Do I do a little bit more history-taking ?
” Minehart now wondered .
“ Do I do a little bit more of a physical exam , before I call the stroke code ?
” There ’ s a saying that students learn about the treatment of stroke patients : time lost is brain lost .
When Minehart ’ s resident advised her to call the code , she realized that she didn ’ t yet know how to activate the page system to @ @ @ @ @

In medical school, the third Friday of March is a day of judgment. During their fourth and final year, students commit to a busy courting ritual, called the Match, which dictates where, and in what specialty, they’ll spend the next phase of their training, as medical residents. They’ve ranked their favorite programs, and the programs, in turn, have ranked them; an algorithm at the National Resident Matching Program’s headquarters has worked out the pairings. The climax of this ordeal is Match Day, when fourth years assemble at formal celebrations to learn who will go where. At some schools, students open their white envelopes one by one on an auditorium stage, in front of a crowd of their peers. New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine gathers the class in a restaurant near Bellevue Hospital, where faculty advisers fan out batches of letters, like playing cards, for the students to draw in small groups. Those who get left with programs on the low end of their rank lists can slip away to sulk, while their luckier peers pop bottles of champagne. (Students who match nowhere at all learn their fates earlier in the week and scramble to clinch a slot wherever they can find one.)
Early this March, as social-distancing measures to control the spread of the novel coronavirus took effect in New York City, members of Grossman’s graduating class began to sense that their Match ceremony might not proceed as usual. Two weeks before Match Day, administrators notified them that the event would be limited to the graduating class, faculty, and staff—no guests allowed. Sam Dubin, a twenty-six-year-old fourth year, called his parents, in Cincinnati, who had planned to fly in for the occasion. At first, it still seemed possible that they could travel to New York anyway; Dubin and his boyfriend, an editor named Jeremy, had planned to have their parents meet on Match Day, at a Shabbat dinner after the ceremony. Then the flights stopped, and the restaurants closed. The Sunday before Match Day, N.Y.U. called off the gathering altogether. On Friday the 20th, in the Greenwich Village apartment that the couple shares, Dubin received his Match results over e-mail, patching in his family on FaceTime to share the news: he’d be remaining at N.Y.U., to complete a residency in primary-care internal medicine. Dubin is tall and talkative, with a crewcut and a silver ring in the cartilage of one ear. Whether out of bashfulness or Match Day etiquette, he was hesitant to admit that the N.Y.U. program had been his top choice. “I’ve always joked that I didn’t want to open that envelope around other people,” he told me, adding, “I guess I got what I asked for.”
Sam Dubin, who is twenty-six, graduated early from N.Y.U. to start working at Bellevue Hospital, where he had completed clinical rotations during school.
By then, the vast majority of medical schools had already cancelled classes and dismissed students from their clinical rotations. Dubin’s final course, a health-policy elective, had migrated online, but the pandemic soon pulled many guest speakers away, into more urgent tasks. “It was like, ‘Oh, the C.M.O. of Bellevue can’t come lecture us, because he’s busy restructuring the hospital,’ ” Dubin said. He and his classmates looked for ways to join the fight against the virus: he signed up for New York City’s Medical Reserve Corps; other students volunteered through N.Y.U., organizing P.P.E. collection. To combat a shortage of health-care workers, hospitals in the city were redeploying specialists from fields like dermatology and orthopedics to work in emergency rooms and intensive-care units. Governor Andrew Cuomo had called on retired physicians and nurses to return to work; buses were delivering health-care workers from out of town. On March 24th, Dubin e-mailed Linda Tewksbury, an associate dean at the Grossman School of Medicine, to ask whether he should schedule volunteer slots with the Medical Reserve Corps or stay tuned for opportunities at N.Y.U. Tewksbury wrote back an hour later: “There will be an email going out about this before the end of the day. . . . ”
That evening, N.Y.U. became the first medical school to mobilize its fourth-year students. “We ask for your help,” the dean wrote, in bold letters, in a message sent to Grossman’s graduating class. If enough students expressed interest, the note explained, the school would move to graduate fourth years early and send them to work as new physicians in the city’s overloaded hospitals. In a normal year, the months after matching serve as a future doctor’s “senior spring,” a respite between the slog of coursework behind and the extreme demands of residency ahead. Dubin had planned to visit the Grand Canyon with his parents, then fly to San Francisco for a wedding that Jeremy had agreed to officiate. One of his peers, who was looking forward to an overseas trip, recalled thinking, when he first saw Tewksbury’s e-mail, I don’t want to fucking do this. But with travel restricted and lockdowns taking effect across the globe, any vacation plans now seemed impossible. Rather than “bake sourdough and play computer games,” Dubin told me, he wanted to contribute. In the first twelve hours after N.Y.U.’s request went out, more than forty of his classmates expressed interest.
Before the pandemic caused N.Y.U. to cancel its Match Day ceremony, Dubin (right) and his boyfriend, Jeremy, had planned to introduce their parents after the event.
In the end, fifty-two fourth years—almost half of the class—decided to graduate early. On April 3rd, they positioned themselves in front of their screens for an ad-hoc commencement ceremony conducted over a video-conferencing site. Dubin logged in, with Jeremy seated beside him, from a small second bedroom that they use as an office. Several graduates wore caps and gowns; one had fashioned a makeshift diploma from a manila envelope. One by one, in a prerecorded montage, their teachers and advisers appeared onscreen to offer words of encouragement; some addressed them from the hospital, wearing P.P.E. Steven Abramson, the chair of the Department of Medicine, welcomed them as “members of what we now call the COVID army.” To conclude, Tewksbury asked the new doctors to unmute their microphones and recite the Hippocratic oath. A few hours later, an emergency push alert lit up the phones of New Yorkers, calling on licensed health-care workers to volunteer. When Dubin saw the message, he thought to himself, I’m on my way.
A bit of conventional wisdom within medicine holds that the most dangerous time to be a patient in the hospital is July, when a new class of interns enters the workforce and the previous year’s class assumes new responsibilities. In America, this is known as the July effect; in the United Kingdom, where new doctors start in August, it’s called the Killing Season. It’s unclear how much of an actual risk the turnover poses to patients—various studies have attempted to compare outcomes, with conflicting results—in part because the hospital hierarchy is designed to limit the responsibilities of new doctors. Under normal circumstances, medical training involves a formal system of apprenticeship, in which interns work under the supervision of junior residents—who, in turn, work under more senior ones—and whole teams of trainees report to attending physicians. Interns “present” patients to their teams, relying on experienced doctors to review their notes and treatment plans.
The pandemic, and the strain that it has put on the health-care system, has reconfigured both the physical layouts of hospitals and the teams that staff them. During Dubin’s first week as a new doctor, in a unit on the sixteenth floor of Bellevue, his team included an older resident in psychiatry, a rheumatology fellow, and a gerontologist who normally works in one of the hospital’s outpatient clinics. Having completed rotations at Bellevue during school, Dubin knew the setting better than some of the doctors and many of the travelling nurses who heeded Cuomo’s call. But, even to him, the I.C.U. appeared unrecognizable: I.V. stands had been stationed outside closed doors, he said, creating the look of a “ghostly arcade,” so that nurses could treat patients without exposing themselves to the virus. One of Dubin’s classmates, Lizbeth Hu, graduated early and now works in an oncology unit at Tisch Hospital. Though her team doesn’t treat COVID-19 patients, Hu said, they still suffer from personnel shortages brought on by the pandemic. “Putting a patient on narcotics, or ordering a blood transfusion, or tailoring antibiotic regimens—these are things that last week I would never have imagined doing on my own, or being able to do correctly,” Hu told me at the end of her third shift. “And I’ve done all of those things this week. Really everybody you’re working with is doing something they’re not used to.”
Lizbeth Hu, a twenty-six-year-old graduate of N.Y.U., is working in an oncology ward on the fourteenth floor of Tisch Hospital.
Adjusting to less oversight is a standard part of the learning curve for new physicians: submitting medication orders no longer requires a co-signature, so there had better not be an extra zero on the dosage; signing off on a patient’s D.N.R. status may suddenly fall to them. The pandemic has made the decisions faced by new doctors more complicated, and more perilous. Janna Minehart, another N.Y.U. graduate, started work in a COVID-19 ward at Tisch, two floors above Hu. A native of San Jose, California, Minehart is calm and forthright, with long red hair that she wears in a loose bun during work. On her first day, she was assigned a middle-aged patient with both COVID-19 and metastatic cancer. Less than an hour into her shift, Minehart received a page from a nurse: the patient had developed a gaze deviation and weakness on one side of her body. “Oh, shit,” Minehart recalled thinking when she reached the room. “She’s having a stroke.” Because of the limits on patient contact, Minehart hadn’t conducted a full neurological exam; because the patient was new, she couldn’t tell how much her current condition deviated from her baseline, either. “Do I do a little bit more history-taking?” Minehart now wondered. “Do I do a little bit more of a physical exam, before I call the stroke code?” There’s a saying that students learn about the treatment of stroke patients: time lost is brain lost. When Minehart’s resident advised her to call the code, she realized that she didn’t yet know how to activate the page system to summon the on-call neurologist.


newyorker--2020-05-06--Watch Neighbors Connect in “Shelter in Place”

Before the coronavirus pandemic , Matthew Beck was a street photographer .
“ I spent a lot of time roaming around New York City with a camera , taking pictures of everybody , ” he said .
He considers a throughline of his work to be the “ shared humanity ” of people , even if they ’ re strangers .
Now , with the world on lockdown , this shared humanity is both more apparent and less accessible than ever before .
Confined to his apartment , Beck wanted to find a new way into the lives of others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Manhattan .
He started leaving flyers on the doors of the buildings across the street from his , soliciting interviews from other residents of Claremont Avenue .
After seeing one woman every day during the 7 P.M. cheer , he yelled out to her , and they exchanged phone numbers by signalling with their fingers .
His new documentary , “ Shelter in Place , ” is a quiet , contemplative look at the inner life of isolation , made up of the conversations he had with his neighbors , in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from their windows , while he filmed them from his .
The street , previously his creative domain , became the gulf that he crossed with his work .
Beck set out to make something personal , to counterbalance the way that the pandemic is often portrayed in the news .
“ We keep up with numbers and stats and we are following graphs and stuff like that , ” he said .
“ But what ’ s missing at the heart of all that is actual experience and people ’ s emotions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this thing.
” His interview subjects speak freely and poignantly about their anxieties , their grief , and their utter uncertainty about the future .
“ I had a really bad dream last night , which was really scary , ” one woman says .
“ I dreamt that I had to fly home , and I didn ’ t know where home was .
And I had all my things , I had to pack them really really quickly .
.
.
and I had to make the decisions : What am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Am I ever going to see that again ?
Feels so much to be out of control.
” Beck said that his neighbors were more candid than he was used to .
“ I had a hunch that people needed to talk a little bit .
Because I needed to talk a little bit , ” he said .
These conversations invite a sense of communion but also of claustrophobia ; there is both too little to talk about and too much .
It ’ s a feeling that Beck mirrors with his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Place ” in portrait orientation , mimicking our limited portals to the outside world in this time : the window and the smartphone screen .
He also filmed with a long lens , zooming in tight on his subjects from afar .
By pairing this voyeuristic image with the close , confiding voices of his neighbors , he creates a disarming effect , one that captures a central paradox of this experience : that our aloneness is shared .
• How to practice social distancing , from responding to a sick housemate to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
• Can survivors help cure the disease and rescue the economy ?
• The long crusade of Dr. Anthony Fauci , the infectious-disease expert pinned between Donald Trump and the American people .
• The success of Hong Kong and Singapore in stemming the spread holds lessons for how to contain it in the United States .
• The coronavirus is likely to spread for more than a year before a vaccine is widely available .
• With each new virus , we have scrambled for a new treatment .
Can we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crisis ?
• How pandemics have propelled public-health innovations , prefigured revolutions , and redrawn maps .
• What to read , watch , cook , and listen to under coronavirus quarantine .

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Matthew Beck was a street photographer. “I spent a lot of time roaming around New York City with a camera, taking pictures of everybody,” he said. He considers a throughline of his work to be the “shared humanity” of people, even if they’re strangers. Now, with the world on lockdown, this shared humanity is both more apparent and less accessible than ever before. Confined to his apartment, Beck wanted to find a new way into the lives of others in his neighborhood of Morningside Heights, in Manhattan. He started leaving flyers on the doors of the buildings across the street from his, soliciting interviews from other residents of Claremont Avenue. After seeing one woman every day during the 7 P.M. cheer, he yelled out to her, and they exchanged phone numbers by signalling with their fingers. His new documentary, “Shelter in Place,” is a quiet, contemplative look at the inner life of isolation, made up of the conversations he had with his neighbors, in which they spoke to him on the phone from their windows, while he filmed them from his. The street, previously his creative domain, became the gulf that he crossed with his work.
Beck set out to make something personal, to counterbalance the way that the pandemic is often portrayed in the news. “We keep up with numbers and stats and we are following graphs and stuff like that,” he said. “But what’s missing at the heart of all that is actual experience and people’s emotions and any kind of emotional processing of this thing.” His interview subjects speak freely and poignantly about their anxieties, their grief, and their utter uncertainty about the future. “I had a really bad dream last night, which was really scary,” one woman says. “I dreamt that I had to fly home, and I didn’t know where home was. And I had all my things, I had to pack them really really quickly . . . and I had to make the decisions: What am I going to take with me? Am I ever going to see that again? Feels so much to be out of control.” Beck said that his neighbors were more candid than he was used to. “I had a hunch that people needed to talk a little bit. Because I needed to talk a little bit,” he said.
These conversations invite a sense of communion but also of claustrophobia; there is both too little to talk about and too much. It’s a feeling that Beck mirrors with his cinematography. He shot “Shelter in Place” in portrait orientation, mimicking our limited portals to the outside world in this time: the window and the smartphone screen. He also filmed with a long lens, zooming in tight on his subjects from afar. By pairing this voyeuristic image with the close, confiding voices of his neighbors, he creates a disarming effect, one that captures a central paradox of this experience: that our aloneness is shared.
A Guide to the Coronavirus