newyorker--2020-03-23--The Coronavirus Crisis Reveals New York at Its Best and Worst

“ I ’ ve never been in the tabloids before , ” Smith , who is in her late sixties , said from her Manhattan apartment , where she was convalescing , and in her second week of seclusion .
“ In my family , you ’ re in the paper when you ’ re born and again when you marry .
And the fact of the matter is that the virus gets .
.
.
very virulent .
I wasn ’ t feeling well on Saturday—all the typical flu symptoms , like a fever , but a relatively mild @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I stayed in bed , had my moments of panic , but I was fortunate to be paired with Rick , who was positive but asymptomatic .
And I was well enough to stay in touch with the Conservancy and find out how everyone was faring—the morale and the health of the staff—and the Park itself , too .
It has the tremendous power of offering peace and respite to people .
The amazing people are the city workers .
They keep showing up .
They show up at work and they do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of selfless people , lots of people who take public service seriously.
” Even if she hadn ’ t fallen ill , Smith said , she would have wanted to stay in the city .
“ We have a big responsibility to the public , ” she said .
“ You know , when Frederick Law Olmsted made the Park , it was just with that in mind : most people don ’ t even have a chance of leaving New York .
It ’ s for all those people who couldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Adirondacks.
” Smith is the chair of the Library of America , which published a collection of Olmsted ’ s essays , letters , and other reflections in 2015 .
“ Believe it or not , I never quite got through Olmsted ’ s writings , ” she admitted .
“ He was a genius and a beautiful writer.
” She is now immersed in the volume : “ I ’ m not in the Park but I can stay in the Park.
” Emptiness and absence contradict the very concept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a city is social proximity ; to see people deliberately spaced out , like the walking but never intersecting figures in a Giacometti , is to see what cities aren ’ t .
In a historical sense , cities are always organisms of a kind , like coral reefs , where a lot of people come together to barter spices and exchange ideas and find mates , and endure the recurrent damage of infectious disease .
The question is whether the current upheavals could somehow alter New York forever .
Some beloved places @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be perpetuated .
The digital trends toward disaggregation of experience may get a boost , at a cost to everything we love about the city .
There ’ s an eerie gap between the raucous and argumentative world of the Internet and the silence of the streets .
Outside , new patterns of wider spacing and greater caution assert themselves : Is that masked man contagious and to be avoided by crossing the street ?
Did we forget to sanitize after touching the gate to the park ?
And , with them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Do I feel normal ?
Is my temperature high ?
Feel my forehead .

Like life-hardened Sam Rivera, these younger New Yorkers have touching if perhaps worrying faith in their own invulnerability. “I don’t think people in my cohort are that terrified,” the woman went on. “Most people seem to believe that they will get the virus and they will survive having it. The vibe is pretty much one of acceptance, even a little bit of excitement. I hate to say this, but it’s become a distraction from the election. Also, a lot of my friends are cooking. Like ambitious stockpot recipes—soups and stews—and a lot of baking, too. Pies and cookies. I myself am currently deep-cleaning my apartment, knowing that I’ll be stuck in it.” Meanwhile, she said, “my family is from New York, and my father has been fearlessly going to the gym. I think there’s a bit of YOLO fear to it—he wants to make the most of his life. But I have pleaded with him to stop.”
That same Saturday, Maggie McGlinchy, a bartender, worked all evening at Bernie’s Restaurant, on the border of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. “It was full,” she said on Sunday. “But it doesn’t take much to fill the restaurant. The actual volume was low, and it seemed as though no one wanted to be seen to be fully enjoying themselves. I sold a lot of Martinis that night—mostly Martinis, or Old-Fashioneds or Manhattans. No wine or artisanal ale. Everyone was trending the spirits.
“At Bernie’s, I’m on a first-name basis with possibly a third of the customers—it’s definitely a home base. In the past two nights, a lot of my customers are people who wanted to come in and support us. Most of my tips were over twenty per cent. That’s the other thing about social distancing—so much of what it means to be comforted is to be . . . not distant. Stay positive, I’d say—we’re feeling well right now and let’s hope it stays positive and do you want another drink?” But by Sunday night all the bars and restaurants in the city had been ordered to stop table service in the next few days, an unimaginable act a week earlier, as strange as if the island of Manhattan had floated out to sea.
McGlinchy said that she is looking for a new job, but there are no new jobs for bartenders, because there are no bars.“What do I have going forward? I have a month’s rent and a warm e-mail from my former employer,” she said dryly on Tuesday morning. “I’ve had some regulars send me twenty bucks over Venmo. Last tips.”
The full weight of the shutdown will fall most heavily on the Maggies of the world, who have little or no financial cushion. (Later, Bernie’s set up a GoFundMe campaign for the staff.) Hundreds of thousands of people in the service and entertainment industries—from bartenders to the “swing” theatre actors who pride themselves on leaping into whatever role has been left open by an unwell lead—are out of work, for a time that has no known limit.


newyorker--2020-03-23--The Trials of a Never Trump Republican

The Trials of a Never Trump Republican

For four years , Sarah Longwell has been hoping for Donald Trump ’ s downfall .
But nothing has triggered it .
Not the Mueller investigation into his dealings with Russia .
Not his coverup of hush-money payments to a porn star , or the profiting from his office to benefit his personal businesses .
Not even a Ukraine extortion scheme that resulted in just the third impeachment and trial of a President in history .
He has proved immune to every scandal .
Will the coronavirus pandemic be any different ?
I spoke to Longwell on March 13th , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ national emergency ” to combat a once-in-a-century outbreak that he had spent the previous few weeks claiming to have completely under control .
Pundits were already calling Trump ’ s botched initial handling of the crisis “ the end of his Presidency.
” Longwell , a forty-year-old conservative Republican who has spent the Trump years in an increasingly isolated fight within her party to end his Presidency , was not yet convinced .
“ How many times have we seen that headline before ?
” she asked .
Longwell is a Never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Republicans who have refused to accept the President as their leader .
In 2016 , virtually the entire Republican Party opposed Trump in the primaries , but since his Inauguration only a shrinking group has persisted in publicly taking him on .
To Donald Trump , the members of this small but highly visible resistance are his real enemy , even more than the opposition party .
He often tweets his contempt ; one day last fall , he described them as politically weakened and “ on respirators , ” but nonetheless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country ” than the Democrats .
Trump concluded with a furious flourish : “ Watch out for them , they are human scum !
” Longwell embodies Trump ’ s darkest anxieties .
Relentless in her loathing of the forty-fifth President , she has turned her Never Trump-ism from a passion project into a full-time profession .
Starting last September , as Trump faced impeachment by the House of Representatives and a trial in the Senate , Longwell raised and spent millions of dollars on ads advocating his removal from office .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effort , raising several million dollars in a matter of weeks to turn out “ disaffected Republicans ” in the Democratic primaries , a first step toward building a “ coalition of the center ” to defeat the President in November .
Longwell sees Trump ’ s failure to respond early and decisively to the coronavirus as a case study in “ the crisis of leadership ” that she has warned fellow-Republicans about .
She believes the new political reality of the pandemic moment is deeply problematic for Trump and for the Party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As Trump was denying that the virus would afflict the country , millions of suburban voters—including many Republican women like Longwell—were helping former Vice-President Joe Biden take a commanding lead in the Democratic primaries over Bernie Sanders .
She hopes now that Biden can be the instrument of Trump ’ s defeat , enabling a “ restoration ” of the America she still believes in .
Longwell told me that , for the Republican establishment , which has for all intents and purposes fully sold out to Trump , “ this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Longwell grew up in a Republican family and town in central Pennsylvania and began following politics in high school , during the impeachment , in 1998 , of Bill Clinton .
In her eyes , Clinton was a “ dirtbag ” for having an affair with a former intern who was not much older than she was .
After graduating from Kenyon College , in Ohio , in 2002 , she went to work for a conservative group , the Intercollegiate Studies Institute , in Delaware .
She soon found herself promoting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Darwinism unconvincing ” and went on tour with Senator Rick Santorum to help sell his book “ It Takes a Family , ” whose retrograde views led a reviewer for the Philadelphia Inquirer to describe it as the product of “ one of the finest minds of the thirteenth century.
” At the time , Longwell was coming out to her friends and family as a lesbian .
She decided that she could no longer work at such an organization with someone she considered “ the most visibly anti-gay politician in the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deeply conservative , she moved to Washington in 2005 , and was hired by Richard Berman as a junior staffer at his communications firm .
Berman , a legendary Republican lobbyist turned P.R .
man , specialized in helping food and beverage companies by setting up industry front groups to fight regulatory efforts .
Longwell loved the work , and in the course of fifteen years she rose to become senior vice-president and was in line to run the company .
Together , they opposed everything from raising the minimum wage to stricter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a knife in her teeth , ” Berman told me .
Early in her time at the firm , Longwell persuaded Berman to agree to be interviewed by “ 60 Minutes.
” The story portrayed Berman as the “ Dr .
Evil ” of the Washington influence game , willing , on behalf of a range of undisclosed corporate clients , to attack workers , healthy-eating proponents , and even activists for Mothers Against Drunk Driving .
Berman still has a link to the “ 60 Minutes ” episode on the firm ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quote calling him “ the industry ’ s weapon of mass destruction.
” He keeps a “ Dr .
Evil ” nameplate on his desk .
“ If they call you Mr. Nice Guy , would that be better ?
” Berman told me .
“ I don ’ t think so.
” Berman taught Longwell to discredit the opposition before it discredits you ; to be edgy , memorable , and funny ; and to always play offense , because , as Longwell put it in a 2014 presentation , “ defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acronym for the firm ’ s approach to “ managing ” public opinion : FLAGS , for fear , love , anger , greed , and sympathy .
Of those , he told me , fear and anger are the most effective : “ Nobody likes negative ads , but everybody remembers them .
I absolutely believe it.
” Longwell readily acknowledged that Berman was “ almost like a bogeyman ” to opponents .
But she admired him .
“ Rick is the kind of person who is , like , ‘ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what I think , and I will defend my positions.
’ I believe that , too , ” she said .
“ I believe that , if you are opposed to this President , there are so many people in this town , so many people in Congress , they want to say , ‘ I think he ’ s terrible , ’ whatever .
They won ’ t say it out loud .
I think that Rick helped me understand how to have the courage not just to say what I believe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for that , to say , ‘ Well , this is who I am , this is what I believe.
’ ” The experience of being a lesbian in conservative circles also taught Longwell the virtues of plain speaking .
An advocate for marriage equality despite the Republican Party ’ s stance against it , she married her girlfriend in 2013 .
“ I got comfortable with everyone being mad at you , ” she said .
“ To be a gay Republican was to recognize that Republicans were going to dislike you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were going to dislike you for being Republican , and you had to walk your path because you felt like it was the right thing to do .
”

For four years, Sarah Longwell has been hoping for Donald Trump’s downfall. But nothing has triggered it. Not the Mueller investigation into his dealings with Russia. Not his coverup of hush-money payments to a porn star, or the profiting from his office to benefit his personal businesses. Not even a Ukraine extortion scheme that resulted in just the third impeachment and trial of a President in history. He has proved immune to every scandal. Will the coronavirus pandemic be any different?
I spoke to Longwell on March 13th, barely an hour after Trump declared a “national emergency” to combat a once-in-a-century outbreak that he had spent the previous few weeks claiming to have completely under control. Pundits were already calling Trump’s botched initial handling of the crisis “the end of his Presidency.” Longwell, a forty-year-old conservative Republican who has spent the Trump years in an increasingly isolated fight within her party to end his Presidency, was not yet convinced. “How many times have we seen that headline before?” she asked.
Longwell is a Never Trumper, one of the stubborn tribe of Republicans who have refused to accept the President as their leader. In 2016, virtually the entire Republican Party opposed Trump in the primaries, but since his Inauguration only a shrinking group has persisted in publicly taking him on.
To Donald Trump, the members of this small but highly visible resistance are his real enemy, even more than the opposition party. He often tweets his contempt; one day last fall, he described them as politically weakened and “on respirators,” but nonetheless “worse and more dangerous for our country” than the Democrats. Trump concluded with a furious flourish: “Watch out for them, they are human scum!”
Longwell embodies Trump’s darkest anxieties. Relentless in her loathing of the forty-fifth President, she has turned her Never Trump-ism from a passion project into a full-time profession. Starting last September, as Trump faced impeachment by the House of Representatives and a trial in the Senate, Longwell raised and spent millions of dollars on ads advocating his removal from office. After his acquittal, she launched a new effort, raising several million dollars in a matter of weeks to turn out “disaffected Republicans” in the Democratic primaries, a first step toward building a “coalition of the center” to defeat the President in November.
“For health and safety reasons, we’ll be transitioning to cyber crime.” Cartoon by Paul Noth Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Longwell sees Trump’s failure to respond early and decisively to the coronavirus as a case study in “the crisis of leadership” that she has warned fellow-Republicans about. She believes the new political reality of the pandemic moment is deeply problematic for Trump and for the Party leaders who have so fervently embraced him. As Trump was denying that the virus would afflict the country, millions of suburban voters—including many Republican women like Longwell—were helping former Vice-President Joe Biden take a commanding lead in the Democratic primaries over Bernie Sanders. She hopes now that Biden can be the instrument of Trump’s defeat, enabling a “restoration” of the America she still believes in. Longwell told me that, for the Republican establishment, which has for all intents and purposes fully sold out to Trump, “this is their worst-case scenario.”
A lifelong conservative, Longwell grew up in a Republican family and town in central Pennsylvania and began following politics in high school, during the impeachment, in 1998, of Bill Clinton. In her eyes, Clinton was a “dirtbag” for having an affair with a former intern who was not much older than she was. After graduating from Kenyon College, in Ohio, in 2002, she went to work for a conservative group, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, in Delaware. She soon found herself promoting a book for “intellectuals who find Darwinism unconvincing” and went on tour with Senator Rick Santorum to help sell his book “It Takes a Family,” whose retrograde views led a reviewer for the Philadelphia Inquirer to describe it as the product of “one of the finest minds of the thirteenth century.” At the time, Longwell was coming out to her friends and family as a lesbian. She decided that she could no longer work at such an organization with someone she considered “the most visibly anti-gay politician in the country,” and she quit.
Still deeply conservative, she moved to Washington in 2005, and was hired by Richard Berman as a junior staffer at his communications firm. Berman, a legendary Republican lobbyist turned P.R. man, specialized in helping food and beverage companies by setting up industry front groups to fight regulatory efforts. Longwell loved the work, and in the course of fifteen years she rose to become senior vice-president and was in line to run the company. Together, they opposed everything from raising the minimum wage to stricter drunk-driving laws. “Sarah always had a knife in her teeth,” Berman told me.
Early in her time at the firm, Longwell persuaded Berman to agree to be interviewed by “60 Minutes.” The story portrayed Berman as the “Dr. Evil” of the Washington influence game, willing, on behalf of a range of undisclosed corporate clients, to attack workers, healthy-eating proponents, and even activists for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Berman still has a link to the “60 Minutes” episode on the firm’s Web site, accompanied by a quote calling him “the industry’s weapon of mass destruction.” He keeps a “Dr. Evil” nameplate on his desk. “If they call you Mr. Nice Guy, would that be better?” Berman told me. “I don’t think so.”
Berman taught Longwell to discredit the opposition before it discredits you; to be edgy, memorable, and funny; and to always play offense, because, as Longwell put it in a 2014 presentation, “defense over time loses.” He devised an acronym for the firm’s approach to “managing” public opinion: FLAGS, for fear, love, anger, greed, and sympathy. Of those, he told me, fear and anger are the most effective: “Nobody likes negative ads, but everybody remembers them. I absolutely believe it.”
Longwell readily acknowledged that Berman was “almost like a bogeyman” to opponents. But she admired him. “Rick is the kind of person who is, like, ‘I will stand up, I will say what I think, and I will defend my positions.’ I believe that, too,” she said. “I believe that, if you are opposed to this President, there are so many people in this town, so many people in Congress, they want to say, ‘I think he’s terrible,’ whatever. They won’t say it out loud. I think that Rick helped me understand how to have the courage not just to say what I believe but, when people come at you for that, to say, ‘Well, this is who I am, this is what I believe.’ ”
The experience of being a lesbian in conservative circles also taught Longwell the virtues of plain speaking. An advocate for marriage equality despite the Republican Party’s stance against it, she married her girlfriend in 2013. “I got comfortable with everyone being mad at you,” she said. “To be a gay Republican was to recognize that Republicans were going to dislike you because you were gay, and Democrats were going to dislike you for being Republican, and you had to walk your path because you felt like it was the right thing to do.”
In 2016, Longwell opposed Trump in the Republican primaries but recognized the potency of his fear-and-anger platform. How could she not? It was as if he were working from Berman’s playbook. During the campaign, Longwell happened to be the incoming board chair of the Log Cabin Republicans; she was the first woman to hold the post since the group was founded, in the late seventies, to advocate for gay and lesbian Republicans. The board felt intense pressure to endorse Trump, despite his selection of Mike Pence, an openly homophobic evangelical Christian, as his running mate. Longwell told me that she “basically lay on the tracks” to stop the group from backing Trump. Mostly, though, she watched the election unfold with dismay.
“For me, the world changed in 2016,” Longwell said. That summer, her first son was born. “My wife’s water broke the night of Melania’s speech at the Convention,” and a few nights later, after their son’s birth, she watched on television at the hospital as Trump accepted the Republican nomination. “I remember just how bad he made me feel,” she said. “That’s what I remember. I remember holding a new baby and feeling like this can’t be what’s happening.” On Election Night, she was at a party in Washington, texting with another anti-Trump operative, Tim Miller, the former spokesperson for Jeb Bush’s short-lived Presidential campaign. “He’s going to win,” Miller wrote to her. As the news sank in, she went outside and bummed a cigarette, although she no longer smoked.
Many people who opposed Trump in 2016 have their version of this story: the Election Night disbelief and shock, the litany of outrages that followed. But, unlike many others in Republican Washington, Longwell did not make her accommodations, political and moral, with the new President. When, on his second weekend in office, Trump issued an executive order banning entry into the U.S. for citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations, Longwell decided that Trump really was a danger to the country. “I started thinking about: What can I do?” she recalled. “How can I get involved?”
In the fall of 2017, Longwell was invited to a session of the Meeting of the Concerned, a semi-secret group of disaffected Republicans that had started gathering every other Tuesday in a basement conference room near Capitol Hill. The Never Trumpers were hardly a real movement, less an organized cabal than a cable-news-savvy alliance. Among them were longtime Party operatives, such as Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson, who became regulars on liberal-leaning TV shows, and public intellectuals, such as Eliot Cohen, a former Bush Administration official who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University, and Max Boot, of the Council on Foreign Relations, who stopped writing for the Wall Street Journal’s increasingly pro-Trump editorial page and went to the Washington Post. With the exception of Senator John McCain, most Republican elected officials already either supported Trump or kept their mouths shut about him. Inside the Administration, some had qualms about the President, but they soon were fired or marginalized, or quit. The official Party apparatus had been taken over by the President, and Republican lobbyists, consultants, political operatives, congressional staffers, right-wing media commentators, and government job seekers quickly identified where their interests lay.
Jerry Taylor, who helped found the Meeting of the Concerned and the Niskanen Center, the think tank that hosts it, told me about the first time Longwell showed up. “Sarah didn’t know anyone in the group,” he said. “She had never really travelled in those circles before.” Many of the attendees were well-known denizens of Washington’s TV greenrooms, who bonded over their disillusionment with the Party and saw “the election of Donald Trump as just the thin blue line between us and the abyss,” as Taylor put it. Longwell wanted more than this talky self-styled resistance. She told me, “Everybody was sitting around having a conversation that I had heard lots of versions of at that point, which is: What happened to the Republican Party?” When Bill Kristol, a Republican pundit and the founder of The Weekly Standard, spoke up, Longwell recalled, she interrupted him: “ ‘Why don’t we do something about it?’ And he was kind of, like, ‘Well, what would we do?’ And I was, like, ‘I don’t know, but you’re famous. You’re Bill Kristol.’ ”
Longwell, right, doesn’t need the whole Party to abandon Trump, just her slice. Photograph by Caroline Tompkins for The New Yorker
Kristol has been a leader of the hawkish neoconservative wing of the Party since arriving in Washington, as a member of the Reagan Administration. In 2016, he made a well-publicized attempt to recruit a last-ditch independent candidate to run against Trump. Having failed to find anyone of stature, Kristol settled on an obscure former C.I.A. officer and congressional staffer named Evan McMullin, whose candidacy never rose above the level of obscurity. After their initial meeting, Kristol and Longwell went out for coffee, and she urged him to take action again. They started brainstorming regularly at the Madison Hotel.
“Then Mueller happened,” Longwell said, and the idea for their group, Republicans for the Rule of Law, was born. Trump’s firing of the F.B.I. director James Comey, in the spring of 2017, had set off the first major crisis of his Presidency, leading to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel. Longwell and Kristol decided that their group would try to insure that Trump did not fire Mueller or block the investigation; to do this they would pressure Republican officials in the capital. “I did think someone needed to fight the fight within the Republican Party, that you can’t just give up even though it’s a long shot against a Republican President,” Kristol told me. “Sarah agreed.”


newyorker--2020-03-23--Slide Show: New Yorker Cartoons March 30, 2020

“ Set oven to five hundred degrees .
While preheating , get stepladder and turn off smoke alarm .
Then @ @ @ @ @ medley , and turn off smoke alarm again .
Resume chopping herb medley , peel @ @ @ @ @ while angrily trying to remove the battery from the smoke alarm .
.
.
”

“Set oven to five hundred degrees. While preheating, get stepladder and turn off smoke alarm. Then season brisket, chop herb medley, and turn off smoke alarm again. Resume chopping herb medley, peel potatoes, slip off stepladder while angrily trying to remove the battery from the smoke alarm . . .”
Cartoon by Lars Kenseth


newyorker--2020-03-23--What Would Freud Make of the Toilet-Paper Panic?

Because your Facebook feed leads you to believe that it ’ s a commodity more precious than gold .
Because you use the cardboard tubes for crafting .
Because you like to wet it and then hurl it in a wad at annoying people in your coronavirus bunker .
The possible explanations for toilet-paper hoarding are myriad .
Unlike hand sanitizer and test kits , toilet paper is not a commodity subject to increased need in the current crisis .
Nevertheless , shoppers continue to express a panic mentality over bathroom tissue .
The fallout : a newspaper in Australia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its readers ( “ Run out of loo paper ?
” the tabloid asked .
“ The NT News cares ” ) ; determining your fair share of Cottonelle at your local Costco can now feel like Yalta .
What ’ s fuelling all this obsessive-compulsive shopping ?
Randy O .
Frost , a professor of psychology at Smith College , who has written widely about hoarding , said that most hoarders are motivated by a combination of three factors : emotional or sentimental attachment , aesthetic appreciation , and utility .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , are compelled by only the third motivation .
“ One of the underlying characteristics of utility is an intolerance of uncertainty , ” he said over the phone .
“ The individual needs to feel absolutely and perfectly certain that some kind of negative outcome won ’ t occur.
” But let ’ s dig deeper ; let us ask the toilet-paper-stockpiling patient ( in a calm voice ) , “ Vot ees trobbling you ?
” “ Controlling cleanliness around B.M.s is the earliest way the child asserts control , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Contemporary Freudian Society , said .
“ The fact that now we are all presumably losing control creates a regressive push to a very early time .
So , I guess that translates in the unconscious to ‘ If I have a lifelong supply of toilet paper , I ’ ll never be out of control , never be a helpless , dirty child again.
’ ” Freud believed that human beings subconsciously equate feces with gold or money .
In “ On Transformations of Instinct as Exemplified in Anal Erotism , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Since his faeces are his first gift , the child easily transfers his interest from that substance to the new one which he comes across as the most valuable gift in life.
” The turning point in a child ’ s so-called anal phase is when he learns to relinquish his “ gift ” —which , in turn , occasions a loss of self .
Toilet paper is inextricably bound in our minds with defecation , and is one of our few public acknowledgments of it .
Perhaps it makes sense , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decided to accept toilet paper as currency ( three rolls for a coffee , thirty-six rolls for a kilo of beans ) .
Is the panic-buying of toilet paper primarily egoistic ?
Not according to Susan Signe Morrison , the author of “ Excrement in the Late Middle Ages : Sacred Filth and Chaucer ’ s Fecopoetics.
” “ Jesus ’ corporal acts of mercy include caring for sick people .
Wiping someone ’ s bottom is not specifically mentioned , but when you think of tending to infants or old people who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
.
.
” Morrison said , trailing off with a delicacy befitting the subject matter .
“ If we don ’ t have toilet paper , will we revile our family members who aren ’ t clean in the way we expect them to be ?
” According to one anthropologist , an outer-directed motivation for toilet-paper hoarding might even skew political .
“ The places we see toilet paper mentioned are often tied up with politics , especially in the movies , ” Grant Jun Otsuki , a lecturer in cultural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Zealand , said .
“ The turning point of the movie ‘ V for Vendetta ’ is when Evey discovers a letter written on toilet paper by someone oppressed under the totalitarian regime .
Evey becomes politically awakened.
” In a recent blog post subtitled “ A Cultural Analysis of Toilet Paper , ” Otsuki teases out a hierarchy of household paper goods , from Bibles and diaries , at the top , to old newspapers , to paper towels and plates , down to toilet paper , noting that this lowest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perform many of the functions of items higher up on the list , but not vice versa .
He concludes , “ While we may use fancy paper and pens to write the basic laws of a nation , in some way those words have no meaning unless they could also be written on toilet paper and potentially carry the same force .
Without the possibility of a constitution written on Charmin , modern democracy would be unthinkable.
” ♦

Because your Facebook feed leads you to believe that it’s a commodity more precious than gold. Because you use the cardboard tubes for crafting. Because you like to wet it and then hurl it in a wad at annoying people in your coronavirus bunker.
The possible explanations for toilet-paper hoarding are myriad. Unlike hand sanitizer and test kits, toilet paper is not a commodity subject to increased need in the current crisis. Nevertheless, shoppers continue to express a panic mentality over bathroom tissue. The fallout: a newspaper in Australia recently ran eight mostly blank pages for its readers (“Run out of loo paper?” the tabloid asked. “The NT News cares”); determining your fair share of Cottonelle at your local Costco can now feel like Yalta.
What’s fuelling all this obsessive-compulsive shopping? Randy O. Frost, a professor of psychology at Smith College, who has written widely about hoarding, said that most hoarders are motivated by a combination of three factors: emotional or sentimental attachment, aesthetic appreciation, and utility. But hoarders of toilet paper, Frost said, are compelled by only the third motivation. “One of the underlying characteristics of utility is an intolerance of uncertainty,” he said over the phone. “The individual needs to feel absolutely and perfectly certain that some kind of negative outcome won’t occur.”
But let’s dig deeper; let us ask the toilet-paper-stockpiling patient (in a calm voice), “Vot ees trobbling you?”
“Controlling cleanliness around B.M.s is the earliest way the child asserts control,” Andrea Greenman, the president of the Contemporary Freudian Society, said. “The fact that now we are all presumably losing control creates a regressive push to a very early time. So, I guess that translates in the unconscious to ‘If I have a lifelong supply of toilet paper, I’ll never be out of control, never be a helpless, dirty child again.’ ”
Freud believed that human beings subconsciously equate feces with gold or money. In “On Transformations of Instinct as Exemplified in Anal Erotism,” the father of psychoanalysis wrote, “Since his faeces are his first gift, the child easily transfers his interest from that substance to the new one which he comes across as the most valuable gift in life.” The turning point in a child’s so-called anal phase is when he learns to relinquish his “gift”—which, in turn, occasions a loss of self. Toilet paper is inextricably bound in our minds with defecation, and is one of our few public acknowledgments of it. Perhaps it makes sense, then, that a café in Australia recently decided to accept toilet paper as currency (three rolls for a coffee, thirty-six rolls for a kilo of beans).
Is the panic-buying of toilet paper primarily egoistic? Not according to Susan Signe Morrison, the author of “Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer’s Fecopoetics.” “Jesus’ corporal acts of mercy include caring for sick people. Wiping someone’s bottom is not specifically mentioned, but when you think of tending to infants or old people who can’t control their fecal production . . . ” Morrison said, trailing off with a delicacy befitting the subject matter. “If we don’t have toilet paper, will we revile our family members who aren’t clean in the way we expect them to be?”
According to one anthropologist, an outer-directed motivation for toilet-paper hoarding might even skew political. “The places we see toilet paper mentioned are often tied up with politics, especially in the movies,” Grant Jun Otsuki, a lecturer in cultural anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, said. “The turning point of the movie ‘V for Vendetta’ is when Evey discovers a letter written on toilet paper by someone oppressed under the totalitarian regime. Evey becomes politically awakened.”
In a recent blog post subtitled “A Cultural Analysis of Toilet Paper,” Otsuki teases out a hierarchy of household paper goods, from Bibles and diaries, at the top, to old newspapers, to paper towels and plates, down to toilet paper, noting that this lowest item on the chain could fairly smoothly perform many of the functions of items higher up on the list, but not vice versa. He concludes, “While we may use fancy paper and pens to write the basic laws of a nation, in some way those words have no meaning unless they could also be written on toilet paper and potentially carry the same force. Without the possibility of a constitution written on Charmin, modern democracy would be unthinkable.” ♦
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-03-23--Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Rebel Cinderella , by Adam Hochschild ( Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ) .
This vibrant biography portrays the riveting charisma of the socialist activist Rose Pastor Stokes .
A Russian-Jewish immigrant and a cigar-factory worker , Pastor Stokes became an overnight celebrity when , in 1905 , she married into one of the nation ’ s wealthiest families .
For the next fifteen years , she was a tireless crusader for workers ’ and women ’ s rights , fighting to decriminalize birth control .
She also hosted a stream of socialist luminaries , including W. E. B .
Du Bois @ @ @ @ @ @ @ island .
Moving between glittering estates and squalid tenements , Hochschild captures the improbability and idealism of both Pastor Stokes and her era , a time when it seemed that stark divisions of class , race , and gender might be erased , in an instant , by love .
Yellow Bird , by Sierra Crane Murdoch ( Random House ) .
In 2012 , at the height of the North Dakota oil boom , a young white truck driver working in the oil fields disappeared from the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but it found a champion in Lissa Yellow Bird , an obsessive amateur detective .
Yellow Bird—a member of the Mandan , Hidatsa , and Arikara Nation , a recovering addict , a former prison guard , an ex-convict , and a mother of five—uncovered the truth with impressive persistence and guile .
Murdoch ’ s sprawling narrative explores the woman ’ s past , the terrible history of America ’ s treatment of indigenous peoples , and the impact of sudden wealth on a place that has suffered decades of deprivation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Meng Jin ( Custom House ) .
This début novel begins on the eve of the Tiananmen crackdown , in 1989 , with the birth of a baby girl .
Her parents , a physicist and a doctor in Shanghai , are upwardly mobile transplants from a neighboring province , whose lives are soon tossed into chaos .
Told from three perspectives , including that of a young American who travels to China to trace her mother ’ s life , the book is populated by stubborn characters who are balancing on thin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the narratives merge , tying together history and the present , Jin ’ s richly textured , unsparing writing questions whether a self can exist unmarked by the past .
Blue Flowers , by Carola Saavedra , translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn ( Riverhead ) .
One winter day , a resentful , recently divorced man receives a letter from a mysterious woman , who signs the missive with “ A.
” It ’ s a mistake : the intended recipient , A.
’ s ex-lover , was the previous tenant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Letters continue to arrive , and the man becomes fixated on A.
’ s passionate meditations about her relationship ’ s end and the web of tenderness , hostility , and submission in which it has left her .
He halts his normal life to find her , and Saavedra , a lauded Brazilian writer , twists this search deftly .
As A.
’ s correspondence unfolds , it explores language ’ s insufficiencies , and its power : “ This letter will be opened , and all the world that it contains @ @ @ @ @ @

Rebel Cinderella, by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). This vibrant biography portrays the riveting charisma of the socialist activist Rose Pastor Stokes. A Russian-Jewish immigrant and a cigar-factory worker, Pastor Stokes became an overnight celebrity when, in 1905, she married into one of the nation’s wealthiest families. For the next fifteen years, she was a tireless crusader for workers’ and women’s rights, fighting to decriminalize birth control. She also hosted a stream of socialist luminaries, including W. E. B. Du Bois and Maxim Gorky, on her private island. Moving between glittering estates and squalid tenements, Hochschild captures the improbability and idealism of both Pastor Stokes and her era, a time when it seemed that stark divisions of class, race, and gender might be erased, in an instant, by love.
Yellow Bird, by Sierra Crane Murdoch (Random House). In 2012, at the height of the North Dakota oil boom, a young white truck driver working in the oil fields disappeared from the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The case seemed fated to languish unsolved, but it found a champion in Lissa Yellow Bird, an obsessive amateur detective. Yellow Bird—a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, a recovering addict, a former prison guard, an ex-convict, and a mother of five—uncovered the truth with impressive persistence and guile. Murdoch’s sprawling narrative explores the woman’s past, the terrible history of America’s treatment of indigenous peoples, and the impact of sudden wealth on a place that has suffered decades of deprivation and mismanagement.
Little Gods, by Meng Jin (Custom House). This début novel begins on the eve of the Tiananmen crackdown, in 1989, with the birth of a baby girl. Her parents, a physicist and a doctor in Shanghai, are upwardly mobile transplants from a neighboring province, whose lives are soon tossed into chaos. Told from three perspectives, including that of a young American who travels to China to trace her mother’s life, the book is populated by stubborn characters who are balancing on thin wires of ambition or nostalgia. As the narratives merge, tying together history and the present, Jin’s richly textured, unsparing writing questions whether a self can exist unmarked by the past.
Blue Flowers, by Carola Saavedra, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn (Riverhead). One winter day, a resentful, recently divorced man receives a letter from a mysterious woman, who signs the missive with “A.” It’s a mistake: the intended recipient, A.’s ex-lover, was the previous tenant of the man’s apartment. Letters continue to arrive, and the man becomes fixated on A.’s passionate meditations about her relationship’s end and the web of tenderness, hostility, and submission in which it has left her. He halts his normal life to find her, and Saavedra, a lauded Brazilian writer, twists this search deftly. As A.’s correspondence unfolds, it explores language’s insufficiencies, and its power: “This letter will be opened, and all the world that it contains will open, too.”


The Mail

Alex Ross ’ s piece about German writers and composers who fled to Los Angeles during the Second World War is fascinating ( “ Exodus , ” March 9th ) .
He brings to life the émigrés ’ sense of dislocation , dissatisfaction , residual despair—and their infighting .
As Ross mentions , many were rescued by Varian Fry , who helped artists and intellectuals escape France in 1940 and 1941 .
Not mentioned in Ross ’ s account is Hiram Bingham IV , the U.S. vice-consul in Marseille , who , to the State Department ’ s great displeasure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of U.S. visas to refugees , including Marc Chagall , Hannah Arendt , and ordinary people such as my mother and grandparents .
He engineered the liberation of the German novelist Lion Feuchtwanger from Les Milles , the French concentration camp , by disguising him as a woman and then hiding him at Bingham ’ s villa until Fry could get him out of France .
For all this generosity , Bingham was abruptly transferred to Lisbon and then to Argentina .
He warned the State Department about the arrival of high-ranking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hear .
Bingham eventually resigned , and returned to his family ’ s farm in Connecticut .
The trauma suffered by the rescued intellectuals who remade their lives in the U.S. was as enduring as it was for people like my parents .
Of course , their horror was nothing compared with what was endured by those who could not leave Europe .
Ross paints a full picture of the lives of German émigrés in Southern California .
One thing that is often overlooked in literary history is a small press , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them established .
Its stated mission was “ to give testimony to the eminent cultural force that was expelled by Hitler and which found a future in America.
” It published eleven books—mainly fiction—between 1942 and 1948 , by writers in exile such as Thomas Mann , Franz Werfel , Bruno Frank , Alfred Döblin , and Lion Feuchtwanger .
Pazifische Presse books were handsomely printed in editions of a few hundred copies each .
All the books were in German , an effort by the authors to keep the best of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Goethe.
” In Idrees Kahloon ’ s review of Thomas Piketty ’ s “ Capital and Ideology , ” he argues that Piketty ’ s proposal to heavily tax the incomes of the top one per cent may be excessive as a means of solving the most serious social problems ( Books , March 9th ) .
He argues that , instead , we need to eliminate poverty and precariousness—without which , he implies , the extreme concentration of wealth at the top is not necessarily an issue .
But inequality creates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of those in the lower brackets .
For one thing , extreme wealth allows some to exercise undue political influence .
For another , living in a society of great inequality is a cause of stress for the less wealthy—regardless of their level of prosperity , or whether the poorest enjoy a reasonable standard of living .
Such stress leads to a broad range of medical and psychological illnesses , as is shown by the work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in their book “ The Inner Level , ” and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the writer ’ s name , address , and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail @ newyorker.com .
Letters may be edited for length and clarity , and may be published in any medium .
We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

Weimar in l.A.
Alex Ross’s piece about German writers and composers who fled to Los Angeles during the Second World War is fascinating (“Exodus,” March 9th). He brings to life the émigrés’ sense of dislocation, dissatisfaction, residual despair—and their infighting. As Ross mentions, many were rescued by Varian Fry, who helped artists and intellectuals escape France in 1940 and 1941. Not mentioned in Ross’s account is Hiram Bingham IV, the U.S. vice-consul in Marseille, who, to the State Department’s great displeasure, worked alongside Fry. Bingham issued thousands of U.S. visas to refugees, including Marc Chagall, Hannah Arendt, and ordinary people such as my mother and grandparents. He engineered the liberation of the German novelist Lion Feuchtwanger from Les Milles, the French concentration camp, by disguising him as a woman and then hiding him at Bingham’s villa until Fry could get him out of France. For all this generosity, Bingham was abruptly transferred to Lisbon and then to Argentina. He warned the State Department about the arrival of high-ranking Nazis there—news the U.S. did not want to hear. Bingham eventually resigned, and returned to his family’s farm in Connecticut. The trauma suffered by the rescued intellectuals who remade their lives in the U.S. was as enduring as it was for people like my parents. Of course, their horror was nothing compared with what was endured by those who could not leave Europe.
Jane M. Friedman
New York City
Ross paints a full picture of the lives of German émigrés in Southern California. One thing that is often overlooked in literary history is a small press, called the Pazifische Presse, that some of them established. Its stated mission was “to give testimony to the eminent cultural force that was expelled by Hitler and which found a future in America.” It published eleven books—mainly fiction—between 1942 and 1948, by writers in exile such as Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, Bruno Frank, Alfred Döblin, and Lion Feuchtwanger. Pazifische Presse books were handsomely printed in editions of a few hundred copies each. All the books were in German, an effort by the authors to keep the best of their culture alive “in the language of Goethe.”
Victoria Dailey
Los Angeles, Calif.
Piketty’s Point
In Idrees Kahloon’s review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology,” he argues that Piketty’s proposal to heavily tax the incomes of the top one per cent may be excessive as a means of solving the most serious social problems (Books, March 9th). He argues that, instead, we need to eliminate poverty and precariousness—without which, he implies, the extreme concentration of wealth at the top is not necessarily an issue. But inequality creates problems regardless of the exact financial status of those in the lower brackets. For one thing, extreme wealth allows some to exercise undue political influence. For another, living in a society of great inequality is a cause of stress for the less wealthy—regardless of their level of prosperity, or whether the poorest enjoy a reasonable standard of living. Such stress leads to a broad range of medical and psychological illnesses, as is shown by the work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in their book “The Inner Level,” and other studies.
John L. Hammond
Professor of Sociology
Hunter College and Graduate Center
New York City
•
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.


newyorker--2020-03-23--What Our Contagion Fables Are Really About

When the plague came to London in 1665 , Londoners lost their wits .
They consulted astrologers , quacks , the Bible .
They searched their bodies for signs , tokens of the disease : lumps , blisters , black spots .
They begged for prophecies ; they paid for predictions ; they prayed ; they yowled .
They closed their eyes ; they covered their ears .
They wept in the street .
They read alarming almanacs : “ Certain it is , books frighted them terribly.
” The government , keen to contain the panic , attempted “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as terrify ’ d the People , ” according to Daniel Defoe , in “ A Journal of the Plague Year , ” a history that he wrote in tandem with an advice manual called “ Due Preparations for the Plague , ” in 1722 , a year when people feared that the disease might leap across the English Channel again , after having journeyed from the Middle East to Marseille and points north on a merchant ship .
Defoe hoped that his books would be useful “ both to us and to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from that portion of this bitter cup.
” That bitter cup has come out of its cupboard .
In 1665 , the skittish fled to the country , and alike the wise , and those who tarried had reason for remorse : by the time they decided to leave , “ there was hardly a Horse to be bought or hired in the whole City , ” Defoe recounted , and , in the event , the gates had been shut , and all were trapped .
Everyone behaved badly , though the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to heed warnings to provision , they sent their poor servants out for supplies .
“ This Necessity of going out of our Houses to buy Provisions , was in a great Measure the Ruin of the whole City , ” Defoe wrote .
One in five Londoners died , notwithstanding the precautions taken by merchants .
The butcher refused to hand the cook a cut of meat ; she had to take it off the hook herself .
And he wouldn ’ t touch her money ; she had to drop her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bear that in mind when you run out of Purell .
“ Sorrow and sadness sat upon every Face , ” Defoe wrote .
The government ’ s stricture on the publication of terrifying books proved pointless , there being plenty of terror to be read on the streets .
You could read the weekly bills of mortality , or count the bodies as they piled up in the lanes .
You could read the orders published by the mayor : “ If any Person shall have visited any Man known to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ willingly into any known infected House , being not allowed : The House wherein he inhabiteth shall be shut up.
” And you could read the signs on the doors of those infected houses , guarded by watchmen , each door marked by a foot-long red cross , above which was to be printed , in letters big enough to be read at a distance , “ Lord , Have Mercy Upon Us.
” Reading is an infection , a burrowing into the brain : books contaminate , metaphorically , and even microbiologically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ captains arriving at port pledged that they had disinfected their ships by swearing on Bibles that had been dipped in seawater .
During tuberculosis scares , public libraries fumigated books by sealing them in steel vats filled with formaldehyde gas .
These days , you can find out how to disinfect books on a librarians ’ thread on Reddit .
Your best bet appears to be either denatured-alcohol swipes or kitchen disinfectant in a mist-spray bottle , although if you stick books in a little oven and heat them to a hundred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bonus : you also kill bedbugs .
( “ Doesn ’ t harm the books !
” ) Or , as has happened during the coronavirus closures , libraries can shut their doors , and bookstores , too .
But , of course , books are also a salve and a consolation .
In the long centuries during which the plague ravaged Europe , the quarantined , if they were lucky enough to have books , read them .
If not , and if they were well enough , they told stories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , from the fourteenth century , seven women and three men take turns telling stories for ten days while hiding from the Black Death—that “ last Pestilentiall mortality universally hurtfull to all that beheld it ” —a plague so infamous that Boccaccio begged his readers not to put down his book as too hideous to hold : “ I desire it may not be so dreadfull to you , to hinder your further proceeding in reading.
” The literature of contagion is vile .
A plague is like a lobotomy .
It cuts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capacities of humanity , and leaves only the animal .
“ Farewell to the giant powers of man , ” Mary Shelley wrote in “ The Last Man , ” in 1826 , after a disease has ravaged the world .
“ Farewell to the arts , —to eloquence.
” Every story of epidemic is a story of illiteracy , language made powerless , man made brute .
But , then , the existence of books , no matter how grim the tale , is itself a sign , evidence that humanity endures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Reading may be an infection , the mind of the writer seeping , unstoppable , into the mind of the reader .
And yet it is also—in its bidden intimacy , an intimacy in all other ways banned in times of plague—an antidote , proven , unfailing , and exquisite .
Stories about plagues run the gamut from “ Oedipus Rex ” to “ Angels in America.
” “ You are the plague , ” a blind man tells Oedipus .
“ It ’ s 1986 and there ’ s a plague @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I ’ m only thirty , ” a Tony Kushner character says .
There are plagues here and plagues there , from Thebes to New York , horrible and ghastly , but never one plague everywhere , until Mary Shelley decided to write a follow-up to “ Frankenstein.
” “ The Last Man , ” which is set in the twenty-first century , is the first major novel to imagine the extinction of the human race by way of a global pandemic .
Shelley published it at the age of twenty-nine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ died , leaving her , as she put it , “ the last relic of a beloved race , my companions , extinct before me.
” The book ’ s narrator begins as a poor and uneducated English shepherd : primitive man , violent and lawless , even monstrous .
Cultivated by a nobleman and awakened to learning— “ An earnest love of knowledge .
.
.
caused me to pass days and nights in reading and study ” —he is elevated by the Enlightenment and becomes a scholar , a defender of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ citizen of the world .
Then , in the year 2092 , the plague arrives , ravaging first Constantinople .
Year after year , the pestilence dies away every winter ( “ a general and never-failing physician ” ) , and returns every spring , more virulent , more widespread .
It reaches across mountains , it spreads over oceans .
The sun rises , black : a sign of doom .
“ Through Asia , from the banks of the Nile to the shores of the Caspian , from the Hellespont even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sudden panic was driven , ” Shelley wrote .
“ The men filled the mosques ; the women , veiled , hastened to the tombs , and carried offerings to the dead , thus to preserve the living.
” The nature of the pestilence remains mysterious .
“ It was called an epidemic .
But the grand question was still unsettled of how this epidemic was generated and increased.
” Not understanding its operation and full of false confidence , legislators hesitate to act .
“ England was still secure .
France , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interposed , walls yet without a breach , between us and the plague.
” Then come reports of entire nations , destroyed and depopulated .
“ The vast cities of America , the fertile plains of Hindostan , the crowded abodes of the Chinese , are menaced with utter ruin.
” The fearful turn to history too late , and find in its pages , even in the pages of the Decameron , the wrong lesson : “ We called to mind the plague of 1348 , when it was calculated that a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As yet western Europe was uninfected ; would it always be so ?
” It would not always be so .
Inevitably , the plague comes , at last , to England , but by then the healthy have nowhere left to go , because , in the final terror of pandemic , there is “ no refuge on earth ” : “ All the world has the plague !
”

When the plague came to London in 1665, Londoners lost their wits. They consulted astrologers, quacks, the Bible. They searched their bodies for signs, tokens of the disease: lumps, blisters, black spots. They begged for prophecies; they paid for predictions; they prayed; they yowled. They closed their eyes; they covered their ears. They wept in the street. They read alarming almanacs: “Certain it is, books frighted them terribly.” The government, keen to contain the panic, attempted “to suppress the Printing of such Books as terrify’d the People,” according to Daniel Defoe, in “A Journal of the Plague Year,” a history that he wrote in tandem with an advice manual called “Due Preparations for the Plague,” in 1722, a year when people feared that the disease might leap across the English Channel again, after having journeyed from the Middle East to Marseille and points north on a merchant ship. Defoe hoped that his books would be useful “both to us and to posterity, though we should be spared from that portion of this bitter cup.” That bitter cup has come out of its cupboard.
In 1665, the skittish fled to the country, and alike the wise, and those who tarried had reason for remorse: by the time they decided to leave, “there was hardly a Horse to be bought or hired in the whole City,” Defoe recounted, and, in the event, the gates had been shut, and all were trapped. Everyone behaved badly, though the rich behaved the worst: having failed to heed warnings to provision, they sent their poor servants out for supplies. “This Necessity of going out of our Houses to buy Provisions, was in a great Measure the Ruin of the whole City,” Defoe wrote. One in five Londoners died, notwithstanding the precautions taken by merchants. The butcher refused to hand the cook a cut of meat; she had to take it off the hook herself. And he wouldn’t touch her money; she had to drop her coins into a bucket of vinegar. Bear that in mind when you run out of Purell.
“Sorrow and sadness sat upon every Face,” Defoe wrote. The government’s stricture on the publication of terrifying books proved pointless, there being plenty of terror to be read on the streets. You could read the weekly bills of mortality, or count the bodies as they piled up in the lanes. You could read the orders published by the mayor: “If any Person shall have visited any Man known to be infected of the Plague, or entered willingly into any known infected House, being not allowed: The House wherein he inhabiteth shall be shut up.” And you could read the signs on the doors of those infected houses, guarded by watchmen, each door marked by a foot-long red cross, above which was to be printed, in letters big enough to be read at a distance, “Lord, Have Mercy Upon Us.”
Reading is an infection, a burrowing into the brain: books contaminate, metaphorically, and even microbiologically. In the eighteenth century, ships’ captains arriving at port pledged that they had disinfected their ships by swearing on Bibles that had been dipped in seawater. During tuberculosis scares, public libraries fumigated books by sealing them in steel vats filled with formaldehyde gas. These days, you can find out how to disinfect books on a librarians’ thread on Reddit. Your best bet appears to be either denatured-alcohol swipes or kitchen disinfectant in a mist-spray bottle, although if you stick books in a little oven and heat them to a hundred and sixty degrees Fahrenheit there’s a bonus: you also kill bedbugs. (“Doesn’t harm the books!”) Or, as has happened during the coronavirus closures, libraries can shut their doors, and bookstores, too.
But, of course, books are also a salve and a consolation. In the long centuries during which the plague ravaged Europe, the quarantined, if they were lucky enough to have books, read them. If not, and if they were well enough, they told stories. In Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, from the fourteenth century, seven women and three men take turns telling stories for ten days while hiding from the Black Death—that “last Pestilentiall mortality universally hurtfull to all that beheld it”—a plague so infamous that Boccaccio begged his readers not to put down his book as too hideous to hold: “I desire it may not be so dreadfull to you, to hinder your further proceeding in reading.”
The literature of contagion is vile. A plague is like a lobotomy. It cuts away the higher realms, the loftiest capacities of humanity, and leaves only the animal. “Farewell to the giant powers of man,” Mary Shelley wrote in “The Last Man,” in 1826, after a disease has ravaged the world. “Farewell to the arts,—to eloquence.” Every story of epidemic is a story of illiteracy, language made powerless, man made brute.
But, then, the existence of books, no matter how grim the tale, is itself a sign, evidence that humanity endures, in the very contagion of reading. Reading may be an infection, the mind of the writer seeping, unstoppable, into the mind of the reader. And yet it is also—in its bidden intimacy, an intimacy in all other ways banned in times of plague—an antidote, proven, unfailing, and exquisite.
Stories about plagues run the gamut from “Oedipus Rex” to “Angels in America.” “You are the plague,” a blind man tells Oedipus. “It’s 1986 and there’s a plague, friends younger than me are dead, and I’m only thirty,” a Tony Kushner character says. There are plagues here and plagues there, from Thebes to New York, horrible and ghastly, but never one plague everywhere, until Mary Shelley decided to write a follow-up to “Frankenstein.”
“The Last Man,” which is set in the twenty-first century, is the first major novel to imagine the extinction of the human race by way of a global pandemic. Shelley published it at the age of twenty-nine, after nearly everyone she loved had died, leaving her, as she put it, “the last relic of a beloved race, my companions, extinct before me.” The book’s narrator begins as a poor and uneducated English shepherd: primitive man, violent and lawless, even monstrous. Cultivated by a nobleman and awakened to learning—“An earnest love of knowledge . . . caused me to pass days and nights in reading and study”—he is elevated by the Enlightenment and becomes a scholar, a defender of liberty, a republican, and a citizen of the world.
Then, in the year 2092, the plague arrives, ravaging first Constantinople. Year after year, the pestilence dies away every winter (“a general and never-failing physician”), and returns every spring, more virulent, more widespread. It reaches across mountains, it spreads over oceans. The sun rises, black: a sign of doom. “Through Asia, from the banks of the Nile to the shores of the Caspian, from the Hellespont even to the sea of Oman, a sudden panic was driven,” Shelley wrote. “The men filled the mosques; the women, veiled, hastened to the tombs, and carried offerings to the dead, thus to preserve the living.” The nature of the pestilence remains mysterious. “It was called an epidemic. But the grand question was still unsettled of how this epidemic was generated and increased.” Not understanding its operation and full of false confidence, legislators hesitate to act. “England was still secure. France, Germany, Italy and Spain, were interposed, walls yet without a breach, between us and the plague.” Then come reports of entire nations, destroyed and depopulated. “The vast cities of America, the fertile plains of Hindostan, the crowded abodes of the Chinese, are menaced with utter ruin.” The fearful turn to history too late, and find in its pages, even in the pages of the Decameron, the wrong lesson: “We called to mind the plague of 1348, when it was calculated that a third of mankind had been destroyed. As yet western Europe was uninfected; would it always be so?” It would not always be so. Inevitably, the plague comes, at last, to England, but by then the healthy have nowhere left to go, because, in the final terror of pandemic, there is “no refuge on earth”: “All the world has the plague!”
If, in “Frankenstein,” Shelley imagined the creation of a man by the stitching together of body parts, in “The Last Man” she imagined the dismemberment of civilization. Death by death, country by country, the human race descends, rung by rung, down a ladder it had once built, and climbed. Shelley’s narrator, the erstwhile shepherd, bears witness to the destruction and abandonment of all the “adornments of humanity” that had adorned his own naked self: law, religion, the arts, science, liberal government (“The nations are no longer!”), freedom, commerce, literature, music, theatre, industry, transportation, communication, agriculture. “Our minds, late spread abroad through countless spheres and endless combinations of thought, now retrenched themselves behind this wall of flesh, eager to preserve its well-being only.” As the pestilence lays waste to the planet, those few who survive are reduced to warring tribes, until only one man, our narrator, is left, shepherd once more. Wandering amid the ruins of Rome, he enters the home of a writer and finds a manuscript on his writing table: “It contained a learned disquisition on the Italian language.” The last book is a study of language, humanity’s first adornment. And what does our narrator do, alone in the world? “I also will write a book, I cried—for whom to read?” He calls it “The History of the Last Man,” and dedicates it to the dead. It will have no readers. Except, of course, the readers of Shelley’s book.
The great dream of the Enlightenment was progress; the great dread of epidemic is regress. But in American literature such destruction often comes with a democratic twist: contagion is the last leveller. Edgar Allan Poe’s 1842 tale “The Masque of the Red Death” is set in a medieval world plagued by a contagious disease that kills nearly instantly. “There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution,” Poe wrote. “The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men.” In particular, the rich have no sympathy for the poor. (Not irrelevantly, Poe’s rich stepfather had entirely cut him off, leaving Poe penniless, and his wife was dying of consumption.) A haughty prince and his noblemen and women retire “to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys,” where they live in depraved luxury until, one night, at a masked ball, a figure arrives wearing a mask “made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have difficulty in detecting the cheat.” The visitor is the Red Death itself. Everyone in the abbey dies that night. The nobility cannot escape what the poor must endure.
Poe’s red death becomes a pandemic in Jack London’s novel “The Scarlet Plague,” serialized in 1912. (The disease is the very same: “The whole face and body turned scarlet in an hour’s time.”) The plague had come in the year 2013, and wiped out nearly everyone, the high and the low, the powerful nations and the powerless, in all corners of the globe, and left the survivors equal in their wretchedness, and statelessness. One of the handful of survivors had been a scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, a professor of English literature. When the disease hit, he hid out in the chemistry building, and turned out to be immune to the virulence. For years, he lived alone in an old hotel at Yosemite, availing himself of its stores of canned food, until, emerging, he joined a tiny band—the Chauffeurs, led by a brute who had once been a chauffeur—and even found a wife. When the novel opens, in the year 2073, the professor is a very old man, a shepherd, dressed in animal hide—“about his chest and shoulders hung a single, mangy garment of goat-skin”—and living like an animal. He tells the story of the scarlet plague to his grandsons, boys who “spoke in monosyllables and short jerky sentences that was more a gibberish than a language,” but who are very handy with a bow and arrow. Their primitivism distresses the professor, who sighs, as he looks out across what was once San Francisco: “Where four million people disported themselves, the wild wolves roam to-day, and the savage progeny of our loins, with prehistoric weapons, defend themselves against the fanged despoilers. Think of it! And all because of the Scarlet Death.”
London stole the red death from Poe and took the plot of “The Scarlet Plague” from “The Last Man”—except that London’s argument, about the decline and fall of humankind, is far less subtle than Shelley’s. “The human race is doomed to sink back farther and farther into the primitive night ere again it begins its bloody climb upward to civilization,” the professor explains. For London, it’s industrial capitalism and imperialism, not the Enlightenment’s engine of moral progress, that drive the climb from savagery to civilization and from scarcity to abundance. London’s descent of man is a descent into a very particular age-of-empire heart of darkness: the professor’s grandsons have “brown skin.” Before the plague came, capitalists and imperialists amassed staggering fortunes. “What is money?” the boys ask their grandfather, when he uses that word to describe a coin they find, minted in 2012. (“The old man’s eyes glistened, as he held the coin.”) All this—the white skin, the fortunes—was lost! The professor’s greatest distress concerns the onetime chauffeur’s having wed, by force, the former wife of a magnate: “There she was, Vesta Van Warden, the young wife of John Van Warden, clad in rags, with marred and scarred and toil-calloused hands, bending over the campfire and doing scullion work—she, Vesta, who had been born to the purple of the greatest baronage of wealth the world had ever known.” Equally distressing, having conquered the continent, the white man has, in the end, lost the West, and the East, too. The professor attempts to describe to his savage grandsons the fall of American cities, whose fate he learned of in the earliest days of the pandemic, when news could still reach California from other parts of the country, before the last telegraph operators died:


newyorker--2020-03-23--Jean Toomer’s Odd, Keening “A Drama of the Southwest”

On late afternoons , after his work was done , the modernist poet , novelist , religious omnivore , and occasional playwright Jean Toomer observed a ritual that he called “ deserving time.
” Much of the latter half of his life was spent in Bucks County , Pennsylvania , north of Philadelphia , on his property , Mill House .
On the grounds , alongside his family , Toomer housed a revolving retinue of devotees who came to learn his home-brewed adaptation of the spiritualist George Gurdjieff ’ s mystical practices ; the students also performed manual labor , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ convenient—aspect of Gurdjieff ’ s “ Work.
” At four o ’ clock , when the teacher had finished his writing and his charges had finished with their chores , they ’ d gather in the main house , where adults made drinks and children had cookies and ginger ale .
The placid hour wasn ’ t only for idle fun .
Toomer—a brutally intense , relentlessly abstract , comically vain man who took every quotidian moment as an opportunity to philosophize—would ask probing , pointed questions , turning conversation into a kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( In 1937 , he tried to sell a book of dialogues with one young student .
“ Talks with Peter ” was rejected by several publishers . )
Later in his life , “ deserving time ” devolved into a grandiose cover for Toomer ’ s encroaching alcoholism .
“ I ’ ve been working very hard , ” he wrote in a teasing letter to his wife , Marjorie Content .
“ Don ’ t you think I ’ m deserving ?
Don ’ t you think I might stop at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just to see if they have any beer ?
” During these virus-haunted days of padding around the house , anxiously taking in news and “ visiting ” my friends via video chat , I keep thinking about Toomer ’ s afternoon ceremony .
A Sabbath atmosphere not unlike the one at Mill House has sprung up between my wife and me : we sit around reading and cooking and listening to music , contemplating work more than doing it , calling our moms , pushing each other fruitlessly to extrapolate on figures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths ) that neither of us fully understands .
Cocktail hour starts a bit earlier than usual , and ends a bit later .
One of the little tortures of the moment is the sudden disappearance of live theatre , and the thought of all the plays that had been scheduled to open , some of which , barring an economic or logistical miracle , will go all but unseen by large audiences .
I ’ ve tried to console myself by turning to plays that have seldom—sometimes never—been seen , but which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ closet plays , ” meant for reading rather than seeing ; others are simply interesting attempts , still waiting for their turn onstage .
One such strange but promising specimen is Toomer ’ s odd , keening 1935 play “ A Drama of the Southwest , ” written , I ’ m sure , between many “ deserving times ” but never completed .
I ’ d love to see it staged someday , perhaps clipped into a one-act and presented on a bill with Toomer ’ s other little-known plays .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ knotty contradictions of his life and his ideas seemed to rhyme with the dialectical possibilities of playwriting .
Still , his attempts at having his plays produced were failures—as were many literary endeavors after his classic 1923 work , “ Cane , ” a quilt of poems , prose , and drama set in black Georgia .
Two versions of the manuscript of “ A Drama of the Southwest ” were skillfully collaged in a 2016 critical edition by the scholar Carolyn Dekker .
In her introductory essay , Dekker presents the Toomer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the Harlem Renaissance , black Americans , and the South , continued to rove the country , yearning to find a locale fit to birth what he imagined as “ a new race in America.
” The play , which is semi-autobiographical , chronicles his attempt to manage this trick among the cacti and adobe houses at the Taos art colony , in New Mexico .
Tom Elliot , the play ’ s leading man , is not unlike Toomer : cruel , curious , naïve , self-involved , cluelessly sexist , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ admixture , a vague but expansive theorizer even when the moment calls for concision .
He and his wife , Grace , have arrived in Taos , where they ’ ve rented a house .
They ’ ve been to New Mexico before , “ magnetized ” by its small but vibrant artistic scene ; they ’ ve come to visit with friends and to frack spiritual energies from a land that , to them , feels fresh .
Tom and Grace are mirror images of Toomer and Content , who were acquainted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in part , to their friendship with the wealthy arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan ( a fellow Gurdjieff disciple who fell rapturously in thrall to Toomer ’ s high talking ) and with Georgia O ’ Keeffe .
The play is a test of that group ’ s guiding , if often unspoken , principle : that , owing to a place ’ s intrinsic , elemental features—blue sky , red mud , brown folks—it might work as a symbol of the American future and as an enabler for art .
This was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ends with a play called “ Kabnis , ” which portrays a Northern teacher who has come southward , to Georgia , his tourism the outer sign of an inner quest .
Where “ Kabnis ” is poetic and mysterious , in places hard to follow at all except by rhythm and deftly enjambed nighttime images , “ A Drama of the Southwest ” is unsubtle in its study of oppositions .
Before Tom and Grace show up in Taos , after a lush stage description that works better as a guide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an inducement to set design ( try staging this : “ Then silence again .
.
.
and life becomes existence again .
.
.
and existence , focused for a time in a group of singing men , expands to the mountain and the close stars ” ) , we meet a pair of Taos locals named Buckter T. Fact and Ubeam Riseling .
They sit on a roof and talk about all those art colonists descending on their corner of the country .
Riseling—whom Toomer describes , cryptically , as being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the visitors ; Fact , a butcher who is “ below art , ” is more cynical .
Through their patter , Toomer ’ s own unmistakable voice is sometimes awkwardly audible :

On late afternoons, after his work was done, the modernist poet, novelist, religious omnivore, and occasional playwright Jean Toomer observed a ritual that he called “deserving time.” Much of the latter half of his life was spent in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia, on his property, Mill House. On the grounds, alongside his family, Toomer housed a revolving retinue of devotees who came to learn his home-brewed adaptation of the spiritualist George Gurdjieff’s mystical practices; the students also performed manual labor, a classic—and, for Toomer, quite convenient—aspect of Gurdjieff’s “Work.” At four o’clock, when the teacher had finished his writing and his charges had finished with their chores, they’d gather in the main house, where adults made drinks and children had cookies and ginger ale.
The placid hour wasn’t only for idle fun. Toomer—a brutally intense, relentlessly abstract, comically vain man who took every quotidian moment as an opportunity to philosophize—would ask probing, pointed questions, turning conversation into a kind of Socratic extension of his teaching. (In 1937, he tried to sell a book of dialogues with one young student. “Talks with Peter” was rejected by several publishers.) Later in his life, “deserving time” devolved into a grandiose cover for Toomer’s encroaching alcoholism. “I’ve been working very hard,” he wrote in a teasing letter to his wife, Marjorie Content. “Don’t you think I’m deserving? Don’t you think I might stop at that tavern and put my head in just to see if they have any beer?”
During these virus-haunted days of padding around the house, anxiously taking in news and “visiting” my friends via video chat, I keep thinking about Toomer’s afternoon ceremony. A Sabbath atmosphere not unlike the one at Mill House has sprung up between my wife and me: we sit around reading and cooking and listening to music, contemplating work more than doing it, calling our moms, pushing each other fruitlessly to extrapolate on figures (testings and infections, hospitalizations and deaths) that neither of us fully understands. Cocktail hour starts a bit earlier than usual, and ends a bit later.
One of the little tortures of the moment is the sudden disappearance of live theatre, and the thought of all the plays that had been scheduled to open, some of which, barring an economic or logistical miracle, will go all but unseen by large audiences. I’ve tried to console myself by turning to plays that have seldom—sometimes never—been seen, but which I love nonetheless. Some are intentional “closet plays,” meant for reading rather than seeing; others are simply interesting attempts, still waiting for their turn onstage.
One such strange but promising specimen is Toomer’s odd, keening 1935 play “A Drama of the Southwest,” written, I’m sure, between many “deserving times” but never completed. I’d love to see it staged someday, perhaps clipped into a one-act and presented on a bill with Toomer’s other little-known plays. He was an earnest dramatist; the knotty contradictions of his life and his ideas seemed to rhyme with the dialectical possibilities of playwriting. Still, his attempts at having his plays produced were failures—as were many literary endeavors after his classic 1923 work, “Cane,” a quilt of poems, prose, and drama set in black Georgia.
Two versions of the manuscript of “A Drama of the Southwest” were skillfully collaged in a 2016 critical edition by the scholar Carolyn Dekker. In her introductory essay, Dekker presents the Toomer who, having firmly abandoned his identification with the Harlem Renaissance, black Americans, and the South, continued to rove the country, yearning to find a locale fit to birth what he imagined as “a new race in America.” The play, which is semi-autobiographical, chronicles his attempt to manage this trick among the cacti and adobe houses at the Taos art colony, in New Mexico.
Tom Elliot, the play’s leading man, is not unlike Toomer: cruel, curious, naïve, self-involved, cluelessly sexist, an essentialist obsessed with racial and regional admixture, a vague but expansive theorizer even when the moment calls for concision. He and his wife, Grace, have arrived in Taos, where they’ve rented a house. They’ve been to New Mexico before, “magnetized” by its small but vibrant artistic scene; they’ve come to visit with friends and to frack spiritual energies from a land that, to them, feels fresh. Tom and Grace are mirror images of Toomer and Content, who were acquainted with the scene in Taos thanks, in part, to their friendship with the wealthy arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan (a fellow Gurdjieff disciple who fell rapturously in thrall to Toomer’s high talking) and with Georgia O’Keeffe.
The play is a test of that group’s guiding, if often unspoken, principle: that, owing to a place’s intrinsic, elemental features—blue sky, red mud, brown folks—it might work as a symbol of the American future and as an enabler for art. This was familiar territory for Toomer. “Cane” ends with a play called “Kabnis,” which portrays a Northern teacher who has come southward, to Georgia, his tourism the outer sign of an inner quest. Where “Kabnis” is poetic and mysterious, in places hard to follow at all except by rhythm and deftly enjambed nighttime images, “A Drama of the Southwest” is unsubtle in its study of oppositions.
Before Tom and Grace show up in Taos, after a lush stage description that works better as a guide to Toomer’s psyche than as an inducement to set design (try staging this: “Then silence again . . . and life becomes existence again . . . and existence, focused for a time in a group of singing men, expands to the mountain and the close stars”), we meet a pair of Taos locals named Buckter T. Fact and Ubeam Riseling. They sit on a roof and talk about all those art colonists descending on their corner of the country. Riseling—whom Toomer describes, cryptically, as being “above art”—is rhapsodic about the visitors; Fact, a butcher who is “below art,” is more cynical. Through their patter, Toomer’s own unmistakable voice is sometimes awkwardly audible:
UBEAM: The spirit of the Indian still lives in and dominates this land. Disappearing elsewhere, it is vital here, vital like these hills. . . . To this little cluster of earth-built houses the entire world comes.
BUCKFACT: Comes and goes as fast as it can. . . . And why? What’s to be seen here? One bank, one newspaper, grocery and drug stores like you can see anywhere, an armory, a baseball field, a fish hatchery, bad roads, the plaza, and a dump heap. Why should anyone come all this way to get dust in his eyes? As for me, it means a job.
Toomer’s travellers are gluttons for the sensual. After visiting a sick friend, Grace is crestfallen, less by the disease than by what it does to the vibes. “What’s the use of being here,” she says, “unless you feel you are in the country and see the mountains and the sunsets?” Like glorified Airbnbers, Tom and Grace are in constant contact with the owners of the house they’ve rented, who take pains to set rules and explain the situation with the keys.
There’s little in the way of a plot. The play is, instead, a group portrait. All of Tom and Grace’s friends are ostensibly writers and artists, but none—except the sick friend, a poet named Lillian Range—are getting any work done. They trade thoughts about art, politics, Communism, and the unremitting war between the sexes. The only available intrigue is a spat between a couple—a petty jealousy that seems to peter out. Tom is trying to write a book. He sets up plans for his “deserving hour” and sits down at the typewriter but can’t think, and writes a meandering letter to a friend. He reads the missive aloud, at length—pages and pages, precious few of which would make it into my imagined one-act. “To motor across the continent is to let the physical world come into you,” he writes. “In comes the world of earth—and out go your thoughts and feelings and even your ego.”
Toomer’s manuscript ends abruptly, in what looks like the dead middle of a domestic scene. We don’t get to see Tom’s troubled ego dissolve. One suspects that it never does. Instead, maybe he finishes the book but stubbornly languishes, still unsatisfied with the writing. He gets into his car again, forgetting Grace (I promise, he would) and heading farther west, into obscurity, deserving little but claiming all, attacking the landscape like a bad, unstoppable germ. ♦


newyorker--2020-03-23--QuarantineChat Connects Sheltering Strangers

Danielle Baskin and Max Hawkins are multimedia artists who met at a Halloween party in San Francisco , in 2016 .
Baskin was dressed as a lion with skeleton arms .
Hawkins , who does “ software-based performance work , ” was dressed as the John Mayer song “ Your Body Is a Wonderland , ” a costume randomly assigned to him by a computer algorithm that he designed .
He had just returned from a two-year trip abroad , during which his algorithm dictated where he lived , taking him to Dubai , Taipei , and rural Slovenia .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tarot reading , and they hit it off .
“ We were both very interested in phone stuff , ” Baskin recalled recently .
Hawkins told her about Call in the Night , a short-lived project he had started a few years earlier .
“ You signed up with your phone number , and once a week , between 2 and 5 A.M. , you would get this phone call that wakes you from sleep and connects you with a random stranger , ” he explained .
Baskin was intrigued .
She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ joke objects , ” such as bananas imprinted with the Nike logo—and liked the idea of spontaneous conversations during the day .
Soon after , Hawkins moved to New York , and they used the app to stay in touch .
Friends joined , and then friends of friends .
Last year , they released the app publicly , under the name DialUp , with subgroups for people who wanted to talk to strangers about breakfast , politics , or the full moon .
Then COVID-19 , and widespread quarantining , came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me about her family in China , who ’ d been doing this for months , and all the stories of people who are just totally bored and stuck at home , ” Hawkins , who now lives in Los Angeles , said .
On March 1st , he and Baskin launched a new DialUp application , called QuarantineChat , that connects sheltering strangers at arbitrary points of the day .
There ’ s no swiping right ; the app decides who talks to whom , and when .
“ Something that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re in isolation is that you don ’ t have these random conversations , ” Baskin said .
“ You don ’ t have that serendipity.
” Usage spiked in Iran , then spread to Hong Kong , Portugal , and London .
While self-quarantining , Hawkins has been busy fixing technical bugs , to keep up with demand , and Baskin has been making virus-inspired art objects , such as cling-on faux stained glass for nervous airline passengers to stick to their plane windows ( “ So when you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a place of prayer ” ) .
Baskin said , “ I ’ ve been trying to create projects that are sort of funny and dystopian.
” She also created a respirator mask with the user ’ s mouth and nose printed on it , to help people unlock their phones using facial recognition .
Both have been making friends on QuarantineChat .
Baskin was connected to a family in L.A. that was rationing pasta sauce .
Hawkins had talked to a Colombian woman studying in Paris , whose roommate had tested positive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a party the night before , and so everyone who was at the party had to go into self-quarantine , ” he said .
Early last week , a housebound New Yorker joined the app .
The next afternoon , the phone rang .
“ Welcome to QuarantineChat , ” a recorded voice said .
“ We ’ re about to put you on hold and connect you to someone else anywhere in the world .
Your prompt today is to go look out the window and describe what you see to your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then a woman answered .
She introduced herself as Susan , a fifty-nine-year-old mother of three , who was hunkering down at her house in Missouri .
“ I have asthma , so I ’ ve been paying very close attention , ” she said .
“ I was very far ahead of this .
My kids thought I was nuts .
They don ’ t think I ’ m nuts anymore !
” She described what was out the window : bird feeders , a lake .
“ And we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yard .
They make a raised line in the grass , so you can see exactly where they ’ ve been , and they are so annoying.
” Susan had Xanax and a plan to reorganize her closets .
“ I had decided that this was going to be my year , you know what I ’ m saying ?
I ’ m going to be sixty this year , which is freaking me out .
And I thought , I ’ m going to hit sixty being one hot chick .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , my shoulder replaced .
Of course , I ’ m cancelling everything.
” Her husband is a cardiovascular perfusionist at a hospital three and a half hours away .
( They worried that the hospital would be short on masks , so Susan lent him one from her gardening supplies . )
Their plan was for him to stay at an apartment near work if he got exposed .
“ When he leaves tomorrow , I might not see him for a long time , ” Susan said , glumly .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his cupcakes and stuff , to remember me .
But it ’ s a lonely thought .
I will literally be alone .
Just me , in this big , rambling house .
So I will probably look forward to these calls more as time goes on.
” ♦

Danielle Baskin and Max Hawkins are multimedia artists who met at a Halloween party in San Francisco, in 2016. Baskin was dressed as a lion with skeleton arms. Hawkins, who does “software-based performance work,” was dressed as the John Mayer song “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” a costume randomly assigned to him by a computer algorithm that he designed. He had just returned from a two-year trip abroad, during which his algorithm dictated where he lived, taking him to Dubai, Taipei, and rural Slovenia. At the party, Baskin gave Hawkins a tarot reading, and they hit it off. “We were both very interested in phone stuff,” Baskin recalled recently.
Hawkins told her about Call in the Night, a short-lived project he had started a few years earlier. “You signed up with your phone number, and once a week, between 2 and 5 A.M., you would get this phone call that wakes you from sleep and connects you with a random stranger,” he explained. Baskin was intrigued. She works from a garage studio—she specializes in “joke objects,” such as bananas imprinted with the Nike logo—and liked the idea of spontaneous conversations during the day. Soon after, Hawkins moved to New York, and they used the app to stay in touch. Friends joined, and then friends of friends. Last year, they released the app publicly, under the name Dialup, with subgroups for people who wanted to talk to strangers about breakfast, politics, or the full moon.
Then COVID-19, and widespread quarantining, came along. “My girlfriend was telling me about her family in China, who’d been doing this for months, and all the stories of people who are just totally bored and stuck at home,” Hawkins, who now lives in Los Angeles, said. On March 1st, he and Baskin launched a new Dialup application, called QuarantineChat, that connects sheltering strangers at arbitrary points of the day. There’s no swiping right; the app decides who talks to whom, and when. “Something that’s missing from your life when you’re in isolation is that you don’t have these random conversations,” Baskin said. “You don’t have that serendipity.” Usage spiked in Iran, then spread to Hong Kong, Portugal, and London.
While self-quarantining, Hawkins has been busy fixing technical bugs, to keep up with demand, and Baskin has been making virus-inspired art objects, such as cling-on faux stained glass for nervous airline passengers to stick to their plane windows (“So when you’re on the plane it feels more like a place of prayer”). Baskin said, “I’ve been trying to create projects that are sort of funny and dystopian.” She also created a respirator mask with the user’s mouth and nose printed on it, to help people unlock their phones using facial recognition. Both have been making friends on QuarantineChat. Baskin was connected to a family in L.A. that was rationing pasta sauce. Hawkins had talked to a Colombian woman studying in Paris, whose roommate had tested positive. “They’d just thrown a party the night before, and so everyone who was at the party had to go into self-quarantine,” he said.
“I’d say my number-one issue is getting off the island, and then, after that, probably health care.” Cartoon by Sofia Warren Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Early last week, a housebound New Yorker joined the app. The next afternoon, the phone rang. “Welcome to QuarantineChat,” a recorded voice said. “We’re about to put you on hold and connect you to someone else anywhere in the world. Your prompt today is to go look out the window and describe what you see to your partner.” Some plinky music played, and then a woman answered. She introduced herself as Susan, a fifty-nine-year-old mother of three, who was hunkering down at her house in Missouri. “I have asthma, so I’ve been paying very close attention,” she said. “I was very far ahead of this. My kids thought I was nuts. They don’t think I’m nuts anymore!” She described what was out the window: bird feeders, a lake. “And we have some moles who have taken over my yard. They make a raised line in the grass, so you can see exactly where they’ve been, and they are so annoying.”
Susan had Xanax and a plan to reorganize her closets. “I had decided that this was going to be my year, you know what I’m saying? I’m going to be sixty this year, which is freaking me out. And I thought, I’m going to hit sixty being one hot chick. I was going to get my cataracts fixed, my shoulder replaced. Of course, I’m cancelling everything.” Her husband is a cardiovascular perfusionist at a hospital three and a half hours away. (They worried that the hospital would be short on masks, so Susan lent him one from her gardening supplies.) Their plan was for him to stay at an apartment near work if he got exposed. “When he leaves tomorrow, I might not see him for a long time,” Susan said, glumly. “I made his favorite black-bean burgers and his cupcakes and stuff, to remember me. But it’s a lonely thought. I will literally be alone. Just me, in this big, rambling house. So I will probably look forward to these calls more as time goes on.” ♦
An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the Dialup app.
A Guide to the Coronavirus