“Stephen King Has an Idea for the Story Joe Biden Could Be Telling” in The New York Times
A solid interview with a very good writer. Click here to read it.
The latest issue of Independent Healing
In this issue:
One ER doctor says this simple at-home device saved the lives of two of his coronavirus-infected colleagues. You’ll find out how it works… and where you can get it.
You’ll also discover…
* What you need to know to get quality online health care
* What to do about coronavirus stress
* 9 foods for better immunity
Click here to read the May issue.
“My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need It Anymore?” in The New York Times
“On the night before I laid off all 30 of my employees,” Gabrielle Hamilton writes, “I dreamed that my two children had perished, buried alive in dirt, while I dug in the wrong place, just five feet away from where they were actually smothered. I turned and spotted the royal blue heel of my youngest’s socked foot poking out of the black soil only after it was too late.”
Read the entire article here.
“A Gaucho Appears in the Distance, Riding Hell for Leather…” by Bill Bonner
“There’s an advantage to spending time in a place like Argentina,” Bill writes. “It’s been through these things [economic, political, and social ruin] before. In fact, it makes a habit of it.”
Read the entire essay here.
A partial list of the sources I used for today’s essay:
“Provisional Death Counts for COVID-19″
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
“COVID-19 risk factors: Age, underlying conditions, genetics, and unknowns”
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/4/8/21207269/covid-19-coronavirus-risk-factors
“How deadly is the new coronavirus?”
https://www.livescience.com/is-coronavirus-deadly.htm
“Odds of Hospitalization”
“The Deadliest Viruses on Earth”
https://health.usnews.com/conditions/articles/the-deadliest-viruses-on-earth
“Beware of the World’s Most Deadly Infectious Disease: Tuberculosis”
https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/article/beware-worlds-most-deadly-infectious-disease
“Causes of Death – Our World in Data”
https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death
“Perspectives on the Pandemic, Episode 2”
“Perspectives on the Pandemic, Episode 3”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK0Wtjh3HVA
“List of human disease case fatality rates”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates
The following letter – supposedly from F. Scott Fitzgerald, but actually written by Nick Farriella for the humor site McSweeney’s – recently went viral. It was forwarded to me by several people who didn’t seem to realize that it’s a parody.
A Letter From F. Scott Fitzgerald, Quarantined in 1920 in the South of France During the Spanish Influenza Outbreak
Dearest Rosemary,
It was a limpid dreary day, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. I thank you for your letter. Outside, I perceive what may be a collection of fallen leaves tussling against a trash can. It rings like jazz to my ears. The streets are that empty. It seems as though the bulk of the city has retreated to their quarters, rightfully so. At this time, it seems very poignant to avoid all public spaces. Even the bars, as I told Hemingway, but to that he punched me in the stomach, to which I asked if he had washed his hands. He hadn’t. He is much the denier, that one. Why, he considers the virus to be just influenza. I’m curious of his sources.
The officials have alerted us to ensure we have a month’s worth of necessities. Zelda and I have stocked up on red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, white wine, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy. Please pray for us.
You should see the square, oh, it is terrible. I weep for the damned eventualities this future brings. The long afternoons rolling slowly forward on the ever-slick bottomless highball. Z. says it’s no excuse to drink, but I just can’t seem to steady my hand. In the distance, from my brooding perch, the shoreline is cloaked in a dull haze where I can discern an unremitting penance that has been heading this way for a long, long while. And yet, amongst the cracked cloudline of an evening’s cast, I focus on a single strain of light, calling me forth to believe in a better morrow.
Faithfully yours,
Scott Fitzgerald
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
A synopsis of the plot that I found on Shmoop.com crystalizes my initial impression of this tender, teenage novel:
“Dying girl meets hot boy. Hot boy and dying girl fall in teenage love and go on adventures to Amsterdam together. Dying girl is disappointed by her meeting with a certain author whom she idolizes. Dying girl and hot boy admit their love to each other and have physical relations. In a horrible twist of fate, dying girl lives while hot boy dies. The end.”
Yes, it’s a novel for teens. No, I don’t know why it was a selection for our all-adult-male book club.
Actually, I do. Although the plot, diction, and characters are appropriately aimed at teenagers, the central theme – finding meaning in an apparently meaningless universe – is always worth an earnest discussion. And we had one. (After we japed at those that enjoyed it.).
The latest issue of AWAI’s Barefoot Writer
In this issue:
* Superhero Writing Job Lets You Rescue Paying Clients in Their Darkest Hour of Need
* Master Mental Time-and-Space Travel for Innovative Writing
* The Thriving Writer’s Multitiered Safety Net
* How a Scrap of Bulleted Paper Can Make You Richer, Healthier, and Happier
* World Upside Down? Get Writing Again
Click here to read it.
Looking for some comfort books to read? The New York Times asked some well-known writers for suggestions. Here are some of them…
* From Celeste Ng: The Princess Bride by William Goldman – “This has always been a comfort read for me: a fairy tale that acknowledges that life isn’t fair… yet still manages to make you feel that the good guys might win, that justice will be served, that there’s a point to it all.”
* From Elizabeth Gilbert: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson – “Absent of sentimentality, full of love and humor and wisdom, this is a tale about how much fun two people can have in the middle of nowhere, when they are practicing social isolation in earnest.”
* From Kiley Reid: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott – “It’s funny and honest and comforting, and it’s a wonderful reminder of the glory in terrible first efforts, and the beauty that comes in taking it day by day.”
* From Ruth Ware: Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford – “[For] sheer comfort reading it has to be Nancy Mitford – who laughed and wept her way through love, loss, crippling bereavement and two world wars.”
* From Ann Patchett: Writers & Lovers by Lily King – “Even as the narrator grieves the loss of her mother and struggles to make art and keep a roof over her head, the novel is suffused with hopefulness and kindness.”
“Seven ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes that are eerily timely during the coronavirus pandemic”
Click here to read this thought-provoking article from The Washington Post.