Observations from Coronaville
During my morning walk in the mist at six AM, I spotted only three other people, two standing at the entrance to Coney Island Hospital. On the Shore Road side, in the parking lot, a temporary pavilion is being built, its canvas roof and floor already in place, awaiting the deluge that will likely occur in the next few weeks. As I strolled I wondered if rain diminishes the virus just as it tamps down pollen. Wishful thinking, I suppose. How about nuking food? Shouldn’t that kill it off?… Here’s the amusing Corona headline of the day, from nypost.com: “Condom shortage looms as coronavirus shuts down production.”… And in the category of it takes all kinds to make a world, there’s this headline from foxnews.com: “Amazon delivery driver in California caught on camera apparently spitting on package.”… And an example of tough love in this one: “Dad bans son from house after he went on spring break trip amidst coronavirus pandemic.”… And another word on the latest relief bill passed by congress. Doesn’t the inclusion of pork send the message that the pandemic isn’t really that serious?… If all this is getting to you, there’s a new cocktail to help one cope — the Quarantini. There are many variations. Google it… The older one gets, the more precious time becomes, but boy do I wish we could fast forward three weeks.
RIP Joe Diffie, 61, who succumbed to complications from corona. He was a member of the Grand Ole Opry and a Grammy winner. He cut 12 studio albums and had five number one singles on the Billboard Country chart. He was Cash Box’s Male Vocalist of the year in 1990. Well done, sir. Thank you.
Here’s a snippet from Andrea Peyser’s op-ed piece on the persecution of Woody Allen, from nypost.com: “Maureen Callahan, The Post’s critic at large, hilariously dubbed the book (Apropos of Nothing) “one of the most tone-deaf, disgusting, bitter, self-pitying, horrifically unputdownable memoirs since Mein Kampf.” Peyser herself says: “… the book reinforces everything there is to hate about the insufferably boastful guy.” She also goes after Mia Farrow and her children.
In his op-ed piece Kyle Smith takes on the support of Socialism by the likes of Britney Spears, Fran Drescher, Gal Gadot and fellow “woke” celebrities with this sharp rejoinder: “… praising open borders, socialism and atheism in a country where people are praying to God because of a virus unleashed on the world by China’s socialist regime.” Kudos, sir.
I’ve handwritten eleven pages of a thriller so far. As usual, I cannot make it completely fictional. The protagonist is my age and single, and he runs a sidewalk book shop. The differences are he didn’t play high school football, he lived the life of a swinging bachelor after a hitch in the Navy, and he’s not a writer or guitarist. I converted the Word file, which has only the first two pages, to five-by-eight format, and it more than doubled the page count. Still, right now I’d be very surprised if I can do a hundred pages.
I found the following in the basement of the old house:
And here are the members of the Rotterdam Philharmonic doing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy by video conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eXT60rbBVk
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