Remember When Your Biggest Concern Was Being Attacked by Feral Hogs?

Back in October of 2019, I was worried about this impending menace:



I was so wound up about feral hogs that I wrote a long post about them.

I was enthralled by a vision of giant fecund razorbacks ravaging their way across our country, tearing up crops, fields and ponds, thundering through suburban yards, slowly making their way towards the coasts. I even (temporarily) changed the name of my one-man-band to Feral Hogs at the Strip Mall.

Those were simpler times.

I've since changed my Soundcloud moniker back to The Moving Rocks, but I did finish a song celebrating this possible porcine apocalypse. I updated the lyrics some to reflect our current situation--obviously, the feral hog scourge has been pushed to the back burner-- but there's no question that as we invade various spaces on our planet, we're going to uncover some nasty creatures. Not all of them can be shot with an assault weapon.

The song is safe for work, home, working at home, and listening when there are kids in the room, so check it out. I'm quite proud of the guitar riff, I had to use some unusual scales and chords to get the groove I wanted. The sound is certainly inspired by the wonderful and creepy song "Ghost Town" by The Specials.

Feral Hogs (at the Strip Mall)

Feral hogs at the strip mall
Feral hogs at the mall
These little piggies are having a ball
These little piggies want it all

Pangolin in the market
Horseshoe bat in your soup
Rhino horn in the basket
Circus cat, flaming hoop

Crocodiles in the sewer
bedbugs roam between the sheets
Snakehead fish in the river
Multiply while you sleep

Bone Tomahawk!

If you're looking for something to watch that will make the menace of Covid-19 seem trifling, check out the Old West/horror flick Bone Tomahawk. 

Warning: at times it is gruesome.

The story is set in the late 1800s, out in the fabled West, in a small settlement (ironically) called Bright Hope. 

It's back in the days when if you get wounded in the leg, you might die of gangrene. And the sheriff-- Kurt Russell-- has a penchant for shooting suspicious folk in the leg.

But gangrene is the least of your worries if you live in Bright Hope. We learn what the real danger is from an erudite Native American the townsfolk call the Professor. Only he could deliver the bad news (if a white-man described what is to come, it would sound like xenophobic racist bullshit). The Professor explains that the two good people who have been abducted-- a helpful and pretty wife and the deputy to the sheriff-- have been taken by a tribe of indigenous cave-dwelling cannibalistic troglodytes.

He is not optimistic about the prospect of saving them.

The movie becomes comic for a bit, as a ragtag band of folks: one on crutches, one old, one something of a fop, and Kurt Russel-- the old sheriff with a few tricks up his sleeve-- make their way through the high plains to the troglodyte caves.

It's The Searchers meets The Descent.

There are some great lines and a wonderful campfire conversation about how hard it is to read a book in the bath (with a brilliant low-tech solution).

Then things get ugly.

This was a nice break from the gritty realism of The Wire and Better Call Saul and Bosch and even The Expanse (which is as realistic as you get for a sci-fi show, pretty much the opposite of Star Wars).

Comment of the Quarantine!

Yesterday, I lamented the fact that some of us are not cut out for all this extreme hygiene during the quarantine. Masks, gloves, hand-washing, no face-touching, six-foot distancing. It's an OCD ballet, and I can't find the rhythm.

It's because I've become inured to people and germs. I teach in an enormous, crowded high school.

Kids come to school sick, they cough, they drool, they fall asleep with their snot-covered faces plastered to the desks, they blow their nose while you're giving directions, and they occasionally leave menstrual blood on chairs (seriously, this has happened more than once . . . you call the janitor instead of doing the clean-up yourself).

I eat in a tiny office shared by twenty other teachers. There's always random food on the table, often long past the expiration date. I bring a cooler because I'm scared of what's inside the refrigerator.

Thousands of people are touching the doorknobs, staircase railings, and bathroom surfaces each and every day. If you need to get from A Hall to F Hall during the five-minute passing time, you inevitably get stuck near the library in a mass of bodies that resembles an Anthrax mosh pit. It's no place for claustrophobes, germaphobes, or tiny sophomores.

Ironically, this year our school decided to crack down on two things. Teacher absences (especially sick days on Mondays and Fridays) and bathroom passes. Obviously, the teacher-absence thing went out the window when the pandemic started. Teachers were encouraged to stay home if they were sick-- which is how it should be. We get our sick days for a reason, so as not to spread virulence in a building with 3000 closely-packed inhabitants.

The bathroom passes are another issue. Students are required to take a laminated pass if they leave to go to the bathroom. These passes obviously harbor bacteria, fecal matter, and worse. They are disgusting. But star commenter Zman offered an elegant solution:


You should keep the bathroom passes in a glass cylinder of Barbicide like the combs at the barbershop.


While I'm sure when we finally go back to school, we will abolish shared, laminated passes for some other more hygienic system, I am definitely going to take my old passes and put them in a glass cylinder of Barbicide on my desk.

I can never pass up some good prop comedy.

Thanks Zman!

What Is the Cost of a Quarantine Bagel? Maybe Dave's Life . . .

On Tuesday at his daily press briefing, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the economy and public health are not an either/or scenario. He's right, of course. An increase in public health is going to help the economy. But he also said something that's patently false. 

“But if you ask the American people to choose between public health and the economy then it’s no contest, no American is going to say accelerate the economy at the cost of human life because no American is going to say how much a life is worth.”

This is logical silliness. We HAVE to put a value on human life. It can't be worth nothing-- then you're Stalin. It can't be sanctified and worth an infinite amount, because then you can't allocate resources. 

Plenty of Americans say how much a life is worth. Americans that work in federal agencies that decide whether a regulation is too costly to enact. Car manufacturers say how much a life is worth when they decide which safety features to add to their vehicles and which to leave out (and how much to charge for them).  Actuarial workers say how much a human life is worth on a daily basis.

Professor W. Kip Viscusi says how much a human life is worth. He gets specific about it.

Often, these federal agencies rely on Viscusi's number. Back in 1982, one statistical human life was worth 300,00 dollars, but Viscusi revised this figure. He used data on dangerous jobs-- he looked at how much more a worker needed to be paid to accept a job that had a higher risk of death. He came up with three million dollars per statistical life-- ten times the old amount. Because of inflation, that number is now estimated by the federal government to be around 10 million dollars. 

Planet Money Episode 991: Lives vs. the Economy give an excellent rundown of this math (along with an interview with Viscusi himself!)

And that's why I was able to go and get bagels yesterday morning. We haven't completely shut the economy down. We are still allowing people to shop at Wal-Mart and get take-out food and go to the grocery store as many times a week as they'd like. We're still delivering and receiving mail. We're still ordering from Amazon. 

Do these things spread the virus? 

Absolutely, but at a lower rate than normal. But not at a rate of zero. If one human life were priceless, we'd have to shut it all down. We'd get one chance every two weeks to go to the grocery store. We'd be eating beans and rice. By leaving some businesses open, we're making a cost/benefit decision and putting a price on the lives that will be lost because social distancing is fairly voluntary. And imperfect, as you will learn at the end of this post, when I describe my journey to buy bagels.

We'll keep making these decisions, balancing public health and the economy, and recognizing that plenty of people WILL be deciding what a statistical human life is worth. That's why the speed limit isn't 15 miles an hour. If it were, we would save many many thousands of lives, but we've decided that those lives are worth time and convenience. How many statistical lives are 50,000 jobs worth? I don't know, offhand, but someone is going to have to make that decision. The same way we know opening bars will lead to some drunk driving deaths and some cirrhosis of the liver. And some spread of Covid-19. At some point, that number will be low enough that we will reopen. But it's never going to get to zero.

Some people are better at minimizing the risk than others. That's baked into the system. I don't seem to be very good at minimizing the risk. 

Yesterday, I went to the La Bagel in Edison. I put on my mask, picked up our order, and carried it back to the car. The place was busy: four customers and four people working. One of them was a uniformed health care worker. Everyone wore masks, but still. The virus is around.

I got my bagel toasted and with cream cheese. I had never gotten my bagel toasted before, but my wife gave me this option. La Bagel is only a four-minute ride from my house (three minutes, really, because there's no traffic) but I decided I needed to eat my toasted everything bagel with cream cheese NOW. In the car on the ride home. I was hungry.

I didn't realize that the cream cheese would be slightly melted from the toasting. I got cream cheese all over my hands. I licked the bulk of it off-- which is probably not proper pandemic hygiene. Then I put the bagel down on the console so I could find some napkins. After getting the napkins out of the bag, I noticed that I put the bagel down on a pair of used gloves. Also probably not proper pandemic hygiene. But I ate it anyway, of course.

In the next few minutes, I got cream cheese on all kinds of surfaces, including my mask. I licked my fingers clean and ate a bagel that had touched my mask and some gloves. 

I'm not a doctor. 

I don't have this protocol down pat. I'm like most people. And we still have a whole mess of people behaving like this, so the virus will spread, slowly. Hopefully, slowly enough. But this is a tough adjustment for me. 

I'm used to teaching in a classroom all day. Kids cough on pieces of paper and then hand them to me. The desks are sticky and gross. There's never enough tissues. I touch my face, pick my nose (you can't teach with a booger) and cough all kinds of droplets into the air. I'm used to seeing one or two sick kids in every class I teach. They slobber on the desks and blow their noses. And I don't even want to get into the bathroom passes . . . yikes. This is business as usual when you do five 45 minute classes a day. There's no way we're going to be able to control the situation inside the schools, but we're eventually going to open the doors anyway. 

Here are a couple of other good podcasts on this topic:

Making Sense with Sam Harris: 198

Freakonomics 413: Who Gets the Ventilator?

Attention Governor Murphy! Try Rollerblading Down My Street Now That the Parks are Closed!

While I empathize and understand that Governor Murphy is dealing with an incredible crisis right now, I don't think closing down all the parks is having the desired effect. Instead of keeping people farther apart, closing the parks is packing them closer together.

My street-- which is adjacent to Donaldson Park-- has now BECOME the park. It's packed (and much narrower than Donaldson Park). I shot some video while I was rollerblading down the hill next to the park. If I was a decent cinematographer, you'd be able to tell how packed my street is-- with walkers, joggers, bikers, and occasional cars.

But due to some lousy camerawork, you might throw up. Fair warning. It's the Blair Witch Project of quarantine rollerblading video.

Despite the unsteady hand of the auteur, I still think this film proves my point. 

Governor Murphy, open the parks (and close Wal-Mart . . . every time I drive by, that place is packed).

Spring Break Coronavirus

It's back to work this week for my wife and me, but our kids are still on Spring Break. Remote teaching is fairly awful-- it pretty much strips all the fun out of teaching and makes it much more transactional. It makes me think of this scene from Office Space.




I've been getting a lot of my news through podcasts, and the news hasn't been very good. The Indicator: The Story So Far gives a quick (nine minute) run down of some economic indicators that run from interesting to grim. Americans aren't traveling-- very little traffic on the ground and in the air, and we aren't consuming as much electricity. Both entrepreneurship and state/local budgets are suffering. So new businesses and jobs aren't being created, and local governments are starting to lay people off. Pretty ugly. And the pandemic is exposing income inequality. White collar jobs are suffering less than service. The poor are dying at a more rapid clip than the rich.

But everyone is dying, from all walks of life. To hear about this in greater detail, you can listen to the new episode of The Daily. "24 Hours Inside a Brooklyn Hospital" gives you a picture of what it's really like in a medical center overwhelmed by Covid-19. It's scary and fast-paced and utilitarian. There aren't really drugs that work. All sorts of people have the potential to go downhill.

I listened to these podcasts this morning while walking through the park. It's officially closed and it was empty. I guess it was early enough (and cold enough) that I was able to avoid detection, but when the weather gets nice and we're all stuck walking up and down the street, I'm sure they will bolster security.

I whiled away the time on Spring Break playing low-stakes Texas Hold'em on Pokerstars. You can play nickel/dime or even penny/two-penny. It's great practice. I'm going to try to set up a friendly game on there for folks who are interested (though you probably have to live in New Jersey). You can make a club, invite your friends, and play for whatever amount of money you like.

Catherine and I also did some community service-- we are shopping for old people. They like soup and pineapple chunks and Ritz crackers. We have to wear masks! The ones they gave us are very uncomfortable and make our glasses steam up, but now we have more fashionable face wear. The daughter of a friend made us some. Thanks Kaylee!

The kids and I have been playing a lot of darts, ping-pong, and tennis. There are still a few tennis courts open in the vicinity (but if I told you where they were, I'd have to kill you). One set of courts we frequent had a cheesy lock on the gate but it was easy enough to pry open. A maintenance worker came by while Ian and I were playing and asked if we had put the lock on. We said no. Apparently, someone had taken the initiative to try to lock the court privately. The maintenance guy said he was going to cut it off. We went back yesterday and the lock was gone.

The kids have been obsessively watching Adventuretime and they finally finished yesterday. We've been watching The Wire and Better Call Saul as a family. The boys and I watch Letterkenny and The Expanse. Catherine and the boys watch cooking shows. I never watch TV alone (which is a great trait during regular times but not so much during the pandemic). Ian has been playing Magic and D&D with friend online. Alex has a group of friends that go running everyday. We're all sore from working out so much. I miss low-impact weightlifting at the gym.

If anyone wants to join my book club, I'm trying to read three mammoth books: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding, The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Andrew Treuer. I have a feeling I will finish all three by the end of this.

Quarantine has been relatively uneventful for us, and I hope it stays that way. We took down some collapsing ceiling tiles in the basement and found an old ceiling above the newer ceiling. I've sent a sample out for asbestos testing. I really hope it comes back negative-- I don't need asbestos lung damage on top of the possibility of Covid lung damage.

I hope your quarantine is healthy, boring, and uneventful. Hope to see some of you in person soon.

Governor Murphy: Here Are 9 Reasons NOT to Close the NJ Parks

                       

Dear Governor Murphy:

While I'm sure you had the best intentions when you decided to close the NJ state and county parks, let me offer a few reasons why this is a bad move:


1. You are incentivizing the very thing you are trying to prevent. Now instead of taking a walk in the uncrowded county park one hundred yards from my house, I'm driving around to other towns to find open municipal parks and spaces, where I can run, walk my dog, and bike with my wife and kids. So you are causing more movement and forcing people into smaller spaces.

2. You don't want to make it hard for people to exercise. Obesity and heart disease kill FAR more people than Covid-19 ever will. Over 600,00 people a year in the United States die of heart disease. Hundreds of thousands more die from obesity-related diseases. Then there's high blood pressure, depression, etc. And running on the road hurts my knees! The benefits outweigh the costs.

3. Stress and anxiety reduce the effectiveness of the immune system. Nothing combats stress more than exercise (especially in green spaces).

4. You are punishing poor people. People with smaller houses. People that live in apartments. People who don't own large swaths of land. People who live with a large number of people. This is class warfare.

5. With fewer options, people are going to get bored and head to where the virus is actually being spread: Costco, Walmart, convenience stores, and grocery stores. Would you rather have people walking around in parks or convening in those spaces? You're going to cause more people to cough on the soup cans.

6. You are punishing everyone because a few bad apples that congregated in the parks Issue the offenders a steep fine and allow the rest of us-- who are practicing social distancing-- open space in which to walk. These people are going to find other spaces in which to illegally congregate, anyway. At least if they are in parks they can be ticketed and monitored.

7. You are forcing little kids to bike in the streets. You are also encouraging people to drive around more. That's a recipe for disaster. Do you want that on your soul?

8. Without the parks, some people may lapse back into addictive, obsessive, and abusive behaviors. You may see a rise in alcoholism, gambling addiction, spousal abuse, suicide, gun violence, etc.

9. You've seen The Shining, right?

                                        

If you agree, send a message to the Governor . . . and sign this petition.

Quarantine Claustrophobia: The Walls Are Closing In

My wife and I donned dust masks this morning-- but apparently for the wrong purpose. We were down in our basement, tearing down some rotted ceiling tiles. We also wore snowboarding goggles, to protect our eyes form the dust. Here a picture of Catherine getting all her gear on:

We had grand plans to yank all the tiles down, but when we found another (very old) drop ceiling above  the newer ceiling, we decided to just pull down the tiles that were falling apart. I was nervous that the old drop ceiling, which was decayed in spots, might contain asbestos. I ordered a DIY test kit.

We probably should have saved the masks, as Governor Murphy just mandated mask-wearing in grocery stores. And maybe it wasn't such a good idea to expose ourselves to toxic dust when there is a virus going around that compromises the lungs. I wasn't down there all that long-- I got really claustrophobic in the mask and goggles. Catherine was heroic. She cleaned up the entire mess, vacuumed, wiped every surface clean, threw out the plastic drop cloths, etc. I pray for her lungs.

Governor Murphy also closed all the state and county parks, including the one next to my house. I'm hoping they're not going to really enforce this (aside for motor vehicles). I was able to walk the dog in the park this morning, we'll see if I get kicked out tomorrow morning. Either way, I can feel things closing in around me, restrictions getting tighter, and it's making me anxious and stir-crazy. I suppose that's good-- if you're feeling stir-crazy, it means you're not dead/dying/on a ventilator. And the numbers keep growing. Now, 1 in every 200 people in New Jersey has tested positive for the virus.

If You Eat Food (Or Own a Tiger) You Should Probably Read This . . .

If you still go to the grocery store (or eat food) then you need to listen to the new episode of Reveal. It's called "Essential Workers" and it's mainly about the duress farmworkers and grocery store employees are suffering during this pandemic.

Farmworkers-- undocumented and on temporary visas-- are living in tight quarters, without much information. Most of them don't have benefits, and while they have been deemed "essential" they are not being treated as such. They don't have paid sick leave and the stimulus bill largely ignores the actual workers-- the people we really depend on. It's a scary mess that could have grave repercussions for all of us.

Grocery stores are pretty much a Petri dish for Covid-19. Many stores haven't enacted safeguards to insure social distancing. Some stores have paid compensation for employees that test positive for Covid-19, but tests are in short supply so lots of sick employees are working until they collapse. My takeaway from listening to this section of the podcast is this: if you go to the grocery store, you will (or have) come in contact with the virus.

Our federal government needs to show some national leadership. In addition to healthcare workers, the people who produce, deliver, and sell our food need to be given as much support and aid as possible during this pandemic.

In other Covid news, fans of the salacious, species-specific Netflix series Tiger King, will be sad to hear that tigers can contract Covid-19. So can lions. Several big cats at the Bronx Zoo tested positive for the virus. One of the tigers had a "dry cough." So it's probably inevitable that all those tigers kept in close quarters on the show are going to get it.

In general, it seems that cats can contract the virus, but dogs not so much.

Trainspotting: The Finale

If you're my age and have a certain Gen X hipster sensibility, you probably love Trainspotting. The book AND the movie. The characters are the archetypes of your mates:


Renton: the scheming, slightly ambitious, slightly amoral, easily influenced, cynical mainstay, with the capability too (almost) fit into normal society.

Sick Boy: the lecherous womanizer

Spud: the slightly daft, but always loyal and kind whipping boy. The gang alternately tortures and takes care of him.

Begbie: the psychopath.


The last chapter of this saga is on sale on Amazon Kindle for $1.99.

Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh.

It's not a great book, but if you're stuck in quarantine and feeling a little nostalgic for wilder times, it's not bad.

The gang is middle-aged, estranged, and scattered about the world. If the book just took a look at the lives of some ex-addicts and how they've managed to fit into our modern society, that would be interesting . . . but it wouldn't be an Irvine Welsh novel.  Instead, we get the gang in their full glory and a plot that is a hodge-podge of weird sex and wanton violence and soccer and venereal diseases and stalkers and murders and art exhibitions and EDM music and the criminal underground and an illegal kidney racket.

It's a farce and a mess.

I still had fun reading it: you get to hear narration from all the members of the gang. There's plenty of action . . . too much really, it gets surreal, and while this worked for a gang of heroin addicts on the scam, in Trainspotting, it doesn't so much for a bunch of middle-aged adults.

But if you want to read about realistic middle-aged adults, you can read a Jonathan Franzen novel. This is something different. And now I think I'm done with Irvine Welsh and the gang, but it's a fitting end to the cynical, misanthropic, nihilistic tone of the '90s.

The youth today are much more compliant and socially aware. And anxious.

For example: for the most part, young people seem to be obeying all the Covid-19 social distancing rules, even though this is mainly to benefit their elders. If the Trainspotting gang were asked to hole up to protect the over 60 population, they'd just laugh and head out to the club to score.

Big Day for Dave in the Quarantine State

Three things of note today . . .

After an unsuccessful attempt yesterday, I completed my first shopping trip and drop-off for the Highland Park Civilian Outreach Program (COPE). The program provides up to $100 dollars of groceries a week for folks that can't do the shopping for themselves during this pandemic. You get paired up with someone, call them, find out what they need, and bring them the groceries. You leave the groceries on their doorstep, to avoid Covid transmission. Catherine does all the phone calls because she can actually talk to old people on the phone and understand what they are saying. Once we got a list worked out, I donned some gloves, went to Stop & Shop, got a weird slip of paper at customer service and bought a bunch of soup, bread, bananas, canned pineapple chunks and such for an older gentleman. Then I brought the groceries to his house and put them on the stoop. He came out and carried them in. The only disappointment was that no hot chicks saw me dropping off the groceries. Next time I'll have to wait until I see a cute jogger, and then hop out and deliver the goods. A good deed doesn't count unless a good-looking woman witnesses it.

In other altruistic news, Planet Fitness has frozen all the memberships during the pandemic-- a nice gesture since I would have never remembered to cancel (and we all know how difficult it is to cancel a gym membership).

Last, but not least: for the first time on my new rollerblades, I went down the big hill by my house that goes into Donaldson Park. I waited until there were no cars, and then let the good times roll. The descent was a little fast and bumpy-- and I definitely had that moment where I thought: Do NOT end up in the hospital right now!-- but then I clattered over the brick crosswalk and onto the smooth flat main road without mishap.

Great Mysteries of Life (Spoilers Ahead)

My body is in an odd battle with itself. Fatness versus fitness. It is a mystery how it will turn out. To begin, I am snacking way too much during this quarantine (Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups are a particular problem . . . I've told my family to hide them from me, but I always manage to find them. And then I consume them all. I've also been eating cupcakes for breakfast. Covid-19 has claimed Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne, so if I want a cupcake for breakfast, I'm having it. Same goes for beer (but not for breakfast . . . contract hours are over at 2:15).

On the other hand, I've been working out like a madman. Running, kickboxing, tennis, biking, push-ups, pull-ups, random weight-lifting in the living room, etc. What else is there to do?

Today, after a fifteen-minute warm-up run, I ran a 7:27 mile. Ian and I were out on the canal path, and I didn't kill myself. I kept a smooth, steady pace and felt fine when I was done. This is thirty seconds better than the last time I ran a baseline mile. I think I could do an even better time on the track (where I would have a better idea of my pace).

I ran this faster time despite the fact that I've gained two or three pounds since the quarantine started. So I'm just a shade over 190 pounds instead of just a shade under.

What's going to happen in the end? Who knows?

 I'll be most annoyed if I get into really great shape, and then contract Covid-19 and end up on a ventilator. That's going to kill my fitness level fast (and perhaps me).

The other mystery I'd like to discuss today is Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. This is a good one and I highly recommend it-- as does the Crime Writers Association-- but if you're not going to read it, forge ahead to hear why it's brilliant (there will be spoilers . . . but you philistines never read the mystery novels I recommend, so you might as well learn what happens).

The novel starts with a suicide and then a murder. There are lots of characters, alibis, timelines, clues, and sequences-- it's hard to make sense of them all. Then, Hercule Poirot comes out of retirement and sorts it all out.

The narrator of Poirot mysteries is usually Arthur Hastings-- he's Hercule's Watson-- but this book has a different narrator: Dr. James Shepard. Weird, right?

Dr. Shepard has a nosy sister, who is always prying into things, and the good doctor himself seems quite curious about this crime. In fact, he writes everything down. In chapters. Weird.

Late in the book, Poirot discovers this and asks to read them. It's super-meta.

Here's the moment:

Still somewhat doubtful, I rummaged in the drawers of my desk and produced an untidy pile of manuscript which I handed over to him. With an eye on possible publication in the future, I had divided the work into chapters, and the night before I had brought it up to date with an account of Miss Russell’s visit. Poirot had therefore twenty chapters. 

Poirot reads Shepard's "book," which is the same book we've been reading . . . and-- of course-- he solves the mystery. The narrator did it! It's as if Watson committed the crime, and Sherlock Holmes had to catch him. From Watson's own journals. Totally wonderful.

Here are some other moments I enjoyed . . .

Dr. Shepard's description of his sister Caroline:

Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home. I don’t know how she manages it, but there it is. I suspect that the servants and the tradesmen constitute her Intelligence Corps. When she goes out, it is not to gather in information, but to spread it. At that, too, she is amazingly expert. 

Poirot's purpose in life:

Understand this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it. 

The reason I was fooled by the narrator:

Fortunately, words, ingeniously used, will serve to mask the ugliness of naked facts. 

The truth about men, according to Caroline:

“Never worry about what you say to a man. They’re so conceited that they never believe you mean it if it’s unflattering.” 

The one thing I will say with conviction about this quarantine is this: thank the good Lord (and Edgar Allan Poe) for the detective story.

Random Thoughts While Walking the Dog (During a Pandemic)

I took the dog for a walk today at the Rutgers Ecological Preserve. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1) If you're hiking in the preserve and you suddenly get a fever and a cough, you're conveniently located just a half-mile away from the Middlesex County Covid-19 Drive-Through Testing Center. It's at the Kilmer Road DMV (and I would expect the same level of customer service as any DMV endeavor).

2) Even though it was brisk weather, I had to pull a couple of ticks off the dog. We had a really weak winter, which means tick season is going to be awful. Combine this with all the extra people walking around outside-- because the malls and bars and restaurants are closed-- and we're looking at a gigantic spike in Lyme Disease. Corona with a splash of Lyme (thanks Whit!)

Is there any way to parlay this idea this into a stock investment?

3) Next year in Philosophy class, I'm going to have a lot of good examples during our utilitarianism unit.

4) I listened to two positive podcasts on Covid-19. I highly recommend them, especially if you're tired of being inundated with grim numbers.

They both share the same theme: globally, we are engaged in a weird, semi-cooperative race. People want to win the race-- and make some money-- but they also realize the humanitarian role they are playing by engaging in this scientific and capitalistic race, and so there is a greater level of cooperation amidst the competition.

The Daily: The Race for a Vaccine

Planet Money: Episode 987: The Race To Make Ventilators
I actually got choked up during the Planet Money episode (which is about the race to make more ventilators) when the Michigan die-casting guy said he could make the steel two-ton piston mold "a lot faster than you think" because he realized it was a life or death piston mold. Supply and demand at it's finest!

The Strangelovian Calculus

When I see headlines like this:

US could see millions of coronavirus cases and 100,000 or more deaths, Fauci says

And learn those numbers are a best-case scenario-- if we do everything perfectly-- I can't help but think of Buck Turgidson's tactical assessment of implementing an unprovoked preemptive nuclear strike in Dr Strangelove . . .

All over the world, government officials, medical practitioners, aid workers, and everyone else involved in making decisions around this pandemic are doing some sort of Strangelovian utilitarian calculus. The results are ominous, even if we get a few "breaks."

If the numbers are too much for you, the new episode of This American Life examines the virus at a more granular level. It's called "The Test" and it tells the stories of individuals being challenged in extreme ways by Covid-19.

I'm warning you, it's not for the faint of heart. After listening to it, you might want to go back to the numbers (although there is some hope at the end of the episode).

For some (slightly) upbeat coronavirus anecdotes from around the world, check out Reply All: The Attic and Closet Show Part II.

Paint the Coronavirus by Numbers (Local Edition)

Radiolab has a new episode addressing all the numbers we are confronted with during this Covid-19 crisis, and how hard it is to interpolate them.

We all have different numbers we care about.

I like to think about how many people in New Jersey have tested positive for Covid-19, but I like to think of it in smaller numbers than are presented in the news.

How many people-- on average-- out of a hundred have tested positive?

How many out of every thousand?

I can imagine a hundred people. That's about how many students I have each year (divided among five classes).

I can imagine a thousand people. When we have a pep rally at our school, there are two thousand students in the bleachers. So divide that in half.

There are 14,000 people in my town, and my town is only 1.8 square miles-- so I can imagine that sort of density. It's seven pep rally bleachers of people, scattered about town.

There are 9 million people in New Jersey. So if ten percent of the population gets Covid-19, that's nearly a million people.

If that happens, you will certainly know a LOT of people that tested positive. Sadly, you'll probably know someone who gets hospitalized (or worse).

Even if 1 out of 100 people test positive, chances are you'll know a bunch of them. This would happen if we hit the 90,000 mark. This will probably happen. Hopefully not too soon.

New Jersey has over 13,000 cases now.

That's 1 person in every 700. I have 542 friends on Facebook. I certainly know a lot more people than that. If you live in New Jersey, there's a good chance you know someone who has tested positive. And--unless you have very few social connections--you definitely know someone who knows someone with the virus.

Once I start thinking about the entire country, it all falls apart. There's too much space in America, too many regions, too many cities and towns and rural areas and vast wilderness. I don't think anyone can predict exactly how this thing is going to ripple across the country. But I hope there are some smart people trying.

Dave Interviews Covid-19

I recently connected with a receptive Covid-19 coronavirus named Rebecca. She's living on a public restroom door handle in central New Jersey, hoping for the best. I'm pleased to report that she was willing to answer a few of my questions.


Dave: So why the big move?

Rebecca: Have you been inside a bat den? SO much guano. And no WiFi.

Dave: What about shacking up with the pangolins? They're cuter than bats.

Rebecca: Pangolin burrows are dark and wet and damp. And a pangolin-dude will sit in a hole for YEARS before he gets motivated to talk to some ladies and attempt to mate. YEARS! Which is why it's quite ironic that they're valued as an aphrodisiac. Those things have the sex drive of moss.

Dave: Are you happy with the way things turned out?

Rebecca: Not at all. I'd really like to apologize for what happened. We were shooting for a common cold scenario-- we just wanted to sit inside a nice host, at home, watching TV, maybe head out to a bar or restaurant and infect a few other folks. This was not what we intended at all.

Dave: How do you feel about the flu?

Rebecca: The flu is a filthy slut. Absolute swine.

Dave: OK. Great stuff, I really appreciate it. Now, unfortunately, I'm going to have to wipe down this door handle with bleach and hand sanitizer. Sorry.

Rebecca: I figured as much. I wish you wouldn't, but I get it.

Remember Going to the Movies in 1999?

The year is 1999.

The competition for moviegoers' attention is fierce; this is making M. Night Shyamalan extremely anxious. He's confident he has something special with The Sixth Sense, but he's nervous that the film will be overshadowed by the super-hyped Blair Witch Project.

Then, in one of the many compelling anecdotes in Brian Rafferty's Best Movie Year Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen, there is the moment when Shymalan knew his film was going to be huge. The writer/director said he was watching a pick-up basketball game and a player threw a wildly inaccurate pass that flew out of bounds. A pass intended for no one. Another player, unaware that Shymalan was watching, said to the guy who threw the lousy pass: "You see dead people or something?"

The Sixth Sense exceeded expectations, had a 9-month run and made a boatload of money. The phrase "I see dead people" went viral.

For people who came of age in the 1990s, Best Movie Year Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen is a reminder of just how important film was back then. People worshipped Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith and Paul Thomas Anderson. Movies tackled big ideas. Indie films battled studio giants. Stars did it all. People went to the movies to be disturbed and challenged.

This book was a walk down memory lane for me, and it's a great resource for younger cinemaphiles.

Here are a few of the movies discussed in the book, vaguely in order of how much I like them:

1. Being John Malkovich
2. The Matrix
3. Fight Club
4. Rushmore
5. Election
6. Three Kings
7. The Limey
8. The Sixth Sense
9. Office Space
10. Run Lola Run
11. The Blair Witch Project
12. Magnolia
13. American Movie
14. eXistenZ
15. Boys Don't Cry
16. The Insider
17. American Beauty
18. The Virgin Suicides
19. Galaxy Quest
20. The Iron Giant
21. Cruel Intentions
22. American Pie
23. 10 Things I Hate About You
24. Eyes Wide Shut
25. The Phantom Menace

Many more films are mentioned (not all from 1999). The book really captures the mood as we prepared to head into a new millennium.

There a few good movies I saw back then that are NOT mentioned in the book. 1999 was a bountiful year in film. The Straight Story and Bringing Out The Dead and Princess Mononoke and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

It's absurd that one year could produce so many significant moments in an art form. Soon after, movies went into decline, and we entered the age of Platinum TV, but maybe someday soon things will change. Maybe once this quarantine is over, we'll want to go to the movies to think again. We'll tire of the same big-budget superhero retreads and gross-out comedies, and want meatier fare.

Until then, while you are stuck at home, there are worse things you could do then return to a few of these films. Happy viewing.

Wyoming: Where the Coronavirus Barely Roams . . .

The first book I've finished during the Covid-19 Crisis has an apt title: Death Without Company. 

Death without company is the unfortunate demise for a number of people around the world, especially in Italy. It's tragic.

But Craig Johnson's second Longmire mystery is a perfect escape from the news in more densely populated places. The book is set in Wyoming, the least populated state in the U.S. Less than 600,000 people. And declining. Twenty-six cases of Covid 19. You've got a better chance of getting eaten by a grizzly.

Death Without Company is full of sassy, autonomous old people. No quarantining here. The novel begins with a suspected murder at the Durant Home for Assisted Living. I won't get into the plot-- it's too complicated-- but there are snowstorms and icy rivers and cold nights on the rez, as well as murder and mayhem and methane aplenty. And, as usual, Sheriff Longmire takes the brunt of the punishment (along with his buddy Henry Standing Bear).

I will definitely be distracting myself with mystery novels during the quarantine. There's nothing like a procedural crime fiction to take you away to a different place. The setting is actually significant-- it's not window-dressing. The details are important to solving the crime. You can go to New Mexico with Tony Hillerman, you can go to Northern Ireland with Adrian McKinty, you can journey to Scotland with Ian Rankin, you can roam Los Angeles with Harry Bosch . . . and it's better than a travelogue (because at any moment the narrator might get shot or stabbed).

I can barely follow the plot of most mystery novels I read-- I'm too thick-headed-- but I love observing a new place through the eyes of a detective.

Miracles Amidst the Looming Pandemic

While I'm not enjoying the lack of pick-up soccer during the pandemic preparation, I am getting out and running more. Yesterday, I went for my longest run in quite a while-- six miles on the D&R Canal Trail.

As I ran, I was listening to the newest episode of Reply All, entitled the "The Attic and Closet Show."

PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman opened the phone lines and were checking in with people around the world. PJ did this from a little studio in his NYC closet and Alex Goldman from his attic in Jersey. First, they talked to a guy in Paris, who described the empty streets and total lockdown (for everyone but dog walkers).

Then, they took a call from a young woman named Amanda.  She said she was from New Jersey . . . New Brunswick, New Jersey. Then she revised that location and mumbled, "Highland Park, really." If you need verification, it's a little past ten minutes into the podcast.

I was ecstatic. A Highland Park resident on my favorite podcast! And just as she said it, a bald eagle soared across the canal. Seriously. It was miraculous timing.

As an added bonus, I felt great on the run, perhaps because of the improvement in air quality. We'll see if my lungs keep on keepin' on. If not, I hope there's a ventilator with my name on it. Preferably on a college campus . . . it will be the Covid 19 version of Back to School . . . which probably doesn't end so well for Rodney Dangerfield.

All Downhill From Here?

I just finished re-rerecording and re-mixing a song I wrote about a year ago. The lyrics are now ominously prophetic-- although not in the way I thought.

The song is called "All Downhill From Here," a title based on the ambiguity of the phrase. I often use "all downhill from here" positively-- like my life is a bike ride, and now I'm coasting. But there is also, obviously, the negative, spiraling out-of-control connotation (which my wife prefers).

I'm fairly happy with the mix on this one. You can hear everything-- it's not as muddy as the first version-- and I had a lot of fun with my wah pedal.

Here are the lyrics . . .

This is as good as it gets . . .

Big TV, no regrets

Fine woman in your bed,

Kids sleeping like the dead.

No famine, plague or war;

Dog splayed on the floor.

Your interest rate at an all time low,

And free trade with Mexico.

It’s all downhill from here.

When you go down

You don’t need to steer.

It’s all downhill from here,

So drop it in neutral and crack your beer.

I wrote it when I was concerned about Trump, tariffs, and NAFTA. Turn out, that should have been the least of my concerns. We've got a plague-like situation-- although not nearly as deadly as the bubonic version-- and let's hope the economic decline doesn't result in famine for those hit hardest. 

We are certainly enjoying our family dog, our family TV, and uninterrupted sleep. The question is: what sort of downhill are we headed for?