The "Coronavirus Issue" featuring...
finito
muse-letter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, addressed to a person or organization, in the course of which, the sender becomes absorbed in thought; especially turning something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively.
2: a letter from a poet, or one who envisions oneself as such, in which he or she “muses” on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy, usually in some ironic or absurd way.
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With Apologies to Dr. Seuss
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Quote of the Month
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A Barber Shop From Out of Time:
Enter Madeleine Peyroux
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Obscure Fact of the Month
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The Laying off of Hands
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A Few Observations from Beyond
Six Feet Apart
April 2020
Remainder of the site under reconstruction
With Apologies to Dr. Seuss
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, daily announcements would be forthcoming that added to the growing list of places to which we could no longer go. And unlike a friend upstate who thought of Camus's dystopian classic 1947 novel The Plague ---which would soon go out of stock on Amazon, and its sales now tripling over the previous year in many countries ---a far different classic came to my regressing mind.
Written for little kids in 1990, though with so much crossover appeal that it continues to be a popular gift for students graduating from high school and college---spiking in sales every spring--- I'm talking of course, about Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Place You Will Go!
With that title so loaded with irony in these surreal times, I was soon off and running. Or more like, off and sitting. At the PC. Though sitting for too long a stretch at a time, is now still one more danger that is going to do us in. We hear that "Sitting is the new smoking." But what about sitting out the new coronavirus?
I could always take a break and go down to the gym in the building for a stint on the treadmill when the spirit moved me. But soon enough, that was shut off to all tenants: "Until further notice." News I celebrated by downing a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia.
After much sitting, and without further ado, and with some lines taken directly from the Seuss book, I offer a New York edition of...
Much consternation!
Today’s not your day.
Too many masked faces!
At home you will stay!
Look at Times Square.
Barer than bare.
But from what country come those two?
So don’t chance to go there!
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
But de Blasio and Cuomo will decide where you go.
" But that's not guaranteed."
But will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
Only 1.1% of Americans die.
St. Patrick’s is still open.
But you don't have a prayer.
Scattered pews of elders
achooing and coughing there!
Gage and Tollner reopening put on hold.
A landmark chophouse since 1880.
Your reservation’s gone don’t be dismayed.
Jack Nicholson ate here, but not Warren Beatty.
It's opener there
in the wide open air.
But closed two days after
its grand premier.
The Edge at Hudson Yards.
100 stories in the sky.
You might say it's cursed.
Or a bad idea at its worst.
If the spirit moves you to try to fly
you’ll have a chance at least.
But if just back from a cruise, you are
dry docked in the belly of the beast.
Sorry to say
but sadly it's true.
If it can happen to Hanks
it can happen to you.
Museums are closed.
Broadway is dark.
Pigeons can be carriers.
Stay out of Central Park.
Quote of the Month
A Barber Shop From Out of Time: Enter Madeleine Peyroux.
I head up to my barbershop to get in one last haircut before all such establishments might be added to the growing list of business places that have been closed in this virus crisis. Sure enough, about five days later, such an edict was handed down. That would be the last haircut till...? And panic would immediately set in across the state as to how to manage hair in the midst of this pandemic. How to get at the roots of the problem, what with shops and salons being closed, and natural hair being color exposed? The horror of it all.
York Barber Shop has been around since 1928. When you enter the place, you feel as if it still is 1928. It reeks of charm, what with its antique bric-a-brac mingling with good olde tyme "barbershopy" smells. Woody Allen goes there. (Should I stop going in some sort of tonsorial protest?).
As a bonus, via Sirius radio, low-key music from other times and mellow places is piped in. Sinatra singing "Summer Wind," Tony Bennett blaring out "Because of You," maybe followed by Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathias. A veritable Who's Who in classic American Pop and Jazz. And then along might which I might croon, softly and show-offingly, bekistan. Or is it Kazakhstan? (I tend to get my
times, it almost goes beyond a haircut into
in Portuguese impressing my barber Lauren who is from Uz-
come Getz and Gilberto's "The Girl From Ipanema." To
"stan-countries" mixed up). Especially, in these stressful
therapy.
Today, just after Nat and Natalie finish their "Unforgettable" duet, I hear a voice that I can't begin to place, singing Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love." I've never heard it sung in anything but the slow- tempoed gravelly voice of Cohen. Who is this woman doing it in such a jazzy and enticing arrangement, and sounding more than a bit like Billie Holiday? "Giving it a kind of sly swing treatment," as I would come to read how one critic put it.
A Google search when I get home, leads me to the answer. Madeleine Peyroux. A name I might have heard somewhere before, but that's about the extent of it. Her rendition of that song appeared on her 2004 album Careless Love. A click on its cover below can take you there. Which would put you in the company of several million listeners, who've come to it though several points of online entry.
She's nothing if not diverse in every way. As an artist, she is a singer, a songwriter, and instrumentalist who plays several instruments. including the ukulele, which she employs in a rendition of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" giving it a lilting upswing. It is a song that can drown in a shallow pool of sentimentality that many pop singers have fallen into covering it. Peyroux resorts to no over-embellishment in her song interpretations. She lets her voice speak for itself, and there's an organic sense of purity about it. This song epitomizes that style.
And so appropos for what we are all going through now.
It's not as if Peyroux is the new kid on the block as she was in 1996, when at age 22, she released her first CD Dreamland to rave reviews. Though that was followed by an eight year hiatus, which might have suggested that she was just a one-hit wonder. But then came Careless Love, another stunning hit with an impressive diversity that would include her covering the songs of the aforementioned Cohen, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams and W.C. Handy, the self-proclaimed Father of the Blues. For good measure, there was an old torch song sung in French, and an original which she co-wrote with Norah Jones. Others she's covered on the seven albums that would follow, include Billie Holiday, Piaf, Patsy Cline, Bessie Smith, Fats Waller, Lennon/McCartney.
Though she can speak and sing in impeccable French, she's a native of Athens, Georgia and spent the first thirteen years of her life in New York and California. Her influence were her parents who she has called "hippies" and "eccentric educators" who helped her pursue a career in music.
At thirteen, her parents divorced, and she moved to Paris with her mother. Two years later she began singing with street musicians in the Latin Quarter. In time, joining vintage jazz and blues groups with whom she toured Europe.
Like everyone, I'm confined to house-virus arrest. Watching my hair grow. Wondering when my next trip to York Barber Shop will be. Playing Peroux's songs to death, along with those of some other great talents I never knew existed and am discovering online. Such as Tatiana Eva-Marie. But that's for next month.
Obscure Fact of the Month
There's been considerable re-examination of the so called "Spanish flu" of 1918, to see what parallels or lessons might be drawn and applied to this situation. And as my curiosity led me in that direction as well, I happened upon the fact that FDR had the Spanish flu. Ya gotta' being kidding. That too?
He actually had to be carried off this troopship, Leviathan on a stretcher. He was 36 at the time. And just a mere three years later in 1921, the onslaught of paralysis from the waist down, would begin to set in.
In this context, his signature quote is understandable as it was grounded in his own personal life's grave experiences: "Only thing we have to fear is fear itself." As he went on his jaunty way.
The Laying off of Hands
March 8, 2020
Beneath the vaulted ceiling
stunning spears of sunlight pierce
the stained glass windows
as if to highlight the moments
in the narratives being depicted.
The Cross, as always,
front and center
flanked by the Cooperstown saints
with their stone-cold stare
filling every apse
amidst flickering flame
in rows of espresso-cupped candles
that hang on for dear life
in hopes of intercessions.
The Aura of Supplication complete.
We bow our heads.
But there will be no pressing of the flesh
on this Sunday morning
in the greetings and offerings of
“Peace be with you.”
Nor hands to be later enjoined
while singing full-throated
The Lord’s Prayer.
A virus in its Luciferean mission
aims to kill.
Was Lazarus, a mere mortal
not contagious after four days dead?
No fumigation of the now empty tomb?
A fervent sense of discipline and order
that it’s all under control ---
even if and especially when
it takes a miracle ---
was the prevailing tenet under a dome of belief.
Now we put our faith
in that of antibacterial hand wipes
as the hands of God
even under this very roof
are not enough to cleanse us and send us
back out into the world unafraid.
---Ron Vazzano
Et tu, Fauchi?
I couldn't help but notice that in the President's daily briefings, about a half dozen people were clustered about the podium. Et tu, Fauchi? And take your hand off your face! And your voice is sounding pretty gravely. Have you been tested? And only now as the month concludes, finally, has this lack of distancing during presidential briefings been rectified.
I suppose it was about the optics of showing that experts literally have the president's back, no matter what comes out of his mouth, and from God knows where. But it really is difficult to forget these initial baseless assessments that were hardly challenged.
“This is their new hoax”
“Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. …When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
But as if in a 180 degree reversal straight out of Animal Farm, you knew this was coming:
“I’ve always known this is a — this is a real — this is a pandemic. I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries.”
So we shrug and say so what? And await the next morning for the PowerPoint truth in Cuomo's slides.
...and went on to make these salient proclamations:
A Few Observations from Beyond Six Feet Apart
"Social distancing" rules the day. "Keep at least six feet apart," we are admonished. Here are just a few personal observations and musings from beyond that distance, in a virtual sense. Some particularly jumped out at me for their absurdity or irony. The twins that often strike me as being viruses of a sort unto themselves.
This first, no doubt has been noticed by many others and in other venues.
Who wants to buy a Mercedes Benz?
On any given night, especially in the key late news broadcasting slot, one will encounter a plethora car and car dealership ads across the major TV networks and local channels. And that has continued during this time, as though this was just another typical spring in America. As if what we had was only "spring fever."
I am not naive in this arena, as I spent three decades in the advertising business and understand the thinking and strategies behind ad bombardment. But in a time of crisis, the hard selling of expensive non-essential goods should be put on hold. At the very least, change the message to demonstrate a sensitivity to the realities of a crisis. And if anything, it's a good business move as well. No such thing is in evidence here. Save maybe for Toyota.
On March 27th for example, as some major cities were experiencing a huge spike in virus cases and deaths (up to 25,398 and 519 in New York that night, but who's counting), I came across several spots within about an hour's time. For Kia, Toyota, Suburu, Lincoln, BMW, Alfa Romeo, and this in particular blew me away: Mercedes Benz touting its "Come in for our springtime sale."
Laying aside any issues of ethics, who is going to buy a Mercedes Benz at a time like this? Imagine.
Husband: Hey, Hon, I was thinking, why don't we go out tomorrow and buy a Mercedes Benz.
Wife: Oh, Brad, you're so sweet. Yes, I was thinking the same thing, now that they have that springtime sale.
Husband: (kissing her) Yeah, so what that I've got the virus. I'll wear a mask at the dealership. So what that
my company is going out of business? And the market has tanked? We've got to go for it! And hey,
it's not been fun with your mother on that respirator for so long. But we deserve it. Top of the line!
Wife: I'm so proud of you sweetie.*
* In the interest of showing no gender bias, the spouses depicted here can be of the same sex.
CEO Signs Off with a Scribble but Why Quibble?
To be fair, not all advertisers, marketers and institutions are tone deaf to the moment. And want their customers to know that, in the most heartfelt (and expensive) way. Greg Braca, President and CEO of TD Bank, was one such individual.
He took out a full page ad in The New York Times to say We're in this together, New York as the bold green headline read. It laid out like this...
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we've united our efforts to extend a helping hand to our customers...
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...your health and well being are what matters most.
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To all the heroes working on the front lines...we offer our thanks.
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...we can't forget the people suffering from COVID-19 and so many others who've been impacted.
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...gratitude,admiration, respect to TD colleagues
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And we'll get through this together.
All wonderful sentiments of course, but it's almost as if Mr. Braca himself seems surprised that he has this in him. Because we're back to green bold letters at the very end of the page: Unexpectedly Human. (Insert LOL).
The intention I suppose was to say, that our customers didn't expect that we are human; have a sense of humanity in us. Which is no better. And implied... "Yes, we're a cold-hearted institution, but I guess we had to take an ad out like this to say we're not. Even if you've never seen any evidence to the contrary."
Finally, at least for me, it ends with penmanship. I was taught that good handwriting mattered. That it's courteous to the reader and says a lot about you.
I know, it's pretty anal to pick up on something like this, as we've been told for some time now that good handwriting, or cursive, no longer matters. Not with all the devices we have through which we communicate. The pen might be mightier than the sword... but not than the iPad. Still, I can't believe how this CEO signed off on his poignant message.
As if at some checkout counter, when you are (absurdly) asked to sign a high-tech electronic money transfer with your finger. As you rush to get out the door.
All the humanity he expressed in his expensive message is undermined for me, by the fact that he couldn't take a few seconds to sign his name legibly. Even if in everyday life he doesn't. Even if he often uses his finger to sign off on his credit card. Maybe, it's just me. Taught by nuns and housebound too long.
Pre November 2018
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