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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 87

Citizen Kane’s vast collection of junk.

Saturday, June 6

We’re missing a bunch of stuff that’s at the apartment. Thanks to our leased auto, we get the satellite-music channel Sirius both in the car and on a laptop. But one would like to have a little more control over music, and that means recordings that aren’t necessarily out here. There are various cooking equipment items, and a store of pantry supplies, back in New York. And, especially as the weather changes, there are some clothes that we each need.

Accordingly, each of us has begun making lists of things we would retrieve from the apartment if we ever go there again:

CDs-
Thelonious Monk—Underground
Thelonious Monk—Misterioso
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
Kenny Barron Trio—Book of Intuition
Charlie Haden and Christian Escoude—Duo
The Beatles—Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Dr. John—Gumbo
and plenty more I am sure

KITCHEN STUFF–
Tramontina nonstick skillet
immersion blender
herbs and spices: turmeric, paprika, bay leaves, oregano
grains: wheatberries, quinoa, Irish oatmeal

ELECTRONICS
computer printer
photo scanner
alarm clock

CLOTHES
Hardy’s shorts
socks
polo shirts
shoes
Emily’s bathrobe
jeans
shorts
hiking boots

ETC.
throw pillows
oximeter

What about old photos, including my mother’s photo albums? It would be nice to have digital scans of my parents in their young adulthood, my sister, my own school photos, and more. 

And there are hundreds of books. In writing this journal, I’ve drawn on many books that are out here, but there are loads more that I am missing. Still, there’s hardly any place to put them here.

If we were really going to move here semi-permanently, we’d want to bring old tax records and other documents. Just going through such stuff would constitute a major project. Thinking about that makes one despair—someday, maybe, I’ll hire someone to help me winnow down the boxes of documents used in writing books, old medical records, insurance papers, and bank records.

My stuff doesn’t exactly compare with the miles of possessions shown at the end of Citizen Kane, but there is plenty. Which makes one wonder: What do landlords or building managers do with the huge stores of possessions left behind by the victims of the pandemic? Relatives are encouraged to come and claim it all, no doubt—but what if they don’t? Is there a small industry disposing of unwanted stuff? And what did civilization do before the invention of paper shredders?

Dinner: Broccoli stir-fry with chicken and mushrooms, white rice.

Entertainment: the final episodes of the Belgian policier The Break.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 86

Dali’s The Persistence of Memory.

Friday, June 5

“Time…was by far the most artificial of all our inventions, and in being bound to the planet turning on its own axis was no less arbitrary than would be, say, a calculation based on the growth of trees or the duration required for a piece of limestone to disintegrate….If Newton really thought that time was a river like the Thames, then where is its source and into what sea does it finally flow?”

 —W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz

We humans are hardly the only creatures whose days are linked to the sun’s light. The wild rabbit in our yard has customarily been awake and munching on our lawn when I get up between 6:30 and 7 a.m. But today, he didn’t show his face until around 4 p.m. 

Rabbits are crepuscular creatures, Emily reads to me, generally spending their days snoozing in their holes below ground, only to emerge in the late afternoon or early evening, when the light is low. 

Out here in the country, much more than in the city, my daily habits are linked to the light, which streams in through our large windows in the morning. In Manhattan, you find a way to block out or amplify light, according to your wants. And you grow accustomed to the fact that noise is always present.  

Electric light, of course, made it possible for humans to exert absolute control over time. But before electricity, it was capitalism that prompted an urge toward time management: Workers in early U.S. industrial towns such as Lowell, Massachusetts, were quite aware that they were required to report on time in the morning, take no more than 15 minutes to consume meals, and accept the fact that management was always stretching out the length of the work day. In 1856, one mechanic wrote to that city’s reformist newspaper, The Voice of Labor, that bosses had “fixed” the mill clock, so that it slowed down to add minutes to the laboring day, then sped up at night to summon operatives early. In Pawtucket, Rhode Island, citizens raised $500 to purchase a town clock that would not be subject to the manipulation suspected of the factory clock.

And it was that quintessential capitalist development, the railroad, that imposed time zones across the U.S. and the synchronization of different cities’ clocks. How else could train timetables exist? 

Does the COVID-19 lockdown threaten to break down the dictatorship of the clock? I doubt it. Probably like me, many folks go about with their watches still strapped to their arms. They may not get out of their pajamas until afternoon—or maybe not at all—but they know more or less what time it is. Their smart phones or computers or smart watches keep them in line.

Just now, I looked at the top of my MacBook Pro and found that it was 5:53 p.m.—time to begin making dinner.

Tonight it will be: leftover lentil soup, corn muffins, and a lettuce salad with cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and avocado.

Entertainment: More episodes of the Belgian thriller The Break.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 82

A New York police car on fire in Brooklyn on Saturday.

Sunday, May 31

It seems we’ve been missing all the action.

A set of Marella Gayla photos on The New Yorker website shows intense protests at Union Square—right outside our apartment window on 4th Avenue at 14th Street.

Where hundreds of demonstrators confronted uniformed cops on Thursday, you can see Zeckendorff Towers looming in the background. Another photographer’s work shows demonstrations a block away at 5th Avenue. In the background of photos there, you can see a telltale CVS Pharmacy.

The cause of the protests is, of course, the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where there have been five nights of fierce protest. In over three dozen cities across the U.S.—from New York to Detroit, Atlanta, and San Francisco—there have been mass demonstrations, looting, and even the burning of buildings. In Brooklyn, one woman was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at a police vehicle. In Washington, protests compelled police to cordon off several blocks around the White House. Curfews were imposed in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Chicago.

I have been amazed, perplexed, and outraged for years about the police killings of black youth–and the cops’ seeming impunity.

But there’s not much I can do about it out here. So, I just had a nice walk out in the sunshine. One worry is that our new little rabbit pal is being bullied by the territorial squirrels. Oh, there is also incessant noise from the neighbor’s crew of lawn-cutters and leaf-blowers.

I’m not sorry to miss the city protests. I’m too old to run from baton-wielding police. And it’s one thing to go to demonstrations of your own volition, and another to have protests taking place right at your doorstep, with no exit. 

According to reports I’ve gotten from an NYC neighbor, the building scene is weird. At times, people wait in the lobby so they can go onto an elevator one at a time. We have a rented parking space in the lot below the building, but it’s not clear that the parking lot is even open. No one answers the phone when you call. Yet on the parking service’s website, that particular lot isn’t listed as being closed. Should I pay the bill? I am of course paying rent on our apartment upstairs, where we have not been since early March.

A modest dinner tonight: Progresso canned soup, roasted potatoes, and a salad.

Entertainment: final episodes of the Britbox video A Confession.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 81

CNN reporter Omar Jimenez is arrested in Minneapolis on May 29.

Saturday, May 30

Once again a young black man has been killed by police—and once again, the whole episode has been videoed by a bystander with a cell phone.

In Minneapolis, 46-year-old George Floyd was asphyxiated by 44-year-old Derek Chauvin, a police officer.

“Thank God a young person had a camera to video it,” said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. 

But such events have repeatedly been caught on camera: Think New York loose-cigarette seller Eric Garner saying “I can’t breathe” as he was placed in a chokehold by a policeman in 2014. Remember the 2015 case of Walter Scott who was shot in the back as he ran away from a policeman in North Charleston, S.C. And now another case of “I can’t breathe.”

Are these black kids being killed despite the episodes being caught on camera—or precisely because of the videos?

Everyone knows that Trump’s every burp and fart are filmed and broadcast for the world to see. Isn’t it likely that there are an increasing number of like-minded exhibitionists saying, “Hey, why not me? I want that same level of exposure. ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ here I come.” Isn’t it possible that some of these exhibitionists are police?

Moreover, if a much-publicized killing by police brings on demonstrations and street violence, so much the better, some may figure. The more street violence, the greater the need for police. And, the greater the need for police equipped with combat-ready equipment—gas and gas masks, Kevlar vests, assault rifles, armored troop carriers, and so forth. It’s another market for the arms dealers.

Trump understands the political advantage that’s available: After a lot of mouthing off, he has placed military police units on notice. Law and Order! Nixon redux.

I’m all in favor of reducing the level of violence in our cities, including by limiting the sales of firearms. Lets cut back on the number of police, too.

And what about licensing mobile phones—shouldn’t we be limiting their spread as well?

Tonight: leftover balsamic chicken, couscous, green salad.

Entertainment: Episodes of the Britbox video A Confession.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 78

Hurricane Sandy in 2012. New York Daily News photo

Tuesday, May 26

Two more deliveries this morning, both for me: prescription drugs and a nonstick muffin tin. 

More and more, this East Hampton cottage seems like our true residence. We can only wonder what things would be like if we were still at our Manhattan apartment. How often would we encounter neighbors? Is everybody still maintaining social distance and wearing masks? Would we risk taking a potentially crowded elevator—or walk up and down a daunting 18 flights of stairs?

We managed those stairs during the electrical outage brought on by Hurricane Sandy back eight years ago. The events of that time were particularly surreal.

We were already concerned about increasingly severe hurricane seasons, but they seemed largely to affect Florida or the Carolinas. Then came Sandy, which tracked inland until it struck New Jersey and New York City. We were in Massachusetts as the storm approached, so (insanely) we hurried back to New York and arrived just in time to experience the punishing winds and the explosion at the 14th Street Con Edison power station that led to a blackout of lower Manhattan. 

The result was a divided city: Above 42nd Street, everything operated normally, but in lower Manhattan there were no lights, no nothing. One lasting memory is looking out from our 18th floor window at an apartment in Zeckendorff Towers across the way, where a tenant was wearing a miner’s hat with a light attached to the front. After dark, you would no longer see the person, just this ghostly light moving around in his space.

An 18-floor climb can be brutal, particularly if you are carrying food or other stuff. We did manage the stairs a few times, even slogging buckets of water up several flights since the lack of electricity meant our apartment had no water either.

The city ran its buses without charge. On a couple of occasions, we took a crowded bus up to 42nd Street and went to a branch of my gym there in order to take hot showers. Other people must have been doing that too: The gym ran out of bath soap, so I once washed off my body with shampoo.

Finally, as it began turning cold in late October, the lack of heat made us move out of the building altogether.

Here and now, there are many unreal aspects to existence as well. I don’t think in pre-lockdown life that my days were quite so centered on making dinner. Today, I’ve already begun cutting up vegetables and chicken for tonight’s chicken soup. And I even have begun thawing ground beef as I contemplate making hamburgers for tomorrow night. Weather forecasts play a role: Tomorrow afternoon is supposed to be partly sunny, so a cookout should be possible. Thursday is supposed to bring more rain.

Shortly, I am going out to the small Damark store to get stuff that Peapod failed to deliver: lettuce, carrots, yeast, rice, and the ever-desired, increasingly expensive toilet paper. While there, I will attempt to get more chicken stock and walnuts.

So, for dinner: avgolemono soup and salad.

Entertainment: the last episodes of Safe.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 75

A kitchen visitor.

Saturday, May 23

Three of the world’s smallest mice showed up in the middle of the kitchen floor this morning. 

They’re so tiny they must be newborns, which I suspect means that more will arrive. They moved very slowly at first, then as I attempted to sweep each one into a dustpan, they became more energetic. I was able to get each one outside onto the brick patio, where they scampered around attacking small weeds that towered above them like redwoods.

Where do these guys come from? Are they inside this old house’s walls? Up from the basement through the heating vents? Why wouldn’t they want to be outside where there is more stuff to eat?

Back to the issue of our food. Emily says that meal prep here is like one of those television cooking shows where would-be chefs are presented with a bunch of incongruous ingredients and told to use them all in making a meal. Maybe calf brains, rainbow chard, a grapefruit, and Israeli couscous. And, unlike here, the cooks always come up with surprising and delectable results.

Here it’s easy to get into a rut and just repeat the same dishes over and over. The challenge: What will go with leftover southern corn pudding and a salad? Then I realized I could combine some of our many chicken breasts with canned artichokes and cooking wine to make a chicken and artichoke stew.

Emily and Peapod also surprised me by delivering a bunch of snow peas and two packs of mushrooms. So tomorrow I’ll probably combine some of each in a stir-fry that also involves walnuts and scallions with either hoisin sauce and sriracha or a sauce composed of soy sauce, sugar, and rice wine vinegar.

It’s almost time for Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. Some time back we were discussing this very funny NPR panel show with friends, and one of them complained that he wasn’t allowed to talk while the show was on. You might miss something.

Out to the recycling center. It’s raining, but there are nevertheless lots of cars on the road. Due to Memorial Day weekend, maybe? Or is it simply a further result of people fleeing from the city due to the pandemic/lockdown?

That BBC audiobook that we listened to last night, Trespass, has led me to investigate the author, Rose Tremain, a bit further. Turns out she was nominated for a Booker Prize back in the ‘80s. She lost out to Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. I’m going to see if I can download one of her novels in e-book form via the East Hampton library.

As I have said, tonight’s dinner: chicken with artichokes, corn pudding, and salad.

Entertainment: Two episodes of British thriller Retribution.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 74

Almost summer.

Friday, May 22

A very seasonable day, with a temperature of 71 degrees. A 60% chance of rain overnight, 70% tomorrow with temps predicted to be only in the high 50s.

Everything is green, with the grass and weeds on our lawn getting quite high despite the fact that the lawn was cut once, a few days back. I guess the lawn guys qualify as an essential service.

At some point soon, we will declare summer underway by having grilled hotdogs with sauerkraut. But that will have to wait: A few days back, when I told Emily to put sauerkraut on her Peapod list, she “thought” I said sour cream. “Already on the list,” she brusquely announced. Maybe we could just have sour cream for every meal.

We’ve already scheduled the next Peapod delivery. Previously, it was very hard to get a time slot with them, and we’ve had to stay awake until 1 a.m. to make an online arrangement. But yesterday, for some reason, we were able to do so mid-evening: Our next slot is set for the afternoon of June 3.

Who thought we’d still be out here in June?

Such a Godly man, Trump has demanded that churches and synagogues open “right now.” California pastors are ready: Some 1,200 say they will resume services in defiance of the state’s stay-at-home order. One church is suing the governor, declaring “essentiality.” Its lawyer says he expects some 3,000 churches to reopen on May 31.

We don’t feel a spiritual void, but we’re slightly missing some material things that are back in NYC. Emily is making a list of stuff that we’d pick up—should we go in to the city, then turn around and come back here. We each would bring more clothes—jeans, sweaters, shorts, her woolen robe, additional shoes. Then there are some electronics: the computer printer, a photo scanner (and old photos). From the kitchen, our relatively new nonstick skillet, an immersion blender, spices, and some hard-to-get grains like wheat berries and quinoa.

Dinner tonight: Roasted brussel sprouts, southern corn pudding, green salad, corn muffins.

Entertainment: several episodes of the BBC audiobook Trespass by Rose Tremain.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 73

A Peapod delivery truck.

Thursday, May 21

Today marks eleven weeks that we have been in the COVID-19 lockdown.

I spent a miserable morning trying to pay my East Hampton real estate taxes—being defeated by a bewildering online system, stupified by a non-functioning pay-by-phone thing, and finally surrendering and just mailing in checks to an office that almost certainly isn’t open. 

The East Hampton Star says that the Suffolk County executive has announced that those who are having difficulty paying may delay their tax payments. Once the governor’s office issues an executive order approving a delay, “the deadline to file taxes for those approved will be July 15,” the newspaper says. Huh? Once approved but only for those approved? 

“The plan provides for individuals who have lost 25 percent or more of their income or are awaiting unemployment benefits, and businesses with a net profit of $1 million or less that have experienced a 50 percent or greater loss of income or are waiting for P.P.P. payments would be able to apply for the relief with a form attesting to their need.” A form? Taxes are due in ten days, so that’s an awful lot of stuff that has to happen first. 

Fuggedaboudit.

Peapod sends Emily a message saying that their food-delivery truck will be coming between 4:59 p.m. and 6:59 p.m. She thinks the message suggests that the drivers are closely monitored. I think it resembles the 99¢ rule.

We’ve been watching a bit of the Netflix nature documentary Our Planet narrated by David Attenborough. Not to overdramatize, but our lives are a little bit like those of the wild animals in the documentary: They spend all their time hunting for or chasing after food—and we spend a lot of our time and effort doing the same. Meanwhile, the food-seekers are themselves being pursued by predators—and so are we! What is scarier, a jaguar or the coronavirus? At least the wildebeest can see the big cats or wild dogs that descend on them. We cannot see COVID-19.

The Peapod truck arrives almost an hour early, at 3:55. It is a fairly good haul, but there were 15 out-of-stock items, including toilet paper (of course), Kalamata olives, yeast (of course), lettuce, bok choy, carrots, avocados, apricot preserves, and Haagen Dazs vanilla bean ice cream. Lots of ramen, though, peanut butter, and Lipton chicken noodle soup.

Tonight’s dinner: Potato soup made with our newly arrived spuds, green salad, and corn muffins.

Entertainment: Two episodes of British thriller Retribution.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 69

Anyone for bluefish–or brownies?

Sunday, May 17

Having read my blog entry about the Home, Sweet Home Cook Book, a friend has emailed me information about a Hamptons artists’ cookbook, Palette to Palate. It was published by Guild Hall Museum in 1978, contained recipes from 130 local artists, and featured illustrations and autographs from Andy Warhol, the de Koonings, and Lee Krasner. The recipes tend to be a little more sophisticated than those in Home, Sweet Home: Krasner’s contribution, for example, was a “hominy puff with cheese, herbs, or crabmeat.” Art-book dealer Argosy lists a first edition of the book as available for $4,000.

Back to grimmer stuff.

Emily has e-mailed me a Twitter timeline of New York City pandemic developments starting in March. It seems that for once in our lives at least, we’ve been ahead of events.

We came out to East Hampton on March 5—the first New York City case of COVID-19 had been reported on March 1. On March 7, two days after we came out, the governor declared a state of emergency in New York State, and five days later he banned any gatherings of more than 500 people. 

That same day, March 12, Mayor de Blasio declared a state of emergency in New York City, and the next day, it was announced that New York State had the most cases of the disease in the U.S., as new cases jumped 30% overnight. (And these, as I always have to remind myself, were just the reported cases. Many people had it but were asymptomatic.)

On March 20, Cuomo ordered nonessential businesses to keep 100% of their workforces at home. By the end of the month, New York State had become the coronavirus epicenter of the world, as its number of COVID-19 cases exceeded those in China’s Hubei province where the outbreak began.

Only on April 15 did Cuomo order everyone to wear face masks. Today, epidemiologists make a convincing case that THIS and social distancing are the most important things of all. 

One problem of course was the shortage of masks. Officials were saying to leave the available masks for the professionals who really need them; don’t try to hoard masks; wear a bandana around your face, make your own mask, etc. Vendors began offering lots of homemade masks online, and Emily ordered several for us on April 16.

On May 1, Cuomo announced that public schools in the state would remain closed for the rest of the school year.

By mid-May, 1.8 million state residents had filed unemployment claims—six times the number filing claims during the 2008 financial crisis.

And that brings us to where we are. 

The timeline is a bit puzzling to me: Events seem to move both quickly and slowly at the same time. 

The first case appeared in China in December of last year. In the U.S., the first confirmed case came in Washington State in late January of this year. There was a surge of cases in Italy in February.

Still, no one in this country paid much attention until March, when events really intensified. Then—I know, I’m repeating myself—it took until mid-April for New York to make the wearing of masks mandatory. 

There must be lessons here, and I’m sure the experts will offer us lots of them in time.

Dinner: lots of leftovers that don’t necessarily go together—mozzarella and tomato salad with balsamic dresssing, corn muffins, roasted brussel sprouts, baked potatoes with sour cream, and guacamole.

Entertainment: episodes of the Netflix nature documentary Our Planet narrated by David Attenborough and more episodes of Occupied.

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A Journal of the Plague Year 2020–chapter 66

Buddy Guy needs to read this blog post.

Thursday, May 14

The demise of clothing retailer J. Crew threatens to leave us with a cultural void: color-branding.

J. Crew, particularly in its catalog, was in the vanguard of color-branding. They were never satisfied to have a pair of shorts or a shirt in Olive or Khaki. No, instead the item would be listed as available in Basil or Sand—maybe even Mojave. (These are just fictitious examples I’ve come up with, mind you.)

So, the question arises: What would be some new color names appropriate to our fraught moment? Yesterday, I came up with one: First Responder Orange. Today, I’m thinking of others: Gilets Jaunes Yellow, for the French vest-wearing, economic-justice protest movement. And Pandemic Green, for that color that you might see in photos of microscopic slides. 

Trying to come up with an appropriate name for a blue hue, Emily hits upon another notion: Shouldn’t we have some blues songs associated with our quarantine experience? Forget “Hesitation Blues” or “Crossroads Blues.” How about “Peapod Perplexity Blues”?

Got my pencil and paper, babe,

I’m gonna jot me down a list.

Yeah, I got a pencil and paper,

I’m needin’ you to assist.

Artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes,

without such stuff, we just can’t exist.

[next verse]

Maybe green peas and Jarlsberg,

eggs and walnuts we really need.

Garlic, yeast, and lemons,

cabbage, cukes, and cheddar cheese.

But that Peapod manager

he’s always giving us more green beans.

(and we’ve got three packs already!)

[bridge]

Haagen-Dazs and Keebler Sandies,

wheat flour and bread crumbs too.

Chicken broth and shiitakes,

and some of that Tahini goo.

[final verse]

Yes, I got my pencil and paper, baby

I’m ready to make us a list…

Hmmm, maybe Buddy Guy could use this.

Other ditties could include”Dr. Fauci’s Lament” or maybe “Damark Disappointment Blues,” named for the small store that I go to when Peapod fails. Damark also has been known to fall short, notably when it comes to ramen. But they do just fine when it comes to fresh vegetables, walnuts, and napkins.

Ramen? They say no man,

this store ain’t where that’s at.

You want that Asian foodstuff

better go back to Man-hat [tan]

I got my pencil and paper, baby

but a list ain’t all we lack.

Takes more than hopin’ and wishin’

to end this here virus attack.

O.K., enough of this now. The blues ain’t nothin’ but COVID-19 on your mind.

Tonight’s dinner: stuffed green peppers, roasted brussel sprouts, and salad

Entertainment: Two episodes of Austrialian journalism-politico thriller, Secret City, plus one episode of Twilight Zone.