Tag: #Pandemic

  • Short Story Review: “The Other Party” by Matthew Klam

    (The short story “The Other Party” by Matthew Klam appeared in the December 19th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Do I still need to say, SPOILERS?)

    Photograph by Elizabeth Renstrom for The New Yorker

    About a month into the Covid lockdowns, so this was late April 2020, on a Zoom chat with friends, someone asked the question of how Covid will be depicted in movies, tv shows, novels, and so forth. Would there be stories about anxiety, existential doom and gloom, or would some media just act like Covid never existed? It was a lively topic for discussion, and with two plus years on now, more and more stories are beginning to show up, and try to deal with what Covid has meant. It is my belief that “The Other Party” by Matthew Klam sprang from such a thought as well.

    In a nutshell, this is a story about a middle-aged guy who lives comfortably in the suburbs. The protagonist has a neighbor who is suffering from the early stages of ALS, and this neighbor and his wife are hosting a block Holiday party at their house. Juxtaposed to this adult party, the protagonist’s teenaged daughter is hosting a party for her friends, which devolves into taking edibles and going to other parties and places. All the while the middle-aged protagonist waxes on life over the last two Covid years while living in this neighborhood.

    Sadly, this story is a structural mess, and too smart for its own good. A large amount of the prose is dedicated to describing clothing and background information on the people who live in this neighborhood. Though colorful, it makes the piece feel bloated, and longer than it needs to be, and this was a longer story. Also, the story had a point of view issue, which seems to have been focused on the middle-aged protagonist, but then the story jumps to what his daughter is doing, but is presented as happening at the same time with no explanation of how the protagonist has come to know the events of his daughter’s evening. This decision makes the story feel incongruent to its internal logic, like Klam wanted this structure more than he thought through how it could happen in this world. But sadly, the great sin of the story is that the protagonist doesn’t go on any sort of journey, or learn anything. What we are given is a character that thinks his life isn’t so bad at the start, and then by the end, he still feels his life isn’t so bad. You know, Dorothy has to think life in Kansas sucked first, so that her realization that there is no place like home has some weight to it. These three issues all feel like unforced errors, like another draft could have addressed and solved them.

    It’s too bad about this piece, as I do think we are just in the beginning of the Covid story era, which will address all of the emotional trauma it caused us. It still might be years before we wrap our collective heads around what happened. But at least people are trying.

  • Boosted

    I went and got my covid booster today.

    If you haven’t, go get your booster.

    And if you haven’t got vaccinated, go get vaccinated!

  • Covid in The City: Part 3 (But Could be Part 6?)

    I really wanted to write about Tottenham getting back to form and playing Liverpool to a draw. I even thought about putting a sport post together, and talk about the Cowboys as well.

    But alas, it was not to be.

    Because Covid is back in New York City. It feels like this is the third wave that has hit the City, but when I look at the US cases graph, this is like the 6th spike we have been through since the start of this whole thing.

    We can’t get away from it.

    Even though NYC has a 71.6% full vaccination rate, and Manhattan has an 80% full vaccination rate, I cannot deny that the lines of people getting tested, have been growing every day for a week, and now are wrapping around the block. The running of ambulances all day and night has started up again. Just about everyone is in a mask now on the street.

    Covid is back.

    Is it Delta, or Omicron?

    Who knows, but it is starting up again. And it is depressing and disheartening. New Yorkers had taken this thing serious. 70% to 80% was considered herd immunity, and we are there. Once more kids get vaxed, it looked like we were going to close in on 85% to 90%.

    But it feels like even if we do hit those numbers, it won’t stop people from getting sick.

    I have friends right now that are documenting their infection, and in one case reinfection of Covid.

    It has created a feeling malaise, and add that to the general oddness of this Christmas, and it makes a potent combination resignation going into 2022.

    I’m trying to stay upbeat, but a third year of a plague feels really awful. I wish I had a more creative way of saying it, but I have used up all the adjectives.

    It’s just awful.

  • Shopping Doesn’t Solve All Problems

    I know that I am writing this on Cyber-Monday, and full disclosure, I have purchased an item on Amazon for my daughter. Our Christmas shopping is almost done, and the wife and I are taking advantage of the sales. These purchases are just little add on’s, and we are staying within budget. We’re being good and responsible.

    But I bring up this “shopping” observation not to shit on capitalism or commercialism. I am saying “shopping doesn’t solve all problem” because this past Sunday, on the morning political shows, pundits, on both sides, were saying that the way out of our national problems is for “normal people” to just “go shopping.”

    I’m sorry, but that answer, that America should just go shopping to solve all its problems, has be thrown around for at least twenty-one years, and it hasn’t solved anything. After 9/11, Bush said we should all go shopping. The Great Recession, Obama said go shopping. The Pandemic, Trump said go shopping. Now with supply chain issues, again they all say go shopping.

    During the Great Depression, FDR wasn’t telling America to shop their way out it.

    How did we get to the point where people spending money on things, which they don’t need, was the answer to everything?

    Buying a tv doesn’t make rents affordable. A new iPad doesn’t lower health care costs. A new coat won’t make your productivity match your compensation.

    Shopping only keeps things the way they are; basically, treading water. There are systemic issues that have been building in our national economy for the past forty years, and a robust Holiday shopping season won’t solve it.

    So, when I hear a pundit say that we should shop more to get the economy going, then that person is an idiot going for the sound bite, and not a real answer.

  • Sunday Night Blues

    There are many milestones that we have hit in my young daughter’s life. The vast majority of them are fun and exciting, like Christmas morning, or learning to read.

    And then there was last night, Sunday night, where the kid got very cranky and withdrawn, which is not like her. The wife and I both took turns trying to get out of her, what the problem was. Finally she admitted that she hates Sunday Night’s because the weekend if over.

    Ahhh… The Sunday Night Blues; when one gets the sinking feeling in their stomach that the fun of the weekend is over and they have to return to work/school.

    I was a little surprised because the kid loves school. One of the side effects of the pandemic in our household has been a very strong desire of our daughter to be in a school, surrounded by kids, teachers, and the ability to learn. So, to hear her express her own version of the Sunday Blues was a little sad for me. But I also know it was inevitable.

    I hated Sunday nights for a very long time. I remember being little, eating Sunday dinner, and then watching 60 Minutes, and Murder, She Wrote, and that feeling slowly creeping over me that the good times of the weekend were coming to an end. That I would have to go back to school, and deal with fractions, and remainders, and bullies, and girls, and bus rides and all of that stuff that worried me as a kid. Even as an adult, I would still try and stay up as late as possible on Sunday night, avoiding going to bed, knowing it was a fruitless exercise, that I would still have to sit through passive aggressive staff meetings the next day.

    Sunday nights are still a little weird for me in this new reality. I may not have to go to an office full of assholes, which is clearly a plus, but there is a routine of the week which starts over again, and I have responsibilities to keep. But I don’t dread Monday. Dreading the next day is the worst.

    Now that this milestone has arisen for my daughter, I now wish it would have been kept at bay for a while longer. It’s normal to be a little sad when the fun comes to an end. I just hope I can help the kid to keep looking forward to tomorrow.