On the Internet(s)

I sometimes think I expect too much. I’m reading McSweeney’s 54: The End of Trust, and thinking of my early (early 1990s) ideals around the Internet and personal computing, which were both evolving so rapidly.

Confession: I thought that everyone I knew would be doing AMAZING THINGS with this technology, especially once software and hardware evolved for key activities like music composition, video editing, digital painting, and more. I was certain that everyone I knew had a hidden composer/filmmaker/author/artist in them just WAITING to get out.

But… it’s 2020, and most people I know use this truly amazing content creation/sharing infrastructure to: post photos of their (purchased meals), post photos of themself drunk, make their children self-conscious by “sharenting” (oversharing as parents), repost unreliable information found on unreliable source pages of dubious origin, or watch (and repost) cat videos.

*me staring at the reader with alarmed expression*

Yes, there is some nice citizen science stuff, and the libraries are doing a great job, but I EXPECTED that.

No, really, I didn’t expect [gestures toward the screen] this. I thought tech would revolutionize education and communication and film and science in ways that… HAVE NOT HAPPENED. I did not anticipate “social media” where people talk about themselves endlessly, and misrepresent how they look and live to their “friends.” I was not cynical enough to envision paid “influencers” peddling products. I would not have anticipated the web being used to hype imaginary events like the Fyre Festival. I did not think so many people had an inner scam compulsion and/or marketing ambition and/or cat obsession to resolve.

I… feel like such a wacky optimist.

ANYWAY, the End of Trust is really good, and I can tell because I am using up tape flags over things I want to dwell on further. It’s a great sign. I’ll write about it, of course.

News: Current Confirmed Pandemic Figures

July 3, 2020 Johns Hopkins Coronavirus home page
Current count at the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center homepage (3 July 2020 at about 9:40AM)

I had intended to comment here on major milestones, but we are just flying through them so quickly now that recent “reopening” (which is more like “denial” or “pretending coronaviruses take time off” than it is “cautious and aware activities”) has had its incubation period run out.

Reading news on the phone is now called “doom scrolling,” to give you a sense of how poorly management of this virus has gone in my part of the world. (It’s possible to do better, and many countries have, but the US has chosen a different path.)

News: Pandemic Impact on International Mail

The lack of flights to countless countries means that the mail can’t get around so easily. In some cases, it can’t reach countries AT ALL. (!!!!!!!!!)

Here’s a link to current restrictions disclosed by the US Postal Service.

International Service Alerts – Newsroom – About.usps.com

Updated: July 2, 2020 The Postal Service™ is temporarily suspending international mail acceptance for certain destinations due to service impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Customers: please refrain from mailing items addressed to the countries listed here, until further notice.

News: Pandemic Rise in California

It seemed like all was going well, and then… people decided that coronaviruses take vacations, and now we can’t continue with our expansion of business activities: here in SF, the June 29th planned expansion has been “paused.”

People who won’t wear masks are ANNOYING – and are now costing people their livelihoods!

San Francisco’s Department of Public Health has an additional dashboard available now, and it shows how we are doing against our activity expansion metrics. (I love living in a City that loves data!)

Key Health Indicators on Containing COVID-19

Safely reopening San Francisco requires a strong partnership among city leaders, public health experts, businesses, and the community. Our commitment to safely moving forward together comes with the awareness that reopening too quickly may pose health risks and economic setbacks.

To give you a sense of one of the two metrics that we flubbed, here is one of the graphics from the site above as of June 30th showing the steep increase in hospitalizations:

The San Francisco Department of Public Health does data WELL.

Book: Mira Schendel

Cover of the Tate catalog for Mira Schendel

Mira Schendel
edited by Tanya Barson and Taisa Palhares
published by Tate Publishing, London
2013

In 2014, I was struggling with my abstract drawing practice, and needed to see how other artists managed some of the geometric ideas/problems/experiments I kept sketching out. By some amazing stroke of luck, I wound up in London on business, and was able to drop by the fantastic Tate Modern to see the Mira Schendel show.

Mira Schendel was a remarkable, Swiss-born Brazilian artist whom I’d never heard of, but whose work was STUNNING and completely on point as a contrast to my own work (and sometimes, it is easier to clarify your own thoughts in contrast to others’!). She worked with text! Translucency! Layers! Perforations! Her work is a revelation, and impressed me with its depth, experimentation, breadth (she has a remarkably diverse practice), and the great presentation of some very delicate work at the Tate.

This book is the sold-out catalog from that show, which I was able to buy YEARS later through a used book shop online. (Every time I’ve tried to stop taking photos as notes, and relied upon a show catalog, I couldn’t get one…) The reproductions, including those of oil crayon on translucent paper – which I was CERTAIN would be too difficult a challenge – are beautifully reproduced.

The essays in this catalog are a bit dense: Schendel was a fan of philosophy, and so folks who aren’t fans of Wittgenstein and others of his era might skim these for key clues about Schendel’s interest in language as an organizing concept for the world, and focus on the one about Immanence before jumping into the reproductions. The reprints of interviews with Schendel at the end are a great way to end.

A reproduction from the book of a Schendel piece incorporating typography, translucency, geometry, and general brilliance.

As with other artists I find “revelatory,” Schendel may have been omitted from the resources available to me while researching art because (a) she wasn’t based in Europe, (b) her work is not in the collections of major US museums, so (c) the major institutional museums don’t promote her as part of the official modern/contemporary art “canon” (which is based on what they have collected, conveniently), and (d) she wasn’t part of a group movement, which is a conveniently self-organizing set of practices or themes that make it easier to file work within a particular era’s “canon.” (It’s all so tedious, though I understand the desire for organizing principles.)

This is a well-produced catalog of a truly impressive show, and the Tate and its partners in Brazil and Portugal should be proud of it.

News: 500,000 OFFICIAL COVID-19 Deaths Reached Globally

News I was not looking forward to. (Illustration on the phone screen by me. Yes, I DO love Swiss watercolor pencils, and thanks for trying to give me something more pleasant to write about.)

The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Mortality Dashboard shows we hit 500,306 a short while ago. Today. This very afternoon. Unfortunately. And this is still an undercount, because it is just the official toll.

Was this preventable? Yes, but: HUMANS. Humans chose to prevent it in some places (I’m STILL looking at you, fantastic and careful South Korea and Taiwan!) yet chose to pretend it would disappear, “like a miracle,” in others, because key leaders haven’t watched enough horror movies about pandemics, in which terrible things happen because no one listens to the scientists who were right all along. (Truth is stupider than fiction.)

It’s strange to live in a country that regionally chose to let a global pandemic run wild. The US is still leading in the sheer volume of cases and deaths (2,510,151 confirmed cases, 125,539 deaths, and a 5% fatality rate at this moment according to the Johns Hopkins Mortality Analysis page).

I may be living in a region that set the first quarantines in the country, and benefit from excellent regional coordination of precautions, but that hasn’t spared my large state from being one of many places where videos of white women ranting about being forced to wear a mask as part of a political conspiracy keep cropping up. (Link provided to ABC7, so you won’t have to log into Twitter, where I saw that.) And our excellent regional approach won’t spare us if and when people from lax, conspiratorial areas come to visit. Which we are already dreading.

One awkward thing to note about the JH Mortality page is that it is sortable, and you can sort by which countries have the worst outcomes by population size (measured as deaths per 100,000 people). And what is terrifying is that, while the US is a big and CARELESS country without a functional leader, there are other countries that are somehow doing WORSE.

I just can’t find a polite way to discuss this with friends in other poorly-performing countries, though I’ve tried things along the lines of, ‘so sorry that our countries suck at preventing death’ and ‘I’m sorry to report we have surpassed your bad track record in the death percentage reports.’ It isn’t great to discussed shared incompetence in the absence of someone agreeing there is a problem, however, so it feels like a sensitive subject; it also feels like looking at the scaled rate it is a distraction from the US’ position as the worst-hit place, math aside.

I’ll go back to dreading ‘breaking news’ again…

News: 10 Million Coronavirus Cases Worldwide

It’s a very unhappy milestone, but we should mark it.

Global report: Covid-19 cases exceed 10m as anxieties rise over US

Global coronavirus cases have passed the 10 million mark as concerns mount over dangerous resurgences of the disease in several countries, most prominent among them the US, where infections are rising in 29 of 50 states. The pandemic has claimed almost 500,000 lives worldwide in seven months.

We are also approaching 500,000 deaths globally.

It didn’t have to be this way. But… [passive voice] “mistakes were made.”

Book: Real Man Adventures by T Cooper

Cover image

Real Man Adventures
by T Cooper
published by McSweeneys
2013

What does it mean to be a man? T Cooper’s delightful biography / memoir / interview collection / essays explore this with depth, humor, vulnerability, and great stories. T wasn’t born male, and so approaches the subject with charming thoughtfulness in a way that many born-male men might not.

The humor of the fantastic cover is a good fit. There are truly engaging stories in here, unsent letters, questions, asides, and observations that had me giggling out loud so many times…

There are many serious moments. Changing one’s gender presentation in the US can be a dangerous, due to misinformation, ignorance, fear of difference, and negative cultural influences – and anyone who is true to themselves in this way risks violence. We should ALL be allowed to be ourselves and be safe, but that isn’t our current situation, and this is acknowledged throughout the book in candid, personal ways.

This is one of the most outright FUN books that I’ve read in a long while, and I recommend it enthusiastically.

News: Happy Virtual PRIDE!

We can all use the positivity of PRIDE! The intersectionality, support for BLM, and festivity is truly encouraging.

Today’s Virtual Global Pride 2020 poster

If you haven’t been watching the Global Pride 2020 live stream, you can find it by clicking on the photo above. (It is delightful!)