Sunday, April 26th, 2020
Woke up to a dreary rainy day today, perfect excuse to not get up, but rather finish my book with coffee in bed. Now of course sad that the book is done. Will need to read “Maigret and the Yellow Dog” written by Georges Simenon in 1931 which Banneluc has basically taken the story line of this book to continue it two generations later. But first “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvin.
Also, not a recent book (published 1972), but on the authors list of favorite comfort reads. When I host book club, and hence get to chose what to read, the books are rarely entertaining or light. I had in the past selected “Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment” by Francis Fukuyama or “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari or Thomas Picketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. High on my listfor this time was Hans Rosling’s “Factfulness” or if it should be fiction, I would have enjoyed discussing “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara. It is one of the most mind occupying books I have read in a long time. I keep going back to it, wondering if a life such as Justin’s can really happen. Can one person experience so much hardship in a lifetime, going from bad, to worse, to horrific? While I found Hans Rosling’s “Factfulness actually very uplifting, “A Little Life” is everything, but not uplifting. So I went in search of “uplifting reads” and hence landed on the Guardians author list.
I very much like the sound of “Invisible Cities” as it takes me back a few years to when I read everything I could find on Mongolia and Gengis Khan in anticipation of my leadership training in Mongolia; which was a wonderful experience, despite all of the reservation our group had prior to arriving.
We all stayed in cabins and gers with shared washrooms, but in beautiful Terelj National Park near UB and spend a week learning about leadership journeys of entrepreneuers, parliamentarians and so on as well as our own.
Gengis Khan sure did have an interesting journey to leadership!
Anyway, getting sidetracked. In “Invisible Cities” Marco Polo tells Kublai Khan of the places he has visited in his journeys. Kublai Khan, a grandson of Gengis Khan, was basically the last Khan to reign the Mongol Empire and as the fifth Khagan also founded the Yuan dynasty in China as a conquest dynasty in 1271, and ruled as the first Yuan emperor until his death in 1294. Though by the time Kublai Khan began his reign, the Mongol empire had already been fragmented and was in demise.
Like Kublai Khan listening to Marco Polo tell of his travel, we will travel to lands far afield during book club. Am hoping that by mid-May we will be able to meet in person if we maintain an appropriate social distance (6ft!), which would be easiest to do outside, so am also hoping for a warm spring evening. In keeping with my tradition when hosting, I will make food relevant to the book; maybe a repeat of the sushi (even though Marco Polo ends in China, not Japan) we made yesterday, or different dishes from place enroute Marco Polos took from Italy to China.
I continued the morning reading BBC, NYT, FT, Spiegel, Guardian, Huffington Post, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal before moving on to FB. A couple of hours later there was nothing left to read, and I figure it is time to get up. And think about food.
We made Malaysian chicken Satay’s with a spicy peanut sauce and a sweet-sour-spicy cucumber salad, into which I added some Cape gooseberries. Turned out rather well except that I now have a jar of peanut sauce in my fridge.
We used a dry spell for a brisk one hour walk around the Hood to work of the food. Observing how nature is changing every day. Far more conscious of this than in previous years. I guess becuase there is far less to observe. Making me think of something I read. Today, we abosrb as much information in a week as people in the middle ages would encounter in their entire life time!
People are still clearing out and giving away items. There were many curb sid ealerts. Mostly the Listserv discussed masks today though, not entirely sure what brought that on.
None of my reads turned up anything really fun. However, there seems to be an increasing number of articles concerning themselves with what the future may look like. This comes in light of more and more countries (and States) discussing how and when to reopen. Some States in the US are forging ahead, scaring the wits out of scientists. Fortunately, Maryland shows no sign of relaxing anything, alongside all of its Northern East Coast neighbors who likewise are taking a very meditated approach.
Restaurant owners and health workers are for instance thinking through what the dining experience of the future may look like. Or the predictions of the brave new world of travel with hotels becoming largely devoid of human interaction, no minibars, no room service (and that includes no sheet/ towel changes or cleaning while guests are in residence). I am not sure this will be very enjoyable.
Predictions on air travel are more diverse. On the one hand there seem to be discussions about more space, while at the same time there are speculations on how airlines can make up for losses by moving from all inclusive fares to what is the standard in the US, that everything costs extra: carry on bag, checked bag, food, leg room, seat reservation, parties sitting together and so on. A rather hateful thought. Am a big fan of all inclusive airfares! So which way will air travel change?
Reopening is also changing beach life. For the time being no more chilling on the beach, rather the beach becomes a place to exercise and once people stop moving they need to leave.
All of these discussions appear a little premature given the world today sees more than 3 million reported cases of infected and has surpassed 200k in death. Reported cases increase by 30k in the US, which has been pretty constant over the past ten or so days. However, this is with still very limited testing as capacity is still sadly lacking, which four months into COVID-19 is scary. The most advanced nation on earth seems to be unable to get its act together; or is it just unwilling?
On the bright side: death tolls and new infections are declining in many European countries as well as in New York City and New Jersey.