The Berlin Files #73: tweet storming
Facts, empowerment, and solidarity to help us get through, along with much more on hopeful signals, quarantine life, and radical transformations.
Hi all, Eric here. I hope this edition of the Files will be a quick, enjoyable, and even uplifting read during a most strange summer.
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Hopeful Signals, Quarantine Life, & Radical Transformations
Recovery Progress
For obvious reasons, it's been challenging to frame positive signals and "good news" stemming from the pandemic when there seems to be a cacophony of negative signals that can lead to despair or, for many of us, a simply numb feeling in which you want to shut out what's going on in the United States and in the world.
This tweet storm (yeah, in the Twitterverse you call a tweet by one person followed by a bunch of other tweets on the same topic by the same person a tweet storm) that I caught over the holiday weekend by former Obama administration "health care head" Andy Slavitt was for me the perfect balm for this moment. Simply stated, it's on the topic of "Why not to freak out."
Like the best communicators and leaders in hard times, Slavitt doesn't try to sugar coat anything.
But then he uses facts, reason, and compelling arguments to make us recognize why and how we're going to get past this crisis.
And he even makes the case that even those leaders who have not handled the response to the pandemic well to date, to be kind about it, may even now be compelled to start taking action to move things in a better direction.
And finally, Slavitt empowers each of us as individuals, and reminds us that we're in this thing together. You know, as Americans and stuff.
While I've provided some highlights, I recommend reading the whole thread, er, tweet storm. Especially if you've been bumming out of late.
Sometimes, it's the little things that help get you through. Here's me, after making a supermarket run in Seattle this weekend.
Vaccine Progress
Moderna, one of the leading contenders in the race for a coronavirus vaccine, is kicking off Phase III trials this month. There are steps to go to prove this out no doubt, but I find it to be quite significant that Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel foresees that a vaccine "will be ready for emergency use in healthcare workers this fall." Full disclosure: as my wife works at a major hospital in Seattle, I'll be keeping an especially close eye on developments here.
The Return of... Sports
Even with new coronavirus cases spiking in multiple regions of the country, plans are moving forward for the return of major U.S. sports organizations, including the NFL, NBA, and MLB. How these sports organizations protect their staffs, players, and support personnel, and how they adapt to the risk of the spread of new coronavirus infections will be closely monitored. And in the meantime, if these sports are able to more or less safely return -- even sans fans attending live -- it will provide deeply appreciated distraction and entertainment for the sports-loving masses.
And meanwhile, "Fight Island," Dana White's UFC bubble created in Abu Dhabi, is happening.
The Future Of...
I've speculated a lot over the last several months about how cars may be used in radical new ways in a post-pandemic world and about how all manner of things -- from restaurants to offices to stadiums -- will change to meet very different societal needs. This Intelligencer piece looks at something I hadn't quite considered before, which is leveraging spaces in disuse due to the pandemic in radically new ways. For example, with regard to reconnecting students with teachers and faculty:
A third would be to expand the school system’s footprint into every available corner of unused urban space. Erect unused party tents in the parking lot at Citi Field. Put up the Frieze Art Fair tent on Randalls Island. Recycle the plywood that covered storefronts into classroom partitions on the floor of the Javits Center and Piers 92 and 94. Divide the Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory into learning bubbles. Repurpose gyms. Make the shuttered Shops at Hudson Yards earn their subsidies. Spread kids through David Geffen Hall and Radio City Music Hall and scatter them around the stands at the Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden. Commandeer the city’s abundance of darkened theaters and already perfect black-box spaces. Venues that can’t welcome performers or audiences until a vaccine arrives could serve as temporary schools, safely accommodating, say, 200 students in a space with 1,000 seats. And if the city and state paid even nominal rent, that would pump some money into venues that are withering a little further with every idle day.
And Farhad Manjoo in The New York Times proposes leveraging the disruption already taking place to take a giant environmental and lifestyle leap by way of getting rid of cars in Manhattan.
The Music Club
For this week's music club, I wanted to share a song that makes me super happy every time I hear it. I'm a huge fan of the artist known as Beck, and there are any number of songs I could go with from his catalog (the full of which I celebrate, akin to that which we all do for Michael Bolton's), but I'll go with "Dreams" from the Colors album here because it's flat out great.
Want to head a little deeper down the Beck rabbit hole? Come on, let's go. Beck has done this thing a number of times that impresses me to no end. It's called the Record Club, and it's this thing where he'll invite some musician friends together to record versions of a classic or iconic rock album. In a single day. And, what's more, the covers of these songs tend to be wildly eclectic and sound nothing like the original (which, really, should in some significant way be the point of covering another artist's work, I should think).
For example, one Record Club involved covering songs solely from INXS' Kick from 1987. Here's an absolutely dynamite version of "Need You Tonight," fronted by Annie Clark, better known in music circles as St. Vincent:
So cool, too, to see the song being performed in the music studio.
The Comedy Club
I've been waiting for the right time to unleash some classic Key & Peele, and actually I should just do so way more often because so much of their stuff is ridiculously great. Here we have "When You Don't Know How to Count Money":
Election 2020
Some noteworthy links for you:
Democrats smell a rout -- and the chance to control redistricting in 2021
Democratic control of the Senate more likely because of Trump
"Alaska, South Carolina seats in play" (!!!)
What 9 GOP Campaign Consultants Really Think About Republicans' Chances in November
And this sums up the state of the presidential race as well as anything.
Okay, one more.
Climate Watch
Tweets of the Week
It's a Wrap!
You made it. Now get back to storming some tweets.
Also:
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And one last time…