The Berlin Files #78: social calendars
Love in the Time of Corona, Night of the Comet, The Beatles, and much more on hopeful signals, quarantine life, and radical transformations.
Hi all! Eric here.
Quick note that I'll be taking a little late summer break from The Files. I’ll see you back here in September. In the meantime, hope everyone is staying safe and sane. Drop me a line anytime: eric@forwerdmedia.com.
Hopeful Signals, Quarantine Life, & Radical Transformations
Testing & Prevention Progress
What sometimes gets lost when talking about testing is the often long delays in obtaining results of coronavirus tests in the U.S. I've seen many anecdotal reports of people waiting a week or even longer to get test results, which among other things drastically complicates the ability for people who end up testing positive to effectively quarantine and prevent additional people from getting infected.
Which is all to say, what's being called "rapid testing" is another front in the battle against COVID. Jeff Huber, vice chairman of the cancer diagnostics company Grail, on why rapid testing is important:
"What makes COVID-19 so challenging is two things," says Huber. "Asymptomatic and presymptomatic spreading, and the possibility of super spreaders" — infected people who for some reason spark huge outbreaks."... New testing technologies are being developed that, while not always as accurate as the PCR tests currently in use, can be done cheaply and quickly, at an accelerated rate that "matches the kinetics of the virus."
Ideally, we'd have both rapid testing and frequent testing, "frequent enough to catch infected people before they can significantly spread the virus." Here's the reality though:
Testing populations twice a week or more would require a massive leap in current capacity. As of Aug. 20, the U.S. had performed fewer than 70 million tests throughout the entire pandemic — not even enough to test a quarter of Americans once.
In my ongoing interest (read = obsession) with indoor ventilation and the transmission of COVID, this thread absolutely caught my eye.
For what it's worth, "herd immunity" -- defined as "protected against the coronavirus... by a vaccine or by already having been infected" -- might be considerably lower than once estimated.
In the early days of the crisis, scientists estimated that perhaps 70 percent of the population would need to be immune in this way to be free from large outbreaks. But over the past few weeks, more than a dozen scientists told me they now felt comfortable saying that herd immunity probably lies from 45 percent to 50 percent. If they’re right, then we may be a lot closer to turning back this virus than we initially thought. It may also mean that pockets of New York City, London, Mumbai and other cities may already have reached the threshold, and may be spared a devastating second wave.
Possibly relating to some extent: more good news out of New York City.
The Future of Work
I've read a ton of articles since the spring about the future of remote work, whether companies can or should bring workers back to the office, how companies can collaborate and thrive without being physically together, and so on. Put that together with the ailing travel and tourism and industries, and one new and interesting wrinkle emerges:
Several countries with fragile tourist economies, including Bermuda and Barbados, have begun to court the work-from-home set, offering visas that allow foreign nationals to live and work for at least six months.
It’s long been a sort of well understood fantasy for many white collar workers to be able to work while "sipping a cocktail on an exotic beach." It could well be that some will be able to make this a reality. Possibly minus the cocktails, of course (at least during working hours).
And meanwhile, "This company will build you an all-weather private office studio in your backyard."
The Future of Entertainment
I'm a pretty big TV nerd (sometimes I'm tempted to scrap this entire newsletter format in favor of a Top 450 Sopranos One-Liners, Ranked By Hilarity list or some such) and, among other things, I read The New York Times' "Watching" column pretty regularly. This week, I stumbled upon this entry, for a Freeform mini-series called Love in the Time of Corona:
I don’t recommend this mini-series as a work of narrative television. But as a demonstration of what’s technologically possible under our current bizarre living situations, it’s an intriguing start: It looks pretty good, it sounds pretty good, and it feels like a “real” show, even if it’s a matryoshka doll of spiritual alienation to watch people on screens watch people on screens talk about isolation. The four episodes follows four households whose inhabitants are in various states of love and marriage, and everything was filmed in the actors’ actual homes, with real-life couples portraying the on-screen couples.
There have been a number of one-off specials, filmed and performed largely on Zoom, from the likes of 30 Rock and Parks & Recreation and some other shows, but it's long been on my mind how scripted content will reflect and portray the current (ever lengthening) era we're living through. This seems like a pretty interesting attempt in doing that.
Two Netflix reality shows that pre-date COVID-19 but were oddly prescient in conducting oddball experiments in making romantic connections while literally being social distanced are The Circle (all communication takes place via social media) and Love Is Blind (couples can't see each other in person until they decide to get engaged... yes, it's Crazy Town and it's glorious).
For what it's worth, I found both shows to be equal parts trashy and wildly entertaining.
The Future of Shopping
I get and appreciate what stores and restaurants are trying to do to stay open and keep customers coming in, but some innovations are going to work better than others. Example:
This immediately reminds me of I Am Legend. I may have even included this clip at some point in the past. I guess it's just a really effective portrayal of trying to emulate normalcy in a very very not normal world.
And while we're at it, I'm reminded of a cheese-tastic movie from 1984 called The Night of the Comet.
Moving on to house shopping, I'm not sure that I totally agree with all of this, but it's thought provoking for sure.
Quarantining
I highly recommend this hilarious, extremely of the moment piece in The New Yorker that touches on the deep yearning we have to get back to "normal," which is inclusive of the the good, the bad, the annoying, and the weird: "When It's Safe: The First Week Of My Post-Pandemic Social Calendar." I want to quote huge swathes of it but I'll just call out a few entries.
9:15 a.m.: Intentionally get in a packed subway car on the way to work. Find the clammiest, most recently grasped part of the pole to hold, allowing the pole’s heat to spread inward from my palm all the way to my heart. Radiate with warmth for all of humanity. Rest my head tenderly on the backpack of the guy in front of me who keeps bumping into me, rather than tell him to shove said backpack into one of his body’s orifices.
9 p.m.: Meet up with a few close friends for duets-only karaoke, with all songs performed Springsteen-style (standing cheek to cheek, singing into a single microphone). Intentionally choose songs with lots of wide-open-mouth whooooooaaaaa moments to really hammer home how safe it is to be out on the town, inhaling and exhaling.
Very much on the same note, from pop culture critic James Poniewozik.
The Music Club
There's a long, excellent new retrospective of The Beatles' infamous breakup in Rolling Stone, which went down 50 years ago now if you can believe it.
That put me of the mind to showcase some incredible Beatles songs that might not be quite as well known as the hits you've heard a billion times.
About five years ago, I became obsessed with a version of "Good Morning Good Morning" that was released on the second Anthology set. I like it so much more than the version on Sgt. Pepper's. There's something about the stripped down, live feel that makes it one of the most straight up rocking Beatles tracks ever recorded, I'd wager.
I'm a particular fan of both the early and mid-period Beatles' catalog. "Things We Said Today," off 1964's A Hard Day's Night, is something I can listen on repeat all day long. Note: I mean this literally.
Same goes for the slightly melancholy, harmonizing as all get out "Baby's in Black."
Rubber Soul and Revolver are my favorite Beatles album to listen to front to back. It's the band flexing their immense talents in new directions while still firmly being rooted in the rock and pop foundation they'd well established. "I'm Only Sleeping," from Revolver, is as good an example as any. Check it.
Finally, here's some cello for you. Or eight cellos. Either way, this is fantastic.
The Comedy Club
What We Do in the Shadows is the funniest television show that I've discovered in years. The premise is equal parts simple and ridiculous: vampires trying to figure out how to cope with the modern world. That's all you really need to know.
Matt Berry normally plays rascally British vampire Laszlo Cravensworth, but that character has become something of a new sensation this past season in taking on the persona of "regular human bartender" Jackie Daytona. It'll all make sense in a minute if you're not familiar.
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And one last time…