The Berlin Files #80: leash pulling
The future of cities, home gyms, and much more on hopeful signals, quarantine life, and radical transformations.
Hi all. Eric here.
Even though Seattle has thankfully escaped its Bucket o' Smoke phase, I think this represents how I'm feeling at this stage of the year as well as anything.
Or maybe it's this? You tell me.
Nonetheless, we carry on at The Files, we sally forth, tally-ho, and Bob's your uncle.
Hopeful Signals, Quarantine Life, & Radical Transformations
The future of... cities
I've been thinking a lot about how we're more than six months into the pandemic, and we still don't have any idea when things will return to "normal." What we do know, of course, is that many things have changed. It's stories like this that make me think that things are going to continue to change and that, even in a world where there's a relatively safe and effective vaccine that's widely available, the societal and lifestyle and work life shifts are going to become permanent in many respects.
This Axios piece blocks out some of the broad shifts that "are likely to stick around post-pandemic." In short, these include less commuting, more entertainment and services (like telehealth and education) streaming into homes, while outside the home doings will include more domestic explorations of nature and dining experiences that feature eating outside with comfortable social distance.
I started playing out some of these dynamics as a thought exercise and mused about where else this might lead.
For example, where will people want to live in the future? Will the relatively cold climate and dense living conditions of New York City* appeal to people as much as they did in the past? The easy answer might be yes, of course, because it's New York City. But what about Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh (a midwestern-y city seeing a great urban revival pre-COVID), and so on? All great towns too, but I think you get my point.
* I should note that I'm a native New Yorker and NYC remains one of my most favorite destinations on the planet.
From a climate standpoint, you could counter-argue that sun belt cities which have been drawing a large influx of new residents for decades -- including Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Houston -- perhaps won't be as attractive when spending time in air conditioned indoor public venues remain problematic and even dangerous.
I don't have any clear answers here, of course, but for a much deeper dive on how catastrophes have helped to shape modern cities, check out this excellent piece from the The Atlantic: "Get Ready for the Great Urban Comeback."
And no matter where people live, changes inside the home are likely going to continue to change at a much faster pace than pre-pandemic.
The future of... gyms
Take working out, for example. Pre-pandemic, many people who could afford it would belong to gyms or take fitness classes of some variety with other people. Home fitness equipment has always also had its place, of course, and pre-pandemic many start ups and larger companies were hard at work in leveraging technology and other incentives on the work out homefront.
Like many people, I canceled my gym membership during the pandemic and have gone pretty low budget since, using free workout apps and decidedly low tech devices like a step stool to work out with. So it was kind of fascinating to read, "Peloton Is Betting You'll Never Go Back to the Gym," and see the aggressive ways in which people are transforming their homes into workout studios, with the active help of growing companies like Peloton and many others.
I think it's likely that thanks to workout hardware plus fitness service providers like Peloton, the meaning of "gym membership" is going to fundamentally change from somewhere where you pay to physically go to workout to something that might largely or entirely take place at home.
And then when you look at other major life activities that used to largely or in some significant way take place outside of the home -- working in an office, educating children (and adults, too), socializing with friends, watching newly released movies -- you can see the trend lines of how those things are being brought increasingly inside the home (some, like education, moving radically in that direction nearly overnight).
Look, I think it's possible that two or three years from now that there'll be a coronavirus vaccine that's cheap, safe, wildly effective, and widely available and that this current era will largely be a strange and wrenching and tragic era to be remembered and studied. But I think it's more likely that even as a vaccine or vaccines protects many or even most, there will be radical repercussions and changes (including many positive innovations that address multiple problems and needs) for many, many years to come.
Music Club
I've been on a real kick of 1970s proto punk, power pop, and new wave music lately, which lead into a deep dive of rock music fronted by great female lead singers.
Great example: the classic "Cherry Bomb," by The Runaways.
Here's one of my favorite deep cuts from the '90s: "Ski Bunny," by Boss Hogg.
And finally, from one of my favorite punk bands, The Distillers, with "Sick Of It All."
I mean, is there a better song title for 2020 than that?
TV Club
Last week, I announced some kind of grandiose project in which I'm trying to figure out my favorite TV shows for reasons equally geeky and personal. Well, I'm pretty close to a group of 25 shows that I'm comfortable saying are my "favorites" that I'll start to reveal over time (ooh, feel the excitement!).
This week, I wanted to highlight two shows that are kind of extraordinary in many ways but don't quite qualify for my top 25 list.
Russian Doll and The Night Of have both released one season to date. Hopefully we'll get more Russian Doll at some point, while The Night Of was designed as more of a limited series. Both take place in New York City and explore darker aspects of human nature, though the similarities end pretty quickly after that.
Russian Doll, created by Leslye Headland, Natasha Lyonne, and Amy Poehler and starring Lyonne as someone who figures out they're in a "time loop" with a very specific twist, is a perfect example of the magic that can happen when you let very creative people with a very specific vision do their thing. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil past that. One more season close to this level will nudge it closer to Top 25 consideration.
Some naughty language in this trailer, be warned.
While Russian Doll is often funny and quirky, The Night Of is a decidedly more somber, even chilling affair. It's about what can happen to a seemingly innocent person after one night that goes seriously sideways and then is tossed into the uncaring world of the criminal justice system. The performances here are extraordinary, especially Riz Ahmed as lead character Naz, John Turturro as his lawyer (a role that James Gandolfini was to take before he tragically passed away), and Michael K. Williams as a wizened prison inmate. Here's the trailer.
Election 2020
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It's a Wrap!
You made it. Now get back to getting ready for the expedition.
Also:
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Once upon a time, I wrote a book about the TV show Mad Men. If you're a fan of the show, my writing, or that era of U.S. history, give it a check out.
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And one last time…