Recommended 9: Isolation

Isolation is a word that can encompass living with or seeing with a few -- or a few dozen -- others, such as on a wildfire-fighting team, or if you launch into space (or just role-play the latter). I do okay leading a solitary life, and some days seeing 5 or 6 coworkers (plus some patrons, but always for just minutes at a time) is more than enough people time for me. Yet for two nights in a row, explosions on TV made me jump way out of proportion to their loudness, and I recalled Kate Greene writing that isolation, boredom, and/or the same environment for a length of time dulls your senses; your days "smooth over, lose their texture." (p. 115) 

In the last two days I finished up a book about a practice Mars mission, listened to an episode of This American Life episode ("Boulder vs. Hill," aired 12/18/2020), and got lost in Susanna Clarke's new book, Piranesi. Plus, you know, I spent most of 2020 not seeing people, even for holidays. I've been deep into thoughts on isolation.

If you'd like copy my deep-dive into feeling isolated -- and to come out feeling generally okay about it -- check out: 

The This American Life episode called "Boulder vs. Hill." It has just two acts, each featuring huge 2020 civic undertakings. As I listened to the act about  fighting wildfires, I made connections to to Kate Greene's book about an earth-bound Mars mission practice. The firefighters work in bigger teams; the faux astronauts had a greater variety of tasks. Both groups felt that those back home didn't understand the importance of their work.

Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars, by Kate Greene. 

Journalist Kate Greene spent 4 months living in a geodesic dome in Hawaii to help gather data about both food variety for astronauts and insights into close-quarters life. Each chapter is a reflection on a different topic or experience, though of course themes of isolation and getting along continue throughout. A good general read on space sciences.   

Piranesi by Susanna Clark 

There are just 15 of them, and only two living: the Other and the narrator, whom the Other calls Piranesi. Piranesi tracks the tides, talks to the birds, catalogs the statues. The Other has been working on immortality and other projects. One day Piranesi suggest that's not a good use of time, and the Other reminds Piranesi they've had this conversation before, that he gets confused. Furthermore, he should be alert to someone new appearing, someone dangerous. These conversations lead to Piranesi digging back in his old journals, which leads to him question his understanding of reality.

Dreamy and page-turner-y and compelling; set in a liminal space like Lewis's Wood Between the World or maybe Lev Grossman's Library. Given that the Other sees Piranesi only twice a week, a pandemic-worthy meditation on being alone. 

Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Tough issues illuminated in prose that I’d call “conversational,” but she uses footnotes, so maybe I can’t.

"Because I was such a big deal to an actual big deal, the black man seated to my left made a great effort at small talk. I wish he had not bothered. I hate small talk. It is small. Small is for tea cups and occasionally for tiny houses. Too much small talk is how a country is given to sociopaths who thrive on shallow chatter to distract their emotional sleight of hand. Talk should be meaningful or kept to a minimum."

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Oh No Not Again

Fifteen years ago, I didn't really want to build another life and another persona with SecondLife. Why would I take time away from creating my primary life to build an alternate Lisa and an alternate house, public library for her? It with that same weary mindset that I read about the metaverse and the likelihood of it launching out of (violent) gaming. The only appealing part of it, from my read of this Washington Post article would be that it's a unified platform - a single space. No separate logins, vocabularies, currencies.

Recommended 8

Jill Lepore in The New Yorker describes two essential structures for "plague novels": stories set during a time of sickness and quarantine, and those "set among a ragged band of survivors." She cites many, beginning with The Last Man (1826) by Mary Shelley, that end with a portrayal of society having regressed.

And that, in the modern plague novel, is the final terror of every world-ending plague, the loss of knowledge, for which reading itself is the only cure.

 Maybe today is the day, then, to recommend Station Eleven by Emily Mandel. In this plague novel we do experience the lock-down quarantine and also the time after. In the after times, a man curates a archive of artifacts in the airport in which he and others live, and a band of musician and actors roam the land putting on Shakespeare's plays, because "survival is insufficient." Mandel gives us a hopeful ending.

If there are again towns with streetlights, if there are symphonies and newspapers, then what else might this awakening world contain? Perhaps vessels are setting out even now, traveling toward or away from him, steered by sailors armed with maps and knowledge of the stars, driven by need or perhaps simply by curiosity: whatever became of the countries on the other side?

Are We on Web 3.0 Now?

The other day, a colleague asked me to remind her about the 23 Things initiative we did when we worked together. It sounded like she was looking for structure to guide people in their self-teaching activities while working from home. I used my 23 Things tag to direct her back to some of the original posts. At the same time, I glanced at those "web 2.0" posts and the things we were excited about then: mashups and widgets; Flickr and BookThing.

I'm also taking a look at the sidebar on this site and culling dead links. In the early 2000s, I liked sites that were internet directories and portals. Before search engines gained strength, these directories reliably pointed users to credible sources. I used them on the ref desk all the time. Now it seems that one of them, the Internet Public Library has become a very bad essay farm? Only it acts like it belongs to Barnes & Nobel??

Library Spot appears to be active and useful still. Here's a page of links to directories: one or two patrons do call my current branch to have us look up phone numbers. Sometimes it's straightforward, but with personal numbers or address you can get bogged down in ads and paid sites. 

Hmm: YALSA book lists is dead and can go; most of those other blogs are long gone. Weird how my early online connections were mostly with strangers. No, wait, that's not right. I follow famous people on Twitter and witty strangers on Tumblr. It's really only Facebook where everyone is someone I actually know.

Recommended 7

99% Invisible on toilet paper.

Tiny Pantone matches on Tumblr.

"Stephen King is Sorry You Feel Like You're Living in a Stephen King Novel" on Fresh Air

Recommended 6: News Sources

The Washington Post makes COVID19 related articles freely available, here.

The New York Times makes COVID19 related articles freely available, here.  

Quality coverage for Virginia includes
Central Virginia COVID dashboard.
Virginia Mercury
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Recommended 5

My folks aren't interested in FaceTiming me. They're retired and not trying to #wfh. They live in rural Virginia and have terrible internet speed. They're not talking about zoom or new podcasts or what restaurant has pick up now. Mom's pretty tech savvy; Dad, not so much. Thus I am surprised to tell you that today's recommendation for something to do while isolating comes to you from Dad. He recommends the "takeout" art talks from the Barnes Collection, available here on YouTube. More online offerings from that museum are here.

Red Headed Girl in Evening Dress by Modigliani

Also recommending the storytimes my library system is presenting online (those videos won't stay live for very long). Loving the new-to-me song that Jodi sings, "Knife Fork Spoon Spatula."

Recommended 4

Break out of your claustrophobia with the Lumberjanes! Sure you should start at the beginning, but Indoor Recess is my quick pick today.

Recommendations 3

The Librarian is In, a podcast from the New York Public Library, made me want to be better at readers' advisory (the practice of recommending books to all kinds of readers). General interest listeners will come away with additions to their To Read list. This year's first discussion of a book on the NYPL 125 list prodded me to read Giovanni's Room, a title always lurking on my "should have read" list.



I always describe my GoodReads reviews as "notes to myself" rather than proper reviews. Here's what I jotted down:

Passion and the futility of love in Paris in the 1950s. While David's girlfriend tours Spain without him, he gets evicted from his Paris hotel. He turns to an older man he knows, someone who often helps "boys" like him. They go to Guillaume's bar and both immediately become enamored of Giovanni, the bartender. The larks and liaisons of this (gay) crowd roll along at a leisurely, drunken pace until girlfriend Hella returns. Only, the book tells the story out of order: sooner than we see those scenes we know that something terrible happened and that David and Hella definitely aren't getting married. (Lots of undergrad paper / book club themes to mine: "room[s]" and being trapped; the way the characters -- Baldwin? -- view women; the caricatures of the older men.)

Recommendations in the Time of COVID19, part 2

Graphic Novels and the Like

Many public libraries buy into the digital hoopla collection for their patrons -- this service offers music, steaming video, and books including comics and graphic novels. Henrico's collection includes Joe Hill's Locke & Key which you may have gotten sucked into via Netflix (surely that wasn't just me?)








Some things I've read recently that I recommend are below. If you're here in Richmond, local booksellers are delivering. I know Chop Suey will order books for you.

Chop Suey Books

Fountain Bookstore

Small Friend Records & Books



Sara Berman's Closet

A great example of the art -- photos and paintings -- being as much of the point as the biographical story of a Greenwich Village personality.















Spill Zone

When Scott Westerfeld brings his A game, it's an A+. He captures young people's voices well and brings us amazing post-apocalyptic visions. This cover doesn't do the art justice: Puvilland uses vivid color to convey the spill zone itself.



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Jumberjanes



I approach things that are Girl Scout or summer camp-adjacent with trepidation. I fear lack of the proper reverence, knowledge, or simply not getting it. The creators of Lumberjanes get it and have nothing but love for girls' camps. In this series, our heroines take on magical monsters, champion friendship and teamwork, earn badges -- and try to make curfew.

Recommendations in the Time of COVID19

Tuesday

Listen to Bill Nye and Alan Alda chat over tea about science and communication.

Read a romance in which a NYC epidemiology student keeps ignoring the emails from "an African prince" -- so he shows up at her door. Princess in Theory, by Alyssa Cole.



Monday 3/16/20

Read the Lager Queen of Minnesota and spend time with generations of a midwestern family as they shift form farmers to service workers; able-bodied to creaky; highschoolers to grandparents. Also: beer-making and family drama.



Listen to a light-hearted romp through copyright, intectual property, and dance hits with 99PI's episode, Whomst Among Us Has Let the Dogs Out.

Last Week

"Dad Ward" put together a super-informative Virology podcast for us. Link to that Ologies episode.