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Rip Van Winkle falls asleep after drinking a mysterious and powerful liquor that is offered to him by an equally strange group of men. Rip Van Winkle, the protagonist of Washington Irving’s famous short story, seems to lack the will displayed by far greater heroes, preferring to spend the day chilling while others do all the work. That’s how I feel; it seems I haven’t produced anything in twenty years while a strange group of political (mostly) men hypnotize an entire nation of all-too-rapt fools.
Lockdown, pandemic, vaccine, masks, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, remote learning, Wuhan, Fauci, Birx, George Floyd, BLM, CDC, WHO, insurrection, impeachment, impeachment again, and death are the words that have crawled across the bottom of our screens for the past year. QAnon, ANTIFA, Proud Boys, and daily political drenchings may have altered reality for some and divided far too many erstwhile sensible people beyond repair, but I would like to leave it at that. Here and now, let me report.
Everything – mostly everything – has been local. Generally, we have been confined. For some, this is business as usual. For travelers, things changed. Your room, your house, your apartment, your yard, your kitchen, your TV, your personal space has meant something new, old, and different. Perhaps we exercised, walked, jogged, lifted garage weight, or rode bikes. My bicycle was my therapist and cycologist. Neighborhood gatherings of dog walkers provided comfort for many craving relief. Families walked.
Food provided solace. Going to Whole Foods, Milam’s Market, Trader Joe’s, Fresh Market, Wild Fork – even Publix until the heiress got outed – dispensed contact and joy. We baked, fried, sauteed, roasted, chopped, diced, minced, and sous-vided. I became friends with Kenji Alt-Lopez, Yotam Ottelenghi, Melissa Clark, Tejal Rao, Nik Sharma, and other food columnists from NYT cooking. That loaf of Zak the Baker bread, that steak from Babe’s, the rustic baguette from the French Bakery, the pan de bono from Party Cake, and the pan de queso from Macita’s offered much aid. Walking through a fog of deep fried something or other to get a dozen paletas from La Michoacana in Homestead or skipping the optometrist next door to key lime delicacies from Ms. Debra at Sweet Delights in Florida City became like trips to the Taj Mahal. And Knaus, the place which makes atheists believe in God, found sticky buns becoming communion wafers for people willing to wait in two-hour-long lines.
And people drank. In the beginning, I opened up my trunk at Total Wine before rethinking which businesses might need to stay alive. So El Carajo, Happy Wine, Wolfe’s, and Cutler Bay Wine and Liquor got a few personal visits.
Since being first isolated, I have made 124 Spotify playlists, sharing around 85 with friends and family. My latest toy is an app called Radio Garden, which lets me listen live to radio stations all over the globe. Based in the Netherlands, Radio Garden lets me listen to Dublab Brazil, B4B Funk Fever from Paris, Sublime Soul in Utrecht, Caramel from London, Heart FM in Capetown, or SBS Chill out of Sydney.
Elvis, Julie London, Khruangbin, Tessellated, Dionne Farris, Tom Misch, Tom Jones, Brenda Russell, Jeb Loy Nichols, Dionne Warwick, The Peddlers, Santigold, Tortured Soul, Monty Alexander, Dorothy Ashby, Labi Siffre, Sola Rosa, Mac Miller, Amy Winehouse, Ebo Taylor, Amber Mark, Leon Bridges, Allman Brothers Band, Fleetwood Mac, Chicago Transit Authority, Rare Earth, Ino Hidefumi, Sharhabil Ahmed, Brittany Howard, Colin Blunstone, Nina Simone, Nubya Garcia, Jim Spencer, Tromboranga, Bobby Vinton, the Allah-Las, and a thousand others received royalties courtesy of me.
Books, and Books & Books, provided a haven except when selfish Miami people turned the Gables cafe into their own personal barking dog park ruining any semblance of peace as the self-absorbed ignored all common sense and decency in order to smother one another in dog compliments. I enjoyed Booker Prize Winners Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel and Shuggie Bain when I wasn’t smothering myself in Reuters, AP, NYT, and WAPO so you know my politics.
In fact, I got most of my TV news from Judy Woodruff and PBS NewsHour team which report on things beyond American politics and COVID 19. People – there are things going on in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Venezuela, Honduras, and Yemen that you should know about. Having got that off my chest, for diversion, may the good Lord bless Netflix and the like. I loved Call My Agent, The Crown, The Marvelous Ms. Maisel, Lupin, The Good Place, and something called The Office among other sundry Bollywood, Nollywood, and Hollywood films.
So when that Rip Van Winkle story becomes a Coronavirus epic, hopefully, I’ll give it a miss.
