Naked Faces
Want to know how to turn a liberal into a conservative?
This week, The Experiment brings Charlie Bonner, extrovert extraordinaire, sending us a letter from his own personal hell, Jack Hughes checking in from Canada to tell us that how we’re responding to the pandemic determines which Avenger we are, and my old pal McCracken Poston, with the greatest story he’s ever told. And, as always, we’ve got recommendations on things to do, read, watch, and listen to. (I am so excited to introduce you to Baby Rose, an R&B singer whose voice has been compared to Nina Simone and Amy Winehouse. Good stuff.)
But first, do you want to know the three ways to turn a liberal into a conservative? In the excellent The Republican Brain, Chris Mooney writes that cognitive scientists have figured out three ways to turn your friendly neighborhood liberal into a conservative, albeit temporarily: confuse them, scare them, or get them drunk. If you think about it, it makes sense. All of these things prevent you from getting into higher-order thinking and keep you stuck in your lizard brain where you have two choices: fight or flight.
Neither of those options seem particularly useful these days, but not for lack of trying. My 50th birthday fell on the day the pandemic was declared. The next day was my birthday party, which I like to think of as the last bad decision I have made. This was before staying six feet apart was the rule, but we knew we weren’t supposed to touch each other. I knew this, and yet I still hugged people. I shook hands knowing, but not accepting, that it was wrong. A reasonable person might ask why, but I was not a reasonable person. I thought it was important to be brave because I was afraid.
I’m still afraid, but I adjusted my response to fear and adapted to this new life aboard this spaceship through time. And the first rule on board this vessel, as my Uncle Mark liked to say, what’s not good for the hive can’t be good for the bees. By necessity, if not being raised right by my momma, I am just as interested in you not getting infected as I am about me. I don’t want to get sick and die; I don’t want you to get sick and die; if you get sick, you could infect me; if I get sick, I could infect you; this meeting has to become an email. Our only path toward survival is consciously decoupling ourselves from each other and rewiring our connections. This pandemic has turned the action movie trope on its head; stay away from me if you want to live.
We’ve all seen the pictures of the naked faces yelling at the masked nurse in Phoenix, screaming into the masked faces of state troopers in Lansing, demanding that the world reopen. The Vice President visited the Mayo Clinic for a photo op and didn’t wear a mask. The President refuses to wear a mask because, I’ve read, he thinks it makes him look weak. We could explain to the naked faces that a mask demonstrates concern for others and that if 80% of Americans wore masks, C-19 infections would be a twelfth of what they are now, but that’s in a different kind of thinking entirely. Their lizard brains are hard of hearing.
They say they are talking about freedom, about liberating their states, opening up their cities, but they’re just putting words to their fear which has metastasized into anger and righteous indignation. It’s a virus about 20 times deadlier than the flu, and they think a viable response is to blame China. The numbers of the jobless and the dead are quickly eclipsing our ability to accept the idea into our heads. In a month, we lost a war’s worth of people. In a month, we lost a decade of jobs. In a year, we’re unlikely to have a vaccine.
Initially, I laughed at McSweeny’s piece, “Sure, the velociraptors are still on the loose, but that’s no reason not to reopen Jurassic Park.” That’s funny, but it doesn’t capture it all. The virus isn’t hunting us like pack animals. Humans carry the virus, disperse it, spread it. We’re told the virus is invisible, but that’s not completely true anymore. By turning fear into blustery anger, these heedless people have become contagions, infected with an anti-social madness. I’m afraid again, but now of naked faces. Fear has made the unseen killer visible. It’s other people.
Requiem for Strangers
by Charlie Bonner
Let me tell you about my friend Charlie Bonner. I don’t remember when I met Charlie — it might have been at a UT baseball game or a fundraiser at Scholz Garten — but one day he wasn’t there, and the next day he was everywhere. We have common enthusiasms for Orville Peck, the Highwomen, and ambitious writing projects in service of a funny title, but whereas I am happy here inside my head, not talking to anyone, Charlie Bonner is an ebullient extrovert. We are living through an epoch of intense suffering. We lost as many jobs in April as we gained in the previous decade. Almost as many people are dying every day from C-19 as died on 9/11. Yet when I think of the people who are having a tough time of it, I think of Charlie Bonner, unable to do what he does best — talk to strangers. I asked him to write us a letter from his own personal hell, and he returned with a lovely ode to his loneliness.
***
Avengers Re-assembled
by Jack Hughes
Jack Hughes, the Canadian sensation, is back with his analysis of the thoroughly meta reunification of the Avengers to fight COVID. As he writes, “The parallels between how the different Avengers dealt with their new normal and how we’re all dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic are striking.” It’s not a Buzzfeed quiz, but how you are handling the pandemic determines which Avenger you are.
***
McCracken Poston’s Greatest Story
My old friend McCracken Poston (pictured above) is the greatest story teller I’ve ever met, partly because he loves the telling, and partly because he has great stories to tell. I met him when he ran for congress back in the ‘90s. My job was to dig up dirt on him so he’d be ready for what the opposition would throw at him. He took me out to a bar in Chattanooga one night and asked what the worst thing I’d ever found out about a client was. I told him I had one client with an Indonesian love child. He looked at me just long enough before asking “That can hurt you?” for it to be really funny. We’ve been friends ever since even though he lost like he played for the Baltimore Orioles.
He’s hell in a courtroom what with being able to tell a story, but everyone agrees what his greatest case was: defending Alvin Ridley. Making him write his story out would be like asking Mark Twain to dance; it’s not his highest and best use. If you like Southern-fried true crime, spend some time letting Poston tell you his greatest story.
Here’s McCracken telling the story on the Snap Judgment podcast, and here’s him interviewing Ridley on StoryCorps.
RIP
I would like to pay respect to those we lose along the way. If there is someone you would like to be remembered in future newsletters, please post links to their obituaries in the comments section or email me. Thank you.
How we’re getting through this
Letting kids play freely
Making a carrot clarinet
Practicing information hygiene
Learning to make chicken curry
Reversing the trend of eating sustainably
Downloading pop culture Zoom backgrounds
What I’m reading
Erin Bromage: “The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them”
The main sources for infection are home, workplace, public transport, social gatherings, and restaurants. This accounts for 90% of all transmission events. In contrast, outbreaks spread from shopping appear to be responsible for a small percentage of traced infections.
The Marshall Project: “Ewwwww, What Is That?”
The Scotsman: “Time to start thinking about the ‘never normal’”
SportBusiness: “The virtual NFL Draft offers three lessons for the future of post-Covid-19 sports events”
SSRN: “Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evidence from the 1918 Flu”
Time: “What Jesus Really Said About Heaven and Hell”
WaPo: “Republicans grow nervous about losing the Senate amid worries over Trump’s handling of the pandemic”
“Everyone’s fortunes are tied to the economy,” said a particularly pessimistic Republican official. “It’s going to be a tsunami.”
WaPo: “With theaters shuttered, virtual cinema has saved the day. For now.”
Got some reading suggestions? Post them in the comments section, and I might include them in the next newsletter. Have a book to promote? Let me know in the comments or email me.
What I’m watching
Greg Daniels, the genius behind King of the Hill, is back with Upload. I’m a few episodes in — and I’m in.
Got suggestions? Post them in the comments section, and I might include them in the next newsletter.
What I’m listening to
Robin Sparkles has repurposed her Canadian hit, “Let’s Go To The Mall” for quarantining.
My Uncle Jim has a friend who pulled together this C-19 Bob Dylan parody, “Everybody Must Stay Home.”
Chicano Batman’s new album, Invisible People, makes a helluva noise.
Baby Rose, whose throwback R&B voice was set to have a big run at SXSW. Check out her album To Myself, which by all rights should be buzzy right now.
Got suggestions? Post them in the comments section, and I might include them in the next newsletter.
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