Author: Thao

On April 1 today there were no pranks or foolery, which is probably better that way. Now that we’re in week three of shelter in place, it seems we’ve acclimated to a routine that’s more or less this:

Martin	Thao
Rise Coffee, Work Breakfast, Coffee Work Coffee, Work Lunch, Coffee Work Work Work Outdoor: Jog, bike or have a drink, usually latter	Rise Tea, Yoga/Exercise/Meditation Breakfast, Coffee Procrastinate by checking news Coffee, Write Lunch, Coffee Ignore to-do list Write/Ignore to-do list some more Procrastinate or practice piano Outdoor: Jog or sit out back for sunlight (vitamin D), usually latter

I called up a friend in Switzerland that I had not talked to in a while. It was nice to catch up and also compare notes on the situation there and here. She asked me something that I have been thinking about since.

The question was how do I feel about being in America at this time of crisis versus being in Switzerland. The question was in essence about where I feel at home. Good question. I don’t know that I have an answer for this right now.

In a way I have been thinking a lot about home. Specifically, I have been thinking about our life here now and our life in Switzerland. Most of the time on most days, I am very much in the present. But sometimes something will occur or remind me of our life in Switzerland, and often I am almost taken aback. The surprise I feel when I remember has given me a lot to think about.

Until these thoughts find form that is articulate and presentable, if at all, Ibsen‘s Peer Gynt is a great story to contemplate home and the journey.

If you’re not up for reading, then listen to the amazing Maria João Pires at the piano with Daniel Harding, playing Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No.1 Morgenstimmung/Morning Mood, and let it put you in a good mood no matter where you are in your day. Have a good one!

It’s the end of March, and the situation is not looking good for April. But let’s not start a new month or day for that matter with more doom and gloom. There’s enough of that going around. I must have been feeling a particular aversion to the news today, because I mostly stayed away from it.

Instead, I made a pot of bolognese. My go-to recipe for is from Marcella Hazan‘s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Her spaghetti carbonara is also a staple dish for us. I also like her recipe for roast chicken with lemons, but the oven gets totally blown up and just the thought of cleaning it makes me look forward to Thanksgiving instead.

Back in Zürich, whenever I had a hankering for a rotissiere chicken, I’d pick one up from the Gueggeli Express in our neighborhood. I miss that. I miss Zürich. But we’re here now, and the bolognese turned out pretty good. It does take some time to chop everything and cook it all up, but I make it worth my while by multiplying the recipe by three so I have a whole pot for days.

When I get around to cooking, I usually enjoy the process. Right now I especially appreciate the relaxing, meditative aspects. There is something soothing about the rituals of preparing and cooking food; washing, peeling, and chopping them; measuring, weighing, stirring, and timing ingredients. There is comfort in the clarity and directness of cooking, not to mention the aroma and warmth that fill the air and appetite.

I think some comfort would do us all good right about now. So get cookin’! If you’d rather just stay the couch potato, then watch Jacques Pépin make an omelette. It’s mesmerizing and looks deceptively easy. I can’t talk about bolognese without dropping a good spaghetti western, like A Fistful of Dollars. Hell, everyone could use a few extra now. Plus, c’mon,it’s Clint Eastwood.

Out of nowhere and for no particular reason I felt a spell cast on me, and not the magical and enchanting but rather the sad kind. It was Saturday afternoon and overcast outside. I was practicing piano when I was overcome with a feeling of listlessness. Suddenly I didn’t feel like doing anything. I didn’t even feel much of anything except an unexpected void.

I hunkered down, quite literally, on the couch and tried to relax. When that didn’t work, I called my mom, who sounded like a spell was cast on her too. I messaged friends in different places and talked to a friend in Brooklyn.

She said the sound of sirens is unsettling. To lighten up we joked about assigning store names when referring to different parts of the house, e.g. “I’m in Lowe’s living room.”; “I need to go to Bath & Bodyworks.”; “Let’s go to KFC kitchen.”; “It’s time to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond.”; etc., so it would seem less confining.

I took a nap and was a drowsy grouch when I woke up for dinner. We busied ourselves with chores all Sunday, so I was wiped out by bedtime. Today, however, back in the weekday routine I faced a blank page and wrestled with my thoughts and feelings in disarray.

W.H. Auden said “great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.” I do not claim to attempt art, much less great art, but I do endeavor to think clearly. Today, though, I do not know what I feel. So I do not have much by way of clear thinking to offer.

It’s possible that the state of the world at this time affects me more than I realize or care to admit. Do you feel the same way too?

While I did get some writing done, it was fitful with pause and interruption. I was visited upon by a furry friend, who cheered me up with his curious gaze from the outside looking in. And I’m so glad for the relief of brainless banter with friends, like this:

Being in a spell reminds me of Nina Simone’s I Put A Spell On You, which soothes the soul unlike the spell I’m in. What Happened Miss Simone is a great documentary I saw about her at Hot Docs in Toronto years ago. It’s worth a watch if you’re interested in an enigmatic artist, music, and African American history.

It’s possible the spell I’m in is some form of Melancholia. Of course it calls to mind Lars von Trier’s film, which, speaking of great art, is precisely that.

Right now numbers speak louder than words: over 85,000 and counting confirmed cases of Coronavirus COVID-19 in the United States, putting the U.S. in the “lead“; over 3 million U.S. unemployment claims; $2 trillion (how many zeros?) emergency assistance bill.

I had said to Martin one of these mornings that it is definitely a strange state of the world when we wake up and wonder what the numbers are before even the first cup of coffee. It’s no way to start the day. What’s macabre is the inclination to check on the “stats” throughout the day. I appreciate the overview of the CSSE dashboard from JSU, but listing countries by case numbers reminds me of Olympic rankings.

The postponement of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 was announced a few days ago. It is to be rescheduled for a later date until but not later than summer 2021. I hope it will indeed take place lest these numbers be foreboding of worst to come.

In dark and difficult times, let beacons like the vision and values of Olympism keep from despair. Instead of numbers consider the Olympic creed:

“The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.”

Yes, the numbers are dismal. Perhaps ponder pi instead. Better yet, why not bake and enjoy one:

Not feeling like baking, crunching numbers or lifting a finger really? Then I would consider maybe watching Pi, Darren Aronofsky’s debut about a mathematician’s obsession to find order in the world. Find order in the world: Isn’t that most of us right about now?

For lighter and fun film fare with numbers and math in the fore, there’s Good Will Hunting, which I would watch again more for Robin Williams and Stellen Skarsgaard than Ben and Matt. Still, “How do you like them apples?”

Hidden Figures is a heartwarming and uplifting true story about three African-American women working at NASA who were the brains that launched John Glenn into orbit.

Going way back: My sixth grade math teacher showed us Stand and Deliver, which resonated with me as an immigrant working-class kid with a math (algebra) fervent dad.

Good movies and good riddance to dismal numbers.

Shelter in place does not affect my daily routine. Whatever the status of my employment, undertaking or endeavor, I keep a schedule and approach it like any job. When things get off track I reassess and realign by making adjustments to my calendar, which I usually have planned out on weekdays and look something like this:

Of course it varies and there are days when I don’t adhere to any structure. Sometimes I’m shooting at the moving target that is motivation. But practice and maintaining a structured routine is essential for me.

After his second day of WFH (Work From Home; the abbreviation is all over messaging right now) last Tuesday, Martin’s home office rundown: “The order is a little different. I work. I eat breakfast, then I take a shower, work, eat lunch, work, then I have a beer.”

As for the two of us being together 24/7, we get along well and kerfuffles of any kind are resolved right away. We’re homebodies anyway, so having to stay home more is not the worst thing for us. The only change is sharing our living room and desk corner as office space.

We had gotten a piano in February, and Martin made a piano stand from scratch. It also functions as a table and desktop. He finished it just in time for it to be my new work space by the window.

All this talk about work and space brings to mind a great movie about just that, Office Space, a cult classic that satirizes everyday work life of 90’s a tech company and culture. It’s funny because it’s true. And maybe it’s also sad because it’s true; not much about tech company culture seems to have changed really.

In case you need a break from WFH, there’s always cute bear cub videos to space out on.

It seems a silver lining in the cloud of being confined is that we’re in touch more often with family and friends via messaging, video chat, virtual gatherings, and even good old fashioned phone calls just to talk to each other and not a customer representative. Several people I’m in close contact with have mentioned this as a notable difference in the past days and weeks.

I have a few more group chats and individual conversations going than usual. Besides check-ins, banter and discussion, a lot of coronavirus memes and information get passed around. And a lot of it is questionable, so I’ve been thinking about information and the dissemination thereof.

I can appreciate a clever meme that’s lol funny. Spam and unfounded information are vexing and cause me to question the sender’s sensibility. When I myself do this, i.e. send stuff I later find irrelevant or distasteful, I feel like a dummy. Then there are news articles and reports that are interesting to varying degrees when considering the publisher’s approach, such as the article with the above headline: “The USA in Fear.”

I was somewhat taken aback by the borderline sensational headline. Yes, there is confusion and anxiety here, but such a headline is overstated and does a disservice to disseminating accurate information.

My host-mom in Germany sent me snapshots of this article from her regional newspaper this morning as I’m standing in an quiet orderly line to restock on essentials:

She asks how things are here and what’s going on. In Germany, Angela Merkel called for the country to get it together and emphasized solidarity in combatting the crisis. Merkel’s announcements are worth watching for a compelling demonstration of understated steadfast leadership.

We are in regular contact, but when my German host-mom goes the extra mile to take and send me photos, which she never does, then she really wants to know the real story. The headline and article had given her the impression, or rather she had interpreted – a thin line – that things are falling apart here.

Aside from a misleading headline, my reading of the article is that its observations and reporting of the current situation here is at least a little distorted. For one thing it, its depicts the situation in the USA broadly as one entity whereas the reality is that the situation varies widely and greatly across states.

I assured my host-mom that things are not falling apart here, at least not yet and hopefully not at all. I also suggested she seek more balanced news sources. But my host-mom is used to reading her regional newspaper in print. How many quality print publications are there nowadays?

In a time when we are especially reliant on the news and accurate information from credible sources, the spread of misinformation and distorted narratives should be avoided as well. Whatever the news of is right now, Kate McKinnon as Angela Merkel is always there to save the day or good for a laugh at least.

If you’re also feeling somehow jet lagged or just drained from the sudden and extraordinary changes in the world this past week, then no wonder. It’s a lot to get one’s head wrapped around and adjust to at the same time.

In brief spells of absorption, I’ve replayed the timeline. How did we get here, or rather how did it get to this point in which we’re all called upon to flatten the curve?

Towards the end of February we were skiing and hanging out with friends in Lake Tahoe. The topic of coronavirus came up, but it was largely in the context of China’s handling of the outbreak with lockdowns. The short conversation concluded with the assumption that measures imposed in China would never be possible in America, because any hint deemed a threat to civil liberties are not only anathema but would not be tolerated here.

Hardly a month later we’re into the second week of shelter in place in California, and much of the rest of the world is in quarantine. The urgency warranting these unprecedented measures, however, appears to have not yet registered in the collective consciousness here.

As the situation further escalates and we brace for full-blown outbreak, it’s easy to get caught up pondering what next and to what extent. I don’t know that there’s much to do but stay put and wait it out. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, we were able to break from containment this past weekend with diversions like Knives Out, a smart, funny and thoroughly enjoyable film with some of my favorite actors: Daniel Craig (nuff said), Jamie Lee Curtis (still scary), Toni Collette (love), Christopher Plummer (Fräulein, we’re talking about Baron von Trapp here). Martin sums it up best, “At first I thought it’s a classic murder mystery, then I thought it’s not, and in the end…” and “For two hours I didn’t think about corona.”

Not in the mood for murder mystery? How about Midnight in Paris, always a go-to for getting away: Comedy, romance, time travel, the Roaring Twenties in Paris – so much fun, like running into Dalí. Oui, Paris, je t’aime.

The past week and last few days feel like a time loop in which we are reliving the same day. The weekend will be good to break from it.

I will be expanding this blog and look forward to catching up with you on Monday as we enter the second week of shelter in place.

Italy is on my mind and in my heart right now. The situation is dire. I am thinking of friends in Italy and those of you with family and close ties there.

In times of difficulty I think of Blaise Pascal’s concept of always keeping something beautiful in mind. For me thinking of Italy conjures deep connections, fond memories and great beauty.

During my high school exchange year in Germany, I spent a week exploring Tuscany. I was a super nerdy and totally oblivious 17-year old from California living it up in Italy: stumbling through the Uffizi looking for Michelangelo’s David (only to find he’s in the Galleria dell’Accademia), making friends with locals in Lucca, lounging on the beach in Elba musing about Napoleon in exile, pulling all sorts of shenanigans and mostly getting away with it. It was incredible, and even more so now looking back on it.

Italy not only figures prominently to Switzerland as a neighboring country, but the Italian language, culture and history are integral to Swiss national identity. When we lived in Zurich, we would often take trips to Ticino and northern Italy.

It was by way of Italy that I discovered Switzerland. On that first trip to Italy, I saw Switzerland for the first time and was captivated by its breathtaking beauty. I knew then that I had to come back. By the next summer I had gotten my first internship at Coop Schweiz headquarters in Basel and was living it up there as a film student.