Search the Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Much like in most of the Midwest, it's dang cold in Michigan and I'm not interested in leaving the house. If you are looking for something to do in the comfort of your own home, head over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I just delighted in browsing the collection for two hours. Don't forget to take stretch breaks!

The lives of 100 people taken by COVID-19

This is not the most chipper post ever, but I felt a whole lot of feelings listening to the NY Times The Daily podcast from May 29, 2020. Also, it's the year 2020, so chipper has proven to be a relatively unlikely and unexpected mood, anyway.

The NY Times podcast linked above was produced after the United States passed the awful milestone of 100,000 COVID-19 related deaths last week. The podcast remembered 100 people of those 100,000. A handful of stories were expounded upon. Many got a one-fact line - "loved Elvis" or "was a renegade nun". Many of the last ones were names and ages. With about four minutes left to that segment, I paused the podcast. I didn't know if I could go on. I hit play again.

I had two separate thoughts as I listened:

1. When I have been in New York City, I always was interested in how people were able to make it in the Big Apple. My Midwest mindset found the big, BIG city life simply astounding and wondrous. New York just made me so much more interested in people. Dare I say, New York cracked open my ability to be empathetic. It exposed me to the incredible beauty, art, diversity and culture we humans can smash into our civilization. There's another side to that coin, but we'll just stick with the good one for now. Also, please note that these 100 people are from all over, not just NYC. It's just NYC is often on my mind, and it was on my mind listening to this.
2. When I started in prospect research, I read a lot of obituaries. When I no longer did that work, I kept reading obituaries. All my life I have been interested in how memory, life, death, and writing intersect. An obituary is one of those incredible intersections, something that is sad and celebratory, or short and heartbreaking, or some other combination of length and tone. I really appreciate great obituaries, as I found myself paralyzed and completely immobilized with sadness when trying to write my father's. I remain impressed with anyone who can focus enough to produce a great obituary, a piece about loss. 

The very last line of the 100 lives segment was someone's last words. I completely broke down and uttered "I hope that's the last one" through tears. Even a veteran obituary reader like myself found this hard to get through. Glad I did it, though.

The front page that day was pretty incredible, too. This was much like what Italy shared - the newspapers filling up with obituaries and death notices. Very powerful and so frightening.

Reader, prepare your tissues.

Being that it's 2020, surely you have them handy.

Book Review: Manhattan Transfer

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is set in the 1920's in New York City. It really captures the Jazz Age through a story full of characters that are all acquainted in one way or another. There are a couple tales that capture the fall from grace that some people experienced as the banks started failing. It also takes place over about 20 years. As a classic, I liked this novel. It was interesting and it certainly took me back to Prohibition New York. It's a little tough to read because, well, it came out in 1925, but also because sometimes the narration of the story digresses into a dreamy internal dialogue. Also, while there are line breaks between the stories within paragraphs, the character perspectives would change right in the middle of a section. Still, I enjoyed the book. It was dark, but in a subtle way.


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