Notes from the
End of the World

Each night in 2020 I’m writing a short post because I want to etch these strange days into my memory before I forget them. Before the world changes completely.

April 3, 2020

Prediction

I thought I’d devote my energies to becoming pure and benedictine, brand new and all-seeing. Instead I scroll and refresh.

April 2, 2020

Doubt

Now they’re saying the virus spreads by talking and breathing. We can kill each other just by being a person.

April 1, 2020

Loop

Passing each other on the sidewalk, we hold our breaths like children in a graveyard.

March 31, 2020

Shake

Don’t shake out your dirty laundry, the television says. You might release a viral cloud.

March 30, 2020

Cheer

There’s the guy I’ve always wondered about, the one across the street who leaves big chunks of bread on the fire escape for the pigeons.

March 29, 2020

Grid

Meanwhile, I’m reverting to the diet of a five-year-old. All I want to eat are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

March 28, 2020

Conspiracy

Each headline is more disorienting than the last, and these pandemic days are breeding baroque conspiracies.

March 27, 2020

Mojo

Every night the Electrifying Mojo would sign off with the same message and I want us to hear it in our heads now, delivered in a slow baritone with a grin around the edges.

March 26, 2020

Point

The optics feel wrong, more like a simulation than reality; it’s eerie to see New Yorkers so evenly spaced apart.

March 25, 2020

Kneel

I hear the undoing of a lock and her voice calling behind me. “Thank you, darling. Pray for me.”

March 24, 2020

Six

A deeper hush fills the city, a sense of bracing for an unseen blow. We know things will get worse.

March 23, 2020

Night

This is dedicated to the nighthawks and graveyard shifters, you beautiful enemies of sleep.

March 22, 2020

Blank

I spent the morning scrolling through images of empty highways and blank parking lots that look like a new form of land art or maybe a message to the gods.

March 21, 2020

Anger

Once this is over and we’re allowed to gather outside again, I hope we take to the streets for all kinds of reasons.

March 20, 2020

Artificial

There’s a blush of dopamine, an uncoiling of the nerves. The smudged memory of doing arts and crafts in a classroom while a storm beats against the windows.

March 19, 2020

Hothouse

Tonight I sympathize with Will Durant’s wistful sketch of Rousseau: “He escaped from the stings of reality into a hothouse world of dreams.”

March 18, 2020

Quiet

There was a time when I would count how many words I said each day. At night I logged the number into a notebook. Sixteen. Twenty-three.

March 17, 2020

Suspension

These are long days of suspension. For a moment I convince myself that everything is just fine. That I must have imagined the whole thing.

March 16, 2020

Vigilance

Riffling through an old box of keepsakes, I came across a note that I wrote to her five years ago.

March 15, 2020

Distance

I run through Central Park, passing joggers with balaclavas and kerchiefs wrapped around their faces like they’ve been throwing Molotov cocktails.

March 14, 2020

Communion

I needed to work with my hands today. To be reminded that I can make something that takes up space and serves a need.

March 13, 2020

Control

I’m beginning to understand the street preachers and late night radio voices who root through arcane numerology and biblical verses that implicate Wall Street, Hollywood, and the United Nations.

March 12, 2020

Storm

The streets hum with a hunter-gather energy that brings to mind the days before a hurricane. Except there is no storm, only the prospect of staying indoors.

March 11, 2020

Spike

Meanwhile in New York City, we’re told the subway is safe although we should avoid taking it.

March 10, 2020

Denial

A note on Barnett Newman’s portrait of “the agony that is single, constant, unrelenting, willed—world without end.”

March 9, 2020

Pantheon

The house of all the gods.

March 8, 2020

Country

Went to an exhibition about the countryside that felt like walking into a Wikipedia entry written under the influence of heavy-duty stimulants.

March 7, 2020

Armory

The brittle energy of coronavirus anxiety commingled with ritualized decadence. Face masks and champagne stations.

March 6, 2020

Fortune

Once again, the question that haunts me when I approach any kind of altar: Am I allowed to pray before you if I don’t understand you?

March 5, 2020

Sanitizer

We wash our hands constantly like we’ve done something wrong. We try not to touch our faces.

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