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ratbonesI'm noticing a pandemic quarantine aesthetic emerging. It was bound to happen; this is a huge global cultural moment. We're all feeling strange, uncomfortable, and anxious. Everyone's routine has been disrupted, and most of us have extra free time at home. It's the ideal moment for art to happen. Weird art. Weird, slightly grim art that's very conscious of mortality and microbes and loneliness, i.e. my kind of weird.
Here are a few things I've found today: some photos, a tiny bit of music, and a podcast.
1. When I googled "covidpunk" to see if I had invented the term, this came up. I love everything about this photo, but especially the completely normal and boring bright yellow safety rails. There are a couple more coronavirus-related photos on r/Cyberpunk.
2. Comfy Quarantine, an ambient funk album with a really cool, distinct sound (although it's video game music/dungeon synth-y, which is how it came across my desk. I write and read to this kind of music sometimes.) It's ominous and chill at once, and feels a bit like a dry joke. I am looping it in the background right now.
3. Joseph Fink (Welcome to Night Vale) has a new nonfiction podcast called Our Plague Year. So far there is one episode, which I wholeheartedly enjoyed, and not just because the second essay is from a writer of apocalyptic fiction who is having a bit of a moment right now, although, yes, I feel that.
So here's the thing that is kind of stuck in my mind about this pandemic business: the past few years have been marked by division and hostility. We think we can't relate to each other, and we're all trying to move further apart. COVID-19 doesn't buy our bullshit. To a virus, each of us is a biome, and all of us are one body. The edges of our selves are illusory. We need each other. We breathe each other. We leak. We're one big pulsating superorganism that sustains collective damage, lives and dies in a tangle together. There's no such thing as fending for oneself. To me, it's a delicately spiced wafer of irony that we're all, right now, isolating ourselves for the greater good. In all honesty, I kind of love it.
...And episode one of Our Plague Year is sort of about that. It's about connection and social distancing, and processing how things have become so bizarre so quickly. I think I'm going to really enjoy this podcast going forward, although Joseph Fink admits to not being exactly sure where it's going.
This is just a very thin slice of things that are making me feel a certain thing about coronavirus, but I am, completely predictably, loving the vibe. And making lemonade out of lemons. Predictably. If you have any links or pics or anything that feels related, I want them.
(Obligatory writing update: I've been stuck in an annoying slump pretty much since All-Consuming wrapped, but I'm finally getting both hands around that epilogue-type-thing with some nudging from my dear @sylleblahsome. I also have the bare-bones plot for my next fic, and I'm really excited to start writing it, although I think I should watch the last few episodes of The Untamed first so I can focus.)
Here are a few things I've found today: some photos, a tiny bit of music, and a podcast.
1. When I googled "covidpunk" to see if I had invented the term, this came up. I love everything about this photo, but especially the completely normal and boring bright yellow safety rails. There are a couple more coronavirus-related photos on r/Cyberpunk.
2. Comfy Quarantine, an ambient funk album with a really cool, distinct sound (although it's video game music/dungeon synth-y, which is how it came across my desk. I write and read to this kind of music sometimes.) It's ominous and chill at once, and feels a bit like a dry joke. I am looping it in the background right now.
3. Joseph Fink (Welcome to Night Vale) has a new nonfiction podcast called Our Plague Year. So far there is one episode, which I wholeheartedly enjoyed, and not just because the second essay is from a writer of apocalyptic fiction who is having a bit of a moment right now, although, yes, I feel that.
So here's the thing that is kind of stuck in my mind about this pandemic business: the past few years have been marked by division and hostility. We think we can't relate to each other, and we're all trying to move further apart. COVID-19 doesn't buy our bullshit. To a virus, each of us is a biome, and all of us are one body. The edges of our selves are illusory. We need each other. We breathe each other. We leak. We're one big pulsating superorganism that sustains collective damage, lives and dies in a tangle together. There's no such thing as fending for oneself. To me, it's a delicately spiced wafer of irony that we're all, right now, isolating ourselves for the greater good. In all honesty, I kind of love it.
...And episode one of Our Plague Year is sort of about that. It's about connection and social distancing, and processing how things have become so bizarre so quickly. I think I'm going to really enjoy this podcast going forward, although Joseph Fink admits to not being exactly sure where it's going.
This is just a very thin slice of things that are making me feel a certain thing about coronavirus, but I am, completely predictably, loving the vibe. And making lemonade out of lemons. Predictably. If you have any links or pics or anything that feels related, I want them.
(Obligatory writing update: I've been stuck in an annoying slump pretty much since All-Consuming wrapped, but I'm finally getting both hands around that epilogue-type-thing with some nudging from my dear @sylleblahsome. I also have the bare-bones plot for my next fic, and I'm really excited to start writing it, although I think I should watch the last few episodes of The Untamed first so I can focus.)
no subject
Date: 2020-03-19 01:21 pm (UTC)I hadn't thought about it, but when I read that I thought "oh that sounds like my jam" and then I looked at the first picture you linked and my first reaction was hgnngngngng so yeah, we definitely share that in common. (my gas masks tag on Tumblr)
The edges of our selves are illusory. We need each other. We breathe each other. We leak. We're one big pulsating superorganism that sustains collective damage, lives and dies in a tangle together. There's no such thing as fending for oneself. To me, it's a delicately spiced wafer of irony that we're all, right now, isolating ourselves for the greater good.
This is flat gorgeous writing and would make a beautiful essay if you wanted to expand it.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 03:57 am (UTC)Ahh thanks! Right now I don't really have more to say, but I think we're all going to be thinking about this for a while, so maybe I'll wind up writing something longer later on.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-23 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-24 05:28 am (UTC)