living incoronavirusworld 79: We're all in this together

6/9

every street, everyhouse

I notice for the first time that one of my neighbors works for Montefiore Hospital.  I see her coming home tired, in her scrubs. 

We notice from out of nowhere, our front wall has been invaded by lady bugs. They are all over. She'll cal the super.

Sigh.  Antifa is not terrorist. It’s not even an organization. And the 75 year old man,  Martin Gugino has nothing to do with Antifa. He’s lifelong peace activist and Catholic Worker. Shoved to the ground by police and bleeding. In the hospital. Critical care. Sigh.

Drinking coffee all  day is beginning to not feel good. I think back to my time in Argentina. And Uruguay. And the role of mate in daily life. With its rituals, mates and bombillas. How Argentines share a common mate. And Uruguayans hold their own close. I find the mate give to me by the friends I worked with there.  I find my bag of Yerba on the top shelf. Boil some water, Make some tea. Sip slowly with my bombilla. It’s late fall there now. I wonder how covid19 has impacted the mate ritual.  I allow the earthiness of the tea to comfort me awhile. Yerba is to tea as single malt is to scotch.

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I hear through my window the sound of the jaunty Mister Softee ice cream truck. And the fora few minutes a duet with whining emergency sirens. It sees to have meaning at some visceral level. Sorry that I didn't record a sample for my new music composer friends. 

Mate

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What happened here?

I make my time in Morningside Park last. On my way out, notice the burned out carcass of a car. 

There must be a story

Many people stop to snap a picture. What happened here? Seriously? There must be a story….

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My friends at Uni-Watch: the obsessive study of athletics aesthetics(long story)...have come up with a fitting pin for this time....

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....in this together

The only  show on television in all its current forms that best portrays the struggle for faithful living in modern secular society is Ramy, starring Egytpian -America millennial standup artist Ramy Yourself. He’s fully integrated into life with his peers, a Jersey guy, as it were. But still seeking to be a faithful .In this he could just as easily be a Christian or Jew but through his unique particularity the universal is revealed.

  The show opens up in careful detail the conflicts and tensions of living as Muslim in the United States.  With very real differences, we also see how similar we are. To which one appropriately should say simply “duh”….It is very much appreciated to have pop culture portray taking God seriously, objectively. A life that is not to be stereotyped or romanticized but just is. It’s well worth a look, streaming  on Hulu.  Ramy also has an HBO stand up special the end of which took my breath away.  (Spoiler alert) In his final  scene he describes 9-11. How Americans turned against their Muslim neighbors. How the US responded by invading Iraq and conducting war in Afghanistan both of which continue 19 years later and have alienated most of the Arab and Muslim world.  US Muslim have turned toward each others and secular Muslims like Ramy pushed to reconnect with their Muslim  faith and identity. As he describes all this he stops, pauses, says, “Do you think….do you think…maybe…9/11 worked?” The audience gasps, he quickly goes back to another bit but the question stays with you, haunts you.