First off, many thanks for all the congratulations that flooded in for Endemic winning its category at the New York Book Festival. I treasured every note and email. I also discovered how often my posts and tweets are utterly ignored. Folks I hadn’t heard from in years popped up to say hi! That was nice. This is also your friendly reminder that I’m a scintillating delight all the time, not just when I win a literary award. (wink!)
Second, I have a fresh interview about Endemic over at Literary Titan. It’s about the demands of writing relatable apocalyptic fiction in the middle of a pandemic. There I was in my blanket fort, masked up and hypervigilant, washing groceries, and as paranoid as a squirrel on cocaine. What to do? What to do? Write the drama and trauma, of course!
An actual viral apocalypse was on like Donkey Kong. Bodies were filling freezer trucks outside my local hospital. In hindsight, it might have been cheerier to try a different genre. Sweet romance might have been easier to sell when readers were looking for a cheerier escape. However, the themes of Endemic run deep. Although I wrote a fictionalized bio of my criminal exploits in New York (Brooklyn in the Mean Time), it is Endemic that claims the prize of being my most personal book.
I wrote Endemic because I had to.
Read the full interview here: https://literarytitan.com/2022/07/31/the-real-demands-of-the-end-of-the-world/
Schools in the Time of COVID
My wife, the venerable She Who Must Obeyed, works in the school system. Like all other rational people, we have some concerns. As a guy who has written about killer plagues and various apocalypses for a living, I’m rather focused as I watch my dire predictions come true. Rather than hash all that out with my many, many opinions, I have a suggestion: Listen to the latest episode of This American Life.
Hosted by Ira Glass, the podcast is always well-produced and thoughtful. This may be the best one yet. It’s called Long-awaited Asteroid Finally Hits Earth. Despite the ominous title, not all the news is bad (and it’s all interesting).
From an anti-mask demonstration by outraged parents to anxious teachers working the frontline of the pandemic, this is a thought-provoking story of how people are learning and coping. Students’ reactions to our new reality might leave you a little more hopeful as we tiptoe into the fall and whatever comes next.
Have a listen. You’ll be glad you did!
This American Life
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/715/long-awaited-asteroid-finally-hits-earth
Solutions to the Mess We’re In
AKA Better Safe Than Sorry, Part III
If the mortal threat is not real until the pandemic affects you personally, that’s a failure of empathy and foresight. I don’t know if empathy can be taught. Leading by example is good (wear a mask!) but we must fine selfish assholes who refuse to comply for no other reason than performative belligerence.
Feel no urge to protect the herd? Pow! Here’s a ticket. Still no mask? Pow! Here’s another ticket. How’s your wallet feel now? Still nothing? We’re impounding your car. Ready to participate in society, be a hero and save lives yet? No? I’m taking your phone and you’re grounded. Go to your room.
What else can we do when science is not believed? I have some ideas.
Appeal 1: Patriotism
This is a war. We’ve suffered casualties. For this conflict, rifles and Blackhawk helicopters won’t help. We’re all drafted and on the line, saving lives. Your mask is your armor. Gear up, Citizen Soldier!
Appeal 2: Self-interest
The life you save might be your own. Do you care for somebody? Anybody? You could spare them pain, suffering or death, too.
Appeal 3: Vanity
New Zealanders can do something you can’t? Wimp.
Appeal 4: Religion
You may not want to wear a mask because if you die, you’ll just get to heaven sooner. Cool, but wouldn’t Jesus want us to look out for each other? Do unto others, etc.? If someone dies before they know Jesus because you found a mask too inconvenient… Well, do selfish assholes go directly to heaven? Or do they have to wait in shame for a while at the back of the line?
Appeal 5: Shunning
You broke the social contract. We are enforcing our mask policy. No, you cannot enter the store. No goods or services for you.
Make the crisis personal. Shun them until they feel enough social pressure to save lives.
Appeal 6: Conspiracy theory
“Don’t wear masks to defeat Bill Gates’ contagion and tracking vaccine. Wear the mask to defeat facial recognition technology.” And/or: “The globalists don’t really want you to wear a face covering. It’s a fake out. They created and released the virus to kill you so they can steal your vote. Besides, masks destroy the effects of 5G. It’s been documented.”
Note: A conspiracy theory doesn’t have to make sense. You don’t have to science it up. Just tap into the sap’s need to feel targeted and victimized. “They’re out to get you so you have to do X, Y, Z,” is a reliable formula.”
Appeal 7: Economics
I get that you want to get back to normal and get the economy going again. Me, too!
Mass death and the looming threat thereof seems bad for the economy, though, right? It’s not enough to declare it’s safe for everybody to go back to work. It has to actually be and feel safe. Put a ref on the field and get the rabid tigers back in their cages or we aren’t playing.
Appeal 8: Civility
We wear masks here because we care for each other. Pretty please?
Appeal 9: Sexiness
Damn! You’re lookin’ like a snack in that mask! Those eyes! And looking so mysterious and alluring! When the pandemic is over and the borders open, I want to make sweet love to you in Paris.
Or:
I pledge to never bless anyone with my fine naked self if they refused to be a decent person during a global pandemic. I’ve got too much self-respect to even deal with anyone so careless.
No glove, no love. No mask? Don’t even ask.
Appeal 10: Fear
As the Facebook meme goes, if you don’t like wearing a mask, you’re really going to hate the ventilator. Drowning on land is a horrible way to die. And even if you survive, COVID-19 is a nasty, cold-hearted bitch. The painful effects can last a long time, maybe for the rest of your miserable life.
And if I survive, I’ll be your Meals on Wheels angel every day. I’ll bring you soup at noon and with every goddamn sip and dribbling slurp I spoon feed you, I’ll utter those same dreadful words, “I told you so.” Scared yet?
Last-ditch attempt:
It’s okay to be ignorant. Just don’t stay wrong.
If you refuse to believe in science and continue to look for ways to deny the obvious, that’s a human failing. You don’t want to be told what to do. You don’t want to be wrong. Nobody likes to admit they were wrong about anything.
Me included!
In 2010, when I wrote This Plague of Days, I believed that the protective barrier masks provide would be made useless after 20 minutes of respiration. That was generally believed right up to early this year! The science changed because more research was done. Findings change as the science improves.
Wearing masks dramatically decreases transmission of coronavirus. We have to improve alongside the science. The willfully ignorant use motivated reasoning to condemn Dr. Fauci and the CDC on this point. Yes, he was wrong about something in the past. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong now.
Rather than changing and admitting a past mistake, some double down on being wrong in the present. That’s a formula for more grieving and loss.
The way things are going, particularly in the US and Brazil now, we will all know someone who has died of COVID-19. We’ve already had too much unnecessary death and pain. Let’s stop making more. Please, wear a mask.
The most tragic last words I’ve heard were reported this week.
A young woman about to be put on a ventilator gasped her last with, “I think I made a mistake. I thought it was a hoax.”
She had not acted on better safe than sorry. Then she was sorry too late.
~ This concludes the Better Safe Than Sorry series of three posts I had to get off my chest. If you missed the first two, here are the links:
Better Safe Than Sorry Part I
Better Safe Than Sorry Part II
People are often lousy at assessing risks
Have you noticed how many people get visibly angry and defensive when they’re asked to wear a mask? In most cases, false excuses or conspiracy theories are dragged out. I’ve tried to make sense of the conspiracy theories. If it were a hoax, damn, it’s a good one. All those crisis actors buried in coffins worldwide have really committed to the bit!
There’s no sense to be made of it. If it’s all “a liberal plot to bring down the economy,” how’s that work? Nobody has their own economy that’s exempt from the effects of the crisis. We all want to go back to the movies and eat overpriced popcorn, dude. I’ve already given that nonsense too much space here, so…
Numbers versus Celebrity Death
In the past few days, three well-loved celebrities have died. An actress succumbed to breast cancer. A young actress who performed on Glee drowned. A former co-host of Mythbusters passed away unexpectedly. You’ve seen the news stories. You can probably name at least one of these high-profile people. We say any death is a loss, and it is. My purpose is not to cast aspersions on grieving fans, friends, or the families of dead performers.
The point is that humans are lousy at conceiving of large numbers like 138,000 dead in the United States (and climbing).
But each of those who’ve fallen to COVID-19 have names. They loved their children, fought with their parents, adored sandwiches, and watched baseball. They had dreams. They will be missed by their loved ones. They’re all real, but to too many people, “I don’t know them so it doesn’t count.”
2,977 people died on 9/11 and people lost their minds. Dennis Miller’s sense and sense of humor vanished. Wars began. Many more innocents lost their lives as a result of that one day. We saw the tragedy on our TV screens on repeat. We saw the reactions of the witnesses on the ground. We heard the last phone calls from hostages on the planes about to crash. That made the attack real and the horror of it touched everyone.
Up the numbers some more. Medical personnel see the horror, but due to strict regulations about privacy, you aren’t seeing what it’s like to go on a ventilator day after day. Amp up the human suffering behind closed door and…numbness.
We’re numb. It’s understandable. Big numbers are hard. We can’t picture infinity, either.
Better Safe Than Sorry Part I
You’re in the audience of a supper club waiting for the main act to take the stage. A young man approaches the microphone to warn you a fire has broken out in the building. What do you do?
If you answered that you would head for the fire exits, maybe not.
Remember “Better safe than sorry”?
It seems that aphorism has lost its power. When the scenario above played out in real life, 167 people died. Why? Because when a relatively uncomplicated life and death decision popped up, many in the audience did not trust authority. Instead, they looked to each other.
The phenomenon and the scientific basis for it is detailed in an excellent podcast I’m sure you’ll enjoy. It’s called “Cautionary Tales.” Here’s the link to the relevant episode:
CAUTIONARY TALES – FIRE AT THE BEVERLY HILLS SUPPER CLUB
Look around, look around
I had to go to the grocery store last night. The supper club disaster was much on my mind. A good number of people wore masks, but quite a few did not. We look to each other for affirmation. When people are better safe than sorry, they wear masks. The more people wear masks, even more people will wear masks.
“Nobody else is wearing a mask so I’m not going to,” really means, “If I see other people being careless about other people’s lives, I can, too.”
Nobody likes being told what to do. I knew an old guy who cut the seatbelts out of every car he owned. One of my kids went through a phase where he would run off, sometimes into the street. We put a harness and leash on him until the feeling passed. He got over the impulse before he started to shave. He didn’t like the harness at first. It soon became normal. That’s how he survived.
Suggestion: Make masks cool and free and supply them everywhere.
I want a black mask. They look badass.
COVID-19 is a zombie pandemic
Don’t believe COVID-19 is a zombie pandemic?
Please consider the tropes of the zombie genre:
- Zombies represent a force of nature, indifferent to your pain, suffering, and death.
- As the contagion spreads, many people are in denial at first. “This can’t be real. It’s a hoax!”
- Scientists who warned of the looming disaster are not believed.
- Then, “It’s a plot!”
- “It’s not my problem until the infection comes for me.”
- Normal life as we know it is over, yet some try to pretend otherwise.
- Two tribes: “Working together, we can save more people,” versus “I take care of me and mine.”
- Traveling large distances is suddenly a huge challenge.
- Healthcare systems become overwhelmed and economies collapse.
- Though the virus can infect everyone and anyone, the privileged try to cling to their privilege.
- Riots. When the rich do it, it’s called scavenging for survival. When the poor do it, it’s called looting.
- People with power and/or authority abuse others.
- People who were previously undervalued are suddenly prized for their survival skills.
- People without useful expertise experience a sudden plummet in their self-esteem and question their role and identity in these new, dire circumstances.
- Many hoard and hide, determined to wait it out “until this thing blows over.” (But it doesn’t blow over unless you’re watching Shawn of the Dead.)
- Some turn to religion, others to drugs. Coping styles vary widely. Some don’t cope at all and hurt themselves and others.
- Weapons, weapons everywhere.
- Bored and frustrated, some act out in very unhelpful ways.
- Governments respond too little, too late, or not at all while reassuring their frightened citizenry that everything’s going to be okay.
- The dead we know personally are mourned. We become numb to the huge statistics of the butcher’s bill.
- People try to hold on to normalcy, focus on minutiae, and cry in private.
- Some infected deny they’re infected, endangering the rest of their group.
- With no end in sight, depression and anxiety are heightened while we put on a brave face for the benefit of children.
- Some vocal and angry slice of the populace is pissed off at Nature but instead aim their rage at the brilliant virologist who is trying to save them.
- Conspiracy theories, conjecture, and rumors replace the news media.
- Some take change as a chance at a reset, aspiring to change the world for the better.
- Others, looking backward through a rose-colored lens, reject the fresh start, wanting nothing more than to get back to their routines as they were.
- People value their units more, whether that unit is family, friends, or loyal connections.
- Some regret what they didn’t do with their lives. Others find new meaning in rising to meet the challenges of their new circumstances.
Years ago, someone on a Facebook webinar dismissed me as “just one of those zombie writers.”
Three things about that bit of dickishness:
First, neener-neener-poo-poo. I’m not “just” anything, balloon head. Read a little more and a little deeper and toss your assumptions in the trash. This Plague of Days is the slow burn that strikes at the heart of our highest hopes and our greatest failings when confronting a pandemic. AFTER Life is packed with fast-paced action and still digs deep into the choices we make and what it means to be human. There’s more going on here than meets the eye, dumbass.
Second, z-lit can serve as a rich metaphor for Nature, uncaring and brutal as it can be. Infection and contagion are unrelenting existential threats, and they are always with us. Life and its mortal limits are the constant subtexts of the human condition. World pandemics elevate those threats so they are no longer subtextual. Unless you’re reading this post from New Zealand, you’re soaking in a zombie apocalypse scenario right now. (See above.)
Third, zombie novels are not about zombies. It’s the human response to existential threats that makes the drama. How we respond to stress, whether we help or hurt, die with grace or go out in pain and regret…these are all human stories in which thoughtlessness kills, cowards are exposed, and heroes rise.
So, what’s it going to be today?
Will you bravely and carefully venture out into the Badlands to beyond your walls in search of food? Will you shelter in place and act in the spirit of kindness to comfort others to ease our collective burdens? Or are you going to be a selfish superspreader who goes out without a mask to spread disease and add to the suffering, death, and mayhem?
Hint: In fiction and in real life, things often do not end well for the cowards and malicious disease spreaders. Choose wisely and wear a damn mask. After all, if you’re an unthinking, unfeeling creature who lacks empathy and forethought, you’re already a zombie.
All I’ve got for you
I have witnessed police act like thugs and bullies to the citizens they were sworn to protect. Last night, two NYPD police SUVs rammed into a crowd of peaceful protesters behind a barrier. Ordinary citizens are having to step up to protect their neighborhoods. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a lot of hope at the moment.
The murder of George Floyd was a horrific act, but of course it is not isolated. Sandra Bland, Amaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, and Eric Garner come to mind first, but that’s just off the top of my head. (Here’s more if you need reminding.)
Over and over, through the night and across the country, we saw more video of the kind of actions that are being protested. Although Seattle police were ordered to turn off their body cams, there is ample evidence that many bad actors have no fear of being filmed while they commit criminal acts. They aren’t helping their cause. They’re often making things worse. They’ve discarded their oaths. They are neither serving nor protecting. Remember when we used to call them peace officers? Instead, they’re often militarized and failing to deescalate.
Don’t tell me policing is a hard job. Surely they knew that when they signed up. You know what’s hard? Being an unarmed black man, woman, or child trying to live and get by without harassment, fear and subjugation.
There have been a few bright spots. One senior police official told those under his command that if they’re okay with the mistreatment and murder of George Floyd, they must turn in their badges immediately. The police chief in Louisville marched with the protesters. That’s a good way to go, but there’s a lot of distance between what ought to be and what is.
It’s frustrating to watch America dissemble and disassemble, but this was all too predictable. Rebellion comes from a perfect storm of several variables and systemic racism is only one component. Health care failures, failure of leadership, the coronavirus, the rent crisis, tossing Americans $1200 that was supposed to somehow last ten weeks. Many Americans didn’t even get that $1200 and no more relief is in sight. There are more Americans unemployed than there are Canadians on Earth. You can’t demand the oppressed to be patient forever without offering some hope of real change.
For your consideration:
Mike Schmidt’s latest podcast episode is called I’m in the Club. It’s about what’s happening to his country right now. Mike’s great at articulating frustration. I recommend it. It’s NSFW, but neither is America.
A while back, I recommended the podcast called It Could Happen Here, a thoughtful take on the potential for America falling into rebellion and ruin. Here’s the link:
And here’s the link to my most recent recording, “The Face of Victory.”
Taken from one of my anthologies, All Empires Fall, this audio short story was meant to be near-future science fiction about a peaceful protest that goes very wrong. Today it feels all too prescient.
For a longer read and a deeper dive:
For a novel about the gap between rich and poor and what it means for the soul of America, check out Citizen Second Class. It’s about what happens when the rich press the poor down for so long and so hard that, in desperation, they are forced to rise up.
I take no pleasure in watching what is happening in the United States. I have so many friends and readers who live there and I am worried for them. Future historians will spend their entire careers and write many books about the Trump era generally and 2020 in particular.
Frustrated and helpless, I can offer my best wishes for their safety, but what is that worth, really? It’s a civil war and a horror. It’s a rebellion. Thoughts and prayers are insufficient. Only change will do, but I see no path forward at the moment.
I can offer podcasts to articulate the crisis. I can offer fiction to provide distraction and stress relief. I’m so sorry that’s all I’ve got.