Covid-19: Death

Today I'm just going to post some links, because I don't have the energy. Today, I've been feeling profoundly sad at what is going on—all the lives lost.

So, the first link is to today's episode of This American Life, called "Black Box." Specifically, "Act Two: State of Emergency," in which "producer Miki Meek talks to two emergency medical service workers in New York about the sheer number of 911 calls they are responding to, and how they are coping under the stress of being on constant high alert." The calls are predominantly for cardiac arrests, but in almost all cases, the victims present with coronavirus symptoms. One call after another, without stop. I can't imagine. One of the workers even mentioned that when he got a call that was "just a normal suicide," it was a relief—simply, for the moment, not to have to worry about the virus. The episode is six minutes long. It's worth a listen.

Link #2: the obituary of John Horton Conway, a "magical genius" in math. As the New York Times sums him up, "He made profound contributions to number theory, coding theory, probability theory, topology, algebra and more—and created games from it all. He died of the coronavirus." One of the games is called the Game of Life, which he described as a "no-player, never-ending game." Randall Munroe, on his xkcd website, created an animated memorial to Dr. Conway in the style of the Game of Life. (It's also in the obituary.) He was proudest of discovering surreal numbers, and of conceptualizing the Free Will Theorem. Read the obituary. Conway was quite something.

And #3: I haven't written about the death of John Prine, and I won't now, but it still, almost two weeks later, feels like a huge loss—like we've all lost one of our best friends. His songs of the "in-between spaces," as he put it, are part of the musicscape of so many of us. I'm glad they will live on, but damn. Last year when he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, he commented: "I gotta say, there’s no better feeling than having a killer song in your pocket, and you’re the only one in the world who’s heard it."

Here's the iconic "Angel from Montgomery" sung by him and Bonnie Raitt last November:

(And then, as if coronavirus isn't enough, I turn to FB and see a post about Nova Scotia: at least 16 dead in a shooting. In Nova Scotia. This after seeing frequent mentions that March was the first March since 2002 without a school shooting—only, of course, because schools are closed. The insanity persists. So tragic, so sad.)

So much death. RIP to all the souls who have left this earth.

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Monterey County's numbers crept up by 5, to 141, and there has now been a fourth fatality, a 72-year-old man.

Stay inside. Hug the ones you love (virtually as needed). Stay safe.