comforting fiction

An untruth we tell ourselves, or tell others, to keep from having to face facts, and to ease us through hard times.

Just wash your hands and you'll be fine, warm weather will make it disappear, only old people can die from it... one comforting fiction after another could not disguise the truth that we were all in for a long, painful journey.

by Monkey's Dad April 15, 2020

Anti-Mask League

An organization of Americans opposed to wearing masks during the 1918 Flu Pandemic, which killed 50 million people.

"The 'Anti-Mask League' protest in San Francisco was an orderly protest compared to people fighting in Walmarts today," said Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian and a physician who leads the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. "Today, the anti-mask sentiment has a virulence and violence of its own that we didn't see back then."

by Monkey's Dad August 16, 2020

Whensday?

Some day of the week or other, during Covid, when time is disordered.

The Zoom meeting is... Whensday? Or what.

by Monkey's Dad August 26, 2020

Like

By the year 2050, the sole remaining word in spoken English - a language once said to comprise 171,476 words, in a mode of communication once ubiquitous, then common, then, like, whatever. It was deemed, like, for real? and finally supplanted by enthusiastically written English, ie: texted abbreviations and emojis.

He was, like, 2050? and I'm like, what? and he went, like, the, like, single, like, remaining word in, like, whoa, and I'm, like, whatever

by Monkey's Dad October 13, 2019

the city that never stirs

New York in the grip of the pandemic

Silent and empty, The City That Never Sleeps had swiftly become The City That Never Stirs.

by Monkey's Dad March 22, 2020

catch-and-kill

To buy the rights, or otherwise pay, to prevent a news story from being published. The title of Ronan Farrow's new book on the subject.

American Media Inc., allegedly engaged in catch-and-kill to control negative stories about Donald Trump's involvement with porn star Stormy Daniels. Similarly, Republican members of The Bohemian Grove paid to prevent release of the 1981 film "Star Spangled Boner" starring John Holmes as Ronald Reagan.

by Monkey's Dad March 30, 2020

becoming real

Moving from a general concept to the inescapably specific.

Seeing a face he knew on the front page of The Times, the first nurse in New York to die of the virus, it was becoming real, no longer a statistic, and other faces would follow.

by Monkey's Dad March 27, 2020