8: julia alekseyeva, decolonising wine, picassocore, virtual cattle battle, pizza arbitrage
Has it really been so long? When the country erupted in flames it didn’t really seem right to keep putting this out, something so intentionally designed to be frivolous, joyful, pleasurable. It’s still burning of course, but here we are again, nearly three months later. You’ll notice a new category of Watermark—loosely, the Gulf and Indian Ocean—which relates to a book proposal I’m currently working on. So very much is new with me at that; for those interested, I’ll be sending out an extended update on my (even more neglected) personal tinyletter soon.
Reading this week’s quarantine diary, from my friend Julia Alekseyeva—a film scholar in Philly and also a talented graphic novelist—feels like such time travel now. (So too will some of these links). I have another one lined up for next week, also written in May, but afterwards—? I’m leaning towards removing the section, but what should I replace it with, now that the quarantine period, for places more functional than the US, is mostly over? Keep it? The images here are from a 16th-century materia medica and feel perfect for this week’s too hot, too still, slightly jaundiced feeling.
spiky boi
Long before face masks, Islamic healers tried to ward off disease with their version of PPE. The Amazon, giver of life, unleashes the pandemic. Jim Bakker’s prepper village is having the worst apocalypse ever. How to draw the coronavirus. Exam anxiety: how remote test proctoring is creeping students out. The unheroic reality of being a restaurant worker during this pandemic. Iran’s chemical weapons survivors struggle withe coronavirus—and US sanctions. Contagion or cure? A history of healing and pandemic in Qom. The US is building a contact tracer army. Return of indenture. Campus has closed, so college students are rebuilding their schools in Minecraft. What you learn when you read obituaries. How Pokémon Go is adapting for a quarantined world. The strange, smelly chores that keep natural history museums running. VIRTUAL CATTLE BATTLE. My quarantine partner is my eating disorder. In Mexico City, the coronavirus is bringing back Aztec-era floating gardens.
glouglou and snackchat
The problems with palm oil don’t stop with my recipes. It’s time to decolonise wine. Who will save the food timeline? Curry before Columbus. The peckish patient. How to feed a dictator. Thailand’s spirits have a taste for strawberry Fanta. Guy Fieri is the last unproblematic food person. Dalgona coffee—viral or vapid? How a West African woman became the ‘Pastry Queen’ of colonial Rhode Island. Restaurant thinks mannequins will make social distancing less awkward.The ‘lion-faced’ Iranian cafes of Karachi. Is the world ready for Pringles flavoured noodles?The secret history of America’s oldest tofu shop. The sacred ritual of meals with my mother. The man who’s going to save your neighbourhood grocery store. Cooking with care. Cracking the case of missing South Asian vegetables. Pizza Arbitrage. Zoos make birthday cakes from bugs, bamboo, melons, and more. The gulp war.
watermark
A world built on sand and oil. A British scientist is revered in Japan as the “Mother of the Sea.” Exploring the Indian Ocean as a rich archive of history—above and below the water line. Black Saudi author focuses on neglected history of African migration and slavery. Why Gulf Standard Time is far from standard: the fascinating story behind the time zone’s invention. The empty houses that foreign aid built. Annulling the marriage of two men: a note in a Yemeni manuscript. Sawt al-Bahrain: a window into the Gulf’s social and political history. Modernist architecture in Abu Dhabi. Syriac churches and Sephardic synagogues: the urban legacy of Indian Ocean cosmopolitanistm in Kerala. Fighting for science in the shadow of Al-Shabaab. In search of Bidesia: the forgotten songs of Indian slaves. “You’re light enough not to complain but dark enough not to marry.”
☞\( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞ yeehaw
Music for plants. My midlife crisis as a Russian sailor. The strange tale of Nelson Mandela’s gold-cast hands. The true story of the heartthrob prince of Qatar and his time at USC. Men hired for sexual fantasy break into wrong house. Pablo Picasso is the unheralded king of summer style. Frog eats beetle, beetle crawls through guts to escape. This McMansion with a fake town in its basement. Man who lost penis to blood infection has a new one built on his arm. Oil paintings to vectors: the history of Arabic book design. The Cambrian creatures that grew up over the course of 28 bodies. The last Kirghiz khan in Gilit. Tall man out. Apricot wars: an Armenian-Azerbaijani battle in Moscow. A year on from a devastating siege, Kashmir is being turned into a colony. South Asia’s coded signals. Superstitious or anticolonial? On Kaderi derwish marchers. The ugly history of beautiful things: lockets. What my mother didn’t talk about.
quarantine culture diary: julia alekseyeva
monday
Like most days in Corona Times, I wake up after a long, semi-lucid nightmare. Last night B and I had an intensely emotional argument with several friends of ours over Zoom; the medium did not make things any better, and I found myself staring directly into my rage-contorted face. I feel oddly calm now, resigned, as I fold laundry. It will be a day of endless Zooming, so I dress presentable: a patterned button-up, jeans, and a beat-up 80s cardigan with shoulder pads.
I walk the dog around our quiet neighborhood and see just a few humans outside, walking their canines or toddlers. BIG DOG! a small blonde child yells, and his parent (?) looks at me warily. I eat a bowl of cereal when I return and then start scrolling through email. The next several hours are spent also on Zoom, chatting with a colleague in Sheffield. We spend most of the call recommending films and books to one another. I learn two new things about the UK: that Staffordshire terriers are a posh designer breed, equivalent to the poodle in the US, and that British women during wartime wore their hair in long hair nets like glamorous cafeteria workers. I feel, somehow, guilty for knowing so little about British visual culture.
For lunch I make two decadent toasts: one with avocado and one with camembert. I listen to Omma and then watch a few minutes of Terrace House, a show I dose daily like an SSRI. I write stressful work emails while drinking one of my many cups of herbal tea that I consume throughout the day.
I have a therapy session via Zoom and then grade papers. More emailing ensues. I snack on an apple and read messages from students thanking me for a great semester, and I have a bit of a cry. B comes home from his hospital shift and the two of us make a laborious chicken tikka masala recipe. We spend the rest of the evening watching Barton Fink synchronously with two friends of ours in New York, after which we maniacally hash out plot analyses while the internet connection fades in and out. B goes to sleep and I watch one episode of Shrill, then pre-order the complete box set of Varda films on Criterion. At midnight, I walk the dog and see no one.
tuesday
Another morning, another disturbing dream. I take my therapist’s advice and scream into a pillow, which relieves my anxiety only temporarily. No Zooming today, so I wear a ridiculous bright orange cardigan, knitted by my grandfather in the Soviet Union, with maroon sweatpants. The dog misbehaves on his walk, perhaps as a result of my foul mood.
I make avocado toast with a fried egg and drink hojicha while dosing another half-episode of Terrace House. I browse a few articles online while listening to Kodomo, Doss, and Salt Cathedral, and then dive into answering emails and grading. The progressively happier music puts me into a much more bearable mood. I take a break to make puttanesca from fridge leftovers, and find—to my utter dismay—that I accidentally bought gluten-free pasta! Rookie quarantine error!! Although the fettucini tastes slightly of cardboard and old corn (profound apologies to the Celiac-afflicted), I’m surprised by the deliciousness of the end result, and resist the urge to lick the bowl clean.
More work, during which I consume several more herbal teas and listen to electronic/trance music. I pop into a musician friend’s concert livestream on Facebook and chat with our friend group in the comment section. I take a break from grading by eating a giant slice of B’s strawberry rhubarb cake and watching another episode of Shrill. I see a red cardinal outside of my bedroom window, and a jaunty little catbird, building a nest in the tree outside!!
I start reading Middlemarch, next up on my quarantine book list, then take a contemporary dance class over Instagram live. I have been revisiting my love of dance during quarantine and have been experimenting with different studios, and today’s class is certainly… challenging. B gets home to me looking like a swirling dervish, and I end the class at the brink of vomit. B brings me back an extra box lunch from the hospital for dinner. We watch Spaceship Earth and both love it, then finish up chores before bed.
wednesday
B is home today, and I refuse to work. I wake up to his phone vibrating, with news that the plumber is… right outside. I hurriedly throw on ratty leggings and a tank top and walk the dog, then have cereal. Bad news about our plumbing, and our landlord will likely not approve the cost to make our laundry not smell like sewage. The plumber, who has put on plastic foot-coverings that look like disposable shower caps, makes an impassioned plumbing-related speech that rivals Brando’s “I coulda been a contenda!” On our walk, the dog and I see at least a dozen people, only half of whom are wearing masks.
For lunch, we make a sausage, egg, apple, and potato scramble, of which I am very proud. Then we drive to Wissahickon Valley Park for the first time since March, when it was utterly packed even during lockdown. Today I’m amazed that relatively few people are out, especially with such perfect weather. We see barn swallows, bluebirds, and more catbirds.
When I regain data connectivity, I find that a comic I submitted to a peer-reviewed publication is finally published! For the amount of work put into it, the publication feels, as it always does, somewhat anticlimactic. Tikka leftovers for dinner, followed by the last of the cake and half a pint of ice cream while watching Little Shop of Horrors. I find Rick Moranis immensely cute, despite myself. I stay up too late reading articles online and dreading tomorrow.
thursday
More intensely vivid dreams, and this time, they were pandemic-related. I dress up in my finest quarantine academia garb—old white button-up, maroon sweater-vest, black jeans—as today will be a Zoom slog. Outside, the dog and I see a fair number of people, about half with masks, generally respectful. After living in New York for so long, I’m always in awe of how kind people are in Philly, especially the city workers. I eat avocado toast with earl grey and dose Terrace House briefly before the madness ensues. The dog, probably sensing my dread, is especially affectionate, and thrusts his nose into my hand.
I have a Zoom meeting about remote teaching strategies, and then spend hours emailing, emailing, emailing endlessly into oblivion. I have a Zoom meeting with the dean discussing whether I should take a coronavirus-induced extension of my tenure clock. It goes well (verdict: probably?), but the whole thing exhausts me. I eat the last of the tikka, dose some more Terrace House, and scroll through articles on the internet. I am the definition of burnout: equal parts frantic, drained, sick to my stomach. I inhale a Tums.
B is working late at the hospital so I walk the dog and pick up the weekly CSA. As always, I stand outside the door and text the cafe owner, then attempt to walk home balancing a large box and an overly-curious dog. I chat briefly with one of my neighbor’s-- on opposite sides of the street, wearing face masks, as I continue to both hold box and restrain dog-- and marvel at my ability to seem normal despite wanting to crawl immediately into bed and cry. After scrolling mindlessly for a while, I watch an experimental Japanese short film and hop on Zoom Q &; A with the director (I, a coward, keep my video off, as I hadn’t expected the event to be so... intimate). While I listen, B gets home and makes a quick dinner of gyoza with a side of asparagus. Before bed, we watch Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy, which is extraordinary.
friday
For once, no disturbing dreams! B is working from home, and we attempt to balance laptops and breakfasts on the same small kitchen table. I make what the influencers are apparently calling a “bowl” with egg, avocado, rice, and kimchi, and drink mango tea while browsing emails. I then go on a run, taking mostly tiny, unpopulated streets and alleyways around Society Hill, Queen Village, and Old City. It isn’t crowded, probably because of the humidity, and I’m able to successfully maintain my distance. It’s my first attempt to run with a mask, and it is just as difficult as suspected: the mask creates a moist, carbon dioxide heat trap, and I take frequent breaks while huffing and puffing.
When I get home, I lie around petting the dog, then wash my hair. Afterwards I make the same egg-potato-sausage-apple scramble from earlier in the week. I finally send out my most dreaded work emails and it feels like the semester is almost—just almost-—complete. I celebrate by reading Middlemarch in the backyard and attempting, unsuccessfully, to multitask by watching a friend’s Facebook Live concert.
Once a week, B and I decide to order takeout from a local business, and tonight’s is Parc in Rittenhouse Square. The only problem is that Parc is too far from our apartment to keep the food from getting cold, so we decide to have a picnic near the restaurant. I feel, at first, immensely guilty because of how crowded Rittenhouse is, and start panicking. Then I realize that mostly everyone is actually keeping a perfectly respectable distance. I manage to find a huge 20-feet radius without any human beings around us, and we stake out our spots. It is strangely windy but otherwise the weather is absolutely ideal, and for an hour or so I almost forget we live in COVID-19 land. I have beef bourguignon and B has steak poivre, and, per our marriage contract that dictates us having to split our restaurant meals, we switch halfway through. We also demolish an entire baguette with butter. Everything is so much more delicious than I expected. We luxuriate and follow our meal with a beer. Several cops walk by, stare directly at us, and keep walking (#whiteprivilege).
We walk home after sunset and watch most of Family Game before B falls asleep. I read more of Middlemarch. When I walk the dog outside, we see several bikers, one of whom—a middle aged white woman—is singing to herself while biking in circles.
saturday
A miserably hot and humid night. I try and fail to fall asleep until almost 3 AM, when I bend the knee and put on AC for the first time all year. I wake up exhausted. I put on a navy jumpsuit I got in Japan, so soft that it is basically glorified sweatpants. When I walk the dog I see a collie whose fur has grown so long that it looks like a shetland pony. If it talked, it would probably sound like Owen Wilson. For breakfast I have a slice of freshly-baked sourdough (courtesy of B) with camembert and a bowl of wilting strawberries. The whole thing feels very French.
I call a friend who has been going through a rough time. I miss her and after the call I feel anxious, tender, and heavy. I start scrolling through articles online and am about to answer emails when I… spill iced green tea (the ubiquitous Japanese brand) ALL OVER MY LAPTOP. I immediately do a forced shut down and frantically cover it with towels. I place it upside down in a warm, dark spot and pray to the gods of PCs that the thing is spared from the fate of most laptop spills.
I then proceed to spill THE SAME TEA outside. Clearly I am in a strange and shaky mood, and this continues as I bike to the PMA (i.e. the Rocky Steps) to have a socially-distanced walk with some junior faculty friends. The Schuylkill bike path is packed; every day it feels like people are taking social distancing decreasingly seriously, perhaps as a result of the warmer weather. I can’t really blame them though-- I’m doing the same thing, except guiltily, on a smaller scale, and with more trepidation. I try to maintain the 6 ft rule, but when others around me aren’t particularly conscientious about it, I tend to fall in line with their behavior rather than argue. I secretly plan on quarantining myself after this afternoon for two weeks, just in case. We chat for a few hours and I decide to bike around the wide, recently-carless MLK drive. The bike ride was supposed to have eased my strange mood but unfortunately it just makes me shaky and tired.
When I get home after 13 miles I spill even more tea all over a binder of work notes. I notice that at some point in my bike ride I tore a small hole in the leg of my beloved jumpsuit. I read Middlemarch and consume a truly obscene amount of off-brand shrimp chips.
Leftovers from Parc and quick mashed potatoes for dinner. For almost four hours, B and I join a virtual dance party via Zoom. In pre-corona, I DJ’ed for this event in person, and it’s great to get to enjoy it now. We put on cheap disco lights and dance in the living room and backyard. I have two beers. By 11 my legs are dead and there are fragments of yellow feather boa floating around the entire house. We keep listening on our headphones while outdoors walking the dog, and I imagine we do not look nearly as sober as we feel. I take the longest shower of my life.
sunday
My entire body hurts, but at least the nightmares have stopped. Zooming resumes today, so I wear a red vintage button-up (another item brought over from the USSR) with black slacks. Nothing of notice on the dog’s daily morning walk. I eat creamy oatmeal with strawberries while drinking earl grey, and begin attacking my email inbox. I break for a luxurious br/lunch: cheese on toast and two fried eggs.
I hop onto my program’s graduation reception via Zoom. Unsurprisingly, the laptop isn’t doing very well since the spill, and several keys are sticking. I am unable to unmute myself because of the broken keypad and have to mime “wait a minute!” several times before the keyboard decides to work. I spend most of the reception breaking out into sweat worrying about what strange things the sticky Japanese ghost in my laptop will write next (so far it has written “tttttttttttttttttttt” to one of my mentors, and has started beeping uncontrollably).
For dinner B and I heat up some gyoza with sauteed kale. We finish The Family Game and, because our bodies and minds are too exhausted to watch anything intellectual, put on The Half of It because I love a good Cyrano de Bergerac spin. Afterwards, I read Middlemarch until my eyes start to hurt, and take the dog on a walk. There are no other humans within a one-block radius.
featured creature: dracula parrot
The dracula parrot: intimidating, yes, but look at that plumage! I’d also recommend one man’s dedication to a similarly vulturine bird, the turkey vulture.
