30 April, VIRUS 2020

Trump rejects a new normal: ‘This is going away’. ABC (USA) 

In the peculiar circumstances of this International Jazz Day, as the world faces the COVID-19 pandemic, music is bringing people together and helping to keep hope alive.  UNESCO[1]

Labrador retrievers are being trained to sniff out coronavirus cases. Washington Post

Experts say that for the first time since 1998, global poverty will increase. At least a half billion people could slip into destitution by the end of the year. New York Times

‘Unicorn of the sea’: rare sighting of ornate eagle ray off Great Barrier Reef. Guardian

‘Culture wars crap’: Top health official pressured to resign over tweet. Sydney Morning Herald. [The post that sparked the reaction from the Liberals compared Captain James Cook’s arrival in Australia 250 years ago with the deadly coronavirus pandemic.] See COVID-19 and the Cadigal peoples of Sydney

A phantom skips across the track at speed
a rarely seen bandicoot, a treat. I moonwalk
down a slight sand dune onto the beach
and into a gentle hooting one Sooty to another,
moments later the pair fly overhead – Pieds.

Bloodshed East, a fantasm of scarlet
with a hint of Kandinsky (if you need art),
ritual offerings of gold – I LOVE –

The beach reflects the red-raw energy
of nuclear fusion, six hundred million
tonnes of hydrogen each second
like 1 trillion megaton bombs
exploding every second.

An immense painting, inflating, constantly
changing with the players, the fish and birds.

The sea looks solid with crests
of blue-black icing sugar.

Waves of cirrus straddle the now and never, and never too much. The colours are rinsed as Helios prepares. I head to the mouth of the river, sinking
into quicksand, past miniature sandbanks
like islands in a fjord filmed by a drone.
I’m slow, the herons are past me, flapping
generously out of focus across a scatter of rock,
wave and wash, a monochrome seascape,
even that roughness photogenic.

                                                                  ~

I ring mum. She seems fine, my birthday card with poem arrived today which thrilled her slightly, anything in lockdown. She really enjoyed a baked potato with cheese from the restaurant which now delivers lunch. The potato had a real potato taste. That’s good, one sign of COVID-19 is loss of taste and smell. She says spring has started over there then starts listing all her friends who have died in the last few years. She needs to be with me.

March 30, Trump floated April 12, Easter Sunday as the date by which the country could return to normal. Then it became today, April 30.

Just the beginning of the crisis. At least 1,038,451 cases of coronavirus have been recorded in the United States, including 60,876 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally of cases. CNN, April 30.[2]

While cooking breakfast, I put on The Necks, then something quieter Gary Burton and Chick Corea, Vijay Iyer. I have just taken my blood pressure, after a 2 month gap. Suddenly it’s climbed and my pulse is very high, I make an appointment with my doctor (a phone consult).

Back to normal???

Trump rejects a new normal: ‘This is going away’. ABC (USA) 30 April

Trump is the snake-oil-salesman-in-chief. He appears to believe his miracle cures, and when he was questioned on his bizarre and deadly advice, he and his enablers pretended he was joking. I feel it can’t get worse than this, but then it repeatedly does. Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, 30 April

What will the new normal be, because the old normal certainly wasn’t normal. As things went with a swinging economy (for some counties it was ridiculous out of control, consumerism to much money.

How test widening can ‘help us get back to normal life. www.centraltelegraph.com.au 29 April

How life in New Zealand is beginning to return to normal. SBS 28 April

Back to school doesn’t mean back to normal. www.thecourier.com.au 27 April

Back to school doesn’t mean back to normal. The Conversation 26 April

We look forward to things getting back to normal so we can get back to providing the people of Newcastle with the fun we have provided for over 25 years! www.gokartsgo.com.au 25 April

And yet despite the enormous challenges we face on individual, local and global levels, we will remind ourselves and each other that we will get back to normal. Brandon Ambrosino, BBC, 24 April

When will the outbreak end and life get back to normal? BBC, 23 April

Don’t Worry, Everything Will Get Back to “Normal”. https://www.counterpunch.org/ 22 April

Using this time to work on your cooking skills could help you eat better once life goes back to normal. ABC, 21 April

The road back to “normal” should be painstakingly and carefully calculated, said other public health researchers who work on modeling the epidemic. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots 21 April

Big Unknowns About Virus Complicate Getting Back to Normal.  https://www.nytimes.com/ 20 April

When can life go back to normal?  https://www.nambuccaguardian.com.au/ 19 April

Businesses might be able to start moving back to normal in May and bring their employees back to work. https://www.jacksonville.com/ 18 April

“I don’t think we can absolutely make the assumption that just having the antibodies means it’s cool to go back to normal.” https://abcnews.go.com/ (USA) 17 April

Who Will Decide When Consumers Get Back To ‘Normal’? https://www.pymnts.com/ 16 April

What happens as this seemingly interminable spring rolls into a precarious summer? When will things go back to normal? Our Pandemic Summer – The Atlantic, 15 April

When will things go back to normal? The Atlantic, 14 April

Getting back to normal in Germany after coronavirus pandemic. https://www.news-medical.net/news/ 13 April

When will the country get back to normal? 3 things to know about reopening America https://abcnews.go.com/ (USA) 12 April

Social Distance: We Can’t Go Back to Normal. The Atlantic, 11 April

Health experts discuss how we might get back to normal. https://www.latimes.com/ 10 April

Hong Kong’s tourism will be back to normal by July, minister. www.aljazeera.com 9 April

When will things go back to normal after the coronavirus pandemic? www.walesonline.co.uk 8 April

6 Charts That Show Why We’re Not Going Back to Normal Very Soon. moderntimesinvestors.com 8 April

US planning ways to ‘ease’ back to normal if virus effort works. www.reuters.com 7 April

Fauci downplays the idea of getting ‘back to normal’ pre-vaccine. https://www.washingtonpost.com/  6 April

Bill Gates: “Things Won’t Get Back To Normal Until We Have Gotten A Vaccine Out To The Entire World”.  https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ 5 April

But the question remains: when will things get back to normal?

www.businessinsider.com 4 April

‘This virus is here to stay’: UNMC official says things won’t go back to normal until COVID-19 vaccine created. https://www.ketv.com/ 3 April

“I don’t think we get back to normal,” Cuomo said. “I think we get to a new normal.” https://edition.cnn.com/ 2 April

It is time for individuals in the US government to stop making false promises, like recent claims that the country could be back to normal by Easter even though that was never plausible. https://massivesci.com/ 1 April

Lima converts bullfighting ring into a temporary shelter for the homeless. https://amazonas-explorer.com/ 1 April

Coronavirus: When will the outbreak end and life get back to normal? BBC 23 March

Normal was never normal

Normal was an ongoing crisis of wars, violence, refugees, starvation in Africa, militant religious violence, habitat disappearance, ecological disasters and the ever-increasing bondage of everyday life to technologies.

A National Parks woman we didn’t know drove into the reserve. We caught up on her return, she was checking if back burning was on – too damp.

Listened to jazz all day: Elliot Galvin, Graham Costello’s Strata, SOS, Nucleus, Centipede, Henry Threadgill, Keith Tippett, Gato Barbieri, Snarky Puppy. Think of buying a new SOS release,bit it’s expensive. I think Surman is the only one still alive. Poor Jazz musos, it’s hard enough to make a living at the best of times.

I edit the last two chapters of Wyn’s Irish book. Sisters are visiting the old country looking for their mother, a twisted story and a beautiful ending on the Hill of Tara, with the sisters bickering. It’s been a long journey since a modest Australia Council Grant. I am so happy for her, she is so relieved to have finally finished it. We have a whisky mid-afternoon to celebrate.

Thursday night, a week gone measured by my duty, putting out the garbage,
the wind is whistling, the trees bending, how virile, how powerful the outside
beyond our walls and a roof. Thunder out to sea, the promised rain evaporated.

[1] Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/jazzday. Jazz breaks down barriers and creates opportunities for mutual understanding and tolerance; Jazz is a vector of freedom of expression; Jazz reduces tensions between individuals, groups, and communities; Jazz encourages artistic innovation, improvisation, new forms of expression, and inclusion of traditional music forms into new ones; Jazz stimulates intercultural dialogue and empowers young people from marginalized societies.

[2] https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-04-30-20-intl/h_1720aeaff6255f74c1fd62d8762656d7