Love in the Time of Corona

It has been way too long since I did this. Way waaay too long. With the constant stream of everyday life, I haven't been listening to my muse..but now...corona! Doesn't it sound like a pretty royal excuse to not leave the house and do something all by our lonesome?

All joking aside, the fears and dangers of corona have been largely discussed and mused about these past few weeks and I don't plan on doing a special on healthcare here, on this blog. What I'm more interested in is how to spend this newfound time we have on our hands - due to being housebound. To stay put can be a scary command for those of us who are used to busying themselves socially, in large groups of people.

I imagine, it can be quite awkward silently reading a book. Or staring at a wall, thinking, if you're not used to doing something like that. Philosophers supposedly do that all day, but these are a rare breed of people with really special needs. You may not see the immediate appeal, but I think being quarantined can be an awesome experience; it all depends on your expectations. And as a couch potato queen, procrastinative genius, lazy-boned blob myself, I promise you, if you just let it happen, you will have a blast.

There are no rules for procrastination in times of corona, except maybe to not let panic mode destroy your precious time of being in the moment. So I would not recommend on doing corona-related research on the internet. Mortality rates, nah. Stay up to date, yes, but pandemic crises reports? Only when directed by Roland Emmerich!

I have several ideas on how to spend the next few weeks. Gardening is high on my list, it would have been anyway, because it is the type of outdoors solitude I enjoy with the advantage of not having to sneeze into my crooks. I plan on reading even more, but that of course means I have to park my two kids, currently home bound with me, somewhere, where they, in turn can procrastinate all by themselves.

Shut up, you, I'm raising a new generation here!

I want to finally immerse myself in The Witcher 3, I want to watch the new season of Better Call Saul, I want to do some more illustrations, do nothing at all, paint a cabinet, declutter my kitchen. This time I will have, it's not all me running wild. I imagine it is much like life in a monastery. Solitude, a nice herbal gardening project, and lots of walking around in my robe, turning inwards for reflections and stuff.

Well, the reality will be, that I'll probably have to do a lot more kids stuff than I planned on, and I have a sneaking suspicion that solitude, when prescribed, will throw me into a reactant spiral of "You can't tell me what to do!" unrest. So maybe I'll start a rave or something, just to be a bit subversive. Other than that: greener pastures, my friends.

What are all of you going to do? Will you befriend yourself all anew? Will you practice being alone with your thoughts? That doesn't mean being asocial, you know. It just means that you, for a certain time in your life, are enough and content being around you. It's good. You're close family. Being you is one of the best things you have in your life. So, take care. Have a ball, you.

True Detective reviewed

There are a couple of shows on TV that quickly gain a large following a few episodes in their first season, thus making it hard to keep an open mind starting to watch them with a little delay - being flooded with first impressions. Although I don't read stuff about anything beforehand, I can never completely avoid those flashy headlines. A review for each new episode on blogs seems excessive, but it's not unusual.

It shows that a series does something right in terms of presentation during the first crucial episodes, being the cool new thing to talk about. I'm not saying it's not OK to be enthusiastic. But it immediately raises more than a few expectations in regards to where a show is heading (and oftentimes before it has found its pace).

The flavor of these last few months appeared to have been HBO's True Detective. It's an anthology crime series, mysterious, with nods to film noir and an eery, almost romantic gloom hanging overhead. I might even go as far as say that I got a little depressed watching it, realizing that there is little happiness to be found for any of the characters, just a nihilistic sense of loss, guilt and regret moving them forward. The title True Detective stems from a factional crime magazine by the same name. Award-winning writer Nic Pizzolatto wrote each of the episodes, and in many ways the concept for the show builds on his 2010 mystery novel Galveston.

It didn't take long for it to grab me. There was something about Harrelson's narration that left me wanting more. A few episodes in I also noticed what I didn't like, namely that it has become somewhat of a stylistic means of expression to have writers argue out what feels like personal beefs over certain topics, to utilize characters as messengers of outrageous dialogue. OK, this is mainly an HBO thing. After nudity and violence, it is about questioning other forms of expression and overcome boundaries, things you weren't allowed to say on TV a mere ten years ago.

"Safe to say that nobody in here is going to split the atom, Marty"  


People enjoy a writer's defiance. Strangely enough it makes an audience feel empowered. But since it has become a trademark of progressive shows to be anti-establishment, being known for scandalous dialogue can get old. Adding that to the fact that within the last few years it has risen to be a standard to depict main characters moving within the dark grey areas of morality makes it even harder to find a truly new angle. We're forced to empathize with not-all-good people. And even if we find someone who seems OK at first, it turns out the good people have a skewed moral compass as well, and maybe even worse so than those who promote their flaws more loudly.

Since it's such a commonplace, it takes away from some of True Detective's visionary sense. Yes, there is novelty to the show, in cinematic style, production and writing. The show is very ambitious. But aside from presentation and directing toppings as for instance demonstrated in the awesome 6-minute single-take tracking shot during episode 4, the plot is pretty run-of-the-mill. I see an end to this trend of finding new ways to tell old stories, and soon. After a lot of antiheroic types have braced the TV landscape, it's time for the opposite; classic narratives to tell new and exciting stories. As long as stories feel stale, there is no further value in neat packaging (except to ruffle people's expectations).

It would be a refreshing change of pace to empathize with protagonists who believe in something beyond their own rationalization. Like, for example, to create suspense, a story needs a certain element of impulse, even plausible screw up on the part of the characters to create misconceptions and prejudice on the part of the audience, especially in the crime genre. It's true to genre to deflect the audience while they're trying to connect the dots. At least if the plan is to create that one surprise moment at the end that no one suspected, but, in hindsight, wasn't far-fetched at all - the ideal goal of any story, if you ask me.

The mystery part turned out to be a disappointment. It seems True Detective stumbled over its own sense of mystique. The character arcs, well, I see what they were heading for. It ended about halfway between where it started and where it wanted to be. For the next season, there are other quests to be undertaken by an all new team. I think I'll miss Harrelson and McConaughey the most.