Daily Archives: March 22, 2020

Nihilism, cocaine, narcissism, misogyny: These are the things that make a new the Weeknd album a Weeknd album. Predictably, After Hours has them all, and doesnt bother to upend the meticulous mythos the pop star has spent a decade manufacturing. Instead, the Toronto singers fourth studio album swaps out one sonic texture the bleak, Daft Punk-led futurism of 2016s Starboy for the sinister celestial work of Oneohtrix Point Never, while doubling down on what the Weeknd knows best: sex puns.

On the second verse of the aptly-named, Snowchild, the Weeknd sings: She like my futuristic sounds in the new spaceship/Futuristic sex give her Philip K. dick. For those who need clarification, Philip K. Dick was a science-fiction writer who most famously wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the novel that inspired the 1982 Ridley Scott film, Blade Runner. His last name is also Dick, allowing him to be used as a double entendre in a Weeknd song.

Over the past decade, the Weeknd has fashioned himself as our times great sexual savant, so it makes a certain amount of sense that hed like to introduce the world to futuristic sex to accompany his futuristic sound. However, he spends little time of the rest of Snowchild informing listeners what makes his sex so ahead of its time, or elaborating how it might be similar to a Philip K. Dick story. Does a Philip K. penis leave one with feelings of dystopian dread or teach about the dangers of authoritarianism? Does his dick make you question if youre a human, or perhaps the product of an experiment in technology gone very, very wrong? Will God ever forgive us for what weve done?

The following line, She never need a man, she what a man need, hints that hes possibly speaking of a world where men are useless when it comes to carnal pleasures. But it seems like were already living in that reality. Hopefully, on the next album, well hear more about what sex will be like in the future and we too can all share in some Philip K. dick if there is one.

See more here:

The Weeknd Wants to Give the World Philip K. Dick - Rolling Stone

If you were on social media at the beginning of 2020, the year started as profoundly pessimistic. Instead of a Jetsons-style chrome-coated future of flying cars, we have the COVID-19 pandemic, memes of a third World War and, to top it all off, a continent on fire because of human-induced climate change. And on the internet, all of it was meme-d.

In short, we are beginning a new decade all too aware of our fragility, not only as individuals, but as a species. And yet, we have been here before.

By the middle of the 20th century, humanity had been through two world wars that had unleashed the power of science in a search for ever more efficient ways of exterminating each other. This rapid descent into the possibility of species-ending thermonuclear death prompted the philosopher Karl Jaspers to ask in his 1961 work, The Future of Mankind, how humanity should deal with humanitys ability to end, well, humanity.

But as Rahm Emanuel, one-time mayor of Chicago and former White House chief of staff for Barack Obama, once said: You never want a good crisis to go to waste. Looking around the world, we have an existential crisis.

Read more: Explainer: what are memes?

Humanity, Jaspers observes, is in a unique situation; we are at the dawn of the thermonuclear age. He says that it is an entirely novel scenario for humans to not only to be aware of their mortality but to also be alert to the likely ending of their existence as a species through nuclear war. He argues given this bleak reality:

a prerequisite of everything else, is to think: to look around; to observe what is going on; to visualize the possibilities, the consequences of events and actions; to clarify the situation in the directions that emerge.

We can do this by using our rationality and reason even if, as Jaspers concedes, we cannot plum the ultimate depths. But reason gives us clarity as we experience the calamity of events caused and carried out by humans.

But you might ask: how can you trust reason if its reason that gave us the ability to annihilate ourselves in the first place? Jaspers offers at least two responses.

First, we are easily distracted. Instead of dealing with these ultimate questions, we tend to become preoccupied with other concerns such as economic prosperity.

Second, there is a distinction within how we reason between intellectual thought and rational thought.

Intellectual thought, according to Jaspers, is concerned with the production of the mechanistic parts of our existence where we pool our resources to get things done. (This is similar to an amalgamation of philosopher Hannah Arendts idea of labour and work aspect of life that was outlined in her 1958 work, The Human Condition.)

The activities that fall under intellectual thought would include the production of resources that sustain us (like agriculture) and the construction of structure like roads and buildings that live beyond the person who constructed them. These are necessary activities, but the thought processes behind them thinking largely of our own individual survival cannot lead to solving failures in collective action or the species-level existential crisis we now face.

Jaspers describes rational thought as thinking that must be done by the individual by choice, resolve and action but that creates a common spirit. (Here again, there is a similarity to Arendts concept of action.)

What we need is this category of rational thought not only to reason as individuals, but ultimately, act as a collective in everyday decisions. The recent climate strikes would be an example of that kind of creation of a common spirit. This movement was carried out by individuals who each individually concluded that action must be taken.

Neither hopelessness nor confidence can be proven by rational knowledge. The arguments for despair, deducing inevitabilities from total knowledge, are inadequate, as are the arguments trusting in the victory of common sense. Despair and confidence are moods, not insights. We call them pessimism and optimism. Neither one is open to persuasion; each finds infinite arguments and overlooks the counterarguments. - Karl Jaspers, 1961.

Jaspers is not providing a panacea on the proper response to the realization that our self-destruction is not only possible but likely.

Instead, hes asking us to take radical ownership over the fact that if the world does end or convulses through terrible near-death experiences, we need only look, take a selfie and realize who is to blame. Jaspers demands that each of us has a responsibility to use our rational thought and then act.

It seems clear, however, that, despite the nihilism and pessimism of the memes that erupted over the internet this year, people understand the direness of the situation.

Nihilism requires a deep trauma of belief, meaning nihilists need to start in a state of idealism which is then ground out of them by experience. However, the deep belief is still inherently part of them, and it is that constant juxtaposition that fuels their idealistic resentment and reaction to the objective world around them.

We are reacting like stereotypical teenagers in an era where leadership has come from actual teenagers like Greta Thunberg and Autumn Peltier. Jaspers advice might contain precisely the wisdom thats required for adults to grow into our maturity. We have taken the first step by recognizing our predicament, but we need to go from wise-guy cynicism of meme culture to earnest action.

Continued here:

Coronavirus, climate crisis, conflicts: Meme-ing our way through the 'apocalypse' - The Conversation CA

Its stupid at this point to play the remember one month ago!?!? game, but, for these purposes, its worthwhile: One month ago, your partners rugged individualism and unwillingness to read an entire article before weighing in were charming personality quirks; the kind of stuff thats either endearing or aggravating, depending on your mood.

But now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, you might be viewing those traits in an entirely different light. Alexs individuality and and fuck it, lets party!!! nihilism isnt just Alex doing Alex when were talking about social distancing and other necessary precautions. Seemingly personal choices are now a literal matter of life and death, and could reveal a significant difference in values within your relationship, making you wonder if this person is the right match for you. (So many people are facing similar dilemmas, theres an entire website dedicated to documenting quarantine partner drama.)

Maybe you were considering breaking up before you got stuck in an apartment with your partner for the foreseeable future, or maybe being stuck with them has made you realize this isnt working for you. While the ongoing pandemic has slowed (or completely halted) most parts of our lives, this one particular thing doesnt have to be put on hold. You can still end a relationship, provided you can do so safely (more on that later).

Conventional wisdom tells us to not make any big, life-changing decisions during times of increased stress, the idea being that our little brains cant think clearly when were processing intense emotions. But the nature of this unprecedented situation may actually provide necessary clarity. There might be no better way to learn how you want to live your lifeand who you want to share it withthan staring down your own mortality.

Rosara Torrisi, a certified sex therapist based in New York, told VICE that this moment is essentially a compatibility test for a lot of couples, old and new. The coronavirus pandemic is going to reveal not just how they respond to this specific situation, but also how they might deal with other rough life moments. Being in a high-stress moment for a long period of time in a relationship thats gonna happen, Torrisi said. Whether its COVID[-19], or someone getting really sick, losing money, or losing a job, theres a million ways that you will be stressed in a long-term relationship. This is one of those moments.

The way individuals react to a stressful situationand react to each others reactionsis a fairly big part of their overall long-term compatibility. And if those responses are drastically differentperhaps you skew more doomsday prepper, while your partner is more Margaritaville-chillin, stocking up only on weed and video games and telling you to calm downand lead to problems, thats important information to have. Are you cool being with someone who will never be freaking out along with you, or who you think is constantly overreacting?

Alternatively, Torrisi points out that extremely similar ways of coping might be just as bad. Lets say two partners are together and theyre exceptionally anxious and following the news, just kind of amping each other up; thats not really helpful, either, she said. That can be harder to spot, because it typically feels good when someone agrees with you and eggs you on. But if youre getting a nagging sense that the person youre with is not bringing out the best in you, its worth paying attention to that feeling.

The actual logistics of managing a break up right now are where things get a little trickier. If your partner is simply a pain in the ass who you no longer want to be with but can tolerate for a while longer, and youre already secure in your pandemic bunker, Torrisi said you may just want to stay put. If your safety is still intact, you always have to prioritize that, she said.

For the actual breakup, its important to try maintaining the peace in your pandemic bunker. To do that, Torrisi recommended having a radically empathetic conversation. Even if you find your partners behavior to be batshit and wrong, trying to understand it will lead to a calmer conversation than holding up an empty box of rigatoni and screaming, HOW DID YOU ALREADY EAT ALL OF OUR PASTA, YOU FREAK, THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE CANT BE TOGETHER!!!!

Even if you disagree, you might have a better understanding of where they are coming from, Torrisi said. And then you can say, OK, I understand why, I can empathize with it, but I completely disagree with it. It makes it really clear for me that your decision making is not something I can get on board with, or that I want to be a part of long term.

If youre currently sharing a space and youre worried your partner may harm you if you try to break up with them, but you cant currently go to a shelter or family members house, an appropriate alternative would be to find a friend who lives within walking distance, and will agree to hunker down with you for the foreseeable future. Otherwise, resources like the National Domestic Violence Hotline are equipped to help you, even during a pandemic when theres limited mobility.

The TL;DR here is this pandemic sucks hard enough without adding the unnecessary pressure to stay in a bad relationship into the mix. DTMFA, and soothe your pains with one of your favorite rations.

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It's Absolutely Ok to Dump Someone Over Their Awful Pandemic Behavior - VICE

By Thabo Makwakwa Mar 19, 2020

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Nihilistic journalism, scheming and shunning of alternative voices by some dominant media houses, cozying up to the powerful politicians and influential business people is not doing justice to a country struggling with widespread cheating and corruption, a country failing to hold leaders accountable.

The society relies heavily on media houses to access news that is ethical, unbiased and uncensored. It poses a great concern when media houses in pursuit of profits, by legal or illegal means, suspend their moral compass, accept donations from private funders and increasingly engage in unprincipled news reporting which favour and protect certain individuals while attack everybody else who criticise or differ with them.

Daily Mavericks attitude towards other media houses, journalists, news contributors and politicians, does not only exhibit toxic competition for audience but also the deadening journalistic-nihilism suffocating the breath out of every person with opposing views.

The oppressive practice of shunning other voices through brutal smear campaigns and fake news reporting delegitimizing the majority of black journalists and politicians, is increasingly creating discomfort to news readers and ordinary people who have entrusted media houses with a responsibility to shape public opinion and strengthen the society.

Daily Mavericks exaggerated obsession with political factions has spared no one who dares to have an opposing view about anybody in their receiving end of consistent smear campaigns. The shocking suppression of others right to freedom of speech by Daily Maverick has seen many individuals referred to as "fight-back faction", and SANEF has done very little if nothing to knock ethics into the heads of the editors of this publication.

The quest to dominate and lead the national narrative is overwhelmingly violent. One example is the disillusionment created by nihilistic journalists and editors in the payroll of arrogant big business and abusive politicians, with an aim to delegitimize ones reputation; campaign for the death of other voices in media and bring up any trash against the target by any means necessary. Journalists and editors have succumbed to what they deem necessary demons to possess in order to survive through tight competition. Serious commitment to ethical and truthful news reporting is replaced with simplistic and superficial reportage.

Erosion of vibrant quality reporters and alternative perspectives is betrayal to the commitment to fight for freedom of speech. Bullying of other perspectives will certainly result in many people choosing not to speak of the true depths of horrors of the powerful capital and its political representatives.

Unprincipled scheming journalists and unethical editors who have voluntarily surrendered their principles to the amusement of their political handlers and private funders, threaten the entire press community willing to speak painful truths to the public about real challenges such as wealth and power; misinformation by elites; white collar crime; political and corporate related corruption. The capture of news reporters and media houses means that the very last voice of ordinary people is silenced, and only the voice of those with money can be listened to.

The people of South Africa deserve to know the truth about the degenerating reportage. We must know the drive for wealth and power is the sole reason journalists have become the voice and spokespersons of few powerful individuals instead of being the voice of the masses. It should not come as a shock when veteran and respected journalists disintegrate from their neutral position and slide into dirty political battles where money is a determining variable. The thirst for a funded comfortable life has eaten the souls of press reportage and triggered war between obedient and disobedient voices.

It is true that everything ends. The destructive nihilistic journalism is now in the open for everyone to see, and like every other propaganda, it too shall fall into its own sword.

One of the crucial tasks for news readers and other media houses is to expose bias news reports displaying favouritism and news fixing by news people towards other news reporters, politicians, businesses and other media houses. The people must be confronted and call out these propagandists for what they are, because no one should be subjected to captured media houses spreading false stories and paying individuals to write false stories about certain political opponents.

* Thabo Makwakwa is a f reelance author and social commentator.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

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Nihilistic journalism and the shunning of alternative voices in media - IOL

Alex is a 22-year-old social media manager for a startup. Six months ago, while standing in a crowded No. 3 express train on the way to work, he had a panic attack.

I was staring at my phone, trying to simultaneously respond to a Slack message from my boss but also scrolling through Instagram and texting a friend when I thought I was going to die, says Alex (who didnt wish to use his last name because he doesnt want to be known as the depressed guy at work). I literally thought I was being crushed under what felt like a mountain of work, overwhelmed, and messages were coming at me from everywhere, and I just wanted to die.

Its a common feeling for Becky, a 20-year-old college student. Im anxious all the time, she says. What about? Being in school. Feeling pressure to have a social life. Politics. My friend is studying abroad in Spain and I read a story on Twitter about someone who got their kidney stolen in Spain. The coronavirus. Everyone I know has cancer.

The young are more anxious than ever. Young people and for that matter, old people everyone is anxious. Everyone has too much to do. The U.S. is the most overworked nation in the world.

But the specific strains of depression, anxiety and nihilism are unique to Generation Z, the cohort born between 1996 and 2016, many of whom are now graduating college and entering the workforce for the first time. It even shows up on TikTok, that platform favored by the youth, where a new genre of videos are about making yourself feel better: I woke up depressed, heres what I did, is a popular class of content. Its used as a way to bond with others on the same medication: Yo, where my Citalopram girls at? asked juliakempner08 in one video.

Studies show that depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide are increasingly more common in this cohort than ones before. A 2019 study showed undergraduate students of the Gen Z cohort had double the rates of those issues than others.

There is of course the argument that this generation is more likely to be open about mental health issues than others, meaning that everyones always been anxious, they just talk more about it. But it doesnt account for, argues Psychology Today, the increased suicide rates.

Greg Lukianoff is the co-author, with Jonathan Haidt of The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure. There has been a dramatic surge in anxiety, and depression among young people over the last 10 years versus the 15 before that. Because of changes in medical trends and cultural taboos, its hard to compare depression and anxiety reports from much earlier than that meaningfully. To the extent teen suicide rates are a proxy for teen distress, we do know that the suicide rates for older teens peaked in 1991, and were very near those peaks now, he says.

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For Lukianoff (and Haidt) the big factor is tech and the preponderance of social media, which he says takes high school-style bullying into the real world and beyond. When I tell people to imagine the worst of junior high school 24 hours a day forever, it rightfully gives people a shudder.

After his panic attack, Alex the social media manager went to his mom, who took him to a therapist, and was diagnosed with depression. He was prescribed medication, and has since taken to 30 minutes of meditation a day. Hes also perhaps most importantly gone off all (personal) social media. Its ironic since my entire existence depends on it, but I had to. A whole group of us have.

Its what Lukianoff has observed as well: Social media allows people to gather together in like-minded groups, and this includes people who are more depressed or anxious finding each other. Research into real-world social groups shows that depression can spread among people in a social relationship; if much of the peer group is anxious and depressed, you are more likely to be, as well.

Plus, it creates feelings of FOMO, stress and therefore, sadness. Becky says she spends much of her time at night refreshing. I refresh and see what other people are doing. Its a way of checking in. Do I look as good? Whats she wearing? Can I afford it? How does she have friends?

Jessica, a 20-year-old student at Pace University says she hears about people counting posts. I havent posted in two months. Do people think Ive done nothing?

There are a few historical shadows under which millennials grew up that have little to no significance for Gen Z, also contributing, potentially to a different way of looking at the world. Most millennials were young children during the 9/11 terror attacks. Millennials came of age, and many entered the workforce, during a recession. They helped elect the first black president in history. Technological evolution was fast and rollicky during their adolescence and young adulthood.

For Gen Z, all of that is table stakes. Most havent known an America that isnt at war, and they unlike every generation before them, were born into, almost, a social media age.

Sunny, a 22-year-old employee in corporate finance, says it started for her in college as well, where her peer group sat around burnishing their LinkedIn profiles. Social media, she says, feels like a constant status update how high is your status?

And it continues on into the workforce as well. I would say my anxiety has changed, she says. The college anxiety was about academia. College had a blank dream of a job I was chasing. Now I want a dream career. There is a lot of pressure of constant next steps. Ive been working for like a month, but Im already thinking of what happens next. Its nonstop. Sometimes I cant breathe.

More:

The saddest generation: Why Gen Z is the most anxious generation ever - Digiday

Last December, the Weeknd returned with a vengeance. After laying low for a couple of years following the release of My Dear Melancholy, Abel Tesfaye was suddenly everywhere at once. He debuted a new lookostentatious sunglasses, crimson suit, equally bloody noseand performed new singles on late-night TV. Meanwhile, he could be seen getting into fights with Adam Sandler while playing a caricature of himself in the Safdie Brothers acclaimed thriller Uncut Gems. A new record was clearly on the way, but details remained scarce until February, when the singer finally detailed his next full-length, After Hours.

Clocking in at 14 tracks, the Weeknds fourth album bridges the two overarching eras that define his career to date: his early period as a shadowy, Cocteau Twins-sampling crooner, and his subsequent pivot to arena-ready (though no less profane) pop star. The collaborators on After Hours reflect this mix, with radio staples like Max Martin and Metro Boomin alongside Tame Impalas Kevin Parker and Uncut Gems score composer Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never). And of course, it wouldnt be the Weeknd if he wasnt singing about drugs and lust. Lets dive in.

Uncut Gems may be one of the keys to understanding After Hours. Set in 2012, the film blends the fictional narrative of jeweler and gambler Howard Ratner (Sandler) with various real-life occurrences, one of which is the Weeknds ascent to stardom. Tesfaye (as himself) is a prospective client who comes to blows with Howard over a bathroom rendezvous with his mistress. Blinded by his uncontrollable desire for high stakes, Howard struggles with himself throughout the movie. In a way, the Weeknd portrays a similar character on After Hours. The album tracks the deterioration of a relationship from beginning to end, with Tesfaye vacillating between flashy arrogance and pathetic, drug-addled self-pitying.

The Uncut Gems part also directly led to the studio sessions between Tesfaye and Daniel Lopatin, which yielded four or five amazing tracks, according to director Josh Safdie. On the three After Hours tracks where Lopatin appears, his influence is palpable: His twinkling synths and ever-evolving textures lend depth to the productions.

After Hours retains many of the characteristics of past Weeknd albums, in large part thanks to its cast of collaborators. Longtime Weeknd producer Illangelo returns, as does Max Martin, who helped Tesfaye hit No. 1 in 2015 with Cant Feel My Face. Martin dominates the back half of the album with catchy cuts like Blinding Lights and In Your Eyes. Metro Boomin, who had a cut on Starboy, links up with Illangelo for a captivating mid-album run that includes Escape From LA, lead single Heartless, and drug ode Faith. This is the first Weeknd album with no credited features, but there are a couple new friends lurking in the shadows; Kevin Parker co-wrote and produced Repeat After Me (Interlude), alongside Lopatin and Tesfaye.

The tropes and production choices of the 1980s play a massive part on After Hours. Songs like Blinding Lights and Save Your Tears evoke synth-pop artists like Flock of Seagulls, and In Your Eyes features saxophone solos and horn arrangements so gaudy theyd make Duran Duran blush. Even songs that dont take direct influence from the period, like Alone Again or the UK-garage-inflected Too Late, play with the synth arpeggios and pulsating atmospherics of synthwave, the microgenre that cribs from quintessentially-80s movie soundtracks.

For fans who look to the Weeknd for toxic bars about getting high and having sex, After Hours certainly wont disappoint. The usual references to pills and lines are scattered throughout, but nowhere is Tesfayes fixation more apparent than on Faith, where he uses his drug dependency as a device to discuss his newfound nihilism and drops in an R.E.M. reference along the way. Near the end of the album, the allure of addiction falls away to reveal sadness; on After Hours and album closer Until I Bleed Out, he finally recognizes how his actions have destroyed his relationship and left him with nothing.

Its been almost a decade since the Weeknd broke through with House of Balloons, and while hes reflected on his career in past records, After Hours finds him navel-gazing just a little more. On Snowchild, he revisits his come-up in wintry Toronto and boasts about how far hes come, putting himself in the pantheon with JAY-Z and Eminem in one breath, and vowing to reject the excesses of fame in the next. Heartless is an unsettled rumination on how massive success hasnt fixed all his problems. Tesfaye might be singing about the same shit as always, but were supposed to believe that hes evolved since his days spent courting glass table girls.

Read the original here:

6 Takeaways From the Weeknds New Album, After Hours - Pitchfork

Imagine having a more embarrassing response to the COVID-19 pandemic than even new-age guru Marianne Williamson.

Its easy if you try.

Israeli actress and model Gal Gadot uploaded a video to social media this week featuring herself and a handful of A-list celebrities singing John Lennon's Imagine, also known as one of the worst songs of the 20th century.

The three-minute Instagram video, which is meant to raise spirits as the world reels from the coronavirus outbreak, begins with the actress, who is herself in quarantine, saying she is feeling a bit philosophical.

This virus has infected the entire world. Everyone. Doesnt matter who you are, where youre from. Were all in this together, Gadot says.

She continues, explaining that she saw a powerful and pure video recently of a quarantined trumpet player in Italy performing Imagine for his quarantined neighbors. We must have different definitions of the word "pure," because forcing people who have nowhere else to go to listen to a trumpet performance of Imagine sounds an awful lot like a hate crime.

Gadots video then turns into a wide-awake nightmare as it immediately turns into a montage of over-earnest celebrities singing a terrible song poorly.

Imagine theres no heaven, Gadot intones.

That is a comforting thing to say to people on ventilators, fighting to stay alive.

Its easy if you try, actress Kristen Wiig adds in a completely different key and tempo.

Actor Henry Cavill then adds, No hell below us.

You get the picture.

The video also stars Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, James Marsden, Sarah Silverman, Amy Adams, Sia, Pedro Pascal, Jamie Dornan, Zoe Kravitz, Chris O'Dowd, Leslie Odom Jr., Eddie Benjamin, Ashley Benson, Lynda Carter, Jimmy Fallon, Will Ferrell, Norah Jones, Kaia Gerber, Cara Delevingne, Annie Mumolo, Labrinth, and Maya Rudolph. It is the worst thing you will see all week.

Truly, the cruelest trick the devil ever played was convincing rich and famous people that Imagine is a good and meaningful song and not an abject embarrassment.

With everything else that is going on with the coronavirus outbreak, it is crazy that these celebrities chose to use their voices and influence to sing Lennons bland paean to nihilism rather than educate their followers on, say, guidelines for avoiding infection and death. You know something useful?

Gadots video is like the string quartet scene from Titanic, except the musicians are terrible and they're playing the atheist's I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke for some reason.

I mean, seriously, Imagine? What was Its a Small World After All taken that day?

Messages of hope are great and much needed in times of distress. But if one is to present such a message, one must stick the landing. Getting your friends together to recite the worst song written by the worst Beatle is the opposite of sticking the landing. Talk about situations where the supposed cure is possibly worse than the disease itself.

Anyway, if you are looking for a message of hope and comfort amid the coronavirus pandemic, I recommend you seek it from someone of both taste and talent:

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Hollywood A-listers band together to torture the quarantined - Washington Examiner

I work in a neighborhood building above a chocolate shop that usually smells so good it evokes a predictable wave of nostalgia even patriotism, I guess.

It's an all-American street, with no less than three different places to grab a cup of coffee. Most days, there are kids on skateboards doing tricks in the parking lot behind the bank. Toddlers stop and stare every time the bright-red fire truck cranks up its sirens and lumbers out of its cave to save the day.

That's the kind of street where I work. Youve seen it a thousand times.

But now, the candy shop is closed. It's scentless. No kids on skateboards. There's still coffee to be had, but the coffee shop patrons grab their drinks and make their way back onto the empty sidewalks, using their elbows or the knuckles to open the door.

All of this is new and surreal. At the same time, all of this is also strangely familiar.

You see, I've seen all this before. I wrote this.

Nearly 10 years ago, I published a novel that garnered a bit of notoriety. It featured zombies and viral pandemics, and so the story was riddled with empty and ravaged cities. Zombies were particularly fashionable back then.

In the screenplay version of my story, written by the late George Romero himself, the opening scene shows sidewalks empty of people, littered with unread newspapers, headlines caught in the eddies of the whistling breeze.

George often reminded me that every story was derivative. If youre telling a story about a pandemic, and my novel was exactly that, certain signifiers must be present.

In our current pandemic, these signifiers are rearing their eerie heads. Of course most are absent. We certainly aren't and will not be anywhere near burning cars. There are no gangs of bandits on motorcycles. There are no broken windows. But there are uncollected newspapers, piling up at the entrance to the office building where I've been virtually meeting with patients through the wonders of sterile technology.

Lately, people keep asking me about my book. People seem to think I might have a particular angle on the psychology surrounding our current pandemic. After all, they remind me, I spent a lot of time imagining a world where this sort of thing could happen. I even feel a little guilty. I wrote an entire novel that indulged in a kind of salacious, infectious foreboding.

In fact, I have lots of angles. My first is that I'd much prefer all of this to have remained in the movies. We watch these disaster films in part so we can leave the theater and revel in the normalcy of the off-screen world.

My second angle is that we are not in a disaster movie. What we see in the movies is a lot worse, a whole lot worse, than the unsettling emptiness on the street where I work. That's important to remember. Film scholars have noted that we tend to over-interpret familiar cinematic images when we encounter these images outside of the movies.

Thats the trap of our current predicament, and therein lies the most important lesson from my novel, indeed from all novels and movies and stories that feature the eerie and unnatural trappings of apocalyptic landscapes: We are not in an apocalypse. We are in the midst of a public health crisis that will without question end, and life will go back to normal.

This is not to say that things won't be pretty strange for a while. This is going to be tough. But this isn't about zombies. This is about the cautionary tale of the zombie trope.

My book featured characters who grew bored and frustrated with one another. Ennui was at least as dangerous as the pandemic itself. This very ennui, the lonely, one-note chords that empty streets and closed shops play in our pattern-prone brains, is the sentiment we have to guard most stringently against.

This ain't no zombie novel, but the zombie novels can teach us a thing or two. In the zombie stories, the humans nearly always end up fighting. That's the trap, and we know better.

We tend to defend ourselves by adopting the attributes of our enemies. This is problematic, because a virus literally has no attributes. It doesn't think or feel or love. The cautionary themes of every zombie film feature these tropes. Exactly when we need each other most, we start acting like zombies. And this is not the time for microbial nihilism.

Now, I must apologize. As a psychiatrist, I am going to offer clichs. Clichs are clichs, after all, because they are true. Oddly enough, we tend to ignore clichs when things get weird. I am arguing, therefore, that these clichs are currently especially important.

Play music. Tell stories. Go for a walk. Check in on your neighbor and tip your hat to a stranger. These gestures, so boring, so ordinary, are to my mind right now extraordinarily important. They preserve normalcy even as we hunker down for what looks like a long and unfamiliar haul.

We do not, as a rule, tolerate uncertainty with grace. Current research suggests that in the face of uncertainty, we generalize we decide that everything is foggy and out of focus. But there are constants of humanity, and we need to keep these in mind.We need to live in the moment even as we plan for the future. We need to keep up with routines as best we can. We need to sing and to play.

We got this. It's going to be hard, but we got this. This ain't no zombie novel, but the zombie novels can teach us a thing or two. In the zombie stories, the humans nearly always end up fighting. That's the trap and we know better.

Let's stick together, and we'll get through it.

Dr. Steve Schlozman isan assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist.

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This Is No Zombie Apocalypse Novel, Author Says But We Can Learn From Them - WBUR

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Nicholas Stern, one of the most prominent global experts on the climate crisis, has urged Boris Johnson to resist calls to postpone vital United Nations climate talks this year, despite the coronavirus outbreak.

Ministers and officials have privately discussed the possibility of postponing the COP26 talks scheduled for Glasgow this November, but no decision has yet been taken. Travel bans and the shutdown imposed in many countries because of the virus have resulted in canceled meetings and officials working remotely.

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Stern believes any move to postpone the talks would put an end to any hope of making real progress. At the moment we must just get on with the preparation, he said. This is such an urgent challenge and there is so much to do, and so much valuable work that is being done, that we cant afford to lose the momentum.

At COP26 the 26th conference of the parties countries are supposed to come up with more stringent plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions, because current plans under the Paris Agreement are inadequate. The U.K. was hoping to bring many countries to the table with pledges to hit net zero carbon by 2050, a target that the U.K. has already enshrined in law.

Stern said work had become more difficult because of the virus, but not impossible. Postponing the summit now would effectively put the brakes on at a time when acceleration is needed, he said, and if needs be then a postponement could be discussed after the summer, depending on the situation then.

Stern is backed by other former high-ranking diplomats. Yvo de Boer, a former chief of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), who led talks in Copenhagen in 2009 that ended in acrimony, said it was vital to keep working towards a November COP26. If it is going to be canceled, that should only be done at the last possible minute in October, he said.

One former high-ranking official who helped put together the Paris Agreement said: Canceling now might look like the U.K. was grasping too soon for a way out of an important meeting.

Some NGOs and developing country experts also view talk of postponement as counterproductive. Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa and a close observer of the talks for many years, said: We would rather not see it canceled until we know more about the spread of the virus. Canceling it immediately might mean action on climate change gets ignored this year and people on the frontlines in poorer countries cant afford that.

Janine Felson, the deputy chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said: We cannot afford to lose any momentum. We should all focus our energies on ensuring that we can support each other through this trying time and continue to push for ambition.

But some experts contacted by the Guardian believe postponing the talks would provide more time for diplomacy. John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace U.K., has written to Alok Sharma, the business secretary and president of COP26, urging him to delay.

He said: Postponement is very different to cancellation. It would be the same president, the same venue, the same two countries co-hosting, so all you are doing is having a slight delay. The U.K. got off to a slow start [in launching its strategy for hosting COP26] so postponement would give more time for the work that is needed.

One key issue is that the U.S. presidential election is due to take place a week before COP26 begins. Donald Trump is strongly opposed to the Paris Agreement and his withdrawal from it will take effect the day after the election. A new president, if there is one, could be more amenable to climate action but would not take office until January, so a postponement could allow the U.S. to participate.

Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute in the U.S., said: One distinct advantage of delay until spring 2021 is the growing prospect that U.S. voters will turn Trumps climate nihilism out of office in favor of Joe Bidens robust climate ambition, infusing global negotiations with far greater importance and momentum.

Some pre-COP meetings are already in doubt. The UNFCCC has canceled all meetings for the next month but a decision will have to be taken soon on an intermediate meeting set for Bonn in June. Italy is due to co-host COP26 with the U.K. but its plans have been thrown into disarray by the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.K. government has said there are no plans for a change. A spokesperson said: We continue to work towards hosting the event in Glasgow in November, which is eight months away. Given this is an evolving situation we are keeping the situation under careful review.

The UNFCCC also said there was no immediate move to postpone the talks. Any decision would have to be taken by the COP Bureau, made up of elected representatives from various countries, and would also involve the Chilean government, which technically will preside over the process until the U.K. officially takes on the presidency in November.

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Will the pandemic derail the global climate talks? - Grist