On the studio walls fifty years seem to have slipped by since I first began annotating and dreaming over these [Adel, Jordan Valley, Vya, McDermitt] and other maps; half a century later

they’re still pretty much in the same sort of room, similar tables, similar clutter but suddenly,

outside that familiar room, forecasters are saying “Anyone still planning public events in the coming months might as well stop organising today and find innovative ways to communicate and relay the information differently..there is no immediate cure; we will have to pick up the residue and reinvent everything from scratch once the virus is under control” [Li Edelkoort , who even so paints what may be a rather overly rosy picture of the eventual outcome].

Virus?  Uh-oh…nonetheless early on in the week no one in Benissha seemed remotely in touch

with the potentially fatal consequences of gathering, embracing, breathing and expectorating

in public places, so for awhile it seemed we’d still be mindlessly congregating in the narrow corridors of the library on a Saturday afternoon as I awkwardly expostulated in ‘celebration’

of a dozen or so paintings , a prospect making me increasingly uneasy as the week wore on…

Days of Spring ensued, marred only by an alarmingly orange-hued Nincompoop’s disturbing “presidential” performance on the telly wherein by more or less not flubbing his ill-writ lines

[causing a drastic crash in the markets as soon as they opened] he was able to implement his favorite “strategy”, travel bans, in this case excluding all those Evil Europeans who have insulted him in oh so many ways though most apparently by speaking languages as well as truths he refuses to understand [English-speakers ruled over by persons with similar hairstyles were, despite having at least as high an incidence of Infection, initially exempt].  In an attempt to recuperate we treated ourselves to a possibly last dinner out at Gaby’s with martinis and zinfandel [neither shown] in assuagement of our unease as to the propaganda and the disease.

The next morning…

I ran over to Vallejo for a much overdue spiffing of the existing Tundra and heard, driving back, the considerably more presidential [if only!] Governor of California explaining in detail what

could and could not be done about the crisis given our resources and the lack of resources available from the drastically reduced faith-based CDC, only to learn soon after that Luz and Izel, leery of the petri dish of air travel, had decided not to come down from BC for fear as well they might not be allowed to return home.  After lunch, while L. was out laying in supplies against the apocalypse, I read a most illuminating article from my brother-in-law – click the  link!

Right around then Kathryn, curator of the Library show, called to say they’d decided to cancel every public function, our Reception included.  An unfortunate turn of events but, given the increasing evidence, a prudent decision although it entailed doing a whole other mailing to warn off anyone who was still planning to venture out.

Friday the thirteenth Our Great Leader, yet again Seen on TV surrounded by self-selecting sycophants, took credit for Everything and responsibility for Nothing while declaring a National State of Emergency, fawning toadies arrayed in obeisance all around him.  In conclusion the entire idiotic crew shook and shook each other’s hands in an eloquent public demonstration of their ignorance of Social Distancing…

At least USA! USA! has a very low incidence of infection…although if they ever get around to systematic testing that might conceivably, um, change.

Ostracize the ostriches before their idiocy kills us all…