“Going Home in the New Normal,” an essay by Joe Milan, Jr.
A young family takes a risk to return from abroad. “In the last few years, when I’ve gone abroad it has become an increasingly bigger test of courage to state I’m from the U.S.” The New York Times maintains an interactive daily global virus tracker at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html. Shortly before leaving England, I took my daughter to our...
“The Politics of Art, 2020”: Our interview with Alexandra Blum, mixed-media artist.
A pandemic and other global breakdowns inspire a visual journal of diverse styles and influences. “I think for me what is interesting about this series of work is the diversity of voices within myself.” “Vitriol.” Editors’ Note: Alexandra (Ali) Blum is a California-based artist who draws on influences from around the world. When the quarantine was...
“When a tsetse fly,” a poem by Mari Pack.
It’s as welcoming as a mother, but none of this was personal. When a tsetse fly – chews your skin with its scissor teeth, through delicate capillaries for the sweet stain of red, it does so completely in earnest. – It ushers in the flagellate protozoan Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. Those misshapen parentheses swim — and they must swim — through...
“On Giving Up Antidepressants During a Pandemic,” an essay by Kirsten Parkinson.
The author goes meds-free when the world is having a major depressive episode. “Maybe depression is a normal response to a global pandemic. We don’t really have benchmarks for such an event. If I get down, what can I use to help me bounce back?” * I do not plan to cry. I am lying on...
“Two Broken Feet,” by Kathleen de Azevedo.
Differences in healing pre- and post-pandemic. “I felt a sense of creeping dread, made worse by the feeling that I could not run away.” http://www.metmuseum.org/ My last essay for Broad Street told of my trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when I broke my foot. On that trip to my birthplace, I wanted to prove my...
