Special Entry 2 – Midpoint
(click to enlarge)
Photo: May 17th, 2020 Spring Street
Wednesday, May 27th, 2020
Hello People,
This coming Sunday, May 31st Covid Entry 26—more of a prayer than a typical entry—will be sent. It was written on Easter Sunday. That was the day I first noticed storefronts being boarded up. The plywood shuttering stayed in Soho at first and then expanded geographically around the city.
The methods of protecting storefronts evolved over the weeks to include more moderate, less expensive, approaches—many done from inside, coverings the glass with paper, cardboard, cloth, plywood, and even plastic bags. As May arrived the designer stores in Soho used their boarded up storefronts to promote their brands. For reasons I do not understand, I have not seen or heard this phenomenon mentioned in the media. It seemed worth discussing or at least mentioning such a significant change.
On Thursday, May 7th the final Covid Entry, CE 52, was written. Auspiciously, from a historical point of view, the midpoint of this project aligned with the peak of deaths in New York City.
Based on the current every-other-day schedule, the final entry should arrive in your inbox on Bastille Day. But such predictability does not fit these times. And, I would be surprised if anyone objected to a decrease in email, so please allow me to announce some changes.
After CE 26 is sent on Sunday, we will take a “spring break.” An intermission.* We will then pick up with the second half. The interval between entries will increase to four days.
The slower release of entries may provide a different context for reflecting on what happened not so long ago. For example, Covid Entry 22, which has a photograph of a stationery store selling N-95 masks and hand sanitizer, had a very different feel when it was sent out 6 weeks after it was taken. By that point, a mask could be purchased more easily than a lottery ticket—and most anywhere, including street vendors and coffee shops.
* In 2020 the intermission was two weeks long. In 2023, it will be extended to three weeks.
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More pictures can be seen by clicking the photo.
