#105: Pandemic Pigtails
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Yuni: We’ve gotten a bigger than usual crowd today, with a new boost in subscribers from LinkedIn after this post. Welcome, welcome, and thanks for joining the party!
Also, big thank you to all who sent your best wishes throughout and after my dengue fever episode. I’m feeling loads better. Going back to work and my regular routine has helped make me feel a lot more useful and more like myself.
For example, I managed to complete this hand-woven top this week!
(Pardon my pandemic pigtails.)
Huge thanks to @craftateliersg for selling me the yarn (SG$12 only!) and offering me guidance to get this project from idea to completion. The feeling of making something with my bare hands is frankly unbeatable. I’m wearing this top over my yoga outfits at home and for lazing around. Verdict: Perfection. So comfy and cozy and relaxed.
Besides cooing over how adorably pastel the top is, Werty also joked that its construction — two pieces of cloth stitched together at the side with a big slot at the top for my head to poke through — makes me a bit like a walking tissue box. It is apt for allergy-prone me.
Werty: In Singapore, the Circuit Breaker ends in 2 days, after which we move into ‘Phase 1’ of the re-opening plan. I’m guessing that this transition doesn’t make a substantive difference to most of you reading this - executives, professionals and students - as you will still work and study from home for a while, but it will come as a sigh of relief to many others as more of the economy is allowed to resume operations.
A while ago I wrote in this newsletter wondering if Singaporeans were mentally prepared to adopt a new way of life in the long haul, instead of just eagerly waiting for everything to return to normal in a month’s time. Now I’m wondering if we are adapting too well - becoming too acclimatised to the staggering human cost of the pandemic.
At one point, people were shocked and concerned by a thousand new cases a day, the living conditions of migrant workers, the Malaysian workers separated from their families, the precarious situation of gig workers, the disadvantaged students managing their home-based learning, the social isolation of the elderly. But it seems as if that news cycle ran its course.
3 days ago it was announced that 100,000 people will be receiving their first payout under the Self-Employed Person Income Relief Scheme, with more folks still in the pipeline. That is a staggering number of workers (and households!) if you pause to think about it, but it didn’t seem to stir much response.
Is it apathy, fatigue, discomfort or something else? Will the response to COVID be akin to the response to mass shootings and police brutality in America? (But read Race Tuition Centre to understand why it’s important to care about George Floyd and Black Lives Matter.) Does this hint at our eventual response, or lack thereof, to climate change, our biggest crisis yet? Humans are such infinitely adaptable beings, but perhaps therein lies a flaw.
Fun things to do in these distanced days
Sketchful/ Skribbl, but with a Harry Potter custom list (Anyone know how to draw Barty Crouch, Sr?)
Stroll through the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Watch a live feed of the poppy fields in Antelope Valley, California
Is it safe to keep employing a cleaner? Wrong question, lady.
In which Roxanne Gay takes over the NYT’s advice column and absolutely kills it.
This pandemic has revealed just how pronounced the class fractures in our society are. You’re worrying about getting sick from your “wonderful” cleaning lady while she is probably worrying about how to support her family while staying safe and healthy. She is probably dealing with what millions of Americans are facing right now: They can choose to support their family or they can stay safe and healthy, but they cannot afford to do both.
Is this why Werty loves rock-climbing so much?
No coronavirus or no money? These Polynesian islands made their choice.
Maps as tools of persuasion and distortion
Because they seem to show the world how it “really is,” maps produce a powerful sense of trust and belief. But maps and data visualizations can never communicate a truth without any perspective at all. They are social objects whose meaning and power are produced by written and symbolic language and whose authority is determined by the institutions and contexts in which they circulate.
Tea and capitalism in the 19th Century
The China tea trade was a paradox: a global, intensified industry without the usual spectacle of factories and technology
The NSA’s secret tool for mapping your social network
Edward Snowden revealed the agency’s phone-record tracking program. But thanks to “precomputed contact chaining,” that database was much more powerful than anyone knew.
Why remote work is so hard - and how it can be fixed
The challenges aren’t just technological. They’re managerial.
Xi'an cuisine, the Silk Road, and the Muslim influence on Chinese culture
In the city’s Muslim Quarter, meals are a celebration of globalization and ethnic diversity — and a lasting defense against erasure.
Are you a UX designer or fancy yourself one? Test your eye for detail with this quiz.
A cultural retrospective of Rebecca Black's Friday [Podcast]
What The Good Place teaches us about justice
The appeal of Little Women, 150 years later
How this chair conquered the world
The satisfying character development of Iron Man and Captain America in the Marvel movies
That’s all! Stay safe and have a good week ahead!
Werty & Yuni