Glenn Kubish

To the list of cliched consolations built according to a similar sentence pattern—the one good thing about the pandemic is...the only silver lining in the pandemic is...if we've learned one thing from the pandemic, it's that...—I will add mine: the only true comfort in the pandemic has been Edgar Allan Poe.  Poe has been a companion since I dropped the needle on Dylan's latest album and heard the singer in I Contain Multitudes confess that he has "a tell-tale heart like Mr. Poe." I am back to Mr. Poe and reading the short stories and, as strange as it sounds, find in the horror something up to the ordeal we find ourselves in. Yes, I can try to balance out the grimness and the bleakness with good news stories, and I do. But Poe does the trick. The stories are little injections of dread that somehow work to stabilize my fears. Like to like. Literary vaccine.  The Premature Burial tells a story from the point of view of a young man terrified by the prospect of being

I can't shake the feeling that whatever play we thought we were in before isn't the play we're in now. The old set has been blown away...we have different lines...about obligation to each other. We're not so familiar with that script.  There's no shortage of lines. There are the basic messages. Distance, wash your hands, wear a mask, avoid social gatherings. There are the lines written by the humorists. Maintain physical distance, or 1 Joey Ramone. There's the threatening voice of authority. If we don't turn this around now, there will be tighter controls ahead. Clever wordplay, too. Spread the word, not the virus. Bend the curve, not the rules. Wearing a mask? Best time to get braces. The big picture: we are in this together, apart. The appeal to the heart: protect your loved ones.  Versions of the last line about protecting loved ones are curious. It's long been thought that protecting loved ones goes without saying. The human impulse to protect loved