Tag: Covid-19

Categories
City Life

Flash Fiction: Death Knocks On Luther’s Door

Black and white painting of skulls and hellish faces on fence in Toronto's Kensington Market
Painting on Fence in Kensington Market, Toronto

I must confess I was rather pleased with myself, almost giddy, for arriving at the Luther household with a hammer and a bag of gleaming nails to mark the 10th anniversary of that most illustrious of illustrious events. Like many of the others who shared schnitzel and beer at Martin’s table talks, we had taken to addressing him as Herr Doktor even though he affected modesty and insisted we call him Martin. So I felt somewhat deflated when the eminent man himself pulled open the door and, before I could utter a greeting or proffer my gift, advised that if I wished to cross his threshold I would first have to don a mask. They had received word only that morning of a fresh outbreak, a family on the next street manifesting buboes on their armpits and groins, and a little one who, sadly, had succumbed the night before. I complied of course, drawing from my pocket a face covering made from multiple layers of a fine linen which my Helga had purchased in the market.

Martin ushered me indoors. After surrendering my hammer and nails, I asked if he had any more theses he wished to add to the 95 he had already fixed to the door in Wittenberg, to which he answered that he could not say for certain; he would leave that for Herr Gott to conclude. I chortled until my corpulent midriff shook the floor and remarked that hopefully Herr Gott would conclude it in favour of brevity, otherwise the work would grow so large—

As large as you? and he elbowed me in the gut.

—grow so large that the weight would pull the door off its hinges.

I took a seat at the table where I stared directly at a woodcutting on the opposite wall, a framed work in the manner of Albrect Dürer, Death riding through the town on an emaciated steed. By contrast, Martin’s Katharina offered portions which were generous and, as she often said, would keep me looking as little like Death as any live man would care to look. I declared that I preferred not to be a Diet of Worms, but my joke fell flat amongst those at the table, most of whom were students from the university and either too thick or too drunk to appreciate the humour of intellectuals like myself.

Martin commented on the redness of my nose to which I answered that it was better red than black, for a red nose meant that I was still above ground.

As we ate, and as the Herr Doktor held forth on his latest theological musings, a knock came at the door. We fell silent while Martin opened the door and greeted a student, glassy-eyed and thin. As with me, Martin requested that the young man don a mask.

The young man’s voice rose as he spoke, and we could not help but hear his refusal.

Then I’m afraid I can’t allow you into my home.

Well then fuck you, Herr Doktor.

As the boy grew louder, it appeared to us that he also grew larger, as if by a magical mechanism that pumped air into his body and expanded it, as one sometimes sees with sausage casing that fills with a noxious gas when the meat inside begins to rot.

The boy proclaimed Herr Doktor Luther a hypocrite who, though he held himself out as a reformer and man of the people, what with his shitty Bible translation and his cavorting with drunks and his rescuing nun/whores from the clutches of the Church, but he was still nothing if not orthodox when it came to public health protocols. Wear a mask! Your mind has been taken over by the forces of evil.

The boy pointed to the woodcutting of Death fixed to Luther’s wall.

You think a little bit of cloth will do any good? It seems you’ve fallen in with that Copernicus heretic who puts his science before faith.

Luther said he was sorry the boy felt that way. But it didn’t matter because, at least in his own home, Luther was free to exclude whomever he pleased. And it pleased him very much to exclude drunken fools who refused to wear masks.

With that, Luther slammed the door shut in the boy’s bare face and returned to his schnitzel.

Categories
Street Photography

Plywood Canyon

Woman passes plywood-covered shop windows on Bloor Street. A diagonal shadow terminates at her feet.
Woman Passes Plywood-Covered Shop Windows, Bloor Street, Toronto

I can’t speak to the way things played out in other cities during the pandemic. All I have for a reference is what I observed in Toronto. Based solely on appearances, Toronto looks like any number of large American cities. That’s why, in films, it often serves as a body double for cities like New York and Chicago. Of course Toronto isn’t an American city. While the features that distinguish it are often subtle, those features are real all the same.

Early in the pandemic, when everybody went into lockdown, most retail enterprises had to shut down. Unless they could hold themselves out as an essential service, they had to shutter their doors and send their workers home. As soon as this happened, most of those stores covered their doors and windows with sheets of plywood. By this gesture, these stores said, in effect, that they expected an end-of-civilization scenario complete with marauding gangs and looting and molotov cocktails.

I can’t say for certain, but I get the feeling the plywood order came from head offices in large American cities where end-of-civilization scenarios are more probable. Especially in those cities where (lack of) urban planning has encouraged (white) flight to the suburbs, downtown cores are less stable in times of crisis. But Toronto is not one of those cities. Say what you will about all the condominiums sprouting like mushrooms, these projects guarantee that the city’s core enjoys a vibrant street life which in turn promotes a greater sense of social cohesion.

In addition, there is a certain alchemy in Toronto that’s harder to nail down. Call it local culture if you like. The fact is: people in Toronto are extraordinarily compliant. Relative to other large cities, rates of violent crime here are extraordinarily low. (The 2021 Safe Cities Index ranks Toronto as the 2nd safest city in the world). Vaccination rates in the city have been high (almost 90% for 2 doses). And most people have accepted public health protocols like masking and social distancing.

Despite the evidence, as soon as Doug Ford issued his first state-of-emergency order in March of 2020, retailers with windows fronting on major thoroughfares covered those windows with plywood. As I discovered on my pandemic photo walks, the only people out on the streets at that time were the homeless and marauding gangs of photographers. I feel badly for all the trees they wasted.

Categories
Street Photography

Health Care Worker on the way to his next shift

Health care worker in hospital greens crosses the street
Health Care Worker heads to Saint Michael's Hospital, Toronto

Throughout the pandemic, my wife has been able to work from home. But every so often she has to go into the office to handle something that can’t be handled virtually. She’s required to carry a laptop with her wherever she goes, but it’s heavy, so I serve as her personal pack mule. I walk down with her early in the morning, carrying her laptop and my camera gear, then I go on from there with a morning photo walk.

Back in the spring of 2020, when we first started doing this, the downtown streets were all but empty. There was no traffic coming into the downtown core and the only pedestrians were either essential workers or, oddly enough, street photographers like me documenting the emptiness. I caught this health care worker arriving for a morning shift at St. Michael’s Hospital as we were standing at the Queen/Victoria intersection. I note the Blue Jays baseball hat, a reminder of a life outside the job even as the job was beginning to overwhelm our health care workers.

Do you remember how, every evening at 7:30 pm, people leaned out their windows and banged on pots and pans to celebrate the dedication of front line workers? When did that stop? It seems our energy petered out, maybe falling victim to Covid fatigue. Two years on, it strikes me that our front line workers need the celebration and encouragement more than ever. Instead, they have to deal with a government that dickers over trivial wage increases. They have to confront incessant denialism and disinformation from a subculture of ignoramuses. And, because so many end up exposed to Covid-19, they find themselves understaffed and unable to deliver the level of care to which they are committed.

I suspect the best way we can support health care workers is to do our best to ensure that we don’t need their services. That way, they are free to offer their services to those who truly need them. That’s my subtle way of saying: wear a damned mask when you’re indoors, self-isolate when you’re sick, and take all other prophylactic measures you possibly can.

Categories
Street Photography

Unintended Consequences

Negotiating Concrete Barriers, SW corner of Front and Bay

After the Toronto van attack on April 23rd, 2018, when Alek Minassian drove a van down a Yonge Street sidewalk, killing 11 and injuring 15, the city took measures to ensure that such a thing could never happen again. While the city’s motives are laudable—after all, who wouldn’t support measures than ensure public safety?—nevertheless, implementation came with unintended consequences. The most obvious safety measure the city took was to drop concrete barriers at key intersections where there is high pedestrian traffic. Pedestrians could walk through gaps in the barriers, but the barriers were impassable to vehicles.

One key intersection the city identified was Front and Bay Streets where workers in the financial district move to and from Union Station for their daily commute. The intersection is 14 km away from the site of the attack, but I suppose it is best to err on the side of caution. I visited the intersection a week after the attack and observed how people passed through gaps in the concrete barriers. For most people, it was a minor inconvenience. But for others it was a challenge.

I don’t think this unintended consequence is an aberration. I suspect unintended consequences proliferate every time authorities implement prophylactic measures in the name of public safety. Perhaps this is because safety is not an absolute value, but is one of many variables in risk assessment. If we treat it as an absolute value, then all the other variables get thrown out the window.

After 9/11, the United States Government invoked public safety to secure its borders especially where passage across its borders happened by air travel. The measures it implemented soon became the global standard which means that virtually anyone who has traveled by air since September 11th, 2001 has found themselves subjected to these safety measures. Collectively, we have decided that other values, like privacy, sanctity of the person, and personal dignity, do not matter. However, increased surveillance at airports is a contributing factor in the rise of nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiments, Islamophobia, white supremacy, and general feelings of xenophobia. It is a deep irony that security measures have made the world less secure. Unintended consequences.

The global pandemic has produced a strange mirror image of this behaviour. I call it a mirror image because, while the behaviour is similar, it is reversed. One would think that concerns for public safety would motivate political leaders to err on the side of caution, especially given that today’s global political climate is emphatically conservative and conservatism tends to treat public safety as a plank in its law and order platform. But here we are, beginning our 3rd year of a global health crisis, and politicians both locally and around the globe tell us that we need to set aside our concerns for public safety. Other values, like economic prosperity, are more important.

The only thing I am certain of in all this is that unintended consequences will appear. It’s still too soon to say what these consequences will be, but as surely as the world turns, they will rear their pernicious little heads. I guarantee it.

Categories
Street Photography

The 5 Stages of Masking

Walking on Front Street by Union Station, Toronto

In her seminal 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross outlined the five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I wonder if there isn’t a similar set of stages at play in our mask use. My speculations have no scientific data to support them. All I can offer are my personal observations of others wearing masks in public spaces and, of course, reflections on my own responses.

The first time I encountered mask-wearing as a normalized practice was on a visit to Hong Kong in 2016. Since the outbreak of the Spanish flu in 1918, mask-wearing has been a common practice in large Asian cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Seoul. These cultural hubs are probably more receptive to mask-wearing because of their long-held values of respect for elders and commitment to social responsibility. As a Westerner thoroughly indoctrinated in the values of individualism and aggressive self-interest, my first response to mask-wearers was: Well, isn’t that odd! If they want to do that, then good for them; but I’ll never do that. Denial.

On March 11, 2020, when the WHO declared a global pandemic, and when local public health officials recommended mask-wearing as a preventive measure, I grudgingly went along with the new protocol. I didn’t like it, but I went along with it. I manifested anger, but not at mask-wearing. Instead, I got angry at people who refused to comply with the protocol. In particular, I remember an incident when a maskless neighbour tried to step into the elevator with me and I stood in his way and wouldn’t let him on. He yelled at me and called me a covidiot, which I thought was an ironic thing to say. I shrugged my shoulders and told him he could wait for the next elevator. Anger.

It’s been a long time since this began, so we forget how we felt in the early days of our mask-wearing. I remember feeling anxiety and uncertainty. There were questions about what kinds of masks we should be wearing. How many layers? Did we need to wear them outdoors? When we weren’t wearing them, could we strap them to our wrists? Disposable vs. washable? What about the environmental impact of disposable masks? Some people started sewing masks, little social projects like knitting wool socks for soldiers during the war. Some people started treating masks as fashion statements. Others hot stamped logos onto the cloth, personal branding, or declarations of personal affiliation. Nike masks. Hells Angels masks. These questions about masks sounded a lot like bargaining.

With the arrival of the omicron variant, people realized that home-sewn masks weren’t good enough. I tossed all my triple-layered cloth masks and began wearing only N95 masks. I noted that most people did the same or, at the very least, resorted to those blue medical masks. The heavy duty masks offered some reassurance, but with winter approaching, it was such a drag. Depression.

To make my narrative fit the Kübler-Ross paradigm, I should round this out with an “acceptance” stage. However, I don’t see evidence of acceptance. I don’t think we can say there has been a long-term adoption of mask-wearing. It certainly hasn’t embedded itself in North American culture the way it has in many Asian cities. If anything, I think we’ve reverted to the bargaining stage. Where I live, in Ontario, the government has lifted masking mandates. The same is true in the U.S. and in Western Europe. Infectious disease experts tell us we’re in the midst of a 6th wave, but politicians want to bargain with the virus. Go easy on us. We want to get on with our lives. Let us throw away our masks.

Categories
City Life

Pandemic Skating in Nathan Phillips Square

Skating in Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square

It’s interesting to compare public skating pre- and post-vaccine. Last year, people were skating before we had secured any vaccines. That meant that protocols were overly cautious. The city allowed only 25 people on the ice at a time while others waited in line behind a fence. When those 25 people had finished their skate, marshals directed them to a separate area where they could take off their skates. Only after the ice had been cleared did the marshals allow the next batch of 25 onto the ice. After the people in the changing area had left that space, the marshals went over and disinfected the benches. It was a slow process, and even though the city got to say that skating was open to the public, in practical terms, almost nobody got to skate.

This year, it’s different. We know that transmission happens almost exclusively by aerosols, so disinfecting benches is a waste of time. We also know that the risk of infection outdoors is low, so going maskless in wide open spaces isn’t such a big deal. As a result, people are moving more freely through Nathan Phillips Square this year. Even so, there are obvious signs that we are still in pandemic times. The band-aid in the final “O” of the Toronto sign reminds people to get vaccinated. A sign of the times?

Categories
Street Photography

No One in the Streets

Early days of the pandemic: news reports from all over the world said there was no one in the streets. Thanks to lockdowns, urban cores had been hollowed out. Everything fell silent. In my hometown (Toronto), I walked the streets to see for myself if they were as empty and quiet and the news reports said they were.

It reminds me of an episode from Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass. The White King wants to know where his messengers have gone and asks Alice to look for them. We end up with this exchange:

“Just look along the road, and tell me if you can see either of them.”

“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.

“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”

That, in turn, sends me back to an even earlier example of the same game. It’s the exchange between Odysseus and Polyphemus, the cyclops:

“‘Cyclops, you ask my name and I will tell it you; give me, therefore, the present you promised me; my name is Noman; this is what my father and mother and my friends have always called me.’

“But the cruel wretch said, ‘Then I will eat all Noman’s comrades before Noman himself, and will keep Noman for the last. This is the present that I will make him.’

After Odysseus gets the giant drunk and pokes out his eye, Polyphemus cries out to all the other cyclopes.

“… [S]o they gathered from all quarters round his cave when they heard him crying, and asked what was the matter with him.

“‘What ails you, Polyphemus,’ said they, ‘that you make such a noise, breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?’

“But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, ‘Noman is killing me by fraud; no man is killing me by force.’

“‘Then,’ said they, ‘if no man is attacking you, you must be ill; when Jove makes people ill, there is no help for it, and you had better pray to your father Neptune.’

“Then they went away…

I wandered the city streets, but I couldn’t find no one anywhere.

Categories
Street Photography

Scary Hallowe’en Photo

Hauling a clothes rack up Augusta Avenue in Toronto's Kensington Market.

I shot this photo in beforetimes. You can tell. No one is wearing a mask.

It was just before Hallowe’en in 2019. Ah, we were so young, so naive. We didn’t have a care in the world. We had no idea what scary things lurked just beyond the horizon.

This year, I’m dressing up as an anti-vaxxer. I’m leaving the mask at home. That’s the scariest costume I can think of.