The Month That Was - October 2020

 Eight months into the pandemic and find I am fully used to the current state of affairs: Mask wearing inside in public, working from home, making other relatively minor concessions to the pandemic life. I have begun to wonder if I will ever "go back" to work in the way I had done most of my life. In my company it is forbidden to return to the office until January at the soonest, and even then there will be options and possibly outright disincentives to cube-dwelling.  It will be a very strange atmosphere for the final 5-ish years of my working life.  

The good news is I finished revision 3 of my latest book and am now on to revision 4.  The bad news is that I found a key flaw in the fundamental premise.  Fixing that is what revision 4 will be.  Ten steps forward, nine steps back, but I do finally have the sense that I might actually finish it one day.

[Covid19] Coronatime, Month 8

[TV] Toob Notes

[Rant] Where in the World

[Covid19] Coronatime, Month 8

 This is the best article I've read about the current state of knowledge.  We seem to be zeroing on the idea that this virus spreads in bursts, not in a steady manner.  In fact, there is mention that there seem to be individuals who, possible for physiological reasons, are especially contagious.  Place one of these people in the right setting -- indoors, crowded, loud talking/singing, extended proximity -- and you have a superspreader event. 

It's not clear anything about this knowledge would change our strategy.  If these especially contagious people exist, we have no way to identify them.  And most places have restrictions in place against all that superspreader required behavior.  

But it does suggest that the odd protestor refusing to wear a mask in the grocery store is not such a big deal and we could chill about that a bit.  (Tyler Cowen suggests we stop moralizing; good luck with that.)  Perhaps more importantly, it suggests that is a large element of chance in outbreaks.  That is to say, a loud Irish pub could go weeks or months without any trouble, but one superspreader walks in and the whole neighborhood could be infected.  That's not a particularly satisfying explanation of the heterogeneity of the epidemic (the data is so contradictory actionable conclusions are rare) but it might be what we got.  

The good news is that re-infection looks to be exceedingly rare and possibly only occur in extenuating circumstances.

Herd immunity has not really been found in any documentable way.  Every time we think we have found some population that should have achieved it, they have another outbreak.  So we can only wait for a vaccine.  It also appears the vaccines will have to come from overseas, since we (the U.S.) seem incapable of reducing our onerous standards of safety, despite the urgency of the situation.  If there is a lesson from this, it is that we have lost our ability to assess risk in any constructive manner.  Maybe everyone should spend more time in Vegas.

[TV] Toob Notes

Fargo -- the latest season seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with the original movie, and that's fine.  It tries to find the same tone as the movie and it somewhat succeeds -- a bit of a surrealistic take on organized (and disorganized) crime in a cold midwestern town (Kansas City this time) with lots of quirky characters and ironic plot twists.  Solid entertainment but the series is starting to feel a little cookie-cutter-ish.

The main plotline centers around a turf war between Black and Italian crime gangs.  Naturally all sides justify their sociopathic behavior with historical grievance sob stories.  More interestingly, while the Italians are standard mafia types, the blacks are all thoughtful, well-spoken, and simply profit oriented. That may be an attempt to counter a typical black stereotype for reasons of principal or practicality -- avoiding triggering the very grievances the show celebrates. Somewhere I read the comment that the black characters on the show behave more like Jews. Maybe it was originally written for Jews but they decided it would be better to have people of color.  Such is the deconstruction we now have to consider in 2020.

I have issues with the casting.  I find neither Chris Rock or Jason Schwartzman are particularly convincing mob bosses.  But Jessie Buckley as a serial killer nurse and Salvatore Esposito as a sadistic goodfella are excellent, as is the ever reliable Timothy Oliphant as a Mormon badass.  In any event, you could find worse things to watch, and you probably will.

Archer -- For its first couple of seasons Archer was one of the funniest shows on TV, ever.  If I ever get around to creating a pantheon of TV comedy, Archer would be on it.  But like many shows it degraded over the years as the writers ran out of ideas and plots and themes became ever more far-fetched -- dream sequence seasons, outer space adventures, etc.  Some of these, apart from feeling desperate, simply weren't funny.   The current season is a return to form in both format and quality.  The general theme is that the team finally became somewhat functional, sane, and accomplished...then Archer himself returns and drags everyone back into dysfunction and insanity.  It is unapologetically beautiful.

Nero Wolfe Mysteries -- Some of you may remember from years ago the Nero Wolfe mysteries starring Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton that aired on A&E just after the turn of the century.  They were clever, stylish, perfectly paced, and brilliantly acted.  It perfectly captures the feel of the original mysteries in that, as someone pointed out elsewhere, they are really drawing room escapades disguised as mysteries.  

Interestingly the casting was troupe-based.  The main characters were fixed, but remaining characters were played by the same set of (very capable) actors in different roles each episode.  It gave it more of a sense of repertory theatre. It lasted two seasons of less than 12ish episodes then, as Maury Chaykin said, "[A]t the time A&E was transforming from the premier intellectual cable network in America to one that airs Dog the Bounty Hunter on repeat, so it was never promoted and eventually went off the air." 

I don't believe it is streaming legitimately anywhere, but there are (probably illegitimate) full episodes on YouTube although the audio seems to cut in and out on them occasionally.  They are still worth watching.  A delightful escape to that rare moment in history when TV had ambitions of quality.

[Rant] Where in the World

One of the interesting developments of the pandemic is the new acceptance level for remote work.  This has the potential to have a huge effect on the geographics.  Take NYC for example.  It is a huge financial and real estate center and a high visibility locale for company headquarters.  Another way of saying that is there a lot of people in offices and cube farms working on their computers and having meetings.  Well I can now work on my computer and meet with you from pretty much anywhere in the world.  This has been the case for a while but there was huge uncertainty about how effective and productive we would be in the absence of face-to-face contact.  After months of having been forced to work remotely general consensus is that it can be very effective and productive.  Personally, I remain suspicious that there may be problems yet to be discovered. I find it works well when I have a pre-existing real world relationship, less well when I do not.

The other thing folks will have discovered is that it can be a lot cheaper.  If I really need an NYC address, it's a lot cheaper to hang a shingle somewhere and have my employees work from their basements in a Smalltown, Midwest than lease five floors of an office building in Manhattan.  Or maintain a sprawling modern campus in Silicon Valley for that matter.

The social outcomes of all this I will leave for another time.  The question I'm posing is given you can work from anywhere now, where should you live?

If you are young and ambitious, I still think there is value in living in an area filled with other young and ambitious people.  The opportunity to do real-life socializing and networking with like-minded people still has value. The aforementioned Silicon Valley is the former paradigm for this. Silicon Valley is, however, too damn expensive and has probably peaked in that sense.  My first suggestion is Texas.  Texas is rising, and not just Austin.  The Houston-Austin-San Antonio triangle is rapidly becoming the premier commercial heart of the country.  Having spent some time there, I can tell you that the growth of the area is astounding, and that they are handling it infrastructure-wise much better than many other places.  If I was a recent college grad, that's where I would go.  Other similar choices would be the Research Triangle in North Carolina, and western cities of Denver, Phoenix, and Las Vegas.  

What if you are older and settled into your career and industry? The palette for this group is wider and more diverse.  Quality of life becomes more important.  You know all those articles about "The Best Places to Live"?  Well you can actually consider some of these. Here you can look for the paradigmatic low crime/good schools area and match it with your leisure activities -- near water, in the mountains, where there are great restaurants, entertainment, weather, political atmosphere, etc.  I would bet that in most cases, unless you're trying to make a socio-political point, this will not be a big city.  Check out this list of the fastest growing cities in the U.S.  It is not surprisingly Texas-heavy, but note that 2 of the top 10 are in Idaho.  I have only been to Idaho once, for the eclipse, and I am not familiar with the two names on the list, but I can verify that Ketchum, where I stayed, and its funky neighbor over the mountain, Stanley, would be terrific places to live (at least in the warm months).  You can bet that these sorts of cities will grow faster because you no longer have to commit to leaving the rat race to live there; you can keep in touch with the other rats via your basement office.

Although I am barreling ever more quickly to retirement, I find myself in exactly this situation.  I am fortunate in that I love where I live (Dexter, MI) and wouldn't think twice about recommending it (again, mind your tolerance for cold winters).  In fact, there are any number of small towns peppered along the Great Lakes coast that would be wonderful for quality of life.  

The other region I am familiar with is the desert West.  Moab, UT would be a great place, economically insulated as it is by the surrounding National Parks.  St. George, UT for similar reasons along with its proximity to Vegas.  Many places in Utah would fit the bill -- like Idaho, Utah should benefit from all this.

The Florida Gulf, and to some extent the areas surrounding Orlando have good qualities but there are the wild cards of tourists and retirees that can disrupt the steadiness of things at times.  Also the summer heat takes some getting used to.

It's going to be fascinating to watch the shifts in geographic demography in the upcoming years.

Retirement locales are another matter entirely.  Low taxes and good health infrastructure are key attributes in this case.  That's why I've zeroed in on Florida.  But I don't see that changing due to the increase in remote work.

I mentioned before that when we emerge from the pandemic we may find ourselves in a new Roaring Twenties.  One of the characteristics of it might be a realignment from city orientation to regional orientation; a move from the celebration of the intensity and conflict of urban life to the serenity and spirit of more open spaces.  That'd be nice.