Looking for shows to watch on Netflix and Amazon Prime, I'm reminded of Hania's experience clothes shopping when she first came to the States. The sheer quantity was dazzling at first until she saw that so much of what was on offer was the same. The TV equivalent is the glut of shows about detectives and crime. Some of these are very good - we're enjoying the Polish series The Mire, which, in a slight twist, is about journalists and crime - but do we really need so many? There is a depressing dearth of shows about everyday people in familiar situations - school, work, neighborhood, family - that aren't ridiculously exaggerated. Life may still imitate art at times, but when did art stop imitating life?
No vaccine yet, but we have found a way to end mass shootings.
For anyone having trouble coping, I recommend getting off Twitter (gloom and doom) and going to Instagram (kids and pets).
Have you noticed how clean people’s hands are lately?
Coming back from the store I passed a car with a sticker reading: “Make America Kind Again.” A short while later I came up behind one with a sticker reading: “He won. Get over it.”
I started my new travel writing course last night and at one point mentioned that a surprising number of American travel writers speak only English. I asked the students how many of them spoke another language and all fourteen hands went up.