Wednesday, July 1
Oregon Health Authority: deaths 208 (+1) cases 7,817 (+275)
Both of us have been reading a book called Something Wonderful. It’s about Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein and the era when they were such a large presence in American musical theatre. We’ve been reminded that their first mega-hit was Oklahoma! in 1943; their last was The Sound of Music, which opened in 1959. In between came Carousel in 1945, South Pacific in 1950 and The King and I in 1952. Because neither of us was very familiar with Carousel, we decided to have a listen to it, and, after a brief argument with Siri, we were able to hear the soundtrack of the 2018 Broadway revival. It turned out that we did recognize one song from the show, or at least one particular line of that song. The song starts like this:
The memorable part comes just a little later:
You can probably guess which line it was that seemed familiar. But something else seemed familiar, too. The song is about spring, something that happens every year in temperate climes, but it also serves nicely as a metaphorical foretelling of the great Pandemic of 2020, at least as it transpired around here. Just add the interpretations in parentheses below:
The song about June goes on for several more verses. One verse is about rams and ewes, one of them is about fish (fish?), one is about human romance, and there’s one more about saplings bursting with sap and suchlike. Great stuff. Something Wonderful is an interesting and thorough book. We lukewarmly recommend it.
Thursday, July 2
Oregon Health Authority: deaths 209 (+1) cases 9,636 (+363)
We’ve finished Episode 12 of our Turkish soap, whose Netflix title is Intersection and whose original Turkish title is Kördüğüm. We naturally thought that kördüğüm was some fancy word for intersection. But it seemed weird. Intersection is a noun, but in Turkish üm is a verb ending. So finally we looked it up, only to find that Kördüğüm does not mean intersection at all and is not a noun. It’s a sentence, and it means ‘I am blind.’ Now you may well be asking, “How can one word in Turkish be a three word sentence in English?” That is of course a very excellent question, so we want to try and answer it, even though it is technically off topic. Alas, even though we kinda know the answer, we are not the best people to ask. What you should do is take some basic Turkish lessons. You can do that online here. In fact, we are looking for two more people to study with, because you need four people to make an actual class, which is much cheaper than private lessons. If you are, for some bizarre reason, interested in this, starting in August, please let us know. We have details on pricing and schedules. We know the instructor and he’s good.
But now back to unreality. How did Netflix get from I Am Blind to Intersection? We don’t know. Does the original title relate to the fact that some of the characters are blind to the machinations of the treacherous evil doers who claim to be their friends? Possibly. For example, we are getting to know a new character named Murat, an old childhood friend of our handsome and good-hearted hero, Ali Nejat. Murat appears very wealthy and wants to help Ali Nejat realize his long held dream of starting up a business to make beautiful cars. Will Ali Nejat accept his help? We sure hope not because at the end of Episode 12 we found out that Murat’s real goal is the total destruction of Ali Nejat and all his dreams. But why?
Meanwhile, Ali Nejat has just spent a lovely and leisurely day alone with Naz at the family dacha in the hills somewhere around Istanbul. This is the first time they’ve ever spent a whole day together and they are both smiling. They were smiling a little bit a week or so back, after Naz separated from Umut. But then Naz found out she was pregnant. The child was Umut’s, of course, because all that Naz and Ali Nejat ever do is smile and look longingly at each other. Given how determined they are to be good, it may be all they ever do. So is Naz still pregnant? No. What happened there is that when Umut heard she was pregnant, he begged and pleaded for another chance and swore that everything would be different. Naz finally sighed and said something like “Okay, but do you know how hard this is going to be?” which turned out to be an understatement. After 24 hours of being the loving husband, Umut freaked out and started throwing things and breaking windows and stormed out. The next day he came back to apologize but ended up yelling at Naz and knocking her down, causing her to have a miscarriage. Not surprisingly, Naz doesn’t want to see him anymore. Ah, but someone else does want to see Umut. The mysteriously evil Murat wants to see Umut. Whatever he is planning, it can’t be good.
Friday, July 3
Oregon Health Authority: deaths 209 (+0 ) cases 9,636 (+342)
As with in many U.S. states, there were lots of new COVID cases in Oregon this week. The daily number of tests continues to increase, so that would explain some of it. But the test positive ratios were also high this week, ranging from 4.63% on Monday to 8.35% on Friday. The overall positive ratio since March 30 is 3.78%.
Saturday, July 4
Oregon Health Authority: deaths 213 (+4 ) cases 9,930 (+294)
It’s been 100 days since the Pandemic Diary began its record keeping. It’s time, then, for the tenth entry to our chart of average daily fatalities per 10-day period. in the first 70 days the daily fatality rate went up, down and back up a little. In the last 30 days it has been essentially unchanged: 1.7, 1.9, and 1.8.
Sunday, July 5
Oregon Health Authority: deaths 215 (+2) cases 10,230 (+301)
Nice visit with Andrea today. She drove down in her new Leaf, which has three or four times the range of her old one. Andy was off fighting wildfires. We had never thought of it before, but of course the 4th of July weekend is one of the busiest times of the season. Andrea says that the fires so far have been small ones, but there are a lot of them.
E made paella for the occasion and we had a COVID protocol dinner outside on the patio. Ice cream and homegrown berries for dessert. Lots of fun for us. Later on we checked in with I Am Blind or whatever it is.
We watched Umut and Naz (left and right in the picture) as they went to court to finalize their divorce. It was an interesting scene with just four people in the room: the judge, the court recorder, Umut and Naz. The divorce was uncontested and they had both already signed off. As a last step they had to appear–without lawyers or any other supporters–and re-affirm orally that each agreed to the divorce. The judge asked each one in turn. Naz said yes without hesitation. She’s too practical to have come all the way downtown just to start waffling in front of the judge. Umit has told her a number of times that he definitely wants a divorce. But, being an idiot, he is mostly saying that because he expects her to beg him to change his mind. It’s not clear whether Naz realizes this or not, but it doesn’t matter at this point. She’s done. When the judge asks Umut the question, we get one of those very long dramatic pauses that are one of the hallmarks of Turkish style soaps. You many think you have seen a dramatic pause or two in your lifetime, but I’m telling you these Turkish ones are at a whole nother level. Anyway, Umut eventually says yes, at which point the judge reads the decree into the official record and the divorce is done. Is that how it really happens in Turkey? We don’t know. We met a few divorced Turkish women while we were there, but we didn’t get into the mechanics. Mostly we just listened to how very pleased they were to have escaped the hell of being married to a Turkish man.
That night Umut started drinking, put an automatic in his pocket and went to Ali Nejat’s house to kill him. He had a good bead on him through a window and then, after a really long pause, into the scene came oh so adorable Kaan to give his dad a goodnight hug. Umut just couldn’t do it. His pistol fell from his hands. He went back to his shop and got some gasoline and then went to Ali Nejat’s fledging car factory and set fire to it. He then finished his bottle, drove his new Range Rover to an extremely picturesque jetty near the Bosphorus bridge, and threw himself into the sea. A surveillance camera recorded the scene. Currents are strong in that area, say the police, and body must have been swept away.
Umut’s family is crying and carrying on and Naz feels terrible. More terrible than she needs to feel, in our opinion, but maybe that’s just us. It’s interesting that everyone seems positive Umut is dead. Don’t they know they’re in a soap opera?