“One wasn’t sure what came next. So, don’t trust the telephone. Or the newspapers. Or the radio. Or tomorrow”*

by chuckofish

This week was a real thrill (sarcastic face): I graded my final papers and then prepped for a routine medical procedure. What used to be merely unpleasant has turned into something positively theatrical. It was all so clandestine. I had to drive to an empty parking lot, make a phone call, and wait in the car until someone in disguise — so shrouded in protective garb as to be unrecognizable as human — came to administer the Covid test (maybe we should call that the Covert test).

Drones and helicopters hovered around — not really, but they wouldn’t have been out of place. On the days following the test, I received multiple phone calls changing the time of the procedure and the instructions about where to go and what to do. Was I in a Mission Impossible movie?

I don’t mean to mock. The health care system up here is doing a tremendous job adapting to endless, draconian directives from the Governor, who apparently thinks everyone lives in New York City.** Despite the B-movie vibe, everything went off without a hitch and I was home sleeping off the anesthesia by lunchtime. To top it all off, I got a phone call early this morning informing me that I had tested negative for Covid-19. Better late than never, I guess. As I said, they are doing their best under pressure, and, hey, I got a nice hospital face mask out of it, so it wasn’t all bad.

All of this has put me in the mood for some spy movies. I could go for The Spy who Came in from the Cold (1965). They knew how to adapt novels to screen in those days and this movie has a great script:

If that seems too dark, try The Man from U.N.C.L.E with Armie Hammer, Alicia Vykander and Henry Cavill. It’s very stylish and quite funny.

Yes, I know my DP has mentioned this movie recently, but being unoriginal, I will mention it again.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. Have a grand weekend navigating our Brave New World!

*Alan Furst, Spies of the Balkans.

**Permit me to explain. I live in the middle of nowhere, in the largest, emptiest county in NY. We’ve never had more than 9 people hospitalized simultaneously and they weren’t in the same hospital, but nevertheless the Governor required every hospital in the state to follow the same Covid operational rules. Given how small our rural hospitals are, he effectively shut them down, thereby driving them to the brink of bankruptcy and causing untold suffering among non-Covid patients awaiting treatment.