TV: Elizabeth I

The coronavirus pandemic has left me with a lot more indoor time than usual, and while I don't have any problem with the content on your average streaming service (hey, it's "The Rocketeer"!), I do try to get in at least a little education with my binge-watching. That's what drew me to "Elizabeth I" on PBS - it's part documentary, part costume drama:



Co-written and hosted by historians Dan Jones and Dr. Suzannah Lipscombe, the three-part series touches upon the Virgin Queen's early life, her political struggles with Mary, Queen of Scots, and (of course) her triumph over the Spanish Armada. Lily Cole does a pretty good job in the lead role, all furrowed brows and pursed lips, but the focus is squarely on the history; there's more narration from the hosts than anything else.

One caveat - this is a Channel 5 production, so the darker parts of Elizabeth's reign (brutal tactics against Catholic Irish rebellions, for instance) are only lightly touched upon.

Books: Queen of Katwe

In the grand scheme of things, the temporary sacrifices Americans are being asked to make due to COVID-19 are pretty minor: getting takeout instead of dining in, watching Netflix instead of going out on the town, seeing Grandma over FaceTime instead of visiting. Anyone who thinks the country's current semi-quarantine is at all a hardship should read, "Queen of Katwe," an extraordinary story about an unlikely chess champion.

The book is nominally about Phiona Mutesi, a young Ugandan chess prodigy who becomes a Woman Candidate Master, but it's really about the people living in the Katwe slum, one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries in the world. The conditions in Katwe are almost unimaginable - no electricity, no running water, starving on streets filthy with raw sewage. Yet Phiona, her coach, her mother, and the many other hardscrabble folks the book describes fight through each day nonetheless. If they can continue on in a country where 20,000 people die of AIDS each year, having enough toilet paper seems like a small worry.

A Pandemic Playlist, Part 3: Music

If you're staying inside to stop the spread of COVID-19, you'll need entertainment, so I've put together a "pandemic playlist" of disease-related media for your consumption (of course, while this list is lighthearted, do please heed the health and safety recommendations of the WHO and CDC).  Anyway, it's time to kick up your feet and relax with some plague-related tunes...


"Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed




This track fittingly played during the end credits of Zack Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead" remake, and it's also on the playlist of my local Krav Maga gym. As I understand it, it's one of the band's signature tunes. Aside from the chorus, the lyrics honestly don't have too much to do with infection, but whatever.


"Bat & Pig" by Cliff Martinez





I'm most familiar with former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Cliff Martinez from his moody soundtracks for Nicholas Winding Refn's films ("Drive," "The Neon Demon").  It turns out, though, that Martinez has actually worked with Steven Soderbergh more than any other director, including his throbbing synth score for "Contagion."


"The Last of Us" by Gustavo Santaolalla



Coronavirus or not, Naughty Dog devs are reportedly crunching nonstop for "The Last of Us Part II," so it's a fine time to reminisce about the first game. A big part of what made "The Last of Us" special was its music - the title track, covered above by Taylor Davis, starts out small but builds to a plaintive crescendo befitting Joel and Ellie's cross-country trek through a fungus-infested America.


"Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley and the Wailers



The best part of the film adaptation of "I Am Legend" is the first half hour or so, before CGI "Darkseekers" and Alice Braga ruin the conceit of Robert Neville being the last man on Earth. The best part of that first half hour is this quiet scene with a diegetic play of Bob Marley's classic reggae track.

A Pandemic Playlist, Part 2: Movies

If you're staying inside to stop the spread of COVID-19, you'll need entertainment, so I've put together a "pandemic playlist" of disease-related media for your consumption (of course, while this list is lighthearted, do please heed the health and safety recommendations of the WHO and CDC). Here are some movies to watch while you hunker down:

12 Monkeys




This is easily Terry Gilliam's most commercially successful film, and it's not hard to see why: you've got a star-studded cast (Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt - heck, even Christopher Plummer) and a pleasingly baroque time travel tale about a man forced to choose between salvaging a future devastated by a killer virus, and the literal woman of his dreams. You could say it doesn't end well, but really, it doesn't end at all...


Day of the Dead



George A. Romero's "The Crazies" is certainly a better fit for this list, but it's not half as good as Romero's third Dead movie, "Day of the Dead." Originally intended to be the "Gone with the Wind" of zombie flicks, budget constraints trimmed the story and cabined the setting into a dreary underground lab, where desperate scientists try to find a cure for the undead plague. While not as good as "Night" and "Dawn," "Day" is still fun since it has the most over-the-top characters and lines of the entire series (yes, even including "Land of the Dead," which has a character played by John Leguizamo).


Pontypool



The tips for fending off the coronavirus are a lot more straightforward than the cryptic advice doled out in "Pontypool," a very low budget, very Canadian horror movie that does a good job of riffing on zombie movie tropes. The film is about a radio shock jock (played by veteran character actor Stephen McHattie) who finds the world crumbling around him due to a mysterious virus - to say more would be to spoil the surprise.

Links: Blogroll Update

Gun Culture 2.0 - Wake Forest professor David Yamane's blog covers the sociology of the modern American gun culture, one centered around concealed carry and self-defense and less around hunting, due to the ever-increasing urbanization of our country. This is content you just won't find anywhere else, so if you're tired of caliber wars and reviews of the newest Blastomatic 2000, stop by Professor Yamane's place and grab a seat.


Swift, Silent, Deadly - Most of the gun blogs you read are authored by people who don't have any practical experience in teaching people how to fight with a gun (this blog most definitely included), but "Swift, Silent, Deadly" is different. The author (a DoD instructor) writes posts that are designed to impart quantifiable knowledge, not just platitudes and anecdotes.

The Perry Bible Fellowship - Growing up, one of my favorite comics was "The Far Side" by Gary Larson. TBPF is a modern take on the concept - just as surreal, but gorier and bawdier thanks to being freed from the shackles of newsprint. Creator Nicholas Gurewitch regularly pushes the envelope of both taste and art (cf. the current strip, copied above and posted in the midst of the coronavirus crisis), and the results are usually worth a chuckle.

A Pandemic Playlist, Part 1 - Books

If you're staying inside to stop the spread of COVID-19, you'll need entertainment, so I've put together a "pandemic playlist" of disease-related media for your consumption (of course, while this list is lighthearted, do please heed the health and safety recommendations of the WHO and CDC). We'll start with some good old fashioned books:

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton: After I read "Jurassic Park" at a way-too-young age, I took a deep dive into Crichton's oeuvre.  One of my favorites was "The Andromeda Strain," a sci-fi thriller about a group of scientists who race to contain a deep-space microbe. The science is less believable than "Jurassic Park" (the titular microorganism breaks the laws of physics in several ways), but the story builds to a pleasing crescendo.

Bird Box by Josh Malerman: Out of the many, many post-apocalyptic books out there, "Bird Box" perhaps best replicates our current plight - there are no zombies or aliens breaking down our doors, only an invisible and inscrutable killer spreading around our communities, forcing us inside. The book got a big-budget Netflix adaptation starring Sandra Bullock, but the semi-ridiculous premise (everyone who sees some mysterious something goes homicidally insane before committing suicide) obviously works best in print. 

The Stand by Stephen King: The Mack Daddy of all plague books, and for good reason - it presents a memorably nightmarish world devastated by "Captain Trips," a bioweapon superflu that kills 99.4% of the human population. I remember working through a phone book-thick paperback copy in middle school with the cover depicted above, and marveling at the foreboding ending in the expanded edition.

Miscellany: Notes from the D-Dey Response "Emergency Life Saver" class

It had nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic/hysteria that's sweeping the globe, but I did take an emergency medical course from D-Dey Response Group, a veteran-owned and operated company that connects experienced instructors (basically all former military and/or fire rescue) with the general public. Here are some notes from the half-day trauma class:

Safety

Are you safe when treating the patient? You can't rescue anyone if you become another casualty, and there's a fine line between "hero" and "stupid." Protective measures can include anything from wearing gloves to taking cover.

Get Help

Call 9-1-1, or make sure someone is actually doing it.

The MARCH Algorithm

Massive Hemorrhage

You can black out from blood loss in as little as 30 seconds...maybe less.

Stopgap measures - use hands, knees to apply direct pressure to or above wound. Frees your hands up to return fire or open your medical kit.

Arterial bleeding - bright, red, spurting. But venous bleeding is life threatening, too. Internal bleeding can't really be dealt with out in the field.

The CAT Tourniquet: Apply high and tight, avoid joints. It's gonna hurt when applying.

To apply:

1) rip apart the packed tourniquet and tighten the loop around the limb
2) secure free end to the "C" holder
3) tighten windlass until the bleeding stops
4) run excess material through the "C" holder
5) TIME... and keep checking that it's tight

Self-application - manipulate it so that you pull inward toward your chest. Bulky clothes may interfere with the tourniquet, but water does not; works fine while diving.

Leg application - you will probably need to undo the loop, slip one end underneath the leg at the knee, then "saw" the tourniquet strap up. Works better than trying to slip the injured leg through a closed loop.

Junctional bleeding: armpits, shoulders, groin/pelvis, neck, etc.

Celox Rapid is recommended to pack the wound. Can also use Curlex, an ETD bandage, a cotton shirt, etc.

1) make a wad with the hemostatic dressing first
2) push it on the wound in the direction of the heart
3) keep pressure on it, thumb over thumb, and fill the void with material
4) should not feel sponge-y at the end, should be a tight wad...push on the dressing, and if blood oozes out, wrap more on it.

Technique for bandaging armpit or neck wound:

Airway and Respiration

Stopgap here is hand over chest.

Slap on a chest seal.

Don't take anything impaling out unless it's occluding airway.

Recovery position:

Circulation

(This step is where medical personnel start putting blood back into the body. For the average citizen, it's more of a chance to reassess and check for other wounds)

Are they pale, lightheaded, or cold? May be internal bleeding.

Hypothermia

Blood loss makes you cold, even in warm environment.

Keep a space blanket or other stuff in your kit for warming someone.

Treating a Patient under Stress

Auditory occlusion

Loss of fine motor skills

It's okay to take a breath