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What can you do to crush COVID-19? Make some noise!
I learned this lesson recently while on my terrace in New York City’s East Village. Very little these days pierces the hush that has settled on my normally raucous, relentlessly loud neighborhood. The sounds of crowds, inebriated revelers, garbage trucks devoid of mufflers and much more, have yielded to fluttering breezes, tweets of songbirds and surprising moments of total silence — each as discernable as if this were Maine, not Manhattan.
Recently while reading "The Splendid and the Vile" — Erik Larson’s captivating new book on Churchill and the London Blitz — on my unbombed balcony, the early evening’s quietude was punctured by applause. Several of my neighbors suddenly stepped onto their terraces, leaned out of windows and began a standing ovation.
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I had no clue what was happening, but I got in on the fun. Why not applaud for no apparent reason? I reckoned this had something to do with what kept us in our apartments while most of us usually would be at work, en route home, or enjoying food and drink in the hundreds of eateries and watering holes that mercifully surround so many of us who cannot cook our way out of a teabag.
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The next evening, the applause resumed, this time accompanied by even more noises: the banging of pots and pans, assorted whistles, cheers, howls and the long, deep moan of a vuvuzela, perhaps a keepsake from some unforgettable sports match. This stadium horn has served nightly as the bass for this improvisational urban symphony. It usually lasts about three minutes, always starting promptly at 7 p.m. In military time, this happens to be 1900 hours. COVID-19, 1900. Connection or coincidence? You decide.
Another theory for this 7 p.m. cacophony ties more tightly to these times. This is said to be when shifts change at local hospitals. The idea is that as these brave and tireless doctors, nurses and other medical workers head home, they will hear their fellow New Yorkers and fellow Americans salute them with this impromptu expression of gratitude. Likewise, this ruckus echoes encouragement for those professionals who head into battle against this invisible enemy.
Seeing and hearing my neighbors has provided some precious human connection in this era of social distancing, immunological isolation and de facto national quarantine.
This nightly ritual also reminds those of us who are cooped up for days on end that we are not alone. Millions of others are in the same boat. Seeing and hearing my neighbors has provided some precious human connection in this era of social distancing, immunological isolation and de facto national quarantine. This has been true throughout my (so far) 29 days of lockdown, not least one 10-day stretch spent in my apartment before I emerged briefly, like a groundhog, for food and water.
These nightly messages of love have included a couple of cyclists who peddled north (with traffic. What a concept!) and applauded with their hands nowhere near their handlebars. A neighbor leaned from her window and dangled a string on which tinkled six small, golden bells. One ambulance pulled over to the side of the avenue, flashed its emergency lights, honked its horn and tooted its siren — as if to thank us for our appreciation. We responded with even more racket.
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These days, this is what passes for nightlife in New York City, as bars, dining establishments, theaters and music venues lie dormant. People here look forward to this reliable local spectacle. It’s pretty much this, food deliveries and Netflix.
I have contributed a variety of noises, from one evening to the next. Individually, and in tandem, I have blown a whistle, clinked together two wine glasses (which generate a beautiful ring), and used either the plastic handle of a brush or the wooden grip of a steak knife to smack a cowbell.
The latter is a gift from the students of Mississippi State University Young Americans for Freedom, whom I addressed last May. This is a major tradition on that campus. Each MSU freshman acquires one of these bovine instruments (which gets personalized), rattles it at sports events and cherishes it as a prized possession — as I do.
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So, until this long, surreal national emergency ends, and Manhattan returns to its default state of bedlam, I will make my neighbors, friends, readers and the students of MSU this promise:
More cowbell!
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