Journal of a Lockdown, 4 May 2020
I don’t like phone calls because I prefer to talk face to face, in the same way I refuse to use “friend” as a verb online because before we get to the noun we have to have a shared history. I like video calls even less because they feel like an invasion. But the age of social distancing has arrived, and one must adapt or disappear, so two weeks ago I downloaded Zoom on my phone. It’s been an education.
You have to figure out the lighting so you don’t look like the Uruk-hai. You have to plan the background—a challenge in a cluttered house. (Note: I have cleaned my house, but need more storage space for the tchotchkes. My design philosophy is: Just cover everything with books, they look nice.) You must never forget to wear pants lest the cameras catch you from the waist down. The camera must be at face level or you will have three chins and two potbellies. You must check that there’s nothing stuck between your teeth, and that your shirt is not transparent. If you’re lucky, one of the cats will crash your Zoom call, which makes everything better.
As long as I was figuring out video calls, I decided to start making videos. Similar principles. Also I am aware that people prefer watching videos to reading words. I spent the whole day making one-minute videos for Instagram (@jessicazafrascats) of myself reading from my stories. I’ve been appearing on TV for 25 years and I still can’t bear to look at myself on a screen. It’s like an out of body experience. Also I notice a thousand things I could’ve done better, and let’s not get started on dysmorphia.
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Lourd’s mom died last Friday. She was a great lady, he and his brother got their musical chops from her. Lourd was practically living in the hospital even before lockdown began. Mrs de V had lung cancer. He remarked on the cosmic injustice of it all: she was “an extreme hypochondriac, ate like a Chinese peasant, never smoked a cigarette in her life, and did not have a family history of cancer.” He kept his sense of humor, though. I am the person who tries to solve everything with books, so I offered to send him something to read. He said, “Nothing depressing, please, I don’t want to remember the mother in The Cement Garden.” So I sent some Eve Babitz, and he pointed out that Eve and his mom were the same age, but Eve has done everything, sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, and she’s still around.
Since books did not keep his mom alive, I thought music might help him in his grief and I suggested Steely Dan. He said, “Turn That Heartbeat Over Again was on my hospital playlist, that’s probably why my mother had cardiac arrest.” Then I mentioned the documentary of the making of Aja, where Becker and Fagen delighted in insulting their session musicians. Finally we agreed that Steely Dan fans are pretentious assholes, and we should know.