Revival Time
If this is our opportunity to make the world a better place, where do we start?
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REVIVAL TIME*
Below, I am sharing a short piece on how the experience of a global pandemic, physical distancing and a near-quarantine may help us move towards better practices once the worst of it is behind us and we get a collective shot at redefining what normal is. I wrote it in response to a prompt from the storyteller, comics creator and podcaster Christian Sager. I have been a fan of Christian’s work since his time on the science podcast Stuff to Blow Your Mind. If you have been an Ultracold reader for a while you may also be familiar with my committed support to Supercontext: an autopsy of media which he has been producing with Charlie Bennett for the past few years. I was flattered when Christian reached out to me while preparing his own piece on how we might start to make the future brighter in the wake of all of this overwhelming fear, grief and uncertainty. I spent an evening or so trying to really zero-in on the positives I have already seen emerge and how they can be expanded on as time goes by. Christian pointed me to recent writings of Nick Cave and David Byrne as his motivation, and while I do not have a personal connection to either of these artists, giving myself the task of reading their articles and then putting down my own thoughts, inevitably put me in a more hopeful mood than I’ve been averaging lately.
Christian asked:
If this is our opportunity to make the world a better place, where do we start? From your perspective, what should we prioritize?
A lot of my answer below is rooted in conversations I’ve had with friends and colleagues, in the observations and insights of many writers whose newsletters are now clogging my inbox and, maybe most importantly, actions I’ve seen taken among organizers and community-builders I keep up with and am occasionally honored to work alongside. The graduate employee union on my campus is doing tremendous work on top of all of the online teaching and doctoral work we have already been swamped by. My peers across the Access Network figured out how to move a national conference online and are looking into starting-up an emergency fund for members in need. The head of my department is making masks at home with their spouse and providing them to students. Friends are organizing coffee hours and dinners via Zoom, texting more than ever before, reconnecting in ways we really probably wouldn’t have were it not for the way we live now. And just yesterday a neighbor dropped off a giant package of croissants and strawberries just because. Reminding myself that all these things are happening (and happening right now and right here and to me) has given me an anchoring point for the fleeting feelings of hope and positivity that often seem to get away as fast as they creep in.
A few days after I wrote the piece, however, the news of new restrictions of immigration to the United States plastered our TV screen. I spent a day panicking over my green card application and legal troubles that suddenly seemed to lie in me and my husband’s future. Eventually, we learned that I will be exempt from past week’s executive order. I got around to some calmer, deeper breaths again. Other than being a visceral reminder of how grateful I really need to be for where this crisis, and all of it sub-crises, found me (with supportive family and a roof over my head, in a neighborhood where grocery stores still work and coronavirus cases are not sky-high, in good health and with healthy parents and siblings, having a job that could be transitioned online and a consequently steady paycheck, being able to afford an immigration lawyer), this episode also reminded me that not everyone will plunge into the new normal with the same motivation in a few months and that not everyone is planning for it with the same goals in mind. Certainly, for some, the current state of affairs will serve as a convenient segue into carrying out plans and implementing principles that would have seemed absurdly unsavory and extremely unkind before we all had to move to operating in something like survival mode and any higher level of civic engagement became a luxury. The important part of Christian’s question, I am realizing, is then the conditional conjunction that opens it. “If this is our opportunity to make the world a better place” As we make plans for everything we will do once we can leave our homes again – the haircuts, the meals, the shows, the parties – we should really try our best to make sure we banish that “if”.
Keep an eye out for Christian’s piece, featuring a number of other great contributors, here.
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Recently overseen in our pandemic household:
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Once the worst parts of the pandemic are behind us and we get a stab at establishing a less fearful way of being, I hope that we can remember that community is more than a group of people added together, that it needs to be built consciously, cared for with continuity and maintained through action.
For many of us who have the privilege of working from home, the past months have underlined how much we usually take our social connections for granted. We chat with co-workers in the hallways of our workplace, schedule last-minute lunches and dinners with friends because they live or work nearby, keep friendly acquaintance with staff at coffee shops and grocery stores we frequent by virtue of just being there often. Right now, all social interactions require effort, facilitation and conscious use of (specialized) tools. We have to keep picking-up our phones, make Zoom accounts, figure out how to share a meal or watch a movie while staying physically apart, how to pay attention to screens without getting fatigued or distracted because they now frame so many things and people we love. Intentional building of community and thinking about community care used to be top of mind mainly for organizers and activists, but now we are all engaging in it whether we know it or not. I sincerely wish for all of us to recognize this and let that recognition inform and guide our future behavior. Similarly, I hope we can all invest in learning how to provide mutual aid more (especially if that means relying on consumerism as a sign of love and care a lot less) and keep checking-in with people in our lives, even when it’s not a time of crisis, and even when we think they are too strong to need it (and right now no-one is that strong). Channeling bad energy into getting in touch with a friend who may also be struggling will certainly help us all more in the long term than being angry or scrolling Twitter ever could. I hope there will be more realization around the fact that we cannot ignore the lives of once they intersect with ours even when tracing that intersection has nothing to do with tracing paths of possible infection. And I hope we can re-think our idea of what a network is, wrestle the term away from being monopolized by social media giants and professional development experts.
Not only does maintaining social connections now require lots more effort, but many small interactions that we can’t have any more are becoming increasingly more visible to us. The amount of random chit-chat, friendly locking of eyes and casually exchanging compliments or just smiles (impossible with a mask on) suddenly feels gargantuan because it is absent. Many of these interactions used to happen with people who are not our friends or family, but rather workers in service professions. They are people that we do not really know or understand as people, but still rely on tremendously. Thinking of those people in particular, it feels very important to not keep rendering their role in our lives and their labor, emotional or otherwise, invisible after the pandemic. In many cases this may look like advocating for better working conditions and better labor practices. We should not shy away from engaging with that sort of advocacy even when if it can sometimes feel political enough to be somewhat unsavory. This sort of political advocacy can be seen as an act of community care as much as leaving Easter candy on a neighbor’s doorstep or paying for a friend’s contactless take-out birthday meal. It is a presidential election year here in the United States, but the fact that so much of the crisis response has been handled by governors and other state officials while the federal government has come off as confused at best and negligent and indifferent at worst has me thinking about the importance of local politics and participating in the kind of elections and campaigns that do not get nation-wide attention. To maintain the health of our communities (in every sense of the word) and take care of those in them that the crisis is affecting the most, we might have to educate ourselves on how to think of community as a political entity and act on that explicitly. Along the same lines, I want to rethink institutions that I am a part of, for instance the university that employs me. I am trying to parse how to make it more accessible, more transparent and more accountable to its constituents. I hope I am not the only one taking stock of how much influence and power I can have in reshaping something I am contributing to already, and how that pressure may be amplified if I join and coordinate with my peers. If the need to stay home, possibly stop working and definitely let go of so many activities that usual bring us comfort or entertainments teaches us anything, I would want it to be that we are all a part of something bigger than ourselves and that that something doesn’t have to be amorphous, incidental or toothless.
Best,
Karmela
*In quantum mechanics, revival refers to a periodic recurrence of the original form (or some fractional version of the original form) of the quantum wavefunctions describing some physical system. The revival time is the period with which this return to the original takes place. Quantum revival is connected to the notion of localized wavefunctions or wavepackets. In the language of quantum mechanics, any object can be described as wave. However, for more point-like objects the waviness can be compressed (localized) to a smaller spatial length thus forming a “packet”. Localization can affect conductivities of a material in the sense that wavefunctions that are localized, consist of packets that are “stuck” at some place in the system, don’t correspond to currents that would have to flow through each part of the system at once. What quantum revival then might mean is that if a system is described by a wavefunction localized in this way at some initial time, at some later revival time it will be appropriate to describe it by the same kind of function even if the systems has evolved in-between. Revival phenomena have been of interest in contemporary physics in connection to localization of a special type of particle called a Majorana fermion that may be, in the future, used for some types of quantum computing.
ABOUT ME LATELY
LEARNING: Last week was a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) week, and this week has been an Aubry-Andre-Harper (AAH) week with respect to my research. As can be gleaned from the title I’ve chosen for these letters (though I had other reasons as well), my interests as a researcher have for years been in ultracold atoms and all the physics (mostly very quantum) that they can capture. The possibilities are pretty broad. In other words, experimental prospects tie a lot of my projects back to ultracold atoms, but the theory content has differed between them very much. My BEC work has been aimed at, in simplest terms, answering the question of how a fully filled quantum object might behave differently from one that is hollow in the middle. My AAH work, on the other hand, is more or less about how irrational numbers can have signatures of not being rational in the physics of one-dimensional crystals. The mathematics you need to analyze either is pretty different, and so are physical quantities you end up obsessing over. Switching from one project to the other sometimes feels like being bilingual. Sharp turns between them sometimes bring about a bit of intellectual whiplash. This past week, a Zoom call with a few new-ish collaborators interested in some AAH work I contributed to last fall gave my brain that sort of a vigorous shake. The night before I stayed up reading about localization, disorder, effects of inter-atomic interactions and many-body phenomena. Though I only really added a few sentences to the hour-long discussion, it was probably worthwhile to recall that while I am not quite a student anymore I for sure can’t escape being a learner. On Friday night one of these collaborators sent around a long email message with work they managed to produce briefly after our Zoom, so learning is clearly about to resume, and with much vigor again. The whole thing feels a bit odd – I’ve spent a lot of time since defending my Ph. D. trying to make peace with the fact that I did not secure a postdoctoral position in academia and might not want to keep chasing one, but now I’m somehow being seriously pulled back into exactly the kind of work that one would entitle.
I continue to work on cover letters, resume tweaks and numerous job applications as well, but whenever I send one in, I think I am mostly learning how to moderate my expectations.
LISTENING: The really moody, synth-y, drone-y, 80s lo-fi record by Foie Gras called Holy Hell. I have been following Foie Gras on social media for a few years, probably ever since I learned that she was the original author of the “not yours never was” feminist slogan that was subsequently co-opted by many mainstream companies without giving her much, or any, credit. I am likely in the target audience for her music, but for some reason most of it didn’t stick with me as much as Holy Hell did when I randomly played it as work music a few days ago. Maybe it’s because my husband and I both have an unreasonably soft spot for corny 80s anything (and we are for sure too young to call this sentiment nostalgia). Or maybe it is because there is something dark yet vulnerable, a little desperate, but also quite self-assured and seductive about this album, and that mix of feelings that are conflicting, except when they are really not, resonates with being stuck living in a basement with a partner during a pandemic that makes every body a threat. Also, Foie Gras just makes some really, really catchy tunes. Along similar lines, I’ve also given Orville Peck’s Pony a few more listens and though it is imperfect it does still remind me of the Bang Bang Bar from Twin Peaks which is another feeling that feels a little inevitable under the current circumstances.
WATCHING: We finished the second season of Sex Education, and it definitely ended just in time to not lose all of its charm. The show’s first season was in part novel and refreshing because it presented teenagers’ (and their parents’) sex and relationship problems through a monster-of-the-week format. The second took a turn towards a more traditional story about the drama in the lives of our now beloved characters. Sure, you can still learn about things like asexuality or the morning after pill from Sex Education season two, but almost as much time was devoted to will-they-won’t-they type of narratives and one character’s pretty fascinating descent into the full gruesomeness of teenagerhood. This is not necessarily always bad (I am very invested in anything Eric or Ola) but it does get more tiring more often (how many dozens of teenage parties where someone gets very drunk and says something very stupid have you seen on the small screen so far). I would lie if I didn’t admit to cheering on all the queer couplings we ended up with by the season’s extremely phallic finale and the show continued to deliver on issues of diversity and representation without ever feeling forced or condescending to the viewer. At the same time, had the drama been anymore drawn-out, especially in the more and more predictable and cartoonish arc Gillian Anderson’s character, or that of Headmaster Groff, have been given, I would have probably gotten annoyed. And while I’m griping, it’d be great if the writers of Sex Education gave Maeve Wiley a break – does she really, as a genuinely strong female character, have to keep proving her strength by having something bad happen to her in every single episode? I’ll watch season three purely out of hope that Maeve might at some point get a little lucky too.
Trying to stick with, very broadly, comedic content, we started watching Letterkenny. I know my husband heard about Letterkenny on a podcast, but I hadn’t managed to listen to that particular episode beforehand and went into it pretty blind. Maybe that was for the better. Letterkenny reminds me of British shows like Black Adder I grew up with in the way it is mostly a collection of near-absurd one-liners and way too much wordplay (and wordplay so fast that I had to ask for closed captioning to be turned on). It also reminds me of pushing a joke as far as it can go, pretty much until it dies and then some, after a few drinks in some Brooklyn dive bar with any selection of my brothers-in-law and their friends. And it reminds me just a bit of one Canadian professor I had in graduate school, who wore very white dad sneakers, Budweiser t-shirts and knew absolutely everything you might ever want to know about field theory and strings. This is all to say that I have no idea about what to make of Letterkenny, but also that it’s probably about to become a staple in our coronavirus household. I do have some discomfort around the portrayal of people of color in this show – the writers are self-conscious enough to work in a joke about representation into an election episode, yet Gail is the only permanent character of color in season one and her lines play into stereotypes of over-sexualization and aggressiveness with a bit too much glee – but I hope that as we make it past the first season and away from 2016 sensibilities this will be at least somewhat remedied.
We also finished watching Devs and I wish I had been more blown away by its finale. We went into it with all sorts of questions about the deterministic (or not) nature of reality, about the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, about what the main character, Lily, actually wants. The final episode of this still gorgeous and visually very rich effort by the creator Alex Garland didn’t answer almost any of them. And it’s not so much that I am bothered by shows that don’t answer questions, but the last hour of Devs seemed to have forgotten most of them and offered a punchline it had not at all prepared the viewer for. More explicitly, if we are to believe that the main character was extra-super-special all along then how come that was never really shown to us? It’s ironic that such a visual series failed the old show-don’t-tell adage. I almost wish we had spent more time on whatever tortured explanation of quantum computing or philosophical underpinnings of it Garland settled on following what must have been quite a bit of research, and a little less on pushing Lily into an overly loaded version of Groundhog Day at the shows very end. And I am usually fairly allergic to appearances of anything quantum in prestige TV.
EATING: I actually got around some meal-prep last Sunday and made variations of this spinach curry with chickpeas instead of tofu, a slightly less oily version of this cabbage, and a celery and mushroom stew very loosely inspired by this Persian-ish recipe. I had the cabbage over quinoa, with a side of store-bought hummus and lots of fresh cilantro and dill chopped very finely and mixed with freshly squeezed lemon juice. I had the stew with roasted cauliflower florets and some Field Roast vegan sausages (the Italian flavor is too sweet, but I would recommend the chipotle variety). To accompany the curry, my husband made a riff on this cumin rice, adding peas, dried cranberries, toasted and salted cashews and, again, chopped cilantro and squeezed lemon wedges. This rice recipe, even without the extras, has been a bit life-changing and really improved my Indian-at-home cooking game. It can be easily halved (though leftovers keep pretty well) and all you need is a few whole spices. Do certainly give it a try if you’ve ever wondered how restaurants make rice so much better than the stuff you just boil at home.
Towards the end of the week I made two more adventurous recipes, namely a chocolate-on-chocolate-on-chocolate cake for my father-in-law’s birthday following this recipe, and some jumbo pasta shells stuffed with a creamy cashew and basil filling and baked in a homemade marinara. For the latter I used this write-up as an overall procedure and assembly reference, and this recipe as a base for the filling (though I added some basil we had lying around in the freezer and a touch more olive oil than recommended). The shells were really good and got a green light from everyone in our household, cashew filling that took place of the more traditional dairy ricotta included.
The cake was maybe my best layer cake attempt yet. I barely messed with the sponge but did slightly cut down the amount of powdered sugar in the chocolate frosting. On the frosting front, I also used a new to me coconut-oil based butter substitute I came across at a local grocery store (it conveniently comes in sticks and has been good on quickbreads of all sorts) rather than going out to hunt for vegetable shortening. Shortening may have actually made for a slightly better texture, but I was really happy with the end product anyway. For both the frosting and the very fudgy top glaze, I really just kind of took the process step by step and stopped when the thing I was making looked and tasted right. This means that I added sugar to the frosting very slowly and in batches, and same for almondmilk in the glaze. I would recommend this approach for frostings, glazes and ganache or fudge type cake components in general – tasting as you go along will always get you closer to the dessert you’ll love than mixing one big batch of everything in the recipe an hoping the author’s preferences are the same as yours.
I should say that this cake is not in any way what you would call healthy (or nutritionally dense if you like to be verbose when you shame yourself), but it tastes like cakes I used to inhale before I knew I should worry about health and, to paraphrase a friend, letting myself do exactly that again is quite correlated with loving myself a little extra these days. It reminded me of getting a slice of cake at a restaurant on the rare occasion of eating out with my family as a kid, and it reminded me of some of my mom’s holiday or birthday cakes as well. I found a lot of comfort and joy in being able to attach those memories to something I made for a new kind of a family celebration. (At a coronavirus era birthday party, blowing out candles is a contagion risk.)
Using vegetable oil here makes the cake moist with a dense crumb and the refined, white sugar ensures that it is, at the same time, not too moist or too heavy. The generous amounts of vegan butter and powdered sugar keep the frosting fluffy and the thick glaze benefits from a few tablespoons of peanut butter for a little more richness and just a touch of saltiness that most chocolate-on-chocolate concoctions really do need. In addition to not judging yourself for the kind of ingredients that make this cake great, you also ought to give yourself plenty of time if you decide to make it. The layers need to be fully cooled before you level them (freeze the cake scraps for sugar-craving emergencies), and I would recommend an hour or two in the fridge between applying the frosting and topping with the glaze. The whole thing really benefited from being chilled overall (I let it sit in the fridge overnight after frosting it, glazed it in the morning and refrigerated some more until we cut into it in the evening), and was nothing short of fantastic the next day as well.
