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Covid at Yale

 In an Anne Fadiman essay, you get (1) a perfect title, (2) an arresting intro, and (3) details. I'll show you what I mean. Fadiman wrote about switching to Zoom for class instruction during Covid, and she called the essay "Screen Share." It's an essay about sharing one's screen--but it's also an act of sharing-about-screens. Perfect title.


To write about oneself, one must be able to *mock* oneself. Fadiman demonstrates this with her intro:


ON THE FOURTH day of spring break, our university’s president announces that no one is to return to campus. Two cases of Covid-19 have been reported in our state. All classes will be moving online. Soon afterward, the members of the humanities faculty receive an email from our dean telling us that “the development of a quality online course takes at least two years.” We have 12 days. I feel like a runner with decent times in the 800 meters whose coach says, You still get to go to the track meet, but we’ve switched you to the pole vault!


The third item--the details. "The *fourth* day of spring break" .... "two cases of Covid..." Other minds would not (or not necessarily) take time to add the precise adjective. Then, notice this observation about Yale's educational technology staff:


Our Zoom teacher is named Brian. I expect him to speak from a high-tech office, but of course he doesn’t. Most campus buildings are closed. Brian addresses us from his bedroom, which has an impressive record collection, an electric-guitar case, a full wastebasket, a bowl of pet food, and a bed whose duvet is slightly askew. He has a beard and a voice so soothing that he sounds as if he is telling a bedtime story. This is exactly what we need. The other faculty members who are taking the class—I see their diminutive heads, some of them gray-haired, arrayed in a vertical column on the right of my screen—are probably as terrified as I am.


Fadiman can't help but observe that her new teacher has a wastebasket--and that it's full. Additionally, Fadiman can't help but write this down. Her curiosity about the world is so charming (at least to people who regularly read personal essays).

Fadiman doesn't have a sensational story to tell; after all, we all know how it felt to live through Covid in America. But Fadiman's sense of humor, along with her quiet skepticism, makes her good company. She is just a born performer. You know immediately that you're in good hands.

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