Lockdown lingo – are you fully conversant with the new terminology

Coronacoaster

The ups and downs of your mood during the pandemic. You’re loving lockdown one minute but suddenly weepy with anxiety the next. It truly is “an emotional coronacoaster”.

Quarantinis

Experimental cocktails mixed from whatever random ingredients you have left in the house. The boozy equivalent of a store cupboard supper. Southern Comfort and Ribena quarantini with a glacé cherry garnish, anyone? These are sipped at “locktail hour”, ie. wine o’clock during lockdown, which seems to be creeping earlier with each passing week.

Blue Skype thinking

A work brainstorming session which takes place over a videoconferencing app. Such meetings might also be termed a “Zoomposium”. Naturally, they are to be avoided if at all possible.

Le Creuset wrist

It’s the new “avocado hand” – an aching arm after taking one’s best saucepan outside to bang during the weekly ‘Clap For Carers.’ It might be heavy but you’re keen to impress the neighbours with your high-quality kitchenware.

Coronials

As opposed to millennials, this refers to the future generation of babies conceived or born during coronavirus quarantine. They might also become known as “Generation C” or, more spookily, “Children of the Quarn”.

Furlough Merlot

Wine consumed in an attempt to relieve the frustration of not working. Also known as “bored-eaux” or “cabernet tedium”.

Coronadose

An overdose of bad news from consuming too much media during a time of crisis. Can result in a panicdemic.

The elephant in the Zoom

The glaring issue during a videoconferencing call that nobody feels able to mention. E.g. one participant has dramatically put on weight, suddenly sprouted terrible facial hair or has a worryingly messy house visible in the background.

Quentin Quarantino

An attention-seeker using their time in lockdown to make amateur films which they’re convinced are funnier and cleverer than they actually are.

Covidiot or Wuhan-ker

One who ignores public health advice or behaves with reckless disregard for the safety of others can be said to display “covidiocy” or be “covidiotic”. Also called a “lockclown” or even a “Wuhan-ker”.

Goutbreak

The sudden fear that you’ve consumed so much wine, cheese, home-made cake and Easter chocolate in lockdown that your ankles are swelling up like a medieval king’s.

Antisocial distancing

Using health precautions as an excuse for snubbing neighbours and generally ignoring people you find irritating.

Coughin’ dodger

Someone so alarmed by an innocuous splutter or throat-clear that they back away in terror.

Mask-ara

Extra make-up applied to “make one’s eyes pop” before venturing out in public wearing a face mask.

Covid-10

The 10lbs in weight that we’re all gaining from comfort-eating and comfort-drinking. Also known as “fattening the curve”.

…and finally, finally: One sentence to sum up 2020, so far: At one point this week, 1 loo roll was worth more than a barrel of crude oil!

Nick’s Grandfather “Mank”

A business associate, Nick Davis, is the grandson of Herman Jacob Mankiewicz, the screenwriter, who with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane. As you may know, there is a new movie about Herman Mankiewicz called “Mank.” Here are some of Nick’s comments on the movie.

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Welcome To The Twilight Zone

A Life That Spiraled Out Of Control

Tony Hsieh’s American Tragedy: The Self-Destructive Last Months Of The Zappos Visionary

https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2020/12/04/tony-hsiehs-american-tragedy-the-self-destructive-last-months-of-the-zappos-visionary/

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Real Estate Weekly Ran The Allen Hirsch Story That I Posted Here The The Other Day. Big Score For Allen and Lois

New York landlord reveals how COVID has upended his life | Real Estate Weekly

https://rew-online.com/new-york-landlord-reveals-how-covid-has-upended-his-life/

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Jane Vasiliou’s Miami Beach Sunrise, Friday, Dec. 4th, 2020

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Apple Co-Founder Wozniak Has a New Startup That Melds Blockchain and Green Tech

This is going to take some research to completely understand

https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-co-founder-wozniak-has-a-new-startup-that-melds-blockchain-and-green?amp=true

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Rules To Live By

Don’t Miss These

Gloria Estefan tested positive for COVID. Now, she has a message for everyone

https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0XsNe8Fa?pd=0292Kwz5&s=i3

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Fresco By Scotto temporarily shuts down amid pandemic

https://pagesix.com/2020/12/01/fresco-by-scotto-temporarily-shuts-down-amid-pandemic/

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Can Bay Area startup’s firefighting drones save us from catastrophe?

Can Bay Area startup’s firefighting drones save us from catastrophe?

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First blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s goes on sale

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/11/30/first-blood-test-to-help-diagnose-alzheimers-goes-on-sale

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25 wildlife photos that show nature at its most beautiful, weird, and brutal

https://mashable.com/article/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2020-peoples-choice/

My Client Allen Hirsch

SOHO ARTIST TURNED LANDLORD NOW FORCED

TO SELL HIS ART TO MAKE A LIVING

EArtist Allen Hirsch thought he had finally made it when he acquired prime Soho real estate in the early 2000s. Selling millions of dollars of his paintings around the world, being on the covers of TIME and painting President Clinton were one thing, but nothing spelled financial security like owning Manhattan retail space. The benefits of a steady monthly rental income over the incertitude of the fits and starts of selling art seemed like economic Nirvana. Hirsch used his creativity to conceptualize and rent out his new space to a tenant, La Esquina, which soon become an important New York fixture downtown. He then collaborated with a new café tenant next door, Citizens of Soho, to incorporate art exhibits and cultural activities into their business. This all meant good steady rent and allowed Hirsch to pursue his art without worrying about selling it. “I simply followed my passions.” He started various projects including a book on the 17th century artist, Pieter de Hooch, a movie about his parrot and a series of paintings of the neighborhood, mainly seen though his loft window up Lafayette Street. He also invented a new gripless phone accessory called HANDL which allowed people to hold their phones like paintbrushes.

But last March 17th when Governor Cuomo issued an order to shut down all NYC restaurants due to COVID, Hirsch watched his income drop to zero overnight. “Being a landlord means you have tons of monthly expenses as well, not to mention high real estate taxes and I was left holding the bag. The City, State and Federal government was offering no relief.” Hirsch thought this closure wouldn’t be long but the weeks and months rolled by. He was forced to negotiate with his tenants who now had no income to lower their rent dramatically. There was a single PPP grant given out to restaurants in the Spring but it was given to help their employees and although they were allowed to use up to 40% for rent and other costs, this was entirely voluntary and up to the tenant. Landlords were left completely in the cold to fend for themselves.

“I guess everyone thinks they don’t have to worry about landlords- but I live month to month like many others here and invest in new projects and people, mostly freelancers so I couldn’t benefit from the PPP. The universities offered no relief either and I told my daughter I didn’t know whether I could afford to pay for her last year of college.”

New York landlords have traditionally had the upper hand against commercial tenants but this was a new dynamic where storefronts were now boarded up all over town and Hirsch was forced to make deals that didn’t even cover his expenses. “I started looking everywhere to borrow money to pay my bills-and the banks were not lending…Ironically as a landlord, I felt like a struggling artist again.”

His new tenant’s business was empty and Hirsch had the idea to collaborate with them to start a cinema in the outside dining shed featuring popular and arthouse films with dinner. It soon became a hit https://citizens.coffee/movie-night “This hearkens back to the old days in New York when artists roamed the streets and tried many creative things to get by.”

Then he had a thought: maybe it’s time to try to sell art again. Hirsch felt in this climate that selling his art may be more reliable that depending on Manhattan real estate.

He decided to use the café gallery to show his work and he has set up an exhibit of his paintings of the neighborhood which include shutdown paintings. “I watched the whole story unfold from my window upstairs, the emptiness of the city, the demonstrations… Then I watched hundreds of people roam the streets and loot all the stores around- including mine. I called 911 many times and nobody answered. Here I was in Soho, which was once one of the most secure spots on Earth and I was seeing total anarchy. I felt the whole system failed. Still, I was glued to my window and wanted to capture this unique chapter in NYC’s history in art.”

Hirsch’s work is exhibiting now in Citizens of Soho gallery at 201 Lafayette Street (@ Kenmare) for the foreseeable future in order to help support his struggling real estate business.

Allen Hirsch is an artist, entrepreneur, inventor, real estate developer and writer. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. He was the subject of a recent Emmy-winning documentary, Long Live Benjamin, about his art and adventures with his monkey in Soho. His work has been featured on the covers of such publications as TIME and he painted the inaugural portrait of Bill Clinton for the National Portrait Gallery. His new cellphone accessory HANDL, is currently being launched in Staples and Target stores. As a writer, he has contributed to the NY Times and other periodicals and is working on several books.

Monday Memories

A Message from the Editor of Art News about “The Undoing”

The HBO miniseries The Undoing drew to what many reviewers on social media found to be a disappointing conclusion last night. So it’s as good a time as any to look back on the role the Frick Collection played in the series. In an early episode, the main character, Grace Fraser, played by Nicole Kidman, meets her father, Franklin Reinhardt (Donald Sutherland) at the Frick to discuss her predicament: her husband may have murdered a fellow parent at her son’s private school. They sit on one of those ornate benches in the collection’s vast West Gallery, across from a 15th-century painting of the deposition of Christ by Gerard David. The filmmakers are clever about what you see in the background, given Grace’s cheating husband and his possible crime: Paolo Veronese’s The Choice Between Virtue and Vice. But it’s one of Reinhardt’s lines that best coordinates with the Frick Collection itself: “This is bigger than you, Grace,” he says. “Hell, it’s bigger than me.” Like Frick before him, Reinhardt is a titan of some industry or other, with an enormous apartment on Fifth Avenue. And, like Frick, he ends up (this isn’t giving away too much) averting a disaster that is considerably bigger than he is: in 1912, Frick’s wife sprained her ankle, and he had to cancel their return passage from Europe—on the Titanic.
— Sarah Douglas, Editor-in-Chief

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Why This Billionaire Will Never Leave New York

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/nyregion/leonard-lauder.html?referringSource=articleShare

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Have You Considered?

Several friends have used medical marijuana for some serious conditions. They felt it really helped them get through difficult times. When I saw this photo essay in WebMD, I knew I wanted to post it in DigiDame. Let’s know the facts as we get older. This could become an option for many seniors. Thank you!

I Can’t Believe My Eyes

Tony Hsieh, Founder Of Zappos, Dead At 46

Tony Hsieh was one of the biggest success stories of e-commerce with the introduction of Zappos. Because he was located in Las Vegas, he was a regular at CES every January. He made front page headlines for years in newspapers across the country. It’s difficult to believe he’s gone. Details of his death are not known. This is a developing story.

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Happy Holidays From Lois And Eliot

Illustration credit: NY Times

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

We had what seemed like a normal Thanksgiving Dinner at Barton G. We had a table away from everyone else and they treated us royally. It’s good to be older. The food and the presentations were outstanding as usual.

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My 10 year old nephew, Ari Schneider, organized and hosted the thanksgiving zoom family celebration. My brother, Steve Schneider, gave the blessing. Thank you to the Schneider’s, family and friends for this wonderful tribute. The gorgeous gal with the long red hair, and the movie star next to her, are my children.