More “Deep Breath” Moments From Around the World

When Governor Andrew Cuomo began his daily NYS Coronavirus Update emails in the spring, there was little that New Yorkers could find to celebrate. (If you want to read more about the pandemic’s impact on New York, here are recommended articles from The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The City, New York Times, NYC Department of Education, and Gothamist.)

But for a few months now, things have been looking up as New York State has maintained a slow disease growth throughout our phased reopening. And although Governor Cuomo’s emails contain mostly positive news these days, he still shares a “Deep Breath Moment” at the end of each message to remind us of good things that are happening in the world. Here are some of them.

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More of Governor Cuomo’s “Deep Breath Moments”

• Art for Essential Workers: Michael Gittes, a Los Angeles-based artist, donated 1,800 abstract flower paintings to the workers of the Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn to express his appreciation for their efforts during the pandemic. For his “Strangers to No One” project, Gittes used syringes instead of paintbrushes to create the paintings, which he funded via private sales of some of the paintings to private collectors.
• ‘Rosie the Riveter’ Makes Masks: Pennsylvania’s 94-year-old Mae Krier is a former ‘Rosie the Riveter’ who helped build planes during World War II and is now making hundreds of cloth masks in the same red and white polka-dotted cloth that the fictionalized Rosie made popular decades ago. Read more about Mae Krier and other Super Awesome Seniors™.
• Delivering Summer Meals to Underserved Neighborhoods: In Rochester, NY, Foodlink and the Regional Transit Service have teamed up to deliver Summer Meals on Wheels to Rochester neighborhoods that are not within walking distance of grab-and-go food-distribution sites. The free meals are intended to help food-insecure families who are struggling during the pandemic, and the delivery times and routes are available at the Summer Meals ROC website.
• Young Nigerian Dancer Receives ABT Scholarship: In Lagos, Nigeria, 11-year-old Anthony Madu danced barefoot in the rain for a video shared by his ballet teachers at the Leap of Dance Academy. The video went viral and was shared numerous times, including by actresses Viola Davis and Cynthia Erivo. The American Ballet Theatre was so impressed, they offered Madu a scholarship to train with the company in New York City.
• Solar Orbiter Takes Incredible Pictures of the Sun: In February, Solar Orbiter, a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with NASA participation, launched from Cape Canaveral. Five months later, the Solar Orbiter captured incredible photographs of the Sun from about halfway between Earth and the Sun (48 million miles away). The photographs revealed what scientists are calling “campfires”, or “little relatives of the solar flares that we can observe from Earth, [only a] million or billion times smaller.” And another treat from NASA: an entrancing hour-long time lapse video of a decade in the life of the Sun.
• All-Girl Afghan Robotics Team Creates Affordable Mobile Ventilator: The young women of the award-winning Afghan Girls Robotics Team have proved their brilliance yet again, this time by designing a low-cost mobile ventilator based partly on an MIT design. According to Reuters, the ventilator “is easy to carry, can run on battery power for 10 hours, and costs roughly $700 to produce, compared with the $20,000 price of a traditional ventilator.”
• Senior Musicians Perform For Their Assisted-Living Facility: In 2019, seniors Ed Beckerman and Paul Gall started playing guitar for the other residents of Brandywine Living at Princeton, New Jersey. In the spring of 2020, the musicians put their performances on hold as the facility was forced to cancel most of its activities due to coronavirus concerns. At the end of May, when isolated residents were more in need of a little levity and entertainment, their concerts resumed outside so Beckerman and Gall could safely accommodate more residents in the audience.
• Hamilton Mask-Up Parody Medley: The Holderness Family YouTube channel is created by a family of four who make videos of their original music—and less-original-but-very-hilarious musical parodies. One of their recent video hits is the Hamilton Mask-up Parody Medley, as performed by Holderness Family dad, Penn. Subscribe to their YouTube channel here and also check out their newest mask-themed song, a tribute to teachers who will be teaching in-person this school year, and an entertaining parody of the Sir Mix-a-Lot’s ’90s classic, “Baby Got Back”: Baby Got Mask – 2020 Back to School Parody.
• Barcelona Musicians Perform for Plants: In June, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceau filled its 2,292-seat audience for the first time since mid-March. But the UceLi Quartet didn’t perform Puccini’s “Crisantemi” for a human audience, they performed for more than 2,200 plants (and an at-home audience via livestream). The plants were then donated to 2,292 health care professionals, including the workers of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, as a symbolic gesture and thanks to front-line healthcare workers.
• The Best Plague Tradition—Wine Windows: There have been a number of plagues that have ravaged Europe throughout history, including the infamous Black Death (one of multiple bubonic plague pandemics). In the Italian Plague of 1629-1631, northern and central Italy suffered an outbreak of the bubonic plague, and enterprising wine sellers in the Tuscan region found a safe way to deliver their beverages to customers with minimal interaction, via “wine windows“. Businesses in Florence have now revived the tradition as a social-distancing friendly way to get alcohol to folks who need a drink, and I approve.