Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - Herdest Immunity (New York after Rona part v of v)

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Our New York after Rona miniseries comes to an end just in time for the latest Variant. The WHO turns to podcasts for a new endless stream of naming possibilities. Plus a ToE favorite playwright returns with a new musical production of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery.

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Episodes every other week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. This installment is called Herlist Immunity. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty. That's the standard translation of Revelations 1, verse 8. Most American Christian fundamentalists consider this to be the most important verse in the book of Revelations because 8 minus 1 equals 7. And 7 is the key to the whole thing.

Seven churches. Seven stars. Seven candlesticks. Seven false prophets. Seven angels. Seven trumpets. And seven seals. But when the WHO announced it would be using the Greek alphabet

to name future variants of the COVID-19 coronavirus, the American Christian fundamentalist community was split asunder. One faction filled their churches and bunkers with canned goods and toilet paper, declaring on Facebook that the end was nigh, and that the seventh variant, ETA, was of biblical concern. The other faction came out against the fear and panic, and they held up Revelation chapter 1 verse 8 as proof. As the Almighty says, nothing follows Omega, so therefore the virus is a heresy, a hoax. They scoffed at their brothers and sisters for allowing themselves to be frightened by false prophets like Dr. Fauci.

This fake crisis, they wagered on Facebook, would be over by the seventh variant. But unfortunately, this is not how things worked out. Omicron, the latest COVID-19 variant, is named for the 15th letter in the Greek alphabet. Which leads us to the big question. What does follow Omega? Well, dear listener, according to the WHO official who contacted me over the weekend, this time there will be no scientific hubris or epidemiological optimism. This time, the WHO is going to tap into a well of limitless naming possibilities. Podcasts.

That's right. After the Greek alphabet, the WHO, we'll start naming variants after podcasts. So soon, we'll be cowering in our basements, hiding from antibody-evading variants like cereal. The Joe Rogan Experience. 99 PI. Red Scare. Now at first, I assumed I must have a high ranking on this new illustrious list.

At least a ranking high enough to warrant a phone call from the WHO. But no, this was not the case. This is not why the WHO rang me up. I'm on the hunt to locate the first person to ever make a podcast, the WHO researcher explained. And I came across a reference, a claim that you've been podcasting since October 2004. And I thought if this is actually true, then perhaps you might be able to help me. You know, locate Podcasts Patient Zero. I'm sorry, I replied. I don't know who the first podcaster was. It certainly wasn't me.

But is it true that you've been podcasting since 2004? She couldn't help herself. I mean, that's a very long time. And well, I couldn't find a single person in the office or the WHO Slack who's even heard of you. Yes, I confess. It's true. I have been podcasting since October 2004. And let me tell you, while I've been able to handle the lack of recognition and the lack of financial success, being excluded from your variant naming list would be a slight too much to bear. I might even have to quit. At this, she promised to see what she could do.

And then she hung up. So fingers crossed, dear listener, fingers crossed, one day soon you'll be able to pick up a quick test from the bodega or post office, take it back to your home, remove the cellophane, stick the swab up your nose, twirl it around, plunge it into the plastic vial. And then, after waiting the required ten minutes, pour three drops from the vial into the hole on the plastic tray. And then, oh yeah, and then...

Oh no! Oh no! No! I got COVID toll! Last week, I went to an anti-vax rally. It was a big one outside the city hall. Police officers, nurses, and other city employees were protesting the new mandates. They had signs that read, Pure Bloods Unite and Fight Fauciism with Freedom. A group of angry elder care nurses were passing out fake vax cards made to look like yellow stars of David. This was too much for me. I grabbed a bullhorn from a police officer and climbed up onto the steps. My fellow Americans, listen to me. You're doing it all wrong. Don't you know that there are millions of foreigners in India and Africa who are on their knees begging for vaccines?

A true American patriotic anti-vaxxer would do everything in his or her power to make sure these third-worlders never, ever get their hands on a single shot. Right now, the WHO is lecturing America, pointing the finger at the USA. They're accusing us of dose hoarding. They're accusing us of failing to do our part for global vaccine equity. My fellow Americans, we can't accept this. We need to tell the WHO to back the fuck off. We need to tell the WHO that they can take our boosters over our dead bodies. We need to show the world what anti-vax really means. And with that, I marched the entire demonstration down to the temporary vaccination clinic that's recently gone up near the Freedom Tower.

And as we slithered and shimmied through Lower Manhattan like a conga line, we chanted, IVACS, UVACS, hell no to COVAX! IVACS, You vax! Hell no to Covax! I vax! You vax! Hell no to Covax! I vax! You vax! Hell no to Covax!

I vax! You vax! Hell no to Covax! I vax! You vax! Hell no to Covax! I vax! You vax!

Hell no to Covax! I vax! You vax! Hell no to Covax! I vax! You vax! You vax! Hell no to Covax! I vax! You vax! When COVID happened, it just pulled the rug out from under all of us, I feel like. I don't mind telling you, I went to a really dark place. It was so hard.

David is a New York City-based theater director. A couple of years ago, we did a story about his remake of Rent. Curiously, the same producer behind that masterpiece reached out to David during the lockdown with a proposition to get back to work. I really, I rethought my whole thing, my whole gestalt. And I was like, if theater comes back, if it deserves to come back, it's going to have to be something that really, that really brings us together by embodying risk, you know, by like really, like the stuff that we've really been feeling. So that's kind of where I'm at.

And weirdly enough, that guy from REN calls me and is like, hey, would you consider working together again? And was like i don't know man i'm pretty done with theater you know it kind of broke my heart you know and he's like well i've still got the rights to the stage adaptation of the shirley jackson biography and they scooped me on the movie and elizabeth moss from the handmaid's tale played shirley jackson and it know, a pretty big indie hit, but I've still got the Broadway rights. So I'm thinking, you know, maybe we can do a musical version.

And I'm like, I think I have a better idea. And he's like, what? And I was like, well, what if we did a musical adaptation of the most responded to New Yorker story ever written? And he says, cat person? And I'm like, no! It's The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the woman whose bio rights you own.

Why don't we do a musical version of that? And I sort of talk him through it and I talk him through the themes it's like it's like a little bit of like it's a little bit of like hillbilly elegy a little bit of wicker man a little bit of like you know like flyover country forgotten voters so you got the Trump angle but then at the same time it's really a community coming together sacrificing and he's like okay great green light do whatever you want i love you baby you're a genius glad to be working together again and suddenly here i am the guy who no longer believes in theater getting to make a piece of theater he believes in

so i started off trying to imagine the opener you know and i was imagining this sort of believes in theater getting to make a piece of theater he believes in so I started off trying to imagine the opener you know and I was imagining the sort of very big percussive intro you know where you sort of meet all the characters because everyone knows how it ends everyone knows the lottery so you don't need to worry about the exposition exactly it's like Romeo and Juliet you know and so I just imagined like you know this like lot of drums cast the first stone cast the first stone who of drums. Cast the first stone. Cast the first stone.

Who's going to cast the first stone? Different characters can kind of step forward and be introduced like it's Spoon River Anthology or something. But it's also like Sweeney Todd, you know, cast the first stone. It's our town. Cast the first stone. Who's going to cast the first stone? It's like, who am I to judge? Right.

Right. Who am I to judge? But also that's literally what happens in the lottery. And that's like a real way of introducing you to the community and its own sort of rituals around judgment and justice, right? Which have the same root, judgment and justice. The thing that seems so appalling in the lottery was the idea that these sacrifices could still go on now.

They could go on in a supposedly enlightened country. And the reason they definitely would go on in a supposedly enlightened country was because the sacrifice is necessary to keep the economy going. And we're used to this myth with like agrarian kind of stuff and sure it's an agrarian community you know in the lottery but what was crazy during covid was these governors and these like you know soi-disant patriots you know down texas or florida being like if i have to sacrifice grandma to keep the economy going so be it and i was like oh that's it that's the lottery but not for crops it's the

lottery for capitalism so i think the major really the major theme of this piece now is sacrifice because we're all sacrificing it's not one particular person's right one person you know one particular person doesn't win the right to sacrifice we're all sacrificing you know and so i felt it was really important to show that through the casting which is why i decided to cast only unvaccinated actors. We're going to do this immersively. We're going to take a page from Sleep No More, right? If you really want people to feel the risk of the community in the lottery, they have to feel the risk of the community at the theater.

You don't need to draw the associations. You feel the danger right there. I mean, those little stones, those little stones that the kids are gathering, those are aerosolized droplets. There's piles of little stones already in the air around you. Who's going to win the lottery? Who's going to get COVID? Who's responsible? Who's not? Who's playing it safe? Who's scared? Who's willing to sacrifice for the community? The big reveal, the big reveal is going to be not only are we not checking vaccination status, Not only are we not requiring masks, the big reveal at the very end is that none of the cast is vaccinated.

And they're all singing at you. Oh, why did it have to be me? You know, they're passing through the audience bellowing out, why did it have to be me? Spraying aerosolized, unvaccinated breath droplets over everyone. I want to leave it as a question. Who won the lottery? Who lost? Who's going to get COVID?

Did they deserve it? Did they have the right attitude towards it? And we're not going to resolve any of it. Oh, why did it have to be me? Society, come back for the prize. Oh, why'd it have to be me? We thank you for your sacrifice Oh, why'd it have to be me? Why did it have to be me?

I was doing my part for the community Oh, why, why, why did it have to be me? I had a dream that I was back on the island. Only this time, I wasn't alone. This time, I'd used my power and influence to help New York City escape COVID with me. I was like Oscar Schindler. Only my list contained dirty boulevards, overcrowded bodegas, double-parked cars, and rats. And the 6th Street pedestrian bridge that crosses the FDR.

That one wasn't easy. On the morning of the extraction, the police were out in full force protecting the hired lumberjacks who were hell-bent on felling as many of East River Park's trees as possible before the holiday surge. But luckily, they paid my blowtorch and hacksaw no mind, and the bridge and I escaped, right under their noses on a trash barge. We sailed all the way to Ile d'Oreille, and the French authorities celebrated our arrival with fireworks and disco music. The bridge was rechristianed. It was a mistake to call this miniseries New York After Rona.

I've been deluged with hate mail, angry missives accusing me of being anti-science and anti-public health. I've received countless emails and tweets, all in all caps, I will never listen to your podcast again. You know, I never assumed, dear listener, that anyone would interpret New York after Rona to mean I think the pandemic is over. Perhaps I should have gone with something generic like life in the post-pandemic city. I just thought it was obvious. After Rona is the new human condition. But what do I know? I also think it's obvious that it's impossible to end a global pandemic

by merely vaccinating a handful of wealthy nations and calling it a day. But anyways, I made a mistake, and I'm sorry. And now we're going to bring this miniseries to a close. Which is unfortunate, because you see, I had a real banger planned for the finale. And it had the most amazing title as well. I was going to call the last episode

in this miniseries If You Like COVID You Will Love Climate Change. You will love climate change. You have been listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called Heartless Immunity. David Levine. The music for The Lottery was composed by the one and only Andrew Calloway, with lead vocals from Maya Lorton. The Theory of Everything is a proud founding member of Radiotopia, home to some of the world's best podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia from PRX.