Looking back, moving forward
As another year of The After Times comes to a close, I wanted to offer a few moments of gratitude and reflection. This was year 2 of the global COVID-19 pandemic, year 2 of forced isolation, social distancing, remote work, remote schooling, then in-person schooling, wearing masks in public, constantly washing hands, watching and experiencing the service industry imploding, then limping back at 1/4 staffed… thousands of mom and pop businesses shuttering, thousands more just surviving, even thriving, and Amazon making billions. The SARS and MERS research and science going back to 2003 contributed to a rapid global vaccination effort which proved effective. Nearly equally effective was the dis- and misinformation campaigns by those whose agendas did not align with the temporary shutdowns of businesses and the highjacking of ‘normalcy’.
To date, over 5.445 million people have died from complications caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus. (John Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center)
In regards to the lockdowns, the extroverts suffered, the introverts shrugged — but let’s be honest, it’s a spectrum — so everyone was affected in some way. And continue to be.
Isolation from family, friends, and colleagues allowed people the time to reflect, write, sleep, read, clean out closets, organize the spice drawer, finally learn some yoga poses or how to meditate, quit their jobs, move in with parents or siblings, take an online course, address mental health and addiction issues, write a song, learn to draw or make bread or darn socks, and grow and/or kill house plants. Which of these have you undertaken? (I have killed three plants the past few years, and one was a cactus, given to us by a friend. We think it arrived ill and depressed, with an exit strategy, to be honest. Sorry, Katie).
We will be seeing the collaborative and creative results of this isolation for years to come. Prepare for the ‘Roaring Twenties’, Part II.
Detail of Shelley Armstrong’s miniature house.
It’s in this very spirit of creative collaboration that I launched Great Love Sound. The themes of resiliency, adaptation, and awakening began to emerge as the themes of Issue 01 — and I expect these themes to continue during the coming years.
For now, Great Love Sound is a place for curated features covering creative arts and culture, with all subscription funds benefiting nonprofits. The idea is this: each featured person will designate a nonprofit they’d like a percentage of the subscriber funds to go to, and that is split across all featured people’s charity choices. If viewers want to make an additional donation to a specific featured cause or organization, they are welcome to do so. It’s a win/win. Stay tuned for what’s ahead. Better yet, be part of it.
In gratitude
Firstly, thank you so very much to all the contributors and subscribers to this endeavor. I reached out to a handful of creative friends and old colleagues, even took a chance and sent a form email to a fantastic artist in the UK whom I follow on Instagram — and the response was overwhelming: they wanted to be involved. When I explained how the Movember Foundation raises money for global men’s health programs addressing suicide prevention, mental health, and prostate and testicular cancer — they leaned into the project and submitted songs, sat for interviews, uploaded hundreds of photos for me to cull through, all in the spirit of sharing creative work for a great cause. Thank you.
Here are the numbers.
Subscribers
Contributors
Raised for the Movember Foundation
Features
Thank you, subscribers, for being a part of this experiment and donating to the cause. In four short weeks you helped us raise $1,735 for men’s health programs.
Thank you Adam Hale, Dan Webb and Off/Off/On, Shelley Armstrong, Korum Bischoff and The Phantom Years, Steven Bower, and Jim Thomsen for contributing to issue o1. I really appreciate your involvement.
1806 - Visionary, by The Daily Splice (Adam Hale)
I am looking forward to continued collaborations with crafters, creators, musicians around the world in the coming year, and hope to see you here.
Onward!
