"Tell me the one about the virus again. Then I'll go to bed."
May 2, 2020 10:02 PM Subscribe
"The Great Realisation". A poem / bedtime story, written and performed by Tomos Roberts, about a worldwide spiritual awakening resulting from COVID-19. From TomFoolery.
I studied religions when I was younger and then moved into film production. Both are connected and essential -- they are the stories we tell ourselves ABOUT ourselves. This -- this is exactly that, and so much what we need.
And I cried, too.
posted by Silvery Fish at 7:56 AM on May 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
And I cried, too.
posted by Silvery Fish at 7:56 AM on May 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
I cried because of the message, and because it was my generally right wing libertarian father who sent it to me, and there is some thinking in here that strongly contradicts what he gets from Fox News. I was surprised that this would reach him, to say the least, and very grateful. Please god let this one come true.
posted by EatTheWeek at 8:05 AM on May 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by EatTheWeek at 8:05 AM on May 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
People keep sending me this, and they aren't the usual suspects for sending me stuff; they tend to be older and more conservative. I think they are genuinely scared by the virus but can't say so because they have painted themselves into a corner by their ideology. Only by regressing to childhood can they find a way to talk about it.
posted by acrasis at 10:09 AM on May 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by acrasis at 10:09 AM on May 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
This is not the kind of voice we've been seeing and hearing in the fashion/cash-driven popular media. It is a voice we've been waiting for.
posted by Twang at 5:20 PM on May 3, 2020
posted by Twang at 5:20 PM on May 3, 2020
IME it's always been the older, less media-savvy, and yes, sadly, right-wing type folk who buy into this type of hokey just-so story about why this virus will build character.
Except for the hundreds of thousands who are dead, and the millions who have lost their families, and the tens of millions who've been bankrupted, and the hundreds of millions sacrificing their health and sanity to keep their families - and our world - running in survival mode. Except for those people, yeah. Character building for all the rest of us! Good Coronavirus. Well done.
Let's definitely never interrogate what it means to "prefer the world we found to the world we left behind," because the details are obviously unrealistic as fuck and that's too uncomfortable a truth for any of us to speak at the moment. No, let's tell a cute little rhyming story to our children about some Great Realization during which gaining insight en masse somehow wins over corporate greed and political indolence? Or perhaps this video is the bowlderized tale told of a bloody, gruesome revolution?
Whatever the case, this is all standard material from the traditional conservative playbook. Point fingers at individual people using plastic bags and flying on planes, never at the unholy marriage between corporations and politics. Focus on simple messaging: people baaaad, then people pull themselves up by bootstraps and become gooood. And always remember to leave Step 3 as ??? before moving on to "profit!" or in this case "utopia".
posted by MiraK at 7:34 PM on May 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Except for the hundreds of thousands who are dead, and the millions who have lost their families, and the tens of millions who've been bankrupted, and the hundreds of millions sacrificing their health and sanity to keep their families - and our world - running in survival mode. Except for those people, yeah. Character building for all the rest of us! Good Coronavirus. Well done.
Let's definitely never interrogate what it means to "prefer the world we found to the world we left behind," because the details are obviously unrealistic as fuck and that's too uncomfortable a truth for any of us to speak at the moment. No, let's tell a cute little rhyming story to our children about some Great Realization during which gaining insight en masse somehow wins over corporate greed and political indolence? Or perhaps this video is the bowlderized tale told of a bloody, gruesome revolution?
Whatever the case, this is all standard material from the traditional conservative playbook. Point fingers at individual people using plastic bags and flying on planes, never at the unholy marriage between corporations and politics. Focus on simple messaging: people baaaad, then people pull themselves up by bootstraps and become gooood. And always remember to leave Step 3 as ??? before moving on to "profit!" or in this case "utopia".
posted by MiraK at 7:34 PM on May 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Well I thought it was lovely and hit a lot of the things I've been feeling and thinking. It's a more syrupy version of the KSR New Yorker essay, I suppose. A couplet about guillotines would've been nice but it's really hard to rhyme.
posted by condour75 at 7:43 PM on May 3, 2020
posted by condour75 at 7:43 PM on May 3, 2020
To the guillotine we marched Donald Trump
How we did cheer when his head went "Thump, thump."
There you go, condour75.
posted by dannyboybell at 8:23 PM on May 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
How we did cheer when his head went "Thump, thump."
There you go, condour75.
posted by dannyboybell at 8:23 PM on May 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I also recoiled at the idea that the problems of the modern world can be summed up as kids on their phones and people not talking.
posted by Merus at 9:25 PM on May 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Merus at 9:25 PM on May 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
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posted by warriorqueen at 6:39 AM on May 3, 2020 [4 favorites]