Notes From All Over, Part 6 -- Mid-Afternoon Edition -- December 18, 2020

Colleyville Heritage High School: holy mackerel. Our apartment complex is located practically on the grounds of the aforementioned high school. Police sirens are blaring and just now four huge -- and I mean, huge -- brand-new buses have just driven by -- destination unknown. I know it's the last day of school before the Christmas break, or to be more politically correct, the "winter break," but that would not explain the four huge buses and entourage of POVs. It's not the girls state volleyball tournament; that was last month in which our high school team, Grapevine High School, made the quarter-finals but did not advance to the semi-finals. Later: link here. Wow, the game's not over -- still in the fourth quarter, but it's a blowout --

Aha! Here it is! The 2020 high school football championships! Wow. In Class 5A Division 1 the Colleyville Heritage team will play in the semi-finals, 6:00 p.m. tonight at Wichita Falls' Memorial Stadium, against Amarillo. The trip will take about three hours to get there. Wow, wow, wow. 

Later: it's not over yet -- it's only the fourth quarter but it's a blowout, link here (the final was 44 - 25):

Covid-19 vaccine: the press seems to delight in the roll-out of the vaccine, but based on news reports coming out of North Dakota, if the initial batch of vaccine is administered to a very well-thought-out targeted audience, even a "minimum" number of vaccinations could have quite a multiplier effect, breaking the chain of transmission. This will be fascinating to watch. 

Note: Johns Hopkins updated their daily graphics just moments ago, at 1:58 p.m. ET, December 18, 2020.

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Weekly CDC Flu Update

Link here. This issue was released at the usual time. The next two issues will be released on the Monday following the regularly scheduled Friday.

From today's update:

• except for Oklahoma, which is now yellow, the entire country is green / light green (minimal flu activity);
• no new influenza-associated pediatric deaths were reported to the CDC this past week; the total for the 2020-2021 season stands at one;
• specimens tested in the past week by clinical laboratories: 29,578
• number positive: 75 (or 0.3%)
• specimens tested by public health laboratories: 15,298
• number positive: 7 (0.05%)
• this year's "percentage of visits for influenza-like illnesses is well below the national baseline and well below the historic levels; for example:
• 2017 - 2018: 7.5%
• 2019 - 2020: 6.8%
• 2018 - 2019: 5%
• this season, 2020 - 2021: 1.5%, flat-lined/unchanged for the past six weeks;
• bottom line: "seasonal flu" so far this year is either non-existent or being mixed in with Covid-19;

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The Art Page

I never understood Rothko. 

But, now, the epiphany!

The book: On Color, David Scott Kastan, c. 2018. 

I'm reading the second chapter on the color "orange." I now understand Rothko and Rothko has not yet been mentioned. I'm on page 54 and Rothko, according to the index, won't be seen until p. 155. 

But here it is, my epiphany: Yves Klein, in the footsteps of Van Gogh ... from the text, page 54:

In 1955, Klein submitted a large, orange monochrome painting for the annual exhibition at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. the matte orange panel, titled Expression de l'univers de la couleur mine orange (mine orange is the French term for the pigment known in English as "orange lead," the same pigment Van Gogh had used in his still life), was, however, rejected by the organizing committee, unwilling, at least in Kleins' hardly disinterested account, to accept a painting that was just one solid color (une seule couleur unie). 

"You know," as Klein reported (or, better, parodied) what he was told about the jury's reasoning, "it's just really not sufficient; if Yves would agree to add at least a little line, or a dot, or simply a spot of another color, then we could show it, but a single color, no, no, really, that's not enough; it's impossible!"