KLMNO
Style
FRIDAy, MARCH 27 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STyLE EZ RE C
Shutdown a painful blow for part-time vendors at venues. Sports, C8-10
PABLO DELCAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTBY MONICA HESSE AND DAN ZAKI
magine having enough Purell to cover not just your hands but your entire
body, right now. Imagine covering your entire family. Imagine covering the
entire country. What about the entire world? Just SQUIRT and disinfect
every surface at o nce? Imagine there were moments that could, in the middle of
this chaos, feel completely safe and clean. ¶ Purell. not the only hand sanitizer
out there, but the symbolic one. The brand name. The future museum artifact
representing the spring of covid-19. A clear liquid in a clear bottle in a clear
glass box that a cyborg mother points out to her cyborg child: “see this? They
used to rub this on themselves. It s upposedly killed 99.99 percent of germs, but
it definitely made them feel 100 percent better.” ¶ Purell. Draw it out, and it
sounds like the name of a lady at the beauty salon. Clip it short, and it sounds
like our current location: We’re in pure hell. But while we’re in there, we’re also
in Purell. Doused, lacquered, chapped, chilled, smelling vaguely of hospitals.
see PURELL on C3The power of Purell
compels you!
The most sacred sanitizing goo is awash with history and mystery
BY EMILY YAHRIn the latest issue of In Touch
magazine, between stories about
Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas’s
new romance and Khloe Kar-
dashian’s “krazy” workouts,
there’s a jolting five-page spread:
“CoRonAVIRUs ATTACKs
HoLLYWooD,” the headline
screams, with “attacks” t yped out
in red letters that look like spat-
tered blood.
While it may be a typical
dramatic tabloid headline, the
frantic tone oddly captures the
urgency of this nightmare we’re
living in. The coronavirus crisis
has upended life as we know it.
no one can think or talk about
anything else.
But people are also craving a
way to escape the flood of horrif-
ic headlines, and a popular
choice is anything brought to us
by Hollywood: movies, TV, mu-
sic, comedy, celebrity gossip. so
how do the publications purely
dedicated to covering these top-
ics handle a global pandemic —
see TABLOIDS on C2The show
must not go
on, but the
tabloids do
BY PEGGY MCGLONELooking at a $20 million deficit
that could balloon to $55 million
by the end of summer, Kennedy
Center President Deborah Rutter
knows that painful cuts are on the
horizon.
so she slashed her salary first.
After taking a 50 percent cut
last week, Rutter told her staff
Monday that she would waive her
entire salary until the covid-19
pandemic recedes.
“It’s a leadership issue. This is
what a leader does,” Rutter, who
earns about $1.2 million annually,
said in an interview Thursday.
Kennedy Center Board Chairman
David Rubenstein advised her not
to, but she did it anyway.
“ I need to be the first person,”
Rutter said, alluding to the possi-
ble sacrifices that lie ahead. “My
hope is that these circumstances
don’t l ast forever, but I’m going to
be a realist.”
since the arts center closed
March 12, it hasn’t paid about 725
hourly and part-time employees
see SALARY on C2Kennedy
Center
director
forgoes pay
Gentry, learned that the mercury
levels at his childhood fishing
spot had spiked — and because
our collective ecological aware-
ness was different back then, the
band felt an urgency to speak up.
As owen told the Chicago Tri-
bune after the single hit the
airwaves, “Change can’t come if
people don’t know a problem
exists.”
Then, 30 years passed. “Pass It
on Down” didn’t change the
world. It didn’t even change
country music.
In a century-deep musical tra-
dition that frequently celebrates
the precious splendor of our
natural world, this rogue eco-hit
remains a freakish anomaly —
see NOTEBOOK on C3not on Alabama’s “Pass It on
Down.” It’s the o nly country s ong
about trashed beaches, vanish-
ing ozone and toxic tap water to
ever crack the top 10. With the
band’s rhythm section ticking
like a countdown clock, front-
man Randy owen takes a cold,
hard look at our hot, fragile
planet and offers a damage re-
port: “Down in Brazil, the fires
are burning still/ How we gonna
breathe without them trees?”
Cough.
You won’t hear a more timely
single on country radio right
now, which is depressing be-
cause “Pass It on Down” was
released on March 25, 1990. The
lyrics were written after owen’s
bandmate and cousin, Te ddyBY CHRIS RICHARDSCountry music gets its name
from where it originates, and if
you listen to the songs them-
selves, the scenery can be post-
card-perfect. The sun shines.
The corn grows. The moon
glows. The river sparkles. even
when the rain turns dirt into
mud, the earth still feels good
and dependable beneath your
feet.
CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
If drinking don’t kill me, pollution will:
Nashville has an ecological blind spot
30 years ago, t he genre
had its first (and only) hit
about the environment
WASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATION; ISTOCK