20 Photograph by Joe Leavenworth
Letter of Recommendation
In early March, I was in New York, a writer
on the staff of an Apple TV+ show about
a society rebuilding after a pandemic.
During those early days of the corona-
virus’s spread, we ignored the parallels
between the real world and the show’s
plot, until Apple itself instructed most
of its employees to work from home. At
that point, the writers — all of us lived in
Los Angeles yet had been sent to New
York because apparently there is a short-
age of writers in New York — fl ew home.
My older daughter returned from Bard
College, where she was a junior studying
music. My younger daughter missed her
prom, graduation and the well-earned
lollygagging of a second-semester senior.
My wife and daughters easily adapted
to sheltering in place. They initially took
to bed as if aff licted not with coronavirus
but instead a malaise that induced shop-
ping and the consumption of pastel-col-
ored iced beverages regularly deposited
at our door. That initial laziness, howev-
er, quickly gave way to productivity. My
younger daughter and a friend shiftedPainting Toy Soldiers
By Karl Taro Greenfeld
from shopping for clothes to designing
them. My older daughter got back to
songwriting via SoundCloud. My wife,
trained as an interior architect in the
Netherlands, took over the dining-room
table and drew plans for a dream house.
While my family busied themselves in
various useful solitudes, I had no more TV
jobs looming. I lacked a pandemic plan.
As a boy, I collected army men, starting
with common, green blobby plastic sol-
diers and graduating to more intricate 1:72-
scale armies of German, American and9.13.Miniature soldiers
need some R & R too.