We knew it was coming. They’ve been telling us for months, and now it’s here: a dark winter as infections explode across the country at a staggering rate. Despite the warnings of experts, it still feels like a shock to enter another grim season when public life fades and the suffering becomes uncountable. Like grief, there’s no preparing for such a thing.

C. and I spent the afternoon alone in a chapel at the cemetery, its silence broken only by distant sirens and the occasional drone of an airplane descending toward JFK International. We tested some lighting ideas and measured the apse and alcoves for a project about loss that we’re planning for next spring. And what will the world look like then? How will this winter be remembered? More and more, the future feels impossible to comprehend until it arrives.

William Basinski – Passio

Lamentations | Temporary Residence Limited, 2020 | Bandcamp

I’ve been waiting for this album for months, and it’s music that meets this moment: sorrowful and slightly out of focus.