Carlile: ‘Onward’ song wrote itself
As demand wanes, official warns about letting guard down
When the makers of Pixar Animation Studios’ “Onward” approached five-time Grammy winner Brandi Carlile to write an end-credits song, they didn’t need to give her much direction.
“This song wrote itself based on it being such a great film, plus the themes of loss, grief and emotional reconciliation, familial connection and a theme that I constantly return to: chosen family or family in nontraditional roles,” Carlile said of “Carried Me With You,” which is nominated for a 2021 Grammy. “When I look at families that way, songs just come out of me.”
“Onward” is an animated road movie set in a world populated by mythical creatures. Two blue elf brothers (Ian, voiced by Tom Holland, and Barley, voiced by Chris Pratt) go on a magical quest to cast a spell that will allow them to visit with their long-dead father for one day.
Carlile praises the film’s final reveal about the true nature of the family’s bonds: “I could get emotional just thinking about it ... I mean, you can almost write a song about it without being a songwriter. It’s just so beautiful.”
Though Carlile and her wife have two daughters and she acknowledges that was a motivator for taking a Pixar gig, she didn’t turn to her kids for inspiration.
“I just really thought about the boys in the film. I thought about grief and nontraditional family structure. I thought about that mom trying to raise those two boys without any help, and what kind of character-building love … was formed.”
One of her favorite lines is “Like a lighthouse in a storm/ you were always guiding me,” because, she
says, “we all have a lighthouse somewhere, and it’s out there trying to bring us to shore, trying to make us realize we’re not alone. But you have to seek it out. It doesn’t really find you; you find it.
“I love that theme, because the boy in the film was seeking out a light that was gone. And when he opened his mind to the light that was there, that’s what really brought him back to shore.”
Carlile was happy to take her family to the premiere.
“We traveled to LA … and we walked the red carpet. … There’s all these things laid out for the kids, and they honestly thought the whole thing was just for them, this big party. And then we’re in the movie theater, and (the actors) got up and thanked us for writing our song, and my daughter is looking at me like,” she imitates drop-jawed amazement, “making the connection. I
finally achieved peak coolness with the kids.
“We pointed out that there is a gay character, and word is that was the first LGBTQ+ character in a Pixar-Disney film. And they didn’t think anything of that. … But in subtle ways, it did help our family to have representation in that film.
“It was very cool watching the credits of that song roll down the screen and for them to make the connection: ‘Hey, that’s Mama, but for the first time, she’s singing to us.’ ”
Feb. 28 birthdays: Actor Gavin MacLeod is 90. Actor Tommy Tune is 82. Actor Kelly Bishop is 77. Actor Bernadette Peters is 73. Comedian Gilbert Gottfried is 66. Actor Rae Dawn Chong is 60. Author Daniel Handler is 51. Actor Tasha Smith is 50. Singer Jason Aldean is 44. Actor Michelle Horn is 34. Actor True O’Brien is 27.
WASHINGTON — Just five weeks ago, Los Angeles County was conducting more than 350,000 weekly coronavirus tests, including at a massive drive-thru site at Dodger Stadium, as health workers raced to contain the worst COVID-19 hotspot in the U.S.
Now, county officials say testing has nearly collapsed. More than 180 government-supported sites are operating at only a third of their capacity.
“It’s shocking how quickly we’ve gone from moving at 100 miles an hour to about 25,” said Dr. Clemens Hong, who leads the county’s testing operation.
After a year of struggling to boost testing, communities across the country are seeing plummeting demand, shuttering testing sites or even trying to return supplies.
The drop in screening comes at a significant moment in the outbreak: Experts are cautiously optimistic that COVID-19 is receding after killing more than 510,000 people in the U.S. but concerned that emerging variants could prolong the epidemic.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday approved Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, making a third shot available in the United States.
That vaccine is the first to require one dose instead of two and shipments are expected to start within days, adding to the effort already underway to administer
millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
“Everyone is hopeful for rapid, widespread vaccinations, but I don’t think we’re at a point where we can drop our guard just yet,” said Hong. “We just don’t have enough people who are immune to rule out another surge.”
U.S. testing hit a peak Jan. 15, when the country was averaging more than 2 million tests per day. Since then, the average number of daily tests has fallen more than 28%. The drop mirrors declines across all major virus measures since January, including new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Officials say those encouraging trends, together with harsh winter weather, the end of the holiday travel season, pandemic fatigue and a growing focus on vaccinations are sapping interest in testing.
“When you combine all those together you see this decrease,” said Dr. Richard Pescatore of the health department in Delaware, where daily testing has fallen more than 40% since the January peak. “People just aren’t going to go out to testing sites.”
But testing remains important for tracking and containing the outbreak.
LA County is opening
more testing options near public transportation, schools and offices to make it more convenient. And officials in Santa Clara County are urging residents to “continue getting tested regularly,” highlighting new mobile testing buses and pop-up sites.
President Joe Biden has promised to revamp the nation’s testing system by investing billions more in supplies and government coordination. But with demand falling fast, the country may soon have a glut of unused supplies. The U.S. will be able to conduct nearly 1 billion monthly tests by June, according to projections from
researchers at Arizona State University. That’s more than 25 times the country’s current rate of about 40 million tests reported per month.
With more than 150 million new vaccine doses due for delivery by late March, testing is likely to fall further as local governments shift staff and resources to giving shots.
“You have to pick your battles here,” said Dr. Jeffrey Engel of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. “Everyone would agree that if you have one public health nurse, you’re going to use that person for vaccination, not testing.”
Some experts say the country must double down on testing to avoid flare-ups from coronavirus variants that have taken hold in the U.K., South Africa and other places.
“We need to use testing to continue the downward trend,” said Dr. Jonathan Quick of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has been advising Biden officials. “We need to have it there to catch surges from the variants.”
Over the holiday season, many Americans still had to wait days to receive test results, rendering them largely useless. That’s led to testing fatigue and dwindling interest, said Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard University.
“It doesn’t exactly give you a lot of gratifying, immediate feedback,” Mina said.
Still, U.S. test manufacturers continue ramping up production, with another 110 million rapid and homebased tests expected to hit the market next month.
Government officials long assumed this growing arsenal of cheap, 15-minute tests would be used to regularly screen millions of students and teachers as in-person classes resume. But recent guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t emphasize testing, describing it as an “additional layer” of protection, behind basic measures like masking and social distancing.
Even without strong federal backing, educational leaders say testing programs will be important for marshaling public confidence needed to fully reopen schools, including in the fall when cases are expected to rise again.