Author: Stacy Horn

There are still tickets left, although I think Friday is almost sold-out. Or was it Saturday? I forget! The point is, get your tickets now now now. If you tell me before tomorrow I can try to get some and then I will leave them at the “will-call” window for you, where you can pick them up before the concert (too late to mail them).

Friday, May 9th, 8pm or Saturday, May 10th at 3pm
Grace Church, 10th Street and Broadway

We’ll be singing Randall Thompson’s The Last Invocation, Arvo Part’s The Beatitudes, Charles Ives’s Psalm 90, and Mozart’s Requiem.

John Maclay, our director, selected only 20 women to sing the Voca Me section. Mozart wanted the women to sound ethereal and other-wordly, like angels in the distance, and he gave the direction to sing sotto voce (under the voice). Choir sizes were much smaller in Mozart’s day and he probably would have had only 4 or 8 women singing. The effect he wanted is much harder to accomplish with 60 or so voices. I wasn’t chosen OF COURSE. The first time they sang it without me I almost cried! I’m fine now. John made the right call. That section will give you chills.

At the last rehearsal John told the women to sing the men’s Confutatis section along with them. “You know you’ve always wanted to,” he said. And it’s true. It’s just such an exciting part.

Here is the piece I’m talking about, and this what it going on. The men are singing (translated from the Latin):

“When the accused are confounded,
and doomed to flames of woe …”

And the women are answering:

“Call me among the blessed.”

A dog with booties on. What is more cute in all the world? Ha. A dog with booties following all that death and redemption. But I call animals among the blessed.

I will not be receiving. Or taking calls. The picture below is the turtle and bird equivalent, except they have retired to the rock. I took it yesterday walking through Central Park. I’d planned to take a longer walk, but all of a sudden I felt impatient. I wanted to walk through parks and streets I’d never walked through before. So I went home and made a plan. First up: Highbridge Park.

You thought I was going to say bad, didn’t you! Yesterday I did a ton of errands and no-fun tasks, and I just finished working on my book proposal, so for the rest of the day I can goof off. I’m going to go out for a long walk.

Before I forget, my book Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing With Others is on sale at the Kindle Store. Only $2.99! While supplies last! Haha. Little joke there. Oh wait, now it says the price is $2.51. Even better.

I took this while sitting out in front of the laundromat, waiting for my laundry to dry. There are actually four dogs being walked here. You can see better in the next shot.

I like how she has ordered them by size, smallest to largest.

I just realized I haven’t spent the day just walking around taking pictures in like, forever. It’s my favorite thing. Except I should do the laundry. And work on my book proposal

I took the picture below on 11th Street, on my way to choir practice. The blossoms have begun to fall, something so pleasing to walk through I wrote about in my singing book.

“I’ve become intimately acquainted with the changing seasons on 11th Street. For instance, there’s a stretch where for a brief time during the spring the cherry blossoms are so abundant and so lush they make a big, fat, fluffy white and pink canopy that stretches from sidewalk to sidewalk. It’s a dazzling display. The best part however, is when the petals begin to fall. It makes me wish New York City were car-free. I want to be able to walk down the center of the street like I’m in the middle of my own botanical ticker-tape parade. I’d raise my arms to the skies and twirl around in this confetti-like explosion of renewal and possibility and pretend it’s all for me.”

This morning I was thinking about what kind of cat I will need to look for when the sad day comes and Finney, my fur-monster, dies. He’s 13, and not in the best of health. He’s also a little senile, and from time to time he gets instantly mad, out the blue, and then he bites or swats me.

The thing is, Bleeck is such a terror and loves to play hard. I need to find a cat who can keep up with him and also get along with him. I miss having two cats who love each other and curl up together when they are not killing each other.

You know who I remind myself of? The character Catherine Deneuve plays in the movie The Hunger. She has eternal youth and life, and as her boyfriends age she has to keep replacing them. (Except in the movie it’s a little more complicated and horrible. She’s able to give the men eternal life but not eternal youth so when they age and become completely decrepit she puts them away in boxes in the attic.)

I have to keep replacing the cats I outlive. Except, I will never ever forget how after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer my mother said it looked like she was probably going to need to replace her cat pretty soon. The cat was very old and she’d only just been diagnosed. It was reasonable for her to hope and plan on outliving her cat. She didn’t. She died five weeks later and her cat was adopted by my brother Douglas and his wife Robin. One of these days my cats will outlive me. It could be that guy in the back for all I know.

Well! That was a cheery post, wasn’t it?