Author: Stacy Horn

Yesterday, I mentioned a photograph I saw at the Municipal Archives in 2002 that has haunted me ever since. I decided not to post it, and if you follow this link to see it you’ll probably be shocked that I would even consider posting it.

The caption reads: “Homicide victim (male) undersize, naked bloated man [ship captain murdered by crew].”

With the exception of crime scene photographs involving children, this man is the most vulnerable, saddest, sorriest-looking homicide victim I have ever seen. I’ve come across photographs that are more gruesome, but the combination of his spread-out nakedness, the swelling, the squalid setting, it’s just so pathetic. Perhaps he was a miserable, awful human being and his crew had plenty of reasons to hate him, but still. Who was he? What led to this moment? What was the aftermath?

The photograph comes from a collection of glass plate negatives that are sitting in the basement of One Police Plaza. They sit in piles in a small caged room, cracking anytime someone steps too hard. They’re in bad shape and continually getting worse and eventually there will be nothing left if something isn’t done about them. (And maybe something has been done since the last time I was down there.)

I was going to post a more fun picture, but now that feels inappropriate! So I will post this one instead. I took this yesterday, walking back from the DMV.

The Municipal Archives has just put 870,000 photographs online. The server is down a lot, probably because a million people like me are going crazy all over it.

“Thank you for visiting the Municipal Archives Online Gallery, due to high volume you may experience delays. Thank you for your patience.”

I wanted to show this picture I saw there in 2002 that has haunted me ever since. It’s a picture of a murder victim from around 1915. But that will have to wait, I’m not getting through right now. In any case, I’m sure they’ll work out all the bugs. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the infinity power, Municipal Archives!!

Yesterday, a few complimentary copies of the Japanese edition of my book Unbelievable arrived in the mail. So exciting!! Thank you again Sayaka Nakai, (translator) Mr. Izumi (the editor) and Mr. Matsuda (the book designer) and Kinokuniya (publisher)!!

A friend of mine just lost her cat to lymphoma. I’m sure I don’t have to explain to any pet owner what she is feeling right now. They so insinuate themselves into our lives, don’t they? Weirdly, their absence is felt more than when we lose people. Maybe because, unlike people, they are always there, even if only quietly in the background, curled up in a ball nearby. And then they’re not. It’s awful.

Then all you have left is just the remnants of them. The litterbox, the food bowls. It feels like a betrayal to get rid of them, like you’re getting rid of the cat, like they’re just something to clean up. Like they didn’t mean everything.

My cat Buddy has lymphoma. He was first diagnosed on January 10, 2010, so he has passed the two year mark. He’d been showing symptoms for a year before that though, and we were trying everything until we finally did an ultrasound and then a biopsy.

He’s fine today. I try not to think beyond that. You hang in there little dude.

I’ve got this on-going thread in the book I’ve just finished up about singing, where I describe walking back and forth on 11th Street, going to and from choir practice. I write about the different seasons, what I see, who lived on 11th Street, the one cemetery I pass by. I’m so lucky to have a particularly beautiful route to choir.

Yesterday, I took a picture of this tree on the corner of 11th and 5th Avenue. Beautiful, isn’t it? 11th Street is amazingly thick with trees and greenery.

I’ve been fact-checking for weeks, and I’m down to the last chapters, which I’m going to try to finish today. These two chapters focus on the composers Morten Lauridsen and Eric Whitacre, and, because it’s me, life and death.

Starting at about 5:30 in the morning, an hour before their feeding time, Buddy starts doing things to get me to get up earlier and feed him sooner. These things include: shredding paper, eating books, knocking over books, knocking over anything I was stupid enough to leave out on the desk the night before, batting me in the face with his paw, nails extended, and eating plants.

The eating plants one is pretty sure-fire, because he always throws up the leaves later, and that can’t be good for his stomach. This also means it’s time to trim back the plant. Normally it’s hanging in the window out of his reach.

This strategy has been so successful over time that I now feed them at 6:30 in the morning instead of at 7:30, and 4:30 in the afternoon instead of around 7:30 at night. And, because their dinner was so early, they start bugging me again later in the evening and I’ve added a later-evening-snack meal! I am so owned.

I think I have posted about this before. Oh no. I’m the 21st century equivalent of the person who tells the same story over and over again.