Author: Stacy Horn

The New York Public Library has specialty branches and yesterday I was at the Music Division of the Performing Arts branch at Lincoln Center researching Haydn.

I was also looking into a guy named Frank Damrosch. Damrosch wanted to give working men and women opportunities to sing, and so he gave classes all over New York for 10 cents and in 1898 he started the People’s Choral Union (I have to double check that date).

I came across a 1918 letter from Richard Fletcher, the editor of a newspaper called The Chronicle. He had recently published an editorial by Mrs. William Jay, the only woman on the Board of Directors at the New York Philharmonic, and she was calling for a ban of all German Music. (This was the last year of WWI.) Fletcher was asking Frank for his support for this ban.

Sigh. I don’t know if this is going to make it into my book, but I wanted to post sections of Damrosch’s response, who I now love. (Also because of a poem his singers wrote for him. He made those hard working people’s lives better, and the poem is very touching.)

“Why deprive ourselves of the things that are good and beautiful at a time when the world cannot have too much of just such things … I refuse to believe that the American people are so unintelligent as to be unable to distinguish between the German militaristic government and Beethoven’s music, or that they would cease to hate the former because they love the latter. It is so silly a contention that one wonders that supposedly intelligent people can utter or believe it.” [I immediately thought of “freedom fries.”]

“In my opinion American patriotism should express itself by living up to American ideals of freedom … [You tell ’em Frank!] German militarism will not be defeated by the exclusion of the masterworks of German music but by the strength of our army and navy … by the righteousness of our cause. Nor will it be defeated by the persecution of harmless German artists, nor by efforts to incite a mob-spirit against works of art which have nothing to do with German autocracy or militarism [Al Qaeda vs Islamic Community Centers] … let us preserve our dignity and fairness and appreciation of what is true, beautiful and noble … ”

Yeah. Apparently we interned a bunch of members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera banned Wagner for two seasons, and I’m sure there’s a lot more like this.

Anyway … puppies!  (From my night shots experiment.)

I was taking pictures last night, and most didn’t come out well, although I don’t hate this one. Then I remembered that once I got great results when I accidentally used the “P” setting.

I’m not saying this is a great shot, but it captured more detail. It’s not sharp because it was hand-held, but still. I have to research this “P” setting.

I’m brainstorming what I’ll learn next after all the countries of the world. Possibilities:

The names of all the plants, flowers and trees in New York.
The constellations.
Evolution to the point where I could participate in debate.

This is walking west through Union Square. Pretty. I need more green in my life.

“Data from the United States, England and 11 other European countries suggest that the earlier people retire, the more quickly their memories decline.” (From today’s Times.)

I’ve started home schooling myself on subjects I’ve never been good at or just missed altogether. First up is geography. Beginning with Asia, every day I test myself by naming countries on a blank map. I learn a few each day, but by the next day I’ve forgotten most of the ones I’d learned. Very frustrating, but eventually it started to take and I’m up to 40 that I can consistently remember every day.

Yesterday I couldn’t help thinking it was kinda pointless, and maybe there was something more useful I could be learning, but now I’m thinking if nothing else it’s good brain exercise.

A biker riding past Madison Square Park.

If you feel like helping a friend, please go to this link for the Travel Channel’s contact page and tell them you would like to see Extreme Paranormal on Travel following Ghost Adventures. Thank you in advance!

I don’t know how successful this shot is, because you can’t even tell what’s going on. This is a picture of a handball game at night. This looking through a fence into the park, which is higher than street-level. You can see the spectators, but not the players.