Category: Uncategorized

And this haunts me. When longing for peace I tell myself that in order to have it I have to accept that as I check off things from my to-do list, I will always be adding things, and that won’t end until I’m dead. That said, I love checking things off my to-do list.

I’m meeting with a lawyer at my publisher today. I enjoy discussing legal issues, they’re like fun puzzles, but I’m sure that I will walk out of that meeting with a longer list of things to do. And the list of things to do with this book is already rather large. You’re not done when you finish the book.

Next comes: getting people to buy it. I don’t enjoy this part. It feels unseemly at times, although it does have its good moments. I’ve started a marketing plan. Here are some of the items from that to-do list:

– Get pitches ready for monthly mags by September. “Is God a Ghost?” (Maybe use that theme, or one like it, for a panel or presentation.)
– Put together list of fun events, ie, seances, EVP recording at a haunted house, etc.
– Write pitch for a local haunted house story.
– Come up with a couple of lectures/presentations.
– Put together a list of possible colleges (and other organizations, societies, etc.) who might be interested in a lecture or panel.
– Create Unbelievable blog.
– Come up with ideas for YouTube video.
– Explore how to use Facebook to promote book. And Twitter.
– Look into Adsense.

The picture is of J.B. Rhine, the head of the Duke Parapsychology Lab. He was a handsome, alternately intense/sweet man.

I’ve reached that time of life. I have friends who have sons in rock bands. Steven Levy and Teresa Carpenter’s son Andrew is a singer and the bass guitarist for a band called Great Jones Street and they played at Don Hill’s this past weekend. Andrew is the one in the middle in a tie. They were so great and it was a lot of fun. The rest of the band members are Daniel Bernstein, lead guitar, Alex Lundberg, guitar and vocals, and Jareb Gleckel on the drums. All very talented. And cute.

My next door neighbor Beth and her son Malique were nice enough to join me, and since we were already out and about we went to a late show of the new Indiana Jones movie. Kind of a perfect holiday weekend night. I took a great picture of Teresa, and Holly, the mother of the guitarist on the right, but I didn’t think to ask them if I could post it here and generally I like to err on the side of caution with this blog, so my friends and I can live together in cyberspace in peace and harmony!

[Video removed because the link no longer works.]

It’s been a while since I posted a dress I couldn’t possess. I don’t really want to possess this one, although I like it. It’s just not for me. I wish I could say I took this shot with these lovely leaf reflections on purpose but I didn’t notice them at the time. It’s like a quiet fireworks display of leaves.

About Bones. I read an interview with the creator saying something along the lines of “as long as it gets people talking.” I hate when people justify bad moves with this kind of logic. You could have Seeley plunge a knife into the heart of Bones, killing her instantly, and that would have people talking, but does it make narrative, emotional sense? I loved the whole Gormogon thread, and to wrap it up so hastily and badly and with Zack as the apprentice? Zack?? Come on. Please. That was out of nowhere and is simply not plausible, there is no history to explain Zack going along with this serial killer AND committing murder. It was just so stupid, from a show that has never been stupid. What happened to everyone over there? Seriously. What pushed you to this? I know you know better.

Tomorrow I will talk about the horror of the Bones finale, but today I have to talk about So You Think You Can Dance because it premieres tonight and I’m determined to get everyone to try this show this year. It’s my favorite reality show and I honestly think it’s something special and you will thank me for this.

I’ve posted this before I believe, but I loved Heather Armstrong’s (Dooce) piece about the show. Some highlights:

“… the true success of the show is that it doesn’t go to great lengths to exploit a contestant’s weakness or failure. What makes this show so great is that it celebrates just how magnificently the contestants can move their bodies.

“Few reality shows, if any, have ever given me chills like this one has, and while watching “So You Think You Can Dance” this summer I have cried more than once when a street dancer has realized that his world can be so much bigger … watching these young kids who have never danced anything but hip hop pick up a slow waltz as if they have been practicing it for years has been some of the most inspiring television I have ever watched. I have discovered that I like watching people dance just as much, if not more, than I like listening to people sing …

“… every week it has put me square in the middle of a new dance routine, an exhilarating new style, as new for me as it is for the dancers, and in the relative solitude of my living room I can feel at least for a few thrilling minutes as if the rhythm is moving through my own feet.”

Please, please, please give it a try. Hang in there during the auditions part, whether you like that part or not. You need it to get to know the dancers, but the show really comes alive once the finalists are picked.

What I love as much as the dancers, which Heather alludes to at the end, is that it’s also just as much about the choreographers who really try to come up with new and exciting routines weeks after week, many of which rise to the level of art. (Actually, it’s all art but some are just, I don’t know how to describe it, high art vs low art? That’s a little bit it, but that doesn’t describe what I mean either.)

If you get into it, you will want to go to this url after the shows, it’s a blog for fans:

http://bloggingsytycd.blogspot.com/

My undergraduate degree is in fine arts, and while I was a student my fellow male students were always asking the girls if they could draw or paint them, naked of course. Hey, I don’t blame them for taking a shot, and some were sincere, but come on. It was about getting to see girls naked. I always said no. At the same time, I wasn’t against the idea, and I was too modest and wanted to get past that. So when an artist named Craig McPherson who was older and a little further along in his career asked I went to an old ice factory in Washington Heights and took off my clothes.

Sometime later my friend Chris saw this drawing and said, “That’s Stacy Horn’s butt!” I’ve always loved that part of the story. We’ve been best friends since we were 12–I guess she’d seen my butt enough to know it, even transformed in another medium.

I don’t believe I ever saw Craig again, but he emailed me a couple of weeks ago and generously sent me the drawings he made that day. I am just so thrilled to have them. I absolutely love them. Isn’t this beautiful? The second one was too big for my scanner, but it’s lovely, too. Here is Craig’s website. I love his work. I am patting myself on the back for having such good judgement. I’m drawn to the same things he is visually, he sees the city as I see it. This dark, industrial, smoldering, clanking, fiery city. He has a mural down at the World Financial Center (commissioned by American Express) that I have to go see. A detective that I was talking to when I found out said he knew it well. Craig also has a show up right now at the Frick in Pittsburgh, if you’re in the area.

Thank you so much for these drawings, Craig. As I said, I will treasure them. Thank you.