Stacy Horn

Except, I’m pretty sure it’s just the one. Quick back story: I had a lot of mice, who not only didn’t run when when I filmed them they seemed only too happy to pose and mock me. I blocked off every possible opening into my apartment.

I know it sounds like wishful thinking, but he ran under the stove and when I pulled out the stove to see what I might have missed, or the opening they might have created, there weren’t any. The mouse had no place to go so he ended up running at and past me. What I think happened is, when I was blocking all the gaps around my apartment, he was still in the apartment and now has no way out.

Cute bags at the Kate Spade store on Bleecker. Except they are made of leather and that is not cute. I would encourage all designers to design using cruelty-free materials.

I handed in my book and now I’m working on the epilogue. I almost don’t have to write it. Think about it: I’ve just written a book about how we dealt with the poor, the mentally ill, and the incarcerated in the 19th century. Cliff notes summation: We didn’t do a good job.

But does anyone believe we are doing a good job now? I don’t think so. The terrible news is we’re making the exact same mistakes, over and over and over again. We’re monsters. We’re the most monstrous to the people we arrest.

Our current justice system is, and always has been, so inhumanly unfair and criminal that perhaps we should all just change places. We are all guilty, for doing nothing, while others are abused on our behalf. If you think I exaggerate, watch the Bill Moyers documentary about Rikers. Read the CRIPA Investigation of the New York City Department of Correction Jails on Rikers Island, which addresses how adolescent boys are treated there.

If I sound harsh it’s because I just spent over a year immersed in this history, seeing how bad it was, and how paralyzed the City and municipal workers were about fixing it. And then to watch that documentary only to learn that it is actually worse now, except the cells are, technically better, and at least somewhat more sanitary. But life inside for the inmates is worse to inconceivably nightmarish proportions.

I think I might have photographed this before, and posted it here. This is what it’s all about. Not just that no one wants to spend the money, but that people with money who commit crimes are not hunted and incarcerated to the degree that poor people are.

I studied photography when I went to college, and got my BFA in 1978 from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University (it was a joint program, art classes at the Museum School, academic classes at Tufts). At the beginning of my school days everyone was working in black and white exclusively, that was considered “art.” But then a bunch of us started experimenting in color. I never looked back, although I remember now that developing and printing color was very hard, you had to be very precise about maintaining the temperature of your chemicals.

But moving from black and white to color. It was like that moment when Dorothy steps out of her tornado-flung farmhouse and into the world over the rainbow. It was so spectacular, and glorious and shimmery and enchanting. Unlike Dorothy, I never wanted to go back home! I thought of that when I ran up to the roof the other night, when we were having that sunset of all sunsets (and I was thinking there was a chemical explosion to explain it).

I know, I know, a sunset photograph. Snore. But it’s not often I look out my window and gasp. I’ve never seen anything like the sunset we had tonight. I thought for a second something bad might be going on because helicopters are buzzing around, and they only buzz around when something bad happens, or if there’s a protest. I thought there might be some sort of chemical incident that created this. But I have a morbid imagination.

The helicopters are still flying around hours later, by the way. They keep circling.

– Still no mice sightings, and no evidence of mice (droppings)!

– The Library got a book I wanted via interlibrary loan and sent it to the branch closest to me!

– Finney is still alive!

– I finished the first draft of the epilogue for my book!

Some of the things Obama did for us that are still true today. (Not necessarily my favorites, which are: all he did to further scientific progress, slow down climate change, national healthcare, pardoning a lot of people, started the national conversation about racism which gave others their voice, like the Black Lives Matter movement, and that’s just off the top of my head.)