Stacy Horn

I’m going to put my Christmas windows pictures up tomorrow, and by the way, the windows were kinda eh this year. What’s the deal New York City vendors??

But I stopped into the Met afterwards, and I came across this effigy to Elizabeth Boott Duveneck. I wrote about her father, the composer Francis Boott, in my singing book and I knew this effigy was made but I somehow had no idea it was in New York. (This is a cast made from the original, which is on her grave in Italy.) Had I seen this I’m sure I would have written that chapter a little differently

Elizabeth was in my book too, because her death so devastated her father. She was his whole world in many ways. Boott’s wife died when Elizabeth was only 18 months old and so he raised her (in Italy). “Old dwellers in Florence grew familiar with the sight of the handsome American carrying his daughter on his arm while she was still an infant, and afterward with her always at his side.” Father and daughter make an appearance in two novels of Henry James (the James family and the Boott family were friends). But then in a horrible reoccurrence of what happened to her mother, she died in 1888, two years after having a child herself.

Her husband, the painter Frank Duveneck was crushed by her death too of course, and he never quite got over losing her. I just read in Wikipedia, “A life-size bronze statue depicting Duveneck holding a plaque with his wife’s picture on it stands in a small park at the intersection of Pike and Washington streets in Covington, Kentucky.” (He died in 1919.)

I’m not entirely sure what I would have written differently, it’s just that Frank’s love and pain and grief and devotion is just so palpable in this effigy. I would have tried to somehow capture that. So sad.

Wow. The Met has a couple of podcasts about this statue! YIKES. I just learned that some scholars think she committed suicide! I never came across this information while I was doing my research. A lot of people are fascinated by the relationships between her and Frank and her father. If you google her a lot comes up. (More than what came up when I was doing my research!)

I’m heading out to walk up Fifth Avenue to look at and photograph the Christmas windows. If I have time I’ll drop into the Metropolitan Museum to sneak a picture of the tree, and then it’s on to meet an old friend at the Neue Galerie. If all goes well I’ll be back here with tons of fun pictures!

Here are a couple of pictures from the Loser’s Lounge last Saturday, when they did a tribute to the Brill Building. It was one of the best Loser’s Lounges EVER, so it they ever do it again, do not miss it.

This first one is from the last song of the night, Christmas. Everyone was bathed in red light.

The is Alyson Greenfield, who played something called an omnichord. I loved the sound of it, although I’m not sure this version was an entire success. Alyson was great as always, of course.

As always, I’m so sorry it’s over. It’s going to be more than a month before I get to sing with this amazing group again! Here some pictures taken before we went on. The last one is only half the choir. We were standing in a circle so you’re seeing half the circle. We be big.

I googled it and I can’t believe no one is talking about Mame’s non-mother mother. (Others probably can’t believe I watch this show.) The scenes of them together are painful to watch. I feel for Mame. Not to demonize the mother, we all have our strengths and weaknesses (I’m positive I would have been a terrible mother!).

I wish I had written down this one exchange, the most poignant and sad one. Mame opened up to her mother, said something about their relationship and seeing her again (they often didn’t see each other for years at a time). Her mother said nothing. So Mame prompted her, saying something like, “What do you think about that?” And her mother said something non-responsive, like “That’s nice.” She gave absolutely nothing back. Like, “I missed you honey, it’s great to be able to spend time with you like this.” She was completely flat. Poor Mame.

Our choir director John Maclay rehearses the orchestra for our holiday concert.

Mother of God. You have to read this. It’s short. It begins, “Lawyers for the House of Representatives have escalated their legal fight to block the first-ever congressional insider trading investigation.”

A Christmas tree in a window I passed by on the way to choir practice last night. This picture doesn’t even begin to capture how beautiful it was, alas.