Stacy Horn

I’ve gotten enough work done that I can kick back over the holidays a bit. I’m going to see this play, In Fields Where They Lay, on Christmas Eve. It’s about the WWI Christmas Eve truce and I’m going to see it exactly 100 years to the night after it happened. A daughter of one of the soldiers is going to be there. Oh, I just read there will be carols and a reception afterwards. Nice. If you’re in NYC you might want to consider going to this.

More holiday shots around town. This is 5th Avenue again, taken from the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, looking over at Rockefeller Center. That stream of people are (is?) heading towards the famous Christmas tree and skating rink.

Something I will not be doing this year! Shopping! My family is doing a grab bag so I have only one gift to buy, thank God. Okay, two. I have to get something for my father and step-mother who will be in Vermont this year, but I will be buying that online.

A Christmas tree stand. I took this for the depressing look of it, but I love walking past these stands and getting a nice whiff of pine. So thank you sad little Christmas tree stand.

I wasn’t enjoying taking pictures of the Christmas windows along 5th Avenue like I usually do. So I got into alternately taking pictures of less splendid window dressing. Doesn’t this first mannequin look like she’s saying, “You want a piece of me?? You want a piece of me??”

First I get the loveliest email from Sara McKay, the director of the Saint Peter Choral Society, and then this! Anyone who knows me knows that a book of photographs about animal rehabilitation is pretty much the perfect Stacy present. When I opened it up and saw all the signatures inside I burst into tears. I can’t tell you how moved I was. This is just further proof that choir people are the nicest people on earth. And proof that singing builds community and spreads goodwill.

I can’t wait to read this and look at the photographs. Thank you from the bottom of my heart Sara and all the members of the Saint Peter Choral Society, and thank you to Dr. Hayden Duncan, the choir member who retyped all the text in the book (because it’s small and hard to read)! You will never know how happy your precious gift has made me.

I spotted this vial on the street the other day. I remembered the 1980’s, when I’d walk out of my apartment in the morning, on my way to work, and the street would be littered with crack vials like this. It was an insane time. An average of 1,685 people were murdered a year then, peaking in 1990, when 2,245 were murdered. The crack epidemic is always blamed for these murder rates except I just looked at the 1970’s. An average of 1,556 were murdered every year in that decade. So it was already really bad. If crack was responsible for the rise it was not a big rise, murder rates were already high!

I’m guessing this vial didn’t hold crack. Maybe a perfume sample?

None of my pictures adequately conveys how many people were here and are still out there as I type. I know because helicopters keep buzzing by. Also, for some reason my camera was set to the wrong setting when I shot movies so I had to trash all those.

But it was great to see the incredible diversity. I was tweeting about how many kids were there, alongside people who were carrying signs like, “I’ve been marching for 50 years.”

Note: I wish I had said this at the time, but I am not comfortable with the wording in this sign. I think biases exist but unfortunately, I think that they are often unconscious and people won’t be reached with this kind of rhetoric. That said, we will all be better off when all areas of power are populated by equal percentages of race, religion (including atheists and agnostics) and gender.

The march began in Washington Square. Here, people have assumed the “Hands up Don’t Shoot” position. For the record, I’m kinda tired of “This is what democracy looks like.” Also, democracy has a lot of looks.

Those are Eric Garner’s eyes. The sign reads, “Real thugs wear flag pins.” Yeah, the tyranny of the flag pin. It’s become a bullying thing.

A sign of support in the window of the New School.

I also keep forgetting to change the setting of my camera when I’m trying to get action shots.

I often caught myself smiling and then I thought it wasn’t appropriate to smile, but I was so glad to see so much support. So I like her smile. Here’s to the people who are still out there.