Stacy Horn

I was channel surfing and I stopped on the old Dick Van Dyke show because Rose Marie was singing and she had a surprisingly great voice. It wasn’t just, “oh look at that, she can really sing.” She was so good I wondered why this wasn’t her career instead of acting and comedy. Her voice had depth and beauty, and she clearly knew what she was doing. So of course I google her and I learned that she was once a child star who went by the name of Baby Rose Marie.

Here she is at 5 or 6. Even if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, listen to some of it. Another video follows.

[Videos removed.]

Her hair and outfit are practically identical, but she seems older in this one. I just checked, she was 9. I think she over-does that gravely, trill effect, (there’s probably a name for that) but still. Amazing. (More below.)

Here she is at 87, telling the story of her child-star days. There is something touching about how she still wears her hair in the same same style that she wore in the Dick Van Dyke days, and with the exact same bow. She must think no one would recognize her otherwise.

Apparently Evelyn Nesbit is the one who gave her the name Baby Rose Marie. Nesbit is most well-known for having been involved with the famous architect Stanford White. She later married the insane Harry Kendall Thaw who shot and killed White on the roof of the Madison Square Garden in 1906. I’ve got a copy of the inquest, which I came across on one of my history-treasure-hunting expeditions into the Municipal Archives of New York City. It says he died of a “cerebral hemorrhage pistol shot wound of brain,” but someone crossed out brain and wrote in “the skull.”

Evelyn Nesbit was in sorry shape when she suggested the stage name for young Rose Marie. She was now in her forties, and struggling with an addiction to alcohol and morphine. In fact, she tried to kill herself that year, or the year before, by swallowing disinfectant. (There was no easier way??) So here she is, consumed with despair, wanting life to just be over with already, and yet she has it in her to help a talented child who still has her whole life in front of her. Thankfully, Nesbit pulled herself together and lived on and died in 1967 at the age of 82.

Rose Marie is still alive. I wonder where she lives? She’s 91 now. She’s seem very likable in this video. I’m guessing she has had lots of good friends over her lifetime.

Last night the Loser’s Lounge performed at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing. I thought it was supposed to be all ABBA, but it was ABBA and disco. Not my favorite genre, although I like some pieces within it.

Lincoln Center was filled, of course, with people from NYC’s swing dance scene. I used to be part of that scene. Every night, somewhere in Manhattan, a swing band is playing and people are dancing. Whenever you’re in the mood to dance you can find a place, you just follow the party.

It’s a very fun and friendly crowd and seeing them brought back memories. Like how the women wore skirts specifically because of the way they twirled up, and how no one would ever turn down an invitation to dance for any reason unless they were genuinely tired and taking a break.

The dance floor. It was pretty packed but there was room to move.

Lots of people were dancing outside and all around the dance floor, where you didn’t have to pay. There were couples of pretty much every possible variety. A perfect world in Damrosch Park.

Another shot of the dance floor. I danced once, when they sang Abba’s Dancing Queen. There’s a law that you have to get up and dance whenever that song is played. I couldn’t break the law.

You’d think I want the world to end, and maybe sometimes it does feel like we’ve gone so far wrong the only thing that might bring us to our senses is a worldwide reboot. Screw-it, we need a do-over, bring on the apocalypse. But whatever lurks in my dark, cataclysm-drawn heart, I love end-of-the-world literature.

The Guardian came out with the first review for my friend Sandra Newman’s dystopic novel The Country of Ice Cream Star. It’s being released in the UK first, and you can buy it from Amazon UK now. (It comes out here next year.)

I’ll cut to the chase. They loved it. “By the last page I was emotionally battered but euphoric: the book had held me so effectively hostage that I felt I had Stockholm syndrome.” Jesus. Where is my copy?? I want to be sucked in to the Stockholm syndrome level. The reviewer said it stood up to everything out there like it. “But what sets The Country of Ice Cream Star apart from its rivals is the extraordinary, blistering insistence of its language.”

My plan is to read it just before it comes out here, and to post more fully about it then. But I had to mention this review, to let everyone know that this really great book is coming.

This is Sandy in my apartment a couple months ago. It’s a screen grab from a short movie we made of her reading from the book.

Last night 14 museums downtown were open for free between 4 and 8pm. My goal was to get to 10. I made it to 6. My downfall was deciding to stay for a lecture about Teddy Roosevelt at the National Archives, but I don’t regret it. The guy giving the lecture was fabulous.

I didn’t take pictures at each museum, so this is just a taste of my night. My first stop was the African Burial Ground Museum. One of the more poignant objects for me was this ring.

This is a picture of all the burials they uncovered. It’s very sad up close because there were so many children.

I took this at the Federal Hall National Memorial. It’s a picture of part of a locking mechanism inside one of the vaults (this building used to be the Sub-Treasury). I couldn’t get over how beautiful they used to make utilitarian objects like locking mechanisms. Sob.

This is looking out the front door. That’s a statue of Washington, who is overlooking Wall Street and the Stock Exchange.

Now I’m outside, looking up at the statue and the skyline.

And now we come to the National September 11 Memorial Museum. I found out that I can go for free anytime I want and I don’t have to wait in line! So I should have come back another time, but I was there.

This is a picture of a picture, and of me taking the picture. I almost burst into tears when I saw it. It just made me remember what it felt like back then, when wave after wave after endless wave of people arrived to help in any way they could. Someone from France spray painted this down at the site. Thank you Paris, France.

One of the WTC beams, covered with signs and mementos from the various recovery workers.

I wasn’t aware that someone from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was there before the towers came down, but clearly someone was.

I kept scanning the photographs for a face I recognized but I didn’t come upon someone until the end. That is Dr. Arthur Gudeon below, a podiatrist who volunteered down at St. Paul’s Chapel. He is the sweetest guy in the world! The picture of him sits in front of one of the pews from St. Paul’s. Those scrapes are from the recovery worker’s gear. We cherished those scrapes.

The pews have since been removed from St. Paul’s, something that upset a lot of people. I was okay with it. I like the open space they have there now.

The other museums I was able to visit: The Anne Frank Center USA, the National Archives at New York City, and the NYC Municipal Archives Visitor Center. Thank you Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Downtown Alliance and NYC & Company! Oh, this was also part of the River to River festival (I posted earlier about a group sing I participated in that was part of this festival).

I’m going to this event tonight. I really can’t wait. For four hours, 14 museums downtown will be free to visit. I don’t see how I can make it to them all. I could skip the ones I’ve already been to, but that would take away only 6. How is it possible that there are so many museums I haven’t gone to?? And besides, I don’t want to skip those. Some I haven’t been to in a long time. And even though I go to the Municipal Archives a lot I can’t skip them! I love them!

I just did the math. It’s simply not possible to go to them all, alas. I subtracted time for walking, and that would leave me a mere 13 minutes at each museum. My new plan: I’m going to try to make 10. Wish me luck!

A restaurant sign. Where was I? 23rd Street, I think.