Stacy Horn

Yesterday I was tweeting about all the helicopters in the sky and everyone said it must be for the Superbowl. This afternoon, I came up out of the subway and once again the sky in my neighborhood was buzzing. It wasn’t the Superbowl this time I learned, sadly. Philip Seymour Hoffman (who lived nearby) has died.

Right now his block is filled with police, news people, friends and neighbors.

A lot of people like football, I take it. These people were in front of a stage set up on Broadway, many waiting for autographs from I don’t know who. I want to say … football players?

Also set up on Broadway was this giant slide. There was a slide like this at a place called Adventurer’s Inn out on Long Island, except we’d go down it on burlap bags. I loved that slide. I’d go down it over and over. Adventurer’s Inn is long gone and it would have been so much fun to go down this slide, but as you can guess, there was a monster line.

I turned around and took a picture of the crowd watching, and sure enough, that one kid is looking at me like I’m some creepy stalker person.

Alright, technically it was nothing but insane football fans out there. But some of them were very cute. I went to Broadway and Times Square, which they are currently calling Superbowl Boulevard. It was a madhouse, I tell you!! The games they had set up for children were charming to watch though. I’ll post a few more shots tomorrow.

I don’t think I’ve got any more of the kids. I’m afraid if I take more then one or two their parents will think I’m some sort of creepy stalker person.

I desperately need to get out there and take some pictures. But I recently found this very very old photograph on Echo. We’re doing a big clean-up and consolidation of our machines, and I’ve been getting rid of old websites that people left behind as they moved on down the information superhighway.

This is a picture taken soon after Echo first started, so I’m guessing it’s around 1990. That’s a MAC SE on the right. I still have that. I also still have the plastic rat and Godzilla that can be seen in this shot. Those are modems on the left, sitting on red shelves. They must have been 1200 and 2400 baud!!

I wish it were more hi-res, but what are you going to do? Hopefully I will have some great shots when I get back. Although I suspect it’s most crazed football fans out there, and everyone else is in hiding.

Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory, a wonderful project that I contributed to when they had a Kickstarter campaign is doing so well! They just won the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. It’s one of the most dramatic examples I’ve seen of how music can bring people back to life. From a review after the Sundance premiere:

Alive Inside is a pitch-perfect documentary that brilliantly explores the transformational effects of music on elders with Alzheimer’s and dementia. A savvy distributor should snap this one up; despite its apparent marketing challenges, the film is emotional, uplifting, hopeful, and action-oriented …

Director Michael Rossato-Bennett followed social worker Dan Cohen for three years, for what began as an experiment and became a crusade. Cohen, volunteering to work in a nursing home, discovered that by giving the residents iPods and allowing them to experience the music of their past, their symptoms reduced and even seemed to vanish at times. The extraordinary transformations as 90-year-olds put on headphones and suddenly light up with spirit, moving with joy in ways that seemed impossible just moments before, are among the most emotional in the film.

Grace Church, where my Choral Society performs. Scroll down for how it looked in 1846, when the Church first opened …

Before pews were installed, and lanterns hung. If you go back and forth it’s amazing how little has changed. Or, not so amazing. Why mess with something so beautiful. The glowing reredoes (the altarpiece or decoration) and altar was designed by James Renwick Jr. (who designed the Church) and executed by Ellin & Kitson in 1878. The choir furniture was built and installed in 1903.