Stacy Horn

I have this wonderful opportunity to write a piece about singing and I’ve been working like a dog for the past few days. That’s where I’ve been, mostly. I have to say, writing about how singing relieves stress: VERY stressful.

Before I post this link, which I found incredibly moving, I want to say that in general, I hate chants of “USA, USA, USA.” It always feels somehow inappropriate to me. Something about the spirit in which it is done is not noble and uplifting. Instead it always feels like some unseemly sort of chest beating, like everyone else in the world sucks and we’re so great, when we clearly have some serious faults, just like everyone else. For proof of that, look no further than the recent bi-partisan report about how America tortured many people, horribly, and it was worthless on top of it. We torture people. I will say again, we torture people. So we’re all imperfect. I’d rather celebrate the separate, distinct aspects of America and Americans that are great, while at the same time recognizing that other countries are doing and accomplishing great things as well.

That said, I teared up listening to Boston Bruins fans singing the national anthem two days after the bombing in Boston. This is how shows of patriotism are done, and I swear I’m not saying that because this one involved singing. This didn’t feel like chest beating. This felt like a show of love and support. Plus, the fact that you can hear a Boston accent emerge from the voices of thousands was particularly endearing.

Along the lines of recognizing great things in other countries, Iraq produced these two children. This is a expression of sympathy from two Iraqi children which I believe appeared the day after the bombing. I’ll never forget how an hour or so after the bombing someone tweeted that they were about to report that 42 people have been killed, and 257 wounded in Iraq, from 19 car and 17 roadside bombs across the country. In an instant, I got a visceral sense of what people in Iraq and Afghanistan were living with. We had two bombs go off. They had close to 40. In one day. So here are these two children, in the midst of all that bombing, taking a moment to express sympathy for the impact of our two bombs. Look at their faces. Could they be any more … good?

Every once in a while I take pictures of 11th Street, to prove that it looks like how I describe in the book. I say how beautiful and lush it is and I’m afraid people will think I’m exaggerating.

I had made up my mind that today I would post something positive, and I’m still going to, but I cannot let yesterday’s vote against moderate and reasonable gun control to pass. I will, however, let Gabby Gifford’s tough, impassioned words speak for me. Mostly.

She said one thing that stood out for me, well two things. First, when she spoke about the Sandy Hook teachers whispering to the students that they loved them, while at the same time doing their best to hide them. And, “Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.”

As some of you know I’ve been spending some time at the Municipal Archives, looking into the artifacts and records of New York City’s history. I’ve seen how people repeatedly fight reasonable and humane solutions to problems. If something is fair and common sense, people will resist it. I personally think people fight change regardless of what it is, good or bad, fair or unfair, myself included. But that’s another post. Like Kirby Higbe refusing to play baseball alongside Jackie Robinson, the majority of people will initially fight what to us looks like a clear cut, total no-brainer. This is one of them. History is going to look back at us and wonder what the hell we were thinking. Except maybe they will also shake their heads wearily, understanding that once again, sometimes doing the right thing requires a battle.

Read Gabby Gifford’s words. I would be proud to have her lead that battle.

Oh dear, this post is already too long for the things I’d planned to post about. Well, tomorrow. For now, spring! The magnolia tree in the garden in front of Grace Church.

Update: I just realized, here is a beautiful, moving example of people bravely voting to do the right thing on another matter. As it says in the article, I defy you to watch this and not cry. This is my positive thing for today.

When I walked out onto Broadway after choir practice my friend Barbara and I could see there was a big movie shoot a few blocks uptown. We walked up and Union Square was transformed in a positively magical way. The trees were strung with white Christmas lights, smoke machines were churning away everywhere. It was all for a shoot for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

This is Emma Stone and I’m guessing Andrew Garfield. They were shooting the two of them just walking through Union Square, except Union Square doesn’t usually look this enchanting. Smoke doesn’t billow up around your feet as you stroll. I’m not complaining. Union Square should always look like this movie set. I want smoke billowing up around my feet when I get my broccoli, corn and pumpkin pie.

I’ve been reading response after response to the bombings in Boston yesterday. Among the more moving was this blog post from a Boston runner, and of course actor Patton Oswalt’s Facebook post. I also liked the message NY [heart] B flashed up on the walls of BAM, and how they used the Yankees typeface for the “NY”, and the Red Sox typeface for the “B”. Referencing the long standing and ongoing sports battle between our two cities made it especially poignant to me (and they sent us a similar message on 9/11).

I again came across the cart I posted a photograph of the other day. This time the cart was closer to home and a cat was inside.

I just read this op-ed about Guantanamo Bay. Like so many other awful things I feel helpless to change, I’d stopped thinking about Guantanamo Bay. Obama said he was going to shut it down, and I was deeply disappointed when he didn’t.

I mean, mother of God, read this op-ed. What the hell are we doing?? If after all these years you don’t have enough evidence to put them on trial, let them go. This is just plain immoral and wrong and sinful, and frankly, if one of the issues of releasing them is that it would be admitting that they were wrongly held and therefore would make us vulnerable to lawsuits, then we should stand trial. We are supposed to be better than this.

I saw the movie 42 over the weekend. One of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Kirby Higbe, was traded when he refused to play alongside Jackie Robinson. In the movie they have Higbe complaining about being traded for speaking his mind. Without a shred of irony, he laments about what has happened to America, that America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Who knows if he ever really said this, but it represents a sort of blindness to injustice that still exists.

A picture of a coming storm. I took this while walking through Union Square.