Stacy Horn

I prefer Maya Angelou’s take, she says you can never leave. On Sunday, while I walked from my friend’s apartment near the UN to Carnegie Hall I kept coming in contact with my past. There was the old Mobil Corporation building where I used to work, the Chinese restaurant nearby, where I got food to go for my mother when she dying, (she had pancreatic cancer and she wasn’t eating well, so I always brought her some treat from the city, trying to tempt her with food from her favorite restaurants, or from some great ones she never got to try) there was the place where a former fiance worked, MPI (another place I used to work) which was right next door to the place in the picture below, PJ Clarke’s, where I used to have drinks, sometimes too many. On the other side used to be Michael’s Pub, where Woody Allen played every week and where I once went with my stepfather to hear Mel Torme sing.

I could name a lot more spots, the point is, whether the memory was good or bad, they all made me sad. It was a lot of piled up reminders that some things are irretrievably over, and of course that leads to to unavoidable fact that eventually I will be over too. I worry that I’m not creating enough new memories.

Thank you, Dimitra! Dimitra contributed to the Virtual Choir 4 Kickstarter campaign and she generously gave me her pass to last night’s dress rehearsal when she couldn’t make it. A short video follows after this picture.

My only goal yesterday was to buy a Willa Cather novel. I’ve read My Antonia and O Pioneers, both of which I loved, so I was looking for another to try. First I went to the Strand and then to Barnes & Noble in Union Square. This is inside the Petco which sits at the north end of Union Square. I have never once been able to resist to allure of Petco because it always has animals for adoption. That siamese cat never turned around to face the people. Doesn’t it look sad? If I were going to adopt that would be the cat I’d pick.

Come to think of it, my cat Bleeck looked so sad when I found him at the Humane Society. Sad because they wouldn’t let him torture the other cats, probably.

I get to Washington Square Park and it’s filled with cops. I think, “Occupy Wall Street event, perhaps?” This is what caused the police presence. A bunch of doctors giving away free medical advice. That’s it. Maybe they arrived there on bikes. (For reasons that are beyond me, the NYPD hates people who ride bikes. I do not get it. I’ve asked them, and they can’t explain it either.)

These were laying in front of the building where 146 garment workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire on March 25, 1911. Every flower was tagged with the name of someone who had died. Why does this fire haunt me and so many others as much as it does?

I’ve been researching the 1909/1910 garment workers strike. Their demands were fair and reasonable, like safer working conditions, but the strikers were treated terribly and young girls were arrested and thrown into prison. One year later, the fire.

Every time I look up at One World Trade Center I think, “Finish that point, already!!” I can’t wait to see that triangle shape completed. Cather novel quest conclusion: I didn’t get one. But I’ve pretty much decided I’ll get Death Comes to the Archbishop. Maybe. Probably. Oh, I can’t decide. Opinions welcome.

Many of you are probably aware of the big art theft that took place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. The FBI recently announced that they know who the thieves were. I hope that means the artwork may actually be found and returned.

I went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, which is roughly diagonally across the street from the Gardner Museum. I’ve probably posted about this before, but I used to go to that museum a lot, and what I always did at one point during my visit was sit down and stare at their Vermeer (The Concert). Unlike any other painting I’ve ever viewed in a museum, this one was mounted in a frame that is meant to sit on something rather than against the wall, and in this case it sat on top of a desk. A chair was provided and you could actually sit down right down in front of the painting, just inches away, and look at it at eye-level.

I took advantage of this and stared and stared at this painting, becoming intimate in a way that I rarely could with other famous paintings. There was a time when I probably could have recreated this painting from memory, if I had the talent, which I didn’t, but you get my point.

So I took it very personally when this painting was among those stolen. I don’t want to get into a whole self-righteous rant but it, but fuck you, you asshats, whoever stole it and whoever paid them to steal it. Criminals. I mean, most of us have done things we’re not proud of, and we rationalize our actions, but the mindset and character of people who rise to this level of wrong-doing (and much, much worse; rape, murder). How do you live with yourselves?

I saw this yesterday, on a stoop, I forget the block. Am I in pursuit of magic anymore? I guess in some areas I still am. I’m working very hard on a book proposal that I hope will be magical, albeit very darkly magical. I just googled it and this graffiti is the work of these artists.

I was watching two cute baby eagles being fed, and it was all very sweet until dad show up with what looks like—I swear to god—a dead baby kitten or puppy or something to feed them. If you go there right now (it’s 1-ish) and look at it full screen you’ll see the poor dead thing on the right. (Scroll down, the cam is on the lower right.) The worst is that it died for nothing. The babies totally didn’t like the taste of it.

Good fake doggy. You won’t kill anything, will you?