Stacy Horn

I’m enjoying the new AT&T “It’s not Complicated” commercials. I would love to think that the boy who suggested “tape a cheetah to her back?” in one of them came up with that on the fly. It’s just such a perfect kid-type solution to a problem.

But there’s a moment that makes me cringe in the one that asks “What’s better, doing two things at once or just one?” While a boy demonstrates waving his arms and shaking his head at the same time, the girl next to him tries to show the adult in the commercial something she can do. The guy immediately shuts her down and you can see the hurt in her face and body language. She quickly recovers her composure and turns her attention to the boy and smiles graciously. My heart just goes out for her. You can see the moment here.

It also pains me to see this—and I’m not saying this is what is happening here, although it could be—because it reminds me of my entire childhood, when I was continually shut down, practically on a daily basis, because whatever the boys where saying and doing was more important. (I grew up mostly in the 60’s.) Boys were called on more in class, encouraged to do more things, try more things, and so on. If people thought we were too young to be aware of the routine slights and discrimination they were wrong, just as you can see the flicker of pain in this girl’s response.

And yet more proof I am a wuss—I saw these spikey things on this building and at first I thought it was to prevent people from breaking in, but then I realized it was to stop pigeons from sitting there. I can appreciate wanting to keep the front of the building clean, but I just felt sorry for the pigeons, the underdog bird of the bird kingdom. Wait a minute. Queendom. (Once a feminist, always a feminist.)

Jameson Marvin is the former Director of Choral Activities and Senior Lecturer on Music at Harvard University, (1978 – 2010) and he is also one of John Maclay’s mentors. (John Maclay is the director of the Choral Society of Grace Church.) Marvin currently directs the Jameson Singers in Boston, and last night he came down to New York to show us a thing or two.

Jim Marvin was a big help to me with my book. In particular, I couldn’t have written what is my favorite chapter without him. I wanted to compare what I felt singing a piece by one of my favorite composers, Tomás Luis de Victoria, to what the first people who sang it may have felt. (That would have been back in 1576.) The whole proposition is, admittedly, a flight of fancy, but I found a lot of scientific research to back up my imaginings.

Jim Marvin is, among other things, a scholar of Renaissance music, and his contributions to that chapter made the chapter. It would have been a complete fantasy without everything I learned from him about music written during that period. (He also shows up again in another section about rhythm.) Thank you, Jim!

My friend Howard read my post about the new show, The Following, and sent me the following message:

The Following was just stupid, another one of these “being evil gives you superpowers” plots.

Now I’m mad I didn’t make that point first. I understand that for the sake of drama murderers have to be portrayed as smart, creative, and almost supernaturally capable, but in reality they’re almost never brilliant masterminds. I spent a few years studying murder for my book about the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad, and God was that research an eye-opener. Of course there are exceptions, but in general murderers are stupid. They’re inept in pretty much every area of life, including murder which they frequently bungle (I wrote about one case where they killed the wrong guy.) Murderers are the opposite of confident and powerful. They’re usually the most insecure people ever and they often kill because someone has embarrassed or made them feel ashamed in some way. Instead of addressing the insecurity they have to eliminate the reminder, the person who drew attention to whatever it is that made them feel bad about themselves.

Murderers don’t educate themselves. They don’t eat well or exercise and it shows. They’re ignorant, out of shape, have bad skin, and many kill because they drank too much, or did some nasty drug, not that they’re charming, wonderful people when sober.

Also, chances are pretty good that you’ve interacted with someone who has killed another human being and gotten away with it. It’s disturbingly easy to get away with murder alas, and at least a third of the murders in this country are never solved. (That percentage is actually a lot higher I’ve learned, I just can’t give an exact figure. A case is closed when the police make an arrest, but if it turns out they arrested the wrong person, or they later lose the case, they don’t go back and adjust the numbers.)

Note to murderers: Please don’t feel like I’ve dissed you and now you have to kill me to save face. If you are smart than clearly I wasn’t talking about you. But please don’t kill ever again. Thank you in advance.
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I was walking down Staple Street, a favorite street of mine downtown, and of course I passed by a photo shoot. Can’t walk out the door these days without coming across one shoot or another.

I can’t believe I just wrote that title. I grew up in different tv times, when you were lucky if there was one decent show on each night, never mind great.

Recently I set my DVR to record the new series The Following, and then cancelled it after only one episode. Trust me, I would not have passed on the opportunity to watch Kevin Bacon every week lightly. If they were torturing puppies and dogs in the first episode, I didn’t want to know where they were going to go from there.

Then I had a busy week and little time to watch tv. When I finally sat down on the couch the list of shows I’d recorded was at least three screens long. It would have taken an entire weekend of nonstop watching to catch up. That’s insane. My ever-growing to-read pile of books is probably going to take a year. Plus all those studies about the effects of sitting for too long? I’d be dead by Christmas.

I started culling. It’s not like the shows I deleted weren’t very good. In fact, some of the shows I saved are only okay. And it kills me to think of all the great shows that I never watched in the first place (The Wire, 30 Rock, Justified, the list is endless.) Here’s how I decided: which shows did I want to watch first? And which ones, much as I might love them, or things about them, or someone in them, felt ever-so-slightly like homework?

Among the first to go were Nashville, White Collar, The Americans, and others I don’t even remember now. On the chopping block are Revenge and Raising Hope. I can’t believe Raising Hope is even in this position (Garret Dillahunt!) but it’s always surrounded by The Mindy Project (which I have come to adore) and New Girl, and I must admit I always go straight to those first. Revenge is going to be hard to let go of, and maybe I won’t in the end, but, but, I have books to read!

All of this said, television has grown up. It is the most exciting, relevant, ever-evolving art form we have now. I still love books! And that possibilities-expanding New York Times piece Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek certainly points the way to how thrilling ebooks should get.

Oh Jesus. Because tv has gotten so incredible, it’s drawing more and more amazing talent, so it’s only going to get even better, and that will make it still more painful to decide which to watch and which to delete. Damn you great television!
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Finney (the black one): “You’re going to bite me any second now, aren’t you?”

Bleeck: “Hey, don’t read anything into this. Talk to her. She’s the one who put this comfy cloth down right next to your favorite sleeping spot.”

I took these last night, on my way home from the Loser’s Lounge. The snow was supposed to really start at 7, so it had only had been at it for a few hours, but as you can see there isn’t any serious accumulation. I looked out this morning, and there’s a little more, but still. Nothing to write home about for those of us in the City. (Except, I guess this is kinda writing home about it, in a way.)

So, who got truly hit?