Stacy Horn

There was almost nothing on TV last night. So many shows are on hiatus or about to go on hiatus, and I just didn’t feel like reading and that got me thinking. TV programmers could be a lot more creative about how they use this airtime. They could air pilots that weren’t bad, but that no one picked up for one reason or another, like they didn’t think enough men 18-30 would watch them or something.

Actually, why don’t they air the best of all the pilots they’ve seen but didn’t pick up and let the audience vote to include one! They could give it a limited run, just to see, maybe four to six episodes. Other things they could air during this period: experimental tv (search YouTube and find the emerging artists), student tv, they could ask filmmakers or television producers for their favorite failures, something they tried but didn’t quite hit the mark for them, and then they could talk about why and what they’d do or did differently.

They could air better nostalgia tv. I say “better nostalgia tv” because I know there are channels airing old tv, but I mean something more curated, like the best episodes of the most forgotten shows, or the best Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson shows, etc. Oh god, I just had a daydream where I was paid to go to the The Paley Center for Media (formerly the much better named Museum of Television & Radio) to unearth forgotten treasures. They could even do something like my previous post, the best Christmas episodes.

A weird model shoot on the corner of Hudson and Canal. I say weird because it was raining a little, and everyone but the model was huddled under individual plastic sheets like some sort of stealth film crew. It also wasn’t obvious just what the model is supposed to be selling. Nice light though.

According to the wonderful site Brain Pickings, Teresa Carpenter’s New York Diaries “is easily the most dynamic and important depiction of the city since E. B. White’s timeless Here Is New York.” Oh. My. God. They have proclaimed it the best history book in 2012. Congratulations Teresa and I couldn’t agree more. It really is a wonderful and important book, and Brain Pickings did a great job of showing why. Thank you, Brain Pickings!!

This is Teresa Carpenter (on the far left) and the editors and fact checkers for the book during the holidays last year. The gentlemen in the picture is Stephen Pascal, and to Stephen’s right is the fabulous and meticulous editor, Victoria Wright, and to his left, me.

Here’s another shot from the party. I’m including it because it’s Christmas-y and because it was taken when I still had a decent smile (which I hope to have again some day).

First, I’m quite upset to discover that I can’t watch these shows online for free anymore. Hulu charges now? That’s probably been true for years and I’m the last to know. Anyway, if you don’t see your favorite on my list, please let me know. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some great ones.

West Wing: Noel, S0210. This episode has special meaning to me because of the PTSD storyline (I once suffered from this). It was enormously healing the way it was depicted. At the end, when Leo tells a story to Josh that begins, “A man falls into a hole …” I felt a sense of peace I hadn’t felt in years. I went to bed very happy that night.

West Wing: In Excelsis Deo, S0110. The main storyline involves Toby arranging for the burial of a homeless vet, but this episode is moving throughout. Mrs. Landingham’s speech, “I miss my boys,” is so heartbreaking it’s almost beyond tears.

Northern Exposure: Seoul Mates, S0310. The perfect Christmas in a world that, sadly, does not exist. But it makes me happy that it exists in the imaginations of the people who created this episode. In it, all different faiths, or no faiths, are dealt with reverently and respectfully. Every time I watch Holling sing Ave Maria to Shelley I burst into tears. On a singing note (I have a book about singing coming out next year) Schubert’s Ave Maria is a surprisingly tricky piece to sing and Holling sings it absolutely beautifully.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol, S0600. I am new to Doctor Who, and I know they do a special Christmas episode every year, so there are probably many more great ones. But this is the one I know. Also great for people who love singing, speaking of singing. Singing saves the world. Based on my research, this is not all that far from the realm of possibility, if only more people sang.

Bones:  The Man in the Fallout Shelter, S0109. Everyone is quarantined in the lab over Christmas and therefore separated from their families. I love this episode because it shows a range of “families,” down to Bones, who doesn’t have one. The mystery that Bones solves at the end is lovely and redemptive, as is the very last scene of Bones alone, and the gift from her childhood that she’d previously never opened.

Roswell:  A Roswell Christmas Carol, S0210. Why isn’t this show remembered more? It was really quite special. In this episode, Max uses his ability to heal, after having failed to save a man in the beginning of the show. I just realized, all the best Christmas episodes are about redemption. I guess Dickens is responsible for solidifying that trend forevermore.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:  Amends, S0310. Like the Bones episode, I like this because it shows a range of imperfect holiday/family experiences, down to Xander, who sleeps outside on Christmas Eve in order to avoid his family from hell. Buffy and Angel have a bitter fight at the end, which isn’t so much resolved as put on hold, when … something happens … I don’t want to give the ending away. The lack of resolution is so like life. Sometimes, we put aside our fights and complaints, and acknowledge the larger truths. In this case, it didn’t happen so much because the characters were able to summon the strength or perspective in order to do so, it was a gift.

Sports Night: The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee, S011. Aaron Sorkin is the King of Christmas episodes. I’ve got two West Wings and two Sports Night episodes on my list. Truthfully, I don’t really remember this episode well, as is the case with the rest of the episodes on my list, I just remember liking them. However, I do remember being moved by the ending of this one.

Grey’s Anatomy: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, S0212. When Grey’s Anatomy was at the top of its game, the Izzy character was still utterly charming, and George was still on the show. I’m hoping this is the one where they all lay underneath the tree, looking up through the branches and lights.

The Big Bang Theory: The Bath Gift Item Hypothesis, S0211. Don’t get me wrong, I still love this show, but the first two seasons were sheer brilliance, practically all the time, and this episode was no exception.

Newsradio: Xmas Story, S0210. I’m not going to give anything away, but man oh man is this going to make you miss Phil Hartman, and the absolutely pitch perfect ensemble that made up this show.

Bones: The Santa in the Slush, S0309. I love this episode for the end, which, once again, I don’t want to give away.

Sports Night: The Reunion, S0208. Aaron Sorkin and Christmas. Enough said.

Studio 60: The Christmas Show, S0111. If nothing else, this episode aired not long after Hurricane Katrina and the musicians from New Orleans playing O Holy Night at the end was terribly poignant. I’m guessing it still might be.

X Files: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, S0606. Another episode I don’t remember very well, but I loved this show, so I’m putting it on my list.

Murphy Brown: Jingle Hell, Jingle Hell, Jingle All the Way S0311. I adored this show, and all the characters, so on my list it goes. Murphy Brown was the first female character who was allowed to be not nice, cranky, ruthlessly ambitious, and still likable. Thank you, Murphy Brown.

Veronica Mars: An Echolls Family Christmas, S0110. I have no memory of this! But it’s on my re-watch list, because it must have been great, and maybe I had a head injury after seeing it or something.

A lost picture of Buddy found. This is from 2004 and it was misfiled. This was when he was still healthy, and long before he was diagnosed with cancer.

Mandy Patinkin recently said he left the show Criminal Minds because he had no idea when he signed up that they’d “kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year.” It’s become so, so much worse. The degree to which they focus and linger on ever-sicker, more sadistic ways of torturing and killing human beings has become so insanely over-the-top I have to really have to wonder about the writers and myself for continuing to watch.

The show always made me uncomfortable, but I love the characters, particularly Spencer and Penelope, and so I squirmed through the always gruesome beginnings and kept watching. But after episodes like the one involving amputating legs, and in particular this last one where the killer dislocated every limb in the victim’s bodies I can’t keep watching. For the love of god. I wish there was more of an outcry so the show would tone it down and I could keep watching. As it is, it makes me feel bad.

On a much more positive note, here is a new piece by the amazing Britlin Losee: Ave Maria. Update: I changed the link. The next night another group sang the same piece and the recording is much better. This is not a comment on the singing, it’s just that the recording is superior. You can hear all the subtleties and nuances missed in the previous recording. Thank you Britlin, for adding something graceful and lovely to the world.

Along the same lines, Eldad Hager rescues another near-death, incredibly sweet dog. Just try and watch without sobbing. I hope someone adopts him soon.

As per Lisa G.’s suggestion, I tried shooting using the “fireworks” setting on my G9, while moving the camera. Psychedelic diner!

Years ago I saw a story on the news about all the ashes left unclaimed in funeral homes. It’s not unusual, it turns out, for people to leave behind the cremated remains of their relatives, which have been slowly accumulating in funeral home closets all across the country. I went out to the Bay Shore Funeral Home on Long Island to learn more about this, and they showed me their own closet-full of abandoned remains. The older remains were stored in small tin cans that looked like something you’d find in a grocery store, the newer ones were kept in plastic.

I was allowed to go through some of their older log books from the 1930s and 1940s. Once again it shows how lists can sometimes make for very compelling reading. I included some of the entries in my book, Waiting For My Cats to Die:

Handyman, aged 43, cause of death: general paralysis of the insane. No spouse or children. Mother unknown. Cost of funeral: $259.

Retired attendant at New York State Hospital, World War I veteran, aged 47, cause of death: gas poisoning suicide, no spouse, parents unknown. Cost of funeral: $419.

Housekeeper, aged 71, cause of death: exposure. She was found on the corner of 3rd Avenue and Cherry Street. Irish, widow, cost of funeral: $75.

Female torso, white, aged unknown, cause of death: unknown. [The newspaper said it was found on the ocean side at Camp Cheerful.] Cost of funeral: $30.

Eight people from the Hattie family died in one six-year period.

Hattie 1, aged 48, cardio vascular renal disease, cost of funeral: $75.
Hattie 2, aged 3 months, acute purulent pyelitis, cost of funeral: $25.
Hattie 3, aged 21, drowned, cost of funeral: $75.
Hattie 4, aged 1 month, intestinal obstruction, cost of funeral: $20.
Hattie 5, aged six months, tuberculosis, cost of funeral: $40.
Hattie 6, aged 1 hour, 37 minutes, prematurity, cost of funeral: $25.
Hattie 7, aged 1 hour, prematurity, cost of funeral: $15.
Hattie 8, aged 21, cardio vascular, cost of funeral: $75.

Housekeeper, negro, aged 34, and stillborn infant, cause of death: toxemia of pregnancy, contributory causes: dead fetus. [This was her seventh child.] They were both buried in the town plot. Cost of funeral: $75.

Laborer, World War I veteran, aged 42. In the death notice it says “heart attack,” in the funeral home records it says “syphilis.” The Veterans Bureau paid for him to be buried in the “colored section.” Cost of funeral: $100.

Clerk, aged 19, cause of death: gas poisoning, suicide. [An attached newspaper article says that although he had been in good spirits lately, he had been depressed about a heart condition he was left with as a result of rhematic fever from two years before. He was popular in high school where he graduated the previous June. He killed himself in September.] No cost is listed for his funeral.

Laborer, aged 40, cause of death: skull fracture caused by a train at the 3rd Avenue crossing. [The watchman yelled a warning, the newspaper account read, but he walked directly into the path of the train anyway.] Cost of funeral: $345.

Infant, aged 1 year, 10 months, cause of death: drowned in the Great South Bay by her mother who was found insane and committed to Pilgrim State Hospital. [Her husband said she was in a highly nervous state because the child had been born prematurely, the newspaper reads. She dressed herself and the baby in bathing suits, waded out waist deep and later told her husband that she lost the child. At her arraignment she asked three questions: Could she go home with her mother, what is the penalty for 1st degree murder, and could she see her baby.] Cost of funeral: $204.19.

Laborer, aged 29, cause of death: drowned while dumping snow from his highway truck into the Great South Bay. Cost of funeral: $360.

Black female laborer, cause of death: abscesses in peritoneal cavity, lungs, kidney and spleen, said to have followed induced abortion 29 days earlier. Cost of funeral: $557.

Infant girl, cause of death: monstrosity. Cost of funeral: $15.

So yeah, very morbid. I read every entry in the log books. It has to do with my obsession with the forgotten. It pains me to think of all the log books in every funeral home in America packed with entries about people no one thinks about or remembers anymore, and all the remains gathering dusts on shelves (although the funeral homes are allowed to dispose of them after a certain period). On a happier note, and maybe this transition will be a little too jarring, but here is a Christmas store window along Bleecker Street. I’m not entirely sure what those things stuck to the window are supposed to represent. Really big raindrops? I just loved how it looked.