Stacy Horn

The picture below is looking west on Christopher from Hudson Street. All the barricades are up in preparation for the big Gay Pride Parade tomorrow. This time tomorrow it will be an absolute mob-scene of celebration and partying. My band drums in it every year and it’s one of the most fun things we do. But every year I agonize about whether or not I want to go. It’s always so hot! I’ll bet if I search my blog using the words “Gay Pride” I’ll find a post like this for every summer. Alright, now I’m curious … well, I only found two!

2011

“I woke up to learn that New York had passed the gay marriage bill … Looks like I really must join my band Manhattan Samba and drum in the Gay Pride Parade this year (it’s tomorrow). I usually do, but it’s a marathon thing and I’m getting old! Hours and hours of drumming in the blazing heat (usually).”

2008

“My band, Manhattan Samba, always does the Gay Pride parade every year. I almost didn’t go this year because it was so oppressively hot. Thank God I did because this year there was a torrential downpour. It was so thick and hard and freezing cold at first, and you’d think that would have felt great, but it was shocking, like when you first jump into a cold pool … once I got over the cold and the stinging, and surrendered to being completely drenched, it was positively ecstatic. It is just so completely liberating. Nothing matters, only joy.”

The receptionist at my vet was raving and raving about the Path Cafe place you can see on the right. He said the food was amazing, and affordable, and that the young couple who run it are the nicest people in the world.

The repair place called: your camera is ready. I ran crosstown to pick it up, but the battery I had with me was dead, so I had to run home, recharge it, and it was at this point that I noticed that I didn’t have my earrings on.

I’d taken them off to swim this morning, and somewhere between the pool and home they were lost. I ran to the pool, asked if anyone had turned them in. No. Checked the locker room, not there. These are one of the pairs of earrings Nora made and sent me. I’m sick with grief. It’s always good news/bad news. I can only hope that someone found them and is now loving them as much as I did.

I took a few shots before a major storm hit. This is Hudson Street, on my way to the city pool to look for my earrings. Notice the different levels of outwear. We’re in a heatwave. The girl in orange is dressed accordingly. I don’t get the girl in the cardigan and I really don’t get the woman who is wearing what looks like a heavy jacket!

This is the garden at St. Lukes, which is a half a block up and across the street from the previous shot. It’s a lovely place to sit and read.

And this is me turning the corner for home, totally dejected about the earrings and just before the storm hit. It’s thundering now, as I type this.

Betsy sent this link to me: Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.

I loved them all, two made me cry (and they weren’t one involving animals, surprisingly). It made me want to do something so kind it made others cry. My new goal! Make people cry.

A picture from April. I was walking down the west side, along the Hudson River, taking “before” pictures of One World Trade Center. This was one of the rejects, but it has a dog in it.

Or, what I am now referring to it as: Another Great Thing I Won’t Have My Camera For. NPR commissioned a piece from Philip Glass, in honor of his 75th birthday. Anyone who wants to is invited to come sing it in Times Square, this Thursday, at 6:30 p.m. Details here.

I’m going, and my friend who is going with me is very nervously allowing me to borrow his camera to take a few shots. I suspect he might change his mind. If I had my camera I’d be taking tons of shows and movies. Damnit to the infinity power.

This is a dramatic recreation of me practicing. (Nora, those are one of the pairs of earrings you sent me! I love them all, but these are great every day earrings.)

I feel like a part of my mind is lying dormant while I wait for my camera to be repaired. Also, I just read a pile of new articles about music and the brain, and clearly others parts of my brain aren’t getting as much use while my choir is on hiatus.

I took the shot below while in Boston researching composers Randall Thompson and Francis Boott. Every time I go to Boston I have to walk around Cambridge and Harvard Yard, visiting all my old haunts and the places where I once lived. It’s a nostalgia-wallowing thing that I have always done. This motorcycle was parked in front of my old apartment.

In case you’re having trouble reading what the note says, it reads:

F _ _ _ K you!
Meter Maid!
Because of your incomp-
etance at placing
tickets, I got 2 tickets
on my bike w/o knowing
of the first! Please
ask to be retrained!

It’s pretty well-mannered for an angry note. It would have been nice if there’d been a scribbled in, “I’m sorry,” in a different hand writing.