Stacy Horn

I’m doing the bone graft on Thursday. This part scares me. They cut open your gums, stuff in cadaver and artificial bone, sew you up, and hope for the best, which is that you grow some bone. I’m expecting the most blood and pain and swelling from this part of the process. But I also suspect that like getting my two teeth extracted, it will be fine.

They asked me to get a ct scan prior to Thursday though, because they’re concerned about the amount of bone I’ve lost over the years and they want to avoid any blood vessel or nerve during surgery. That was a little nerve-wracking to hear.

A sign on 14th Street.

On Monday, March 19th, at 7:30 p.m., Viking is hosting an event to celebrate the launch of the late John Leonard’s book, Reading for my Life. Sue Leonard will be there to talk about John’s life and work with Gloria Steinem, Victor Navasky and Colum McCann.

Where: Barnes & Noble space on E. 86th  and Lexington.  

You can read a review of the book here.

I took this the other night on the roof. I went up there hoping to see some special effects from the recent sun storm. I’ve never seen the aurora borealis and I heard that we might see it in our skies. It was pretty anyway.

I only just realized that this year is the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. You’d think you’d be hearing a lot about the Titanic and that there’d be tons of events to commemorate the date. I googled it and found almost nothing. There’s a memorial cruise, the National Geographic Museum in Washington is planning an exhibit, they’re releasing the movie Titanic in 3D. Oh! Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey) is doing a miniseries. That could be good.

I went downtown to the site of the former White Star offices, where the crowds went to learn news of the ship and the survivors. Their offices were at 9 Broadway, which is at the bottom of Broadway, and of New York. It’s very narrow there so I couldn’t get back far enough to get the shot I wanted. It was driving me crazy.

9 Broadway is the one with all the flags out front. I think this might have been the building I was considering as the home for Echo in the 1990’s. I wish I had this thing called … what is it called again? Oh, right. A memory.

I took this shot from the other side of the park pictured above.

Travel writer Daisann McLane (whose Ghosts of Hong Kong article won the 2011 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold prize) recently tweeted about how realtors in Hong Kong list apartments where people died, mostly by suicide. I just read through a page. I noticed that a lot of them killed themselves by “burning charcoal,” which I’ve never heard of. According to Wikipedia burning charcoal in a small, closed room is a popular method of killing yourself because it’s supposedly painless (although it might not be). Oh, the method was invented in Hong Kong!

“In order to prevent charcoal burning, the Hong Kong Government replaced the traditional countryside charcoal barbecue with an electric grill. Some non-government organizations worked with charcoal retailers to promote the message of “treasure your life” by putting “seek help” labels on the charcoal bags.”

Here is a sample:

“Young female texted and asked her boyfriend to meet her but he sent his sister instead. Victim jumped off the building in front of the sister.”

“99 years old male jumped off the building with no clothes while his wife went to the washroom.”

“Primary school teacher who broke up with her boyfriend, jumped off the building with a thick make-up.”

“Angry male chopped his ex-lover and jumped off the building.”

You can read more here.

A pawn shop on 14th Street. Lately I’ve become fascinated with pawn shops. The next step is actually going in one, but for some reason they also frighten me so I’m working myself up for it.

I thought I would show how One World Trade Center is coming along. The comparison view is not the same alas, but you get the idea. I took this yesterday from the cemetery behind St. Paul’s Chapel. You can see the different by comparing 1WTC to the building on its right.

This was in August, 2011.