Stacy Horn

I’ve made a ton of changes to the book, I wrote the last chapter, and this is what I have to do by Tuesday:

– Write a section describing singing at the wedding of two choir members.
– Go back through the whole thing and tinker. Do the memoir sections have a nice arc? Is there anything I do to make the people I write about more vivid?
– Make the last chapter as good as I can possibly make it. This is without question the hardest part about writing books, ending them.

I read the last chapter of my last memoir, Waiting For My Cats To Die, and I was very dismayed to see that I am still the exact same person! The wisdom I’ve gained in three years can be summed up in three words (which I’m not going to give here because then no one will buy my book!). That’s it! I happen to think they are very crucial three words so I’m glad to have figured them out, but still. I’m pretty sure I can count on myself to continue to make the same mistakes I’ve been making all along. Oh. I’m putting that in the book.

I’ve been so busy I haven’t been taking pictures! I snapped this yesterday in the meat market when I was out running errands. It’s been rainy and dreary.

I am postponing Valentine’s Day, which I’m also temporarily renaming Pamper Yourself Day since I don’t currently have a boyfriend. I’m going to celebrate it on February 22nd because for the next week I’ll be writing furiously in order to hand in my book on February 21st.

Hence, National Pamper Yourself Day on the 22nd. Yes, I decided mid-post to make this a national holiday. Next Wednesday everyone in the nation must take the day off if possible, and if not, pause at some point on the 22nd and do something nice for yourself.

I’m going to: buy myself flowers, get a pedicure, watch all the tv shows I’ve saved up, take a bath with a Lush bath bomb and read magazines, eat particularly delicious food including one of those Ciao Bella key lime ice cream sandwich things, and maybe I’ll squeeze in a movie.

But today I will shower my love on the cats. I’m showering love on Finney too, but he bit me when I tried to take a picture of it. Don’t forget now! It’s Pet a Cat Day. If you don’t have a cat go out and find one and pet it.

I’m going to be on a radio show tonight at 7pm called The PSI Show. If you click on that link, and then chose Radio Show & Chat Room, there’s a button over on the right to click and listen. Please listen if you can! I’ll be on before The Bachelor is on.

Live, from my livingroom … SLEEPING CATS!

Composer Eric Whitacre just won a Grammy for Best Choral Performance for his album Light & Gold. I recently interviewed him for my book and I submitted a video for his latest Virtual Choir so I’m feeling more invested. He’s got all these people from the Virtual Choir watching from the Facebook page and in a Google hangout. It was fun! Congratulations, Eric!!

I’ve been working on a section about Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir, which began in 2009 when a 17 year old soprano named Britlin Losee sent Whitacre a video of herself singing his piece titled Sleep.

Well, Britlin Losee is now a composer herself, I’ve learned. I just listened to two movements from a piece she wrote called Fate and Faith Songs, sung by the Women’s Ensemble of the Aaron Copland School of Music.

Please listen to it here. She can’t be only 21. There’s a darkness and a joy there that just seems so impossible in one so young, except Rimbaud was only 17, so what’s age got to do with it! Her music has this haunting feel, it reminds me of the music in one of my favorite movies, Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death. But it also has this transcendent joy at the same time, that makes me think of the composer Tomas Luis de Victoria, whose compositions also always managed to sound happy even when he was writing about something sad.

Anyway, I love that the young girl who inspired such a great thing is growing up and creating inspiring things herself now.

I took this picture of a graffiti bird near where I took the picture of the graffiti rat I posted the other day.