Stacy Horn

I’m on a quest to find out something about a coal miner named Gwilym Amos. In 1919, he started a singing society named the Orpheus Glee Club, he retired in 1924 or 1928 (there are conflicting reports) he worked at the Lehigh & Wiles-Barre Coal Company, and he died on May 14, 1929.

I found a Welsh newspaper called The Druid which the New York Public Library got for me via interlibrary loan, but we didn’t get all the reels, we only got up to 1925 and so far I haven’t managed to uncover anything that gives me a sense of who he was. Mystery man! Well, mystery man, I’m going to keep looking. There’s got to be something to a man who works in the mines, then founds a choral society that The Druid barely deigned to notice (while at the same time reporting about other singing groups in every paper) and then nurtures that choral society into one of the best singing groups in the country, winning all the big singing contests, and finally making it onto the front page of The Druid.

This is New York City. Can you believe it?? Some lucky person (or persons) lives here. Except now I forget where I took this exactly. Somewhere in my neighborhood, 7th Avenue-ish.

I intended to put together a movie about yesterday’s parade, but I just don’t have the energy!

A couple of shots though. This is looking down 5th Avenue.

This is looking down ON Fifth Avenue.

On the day after the gay marriage bill passed, I was walking around intending to take pictures to reflect the mood of the city, and I posted the video of the Dyke March.

But the first picture I took was this one, at Christopher and Hudson.  It’s a poster asking for information for the 2005 murder of 19 year old Rashawn Brazell. It was sad to see it on such a happy day, knowing that someone’s son wasn’t here to celebrate it with us.

I also wondered if there was some sort of gay angle to the story.   The poster showing up all of a sudden, on this day seemed like it might be more a coincidence.

Then I went to the Stonewall Inn and there was his picture again, directly across the street. You can read his story here. Yeah, he was gay. The wikipedia entry says the case didn’t get a lot of attention because the boy was black and working class and gay. I can’t answer to that, but the reward posters are a bad sign. They generally mean the detectives have followed every lead they had and they’re at a dead end.

Part of me would love to relax all day, but it’s an historic occasion. I have to make myself go out there and drum in the parade. I just discovered that I’ve forgotten how to do my favorite drum pattern though. Trying not to cry. It must be a combination of only drumming once or twice a year and aging. I’m going to ask a friend to record themselves drumming it so I can relearn in.

The outdoor pool at my gym has been filled with water! I don’t see any lap lanes blocked off, however. I’ll be very sad if I can’t keep swimming laps every week. But there’s always the fall.

The block on the far side of the pool is Leroy Street, one of the prettiest blocks in the Village. It’s also where they shot the outdoor scenes for Audrey Hepburn’s apartment in Wait Until Dark.

I just went out for a walk and came upon a parade. It made me so happy I kept filming them until my camera died. No way I’m not drumming in the parade tomorrow now.

It’s killing me how long it’s taking to upload to YouTube!! (Oh how quickly we take these things for granted. Thank you for existing YouTube. Sorry for the killing me comment.)

UPATE: Christ, that took hours! But here is the video I shot.