Stacy Horn

Here’s the Sarah Jessica Parkerette story I mentioned yesterday. When Sex and the City was in full swing, very young girl tourists would come to New York in their best approximations of a Carrie-type outfit. Because of the show this is what they imagined a sophisticated New York girl would wear. In reality, most New Yorkers would never dress like Carrie, although now and again Carrie had on a very cute top, and there were a few good dresses, more than a few towards the end, and other great pieces.

So the girls would have stood out just for trying, but on top of that they’d get it horribly wrong, and often they looked like very bad Halloween Carries. But it was touching. They’d do their best to act natural, to adopt “I’m from New York, I dress like this all the time, I’m just a girl out on the town” attitudes and those of us around them would never in a million years try to spoil their fun. We’d never stare, never ask them where they’re from. I remember one girl walking into a store in the most clownish Carrie outfit that we all almost gasped. It was remake of the outfit from the beginning, when she gets splashed by the bus. But we caught ourselves, didn’t say a word, did our best to pretend she was one of us. She was terribly young and no one wanted to embarrass her.

In case anyone thinks I’m being judgmental, I’m a jeans and tshirt girl mostly. I’m not a fashionista, although I love love love fashion, so I appreciate the people who are. They are walking works of art. The Carrie-girls were just young girls playing dress-up and they were achingly sweet.

Skaters along the Hudson River.

Not one of them was wearing a helmut, of course.

I’m taking a moment off from watching the movie Paul, (love it) to listen to birds outside my window. Before I forget, the blog software I use shows me what search terms people use that brings them to my blog.

What I want to know is, why are all these people searching for “large dog dicks,” and why is googling “large dog dicks” leading them here??? Of course, now that I’ve said it twice even more people searching for “large dog dicks” are going to find their way here. Damnit. Three times. Okay people looking for … that, sorry. None of that here. Sorry to have wasted your time.

There’s a new ferry that goes up and down the East River, stopping at various places in Brooklyn and Queens. It’s free for the first two weeks so I walked down to the pier to take a ride. Howard was supposed to meet me, but his bike got a flat. Didn’t matter.

See all these people? This is just one small glimpse of all the people who had the same idea. There’s 700 million trillion more going back five blocks and 700 million trillion to the right. More pictures follow.

Some of the 700 million trillion to the right and …

… a few of the people who must have waited for hours and will probably get on in another 20 minutes (a ferry had just left and they run every 20 minutes). That’s Sarah Jessica Parker on the left. Okay, no it’s not, but it kinda looks like her, doesn’t it? I have to remember to tell my Sarah Jessica Parkerettes story some day.

As Americans, who believe in freedom, how could we settle for anything less?? From the window of the Michael Kors store on the corner. (Still can’t believe I live on a block that now has a Michael Kors store on the corner.)

Come on, New York. Do the right thing.

Last night, or rather, early this morning, the thunder was almost as loud as I’ve ever heard it. I thought of Cara in Alabama, who survived a recent tornado and described the roar it made. I tried to imagine what it would be like if the sound got much much louder, if I looked out the window and saw the storm develop into a tornado and what would I do? I realized I could never grab up the cats and get them and myself down five flights and into the basement in time. We’d be goners. I really felt for a moment the capriciousness of it, of nature. One minute you’re sleeping or watching tv, then boom. The world explodes, no time to run.

No, this is not yet another picture of a cop on a horse. It’s a cop on a horse giving directions. Very different.

Last night I went to a monster sing presented by a new group called the New York Choral Consortium. I’m not good at guessing crowd size, I’m going with 700 million trillion.

We sang a number of pieces for a few hours, including a few I’d never heard or sung before and now love. They were: Thou Must Leave Thy Lowly Dwelling by Hector Berlioz, a piece called O Vos Omnes by Tomas Luis de Victoria, (who is becoming one of my favorite composers) and yet another beautiful Ubi Caritas, this time by a composer named Ola Gjeilo. Ohmygod, he’s only 33 years old! Jesus christ.

Here are the conductors and accompanists on the stage at the end.

This is a shot of the crowd, but it’s only the middle section. There were more people to the left and right. You were given the choice to sit in your voice section, or in an area where the voices were all mixed up. I went with the mixed-up group, it’s more satisfying to sing among different voice parts. But it also meant I was in the very front row! It looks like all women but that’s because the tenor and basses were on the other side.