Stacy Horn

I’m trying to do something very tricky with a chapter I’m working on and it’s coming out well. When I was in therapy years ago my therapist said that whatever was the most difficult would turn out to be the thing I did best, because I’d work the hardest at it. It made sense and it’s true.

I don’t want to talk about it, because I want it to be a surprise for the people who read my book, but I’ve spent the past year researching what science has learned about singing and I’m doing something with it. Vague enough? Sorry!

I took this picture when I was shooting the places where Triangle Shirtwaist fire victims once lived. Michelina Cordiano lived at 272 Bleecker which was part of a connected row of identical buildings. At the end now is John’s Pizza, a very popular pizzeria which always has long lines at night. It opened in 1929, and it just saddens me that had Michelina not died in that fire, she would have eaten there. In 1929, she still would have been only 43.

A few more shots of where some of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire victims lived. Whenever I do research like this I wonder, will something happen to me that will cause someone 100 years from now to take pictures of where I lived, or died? The only reason I’m doing this is because a horrible thing happened to someone, which for whatever reason haunts me. And this fire haunts a lot of people. Why? Will I be similarly unlucky?

This picture shows where Commerce Street begins and where it was cut-off to make room for 7th Avenue on the left. A 1914 article from the Times mentions an ancient wooden house on the southwest corner which narrowly made it. That’s the southwest corner pictured here and the house is gone now. (Note puppy.)

While I was there this man was taking shots of one of the buildings on Commerce on the right, or something on the right, his faithful dog patiently waiting. I’d love to have a dog come along with me when I take pictures.

March 25th is the 100 year anniversary of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, where 146 people, mostly young women died. Below are pictures of the sites where three of the victims once lived. I got the addresses from the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, which was started by Ruth Sergel, an ITP grad (where I went to grad school).

Gaetana Midolo. She was 16 years old, and she’d come to the U.S. from Italy when she was 14. She lived at 8 Commerce Street, but #8 was torn down in 1914 to make room to extend 7th Avenue below 11th Street. I haven’t yet found any pre-1914 pictures, but they must exist somewhere.

This is looking west on Commerce Street from 7th Avenue. Although her building was described as a tenement, and there wouldn’t have been as many trees, I think it was probably still considered a decent place to live then.

Catherine Giannattasio. She was 22, married, and had also immigrated here from Italy when she was 14. This is her former home at 6 Bedford Street. The building was completely shuddered up, but it sold for $2,750,000 last year. Quite a difference from Catherine’s days.

Here’s a picture from a real estate site, which gives you a better view.

Michelina Cordiano. She was 25, married, and had immigrated here from Italy at 19. At the time of the fire she was living in this building at 272 Bleecker. It’s a busy corner which I’m guessing was busy then too. This may not have been such a nice neighborhood at the time. When I searched the Times for articles mentioning this building back then, the only ones I found were articles about tenants who’d been arrested for robbery. Update Below.

I found pictures of 272 Bleecker at the New York Public Library and the Museum of the City of New York!

The always fabulous Susie Bright will be in NYC to talk about her new memoir, Big Sex, Little Death. She is a wonderful and generous human being. I love reading what people are saying about her.

“Susie Bright is a one-woman counterculture, a teenaged socialist revolutionary turned Reagan-era sexual freedom fighter. In this lively, bittersweet memoir, she recounts a life full of political and erotic adventures and betrayals, a life at once deeply subversive and totally American, defined as it is by the idea that people should be free to express and pursue their own visions of happiness, no matter how uncomfortable it makes the prigs and scolds among us.” — Tom Perotta

“Susie Bright’s real life is just as compelling—more compelling—than her sex life. And that’s saying something.” — Dan Savage

“I have a very scary feeling Susie Bright is not making any of this up. Guns, drugs, threesomes, socialist factionalism, a stabbing . . . all before she got her G.E.D.?” — Alison Bechdel

“Big Sex Little Death is subtle, hot, enthralling, raw and tender—I loved it. Susie Bright is a national treasure.” — Josh Marshall

Wednesday, March 30, 7 pm
Reading, Signing, Memoir Discussion… and Feh Muh Nism!
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen St.

Thursday, March 31, 7pm
Doug Henwood Interviews Susie Bright, A live taped Audible interview
Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway

So I took out “Satan’s Fur Puppets” and put in “Writer, Cat-butler.” I had to put something there to explain the prominently featured cats.

A recent study showed that mindfulness meditation (MBSR), something I started doing a couple of years ago, actually causes physical changes in the brain. Researchers found increased grey matter in the areas of the brain that are involved with learning and memory and decreased grey matter in areas having to do with anxiety and stress. They also found increased grey matter in “structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection.”

Speaking of compassion, someone posted this horrible exchange/fight [the video I linked to was removed] that took place on the subway. I thought both sides were awful. The woman who made the ugly remark which started the whole thing, and the girls who turned it into a brawl. I was on their side at first. Eating on the subway is not the best idea, but I’ve had to do it twice in my life. Both times I was running around non-stop for work and it was the only opportunity to eat. I couldn’t even stop for five minutes. I certainly didn’t want to eat there, but it was that or starve. So people may not like it, but who knows what their story was. It was their right to confront her, but they acted like thugs about it and lost the high ground, I thought.

An early morning bagpiper in Union Square.