Stacy Horn

Various buildings around Manhattan have these barriers, I guess to stop terrorists from driving trucks filled with bombs into them. But this bank put these beautiful metal-worked … cosies over theirs. A lovely solution.

I had such plans for this week. I was going to go to the library around my temp job, but that’s not going to happen. I don’t even know if I’m going to get to all my email this morning. What was I going to post about? See??? I’m totally frazzled. Well. Hmmm.

I totally forgot to do a Valentine’s Day post yesterday, OR to do anything nice for myself so I’m going to celebrate Valentine’s Day on Sunday. It’s just going to be me and the cats but NO JUDGING. Our love cannot be denied.

The temp job I’m doing this week is great. I knew two of the other people doing it! And they’re feeding us, and there were delicious vegetarian options. Usually vegetarian options fall into the “it’s either this or starve” category.

Passed by this building on my way home yesterday. Loved all the pretty colors in the building and the clouds.

Sally Rhine Feather (the daughter of J. B. Rhine, the head of the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory) mentioned this book to me, The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness by Oren Harman.

I was immediately curious because George Price had written about parapsychology very early on and got into a nasty exchange with Rhine. Price was particularly, shockingly hostile. I mean, okay, don’t accept their experiments but come on. A book with “kindness” in the title along with the name George Price was just so “does not compute” for me. I read the first few pages and got sucked in. Then I skipped to the section about Rhine and got even more sucked in.

There was an interesting revelation. Price said he really went after Rhine because he thought Rhine was religious and these experiments were somehow a backdoor to bolstering religion. Rhine was not religious however, he was something between agnostic and atheist. Price apologized many years later, they started writing each other again, and apparently Price lost it again.

Anyway, complex guy, sad ending, looks like a truly fascinating story. When will I be able to read it?? I’m doing a week long focus group-like thing. I’m going to be going through a new website, answering questions, helping find problems. It’s 8 – 10 hours a day for 5 days. (Must be a humongous website.)

Finney. A complex cat. Loves me, but also loves to bite me. (Not hard, but still.)

Yesterday during choir rehearsal we took our break in the Honor Room. The last time I was in here it was undergoing restorations and everything was covered in tarps. I’d wanted to take a picture of this boy’s name: Harry C. Smith.  While exploring the Grace Church archives I’d come across two small articles about an ex-actor named Harry Chancey Smith who was found strangled in his bed in a rooming house on the upper east side in 1949. Someone had handwritten across the article that Harry was from the first class of Grace Church choir boys, from 1894-1898. So of course I researched his story. I’m not sure if it will make it into the book, it’s not relevant, but I just had to know.

I’m guessing that Grace Church will be preserved as long as there are humans to care for it. Which means Harry’s name will stay on this wall, going through periodic restorations, long long long after anyone who remembers him is gone. I wonder if any relatives remember him. He was the most famous boy in the country at one point.

Here we are, taking a break from A Sea Symphony.  Guess how many people glanced at the names behind them.

I got a temp job for next week (yay!) so I have to accomplish in a weekend what I would have accomplished next week. Okay, it’s not possible, but I have to try.

Question: Do you think the average reader knows who Jacob Riis was without having to google him?

Looking into the window of a shoe store. I love windows that kinda don’t make sense, that are filled with objects the owner likes or have sentimental value. Or maybe the owner was just, “we have a window, we have to put stuff in it, what do we have lying around?” I should have walked up and focused on that bottom shelf. Maybe I’ll do a series of windows like this.