Stacy Horn

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.

I’m heading back to the prosthodentist so they can take a mold of my teeth. At the moment I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. What can I think about instead? Fringe is on tonight. The trailer for a movie called Battle: Los Angeles looked amazing. The book is going well, if a little slowly.

I noticed I haven’t been taking a lot of pictures when I go out. I think I’m finally getting sick of the snow, which is just dirty and ugly now, and there’s garbage everywhere because pick-ups have been impossible for so long.

Here’s that building I posted about two posts down, but in 1937. I grabbed this from the New York Public Library images database. Or was it from the new Museum of the City of New York one? I don’t know! I’m losing my mind!

I blame my teeth. I do so much worrying about how much it’s all going to cost and how awful it’s going to be I have no brain cells left for anything else.

I keep discovering that many of my favorite composers were practically infants when they wrote my favorite pieces. I just started researching a 16th century piece and the composer was 28 when he wrote it. Twenty-freaking-eight.

I don’t know a lot about the 16th century. I trying to find out what life was like for the people who originally sang this piece, seminary students I think. I’m hoping to find a book like: What Life Was Life for Seminary Students in the 16th Century Written Expressly For Stacy Horn Because We Thought She’d Need it Someday.

Yesterday I tweeted, “I was thinking, when these cats die, I should do something … drastic with my life. Move to another country. Take a year long road trip.” Seriously though, being alone has many downsides, but one upside is total freedom. I should use it. I could wander all over the world for the rest of my life. As long as I can figure out how to support myself along the way.

I took a picture of this billboard just a week or two ago and Anthony Hopkins was up there. Now it’s scary Little Red Riding Hood? Oh, there is a movie called Red Riding Hood coming out.