Stacy Horn

I’m in a good mood for no reason at all lately and I think part of it is because holiday decorations have started to go up. Which I believe started immediately following Halloween. Poor retailers.

But it’s a happy time for me even though I can’t help by buying anything. I appreciate the view though. Thank you, retailers.

I’m also happy because I was given permission to access the Grace Church archives in exchange for work I enjoy doing. I plan to do some work and research there on Tuesday.

I came up with what I think is a cool idea that I brought up to our choir conductor. While I was going through the archives last week I started to come across century old choir performance programs. I thought it might be cool one year to duplicate a choir program from 100 years ago. He seemed open. I guess it all depends on finding a good one.

Did I mention this great little song I bought after hearing it on Grey’s Anatomy last week? It’s called Snowfall and the artist is Ingrid Michaelson.

This painting caught my eye on the way home. A simple picture of a Christmas tree. I googled the guy, Bernard Perlin, and this is what stood out for me from his bio:

“Worked 1942-3 in the Office of War Information Graphics Division in Washington, DC, with Ben Shahn. War correspondent for Life, covering the Middle East, 1943-4, and for Fortune magazine, covering the Pacific and Orient, 1945.

“Began to paint seriously for himself in 1946, still partly under Shahn’s influence … [skipping a chunk] … Lived 1948-54 in Italy, where his work became more tender and romantic. Taught at Wooster Community Art Center, Danbury, Connecticut, 1967-9. More or less gave up painting for some years, but has since resumed.”

Now there’s a story. I want to go back and see the rest of what’s hanging there. I’m very curious to see what he painted after having given up.

What did he want to express after being quiet for years? This painting definitely has a former illustrator feel.

I took some pictures of the crowd that lines up everyday outside one of the Marc Jacobs stores. I wanted to show everyone how insane it is. When I uploaded the pictures to my computer I noticed one face in the crowd. (Close-up below.) (Oh and by the way, this is nothing compared to how it’s going to get.)

She doesn’t look happy with me, does she?

I see boarded up windows and I fantasize about renovating and moving in. This is on Bleecker Street, though. In reality it would be a noisy, horrible place to live. That block is busy, it’s also across the street from a church that has a school which means screaming kids every day, so yeah. Not ideal. But living on top of Pet Central. That would be the one convenient part.

I was just posting the other day about living on the top floor of a 5th floor walk-up. What am I going to do 10, 20, 30 years from now if I’m lucky enough to still be around? My neighbor and I were just worrying about this earlier in the week. She mentioned the dumb waiter which the landlord closed off years ago. Maybe we could repair it on our own?

I guess I just have to not think about it. It’s not like I can do anything about it for the foreseeable future.

This is the picture I referred to in the post below. This is me and Anne on the highway days after 9/11. This is not the most flattering shot of me, I don’t think. And something is off about one of Anne’s eyes, I just noticed! There must have been something on the scanner. It looks like her right eye is missing. Oh well.

I know we look ridiculously cheerful, considering. You had to be there. We weren’t really feeling cheerful, but we were doing what we could at the time, so we felt better, and a friend was taking the picture and maybe she said smile and we obeyed.