Stacy Horn

I’m now obessessed with this perfume I just caught a whiff of called Beauty by Estee Lauder. It was from one of those perfume strips in People which normally are annoying, but I love this scent.

I must have it. I must figure out a way to earn some extra cash so I don’t feel guilty.

Here are the current perfumes I own.

– First by Van Cleef and Arpels, an old, all-time-favorite.

– Verbena by L’Occitane, which smells perfectly like lemons, which I adore and puts me in an automatic good mood except the scent only lasts a few seconds, literally, so it is a very short good mood.

– That last on the right came in a gift basket and I haven’t actually used it yet. It’s a vanilla scent which I don’t normally like, but this one was very subtle. It smells … clean.

Anyway, I want Beauty.

Note to self: Get name right. It’s Beautiful, not Beauty. Thank you, Carol.

My friend Howard had an operation on his foot. He’s out of commission for three months.

Hey. Now’s the time to steal his stuff.

And leave him with no food.

Getting warmed up now: we could also hide the remote, remove all toilet paper. And books. Oh God, we could release ticks that would make their way inside the cast. ACK. I can’t believe I thought of that. We’ll have to install a webcam to watch the result of that, though.

Hey Howard, I’m going to walk today. Right now I am jumping up and down, alternating the foot I land on.

Okay, I’m done. Today is a day off for me. I’m going to catch up on my People magazines, and TV, and eat cheese and bread all day.

I feel a little guilty because this weekend is open house weekend, which I didn’t know until today. But a bunch of places in all boroughs open up for tours, some not so interesting because you can go there anytime, but some are more inviting either because they aren’t open for visitors usually, or I’d never known about them before, or they have someone knowledgeable giving a tour, and so on.

Oh, now I’ve got Frank Sinatra in my head. Not complaining, he’s not a bad singer to have in your head.

So, I took these a couple of weeks ago. They’re looking down into the east side of the WTC site. They don’t exactly match up because I wasn’t thinking I’d do this before and after thing later.

God I’m feeling tired. I think I must have SWINE FLU. Nonetheless, I have errands to run, people to infect.

We had a big party last weekend to celebrate the 30th anniversary if ITP, where I went to grad school (and where I taught for a few years).

Red Burns is the chair, and I love Red Burns. We all do. This is not the greatest shot of her in the world. She’s addressing the crowd here. I owe Red Burns a lot. She supported me when few others did, and helped me when I was starting Echo (and when so many others said it would never succeed). And when I was a student she encouraged me to experiment and play, and I did, and my time at ITP were some of the best years of my life.

I will never forget my first semester. I was an older student, back in school after being ten years out, and I was so nervous and intimidated by my very smart fellow students. I was taking a class with Red and we had an assignment to write a paper based on any subject raised by one of the guest speakers.

To make a long story short, I didn’t write a paper. I wrote a play called “Corpse in Space.” It was about a start-up in the future where instead of burying people they’d jettison your body into space. It was actually my friend Chris Hegarty’s idea, which I fictionalized. The main characters were a saint, a praying mantis and a couch. The point is it was WEIRD. But I was trying to demonstrate in an entertaining way how hard it is to take an idea and make it happen. I was so terrified when I handed it in. Who knew how she would react? The world was different in 1986. Doing something like that would be nothing now, but I’m telling you it was a risky thing then. Not everyone would have accepted what I did. I think she hugged me the next time she saw me. I know she gave me an A.

I was working for the Mobil Corporation at the time, and I wasn’t happy. In fact, I had only gotten out of rehab a couple of months before I started grad school. So I was miserable. And feeling very insecure. The day she hugged me was my first happy day in a long time. Her not only accepting this weird story but giving me an A set me free. I started turning my life around. It led to Echo. It led to writing books. If Red Burns wasn’t the person she is, ITP would be a completely different place and I don’t know if any of these things would have happened. I really really owe her.

Thank you, Red Burns!!

I found these shots on Flickr, but I can’t find where I put the photographer’s names. I’m sorry! Forgive me!! They asked us to make short films about Red and send them in and Marianne Petit edited them all into a tribute movie to Red. This is me up on the screen talking about Red.

And this is me and my friend Steven Levy talking to Craig Kanarick. Actually I was talking to someone else. Allison DeFren, I think. I loved seeing everyone, it made me so happy (with a few bittersweet moments).

I had to post what Tom Igoe said in the comments section, because I know not everyone reads the comments section and I didn’t want anyone to miss this.

From Tom Igoe:

“In truth, his diary couldn’t be read until a few days ago. Because of the discussion Stacy mentions, I started looking for it. Found a couple pages here on Echo, and asked NYU’s IT services, and Nancy Lewis, our IT manager at ITP, if if could be found. ITS couldn’t find it in all its backups. Nancy (also a classmate of Toshi’s) managed to find the backup hard drive from the ITP server at the time, pull his old account, and put it up on our current server. So I’d say the fact that it’s up is as much testament to the power Toshi had on us all as it is to the web. Sometimes love makes you do strange things.

“My favorite Toshi story comes from right before he left NYC. He wanted to find a copy of Christopher Cross’ “(The Moon and) New York City” because it made him think of his best memories of NYC. Not a popular album at the time, it wasn’t in any of the CD stores nearby (remember CD stores?). He had a bunch of people on the alum list out searching for it, and I think it was Matt that found it. When he passed away, I got that song stuck in my head for a week. Just like him to take something I’d previously seen as hopelessly schmaltzy and turn it into something precious through its association with him.

“Thanks, Stacy, now you’ve got me crying too. Geez.”

(Now that song has become something precious to me, too.)