Stacy Horn

Photographer Shannon Taggert’s new book Seance is coming out this Fall from Fulgar Press, with a foreword by Dan Aykroyd and illustrated essays from Andreas Fischer and Tony Oursler! Seance is a book of images Taggert has been making for 18 years. According to Amazon the pub date is November 12. The images are just luscious, and the one below was a favorite of mine when we got a sneak peak a while back. I’m so glad it will be hitting the shelves!

Update: Shannon will be doing two events at Green-wood Cemetery. One on October 16 and one on October 17. If you’re going to be in New York, you should miss them!

We have an absolutely glorious program scheduled for our December concert. But for me it involves relearning a chorus from the Bach B Minor Mass that I originally sang as a soprano 1 and will now sing as a soprano 2. It was hard to begin with! Now it’s fiendish. Oh my poor brain. But good for my poor brain.

It was “Clear the Shelters” day (animal shelters) on Saturday. This is the line outside the ASPCA where I work. More cats were adopted than dogs. I love both equally, but just saying. Cats. Number one pet in America. It was a great day, seeing so many animals get homes.

I can’t remember the last time I saw someone working with a view camera, let alone an 8 x 10 one! This was across the street from my apartment. Once again, I had a wave of nostalgia, about the days when I worked with a 4 x 5. I don’t want to go back, I love the ease of a small camera, but still. The level of attention required to work in this format was probably good for my brain and my artwork.

When I was very young, maybe toddler-aged, I had a nightmare about floating speakers in the sky. I remember it all these decades later. Not why the speakers were so terrifying, or what was coming out of them, maybe voices saying scary things? I only remember that the speakers were in the sky and they scared the hell out of me.

But every day when I go into the subcellar of the ASPCA, I see this speaker outside of the elevator, the same kind of speaker that frightened me so, and today I feel only affectionate nostalgia for it. I kinda want to steal it and hang it in my apartment.

Except a voice will probably come out it saying, “So we meet again.” [Evil chuckle] “Now, as I was saying …”