Stacy Horn

God do I love Dennis Overbye’s writing.  Here’s how he started today’s Times article about turning on the LHC.  “Science rode a beam of subatomic particles and a river of champagne into the future on Wednesday.” It was turned on early this morning, just a few hours ago actually, at 4:27 a.m.   

And no one got swallowed up. YET. Ha.  Once again, just kidding, but I have to point out that according to Overbye, and everything else I’ve read, this thing has to rev up for a while before anything really happens.

So, it’s exciting, but sad. The United States has lost yet another lead.  From Overbye’s piece, “In 1993, the United States Congress canceled plans for an even bigger collider and more powerful machine, the Superconducting Supercollider, after its cost ballooned to $11 billion. That collider, its former director Roy Schwitters of the University of Texas in Austin said recently, would have been in operation around 2001.”  

What did we spend $11 billion instead?  Exactly.  

The picture is Moran’s, a tavern on Washington at Rector.  “Our landmark location, built in 1897, was formally an inn and later became St. George’s Chapel during the Depression in 1929. St. George’s Chapel catered to the local merchants and residents, which were mostly of Syrian Catholic descent. This area came to be known as “Little Syria.” In 1979 the church retired, and the Moran family acquired and converted the site and began operating on Dec. 26, 1986.”

Back from breakfast.  It’s pouring and thundering, so I don’t know about going back out there except for choir tonight.  Current Working Sluggage Excuse:  I don’t know if I mentioned it, but a Chinese publisher bought the rights to Waiting For My Cats to Die so a Chinese edition will be coming out.  I’m so excited.  I can’t wait to see what it looks like.  Will anyone in China read it?? Excuse-wise, I can kick back and relax because pretty soon I’m going to be read in a country with a way lot of people, right?

I took this picture this morning at Veselka, at 2nd Avenue and 9th Street.

I’m meeting a friend for breakfast in a couple of minutes. The rain kinda messes with all my plans for the rest of the day, because none of my plans included RAIN-HAIR.

I took this shot of priests and firemen in front of St. Peter’s church on Sunday.

I’ll bet you thought I was talking about us, and the collider that’s being turned on on Wednesday?  No, I was talking about Yankee Stadium.  They’re building a new one, right?  I took this shot walking to the subway after court.  That’s Yankee Stadium in the background.

Saw this missing poster for Hannah Upp on my way to the Bronx for the hearing for dog fighters. It’s written in NPYD-speak (“in the confines of” and “residence” instead of home or apartment). Not a complaint, just noting.  The fact that they are plastering the city all the way from the 30 to the 6th precinct means Perez and whoever he or she is working with is putting a lot of effort into Hannah’s case.  Anyway, sad.

Once again I was struck at how big the courthouses are in the Bronx and how well run (sorry Manhattan).  More screening machines, every one of them manned, and by people who were reasonable cheerful and polite.  A computerized board of Judges and room numbers! I like our buildings better, though, even if they are beaten down and have this layer of decades old dilapidated civil-service decor which makes them somewhat depressed.

I’m tired.  And for no good reason really.  What can I do today that takes absolutely no energy? I should have tried to become a movie-reviewer. Then work today could have been watching movies.

Oh God. Buddy is currently on a paper-destroying mission.  He just loves to kill paper this one. Wherever there is a pile of paper, Buddy is on the case, making sure it does not endure.