Stacy Horn

I was so thrilled to see a video of Dr. Elizabeth McMahan on YouTube. She was one of the scientists who worked at the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory. She was nicknamed BettyMac to distinguish her from Betty Humphrey, who was there at the same time. I interviewed BettyMac when I was in Durham, and she’s been very helpful ever since. In fact, I just pulled out my file on her because I only recently gained enough understanding of physics to realize that something she said in a letter to the famous physicist John A. Wheeler was kind of ahead of its time, and so now I have to re-read it and his response to her to see what he thought of it.

The full length version of the video is up at the Rhine Research Center, where she gave the talk, and a shortened version is up on YouTube [the video has been taken down].

BettyMac made this drawing while on a trip to Pitcairn Island in the late 90’s, I believe. (She left parapsychology and went on to become a very respected entomologist.) I couldn’t immediately find an explanation for it. It must have been something she witnessed while there, but that is just a guess. I have four volumes of an autobiography she wrote and I just love love LOVE the drawings running all through them. I found some of them here and there while going through the Duke Archives.

I would have taken one if I had the least bit of a criminal streak. But no. Those nuns did their job well. I don’t believe in God, but there is right and there is wrong.

I forget what I was even looking for, cute animal videos probably, and I got side tracked by videos of soldiers dancing in Iraq. Of course it all makes me want to cry on one level, because people as sweet and charming and adaptive as this should be home, safe and sound.

Don’t be fooled by the one that starts with the sun. And the guy in the third one down clearly has had some real training, he executes a few pirouettes. The last one is from British soldiers in Afghanistan, (if I’m remembering correctly).

I love these guys.

[Videos removed because the link no longer works.]

Yesterday I was posting on Echo, “what to do, what to do,” and my friend Marisa said “come to Ikea and Costco with me!” I’d never been to either store before and I was curious. We had so much fun. I didn’t buy anything, but I took pictures of the sea of carts for the people who were there for other than sight-seeing.

More pictures below …

Afterwards we went out to brunch with her boyfriend Sinclair and saw his garden. This is the part that I refer to in the title of this post. I wish this was my garden. It was so beautiful it made me ache, and for some reason, his garden shed was the lightening rod for that feeling. I should have taken a picture of the inside too, because all the implements of gardening contributed to the feeling.

One more picture below.

At a certain point my camera started acting up, but I love the weird picture that it took of his garden. It’s like a painting. I mean, will you look at those colors. You can still make out the garden shapes. I believe that’s his fig tree on the right. I’m not sure. I’ll bet he could tell by the leaves though. Oh wait, it’s not the fig tree. That’s the fig tree to the right of the shed. Okay, I have no idea what it is.

It was a great morning. Marisa and Sinclair crack me up. Plus, they love cats. Insanely. Sinclair built a cat door for his.

My friend Jenn took this shot of her cat Max (RIP) when they were moving a few years ago.

You know how cats love boxes? You leave a box out and a cat jumps in it? Well, to a cat, drumbags count as boxes.

Yesterday, while I was researching the building on 5th Avenue I came across a October 9, 1851 story that went: An Infant Found Drowned. At an early hour Tuesday morning while Patrolman Houston of the Sixteenth Ward [the Chelsea area] was patrolling his beat, he discovered the dead body of an infant floating upon the surface of the water, off the foot of Twenty-Third street, North River [the Hudson] which he brought to shore and fastened to the dock to await a Coroner’s inquest. The little creature was wrapped in a woolen blanket, and had a large stone tied around its neck, which was evidently done by the inhuman mother.

Hello?? America? Innocent until proven guilty!! Although it probably was the mother OR THE father (the writer was sexist on top of it). Ah, life can be so sad. We’re all living the Wisconsin Death Trip.

Anyway, I hope to see the movie Hancock today. I also started a lovely little book called “The Secret Life of Bees.”