Stacy Horn's Blog, page 14

Hi! And, I really don’t understand people, it seems.

I haven’t posted in a while, I realized yesterday. There’s been so much going on I don’t know where to start. First: Thank you, Georgia! You saved the day again. Second: How on earth can any reasonable person still support Trump (I know why racists and others support him, but not decent people)?

Third: I really don’t understand why McConnell passed on proceeding with a trial. If the trial happens when the democrats are in control, it will be a real trial, unlike last time. They will call witnesses. They will search for and examine evidence. They will investigate the possibility that some senators had a hand in this riot.

I could see McConnell being fine with destroying Trump, but his fellow republican senators? If the trial happened now, he could have ended it quickly, like last time, without actually doing anything.

Last, I’m attending a zoom funeral shortly. Another friend has died (not COVID). Another decent, wonderful human being is gone. Fucking death. Too much death. Give us a god damned break already. I was telling his widow (I hated typing that) I loved how he followed my blog and would ask specific questions about my cats. Not simply “how are the cats” (which is fine, by the way, I am always touched when people ask) but he would ask, “how is the behavior issue going,” or he’d ask about whatever health issue they were experiencing at the time. We went to all the Loser’s Lounges together and I don’t know how I’m going to feel the first time, and every other time he’s not there. I think it can’t help always being sad.

I took this picture because it was genuinely cold out that day and people were still sitting outside to eat.

Goodbye 2020

Of course I am home, doing nothing. I really should be working on my book proposal today, but I didn’t and I’m going to have to let that go for now. Live to fight another day. Like tomorrow.

But I feel good about staying in. A friend, who is a medical examiner, posts a lot of COVID news and reactions, and his latest post about the new strain properly scared me. I’ve been good about following all the guidelines, but we’re all going to have to do even better. And a high school friend of mine just died, on December 22. He lived in Colorado, so I’ve been thinking more about the new strain (it has shown up in Colorado). His name was John Arnold, sweetest guy in the world. We spoke on the phone a couple of months ago, he was helping me understand some concepts I needed to learn about to write this proposal. And now he’s dead. While the president golfs. Fucking fuck.

I was in Chinatown recently, getting new lenses for all my glasses (best prices are in Chinatown). The streets are always famously packed, but when I took a long walk through Chinatown a few months ago it wasn’t like this. People have been getting lax. Not so much lax really, I think, as weary. But we need to go back to being super vigilant again. I was very happy this day in Chinatown. The new lenses in all my glasses made the world sharp and bright again. All was well. Ish.

Who is this choirboy?

I’ve posted about this before. In the movie The Bishop’s Wife, the Mitchell Boychoir perform a hymn called O Sing to God. I love the arrangement. But every time I see this movie, and I watch it every holiday season, there’s one boy who always gets my attention. Every once in a while I try to find out who is he is. The movie was made in 1947, and I’m guessing he was around 15 years old, maybe a little older. That would make him 88+ now.

I just tried a Google image search, but no luck. Maybe I can find programs for Mitchell Boychoir performances in 1947 which list all the boys in the choir. Who is this boy??

Here’s a screenshot of him, but you can also see him here. I cued it so when you click on the link it starts at the moment he appears.

I don’t know why, but I just want to know how his life went. What did he do? Where did he go? Did he keep singing? Was his life mostly happy? (Are most people’s lives mostly happy?)

When Zoom Works

My friends David Schwartz and Anne Dorobis have this amazing holiday party every year, amazing because they are great hosts and they have a lot of talented musical friends. There is always a line-up of gifted performances at their parties. This year the party was on Zoom and it really worked. They made it fun, (with a limerick contest and the traditional musical performances) but they also made it special by inviting everyone to say a few words about what they missed this year and what they were were looking forward to when things get more back to normal. I loved hearing what everyone said. Choked me up.

I said I missed singing great music in harmony every week with other people, but I was loving reading books again for the sheer pleasure of it, and not because there was something I needed or wanted to learn, or for research.

Peace on Earth on Perry Street

I had a behavior problem with my cats, (Bodhi and Bali making Bleecker’s life miserable) so whenever I have evidence that things are better I have to take a picture. Bodhi and Bali still chase Bleeck sometimes, which he doesn’t love. But I’m starting to think that maybe they always chased him, and I just didn’t pay attention before because someone is always chasing someone around here. In any case, peace reigns at times.

This is Bali sleeping on top of Bleecker. While I was dealing with the behavior problem Bleecker couldn’t even be in the same room with the other cats. This is a miracle. And …

This is all three of them chilling out together. Bleeck is on my lap and that is Bodhi and Bali on the desk, distracted by something in the window. Hopefully a bird. And not Godzilla. (That was a big fear of mine as a child, that Godzilla might arrive at any moment. Or, that a volcano would erupt and I’d have to run from the lava.)

Oh! I love the COVID artifact on my laptop. I have to take my temperature before going to work and then email them that I’m good to go. I forgot once, so now I have a note reminding me to do this.

The Loser’s Lounge is back. A little.

I watched a livestream of a mini-Loser’s Lounge last night, and had a zoom meeting with friends as we watched it. I teared up. A glimpse of life back to normal. (The Loser’s Lounge is a musical tribute show I’ve been going to for about 25 years.) You can see last night’s show here. The next livestream is January 21st, according to their website.

Balloons. Always uplifting. Spotted these as I was leaving work last week. Someone had a fun night!

A Walk in the Snow

I took a walk in the snow last night. This was my favorite shot, even though it wasn’t much of a “snow” shot. But it felt magical walking around the West Village late at night, with only snow plows and others like myself, who wanted to be the midst of it all, and this shot captured how I felt.

This is the garden at St. Lukes, where I sit sometimes to read, although not for a long time.

A man and his dog.

I was walking behind him for a while.

A girl in search of a drink? I’m kidding. That’s the White Horse Tavern and it was closed.

My pictures make it look like it wasn’t much of a storm, but it was. This was one of the first shots I took. This is my block, looking back towards my building, where you can rent an apartment and be my neighbor according to the sign. Maybe I should go out and get more shots now, because it continued to snow throughout the night. It should be more dramatically snowy now.

Goodbye, Record Mart

The pandemic continues to break my heart. Since I started working at the ASPCA I’ve been passing by this store inside the Times Square subway stop, Record Mart. I love it because I’m a nostalgia junkie and they always had great hifi nostalgia displays. So I was very sad to see this note pictured on their shuttered store when I returned to work at the ASPCA Hospital last month. I’m glad that they will continue online, but I will miss their window displays.

Could they really be the oldest record store in Manhattan, as they say in this sign? How is it possible the first opened as late as 1958? Here is their history. Okay, according to a quick search they are not the oldest, no disrespect to Record Mart. The Commodore Music Shop opened in 1935 on 42nd Street. And the Casa Latina del Bronx record store opened in 1951, and moved to a new location in 1955 as Casalegre. Okay, that’s the Bronx, not Manhattan. Anyway, I’m sure there are many contenders. Doesn’t matter. I miss passing Record Mart by and I hope people will shop at their online store.

Here’s a picture of their window that I posted last year.

Save Cats Now

Please go to the Cats Act website and help save cats from horrific experiments. I don’t even want to describe what they’re doing. It’s monstrous.

Caroling in Central Park

I got to sing carols in the park with my choir, The Choral Society of Grace Church. It was great, but I thought we were going to end with the Hallelujah Chorus and we didn’t. I don’t think our director, John Maclay, thought we were up to it given we haven’t been singing regularly since March. (Maybe he was right, maybe not.) This is John handing out our music. The picture that follows is of a ballet class we passed by on our way home.