Stacy Horn's Blog, page 196

The Prelinger Archives

I’ve known about the Prelinger Archives for many years, but I wasn’t aware of just how much of their collection was available online! It’s a treasure trove! I just watched the Coney Island one and caught a glimpse of Pip and Flip, who I always thought were Zip and Pip. From the Coney Island website:

“Pip and Flip were twins who were often advertised as coming from the Yucatan of Mexico (although sometimes also from Australia). They were actually born in New York and the sisters ‘real’ names were Elvira and Jenny Lee Snow. They suffered from the birth defect of microcephaly which contributed to their “pinhead” physicality. They often worked in Coney Island side shows during the 1930′s. They appeared in the 1933 MGM movie Freaks, directed by Tod Browning.”

There’s a film defending the WWII internment of Japanese Americans, another called Symptoms in Schizophrenia, which “Shows masked mental patients enacting various schizophrenic symptoms as they were understood at the time. A disturbing film that raises questions about the condition and treatment of its subjects.”

Seriously, you need to explore what they offer. My post doesn’t even begin to cover what they have there. Yikes! I have to leave for swimming!

Rio+20: Richard Black is Freaking Me out. Plus, Gamma Ray Bursts.

But please read his article about this month’s Rio+20 summit, which I have just heard about for the first time, which is a problem right there. From the piece:

Among the report’s “low-lights” are:

- air pollution indoors and outdoors is probably causing more than six million premature deaths each year.

- greenhouse gas emissions are on track to warm the world by at least 3C on average by 2100.

- most river basins contain places where drinking water standards are below World Health Organization standards.

It’s a short article. It takes a minute to read.

Another thing that is freaking me out now—gamma ray bursts. These are the result of explosions in space. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s comment about gamma ray bursts possibly happening nearby:

“I don’t want to be around for that day.”

I was watching a show called Last Days on Earth, and according to how it was depicted on the program, the worst part was that death from a nearby gamma ray burst would not necessarily be instantaneous. It looked like we’d all be slowly cooked to death, and I actually spent time trying to figure out how I would kill the cats and myself to end our suffering more quickly. I could jump off the roof, but the cats could survive that.

So yeah. Have a nice weekend!

When did we stop using articles in speech?

I first noticed it, I think, when people started saying “I’m going to prom,” or “what about prom, Blaine??” (from Pretty in Pink). Not the prom, just prom. The other day people were saying Prince Philip is in hospital. Not the hospital, or a hospital, just hospital.

Why is this okay?

I am still without a working camera. These are a couple of old pictures. First up a house finch on my fire escape. I fell in love with him, but he never even looked my way. He just flew off and I haven’t seen him since.

These are pigeons in a nearby park, which has since been totally redone, it doesn’t look like this anymore. They probably wouldn’t stand for this mass of pigeons in the sparkly new park.

The Universe Hates Me and Airtime

I thought I would have my camera back by today, at the latest. But the parts that came in didn’t work and so now I have to wait for replacement parts for the replacement parts. Then, my cellphone broke. I’m going broke fixing broken things.

Wait a minute. What the hell is going on with my arm in this photograph?? I have stick arms, I swear. That’s Finney, by the way. Monster-cat of Perry Street. This is a screenshot from ichat.

Has anyone tried Airtime yet? It’s a video chat service started by the Napster guys. I signed up for it on Facebook, but then I was too afraid to hit “Talk to Someone.”



I invited a friend to do it with me, someone I don’t mind seeing me … not at my best. But it doesn’t work in Safari. I had to switch to Google Chrome, and he only had Safari. I’m trying to think of fun things I can do to promote my singing book and Airtime is one of the things I’m exploring.

Here I am, offering proof that I have stick arms, in spite of all the swimming. Notice the closed mouth smile in my pictures? I don’t like how my smile looks now. I hope when all my dental work is done I have a pretty smile again.

Thank you, Rad Bradbury

And boy did you know how to say goodbye. I just read his essay, Take Me Home, which appeared in this week’s New Yorker. Be prepared to cry.

I may have my camera back tomorrow. I took this last year, but didn’t post it because it’s not really a picture of anything. Barack Obama was in town and he drove through my neighborhood, except I missed him. This is just the aftermath, a sad picture of what I didn’t see, of barricades that someone had already started to put away.

In Search of Descendants of Julia Northall Bodstein

In Grace Church, in the southwest corner of the church, right below the organ gallery where a professional choir used to sing, there’s a statue of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians and church music. Underneath the statue is a plaque which reads: “Her children place this statue in devout memory of Julia Northall Bodstein, who in this church through nine and twenty years sang the praises of God.” Julia was the soprano soloist for the professional choir and she sang in Grace Church from 1846 (when the church opened) to 1875.

I didn’t end up including her in the book, but I did research her a little. She was married to Frederick William Bodstein, and she had four daughter although one daughter, Flora, died when she was only three years old. Her other daughters were Clara, Lucy and Emily. Emily Bodstein Proctor and her husband, William Proctor, were the ones to install the plague, in 1920. The sculptor was John Massey Rhind.

Julia died on June 28, 1896, when she was 72. My picture of the statue didn’t come out well, I need to go back and try again, but this is the plaque. If by any chance any of her descendants come across this post, I’d love to learn more about her. And see a picture of her!

The Return to Grace

We’ve been singing at other churches for a couple of years now, while Grace Church undergoes renovations, and this winter we return to Grace! It’s very exciting for us. The last time I was in Grace Church, which was only a few weeks ago, it seemed not at all near ready, but I’m crossing my fingers.

I took these before a performance at St. Thomas. We look so fancy on performance night.

A Camera-Less Birthday and Amelia Earhart

By the way, the copy editor went through my book and removed practically all the hyphens. I’m sure she would take the hyphen out of the “camera-less” in my post title there.

Today is shelter animal day, or something animal day, and there are related events going on at Union Square and up at the Wild Bird Fund, and I’m planning on stopping by. But it’s killing me that I won’t be able to photograph the animals and birds. KILLING. I am so frustrated.

My birthday is off to a great start though, because Buddy just ate two cans of food and now he is eating Finney’s food. He is pretty unequivocally getting better.

So, you’ve all heard the news about Amelia Earhart, right? It’s upsetting that the distress calls that were dismissed as bogus might have been genuine. Could she have been saved had they not been ignored?

What picture am I going to put here?? Here’s a shot I took a few weeks ago of a guy walking dogs. I always take pictures of dog walkers, because I always wish I was the dog walker.

My Camera is Broken. Again.

Christ, these Canon G9s are delicate flowers. This is the third time this camera has broken. Buying a new camera costs more money so every time this happens I make the decision to repair it, and I should get a new camera already but the truth is I kinda love the damn thing. The techs don’t work weekends at my repair place, which means no one is going to even look at it until Monday.

I take pictures every day! Home am I going to survive??

The statue of the Virgin Mary pictured below is a casualty from the Paring Down Process that is integral to my annual Spring Cleaning. Every year I have to get rid of a certain amount of stuff or my apartment starts to feel uncomfortably cluttered. We’ve been through a lot together though, Mary and me. Someone else had gotten rid of her roughly 36 years ago, when I found her and picked her up off the streets of Cambridge, MA, where I was going to school. Since then I’ve been carting her from place to place every time I’ve moved. She’s survived college, grad school, marriage, divorce, countless jobs, starting a business, five books, I could go on.

She was an interesting conversation piece too, because I’m not religious. “So, what are you doing with a statue of the Virgin Mary,” people would ask. I was raised catholic, I’d explain. I don’t believe but I still take comfort in and enjoy the beauty of religious iconography. But Mary has been falling apart for a while now, and leaves a pile of plaster dust wherever she sits.

Usually when I put something down on the street it’s gone within ten minutes. Mary was still around when I came back hours later. Thankfully, by the next day someone had decided they wanted her. I hope. Maybe the building super out her in the garbage. But I am going to chose to believe someone took her home.

World Science Festival Webcasts

This is great! Some of the events at the World Science Festival are going to be webcast, the schedule is here. I want to watch this one tonight at 8pm:

Quantum Biology and the Hidden Nature of Nature

John Hockenberry, Paul Davies, Seth Lloyd, and others

Can the spooky world of quantum physics explain bird navigation, photosynthesis and even our delicate sense of smell? Clues are mounting that the rules governing the subatomic realm may play an unexpectedly pivotal role in the visible world. Join leading thinkers in the emerging field of quantum biology as they explore the hidden hand of quantum physics on the scales of everyday life.

The battery on my camera died while I was out today so here is yet another picture from my trip out to Brooklyn on Monday. (You’d think I was on a safari or something.) A working gas lamp!