Elinor Nauen

There is a CONCENTRATION CAMP on U.S. soil. I can't think of much else. 

This is from Lucian K. Truscott IV's substack. He talks at length about Dachau then:

 Governor Ron DeSantis has built his own concentration camp, which he calls "Alligator Alcatraz," on the land of an airport in the Everglades. Nearly 900 undocumented migrants are kept there in cages inside huge tents, 30 or more to a cage. There are only three toilets and sinks for dozens and dozens of inmates. Reports from the camp say they are being fed spoiled fruit, moldy bread, ham or cheese sandwiches and little else. Swarms of mosquitoes are everywhere. Inmates are covered in festering bites.

... Nobody knows what the temperature is inside the tents, because no one is allowed inside the concentration camp to inspect conditions. A few Florida lawmakers from both parties, including state representatives and members of the Florida congressional delegation, were allowed into the camp last Saturday for two hours. They were not permitted to bring phones or cameras inside. Journalists were not permitted to accompany them. Citizens from the local area, including members of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida who live nearby on land in the Everglades, are not permitted entrance to the camp.

Guards are being hired by Critical Response Strategies, a company that has been contracted to run the camp. The pay is $29 per hour, with $39 per hour for overtime. ... One guard who worked at the concentration camp and quit told the Washington Post that she had been put to work at the camp the same day she was hired ... If people are being hired and put to work as guards on the same day, it does not appear that they are given training or much of a background check.

There is much more, & it is shocking & intolerable. Unconscionable. But as a small antidote to this horror, my rabbi sent an email this afternoon, with the above photo & this message: Our neighbors at Madina Masjid [the mosque around the corner,] are in the midst of a construction project and ... since June, we have been hosting them on Fridays. We have been in relationship with the Imams and lay leaders of the Madina Masjid for decades. They participate in our annual, community-wide Spiritual Sounds concert and we have been there to support one another in difficult times as well. 

Shabbat Shalom.

1) Homeless veteran. Hungry. He had striking blue eyes. Do you want half a sandwich? I showed him the bag, sealed with an Elephant & Castle sticker. What is it? Cheddar and watercress. He thought for a moment. OK, he said, & held out his hand. I felt like I was supposed to thank him. 

2) He was sitting outside the pharmacy. No shade but the sidewalk is wide there. A deep box for contributions. Can you buy me deodorand at Rite Aid, he asked, miming applying it. No but I can give you a dollar, I said. Like the first one, he thought about it for a minute before he took my money. 

OK. 

Has it been long enough since I complained about the weather that my chance has come around again? Not so much a complain as a question: How is it possible that it rained so hard yesterday that some of the subways were flooded & yet today it's just as humid as it's been for a month? 

Hey WillisWeather, fix this for me! Or least explain it in way that makes me have hope for the future?

Looking for them* doesn't do any good. Maybe saying I can't find them will. 

* Right now, here are the books that I know I have but can't find. I don't know where else to look but that's where they are:

A Voyage to Pagany, William Carlos Williams

How Spring Comes, Alice Notley (I did find Johnny's copy) 

The Origin of THE Species, Barbara Barg

Magpie Rising, Merrill Gilfillan

Greggo lost his copy of Pagany years ago & would always ask me if I had it. I bought a copy a few years back & now it's gone. 

I feel like a teenager could come over & spot any of these, all of these, on my shelves in seconds. 

If you want a book, I have it. If you want a specific book, good luck. 

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

~ Louis Armstrong

Not a Bastille Day quote. 

Not a profound quote either. 

Just a moment of levity. 

I tagged it with that frequently used title, because I have barely left my neighborhood this summer (except for a week in South Carolina, which is a different neighborhood of mine) but it isn't inspiring me to an anecdote. My mind is full of a problem in Norwegian: in English, "coat" means both a garment and a covering/varnish. But not so directly in Norwegian. I'm trying to find a word that implies both. It's riveting to try to track down words, in either English or Norwegian. I can appreciate the etymology better in English, of course. 

The weather has scrambled my brain so egg-like, I want my momma: friend chicken. I mean fried chicken (a telling typo!).

My pigeons had 2 eggs. One hatched on Monday. On Wednesday a dead newborn was lying on the ground in front of my door. On Thursday, there were 2 babies in the nest, one of which has to be at least a week or 10 days old. Very puzzling. 

I haven't actually eaten any chicken & it kind of turns my stomach to think of it. 

Nonetheless, a craving. 

Pigeons can feel the distress of their companions & at times will foster or adopt others' birds. 

Apparently, that's more than I can manage.

Someone said that about me this morning and within an hour 2 people had asked for directions: a couple with suitcases trying to find the Freeman's Alley hotel & an older lady who possibly has never been below 57th Street. I have, it seems, maintained my miniature-golf, ask-me-anything face despite all my years as a black-wearing East Village Malcontent. 

I didn't know her well but a lot of people I know relied on her. Her being is strong. Her writing is necessary.

"In the spirit there are no accidents. God is already ahead and waiting: the future is full." ~ Fanny Howe

Was there ever a time when it was under 90°? Was it during my lifetime? Can you personally remember being something other than a swamp creature? Is there a place in the world where it's not s*u*m*m*e*r, with a little sun hitting you with a golden hammer at every breath you take? 

What I read is a well-chosen & profound poem, posted each Sunday by Terence Winch on the Best American Poetry site. Every single poem is a winner. I have met several terrific new-to-me poets. I don't know how he does it.

I suddenly remember being at a bar in lower Manhattan with Terence, the late Ted Greenwald, & a few others. When the bartender found out that the man who wrote "When New York Was Irish" was drinking in his bar, believe me, none of us paid for another round. 

I've never been to a psychic, for all the standard sensible reasons. For research on some now-forgotten project, I did go to someone who claimed to channel an ancient spirit, whose message was not much more than greed is good. That was in the 90s. I suddenly think maybe I should go see a psychic ~ there's one on my block, in fact ~ & find out what she's all about. How do they manage to pay a NYC rent? They must know something. 

... over? Like I always say, we get a couple of weeks of nice weather at the end of May. Then it's Memorial Day. A week later is the Fourth of July & a week after that is Labor Day. And that's the summer. 

Stay safe today, everybody. 

Short answer: books about winter. Books with snow, ice, arctic in the title... They include The Palace of the Snow Queen by Barbara Sjoholm and Wandering Through Winter by Edwin Way Teale. A similar book is at hand everywhere I sit in my house or office. It's not really helping me survive the heat but I enjoy these books a great deal

A lovely article about Ringo at age 85 in today's NYT has me bopping to all the songs I've loved most of my life. I remember seeing A Hard Day's Night as a kid ~ it sent me leaping over fire hydrants: exuberance I didn't know existed. Someone who picked me up hitchhiking had a tape repeating on one side "Hey Jude" & on the other "Me & Bobby McGee"; that was all he listened to, one side then the other. He was happy to have exactly 2 songs that had everything he wanted.

Well, this happened: I've been studying Norwegian very closely for a while now & have been saying to myself that I should go to Norway & speak norsk (å snakke norsk). I checked today & fares were really reasonable so I didn't hesitate & bought a ticket for September. I'm never spontaneous like that, I never travel by myself, I feel giddy! Then I billed everyone I work for & it's exactly enough to cover the airfare. I'm excited to buy books, get to know Oslo, visit my friends in Bodø, & of course to practice my language skills. So!

People exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love, and to defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know.

~ Wendell Berry

Is this a new thing everywhere or just in the tragically hip East Village: restaurants with ONE DISH. Or a shtick along the same line. 

There's an ice cream place where you order blind & get what they give you. I'm betting it's always vanilla, with or without sprinkles. 

There's a pasta place where your only choice is alfredo fettuccine (althought there's a long list of add-ons). 

I don't know of others but it feels like organization... a movement! as Arlo Guthrie says in "Alice's Restaurant." 

... I'm happy every day. 

The weather is certainly pleasing me today. It finally broke. Yesterday was in the mid-70s & people were wearing jackets ~ a drop of 25° actually made it seem chilly. Hooray! 

So much sucks, at least it's nice to not be mad at the weather.

The people who voted for Mamdani because he wasn't Cuomo... because they didn't know anything about him... because he was cute/ubiquitous/rich/a nepo baby... I can't help but feel that in many ways they're the tRump voters of 2016 - not caring if their candidate is competent or can do what he claims, just wanting something different. And is the case so often, dismissing Jewish concerns about antisemitism. I always think, you're no more entitled to tell a Jew what is or isn't antisemitism than I, a white person, can tell a Black person that something is or isn't racist. If Mamdani had said the equivalent of "globalize the intifada" about any other group, he would have been backlashed out of the room. As always, it's OK to dump on Jews. 

I'm not often overtly political here, but I can't shake the idea of Mamdani voters being sure of themselves & ignorant, just like tRump voters. 

Note: Not sure when this will go up, there's something amiss with my website that I'm hoping the indefatigable Hector can fix quickly. 

Ramona né Ramon lived as a woman but didn't really make an effort (daylong 5 o'clock shadow). This was in the days when our landlord referring to her as he-she-it was less shockingly offensive than it would be now, at least 40 years ago. She didn't speak English but did a lot of broom-banging & taking people to court for noise. She always lost because in fact she was the loud one. Ramona was OK, though, at least if she didn't live below you. She was probably the least strange of my many strange neighbors in the early days of the Pound, when people could afford to live there on an SSI check. (Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provides benefits to disabled children and adults, and people who have very little resources or income. These days it pays out less than $1,000 a month, far from enough to live in my gentrified neighborhood.)

Real feel right this minute is 112°. 

Watching Ann Miller in the terrific "Too Darn Hot" sequence from Kiss Me, Kate might not cool you down but it will wake you up.

Vote early, vote often: today's the day. 

Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.

~ Wade Davis, Canadian cultural anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer, and writer (1953– )

My office is down a half-flight of stairs. The other afternoon a young man was sitting on the bottom step. I've never once seen anyone hanging out there, & I have to say the pigeons have added not such a pleasant aroma. Hey, I called, this isn't a great place to sit — people come & go all the time. He slowly turned & considered me, then slowly gathered his belongings, which involved dropping them several times before he managed to get them into his pockets. A pill bottle sat on the step. You're forgetting your bottle, I said - unless it's good drugs. It is, he said slowly, then slowly picked it up, pocketed it, and climbed the stairs (slowly).

First we went to the Park Avenue Armory for the Diane Arbus show, which made both of us nauseated when we walked in to 450 photos on scaffolding, all at heights either too high or too low to really see the photos. The building itself is amazing & I almost became a member just to be able to sit in the comfortable chairs of the lounge but instead we walked over to MoMA, which I did join, & wandered through the Picasso, Légers, & Matisses untill the day's heat left our weary feet. 

It is raining on my building but not the ones on either side of me or across the street, where the sky is blue. 

I should probably have my own zip code. 

I was startled recently to find two young people (30, 24) who had never heard of traveler's checks, something that was ubiquitous in my youth. Part of the anticipation of a trip abroad was going to the bank & buying them, following discussions of the most useful denominations & just how much money you would need for the entire trip. After a highly scientific poll of everyone I ran into & remembered to ask, I discovered that age 40 is approximately the line between having used them & never having heard of them - they had an idea of what they were but had never seen these checks themselves. A couple of people thought they weren't a bad scheme, like the kid who came up with the ingenious idea of a phone that's attached to the wall so you wouldn't lose it. 

If you have a burning need to know more, here's a short but thorough article. 

When my current pigeon parents (whose babies are now hearty & almost flying) were building their nest of twigs in front of my office door, I dropped a long piece of soft husk on the ledge for them. They did not use it but left it lying where I'd laid it. Now the nest has turned to a beaten-down black mass, with no individual twigs - except for the piece I left them, which is still laying to the side. The nest was never so well-constructed that an additional bit of material wouldn't have come in handy, but they weren't interested & clearly knew it was an interloping piece. 

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

~ John Muir

People too! As Jesse Colin Young sang, Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now. 

What music is on your spotify or tapedeck or however you listen? I need some new songs! I'll check out anything anyone suggests. Doesn't have to be new. No parameters! Thank you!