Elinor Nauen

Kinda liked having a day where I didn’t so much as get dressed. I did sit in Maggie’s Breakfast Nook, on the fire escape, with my coffee and a book, but other than that, I lay around. Today it’s back to activities and obligations, renewed by the rest.

Elinor Nauen at night? That would be an oversize t-shirt & fuzzy socks. Black? Goes without saying. This is the East Village.

This beautiful church is around the corner from me. (Sorry: the photo doesn't do it justice at all.) I've been in there once or twice. I don't know much about Eastern (Russian) Orthodoxy, just that there are no pews—you stand for the whole service, which isn't short.

The thing about New York is that everything you want is here, with the obvious non-urban exceptions. Sometimes it seems like that "everything" is right on my block. This beautiful church, Anthology Film Archives, celebrity restaurants, Manhattan Mini Storage, Gringers Appliances, the late Boca Chica, East Village Radio, and more—they're all on this one block (1st & 2nd aves between 1st & 2nd streets & vice versa).  Read More 

My friend Avery told me she'd lived in 22 places by the time she was 20. Here's my history:
Born at 1503 S. Summit Avenue, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

When I was 11 or 12, we moved kitty-corner across the street to 812 W. 23rd.

Left at 18 for Snyder-Phillips Hall (part of the residential college Justin Morrill, which was actually pretty cool, even tho I hated college & dropped out ASAP)

The House in Severn, MD, which I shared with a bunch of Air Force guys I met at an antiwar demonstration in D.C.

Briefly back to Michigan & then Sioux Falls, where I bought Ernest, a 1950 Dodge schoolbus, which I lived in for the next year in Sioux Falls, Rapid City (SD), Denver, Boulder & Longmont, Colorado.

Then LeRoy, a 1954 Ford F-100, on which we built  Read More 

When Doug & Alice moved to Paris in 1992, Alice gave me a fancy coat, a hand-me-down from Lita Hornick, & a book of Troubador poems; Doug gave me a set of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), 26 volumes published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1903. As with the Encyclopedia Britannica, I know that I could get the complete Stevenson on my iPod for a buck or 2, but these are beautiful & pristine and make me wonder who else besides Doug ever opened them.

Stevenson, by the way, is a really good writer, who had pretty enlightened politics. Yesterday in Across the Plains, he deplored the prejudice against the Chinese ("Their forefathers watched the stars before mine had begun to keep pigs") and Indians ("a chapter of injustice and indignity such as a man must be in some ways base if his heart will suffer him to pardon or forget").  Read More 

The difference between young and old is when you're young and sick, you say you feel sick, and when you're old and sick, you say you feel old.

OK, the snow is out in western South Dakota, but it means my favorite weather is on its way here too. They had 2' in Rapid City, almost 4' up in Lead, in the Black Hills.

And I'm happy to be still in touch with so many of my friends from high school (and junior high and grade school). There’s so much that feels rootless in my life, but one thing that can’t be taken away is my past.

Although that's not true if you've been lied to, according to an op-ed in the Times: "Insidiously, the new information disrupts their sense of their own past, undermining the veracity of their personal history. Like a computer file corrupted by a virus, their life narrative has been invaded. Memories are now suspect: what was really going on that day? Compulsively going over past events in light of their recently acquired (and unwelcome) knowledge, such patients struggle to integrate the new version of reality. For many people, this discrediting of their experience is hard to accept."

Hey wait, I'm simply happy to think about the beautiful snowfall: I remember sitting on the porch of the Franklin Hotel in Deadwood, watching a thick but not serious snow falling on the spruce hills across the way, so warm that sitting outdoors was a delight.

It is what it was. Read More 

Someone was giving away a complete, almost unopened set of the 1957 Encyclopædia Britannica, in 24 volumes. What a score! Several friends wondered why I would take up so much space when all that information is online and up to date. (I have the online version on my iPod Touch.) The difference is that the books send me the long and serendipitous way.

I may have gone to Volume 21 (Sord to Texas) to bone up on Terrellas (sadly, not there) but I got, or didn't get, there by way of Tapeworms (yuk), the Stamp Act (George Grenville, 1765), and Tennyson: "He became the victim of a certain 'earnest-frothy' speculator, who induced him to ... invest in a 'Patent Decorative Carving Company'; in a few months, the whole scheme collapsed, and Tennyson was left penniless." Which reminded me of Auden calling Tennyson "undoubtedly the stupidest" English poet, which in turn reminded me of Byron's savage "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," which made me wonder why poets today all get along.  Read More 

Being from a farm state, I'm interested in where our food comes from. (I mean, everyone is, right? at least to some extent.) Even so, as a kid, I rarely saw vegetables that weren't wrapped in plastic: South Dakota grows corn & soybeans, not fruits & veggies. I can't think of any truck farms around Sioux Falls, although we used to drive way across town to an occasional farmers market; but what did we buy? (As an aside, the one summer my mother had a little garden, she grew potatoes.)

Now I live in NYC, with frequent access to farmers markets that sell everything you can eat (emu eggs, purple carrots, heirloom tomatoes, you name it), wool from their own goats, meat, eggs, wheatgrass, maple syrup, honey from the beekeepers, & on & on. It's expensive, no doubt, & what would make it better would be lots more farmers growing lots more healthy food for lots more people.

Well, that isn't likely to happen, according to a piece in the Times. Here's an excerpt:
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My sister Varda had the artist Sally Mara Sturman make this bowl for my birthday last year. You can't see that around the inside it says "The Great Game of Bingelbumpf," which is a card game Vee & I invented 15 or 20 years ago. There are endless rules (which are printed on the outside of the bowl). These madden most people. The only four people to ever play Bingelbumpf willingly even eagerly are me, Vee, our sister Lindsay, & our brother Charlie. Others (et tu, Lara?) bizarrely claim that we make things up as we go along, which only seems to be the case because we can't remember all the rules from game to game. What the hell was Fujitsu Fujitsu Fujitsu? Tim Wiles remembers it as the central rule, but we have lost it altogether.

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I have been mulling over "Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll," part of a New York Times series called Bearing Arms: Examining the gun industry’s influence and the availability of firearms in America. This article found that there are considerably more "innocent victims than official records show," that is, "Children shot accidentally—usually by other children—are collateral casualties of the accessibility of guns in America, their deaths all the more devastating for being eminently preventable."

Honestly, I don't even know how to think about this in any way that is sympathetic to  Read More 

I love my office/studio but familiarity means that sometimes I can't get anything done here, despite building (well, Albie did) an Elfa shelving system that includes a second desk in the middle room, where I don't have internet and do have my poetry books at hand. It's where I work on art as opposed to work-work in the front room but at times I just can't get started.

Not long ago, my friend Maggie & I were reminiscing about how great it is to be at artist colonies, where we can devote ourselves to art with no distractions (no errands, cooking, email, and on & on). From that we came up with the concept of Colony Day, where we take half a day or so & reproduce the leisure and expansiveness of time at a retreat. The best part is that we allow ourselves to explore, not just Get Stuff Done—to read, think, & feel like we have all the time we want to do what really matters.

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Never Waste a Virgin

to be an artist you have to live in a little room and subsist on rice
cold-water flats are about as rare as tuberculosis
small time, hard pressed, underground, experimental
small time, hard pressed, underground, experimental

young artists are starving
the starving artist

Send $ Read More 

And happy birthday today to my only brother & my husband's only brother.

Noticed that the firehouse on 14th St has a reproduction of the Charles Demuth painting "The Figure 5 in Gold" high up on the east wall. I love that painting; I love the Williams poem "The Great Figure" that inspired the painting; I love how both obvious & private the writing is on the painting: the name BILL at the top, along with "WCW," "Carlos," and "Art Co"; and I love that Williams had so many childhood & college friends who were also artists. It's a sort of collaboration, riffing on your friends' work. Is all inspiration a form of collaboration?

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Someone in the building where Johnny works is moving to Florida & gave him a fur coat. Of course he has no idea what kind of fur, what size, what shape it's in, what style. He was pretty surprised when I didn't shudder in horror. I'm a little surprised too. I remember an ankle-length fur coat I must have gotten from a thrift store that I had in my 20s. I wore it for years till it fell off me in disgusting little pieces. It was so heavy, like wearing a sleeping bag with a friend. I'm kind of excited to have a fur coat & kind of horrified that I'm kind of excited. Can I justify wearing fur? Do I have to justify wearing fur? Will my cat freak out? Will my friends freak out?

Update: It's giant & long and a little busted up, maybe because Johnny brought it home stuffed in his backpack—he was afraid he'd get paint thrown on him. I got one "yuk, dead animal" but everyone else was fine with it.  Read More 

Spent a bit of the afternoon on a bench in the sun, reading aloud Ammons' A Tape for the Turn of the Year with Johnny. Looking forward to hearing Kevin Varrone & Pattie McCarthy tonight at the Poetry Project. It makes me happy to have so many favorite poets.

Especially when they share my birthday, as Ammons does  Read More 

Sad to hear about Carolyn Cassady's recent death at the age of 90. She was a charming, intelligent, adventurous, sometimes prickly friend. I knew her best in the '90s, after Alexandra Neil & I filmed her for a documentary about Jack Kerouac. I stayed with her in London a few years later, where we had a "theater orgy," as she called it. Another time, we went to a Yankees game: her first ballgame since the '40s. I took the FDR Drive up the East Side of Manhattan, a road that has caused more than one passenger to turn green with fear—I used to drive it every day, fast & careless, so I had no hesitation. As befits the wife of the best driver ever, Carolyn was as serene as a clam.

Almost the only time she snapped at me was once when I said drugs saved me— Read More 

Saw this much-recommended Chinese movie, forgetting that I don't like subtitles, don't like sound effects, don't much like martial arts in movies at least not when they're so dark you can't see what's going on, don't like when all the dialogue is in aphorisms, don't like when I can't figure out what's going on, don't like my husband shouting out random comments, don't like no car chases. I did like the credits, though.  Read More 

I can't remember hearing Sam Cooke (1931-64) for the first time. As a kid, we didn't do gospel, & his pop was before my time (still his music I care for least). But I have had him on constant play for at least 30 years, especially him with the gospel quartet Soul Stirrers. Along with having one of the most compelling voices in popular music, he wrote "A Change Is Gonna Come," "You Send Me," "Twistin' the Night Away," produced, pioneered & still managed to be murdered at age 33.

Possibly my all-time favorite record (not songs but a record as a whole) is One Night Stand: Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club (which is in Miami, not New York, by the way). It has King Curtis on sax & Sam singing free and dirty somewhere between  Read More 

Across 23rd Street, on the 2nd floor, in a loft empty but for a ladder, a couple waltzing. A man & a woman hearing their song.

In Union Square, Tango on the Square. Music seemed modern-classical not Spanish. Several couples danced in the pavilion, one on the pavement. [Wed & Sun, 6-9, beginners class 7-8]

On 9th St, a few young people spilling out of a bar.


I should mention that Robyn noticed all these before I did.  Read More 

As a walker’s city, New York is a place where you run into people you know (& celebrities: Dennis Quaid in Central Park! Sigourney Weaver on 57th Street! Billy Crystal in Chinatown! Bill Murray in Soho! Lou Piniella in a beautiful full-length black cashmere coat in the West 40s!).

But it’s more fun—and more frequent—to run into your friends, stop & catch up. A peephole into our everyday lives—there's X on her way to work, Y with a loaf of bread ("where'd you get it?"), Z wearing cool new shoes. A living Facebook.

And then there are the people from around the nabe that I see regularly. We recognize each other, sometimes nod, sometimes even chat (though only if something weird is going on). Those familiar unknowns are a part of the texture of every city walker's life. Once in a while, it goes a little further: I was taken to a party last winter & it turned out that the hostess was someone I chat with on the block.

OK, headed out to see what I see.  Read More 

My brilliant Pilates instructor deserves a shoutout. I couldn't do karate if it weren't for Jeremy. He keeps me aligned and pain-free. (Well, as pain-free as it's possible for someone who does an overly active sport at possibly too advanced an age.) I crawl in & dance out. Jeremy is also a really nice person, who laughs at my semi-witticisms & is funny himself; lets me rename exercises after birds (Herr Pilates for the most part gave them boring names like Upstretch and Roll Up—we call them Ibis & Oystercatcher); and reminds me not to despair that I'm no closer to my dream of becoming a contortionist.  Read More 

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds all glazed with rain
Someone ate the plums in the fridge
I'm so lonesome I need not explain

David McGimpsey did this mashup the Williams boys, Bill & Hank, who share a birthday today. It's as good as it gets, eh?

My other favorite pair of birthday twins: Sam Cooke & Lord Byron, on January 22.

I'm kind of excited to get birthdays in here, almost 6 months before mine on February 18. I like other people's birthdays almost as much as my own. I like running into someone & finding out what day it is: it's a little gift from them to me. I like that today—and every day—is someone’s birthday.  Read More 

From all the nominations that have been pouring in, we have chosen SILHOUETTE as this week's Beautiful Word. Don't forget to vote! —March 11, 1969, from my column "Nauen Then" in my high-school newspaper, The Orange & Black.

Do I need to point out that my sense of humor hasn't changed, that I still swoon over favorite words, & I continue to needle people to vote?  Read More 

I love the internet. Man, you can find everything. Not just information of the sort many of us google for dozens of times a day, but inspiration, suggestions, community. Today I answered the last of 10 questions on a site called 10Q (www.doyou10q.com).

"Reflect. React. Renew.
"Life's Biggest Questions. Answered By You.
"Answer one question per day in your own secret  Read More 

I was in New York City 10 minutes when I knew I would move here, live here the rest of my life, and always feel the same excitement and appreciation that I did in those first moments. That was in 1976, and so far I’ve never once imagined abandoning this city. I don’t know  Read More 

I had a short meeting on the Upper East Side this morning, after which I went home & crashed for a few hours. Something about the scrunched little faces and polished bodies up there. Or maybe it's the crazy clothing for sale—lamé with net sashes, glitter dresses, $160 socks. Could be the 90° & 190% humidity.

* I am presently in love with Leonardo DaVinci.
I understand that he’s gay.
I also understand that he’s dead.
And that he was a paranoid dyslexic who wasn’t the first man to invent a flying machine. In fact, he was a great pretender compared to the three Banu Musa brothers of  Read More 

And I still miss someone.