Elinor Nauen

It's satisfying to have caught up with every single thing on my to-do list. 

The store & the laundry will be back, of course, but for now I am free of obligations. 

A small but gratifying pleasure. 

I had the middle section of a sectional couch, covered in nubby aqua-glitter cloth. It was wide in the back but narrow in front, so it barely fit two people yet took up a disproportionate amount of room in my small apartment. So I decided to get rid of it. 

I threw it out my window. Oh my, what a satisfying thunk when it landed in the courtyard. There's a picture, but I can't find it & I can't really tell which way it goes. 

This was shortly before I started going out with Johnny, the longtime super of his building. 

I mentioned it one day & he was so appalled he almost broke up with me. 

It was the backyard! No one was endangered! 

Since I complained so much all summer about the enervating heat, it's only fair to shout out the energizing autumn mild. Right this minute it's 75°. There's a spring in my step (as it were) - better than a fall in my future! Giddy, I think of this:

An American Poem

In New York in autumn
leaves don't change. They wither & tumble

or wilt & stay stuck. What's special
is Saturday night.
It's the night
brokers have off
from robbing people
to mug people.
Nature?
One birch after another.
Have a nice trip—
see you next fall!

Which in turn reminds me of a poem I wrote in maybe 8th grade. I praised New York City (where I'd never been): bright lights! big city! The poem ended with this line: 

Nature: green emptiness. 

My wonderful neighbor took this wonderful photo last month in Vermont. Should be the cover of an edition of Moby-Dick, doncha think? I remember the cold, sunny New England farm houses I lived in the years I spent in Maine. 

1) Sitting on my bench, a little boy came over to show me his acorn. What does an acorn turn into? I asked him. An oak tree! He was probably 4. He was with a younger brother & a baby, and his mom, whose hair was well past her knees ~ the longest hair I've ever seen. I thought of my mom, who also had 3 kids under the age of 4 at one point. This woman didn't look the least frazzled & maybe my mother didn't either. 

2) On the corner of 5th St, I overheard a man tell the woman with him that this was the block with the Hells Angels clubhouse. That was 3rd Street, I called to them. They stopped & we chatted about the neighborhood & how it's changed, & what businesses & people were still there or not. Chris & Virginia: old friends in a moment. 

I love my neighborhood, no matter how many beloved residents & restaurants & stores disappear, no matter how many killing e-bikes replace them. 

Poetry is what we do to break bread with the dead.
~ Seamus Heaney

This makes me think of a little anthology I have of troubador poetry by women (a book I can usually put my hand on but I can't spot it at the moment)(but I can look it up: Meg Bogin's The Female Troubadours) (damn, where is it??) & how sure I am that those poets & I would be laughing together in a couple of minutes (language aside). I know them, I am sure, & they would get me. Yes, poetry is the way they are alive with me. (Oh, there it is!)

East 3rd Street, the Two Boots corner. No matter how many times I walk on any given block, I almost always see something new, surprising, &/or enchanting. I will never not love New York City. 

Look up, it's Cloud Appreciation Day

Thousands of cloudspotters around the world will be looking up on Friday September 13 and submitting photos online for the third annual Cloud Appreciation Day. Anyone, anywhere, can take part for free by photographing their sky and submitting an image for the 2024 Memory Cloud Atlas website. Images can only be submitted on the day.

"We encourage contributors to include with their photograph some words about their feelings and impressions of the sky above them on the day," says  Cloud Appreciation Society founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney. "In this way, the website serves as a worldwide snapshot of the beauty of clouds and of thousands of people around the world looking up on the same day. It's a record of people's feelings about the sky, which is the most universal part of nature that we all share."

Finally my sister & got to watch our favorite episode of What's My Line together, 3 times in fact. This is out of the something like 500 episodes that are available on YouTube. Everyone on the panel is tipsy, along with the usually unflappable moderator, John Charles Daly, but especially Arlene. Drunk in a ti many martooni sort of way. This is a great show, as I've written about before, & while this one isn't typical of its usual sophistication, it's awfully fun to see what can happen on live TV. 

My three siblings & I just spent a couple days together to commemorate the 3rd anniversary of our mother's passing, as well as what would have been her 100th year. We went to a show & had some leisurely meals full of laughter & reminiscence. One sister brought in the idea of Jeffersonian questions at dinners. It seems that Jefferson didn't like people having side conversations at his dinner parties, so he would ask a thoughtful question & every guest was expected to respond. We did that last night & it was very revealing & loving. Our first question was something we are proud of that the others might not know, & then we each said something we admired about each other. When does one have the chance for that sort of conversation?

I'd never seen Cabaret, & knew little more than it was a louche look at Berlin in the 30s. My siblings & I went last night, half-imagining it would give us a glimpse into our dad's life in Berlin - he & Christopher Isherwood were the same age & I imagine my dad as at least a hanger-on in that world, being a young man-about-town with money & curiosity. The show Cabaret, however, was kind of awful. I don't really like musicals, & this was nearly plotless plus rather random: CBGB's legendarily dirty bathroom meets Fiddler on the Roof. Maybe it would have worked better if the star (Eddie Redmayne) & not the understudy had been there to play the Emcee, or if the obviouslly gay main character wasn't having a love affair with Sally Bowles. And the sudden appearance of a Nazi was both dated & overly topical. We left at the intermission. 

The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel. 

~ Horace Walpole

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.
~ Jean de La Bruyère

I've heard this many times but who said it? Jean de La Bruyère lived a century before Walpole. Or maybe it's one of those thoughts that people have that gets credited to someone respectable to give it extra weight, the way the Psalms are attributed to King David. I think I like JdLB's version better. What does that say about me & my sense of humor, irony, or philosophy? 

This is not an old-time story but something that was in front of my building a day or 2 ago. Why? Who? No idea. Hooray for the East Village hanging on to its unapologetic strangeness. 

What the hey, I have decided to consider Brooklyn to be in the neighborhood. A 30-minute ride on the F & I knew exactly how to get to my friends' place from the train. I passed restaurants I would eat at & stores I would explore. Baz & Martha are neighbors, sympathetic, fiery friends. We laughed & talked & reminisced & I was home again in no time. An expanded neighborhood is a good thing. 

In economics, free-riding means using services, resources, and other public goods without paying (or paying enough) for them, a term often applied to tax cheats. Besides putting an extra burden on those who do pony up, free-riders can lead to lack of cooperation and cynicism, which in turn makes things worse. I've never heard the term applied to politics, but I think it could & should be: it means enjoying the benefits of government — peace, economic stability, rights & so much more — without being willing to contribute to maintaining them. A friend's partner, who's in his 40s, has never voted. He thinks (like an adolescent) that all politicians are corrupt; he will only vote for someone who is perfect & in perfect alignment with his own positions. I used to stop my mother from talking about politics - she lived in the United States for 70 years before she became a citizen - I believed she had no right to an opinion if she wasn't going to vote, if she hadn't committed herself to this country. (She became a citizen in 2016 at age 92 in order to vote for a woman.) I think of the long long lines of people waiting to vote for the first time in post-apartheid South Africa, many of them people who had dedicated their lives to acquiring that right, & it's hard to feel respectful towards people who spurn that right. 

Walked past this on 6th St, just east of the Bowery. It looks like it's been there a while, but I've never noticed it before. The wall it's on is part of a games store, so I suppose they put it up. 

Oh! Why yes, it's a real thing: 

Nintendo was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Koppai by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards. After venturing into various lines of business during the 1960s, Nintendo distributed its first console, the Color TV-Game, in 1977.

When I was 18 or 19 I went out with a guy named Jim Rigby. Over the years I've thought of him often, mostly in the context of the name I could have had if we had gotten married. Turns out I play the same role in his life - the girl who could have become Elinor Rigby. I happened to look him up on Facebook the other day, & he had just posted about dating two (!) Elinors his junior year of college. So now we're Facebook friends & catching up & he looks the same & holy crap it's been 50 years. I know it's all for the best that I ended up with Johnny & he with Marilyn but we both have that shining moment of could-have-been that is sweet to hold on to. 

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.

~ Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960), Welsh Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of the UK

I've often thought that my generation, Baby Boomers, benefited by growing up in a booming economy. Our ability to live how we chose, if we chose to, came from the cushion that the economy afforded us. Our labor wasn't needed & we made or took advantage of the Generation Gap to create our ow lives. Wouldn't have been possible if we had had debt or want. 

Talking about the Dixon Brothers the other day made me think about other musicians I've been listening to & how much I like Irma Thomas, "Soul Queen of New Orleans," not least because we share a birthday (& in fact today is our half-birthday. Someone asked me recently if I really celebrate my half-birthday. Someone who doesn't know me very well, obviously. As a kid we always had a half-cake from Dixie Bake Shop on Minnesota Avenue, the only place I know of that sold half-cakes). Irma Thomas is a contemporary of Aretha Franklin and Etta James, although not as well known, obviously. What I just learned is she had her first child at age 14, and was a mother of 4 and twice divorced by the time she was 19. Like all great singers, she sounds like it's all aimed at you. 

Update: Here she is singing "Time Is on My Side." Thanks, DB!

Issue 4 is out, featuring a stellar cast of poets & artists. One day, Maureen Owen was in town. We had a long lunch at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden & talked about the fun old days of mimeo magazines. Let's put on a show! We came up with the name Julebord, literally "Christmas table" in Norwegian, but colloquially the anything-goes holiday party. We're having fun & sharing some good work. Every issue has an all-new cast, with an exception or 2 (us & our "house artist," Basil King). 

... take off my hat & hit me with a bat, if they put the sales taxes on the women. 

A Depression-era song by the great Dixon Brothers, who also sang "Intoxicated Rat" & other close or "blood" harmony songs like "After the Ball" and "Wreck on the Highway." I like their nasal South Carolina twang. 

I went out an hour ago & came back $450 poorer. At least it wasn't a sales tax on the women. 

Part of what is so upsetting about Dale Hart's death is that he's the last of my 5 formative teachers from Sioux Falls. It's so long since I've lived there that still being a part of that world is unlikely, yet there I am & it hit me hard. Mr. Fialkowski (orchestra), Miss Kleinsasser (English), Miss Norman (journalism), & Miss Skaff (Latin). They believed in me, pushed me, were proud of me, trusted me. Taught me. 

Hard too because there are fewer & fewer people left from the generation one up from me - my parents & their peers, my teachers, my friends' parents. 

Another stab of mortality. 

He was my English teacher in junior high, who taught English and theater in the public schools of Sioux Falls for 49 years, and much later, long after I'd graduated from high school, a friend. We communicated frequently for many years, and he always sent an apropos quote or poem, and was full of gentleness and intelligent responses. I'm sure I"m not the only former student who believe themself to be a special favorite!

At least I can go back to calling him Mr. Hart, no more of this phony baloney "Dale." Dale to his face, Mr. Hart behind his back. 

He was the first adult I remember speaking to me as though I were a peer. I was 15, it was after schoo, and he asked me about a current event. He asked with a genuine respect for and interest in my opinion. I still remember the thrill of being taken seriously by a grownup. 

The tributes I've seen so far call him: respectful, smart, thoughtful, an outstanding teacher., a just plain good human, a teacher that shaped your life and is remembered after 53 years was definitely someone with a gift, his character was so influential, and when he coached and encouraged me, he helped me to gain the confidence I would need for the rest of my life, truly a great builder of young adults, inspired me to become a teacher, his sincere interest in his students, a once in a lifetime teacher, validated our contributions and drew every student into participation, related to us effectively and respectfully, my favorite teacher in high school, a man of integrity, high standards, with expectations of excellence from his students, gave everything he had to those of us who loved him.

I am a better person because of Mr. Hart.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most. 

~ John Ruskin

That's the epigram for The Secret Lives of Color, by Kassia St. Clair, a book of short essays on the history and meaning of 75 hues, but also about war, art, politics, and civilization. I'm rationing myself to one shade a day & am already sad that the book will one day be over. 

When he was a Yankees announcer, Phil Rizzuto used to criticizing players for nonchalanting a throw or play. He would have been sorely disappointed in me today. I just can't get moving. I feel like I should have gotten compensation for my trip to Denver getting canceled but I pretty much slept since my little jaunt to the airport & back. Weird how you can get jetlag when you're only away from home for 3 hours & didn't get near a plane. Maybe I'll go buy a pair of cute socks....

Why do poets love/use lists?

* It's an easy way to organize material. I've written a lot of abecedaries, most notably My Marriage A to Z. I couldn't manage to write a coherent essay from many bits of information and theory, so the alphabet format was ideal. 

* Lists go back to the earliest poetry, when bards used lists as aides-memoire to reciting a long epic. 

* A name, a place, a date can signify so much more, the way we know what Woodstock and Pearl Harbor and January 6 mean without going into long explanation. You can tell a story incredibly efficiently. 

* Abundance can be beautiful. One tulip is lovely, but tulips, roses, azaleas, dogwood, rhododendron, dandelion, stonecrop, rain lily, and pasque add up to a tremendous jumble of size and color. Spare can be great, but sometimes you want a fully stocked yard. 

* We can learn a lot about a character by learning what they own or value or even know about. Is it carpet or is it a Turkish carpet? Are those books on the shelves or leather-bound first editions of late 20th-century science fiction writers? 

* I definitely got in the habit of list-making during my days as a health journalist. I broke up complicated sentence full of semicolons into readable bullet points. 

Oh! Look at this essay I just found: Why Literature Loves Lists, From Rabelais to Didion, an Incomplete List of Listmakers in LitHub. Let Brian Dillon do the thinking! 

Left for LaGuardia at 5, with Delta telling me it was an on-time 7 a.m. departure. Got the most upbeat & kind cab driver ever, Idris, who's been driving for 27 years. He told me he would charge half price because I was his last, and friendliest apparently, fare. (I said absolutely not.) I was at my gate around half an hour before boarding would start, which was fine. Got an alert: departure delayed till 8. I dozed & what woke me up was that sort of murmur that you can tell something's wrong. I looked at the board (& this time there was no alert at all). My flight was canceled. What?! Naturally, every other Delta flight today, tomorrow, & Friday was sold out. There was one $2,250 first class seat with a layover in Minneapolist - nope, gone. When I got stuck in Scotland at the start of the pandemic, my flight got canceled & at least Delta said they would try to rebook me. This time they let me know I was on my own. 

I went home & slept for the rest of the day. 

Totally forgot this existed. Ann Rupel pulled it out of a hat, I guess. 

Titled & Untitled

On my birthday (www.Elinorsbirthday.com)
in 1962 (www.bigsnowstorm.com)
2 days (www.date&time.com)
before John Glenn (www.ohiosenator.com)
went into space (www.wow.com)
for a little tumble (www.contortionism.org)
South Dakota (www.landofinfinitevariety.gov)
my home state (op.cit., Elinorsbirthday)
had the hugest snow (www.stormofthecentury.edu)
since the blizzard of '88 (ibid.)
& I didn't get a present (www.nobaseballglove!.com)
till days (op.cit., date&time) later
but got yelled at (www.childabuse.com)
because I bounced a ball (www.rubber.com)
against my parents' bedroom wall (www.howwasIsupposedtoknow.com)
while they were (I figured out years later) having sex (www.xxx.com)

No such thing as spare time. No such thing as free time. No such thing as downtime. All you have is a lifetime. Go.

~ Henry Rollins

It's one of my favorite dojo events. A hundred or more people arrive at Rockaway Beach well before dawn, then meditate together till the sun rises, after which there's a workout & watermelon. August is a month when people in Japan think about their ancestors, so that's the focus of the meditation. For the past few years I've been lucky enough to get a ride from a color belt who lives across the street from me. This year his plane got diverted to Boston & he isn't going to make it back for another day, most likely. I woke up at 3 to find we were staying right here in Manhattan. Feels like Maureen Owen's No-Travels Journals for the 21st century.