Elinor Nauen

I think about the kind of person I would be if I owned something like these. Different from Day 1, is all I can say. 

These were at the Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. 

You can see this building from my corner & it always looks peculiar, like a narrow & high bridge, or 2 buildings connected across the top. We walked east all the way to the river trying to figure it out. Couldn't. Maggie took a picture from quite a bit farther south but makes it look entirely different—that strip in the middle replaced by several buildings of different heights. There's nothing unusual about it, & I don't think it's supposd to be an architectural puzzle, but it's managed to have that effect, on me at least. But wait, according to EV Grieve, it IS two towers and is going to look like stacked sugar cubes, as it is on the site of the Domino Sugar factory. 

This was, overall, my favorite work of Linda's, which I saw at her open studio. More color than I remember, that's part of it, & I like paintings of fish more than reefs made of plastic netting found in the sea. This work integrates her love of & concern for oceans.

Her studio is in an old school building on Rivington filled with artists, theater & (I think) community groups. How great to have such high ceilings & a view. 

I’d only had a copy for so long that I’d forgotten what this wonderful shade, painted by Tim Milk, really looked like. It was nice to feel Ted in the room & of course nice to see Johnny with his big laugh, enjoying himself with Joe Carey & his girlfriend Stacy (who shares my birthday AND has many other wonderful qualities). 

What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?

~ Mikhael Bulgakov

My favorite quality in literature is that of being mysterious—you can't pull it apart & aha a final meaning. 

I liked the first chapter of Sophie's Choice, the tough-but-sensitive young novelist in New York. But in the second, he moves to Brooklyn (making sure it's completely clear that he's NOT JEWISH but is charmed by the Jews' delightful vulgarity), where he refers to Sophie's "truly sumptuous rear end." That was it. I can no longer overlook that swaggering male woman-is-object gaze. This is the month of Denise Levertov & the men can blow it out their sumptuous ass. 

I bought this dress to impress an old boyfriend. It worked but scared him off even more. I wore it to my brother's wedding in 1985, where several of his Minnesota colleagues took one look at me & said, "You're the sister from New York." You can't tell in this photo but my hair was dyed to match the bridesmaid dresses (I was an usherette), maroon over calico.

My dad liked this show & I remember watching it in the early 60s. I wonder if seeing its homey NYC neighborhoods planted my desire to come here. The Bronx of Car 54 is much like the neighborhood I settled in, a shabby world of small buildings & neighbors.

The show is dumb but often funny, with some sophisticated themes & moments. A Ninotchka knockoff, for example. It's also somewhat topical, starting with the theme song ("Kruschev's due at Idlewild"). Naturally there's a lot of mugging, especially by Fred Gwynne, but he & Joe E. Ross have genuine affection. 

Guest starts included Molly Picon, Maureen Stapleton, Heywood Hale Broun, Simon (Bullitt) Oakland, Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano (or was it Rocky Graziano?), Hugh Downs, among others. Nipsey Russell is on the force, without much to do. 

I run into Alisa, Ola, Ashley. Do I only know people whose names start with vowels?

I have a frustrating conversation with the checkout person at New Yorkers supermarket. She charges me $1.34 each for yogurts that are 3 for $4. I point out that she owes me 2¢. No! She divides $4 by 3 to prove that they each cost $1.33333333333. Yes, but that's not what you charged me—instead, multiply $1.34 by 3. She looks at the result $4.02 & shrugs. She gives me $10 in singles so I insist on the two pennies I'm owed. She still doesn't believe me but takes them out of a little dish. I think about getting the manager involved, not because of the money but because of the math that she doesn't understand. "Give it up!" I want to say. "I was a math star for Mineola Prep!"

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 

~ Arthur C. Clarke

This reminds me of a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, where Calvin asks his dad how the load limit is determined for a bridge they're crossing. They send heavier & heavier trucks over it till the bridge collapses, his dad explains. Then they weigh the truck & rebuild the bridge. (It is easy enough to find the actual cartoon.)

We've had visitors! Visitors with spray cans! This is just one of the new messages & pictures. There's also "Rivington Skol" & a big red vaguely ominous blob, maybe with eyes? I dig 'em! 

It's cleaner than I've ever seen it up there, too. It used to be I would pick up bottles, syringes & broken bricks, & try to find a ledge that wasn't disgusting to sit on. But it's nice these days. 

The 0.192-acre Peretz Square is no square but a strip, a slice, a sliver. It's across the street from me but in all these years I never knew anything about it. I have just learned that it's not Perez but Peretz, not named after a Puerto Rican luminary, but Polish-born, Yiddish-speaking playright & poet I.L. Peretz, who never lived in the U.S. and I don't think ever even visited. So odd that he is honored here. The French author Georges Perec was a distant relative. 

too clever by half? oy! 

The higher we climb, the farther we see. 

Although I think it says "further," thus not limiting the possibilities to physical views. 

It’s Norwegian Constitution Day, so here’s a flashback to my wonderful trip last summer. 205 years of independance from Sweden.

Helplessly in love, I am. Buster is the purringest cat of all time. He purrs when I pet him, when he thinks I'm about to feed him, while he's eating, when I pass by. It's constant & loud & loving. Amazing to have such a bond with a nonhuman person. 

Our duvet cover is getting weary. Is this flaming basketball a good idea for a replacement? Is the fact that Johnny really likes it in its favor? Why can't I find one that's nice cotton, colorful but sedate, & something we can live with for the next 5 years? Where does one go to look for duvet covers, since this is the best option I've found online, & I'm thinking... No.

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. 

~ Will Durant

Ain't that the truth. The more I know, the more I learn how little I know. It's wonderful in a way—it's clear that I will never run out of eye-openers. 

Post-Normality Poem

Am I normal

or

am I performing normality?

Would I have gone in if Rooster's had been in Tulsa or Waycross, Georgia, rather than St. Paul, Minnesota? Or maybe I would have been less likely in the Southwest or South to see what they had? The only person I know in Minnesota who might be called an adventurous eater (she (we) ate dog, or maybe horse, tacos at a bullfight in Mexico City where we were the only gringas)—well, I will have to ask if she's been to Rooster's. I no longer know, I guess, what "adventurous" means. 

On the 11th floor of the brand-new Sister City hotel on the Bowery is their outdoors lounge, the Last Light Bar. I'm not hip enough to know to go here within 2 weeks of opening—my old friend David Morrison built this hotel. The New Museum is dead ahead in this photo. These few blocks—Bowery, Rivington, Stanton—are among the last to get gentrified in the neighborhood. I certainly never imagined a fancy place like this could ever displace the brightly lit bars of yore. It always seemed awful to drink in a bar brighter than the day outside, but that was the norm on the Bowery 40 years ago. 

It's not exactly like 212-260-6142 was part of my deepest identity, but it is the number I've had ever since I moved to my apartment in 1977. Eventually, like everyone, I switched to a cell, mostly because Verizon couldn't or wouldn't fix the line. For over a year people have only gotten a busy signal, & I've been paying all that time for nothing at all. I wish I could still have a landline: it was worth it for the very few times I really needed it—on September 11, 2001, especially, and during a few blackouts. I feel a little sad but I tell myself I have a good enough, maybe even better, number now: 212-677-3792. Call me up sometime! 

Leisurely walk south of Houston & here was this Spanish painter at work. His friend told us his name but I only half-heard & let go of it instantly. This was a couple of days ago—I'll try to get back over there (Allen Street, east side) & see if it's sullied yet by graffitti. So pretty that I hope not. 

The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know. 

~ Harry S. Truman

I want to recommend Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt. Such a smart look at contemporary affairs through analyses of Macbeth, Coriolanus, & Richard III. From which he learns, for example, that there are always people in a new regime who will do anything to win the ruler's favor. And "the purely conventional and meaningless emblems precipitate a rush of both group solidarity and group loathing. This loathing is an important part of what leads to a social breakdown and, eventually, to tyranny." He covers the cynical use of populism, how respectable people are eager to benefit while appearing blameless, why the rich want more more more when they already have more than they could ever use. 

Glad to get the (unexpected) chance to go, thanks to a last-minute ticket from a friend, but didn't love the show. Not enough of her actual work, & no matter how interesting her life, clothing, collections of indigenous art (represented by similar items from the Brooklyn Museum's holdings), the point is the art. No photos so I can't show the best painting by far: "Diego on my mind," an icon-like painting of her with a little Rivera in the third eye slot. "I suffered two grave accidents in my life," she once said, "One in which a streetcar knocked me down … The other accident is Diego."

All those Twilight Zone episodes where people return to their hometowns as adults & see themselves as kids. People live like this! St. Paul on a sunny afternoon... 

Somebody had an apartment big enough for this. 

Somebody had no other furniture. 

It seemed like a good idea at the time. 

An inheritance. 

A coatrack. 

Gone now. 

I went to Minnesota. Saw my mother, saw the Twins, saw art, had laughs & food. 

Slept. Because no cat? or no trough to roll into between mattress & wall? Slept! 

I'm sleepy.

Again.

No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself. 

~ Anthony Trollope

Exactly like when my late sister Edie said "it doesn't seem like minor surgery when it's happening to ME." 

Note: I was away till late last night. Will be back on a regular schedule from now on. 

This has been a bookmark for at least 20 years—notice the crumbly top, & I haven't owned a car since my last once got stolen in 1998. I guess this is pretty straightforward except: did I finish the errands? why did it end up saved all these years? do I still have that car stamp? Another bit of me that evokes no particular memory. It's my handwriting, all right, & those are all obvious errands. It's not precious & yet it's been here, half-hidden for decades till I pulled Paterson (I think it was) off the shelf again. Maybe I left it for myself to find & marvel at.