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NauenThen

April 24

April 24, 2017
Tags: The House
I always like to arrive at this date, because on April 24, 1971, my friend Beth & I hitchhiked down to D.C. for the last big anti–Vietnam War demonstration. She woke up smiling on the lawn in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the young man who happened to be sleeping next to her fell in love, & thus we fell in with The House, which has been my tribe and lodestone for 46 years now.

I've written about The House so much, today it's just a tip of the protest sign to these men & women I love & always will.  Read More 
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Inger Christensen

April 23, 2017
Johnny and I have begun our summer read: Alphabet, by the Danish poet Inger Christensen (1935–2009) (trans. Susanna Nied). It's based on the Fibonacci sequence, although I can't quite see it. It's intensely lyrical & intensely fierce—not often a poet can do that simultaneously. Also, a kind of heavy yet lilting Anglo-Saxon alliteration pulls it together.  Read More 
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Among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day

April 21, 2017
All I can think about is snow

And titles for my book about snow

Which is a lot shorter than I expected

Now that I've shoveled away all the technical excess

And made a nice clean path

Into whatever it is I might turn out to be talking about




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A little more baseball

April 20, 2017
Tags: baseball
Aw y'know, just so perfect & eternal & beautiful.
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Days off

April 19, 2017
Tags: baseball, Yankees
Staggered through the last of Passover & am happily eating chametz again.

Ended the holiday at a baseball game. Yankee stadium opened on this date (April 18) in 1923. This was the "new" Yankee stadium we were at, of course. A crisp 2-hour game against the ChiSox that ended their 8-game winning streak. A chilly 50°. I thought I wouldn't bother keeping score but once they started with the lineup I quick drew a card in my little notebook. It's how I watch a game. I used to draw scorecards on scrap paper on the way to the ballpark before someone gave me a fancy wire-bound scorebook.

All baseball is the same game & not like anything else ever. That's what's so great about it. Read More 
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Shoes

April 16, 2017
I never wear shoes without socks NO NO NO

Except ONE pair

I own two pairs of Naot Miros, in different colors. The identical match I wouldn't wear without socks.

Eileen always seemed like the only person who could wear shoes without socks, Boston Irish that she is.

I can't say more about shoes because it may force me to think about feet.  Read More 
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10

April 13, 2017
Tags: influential events
The 10 most influential events in my life, in no particular order, & being ones I participated in (meaning no "I was born"):

* Quit college, after which I had to live by my wits not just trudge along in a path that was laid out for me.

* Met Maggie, best friend, collaborator, critic, supporter.

* Married Johnny,  Read More 
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Brooklyn

April 10, 2017
I can't really think of away to connect this photo, randomly taken because I liked the glass, with the day—warm weather, first seder tonight, finishing bits of work, cleaning up the space around me, reading Greggo's wonderful new book of old journals, feeling unexhausted for the first time in a week......
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The Brainard Collection

April 9, 2017
Tags: Joe Brainard
I love my little home because of all the art. It's Johnny's for the most part, although I suppose that makes it ours. He bought a work Joe made in 1962, which has to be one of the earliest in his oeuvre, doesn't it?

God, it makes me love Johnny so much.

Although if I'd been his wife with two little kids & he spent some windfall on art, I might have not been so happy. Or maybe I would have been. I was never anybody's mother so I never had to think unselfishly into the future.  Read More 
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The Fate of the Furious!

April 7, 2017
This is what I want to see!

The poster (seen in the subway) reminds me of how much I liked Season 1 of Ice Road Truckers. But these guys drive even faster & crazier, I bet.

Nothing I like better than noise & crash.
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Thinking about World War I

April 6, 2017
Tags: World War I
"Resting at noon in patch of woodland so peaceful that war seems far away."
100 years ago today, the United States entered World War I. It was also my English grandmother's 32nd birthday. Was it a date she remembered her whole life? I think about WWI a lot but not from an American pov. All of my grandparents—two English, two German—were involved, & my dad (born 1906) was a child in Berlin. Grandpa Jack was gassed & died at 50. Somehow it's the only war that I feel a connection to—long enough ago that any sadness is pleasant self-indulgence.  Read More 
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What I'm reading

April 5, 2017
Tags: Judy Blunt
Just finished Judy Blunt's ferocious memoir, Breaking Clean, about growing up on a ranch in eastern Montana. Although she was born in 1954, you might well have thought it was 50 or a hundred years earlier. There was a grim Victorian assumption that the individual was sacrificed to the family and that women couldn't inherit or run things. No wonder she fled—even though she was 3rd or 4th generation there & loved the land. It sounds idyllic, doesn't it, riding horses, cutting cattle—but when you know none of it can really ever belong to you, you too would flee, I think.  Read More 
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Where?

April 4, 2017
I was looking for an old blog post, which I'd forgotten to tag, so I've been scanning previous months. And I suddenly see that June of 2016 isn't there at all in my archives. Where is it? Of course I can't remember what I wrote about so I can't search but I know I wrote throughout that month, as I have for almost 4 years now, with few skips.  Read More 
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It really is spring

April 2, 2017
Tofu harmony, Fly to the sky, Minions in tofu...
I'd forgotten how nice it is to wander around, sit outside & read, look for quirky New York sights....
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Rain

March 31, 2017
Seriously, is it ever going to stop raining? I already have mushrooms sprouting in my hair & my last dry pair of pants, yep, got soaked this afternoon.

"Good for the farmers," someone was sure to intone back in the agricultural heartland where I was raised. But this much rain? Is it good for anybody?
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Knee

March 30, 2017

Yesterday during the warmup before fight class, I felt or heard my left knee snap or pop. It was so quick & unexpected & alarming that I couldn't say, even a moment later, what had happened or what sense was involved.

I was afraid but a moment later, when I dared wiggle it, it felt fine.

In fact, it felt better than it has in years.


Today it's still fine & I could get into a deeper stance than I have in ages.

I wonder if I managed to break an adhesion or scar tissue. In any event, I am pretty happy not to have pain in my knee for the first time in recent memory.

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Reasons for admission

March 29, 2017
This is from the late 1800s & is from West Virginia’s Hospital for the Insane also known as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Open these days for tours only.

I think these might be contributing factors not causes, & I'm sure it's a complete list, so that every symptom anyone suffered from is on there.

Intemperance & business trouble
Kicked in the head by a horse
Imaginary female trouble
Immoral life
Laziness
Greediness
Jealousy & religion
Egotism
Superstition
The war
Mental excitement
Novel reading
Over action of the mind
Politics
Decoyed into the army
Fighting fire  Read More 
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What if

March 28, 2017
What if you could (legally) change your birth day? Would you?

(Not the year.)

(Or maybe the year?)

What date would you prefer to your own?

Me, I think February 18 can't be beat. Plus a different date just wouldn't be mine. I sometimes dream I'm married to someone else & living in a different home.  Read More 
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Found photo

March 27, 2017
Posed?
Another (see February 22) photo that was lying on the steps outside my office.

I hope they are still together.
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Design for living

March 26, 2017

Was fortunate to attend the second Phil Patton Memorial (sadly) Lecture at the A/D/O design studio in Brooklyn, thanks to an enduring friendship with Phil's wonderful wife Kathleen. This year's speaker was Dejan Sudjic, director of London's Design Museum, who made me see past my usual careless unconcern for anything but function (except when it comes to cars & Apple products). I bought & am reading his book of essays, B is for Bauhaus, Y is for YouTube: Designing the Modern World from A to Z. (As always, I'm a sucker for an abecedary.)

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Achoo

March 24, 2017
Sleeping, that's my day.

Back Sunday.
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Joanne Kyger (1934–2017)

March 23, 2017
My goodness, it's been a bad week for cultural icons.

Just last Friday this was my Facebook post:

I'm belatedly "occupying FB" with poetry. Joseph Massey gave me Joanne Kyger, who I love, but more in a big heap than in any separate poem, since every poem she writes is atypical yet somehow add up to one beautiful work. So it took a while to find when & then I picked this one because it's timely, which isn't a great reason but here it is: Read More 
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Another little memory: Driving a bargain

March 22, 2017
Johnny and I once bought a coffeemaker entirely because it came with free filters. We had no interest in any other feature or price, just the filters.

Which turn out to cost 99¢.
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A Texas tale: Judge Austin of Austin

March 21, 2017
I could grab a paragraph like the following 10, 20, 50 times a day from every newspaper, website, & magazine. Imagine! Every single one of these stories should be the biggest news of the month, but most will whiz by without a breath of notice.

From Texas Monthly magazine's daily newsletter:
Remember when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rounded up about 50 people over the span of a few days in Austin last month, and publicly characterized the raids as simply “routine” enforcement actions? Well, turns out the raids were not “routine.” Instead, Austin was targeted as retribution for the Travis County Sheriff’s sanctuary policies. On Monday,  Read More 
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Chuck Berry (1926–2017)

March 20, 2017
I often am cheered by the thought that Chuck Berry is still alive.

That's over.

Johnny says white people like him because you could understand what he was saying.

Wasn't it the backbeat?

I don't have more to say. Chuck Berry!
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The Two-Ingredient Cookbook

March 19, 2017
I never thought of myself as a cookbook author, let alone a cook, but I already have 2 great recipes for this collection. I made up this one:

Bell Pepper Soup
Cook 4 red, orange, &/or yellow peppers till soft, liquefy in blender at highest setting, add a small container of crême fraiche or similar & a dash of salt. Serve cold.

I had this in Maine:  Read More 
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Sweet dreams at last

March 17, 2017
Tags: Amazon, Lasership
New sheets!
Yesterday I spent hours trying to track a package. Not only was I on hold for a total of almost two hours over two days with the carrier, the horrible LaserShip, they gave me different information every time I called. It will come this afternoon, it can't come till this evening, it'll probably be tomorrow, it was lost (they didn't tell ME this, Amazon did), & so on. This is after they already hadn't delivered the package for a week.

Naturally, a supervisor couldn't be found to speak with me & no one returned my calls. At one point I said, This is when any trained customer service rep would apologize. And he just said, Ma'am, this is the information, in the most irritating passive-aggressive manner imaginable.

Contrast this to Amazon,  Read More 
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A little memory

March 16, 2017
When I was a kid I was given a record, a 45, that played “Happy Birthday.” I wondered how they would know to say “Happy Birthday, Dear Elinor” and was disappointed & chagrined that they merely sang “Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday.” Was it that they weren’t following the format? Or that I hadn’t anticipated how they would manage? I think I thought they cheated, more than I was disappointed not to hear my own name.  Read More 
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The Dark Years IV

March 15, 2017
Tags: Jean Guéhenno
French garden.
Since the 18th century, the means of subjugating people have made the same progress as the means of killing them.

If I knew something useful to my country which was ruinous to another, I would not propose it to my prince, because I am human before being French (or, rather, because I am necessarily human and only French through chance. —Montesquieu

The new great men of these new times—Hitler, Stalin—are great mass men. Back when I studied Lenin, I was struck by that character. A great man in civilized times was great precisely because of what set him apart from the mass: intelligence, willpower and culture, the delicacy of his mind or heart. These new great men  Read More 
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A bust

March 14, 2017
Tags: snow
Snow plow, Union Square.
This was my Facebook post:
East Village report: gym is closed, dentist is closed, laundry is closed, B&H (wheatgrass, baby!) is closed, Block is closed, & I am exfoliated from walking around in the icy pellety wind finding out.

Came home exhausted & didn't go out again all day. Whew!

WillisWeather® [Spartanburg, SC] explained: It was looking so promising, but it's weather. A storm yes, a blizzard  Read More 
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