Elinor Nauen

The American Apparel store on Houston is empty except for these mannequins.

Maybe this picture will one day help me answer my all-too-frequent question around the neighborhood: "What used to be there?"

When I'm not sleeping
I'm waving a knife

I'm looking forward to January 1, 2016, when the Double Yews (me, Annabel Lee, plus Randy Weinstein on harmonica and Ellen Waterscheid on piano and vocals) will perform two short poems, by Susie Timmons & Frank O'Hara, set to music, as part of the Poetry Project's 42nd annual New Year's Day 12-hour marathon. This is the most fun day on the poetry calendar,  Read More 

Depressing that there are people who spend all their time thinking about money. Depressing that $30 million is a billion dollars short of a seat at the big kids' table. Depressing that people believed they could get a big-ass house for no money. Depressing that the banks never think about money as originating in or  Read More 

Christmas in the city, as quiet as it is post-snowstorm. Long walk, deserted streets, closed stores. Mesmerized by the BBC's quiet reindeers of the twilit Arctic. Crappy dinner with Johnny, Tara, & Eric. Poetry in the New York Times. Line halfway down the block to get into Katz's. Christmas in the city.

"All month long, temperatures have been so unseasonably warm up and down the East Coast that it’s broken the National Weather Service’s anomaly scale. December 2015 is on pace to become one of the most anomalous months—hot or cold—ever measured in the United States." [Learn more by clicking on the caption.]

I'm starting to worry that the only snow I'm going to see any time soon will be in a globe. Read More 

That's how long we've been married, 8,767 days, or 24 years.

You just have to keep going, we decided at our annual review over dinner. It's the only time we talk about our relationship, & we usual keep it to:
Everything good?
Yep.

We've known each other approximately 13,280 days, since the summer of 1979.

People seem to either get more irritated by each other as time goes on, or less. We are fortunate that for us it's the latter. Still the lovelight.  Read More 

The thing I showed on December 15 was for sale, so it had "value" even if I couldn't figure out its utility.

This, however: no idea. It's a couple of feet high & there are nails pounded into all those sticking-out bits.

It seems no more functional than the yellow crate but not necessarily art.

The mysterious East (Village).  Read More 

Empty matchbooks from places that no longer exist.

This 24 Days of Discard isn't so hard.

Brunch at Rosie's, the Mexican place on 2nd & 2nd, with Johnny & Tara.

An hour-long business phone call.

Norwegian study.

Read (reading) several books: Elizabeth Bishop, Adam DeGraff, John Le Carré.

Threw out a pair of tights, a shirt, & a few more shards of glass from the giant mirror I accidentally broke on Friday.

Thank you notes to Paul for the party, Willis for the calendar, my sister for the shortbread.

A medium-long walk, trying to get up to the 6,793 steps I vowed to take today.

Maggie's & my weekly meet-up, where we analyze how the previous week has gone & what we plan to do in the days to come.

It might seem like a lot but it didn't seem like a lot.  Read More 

It suddenly occurs to me that I am fond of snow globes mostly because of the word "snow" in their name. If they were called "picture shakers" or something like that, I wouldn't care.

I was in the security line at the airport a couple of years ago, & the sign along the way warned us that snow globes were not allowed in carry-on. Maybe we were supposed to already know that guns and explosives weren't, because the only specific caution was for snow globes. I asked the guy checking tickets, who finally saw my point and kind of laughed but had no explanation.  Read More 

That would be me. I got a popup warning on Safari that I couldn't click out of so I called the (toll-free!) number on the screen. After 40 minutes of "diagnosing" my computer's ills—no security! high risk! needs cleanup!—the "certified Apple technician" asked for $215 to fix everything.

At that point, finally, I saw the light & got off the phone. Then I  Read More 

This menorah made of challah by Eli Zabar was a generous & unexpected gift from him & his wife as thanks for my work & help.

Immediately after I took this picture, I turned it into bread pudding (eggs, milk, coconut milk, apricot jam (also from Eli), mascarpone, raisins, cinnamon, a little honey). Let me tell you, it was really good. Eli knows bread!  Read More 

If it's a coffee table, I wouldn't want to put anything down on it. If it's a sculpture, it's big, heavy, & extravagantly nonfunctional. What else might it be? It was at the ABC Home store on Broadway, across from Paragon. The tag said $75 but that was the tag off an ashtray or something—this really cost more than $3,000.

All their stuff is expensive. Who pays $1,000 for an uncomfortable chair? I suppose people who trust only in what things cost—who know the price of everything & the value of nothing, to quote Oscar Wilde.  Read More 

Yossi & Mukshi got married in August. We're unlikely friends, given that we come from such different worlds that only affection connects us. But friends we are. I suppose it's in part because Yossi is one of the few Chabad emissaries I've ever met who has an interest in the non-Jewish world.

You can't tell from this photo, but Mukshi—who teaches math—has the brightest eyes I've ever seen.  Read More 

In an otherwise meticulously researched text, our closest ally doesn't know an important fact about us.

Could I put all the English counties on the map in the right place? Probably not. For that matter, I don't know that I could rattle off the Canadian provinces in geographic order. And I still can hardly believe there's a country in Europe called Moldova.  Read More 

OK, sure, yeah yeah, 60° mid-December is pleasant but I am so jonesing for the neighborhood to look like this.

The antidote to that feeling: work.

Work harder, work better, pour yourself into it.


Also, get more sleep & take B vitamins.

Can you tell which one looks like me? Or which one I look like?

Varda's in town monopolizing me, hence these very short posts!

I kind of have moved on from bioluminescence to the purest shine: glitter! Please click on the caption to find out all the things you never would have thought to wonder about. We love glitter because we are creatures who need water! Glitter wasn't invented till 1934! The military has tried to throw off radar by glitter bombing! Detectives love glitter because, yeah as we all know, it never goes away!  Read More 

Who doesn't like cheery tomatoes with their eggs salad? One more reason to love B&H.

My friend Steve goes here for breakfast every day when he's in town—it's across the street from us. I wonder if they wonder about him appearing and disappearing, although with his strong South Carolina accent, I suppose they either assume he's visiting, or they can't understand him at all.

* A folding chair I never once opened. I think it was here when I moved into this space in 1993.

* A non-working electric pot.

* Some raggedy washcloths. The dirty ones to the trash, the clean ones to the textile recycling bag, which will get dropped off at Tompkins Sq Park on Sunday.

What a difference it makes! Breezy enough that it was hard to ride my bike but warm enough that Johnny & I sat outside & read. We're still on the beautiful Thomas McGrath Letter to an Imaginary Friend. Tonight is Prose Pros so I'll get my usual veggie flatbread & spiked milkshake at the SideWalk.  Read More 

How adult I'm not. Two gray days & I am ready to squall too. Didn't help that my almost-new computer was acting up, which made me miss class; I found a dead rodent in the toilet at work (ew!); a colleague misunderstood (to give the benefit of the doubt) my directions & went ahead without checking; and the brussels sprouts, while delicious, did their cabbagey thing.

The good parts: I tossed a bunch of books & cassette tapes, found some money ($14), & am going to see a friend tonight.  Read More 

I was expecting a lazy day after a busy day & late night yesterday, but it turned out that I had to finish my cut-to-fits in midtown, steer a business meeting, do some bank-library errands, & more. It's only 5 but I'm ready to call it a day, go home, & watch True Detective... Even that sounds too ambitious. Go home & nap sounds possible.

Oh, & I started my latest 24 Days of Discard. So far: 3 pairs of shoes, 3 books & a CD rack have left my office forever.  Read More 

This picture demonstrates why I have hired an assistant. She hasn't started yet, & if all she does is stand over me while I toss & organize, preventing me from sinking into victorian vapors, it will be worth it.

It's strange when you know the author of the book that is blowing you away.

A book that's about your life.

A book that everyone who reads it believes is about their life.

I'm not deluded. They're not deluded.

Is this something likely to be seen in many other places? It'd have to be in a walking city or it would be wasted. A place that would appreciate the art joke. And a place that's not house-proud, at least not on the outside. One of the big differences between NYC and most other places is that many really nice buildings don't look all that different from dumps; you often can't tell from the outside that someone lives in a mansion. We're more casual about prettying up our streets, which are everyone's front yards and nobody's exclusive property. Read More 

I guess my holiday tradition is posting this poem, which I love & "stole" years ago from a friend's email, making few changes except line breaks. The grandmother, mother, & father are all dead now, the daughter married with several kids of her own. Whenever I think tradition means nothing changes, I read this poem.

Thanksgiving Almost Found Poem

Many years we go to my grandmother's in Virginia.
My mother, father, aunts and at least two of my brothers are there.
My son has a football game that morning.
My daughter is home, but needs to get back to school this weekend.
My wife doesn't want to ride for nine hours and turn right back.
Sometimes I have gone alone, but not often.
A couple of neighbors were vying for our company.
One of those my daughter’s boyfriend’s family,
Which we did last year and had fun.
But this year it will be another family,
One we have visited on two or three other Thanksgivings.
I have a turkey freezing in the garage.

Nothing to do with it.  Read More