Elinor Nauen

The times I've been in Paris, it seemed that wherever I walked I'd end up in front of Notre Dame. It's magnetic—not surprisingly, given both its beauty & 800-year history. So sad to see it burn. I've been fascinated to read many people's accounts & see their photos, as well as a few sad sack comments (from friends of friends) criticizing having "more" feeling for a building than ["cause"]. There's a lot of that lately: If you don't care as much as I do about X, & express it as forcefully, then you're dead to me. 

This is so exactly how I felt. Feel. I fell in love with New York in the first 10 minutes I was here & have felt the same ever since. I'm lucky to be from elsewhere or I might not have gotten the blow of NYC all at once. 

Rob Walker spoke at the 4th annual Phil Patton Memorial Lecture this week on his new book, The art of noticing: 131 ways to spark creativity, find inspiration, and discover joy in the everyday. The part after the colon clearly is there to get it onto the self-help shelves, because when he talked about noticing, it was riveting, serious, not cheesy at all. As an example, he showed slides of "what you're not supposed to notice": security cameras. As with Basquiat, Walker was able to change how I see what I see. 

Phil Patton taught design at SVA but I knew him from our days as auto writers. What an eye that man had. And mind. And oh my, he could write. 

Our spring treat. The tulip tree (magnolia?) of the Marble Cemetery. Much as I love winter, this is fun! 

My block was picked as his favorite, for the mix of buildings & neighbors, by a guy who walked all of lower Manhattan & wrote a book called Blockology. I don't have to cross a street to go to Anthology, the incredible Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection, the original Lil Frankie's restaurant, the Hare Krishnas, or the Catholic Worker. I'm across from the beautiful & historic Marble Cemetery, resting place of, among others, Preserved Fish, scion of the notable New York Fish family. Every day I walk outside & am grateful to live exactly here.

No public man in these islands ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.
~ George Bernard Shaw

Don't think that Shaw is hedging his bets with "in these islands." Shaw was never a bet-hedger, that's for sure. He's not the greatest writer but definitely one of the most quotable. Maybe those two attributes can't go hand in hand—complexity vs. quotability? 

The Master Printers Building aka Bruno was one of the tallest reinforced concrete buildings in the U.S. at the time it was completed, in 1927. YAI has a couple of floors & it's where I go weekly to teach karate to students with learning disabilities. 

I have reams to say about my students & how much they mean to me, but for now I'm only thinking about the building. It's 20 stories—it would be the most significant building in my hometown but while attractive is no great shakes in NYC. This floor is the most deluxe thing in it. 

The building is being sold & YAI is looking for a new home. 

First there was spring cleaning. Then a visit from two strangers (to Buster). Then I made a burnt offering of a paschal yam* that filled the house with an incredible cloud of smoke. So when I opened the door & window, Buster took off. 

When someone was going around knocking, I assumed it was because they wanted to make sure the fire was out or they would call 911. But no: do you have a cat? he's under the bed in Apt 1. 

  Read More 

Haven't made that list for a while. Here goes:

* Educated, Tara Westover. From survivalist Idaho to a Cambridge PhD. Riveting. 

* Eager: The surprising secret life of beavers and why they matter, Ben Goldfarb. Gotta get a little nature in there every once in a while. 

* An Amanda Cross mystery, really by Carolyn Heilbrun. I tried reading her memoir about aging but got bored with her determination to commit suicide at 70 & her humblebrag about her country house. 

* The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman. Hoping it will shed some light on current events. Light & sweetness. 

* Tom Sawyer in Norwegian. There's always a word I don't know but I can get the gist pretty well. 

* How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, Sarah Bakewell. My new favorite writers, both Montaigne & Blakewell, although I didn't get into her At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails, despite the great title.

* Depressing books about Ezra Pound & Henry Kissinger

* Poetry by everybody (that's a different list)

* Sometime I'll have to make a list of what I'm not reading—books I was excited about but abandoned, often very quickly. 

I took this picture from the bus going west on 14th Street. I was happy that there still is a bit of low-rent Manhattan in my neighborhood. I was only once in a pawn shop, in Mexico City, I believe the one called the Monte de Piedad. Huge & fancy, not sleazy, a tourist stop at least it was back in the 1980s. I like that a pawn shop is still called that, no euphemism when ya need yer money.