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NauenThen

Wednesday is Caturday

My neighbor, Jojo, modeling a lobster Halloween hat for cats. Originally worn by Buster of blessed memory. 

 

Would the cats eat Halloween pumpkins? The mellocreme kind not the farm-raised vegetable. 

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Poem of the Week

Not by me! I'm in love with this poem. 

 

Prayer (I)

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth
Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
The land of spices; something understood.

 

George Herbert

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Monday Quote

Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art. 

~ Claude Debussy

 

Still trying to come up with something to say about this. I agree ~ & don't. Sometimes starting with rules opens up the work enough to become art. I don't think he's saying the opposite of that. 

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YK

Bomb threat & my synagogue was evacuated. Back in after a thorough search. 

 

Why not just set a bomb & take off? Why the warning? To sow terror but not cause mayhem? 

 

Nonetheless, I feel cleansed.

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Yom Kippur soon

Fighting a cold isn't the best way to get in the spirit of the last of the days of awe, when our fate (written on Rosh Hashanah) will be sealed. Certainly not able to explain why the symbolism & centuries of pondering by great thinkers makes me want to be part of this profound day.

 

Going back to sleep in the hopes that I can stagger to the synagogue for Kol Nidre. 

 

See ya on the other side... 

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Wheelies

A friend who uses a wheelchair asked me to go with her while she picked up her new one & then drive the old one back to her place. Sure! I'm a driver, I can drive a wheelchair, I figured.

 

It isn't that hard, once you get the hang of the joystick & the way it can do tight turns. I wasn't ready to maneuver onto the bus so we went the whole way in the streets: narrow sidewalks, broken curbs, cars & pedestrians blocking our path. It was nervewracking. I went bamming through puddles before I learned that my little motor could get me up to the sidewalk without needing a running start. I understand a wheelchair makes it easier for people who have mobility issues, but boy, don't be in any rush. 

 

The highlight was when I was leaving my friend's building after parking the second chair. She told me the doorman would probably be puzzled, so as I walked out & he was doing a discreet doubletake, I threw up my hands & said, It's a miracle! Oh, did he laugh! That was fucking awesome, he said, excuse my language. It WAS fucking awesome, I said, & he laughed harder. You got me good, he said. 

 

 

P.s. If you are interested in donating to a very worthy organization, Free Wheelchair Mission makes & sends simple, sturdy, "off-road" wheelchairs to people in dozens of developing countries, making it possible for them to go to school, work, & maintain family ties. 

 

P.s. I'm exhausted!

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Milton

It's too awful to think of the storm so Ii turned to the poet: 

 

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.

 

It's kind of unreal to have two storms like Helene & Milton hit less than two weeks apart. I don't get how so many people in Florida still can't see climate change in what's going on. And will be begging the government for help while rejecting its legitimacy.  

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Tuesday is Caturday

Lefty's new place to sleep is behind us at the top of the bed in a little trough. You can barely see him in this photo: a black lump when his eyes are closed. Nonetheless, I like this photo & how sweet that little monster can be. He bites me a lot when I'm sitting at the table, where the chance of me responding with food is pretty good, but in bed he's all snuggles. 

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Monday Quote

Nature is very unforgiving. If you destroy nature, it will destroy you.
~ Wangari Maathai, Kenyan activist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

 

Clearer by the day, no? 

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The call of the shofar

Hearing the shofar is a requirement of Rosh Hashanah; I'm one of the shofar blowers at my synagogue. Usually I spend a lot of time leading up to the holiday studying the laws and meanings. I plan to think about one thing or another but when I'm actually blowing it all falls out of my head. This year I didn't have anything planned. Then the rabbi talked about it as a siren, what her friends in Jerusalem were hearing as a warning to get to their safe houses. A wake-up call to all of us to examine our lives. And I was filled with rage and defiance. Antisemites: hear this! God: hear this! Many years I feel like I'm carrying the congregation's prayers to heaven. This year I was punching my way through the trouble, hate, disregard. 

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Rosh Hashanah Day 2

Wait, we're doing the whole thing again? Why? In case we were inattentive for a moment here & there?

 

OK, I'm in.

 

I suppose. 

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Rosh Hashanah Day 1

Come for the medieval liturgical poetry, stay for the sound of the shofar! 

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L’shana tova tikatevu

All Jewish holidays run sundown to sundown. Tonight is the beginning of the year 5785: Rosh Hashanah, New Year's. Not the party hat-champagne holiday of December 31, Jews reflect on the past year and how they will do better in the coming one. Tikkun olam, repairing the world, is an essential component of that. This year it's been difficult to prepare, but maybe that's always true. 

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Mooning

I've always thought it was kind of a ripoff that of our solar system's 293 moons, Saturn has 146, Jupiter 75, even Mars has 2, teeny little not-even-always-a-planet Pluto has five, and we've got... one. One measly moon. So I'm excited that right now, & until November 25 (don't you love that they already know when the breakup will occur?), we've got a second moon. Or to be more exact, "a mini-moon" that's 33 feet long and needs a professional telescope to be seen. Still! Could be the start of something big! 

 

And it is: we're getting an asteroid in 2029 that can be seen by the naked eye. 

 

(If that link doesn't work, search for an article in The Washington Post called "For 57 days this fall, Earth will have a second moon.")

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Monday Quote

Well, how about that! There are two quotes from me on a website of quotes by women:

 

"He began to like baseball / when he found someone / who knew less about it than he did."

Elinor Nauen,
 "How Hans Became an American," in Elinor Nauen, ed., Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend (1994)


"... baseball is played on the fields of the imagination as much as on the diamond ..."

Elinor Nauen,
 in Elinor Nauen, ed., Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend (1994)

 

I don't remember how I found this, even though it was only a minute ago. You look for one thing, you find something else, I suppose. 

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True

When I was first going out with Johnny, I couldn't believe he pronounced th- words without the h. Through was true, thing was ting. It sounded so ignorant to my midwestern ear. I gave him a hard time about it & eventually he flew right. Then I met his immigrant mother & realized it wasn't a mistake, it was Irish. Now he swings between both pronunciations. If he's awake it's more likely to be through & half asleep, true. And now I'm charmed by that throwback to his roots. I'm telling everyone else because I don't want to make him self-conscious again. 

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Does their own research

When someone uses that phrase approvingly, I assume they're ignorant & don't know how to evaluate information. Today I was having a nice conversation at the laundromat with a man about my age who is a hospice nurse for indigent patients. He disparaged tRump in a way that felt cozy: we're on the same page, I figured. I said something about people who "do their own research" are usually muddled in their thinking. He kind of rolled over the end of my sentence & said that's why he is voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. "I've been antiwar my whole life," he said. I said if it doesn't matter to you personally, please vote on behalf of women & those who. "That's why I'm voting for Stein." 

 

Does he think people who support Harris (or tRump, for that matter) are PRO-war? Does he think a President Stein could magically bring about peace in Europe or the Middle East? To me that sounds like a dreamy adolescent: War is bad for children & other living things. Right, bub, no one disagrees. But: Putin. Hamas. Taliban. 

 

I realize this account of the conversation is likewise a little muddled. A protest vote is fine in New York but does he, & others on his train, not remember that Nader voters put Bush in the White House? 

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Tales from the Pound: Rachelle

My building, the Ezra Pound aka "The Pound," has been home to a lot of artists over the years. Hearing Rachelle play last week at City Winery belatedly reminds me that I first met her when she moved into The Pound We hit it off right away. It was shortly before her 30th birthday because practically the first week we met, she swept me up to go to her party at a friend's. Did I run into people I knew? Possibly ~ she knows everybody. The first time I heard her at a club, the lamented Rodeo Bar on 3rd Ave, she opened her mouth & my mouth fell open. Rachelle is not only a fantastic musician & songwriter, she's one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. We have had some of the most thoughtful & challenging conversations of my life.

 

Rachelle moved on from The Pound a good while ago but at least I can say I introduced her to her boyfriend, the equally brilliant Sensai Albie. 

 

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Pigeon redux

We've had a squab down in our pit. His twin (both all black) died a couple of weeks ago. Not sure why ~ I think he conked his head on a pipe. The parents (presumably) were around & then they weren't. My little guy has been hiding behind a pipe, seemingly abandoned and very timid. I have spent the last couple of days talking to him/her & saw when I was recognized & less frightening. Did he wait to fly away for me to see? (I know, I know.) He beat his wings awkwardly, flew lumpily a yard or two, & was gone. 

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Luck with money

I've always had luck with money. 

 

Sometimes spectacularly, like the time I found 19 $100 bills lying on the ground. 

 

Other times inexplicably, like getting my taxi to the airport refunded by Delta when a flight was canceled, while someone I know paid $1,200 for hotel & car rental when his flight was diverted to Boston, & got a $100 credit with the airline. 

 

Yesterday I got a check for $25 (luck but not lottery luck!) from Mt Sinai, as a "refund to [my] account." I have no idea what it's for but whoever gets money back from a doctor, hospital or health insurance, at least not without kicking, screaming, & crying? 

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Monday Quote

I ain't a boy, no, I'm a man. 

~ Bruce Springsteen, "Promised Land"

 

For a long time I thought he was saying, "I'm not a poet, no I'm a man" & I was like, hey!

 

Happy 75th birthday to the Boss! 

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It's fall!

And the weather got the message. That crushing heat is gone & it's the bright breezy coolness that will hold me till we make it the only season that really matters. And this year I'm going to Swedish Lapland in December, so my chance of seeing snow should be pretty good.

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Germany, November 1938

Between 1933 & 1939, hundreds of laws, decrees, guidelines, and regulations increasingly restricted the civil and human rights of Jews in Germany. My dad, who was born in 1906, finally left Berlin in January of 1939. What was the last straw. It's the frog in the pot, right? The temperature gets a little more uncomfortable but it's not quite time to bolt, is it? Until, for millions of people, it was too late. I'm thinking about my father and I'm thinking about a situation I'm in that feels similar (although nothing to do with being Jewish) - things get a little worse & a little worse but there are still reasons to stay.Or are there? It's certainly a more muddled view from the middle. I understand better why people didn't get out of Europe earlier ~ it's hard to pack up & leave, will it be better elsewhere, I still have 6 months on my lease, my kid wants to finish the schoolyear, my health club membership is ....And the frog is boiled without knowing it. 

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What I WAS reading

A show I loved as a kid was Swamp Fox, about South Carolinian Francis Marion, a Revolutionary War hero; I just discovered it starred Leslie Nielsen & lasted only 1 season (1959). So practically the only state I had an interest in (besides my own, neighboring Minnesota, & California, where Grandma lived) was South Carolina. When I met Steve, it seemed impossibly glamorous that he was from the same state as the Swamp Fox. 

 

But I didn't have a real idea of SC, or pretty much anywhere, till I was much older. Steve did, because he was a weather buff & studied the states & what lay above them. Early on, he said, he could draw a map of the U.S. I knew where the states were, because I liked information & lists, but none of that was real to me because I don't remember reading anything my whole childhood that was informative. I read Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries & learned what evil lurks in the hearts of men; and along with everyone in my family, I read The Education of H*Y*M*A*N  K*A*P*L*A*N, Cheaper by the Dozen, plus kids books and lots of Dickens & Stevenson. Maybe I needed to see it to believe it. I was a girl who hadn't seen the ocean or a city. 

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Rachelle Garniez at City Winery

Fun place to see a show & a good meal to go with Rachelle's fantastic voice & persona & performance. Not sure why Loudon Wainwright III is so much better known, when she can sing & write rings around him. But that's the way it goes, isn't it? So much overlooked or underappreciated talent in all the arts. 

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More on yesterday’s subject

Whoa! 

 

I got a spam comment yesterday, which occasionally happens & which I rejected, then another this morning, saying I'd been scammed & here were hackers who could help. It took a couple of tries to reject that comment & I really thought they'd snuck in. It seems OK now.

 

Does just the mention of XX trigger them to sniff around? I'm a little creeped out by this. 

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Monday Quote

The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

~ Ted Chiang

 

I found this in Austin Kleon's essential substack. He goes on to say, "To be fair, I think we'd been doing a pretty good job at lowering our cultural expectations prior to the popularization of A.I.! In fact, I think one of the reasons the results of A.I. are so acceptable if not exciting to so many people is because they've been trained on the never-ending slop of online 'content' and the homogenous output of, say, mainstream Hollywood or reality television."

 

I have artist friends who love playing with AI to create images to accompany their words, & vice versa. The results look to me like adult coloring books, quite honestly, but I have my own time wasters so who am I to judge. 

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New York, New York

One great thing about having visitors is seeing the city through their eyes. Even when I'm looking at the same things on our walks, I don't see what Steve sees. He's here frequently, knows the city well, & relishes its endless offerings: the heirloom tomatoes of the Union Square Greenmarket; the county-fair crush of the San Gennaro festival on Mulberry Street in Little Italy; the musicians, students, potheads, & old folks enjoying a late summer day in Washington Square Park. I feel like I did when I saw all for the first time, years ago: as full of excitement, wonder, pleasure & gratitude. There's a lot more country in the city than city in the country, isn't there? 

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My sister Edie

Today being Friday the 13th reminds me of my (late) sister Edie, who was born on March 13 (a Wednesday that year). She felt how special it was to be born on the 13th, & 13 was her lucky number. A favorite remark of hers: 

 

"I got married three times in Las Vegas. Vegas is lucky for me!"

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From the vault: The Errant Albanian

L to R: Rachel Walling [Barker], me, Maggie Dubris. 

We called it a play: We were ourselves, reading speeches & declaiming, with Rachel singing (which is worth the whole half hour). It was Public Access Poetry! We had guys playing Tree, Cloud, Stream: nonspeaking parts. I didn't rewatch the whole thing ~ hard to get past seeing yourself when she is no longer you. 

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