Elinor Nauen

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. 

When we risk no contradiction
It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction.
~ John Gay

I could probably do every quote as a rebuke to or a light on the person currently holding the office of president of the United States. 

It may be that there is no bottom. 

At the Post Office, one of the counter ladies was wearing a church version of rabbit ears—they were fine. She was helping someone else but when I stopped she looked up. Can I help you? Gruff. I have to tell you a joke*, I said. They both liked it & we had that moment of New York friendly: total & then totally over. 

Then a chat with the girl at the library about the DVD I was returning, The Sandlot. One of her favorites & she had been excited last week when I checked it out & was thrilled that I liked it. 

Then the wonderful, colorful, happy-making Mimi Gross show at the Eric Firestone gallery on Great Jones street. 

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I had skipped it the last couple years & was bored for a couple years before that, but this year's Auto Show wowed me. I felt the old excitement of walking into the Javits Center & seeing millions of dollars of steel & design. There were a whole bunch of Corvettes & a car that made tears spring out of me (see photo). Johnny made fun of me when I told him but this is beauty of a high order. What else but cry? I like the matte finish I saw on a couple of cars, though I had to get close to make sure it wasn't primer (I was there for Press Day so things aren't always completely set up). 

Happy birthday to the love of my life. That doesn't say enough. Happy birthday to a man I admire & love beyond the puniness of my small self. Johnny Johnny whoops Johnny-o. 

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. 

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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. 

"Not to find one's way about in a city is of little interest. But to lose one's way in a city, as one loses one's way in a forest, requires practice."

~ Walter Benjamin, A Berlin Childhood Around 1900

My desire to wander, lost, fights with my fear of being lost. But how are we to be surprised by a punch to the gut without dropping our hands? And what wakes us up more than a good sock? 

Somehow it was suddenly the last day of the big show at the Whitney. Good thing I'm a member & swept right in. Maybe it was because I'd been at the dojo before 7 a.m. to watch the final fighting of the new black belts & was sleepy, but I kept feeling I couldn't enjoy the work without being told what was good or important about it. On its own, it didn't engage me, & the explanations didn't do much for me either.

Almost the only painting I really liked was Camouflage Last Supper (1986). It seemed to have more than technique & an idea. I was captivated by knowing that he was a lifelong practicing Byzantine Catholic. In the midst of all the chaos of the Factory & the 60s, he (secretly) centered his religion. I think of a friend of mine, now long dead, who said the shema every night of her life. That means she never got too high or too drunk to attend to prayer. It made me have sympathy for Warhol in a way I never had. 

And the Yankees are the only undefeated team in the AL East. Much as I still want snow, spring does have one glorious thing: BASEBALL. 

Such a great day yesterday, with a sleepy train ride, hanging out with my friend, lunch at a pleasant café, & plenty sleep. Today was time- and money-consuming dental new & some PITA work. Takes so little to dislodge my cheerful equanimity. Stay tuned—tomorrow I'll be myself again. The happy self. 

It didn't take till tomorrow, it took Horace's Ode 3 in Book 2: The path may rise up steeply or descend, / but you must learn to keep your spirit level / whatever terrain you find.... 

Right! Yes! Horace, my man! 

... I got plenty of sleep (no telling why Buster didn't nibble or gallop me awake)... had a refreshing bath... a young man smiled nicely when I almost stumbled into him in the uffda sunbright... another young man went out of his way to drop trash in the can... found a chair & mirror right outside my office... the mouse was only a leaf... got some work done... all before 9:30 & now I'm off to see my friend in Connecticut for the day. 

The new Berrigan kitten, who gives herself over to petting like you wouldn't believe. She might be even sweeter than Buster, who is getting a patina of cranky age (like me). She's a hypo-allergenic breed, I forget what kind. She's much tinier than you would think from this picture & much less fierce.

Scratch a pessimist and find often a defender of privilege.

~ William Beveridge (1879-1963) Read More