Elinor Nauen

The day after I marveled at seeing birch trees, quite a few of them, in New York City (well, Queens), I saw these on 5th Street, one block west of my office. I've probably walked past them a thousand times without them ever registering

... Where I see birch trees and chocolate sculptures I'm asked not to lick, & find out about something called the "W" train. Birch trees seem only like Maine to me, not New York, but I couldn't summon that forest feeling. I was reminded of my two favorite trees on Flying Moose Mountain in East Holden, where I lived for a few months. They were two double birches, & probably my favorites because I could always recognize them & they meant I wasn't lost. I was afraid of everything in the outdoors.  Read More 

This tyranny is too absurd, and its absurdity is too obvious to too many people for it to last.

Literature. Nothing is nobler than its play when it is the flower of freedom, but nothing is baser than when it is the means of doing without freedom, of avoiding the risks of freedom—when it is entertainment and a cover for the servitude one has accepted.

I don't know if I've already noted my deepest reason for hope. It's just that all this is too absurd. Something as absurd as this cannot possibly last.

Never have so many people in Europe known how to read and yet never ave there been so many herd animals, so many sheep. In times gone by, a man who didn't know how to read would save himself through  Read More 

is a week from tomorrow. Is an impeachment too much to ask for?

Easy to know what to say today because it's all I can ever say when it's snowing. Yay!!!

What a nice relief from all the rest of what's going on.

Which I shan't enumerate.

But will return to momentarily.

My cousin Peta—the most accurate holder of family data—just told me that it was on this date in 1982 that Grandma Alice died.

Alice was the second-oldest of the Woodlands, who were the strongest, smartest, most powerful women you could ever hope to meet.

Being a Woodland in our family means having a dramatic streak. When one of the  Read More 

The Fort Report (Contributor Notes)


Marvin Cohen, a young novelist

The father of Ubu Roi
once
dead not dead dead

Puerto Rico, the Southwest, a husband in Maine

Racers to the sun

The difference between invincible & obsolete:
A speeding motorcycle


In 1964 Elisabeth Mann Borgese of Florence, Italy, taught a dog to write 6  Read More 

Sometimes when I tell my beloved something, he'll say "Ya braggin' or complainin'?"

When people talk about how busy they are, I do often ask them (to myself!) the same thing.

Me? Right now, I'm dragging & I'm busy only because it takes me so long to do everything. So I'm not bragging OR complaining, just explaining this lame-o post.

I'll do better tomorrow!  Read More 

Got up, went to B&H to pick up breakfast—egg sandwich on challah bread for Johnny, challah French toast for me (& Johnny). Whole Foods for a dozen things they didn't have. Ludlow 99c store for toilet paper, shampoo, coffee filters & a skull bandanna. She calls me "my friend" and always rounds off in my favor. Chelsea for a meeting with a bunch of smart young women. Pilates with Jeremy, who has mostly given up trying to get me to be "self-efficacious," that is, to take off or add springs on the machines. I did roll up my mat, however. Then the Double Yews rehearsed for our gig next week. We possibly have become a real band. I'm excited that someone asked us to play AFTER he heard us.  Read More 

I can't tell you how many times people who can't remember where I'm from, beyond (with a sweep of their arm) "out there," say Ohio... Idaho... Iowa... wherever... Obviously this happens to many other people. You can't see, but the cities on the outline map of Iowa include Cincinnati, Des Moines, & Boise.

(Taking a little break from the dire.) Read More 

It seems the weather pleases Buster, because he's happy every day.

And sleepy.

And hungry.

And amazingly, he went out of the apartment willingly this morning, something he's never done before. I opened the door to say hi to my neighbor passing by, and he strolled into the hall as though he does it every day.  Read More 

More quotes from Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944: Collaboration, Resistance, and Daily Life in Occupied Paris:

... the most dangerous of invasions... the invasion of the inner life, infinitely more dangerous than a territorial invasion or occupation. (quoting poet Charles Péguy)

I will never believe that men are made for war. But I know they are not made for servitude, either.

We all know very well that democracy in this country was not sufficiently real for the conscience of all our citizens to be moved by the scheming, cheating, and intrigues that teams of politicians have indulged in for the past twenty years.

The greatest misfortune that could befall this country would be  Read More 

So Johnny's in the hospital, his reaction to a routine-ish prostate biopsy was to bleed uncontrollably for two days, somewhere in there making it to the ER & being admitted. Many procedures & guesses—this was unusual. Not a good thing. Complex & common is as bad as you ever want your loved one's health crisis to be.

A huge shoutout to every single person at NYU Medical Center, from the medics (actually from Mt Sinai) to everyone in the ER, like the guy from Huron who hung around & chatted about South Dakota to me & basketball to Johnny, the nurse who found me a sandwich after we'd been there 8 hours, the doctors who invariably acted like they had all the time in the world to explain, which they did clearly & patiently, the wonderful, beautiful, kind, fun nurses who leapt to wait on Johnny (& me!) hand & foot—mood lighting! pineapple flambé! It was more like being at a spa, except for the suffering. Even the guys who took him from the ER to his room were totally chill. Do they pipe pot into the ducts so everyone is high 'n' happy?

Update: He's home! And fine! Now I'm fighting my feeling that he was safer confined to his bed, surrounded by doctors & nurses.

 Read More 

1) Woman on bike runs light. I am in crosswalk (my light, not even blinking the countdown). I point out that it is not nice, or legal, to run people down. She screams, Donald Trump is president & you care about getting hit by a bike? She continues to scream till out of earshot: I'm watching you! You had better never  Read More 

I was fortunate (thanks to my connections to the South Dakota mafia) to be in the studio audience last night for Van Jones's CNN show called The Messy Truth. The best thing he said was while all this recent activism & resistance is great, where was everyone when it would have meant something? While most of the people at the March probably voted, he said, did they volunteer at phone banks, go to swing states, raise money?  Read More 

Tomorrow I'll pick up again with the Dark Years diary, but now I'm sitting here crying about the death of Mary Tyler Moore. I'm thinking of how my late dad loved to watch her in the Dick Van Dyke show, his sweet crush, shared I'm sure by all the men of the day, and obvious even to very young Elinor. I don't have any special insight about her as an actor, just admiration for the way she let my generation see that it was possible and fun to be a spunky, single career woman. She opened the door & we shoved on through.

I bet she was a good friend. No higher praise.

 Read More 

Thanks to Todd Colby for recommending the remarkable Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944: Collaboration, Resistance, and Daily Life in Occupied Paris, by writer & intellectual Jean Guéhenno (1890–1978). I don't think it's melodramatic to see the parallels to what's going on right now in America, judging by a couple of excerpts:

Yesterday's barbarian is merely today's celebrity: people want to see the circus.

Stupidity and hypocrisy reign triumphant—the Moral Order, the virtue of the rich. The bourgeois ladies are rejoicing. In the market, they won't have to compete for chickens with  Read More 

The day began with my rabbi reciting the Pledge of Allegiance & quoting Abraham Joshua Heschel: Today we are praying with our feet. And I thought, everyone should be out here, no matter what their politics, to stand up for human rights and love.

And that was the kind of day it was: mellow, determined, kind-hearted, excited. I liked the young man whose sign read: Marching for my mother, my sister & my niece. I said: And for yourself. He thought for a moment & then smiled big. And many, many other signs of hope & peace.

So glad I joined millions of people in hundreds of marches around the world.

And now? As someone somewhere said: "One day to mourn, one day to march, then the work begins." Read More 

I have mixed feelings about it. Will t.Rump & his merry band give a hoot or will they see it as a waste and diversion of our energy, time, money? He certainly appears impervious to public opinion. And will it galvanize us to devote energy, time, money to stopping his plans or will folks feel like this was it, this is what they did, this is all they need to do? I know people who fall on either side of that line, so it's hard to say. All too many people think reposting witticisms is activism.

Part of my reluctance is Read More 

Conversation


I sometimes think other people see things that I don’t.

Yeah? Like what?

Oh, stop signs.

This is my itemized list, which I tried to get Con Ed to pay for, of my losses in the 1977 blackout.

My indignant letter:

As stated in "Your Rights as a Utility Customer" insert with my most recent Con Ed bill, I am claiming damages in amt of $_________ for food that spoiled July 13–14. Itemized list follows. And if you appreciate my prompt payments so much, how abt returning my deposit.

Pretty sure I never sent this.

Why in the world did I have a gallon of milk in the house? Read More 

In case you can't read the small print, this "multi tool wallet" has a bottle opener, scraper, 3 wrenches, standard & metric rulers, Phillips & flathead screwdrivers, & a tape cutter—all this and a "high strength stretch strap" to hold your money. It was $11.65 (with tax) at a truck stop (TA or Travel America) at the O'Donnell Road cutoff, on the edge of Baltimore, where you catch the Chinatown bus back to New York.

Jealous?

Also, the taxi driver was speaking in a language I couldn't place. Not Latin, not Germanic, not islands... Turned out to be Yoruba, & he was happy to tell me about the 3 main languages of Nigeria (Yoruba, Ibo, Harussa), the many dialects, & that everyone speaks English.  Read More 

Here's a picture with money. Alas, their $20s.

I didn't remember Baltimore much, as expected, except for those great skinny but roomy row houses. Not a walking city & anyway, there was icy rain whenever we had the chance to get out & about, so we didn't do much beyond the bat mitzvah that was the reason for the trip (it sufficed!). Johnny ate crab, & I talked him out of trying octopus: fun-loving sentient creatures!  Read More 

We're headed there for a bat mitzvah. My old stomping grounds, sort of. When I lived in Severn, we really only went into Bawlmer for stereo components. Annapolis & D.C. were the cities, also Silver Springs for their excellent health food store. Not surprisingly, given that I easily get lost in the neighborhood where  Read More 

I know this isn't as hilarious as it always seemed to me. Its confident inaccuracy is simply not as funny as it was in 1980. Also, none of the references are in people's minds anymore.

Tongsun Park

Republican Convention: 1972:
in Tongsun Park the
young are voting with their bodies
against Nixon. Blood
flows in the streets just
like the lies that flow from
Nixon’s mouth. Mayor
Daley’s Miami pigs
stick out their piglet tongues
and catch some rays
which are radioactive even
tho nobody cares about that
yet.

Maria Mancini
6/80 Read More 

I found a score of poems clipped together but not identified. It's a Jersey poet—or at least they are largely set in NJ—& there's this one in there for me. Ed Smith? More likely Joel Lewis.

I always think I remember everything until I find evidence of how little is in here. Good thing I write so much down. That way I can go back & see exactly how much I've lost. Read More 

I'm not sure what was so confusing to me in this stab at organizing my money situation. I had never really paid a regular rent before. Apparently dividing a monthly expense into a weekly was beyond me. It's still hard to follow.

In case the graphic is too small or dim:

IN
as of Feb 5 $193
savings $90
cash on hand $40

OUT
owe $230
rent $115/mo
phone $30/ 1st mo then $15/mo
Con-Ed $20

so if I save $40/week I'll be able to pay all my bills — is this correct?? I hope so. I don't know how to figure it out.  Read More 

Too cold to work in my office... paint fumes give me a headache at home... too lazy to get dressed... starting my yearly feud with Rite Aid, the unneighborly store that refuses to shovel (the 5th Street sidewalk) & are eye-rollingly rude about it... I keep finding bits of old writing, letters, poems, all in my handwriting that is both completely familiar & achingly ancient...

I got this far then jumped up! got dressed! went to the store! came to my office!

Onward!

Got hold of a senior Rite Aid person & supposedly it'll be taken care of now... The threat of calling an executive vice president doesn't seem to loom as large as it did a few years back, when everyone snapped into action after I did.  Read More 

I remember coming back from my father's funeral to an excited phone call from a friend: "Did you see The Nation this week? You're singled out in a review."

My memory is twofold: sad that by the time I was able to turn my attention away from my dad & to this nice news, it was anticlimactic; and that it was in a review of Andrei Codrescu's anthology Up Late.

The former still holds although it's the faintest breeze of a feeling 30 years later.

The latter was plain incorrect. The review was of zines & I was mentioned for something I published in Baseball Diary. How long have I had that wrong? I wonder. Was there a later Stuart Klawans review of Up Late where he did mention me? Maybe I'll find it as I continue to browse through the infinity of folders in my office. Read More