tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30498662011-04-21T20:18:47.938-04:00Texting: Urban Depressive SignalsCultural ruminations of a NY performance artist.nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comBlogger1131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-4829360378123547912008-04-22T12:19:00.002-04:002008-04-24T10:23:20.129-04:00Earth Day 2008As a child, I imagined myself incorporeal, a changeling. I weighed very little and ate very little and endowed all objects under my protection with souls. Guided by my mega-Virgo propensity for compulsive cataloguing and my family's secular humanist social conscience, I soon discovered the meaning of life -- not simply to tread lightly upon the earth, but to atone for the waste, nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1157491852467279242006-09-05T17:23:00.000-04:002006-09-06T07:50:29.283-04:00Quote of the Day Who says there's no great writing on television? Last night I heard the very best, most favoritist line *ever.* Was in the opening seconds of the show, so you can experience it for yourself all this week, click on "Vanished"(Episode 3) at http://www.fox.com/streaming/index.htm Line is (but it really is so much more enjoyable as delivered) setup: "The cooler was off for 10 hours.nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1156802172622555252006-08-28T16:50:00.000-04:002006-08-28T17:56:12.686-04:00Careful What You Wish For I wanted to go to Bread Loaf. I went to Bread Loaf. Result: Disorientation I'd elaborate, but I am utterly disoriented. At the moment, not in a good way. It seems to me I've made a sequence of errors, leaving me with a life I don't understand or want to live. I think I may have been very wrong about how the world works, how to best negotiate it. When I returned to nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1151203151250572872006-06-24T22:07:00.000-04:002006-06-24T22:42:37.393-04:00 Only in New York Sometimes I remember why I came here. Today: the crowds spilling out of that annoying restaurant on 7th and A that isn't 7A; What is their cuisine? What is their concept? All types of people, riveted to a screen. I ducked in a dark bar a bit beyond to see what the game was: Mexico versus Argentine. By Houston they were celebrating: boys came out of nowhere, wearing Argentinian nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1139116534508336242006-02-04T19:29:00.000-05:002006-02-05T11:00:20.616-05:00Hi. If you're visiting for the first time today, chances are that you did a modicum of online sleuthing after reading my Modern Love essay. Welcome. Let's say that you came to offer me opportunities, be they literary or theatrical. You're welcome to email me at artnixie at yahoo dotcom. The project dearest to my heart right now is a long-form narrative journalism piece on the New Orleans pet nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1126375938835206002005-09-10T14:06:00.000-04:002006-03-12T15:51:04.246-05:009-15Today was the tipping point. Some honest blogs from wildcat rescuers, a few gruesome images, a pissed-off billionaire, and suddenly Homeland Security is calling a blogger/rescuer, asking him how they can help. I talked to that same official more than a week ago, and expressed myself clearly and forcefully. He said the military could whip things into shape. Well, unimaginable suffering later..nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1126204764918043382005-09-08T14:33:00.000-04:002006-02-05T11:04:29.906-05:00Kudos to NBC, who seem to get it.Nice profile of Noah's Wish rescue effort based in Slidell, including slightly political content about cooperation with locals being better than in NO.And *excellent* blog entry, "Making the Quarter rounds," (scroll down to Sept 7, 4:30 pm)NBC anchor Brian Williams has a perceptive post up on his blog...touching on the militarization (too late, and now ominous), nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1126125161858369732005-09-07T16:23:00.000-04:002006-03-12T15:40:38.453-05:00PET SITUATION URGENTI realize the entire situation is urgent. However, after the human rescue and before the infrastructure, forgotten, almost in the way, is the plight of animals. And the line betwen life and death is right now, exactly right now.I could use some help disseminating the following to media outlets. Even blog links can help:Dear ______:Thanks for any attention your reporters have nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1125778289753312072005-09-03T16:01:00.000-04:002006-03-12T15:52:10.243-05:00I can't stand itNEW ORLEANS (AP) - Storm refugees still stuck at the Superdome on Friday faced knee-deep trash and blacked-out bathrooms. ``This was the worst night of my life,'' one mother said. The conditions stayed miserable even as the crowds shrank after buses ferried thousands to Houston a day earlier. While the evacuation resumed Friday, the press of people on the bridge outside the arena nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1125696438236440412005-09-02T16:31:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:31:59.046-05:00NOThe destruction of New Orleans has really hit me emotionally and physically. I had not watched television Tuesday and had not known the levees broke until Wednesday at work. I was reading the Times, looking at the picture galleries and got very upset. I immediately checked the web journal of one of my favorite online writers, and, seeing no update, emailed her. She very kindly took the time to nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1117126315369857182005-05-26T12:05:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:36:48.240-05:00On Not Getting Into Bread LoafReceived a rejection letter from the Bread Loaf summer writing conference last week.I then Googled to see if anyone had written online about the particular door-slammed-in-the-face feeling of being rejected from Bread Loaf, using search terms such as "rejected" "not getting in" etc. All yielded results from actual attendees.Last year I was rejected as well, but nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1114178338856461932005-04-22T09:06:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:39:07.406-05:00Earth to YouEarth Day -- April 22nd Finding yourself at a loss about how best to celebrate Earth Day? If you’re not much for rallies and agit-prop theater, but you’ve got a gnawing worry that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, here are practically pain-free ways to become part of the solution.Cancel those catalogues You thought you might start knitting during your downtime, bought some nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1099079618582294012004-10-29T15:03:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:43:28.446-05:00Bush's Munchausen-by-proxyletter to a relative, abridged:I simply can't believe you're voting for Bush! I mean, I know some people are going to vote for him; I see them interviewed on tv. But those are other, faceless people, people exemplified by the Oregonian soccer mom interviewed by the BBC who said, "The only problem with Bush is that I would have been bombing Iraq on September 13th. Nobody nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1097077805391645322004-10-06T11:41:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:45:27.910-05:00fact check maniamany years ago, let's say four, my friend Steven's then-girlfriend bought him a domain name registration for his birthday. Steven was a magazine fact checker, and very up on the idea of fact checking becoming both popular and lucrative, and thought he might assemble a freelance network of crack researchers for hire, some text about why fact checking is so crucial, and have himselfnixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1096989731940183752004-10-05T10:58:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:47:18.903-05:00Strange dreams. Last night, I beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy and he was so distraught, I wished I'd answered wrong. The previous night, I was at a private party at an overstylized estate, scarfing hors d'oeuvres, when, from the back of the couch poured insects, larger and larger, in torrents, until, like a morphing cartoon, large rats were pouring from behind the walls, up the stairs, and the restnixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1084632917160585272004-05-15T10:49:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:49:36.896-05:00Here's the plea I've been emailing out. It's getting down to the wire for finalist selection. Thanks to each and every person who's taken the time to click their support and move me from 19th to 13th of the women; I truly want to crack the top 10 to show I can generate audience interest.---------------I applied to be on a television project spearheaded by RJ Cutler (The War Room, American High) nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1083472521157800892004-05-02T00:35:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:52:10.733-05:00I got an email from American Candidate, the television project I applied for. It looks as though every applicant who sent in all the required elements has been given a page on the show's site to set forth brief platform and issue statements. Which I've done. They also have a cursory blog, but only one entry shows on the front page, and updates - even edits -- take hours, even a day, to be vettednixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1082140576369887232004-04-16T14:36:00.000-04:002005-12-01T17:57:00.456-05:00Yesterday was one of those good news/bad news days.I was phenomenally organized for meeting Emil, the accountant, in midtown.I had backup data, I had extra forms printed from the IRS and NYS tax sites, I had mailing envelopes, large and small, I had scissors and a stapler and tape and a checkbook and ID and cash. I had a scarf should it get chilly and a book should I get bored. I had my trash andnixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1079982334578328872004-03-22T14:05:00.000-05:002005-12-01T17:59:20.506-05:00Richard Clarke, counterterrorism bigwig, is just as unhappy with the Bush administration as was Paul O'Neill.I think the press is missing the big story here. Administrations should beware of men surnamed Clark(e). Ramsey Clark. Wesley Clark. Richard Clarke. Conservative-looking guys, solid and trustworthy -- but something about that name triggers late-onset whistle-blowing syndrome.nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1079363706005745992004-03-15T10:15:00.000-05:002005-12-01T18:03:43.716-05:00Spain. A huge, tragic, coordinated terrorist attack on March 11; the ruling government ousted a few days later.On the one hand, you wonder (well, I do), why we're not marching here, demanding Bush's ouster, railing against being lied to, manipulated, robbed, and led into more death and destruction. On the other -- terrorism worked. Quite directly and perfectly, Spain's domestic politics and thus nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-1074451251196985232004-01-18T13:40:00.000-05:002005-12-01T18:06:14.673-05:00Fat fluffy flakes of snow outside, Sinatra on the radio, brunch plans soon.How I'd love to be on top of things. A redesign of this site. A cheaper ISP than AOL. A functional date and address book. Clothes mended and shipshape. Multiple lists dovetailed. Income flow steady and growing. Laughter and love and all that. Delicious, nutritious food, dance class and bodywork. No smoking! No nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-918541162003-04-02T12:21:00.000-05:002005-12-01T18:14:32.946-05:00I've been posting a great deal to an email group I belong to. I enjoy dialogue right now, rather than maundering on to an unknown "out there" already crowded with pundits, poseurs, and polemicists. Here, some of what I've been thinking:----------------------Antiwar is not pro-Saddam(in response to: "Supporting not going to war to remove Saddam was tantamount to supporting the continuity of nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-912125872003-03-23T00:39:00.000-05:002005-12-01T18:18:38.013-05:00What can one say? The war's on tv. Even journalists in Baghdad who know the basic plan, have heard the hype about precision bombing, have forewarning from their networks when bombing sorties take off, and know the US would prefer viewers not hear them being blown to bits...don't feel safe. The ABC guy could hardly get a sentence out, he was hyperventilating and freaking while studio commentators nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-907779112003-03-15T16:55:00.000-05:002005-12-01T18:23:03.200-05:00It's a gorgeous day here in New York. Sunny and warm, peaceful. I feel sad to be tied to my computer. Since November I've had incessent work. I'm lucky to have work instead of spending the same time and energy drumming up work. But I've not yet aquire the knack of getting the *right* work. I've been writing some historical overviews for 10 cents a word. This would make sense if I could write a nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-907198432003-03-14T12:43:00.000-05:002005-12-01T18:30:54.266-05:00More heartbreaking stuff. War toy Easter baskets. I first saw these on Jimmy Kimmel live which is surprisingly fresh and subversive. I thought he made them up, though, for the show.And...the rhetoric is gearing up for that fantastically Orwellian move in which the peace protesters and the French will be blamed for making war inevitible and making it more bloody. How dare they get in the way of nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-903626282003-03-08T13:10:00.000-05:002005-12-01T18:33:21.916-05:00I had been involved in a bulletin board discussion and had invited the participants to read my March 4 entry here (which was the result of much reading, obsessive thought, and 4 days in bed with severe flu during which my mind went over and over and over my opinions) rather than me posting at length to the board. I received the following response:"i gotta be honest: if people don't read 800-word nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-902861252003-03-07T01:00:00.000-05:002005-12-01T18:38:24.056-05:00more exciting pre-possible-war verbiage. (in the form of notes to myself from which to some day Write Something of Actual Note. or maybe just make a few bux writing for a late-night comic. who knows)questions I predict the media will be asking in three months:Where is Hussein?Where are the WMDs?Where is the democracy?How many died?How much does this cost?What's happening to the Kurds?Why do we nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-901242362003-03-04T13:25:00.000-05:002003-03-04T14:38:57.000-05:00
I have a friend who opposes war with Iraq on pragmatic grounds. It will not be effective. It will not achieve the stated goals of disarmament, increased security, lessening terrorism, regime change, and Pax Americana throughout the Middle East. He tells me that his bottom line is the course of action that results in the least suffering. And ours is not that course of action.
A long nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-898095732003-02-26T20:54:00.000-05:002003-02-27T22:58:28.000-05:002/27 addendum:
my new favorite thing
a discussion I've spent more time on than this work that's due tomorrow (starts out dumb, gets better)
I just caught Bush's speech at the American Enterprise Institute. More on them.
What struck me quite forcibly is how the rhetoric has crept. We cried for disarmament. We pressed for inspections. But the clear objective, no longer veiled, is regime change nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-897928982003-02-26T15:40:00.000-05:002003-02-26T15:40:23.060-05:00Today, moveon.org is sponsoring a virtual action on Washington. Please join in voicing your opinion on the prospective war. You don't even need to sign up. The email you get will tell you to call your state senators' Washington offices to voice your opinion on the war from 9am to 6pm est. You can find these numbers easily online. I emailed due to a money crunch. Every senator has a web page with nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-894763772003-02-20T23:18:00.000-05:002003-02-20T23:18:45.823-05:00 Well, I never wrote my brilliant deconstruction of the peace protest news coverage. Events move fast. Suffice it to say it framed the story, in image and text, introductory comments, and following story ("reports of violence" and "brave cops on high alert" (the implication being these unruly protesters made the city unsafer)) with mild to severe censure. Except Pablo Guzman on New York's CBS nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-891996272003-02-16T15:27:00.000-05:002003-02-16T15:27:57.316-05:00 The New York Protest and Rally
I present my experience and my take on the news coverage I saw and read at home.
My mom's bus was to get in to Shea Stadium at 10 am. She'd left Worcester with four busloads of people at 6:30 am, just two hours after I'd finally fallen asleep after consuming most of a bottle of Pinot Grigio and writing an ambitious "things I'm gonna do as soon as I finish this nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-891304172003-02-15T00:33:00.000-05:002003-02-15T01:37:17.000-05:00 A Letter and a Conversation
Letter to my mom:
I told F. Tuesday night that Powell's speech was going to be:
"We know they had weapons. We know they are liars. Therefore, the fact that the inspectors aren't finding anything proves that they are defying the UN resolution and not complying and hiding their weapons."
That's what he said, along with some fuzzy pictures and bad tape.
I have a fewnixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-890663322003-02-13T21:13:00.000-05:002003-02-13T21:13:34.673-05:00Why Do I March?
I march because I love my country.
I march because I refuse to believe it's futile.
I march because this is a government by the people and for the people and of the people and we are the people. I refuse to believe representative government is dead.
I march because I refuse to be marginalized as someone "exercising my right to free speech" as if that's some precious acting-outnixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-849168912002-11-22T05:20:00.000-05:002002-11-22T05:20:11.983-05:00Mitsu says write and I say maybe sometime soon, so we have a whole conversation about how I should just focus on any given activity, no matter how menial or routine, so I try that with a shower and sleep but I can't sleep, so now, in a roundabout way, I give in and write.
It's just trying to break the ice, something I need to do with just about everything right now, as I've had one of those nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-815241192002-09-12T17:45:00.000-04:002002-09-12T17:45:12.970-04:00 I feel relieved that September 11th has passed. It actually gave me much the same restless anxiety that my birthday last Friday did: wanting to be caught up in something larger than me, wanting community and not knowing the "right" thing, something looming which I was bound to fail to adequately mark, some unfulfilled expectation. I decided to not go down to Ground Zero, as, again, it was a nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-814645652002-09-11T13:27:00.000-04:002004-07-15T16:49:05.743-04:00nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-814136552002-09-10T14:01:00.000-04:002004-07-15T16:50:35.646-04:00 I have a book to copyedit and man, am I procrastinating. The September 11th Anniversary is not just a media event. I'm having real, visceral memories and flashback feelings.
I had written a piece on my compulsive attraction to Ground Zero, but not gotten it published at the various places I sent it out, so it languished in my computer. Friday morning, the editor of the Villager called nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-812589132002-09-06T20:41:00.000-04:002002-09-06T20:42:10.000-04:00 The Thirty-Nine Steps
So the phone rings at midnight last night. And there's my mom and her best friend, belting "Happy Birthday to You!" at top volume and off-est key. And I'm like, awwww, they went to bed at their usual 10 pm and set the alarm and they're all groggy. But no, my mom hands the phone to my brother, who tells me they're all in the car, in a traffic jam in the parking lot of a nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-796974512002-08-01T14:20:00.000-04:002002-08-01T14:20:36.166-04:00 Just finished a huge, not to say panicked work push, writing a grant proposal for a fantastic, ambitious project. Of course, I'm at Kinko's a half-hour before FedEx closes, papers flying, somewhat incoherent. Immediately I have to start on a copyediting job, a tryout for a "real" full-time job with a major publisher. Just located my red pencil.
Sent this to the Times::
This is in response nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-794442252002-07-26T13:16:00.000-04:002002-07-26T13:25:19.000-04:00 I wrote a letter to my Representative in Congress about the peer-to-peer copyright bill. Feel free to adapt my ideas or expres your own, but do write to your representative.
Dear Representative Mahoney,
I would appreciate if the staff member who reads this email actually reads the whole thing; I put a lot of time and thought into my comments.
I am writing to urge you to thoroughlynixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-791110162002-07-18T12:38:00.000-04:002002-07-18T12:47:46.000-04:00 Disclaimer: I am not a tech-whiz. For that reason, the more technical aspects of this issue are probably better expressed by posters in Slashdot and the like. However, here’s a layperson’s layout.
Issues of copyright, fair use, and privacy are emerging as some of the most fundamental and urgent in the new media landscape. Witness the Supreme Court battle over freelancers' compensation for nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-784055932002-07-01T00:57:00.000-04:002002-07-01T16:17:28.000-04:00 Addendum 7-1: Searched Google for "household hints stain remov*" and got this academic essay on little known women poets of the Renaissance.
Other recent absorbing surfing included:
Memo to Media Monopolists (echoes that excellent NY Times magazine article on the dinosaur thinking of the music industry, was in a special issue devoted to music.)
Information Monopolies (by nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-782950882002-06-27T22:39:00.000-04:002002-06-27T22:39:27.720-04:00 I'm cleaning the house like crazy. More about that later. This will be a text-intensive experience, consider yourself warned.
First, something I've wanted to get down in writing for awhile, although I'd like to really research and clarify my thesis, but I ended up just typing it onto a message board in frustration and duplicate it for you here:
I'm not going to do the full diatribe, nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-781892202002-06-25T15:18:00.000-04:002002-06-25T15:18:56.523-04:00 My close friend Suzanne was in town for just a weekend to attend the funeral of our friend John. John had been a surrogate parent for Suzanne for the decade (mid '80s to '90s) she spent based in New York, with side journeys to get married (in St. Paul, 2 years) and live with a crazy dancer-choreographer (Mexico, 1 year). John and his partner Bill were the anchors of a group house in Park Slope nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-776173432002-06-11T13:55:00.000-04:002002-06-12T18:19:58.000-04:00 Okay, deleted the melodramatic ego-tantrum post. Reinforcing and amplifying defeatist litanies is not what I want to do here. exciting goals du jour:: defrost fridge, wash dishes, call super about no cold water in kitchen (for last 3 months), secure AC to window so that vibration of unit does not result in urban-legend accident and costly litigation, complete 2 sample edits for freelance gigs nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-773502862002-06-04T19:23:00.000-04:002002-06-04T19:23:34.946-04:00 What's with the abundance of gerund-plus-name punny titles: Judging Amy, Crossing Jordan, Watching Ellie. They resemble but are grammatically dissimilar to, say, Leaving Las Vegas, Saving Private Ryan, Punishing Kiss, Enduring Freedom, sparkling water, or wanting out. While wearying, the list is hardly exhaustive. Why not Losing Patience (a bittersweet comedy about a wandering Alzheimer's nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-772297492002-06-01T17:30:00.000-04:002002-06-02T17:00:16.000-04:00 meta meta meta
So you know mediabistro.com; the site lists (usually print) media jobs, hosts workshops and panels, and has an active, kvetchy bulletin board of woe and travail. So someone posts "do you think a weblog could help my freelancing career? what are some good sites and tools?" And no one seems to know anything. "Maybe if you're Andrew Sullivan," they sneer. "I read this one whiney nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-772120002002-06-01T02:04:00.000-04:002002-06-02T12:55:03.000-04:00 Today I went on a job inteview. Before a job interview, I tend to have a major existential breakdown. I don't want a job! I cry. I want to perform to much acclaim worldwide. I want to sip luscious summer concoctions on my (fictitious) deck, wander through my (fictitious) spare and spacious, soul-filled abode, tend my (fictitious, and highly fictional, as I have no way with plants) English nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-761437542002-05-04T00:03:00.000-04:002002-06-02T16:36:47.000-04:00 I feel strangely becalmed. Or is it a sort of numbed despondancy?
I am wondering whether most communication isn't futile. It's a truism that people hear what they want to hear; that when we talk about others we are revealing more about ourselves; that most listening is a posture of listening while one formulates the riposte; we are steeped in accusations and counter-accusations of projectionnixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-753511922002-04-13T00:53:00.000-04:002005-12-13T15:11:25.980-05:00I use blogger. But jeez, almost makes me want to move in protest, the way they're sucking up all the press. I understand. They put a lot of work in. They're young, cute, hip, articulate. Back in '99 when I wanted to start a blog but only had the server space allotted to me by my aol account, Evan patiently answered my email about how to get stuff to ftp to aol. (it didn't work. I'm not sure if nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-751532332002-04-08T01:07:00.000-04:002002-04-08T01:07:02.353-04:00 I haven't come this close to having an anti-Semitic thought since my boyfriend's mother called me a gold-digging shiksa (copyright me, ten minutes ago)
It was watching the Bill Moyers special on the West Bank settlements. And it was when the settler mom was insisting God had given them this land, it was in the Bible. And the reporter asked how she felt about exposing her children to this nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-113260062002-03-31T21:08:00.000-05:002002-03-31T21:10:39.000-05:00 Happy Easter, all. Been gloomy about the state of things. All ego-driven strivings and projects (memoirs de moment, jobs with perks and prestige, oprahish exhortations to Live Fully, Simply, and With Passion, dead skins of Interesting Experiences on one's gunbelt) seem rank, transient, and selfish given the Big Picture. For the Big Picture emerging lately, start with (thorough, vehement, and nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-112188202002-03-28T13:45:00.000-05:002002-03-28T13:45:41.306-05:00 Hi, all, ltns. Hit a dreary eventless plain of both inner and outer listlessness. Being unemployed, broke, and omniambitious at once creates massive inner dissonance, psychic tectonic upheavals, a fair amount of what-iffing, second-guessing, and a desire to go back in time.
Here's a Times article on the disenchantment with the Web, although I never looked to it for novelty, gag, or dancing nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-106296842002-03-11T16:14:00.000-05:002002-03-11T16:14:57.120-05:00Plagiarism, Pedophilia, and the Pself
What's going on in Boston? Doris Kearns Goodwin is being pilloried for being both more forthright and contrite than Stephen Ambrose. The bishop thinks that, in retrospect, he might have handled pedophiliac priests a bit better than to have shuffled them around to new parishes with fresh altar boys. What do these things have in common? Both are attempts nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-104985062002-03-07T14:19:00.000-05:002002-03-07T14:19:44.630-05:00 It's nice when William Safire concurs about the perfidy of megamedia.
Herewith my plaint:
Dear Senator Clinton:
I'm writing in frustration regarding what I believe to be highly unethical business practices on the part of AOL. I detail my own experience in this letter, but am concerned on a broader, societal level. What I experienced is increasingly possible and common online. It nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-103775332002-03-04T16:01:00.000-05:002002-03-04T16:01:26.630-05:00
Artspost: First, I went to see both nights of "69 Love Songs"; the Magnetic Fields at Lincoln Center. They played them through in order, with simple orchestration. Everyone was hoarse by the end of the second night. The audience was warm, there was a lot of breakage of the fourth wall and informal byplay that broke the stiffness of a concert-hall venue. It was quite a treat.
Two nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-102310112002-02-28T13:01:00.000-05:002002-02-28T14:09:01.000-05:00 Welcome, search spiders or actual eyeballs from the military intelligence department. You need to update your website, it appears that "to better serve our country's defense needs" your mission statement and department's bureaucracy has been entirely restructured. My brief comments on Daniel Pearl are one entry date below.
Caution: leftist content and links.
Obscure words site
Slate on ice nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-100900312002-02-24T23:45:00.000-05:002002-02-24T23:45:41.993-05:00 This editing is going very s l o w l y. I just hit the halfway mark, and it's due tomorrow. It's going at about 5 pages an hour, less as I lose concentration, and I have 150 more pages. There's no horizon, there's no outside, there's no future and no past, no goals and no ambition, just me and the page, locked in some mutual purgatory without end.
Random detritus: You know our new national nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-100153882002-02-22T16:13:00.000-05:002002-02-22T16:23:52.000-05:00 I'd like to thank the people who've said encouraging things to me and linked the previous post; wood's lot, eclogues, dumbmonkey, consumptive, syntheticzero, and judith. I'd link back to you all if this post weren't complete procrastination (how am I going to copyedit 230 pages in 3 days?)... but, in the next bloc of free-ish time, I plan to update my blog portal (rife with outdated links) to nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-98100542002-02-17T03:32:00.000-05:002002-02-17T03:44:29.000-05:00(note: this intro text will stay up until such time as the link does or does not occur)
I It's possible that there will soon be a trickle of visitors clicking in from a larger magazine site. Since I'm not sure when that will be happening, I'm preemptively welcoming them and offering the promised links:
For the post-attack New York raw narrative writing on this site, please visit::
September nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-96175072002-02-11T15:47:00.000-05:002002-02-17T03:33:52.000-05:00 I have some freelance editing, and unless I power through with more concentration than I tend to be able to sustain, the budget and my hours will make a sorry equation. I also have vast seas of papers, each representing financial snafus, employment opportunities, dreams and ambitions, or notes for future magnum opii. I also went a bit nuts in the library after aquiring a new card. I've also nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-94310182002-02-06T02:42:00.000-05:002002-02-06T02:42:30.233-05:00It's February, a time of rest and preparation, according to the wise and wonderful Nathan Whiting.
"DISTURBED
I'm lost in the dark,
lost in many colors.
Confusion grabs
a searchlight's phantom flashes.
Lost in blue
a bat would scream
and measure dotted answers.
A silent owl slips
through maples
without bottom. Who searches?
Whatever I am
won't find a way easy.
I turn again.
Insects scatter. nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-92705832002-02-01T10:07:00.000-05:002002-02-06T02:20:37.000-05:00
In the spirit of not posting only demanding text, I offer the following relaxing links:
Feminist Stripper, recommended by Lily Burana, whose writing I like and who turns out to be a character from my past.
Satire wire's Mo Bettah Evil Axes, um, satire
While I liked the list of (odd) results I got on google when I typed spiral jetty salt shower coin, I was looking for this page, part of Temporamanixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-91311372002-01-28T14:58:00.000-05:002002-01-28T14:58:31.706-05:00 The blehs have morphed into major anxiety, accompanied by reinforcing dreams over several days about a race against time. In one, I have to be in a rollerblade race but someone has hidden my rollerbaldes (under a chair, under the carpet); when we complete the race, we're allowed to read at a large media event. I sent my stuff in well in advance, but no one can find it. The organizer tells me (nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-90120822002-01-24T15:21:00.000-05:002002-01-24T15:42:45.000-05:00 Feeling super-bleh. Can't seem to pinpoint the cause. The year seemed to kick off so promisingly, getting onstage, enthusiasm and support from HW. But then the follow-up gig to which I'd been invited was cancelled, my go-get-'em energy dissipated, those complicated Hungarian martha-stewart recipe cookies I was gonna make never happened, I misplaced my library card. Some bad-timing things; I nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-89021212002-01-21T12:02:00.000-05:002005-12-08T18:28:51.190-05:00Via tech-tv's enjoyable show "the screensavers", Coincidence Design. I recommend the FAQ page, featuring questions such as "Isn't what you do illegal?", "Your clients are all losers, right?", and "Won't our love be a hollow one?" Just as much fun as the answers are the page names... "toosteep.html" and "hollow.html" and "wifeknows.html". If you're gonna be stalked, these are the best guys for thenixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-88522502002-01-19T17:06:00.000-05:002005-12-08T18:25:44.803-05:00Not to overdo the knitting info., (and my first scarf is still in process), but knitting is 'popping.' The Knitlist was excited that...Survivor winner Ethan Zahn's mom runs a knitting and yarn shop in Lexington, MA, and that NPR validated the craze with a segment, framed by Chubawumba's "Knit Your Own Balaclava". You can listen in streaming audio to the segment, just go to npr.org and search "nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-86855172002-01-14T13:59:00.000-05:002002-01-15T11:48:45.000-05:00Brief 9/15 ADDENDUM:: I subscribe to the Penny Arcade mailing list. (there's a link to sign up on her site). It's a low-volume list, mainly of NY artists and Penny fans who like to stay in touch. If you live in NY and want to know about happening events, people tend to post good things. For example, Penny's boyfriend's birthday is tomorrow so there's a party/event with Life in a Blender (nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-86065232002-01-11T15:09:00.000-05:002005-12-08T18:23:13.503-05:00Things I saw on my not-so-relaxing trip to Vermont: 3:30 a.m. after 4-hour extremely high-speed bus to Chinatown. Deserted streets, an 18-wheeler stopped right where the Manhattan bridge spills on to Bowery, little tongues of flame shooting out from the hood. A crowd of Chinese workers in white aprons at shift change pointing from a block away. I call "did anyone call 911?". No response. A stoic,nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-83802642002-01-03T14:30:00.000-05:002005-12-08T18:21:13.076-05:00Lots of people have been coming in through the kind Wood's Lot link to read the East Village essay, and it's not nice to bait-and-switch. Those people should click on December 2001. For more post-September 11 writing, click on the "archives" link to the left for the past few months' writing. I'd also like to say that as soon as I have a chunk of time, I'll be creating a separate, easily-navigablenixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-83499472002-01-02T14:32:00.000-05:002005-12-08T18:17:48.146-05:00The holidays felt like a 2-week vacation for the U.S.; everyone seemed to take the Friday before Christmas off for a five-day weekend; last Wednesday through Friday were skeletal workdays, and then another 4-day weekend through New Years'. The time passed very quickly; went to Macy's the day after Christmas... total mayhem, absolute plunderage, racks overturned, shoe department looked like peoplenixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-81643002001-12-24T10:28:00.000-05:002001-12-24T10:28:21.093-05:00 It's cloudy in New York. If it had been a few degrees colder, last night's steady rain would have created a magical white city. Instead, the sky and feeling of desertion (as if everyone is just playing at living here, but goes 'home' to space, scenery, abundance) bring to mind Berlin.
Last night I finished "The Corrections"... more desolate holiday reading. Put me in book-review mode. The nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-80521182001-12-19T15:13:00.000-05:002002-04-01T20:48:01.000-05:00 I'm learning a bit about the frustrations of journalism. Without strong contacts to expedite publication, I've been unable to get out this article, which I think is an important and underrepresented facet of post-September 11 New York. It's especially frustrating in light of the time and emotional honesty that the people I interviewed (both cops and civilians) shared with me, all trusting me tonixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-79743042001-12-16T16:33:00.000-05:002001-12-16T16:33:38.443-05:00 I'm quite sick of myself; my thought patterns, habits, and dreadfully circumscribed and impoverished life. (Every time I do laundry I'd like to throw out every one of my ratty garments. Every time I clean my house, the absurdity of moving around mismatched secondhand items like one of those one-piece-missing slide puzzles for the cycle of grunge to less grunge without real change or progress nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-79019202001-12-13T13:59:00.000-05:002001-12-13T13:59:28.526-05:00 I've been kinda down. Several nightmares. One was of being part of a group of red cross workers escorting young people out of danger under fire. The scene then switched to more of a report, like watching a documentary, with schematic graphics as in a textbook. We zeroed in on an island in the South Pacific where a group of peaceable natives canoed picturesquely over to bring gifts thanking nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-76493542001-12-04T20:20:00.000-05:002001-12-04T20:20:01.283-05:00 In a personal funk, mainly because of the boring-work-expands-to-fill-all-available-time phenomenon. I'm currently fact-checking an eight-page bibliography of knitting reference books. About every few minutes, I retreat to my bed to read another Dominick Dunne expose of the travails of the outrageously privileged. Why is no one flying me to a rendezvous aboard their Mediterranean yacht? The nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-74522082001-11-27T18:18:00.000-05:002001-11-27T18:18:08.500-05:00 Had a very strong nightmare Thanksgiving night. I had neighbors who were close friends, a European couple. They had a sumptuously spacious apartment (although, in real life, the apartments in this building are all the same, just mirror-images on either side). The apartment was so light and airy, many windows, both open spaces with linking archways and nice old-fashioned cubbyhole rooms, all nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-72998532001-11-21T14:12:00.000-05:002001-11-21T14:12:21.560-05:00 I've been busy, have a large editing project, been volunteering overnight shifts at a red cross relief center overnights, which wipes me out for the next two days, and writing a lot. A big article on police-community relations here in the East Village, which I was really hoping Salon would take, but didn't, and this following piece, which had been forming in my head for weeks and I finally sat nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-70356642001-11-11T11:25:00.000-05:002001-11-11T11:25:03.010-05:00 It's truly disorienting to live in a culture that you don't 'get'. They tell me that Bush's approval ratings are 90 plus percent. But no one ever asks me or anyone I know. They tell me about varying unemployment rates or health coverage percentages but, again, I don't think those figures have ever included the people I know. I thought when Bush was elected that the world was going to hell in a nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-66194352001-10-25T18:56:00.000-04:002002-06-02T17:55:31.000-04:00Tired of being an intinerant, solitary observer, sans any external validation or context, I decided to write a 'real' journalism piece. And, feeling that I'd frittered away too many years to patiently climb a new ladder, I aimed high. I sent it to the Times. They kind of told me they don't accept unsolicited news pieces, but what the hey. So they didn't publish it, so here it is, loyal readers:
nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-63472442001-10-15T04:17:00.000-04:002002-06-02T17:47:59.000-04:00Irked by the ideologues? Vexed by the vitriol? Annoyed by Armageddon?
No question that New York is weird right now. Sometimes I just sit in my chair and listen to NPR about anthrax or our lack of real intelligence or viewpoint-dissemination abilities in the Middle East. Sometimes I flip from channel to channel (two channels. no NBC, ABC, WB, Public Television) and wish I could see The Mole or nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-62842022001-10-12T04:28:00.000-04:002002-06-02T17:52:51.000-04:00is the jihad over yet?
Tired of terrorism. Jaded by the jihad. Sick of civilization and its discontents.
Irony was resurrected singlehandedly by the moniker "enduring freedom" and has made forays into outright parody as our folksy leader of the free world, enamored of his "dead or alive" wild west imagery descends from statesmenship to pure hokey with 'wanted' posters, 'smoke 'em out,' and 'handnixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-62017082001-10-08T18:28:00.000-04:002004-04-13T22:42:16.170-04:00 We had advance warning here of impending airstrikes via beefed up security around the ominous brick box on the corner, a mysterious con-ed generator? transformer?, the source of low, rumbling hums, presenting an entire north-south block facing of uninterrupted wall for an impromptu shrine of missing posters, flowers, candles, prayers, and exhortations.
Friday night, the single police car that nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-60489712001-10-01T23:50:00.000-04:002001-10-01T23:50:21.316-04:00terro-tourism
Laminated poster of the twin towers, anyone? Available on street vendor stalls along with your flag pins, red white and blue ribbon loops right on Fulton and Broadway. Never-seen-before scenes of carnage! 11 o'clock news or linked by your intrepid bloggers. Shrines with burnt-out candles, dead flowers, rain-bedraggled missing posters, and streaked and dripping penned platitudes and nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-59858822001-09-28T21:13:00.000-04:002001-09-28T21:13:19.986-04:00 I wanted to experience what the financial district is like now on a workday, before all traces, both physical and emotional, beyond the cordon are erased. Here, things have returned to a more level of testiness, to which I am much more sensitive. In the bank, I tried to use the machine-deposit option to bypass long lines. As I filled out paperwork and juggled envelope and receipt, a woman came nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-59663902001-09-27T23:19:00.000-04:002001-09-27T23:19:03.753-04:00toxi-city The antidote to terrorism: Fox's 'who wants to be a princess?' (who wants to go to a party that 'only the aristocracy and celebrities can attend' and get a 40,000 dollah necklace?).
The analogy to Pearl Harbor is particularly apt. In a foreign policy course in college, studied Pearl harbor extensively. In fact, there were a variety of warnings. Our choice to recive and portray an 'nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-59146922001-09-25T19:29:00.000-04:002001-09-25T19:29:07.313-04:00 The sky is a bright, yellowish gray; again I wake up to such an intense noxious smell I am sure the building is on fire. Today I turned in the last chunk of medical encyclopedia; the past week has been one of those nightmarish times of working, in decreasing blocs of time in decreasing concentration, then napping, then waking up and sitting back in front of the piles of pages that never seem tonixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-58836072001-09-24T13:17:00.000-04:002001-09-24T13:17:12.270-04:00 Things are "getting back to normal", although I'm having moments of cognitive dissonance, seeing full sidewalk sushi bars of chattering young people, repressing or blithely accepting (as if repetition into numbness turns reality into an image file) that less than a mile from where they sit lies an open funeral pyre. The local newscasters are chirpy again, after two weeks of rising to the nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-58420852001-09-22T05:41:00.000-04:002001-09-22T05:41:01.960-04:00 I awake to such choking, acrid smoke that, having fallen dead asleep with light blazing and a vast sense of things-undone, I believe I am on the West Side Highway and I am upset that we are not handing out the respirators fast enough. I had read a Times article about the Battery Park City people returning to their homes yesterday, and there was a picture of a large assembly of them in front of nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-58165592001-09-20T22:45:00.000-04:002001-09-20T22:45:55.083-04:00 Listening to PBS commentary on Bush's address to Congress. I love Mark Shields. I mean love. He is able, succinctly and with great humor and edge and insight, to illuminate politics and national affairs with a sense of history and both institutional and personal politics.
Today I feel lost and sad. I am utterly unable to focus on work. It rained quite hard through the day and I imagine that nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-58079872001-09-20T15:10:00.000-04:002001-09-20T15:10:31.020-04:00 I posted info. about our volunter project on Penny Arcade's yahoo egroups list, and at least one list member (Rachel) came down, obviously last night, judging from the pictures she took; nice commentary as well, she really "got" the flavor of the effort. I'm happy about that, because I also sent over Hearn, my neighbor, who complained that it looked to him like a bunch of futile busywork and nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-57976672001-09-20T01:22:00.000-04:002001-09-20T01:29:14.000-04:00 I'm cumulatively exhausted. Today was to be editing at home, but I decided to follow up withthe Times reporter and he said he'd meet me down at the project, so I printed out a lot of info, got it photocopied and trudged across town again (it's a serious 40-50 min. walk and I'm tired of making it). I then was there from 1-8. He never showed up, but we finally got some official liason stuff in nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-57683532001-09-18T18:27:00.000-04:002004-04-13T09:02:28.153-04:00(6 pm) Spent today making calls to media, trying to return overdue videos to still-closed library, posting info. on some editors' boards, watching non-news news, making a flyer describing our project for volunteers to distribute, and posting some around the neighborhood and also approaching drugstore, hardware, and restaurant owners about contributions. I may have gotten Mama's (yummy soul/nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-57626662001-09-18T13:24:00.000-04:002002-04-01T20:38:55.000-05:00I have to do my freelance work, but first have been calling the Times and such to get some word out about our operation. Here's a Times article that conveys the best, I think, of any writing I've yet read the scene and feeling of the crash site now. And here's the email/press release I'm sending out:
Clarkson Relief Depot
An all-civilian, all-volunteer group has been maintaining an emergency nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-57334622001-09-17T03:32:00.000-04:002001-09-17T03:32:57.510-04:00 I guess people do what they can. I've not gone above 14th Street all week; I feel compelled to be close to the event even though the Met and the Frick are free and Hearn went up to a vigil in Central Park on this lovely day. I've not been to 14th street where you see all the candles and pictures in the news, nor to the armory where the families gather, and only briefly by St. Vincent's where nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-57193022001-09-16T11:44:00.000-04:002001-09-16T13:12:10.000-04:00 Although I still want to write a chronology of my experience and witnessing (on Tuesday I walked all the way down to the cordons and was about four blocks away from World trade 7 when it fell, at a triage center there, and then over at the West Side Highway among the miles-long, three lanes of emergency vehicles; I was further down then the stand-up news you saw; they had them penned in up at nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-56650322001-09-13T13:05:00.000-04:002001-09-13T13:05:07.466-04:00 The wind shifted last night at about eleven and acrid smoke filled the apartment. The air conditioner is only partly successful; I wake up with a sore throat. I am fine, everyone I know is fine, and none of my friends are missing anyone close to them. Nonetheless, the city is in shock.
I woke up on Tuesday when my neighbor Hearn pounded on the door to say that one of the World Trade Center nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-55320032001-09-06T23:17:00.000-04:002001-09-06T23:17:25.483-04:00 It's my 38th birthday. Severe blues and pms made the last two weeks distressing, but I feel optimistic. Today I told the medical encyclopedia publisher that I could only do a thorough job on 12 pages a day, thus extending an imminent deadline I'd only been told about Tuesday. Heather W has asked me to be in next week's performance, to be directed by Patricia, a mutual friend whom I worked with nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3049866.post-52934702001-08-25T15:33:00.000-04:002001-08-25T15:33:52.810-04:00 To say that things have been going badly is merely to gesture at the huge ball of anxiety and depression that's been keeping me in bed until 2pm, then up chain-smoking and chain-reading mysteries that barely register except as rote page-turning. Every day this past week my goal was to get up, have coffee and a bagel, write in an attempt to either understand or at least pin down this anxiety, nixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929976728847656297noreply@blogger.com0