Draw the shades, turn on the A/C, open a book and pretend it’s winter!
Coney Island – who needs it? I just don’t get it. Going to the beach in the summertime. Enormous crowds. Coating your body in greasy sunblock, which attracts layers of sand and gnats like flypaper. And...
View ArticleFour Degrees of Separation
The Birds…Alfred Hitchcock…Psycho…Crazy Commuters This morning I caught the Q49 bus, deliberately running late. A new employee I.D. swipe-in system has been instituted at my job, and management now...
View ArticleThe Past is Dead…Long Live the Past
On a leisurely walk down 59th St. this morning, I was shocked to learn the Oak Bar in the Plaza Hotel has closed. Little by little, old New York seems to be disappearing before our eyes. Not that I was...
View ArticleThe Ninth House Blog: Then and Now
This afternoon, I revisited my very first post on this blog, published on April 23, 2009 at 1:57 P.M., and erected its astrological chart. I’m somewhat chagrined, given how wrapped up I am in...
View ArticleKoans for Contemplation at the End of September
Photo: by J.C. Cause for contemplation in the coming week: 1) Should a person spend 8 hours a day in a workplace she has come to loathe? 2) Must this person endure the interminable ranting* of a desk...
View ArticleWe will miss you, Steve Jobs
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your...
View ArticleVerklempt
Lately I’ve been as verklempt as this Bergdorf mannequin; minus the glamour. Enervated at work, fed up, really (if you happen to work in an office populated by gossips and hypochondriacal, litigious...
View ArticleThings are looking up!
At Lety’s, a favorite local bakery here in Jackson Heights, I overheard a coffee klatch conversation today among several (I’m guessing) 70-to-80-somethings. One of the guys was trying to encourage a...
View ArticleA Walk in the Park
Thursday was my favorite kind of autumn day. Chilly, overcast, not windy, on the brink of rain but holding fast. A perfect lunch hour for a Woody Allen movie moment — remember that scene from Hannah...
View ArticleHow To Be An Artist
I’ve just finished writer David Rakoff’s remarkably witty, insightful, poignant, snarky but never mean collection of essays, Half Empty. What a joy to read. From a piece he calls, Isn’t It Romantic —...
View ArticleMay Your Weekend Seem Like A Week Long
If your Friday was anything like mine…I’m sure you need a timeout. From my arsenal of inspiring quotes, I offer the following to help diffuse the residual effects of workplace insanity: - “If I keep...
View ArticleAll I Want for Christmas is No More War
Will we ever get over the absence of the World Trade Center towers in the downtown skyline? No, never. But because I’m a fan of TV shows and films from the grittier 1970s, lately I’ve been watching...
View ArticleIt’s 2012: Let’s Get Together and Feel Alright
I’m reading a collection of essays about pop culture titled Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan. Although I haven’t finished reading the essays, so far, my favorite piece is the fascinating and...
View ArticlePlaylist for 2012 for Playtime at Home
Thinking Outside the Box OMG, what an annoying day at work. Talk about High School Confidential - a cabal of office workers GOSSIPING as if their life depended on it. Well…I came home and decided to...
View ArticleR U Blocked?
(courtesy of The New Yorker ) Wouldn’t it be convenient if a prerecorded message were made available to artists, something to guide them through the creation of a work of art, just as the viewer above...
View ArticleMayor Bloomberg is Such a Dweeb
I just watched this video at queenscrap.blogspot.com. It’s called: “Get Ready for Some Bad Acting.” I don’t know which is funnier (as in dumb, stupid, bad funny), the video or the comments… Who knew...
View ArticleSynchronicities
“How nice–to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.” Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
View ArticleGrins and Grimaces
“How nice–to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.” The inimitable Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five I just finished reading a great biography of Vonnegut (check out my Book Reviews...
View ArticleGrins :) and Grimaces :(
“How nice–to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.” The inimitable Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five First, let me apologize to all who subscribe to my blog — twice today, I hit the...
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