Beautiful Horizons

The Party's Over

I have run this blog for ten years now, but recently I have been posting extremely rarely as I have simply not had the requisite combination of time and energy to continue this project.

So thank you to all who stopped by to read, whether you agreed or not. I expect to be back in the near future in a different incarnation when I also expect to be doing this from a different location.

My Recent Silence

I apologize for my recent absence here. Not to bore anyone with the details, but Mercia received a medical diagnosis in April that had to be addressed with surgery in June. We then had an issue in our apartment that essentially necessitated our emptying our closets, dressers and bagging everything up while some maintenance was done. Unfortunately, the first company to do the work, didn't do it properly and it had to be redone, so we've just the second half of this week been able to start getting things back to normal. Then on Monday, Mercia's father died, necessitating her traveling to Brazil. I'm physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. In other week I hope to start blogging again. Thanks for your support.

Check and Double Check Those Translations

I took this photo near our hotel in Porto. I'm not entirely certain what dish on the first line this was a mistranslation of, but it doesn't sound very appealing:

Christopher Hitchens

His former "comrade", Eric Alterman, fittingly exalts and destroys Hitchens' memoir HERE. 

A Commemoration

About a month ago I marked thirty years living in the New York Metropolitan Area (my first seven years were in Westchester County). It's somewhat peculiar for me when I think about it; when I graduated from college I never expected to live here. A job cropped up in line with my career goals and I made the move.

Market changes and crappy managers made me abandon most of my original career goals. I suppose it's part of one's maturing process: reconciling your dreams to the world's realities, but it's still a bit disheartening. Still one trudges on.

I don't love New York, but there are things I love about it: the museums and the sheer variety of museums: from the American Museum of Natural History, the American Museum of the Moving Image, Museum of the American Indian and any number of others. Central Park on a summer day; the lake at Flushing Meadows Corona Park; the promenade at Riverside Park; Governors island are all lovely oases from the concrete.

I also love some of the neighborhoods: my own Jackson Heights, my former neighborhood, Astoria, Woodside, Sunnyside, Greenwich Village, Roosevelt Island and Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. Few moments have given me more pleasure than bicycling from here in Jackson Heights to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal or the Governors Island Ferry Terminal through a panoply of different ethnic communities.

The noise and tension here is something I could do without; that and the impersonal nature of so much here. I have friends from whom I've grown apart and haven't seen for years, but live not far from where I live or work. It's easy to get swallowed up amidst all the brick and stone and it's easy to lose connections here.

I've been fortunate as all three of the large cities I've lived in are also major tourist destinations and marked by diverse populations. I have also lived in places where I could hear owls at night, and blessed quiet during the day; the sounds of nature forming a welcome counterpoint to humankind. Somehow I find myself longing for that more and more.

Another Person Who Needed to Let Go

This is creepy:

A doctor involved in an "on-again, off-again" relationship apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend's home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday. Her decomposing body was found there three days later.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

Apparently the cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation, i.e., she was unable to breath because of the tight space.

Short and Sweet

Precious little to argue with here:

I Consider This High Praise

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Another Week From Hell . . .

. . . With practically no time to post.

But at least on Friday I get to see this show:

On Saturday I get to see one of the best voices in jazz: Andy Bey:

I haven't had this much culture in one weekend and not been on vacation. Sweet!

Life Is a Zoo

And unfortunately, right now I'm the zookeeper. Back tomorrow.