"Everything is possible"

"There's something about experiencing loss very young. My mom used to talk about it all the time because her dad died when she was an infant. In my case, it was my father and brother.

You never feel safe, but at the same time, you know everything is possible — both good and bad."

 -A poignant sentiment from Anderson Cooper on on the anxiety, fear, and also valuable perspective that can come from sudden or unexpected loss, in an otherwise flip joint interview he did with Kathy Griffin in the New York Times

The key commandment of writing

"...She said that she has one key commandment of writing'Ass in the chair.'"

 

I often think of this quip from the fascinating and fun to read June 2009 New Yorker profile of the prolific romance novelist Nora Roberts (who also writes mysteries under the nom de plume of J.D. Robb.) 

Disco Christmas trees

"In the disco era, we hung our Christmas tree from the upper reaches of the ceiling, its lights dazzling like a mirror ball as it worryingly spun. Another year, my mother, disinclined to go out in the snow and buy a tree, just painted one onto the wall."

Isabel Fonseca wrote an enjoyable to read article in the November 14th issue of the New York Times' T Magazine about what it was like to grow up in an apartment (pictured above) with artistic parents in Greenwich Village in the 1960s and 1970s.

My generation is in some ways more cautious than the last couple of preceding generations were. I'd argue that this is often by necessity (it's hard to be footloose when you start out your adult life with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. Or to be whimsical decorating a house that you've mortgaged for hundreds of thousands, since home prices have also risen precipitously in the past couple of decades.)

Still, I'd like to bring some of that old school freestyle spirit back into my life, especially when I have children of my own. "It's too snowy outside. Mom's just going to paint the Christmas tree on the wall this year" sounds like the start of a fun holiday season.

 

Out in disguise

"But walking around Chinatown is the only time I can feel authentic old Manhattan -- our neighborhoods have been neutered. I miss the old New Yorkers," she adds.

"What's confusing is that all these jocks dress alternative now due to hipsterdom or whatever. They're all out in disguise. It's very disturbing."

-- Chloe Sevigny in the November issue of Harper's Bazaar 

 

I liked this when I read it, as it articulates something that's bugged me lately in my more cynical moments, in NYC and elsewhere. 

But there's likely nothing new happening under the sun. I'm probably just getting old and wanting all these kids to get off my lawn.