Scraps that fell off the table in 2007

While cleaning up this Mac’s “ desktop” (an annual chore), I find fragments of things I had intended to work into presentable posts but never did. A curious mind stumbles about like a fat bee among ample flowers at the height of summer. In winter, he remembers.

I had thought to write about all the hand-painted t shirts C has produced this year.


In a rare moment of political fuming, I had begun a list called “Threats to democracy”: I like lists to contain ten items. I got through six on this one before something less sour distracted me.

Threats to democracy

a) Fat – people grow lazy. They do not tend to the work that needs to be done to maintain a democracy. Like a second or third generation living off the company their father or grandfather started without becoming active in it.

b) Making nice – the rest of the world contains some pretty vicious people and cultures. We should not treat them all politely. They would kill us if they could. We need to learn that it is not ignoble to make war effectively, to flex muscle in defense of ourselves and to win war even when that means the destruction of another group of people.

c) God. God has nothing to do with democracy. In fact, God is probably the polar opposite.

d) Tiring of diversity. It’s so much easier to have rules that segregate us. Opting for the convenience of little segregations and daily minor bigotries that never make headlines but cause a slow slick coating on the tongue that eventually results in a loss of taste and savoring of diversity.

e) Politicians who want to be re-elected. Confusing sports and politics. Put down your plow and go to Washington if your neighbors ask you to. Represent them and then come home and take up your plow and let someone else put in their time. Let people look at your one-shot record and decide if you were useful or not, but not in terms of “Can you make a career out of this gig?” Even if you’re good at it, the process of returning popular politicians to office has not guaranteed us great results. There really is no justification for the amount of time a politician spends getting re-elected. There should be no campaigning, let alone campaign financing which ought to be illegal.

f) Bloated Federal government. Let the Federal government shrink before it sinks. The Federal government ought to protect our national borders with its military, maintain interstate transportation and print money, safeguard health whenever an issue is beyond the boundaries of a particular state, and facilitate the congregation of senators and congressmen, and decide arguments among states.


I had written effusively about this orchid, the only phaleonopsis we have ever had that actually produced a second little plant at the end of a stalk of blossoms. I spent an outrageous $75 for this plant. Bought it from an Asian lady who sold them in the window of her dry cleaning business on Amsterdam. She wouldn’t bargain. Unlike many of its kind, this one seems to bloom all year with no months of vacation. Now that it has produced a baby, its cost is more reasonable. Besides, how do you price something when it is beautiful?


There were some parties we attended that went unreviewed. Here am I with recovering bloggers Vasco and Eric on Eric's 24th birthday:


There was the process of stripping years of paint off a metal door. I documented it in pics but the memory of the chemical fumes seems to have kept me from outlining this business.


I attended this vernissage at the Consulate General of Argentina. I had just left the gym, and after two glasses of Argentine red wine, and seriously dehydrated, I almost passed out and stumbled out into the cold air and into a Duane Reid for water without saying goodbye to Raul(whose work was terrific) or John. (Raul and his partner John bookend Ken who sings in Mystery Date, and two of their friends)


In testament to the frivolous usage of post-retirement free time, I made repeated videos of the inside of our kitchen waste paper basket lined with a plastic bag. Here’s a still from that nonsense:


I really should have written about the “Channel gardens” at Rockefeller Center so called because they lie in the space between La Maison Francaise and the British Empire Building, and, about its benches installed at the recommendation of “Project for Public Spaces” after the management of the Center asked them to recommend ways to discourage the public from sitting on the stonework of the fountain. Their reply: ”Are you guys nuts? That is exactly what a plaza is supposed to make people do: linger. Don’t discourage this. Add benches!”.


This was a year of fun with Photoshop. Among the things I didn’t post is this before/after shot of Lynette who had coveted my eyebrows and received them for Christmas with some additional bling and extentions.


I’ve kept this odd picture of something I saw in a men’s room in Central Park.


In Savannah, C and I sat in a café on Ogilvie Square. En route to and from the restroom, I overheard two gay men conversing about a pit bull and the terms of probabtion. I reported the conversation to C who said he hadn’t known that pitbulls got probation. The record of their conversation and ours illustrated how men quickly go crazy in places like Savannah and why we could like living there. I can’t find my record of that.

After having received a Rufus Wainwright DVD entitled “Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy! Live from the London Palladium”, I wrote a review wondering how anyone could possibly admire Mr. Wainright who is largely tone-deaf and who treated the infinitely more talented Lorna Luft with what looked like contempt while she was on stage with him. He can’t sing. He can’t perform. He doesn’t understand any of the songs in this concert. I just. Don’t. Get. It. In disgust, I trashed the review.

I also ditched a record of a conversation over dinner with C, P and B at Seasons 52 in which I claimed to have reached a new level of maturity by not insisting on sex with only handsome men, claiming that once a person has been repeatedly “to the mountain”, sex is more about sensation only and is not contingent upon the look of the chosen participant. I was immediately set upon by all three who tore this argument to shreds despite my heroic attempt to save my own flag.

I had also thought to post more frequently about the sale of our Sol Lewitt painting that Christie’s will auction in New York on January 15th. Buzz must be generated. This was encouraging.

I had often thought to post that which first came through the finger tips when presented with the freundlich daily keyboard over the last 365:
a) about sex: its availability, its meaning, its drudgeries, its exhilarations and its curiosities
b) about age: its relentlessness, its cruelty, its prattling arguments and its vanquishing.
c) About money: its annoyance, its limitations, its evaluations and my divorce from its future
d) About work: but I’ve rather forgotten what it was like.
e) About God: who often dies and is reborn in my head depending on the traffic and what I may have eaten.
f) About love: but this I did wrestle into word once or twice.



But for a nicer conclusion to the year, I’ll simply post us in Fort Lauderdale on Christmas. Let all this lay where I can find it under the dust of the years to come.