Howdy! May this letter find you rested and filled with wonder. The most exciting encounter this week happened in Fort Greene Park on a routine night walk. A neighbor was in the middle of the park, gigantic telescope aimed straight at the full moon. Different people would stop and she’d invite them to take a look.
We saw a bouncy, crater-filled moon, shining like a torch, as well as Jupiter with 3 of its 80 moons and a sassy ringed Saturn. It was the most delightful surprise and if you’d like to be alerted to the next session, you can follow Stoopgazers Astronomy Club on Instagram.
I realized many days later that the owner of the telescope was Uli Beutter Cohen, who in 2016 asked me what book I was reading on the Dekalb Q train platform for her project Subway Book Review. Ultimately, she rode every train line end to end and talked to over 1,000 people in all five boroughs over the course of 7 years.
I then ran into her again last year when she was selling advance copies of her resulting book over by the farmers market (as well as some excellent merch - Kishori is now the owner of my gifted Fiction baseball cap, currently sold out). I wonder under what circumstances I’ll run into Uli next…
Teenagers parkour around the streets of France, turning off store signs at night to protest visual pollution and combat climate change. Now thanks to their efforts, starting in December the Paris government has decided to switch off most illuminated ads at night.
These young acrobats feel like the spiritual descendants of the Situationists, a group of French artists and writers in the 1950s who were interested in breaking out of everyday capitalist routines. They wandered Paris on foot on what they called a dérive, an unplanned excursion through the urban landscape. Raoul Vaneigem, a prominent member of the Situationist International, said "All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops — the geometry".
In other urban absurdities, no one knows how a school of freshwater fish came to be living in the basement of Riis Beach’s abandoned hospital next to the ocean. The land is currently owned by NYC Health & Hospitals Corporation but Ceyenne Doroshow, founder of GLITS, Inc. imagines the beach being landmarked and the ex-hospital site being converted into a land trust and programmed to meet queer and trans people’s holistic health needs. To make this vision a reality, you can sign their petition.
It’s the last days to donate to El Museo del Barrio’s emergency clothing drive for the nearly 20,000 asylum seekers who have arrived in NYC in recent months. Drop-offs can be made from Thursday to Saturday between 10am and 3pm till October 22.
Julio Torres does not own a credit card and will not go to your wedding because he does not open mail. His answer on why representation is the floor, not the ceiling is brilliant and we are so lucky to be living in the time of Los Espookys.
A new British expression I have not been able to fit casually into a conversation (yet): “putting the cat amongst the pigeons”, meaning to push the boundaries or cause trouble. In the cat proverb department, I also learned that the full expression is actually “curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought him back.” That second half changes the whole meaning!
Cecilia Vicuña’s work was some of my favorite at this year’s Venice Biennale. I did not know the Chilean artist and poet has been tending a community garden in Tribeca for the last 40 years. Her paintings were destroyed by the Pinochet regime and she went into exile, first to London then New York. Now at age 74, she is the first artist of Latin American descent to receive the Venice Biennale’s prestigious Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and is admired by Chile’s new left-wing president Gabriel Boric Font.
I have been tickled by Ron Padgett’s poem How to Be Perfect as I enter my self help era…
Oko Ebombo’s new music video for his song Nalingi Yo if you’re looking for a more visual kind of poem (produced by dear bud Laure).
Free movie idea: a biopic of Joséphine Baker, burlesque performer, French spy, and civil rights advocate - through the eyes of her pet cheetah Chiquita, who wore a diamond collar onstage and traveled everywhere with her. She was a gift from a club owner for Joséphine to use as part of her dance act.
Till next time,
ASK
So fun Ani! Love the cat expression and that poem really hit home (glad I’m checking off many items from her list!). 💌 also Jospephine Baker biopic idea from her cheetah’s perspective?! Sign me up! 🐆