Home, home on deranged

[arisbe]

As far as I can tell the smell of gas has gone. Of course natural gas has no smell; the smell has to be added for safety's sake. I'm not sure when -- perhaps when it's deliquified. A tank of the oderant may have ruptured, then. Whatever happened, happened somewhere around Bleecker and Fourth Streets, according to the Mayor of Jersey City, who is no doubt sensitive on the subject of smells, if not an expert on it. (The smelliest lot in JC was undoubtedly the Kodak film works next to the house my parents lived in when they first married, which had belonged to my father's grandfather.)

Our building has a radiator next to the mailboxes. On top of the radiator sit (or sat an hour or two ago) a single dirty white half sock and a pair of black panties. There must be a story here.

I had two small helpings of mutton curry last night as well as a goodly number of those tasty snacks of deep fried chickpea batter. It may be reasonable to assume that my digestion is rather better, though the Better Half still wishes me to abstain from alcohol.

I am happy to note that not one but two folks over in the Department of American Literature are on the tenure track for sainthood. The one you know about is Hawthorne's daughter Rose, a decent poet in her own right, once married to the fellow who was working on the libretto for the operatic version of Moby-Dick (not a good idea at all, in my admittedly inexpert opinion), and a good friend of Emma Lazarus (probably related to an old roommate of mine) whose death from cancer inspired Rose to found a Dominican order to care for cancer patients -- their hospice on the Lower Lower Far East Side is the building standing closest to where my grandmother lived when she first came here from Ireland around 1880.

The other is Isaac Hecker, who was kicked out of the Redemptorists for wanting to serve English speaking Americans -- Pius IX (of all people) personally saved his priestly butt, and he went on to found the Paulists, whose mother church, build from the stones of the old Bryant Park reservoir to the plans of General Grant's West Point roommate (he taught military architecture at the Point before becoming a priest himself) stands opposite the hospital which was my home away from home last week. Father Hecker (yes, he had been in the flour business), who is buried there in a memorable Saint-Gaudens tomb, was in his Transcendentalist days a resident of both Brook Farm and Spicelands (or Gracelands, whatever), and, as an independent student of Greek and Latin, rented a room in Henry Thoreau's house in Concord.

Small woild, ain't it, Doc?

Comments

[theoldanarchist.livejournal.com]

I wondered if we would hear something from you today about the mysterious "Lower Manhattan smell" that had CNN and MSNBC all aflutter this morning. It was almost amusing flipping back and forth between the two as they consulted their consultants, contacted their contacts, and ex-somethingerothered their experts, all trying to make something of this. The mayor's press conference was not at all revelatory, and so the surmising, assuming, and otherwise was still ongoing when I ran to catch the bus at noon.

The other is Isaac Hecker, who ... rented a room in Henry Thoreau's house in Concord.


I love stories like that! Small world indeed. Fascinating.