A little whisper here about Spes – Natural wine bar and Italian food. All women owned and the chef is a lady from Naples. We love it. We ate here twice now and both times we ended up having lengthy conversations about our longing for Italy. The owners and manager are very young Italian women from the Venice area and, as I mentioned, the chef is from Naples. Last night she came out and gave us recommendations for restaurants in Naples !!! so … we are dreaming of travelling again – post pandemic. But this place makes us feel like life post pandemic is possible. 413 East 12th street.

It happened from one day to another.
March 8th I was doing a fitting for a job that never happened.
I was having dinner at Piggyback on March 9th.
March 12th I was playing a “wealthy party-guest” on my last film-set.
And on March 15th the city closed down.

Since then I have friends and acquaintances that died and friends that have been hospitalized. Too emotional to mention here. I will always miss the ones who passed and am eternally grateful for those to managed to get through. This virus is pest.

I would just like to share some moments from my locked-in life in New York this spring and summer in the next blog-posts.

First the ambulances and the birds. The sirens were constant in March and April… Every minute…no other sounds of life from outside or apartment…just the sirens….

And then we noticed the birds.

So I wrote a short poem to go with the enclosed sunrise video from early spring 2020.

Birds and ambulances.
Beauty and sadness,
interacting
becoming memories
I view the city from above
listening to dawn,
a tropical forest
by an emergency room.
And I wonder,
does the Mocking Bird
try to sound like the sirens now…

 

I wonder what kind of bird this was… he visited early one morning

I wonder how the clouds could look so unreal sometimes ….

And I wonder if the person who was supposed to read this proposal ever actually saw it

What do you think?

Hey there. I was gone for over a year from this blogg. Maybe I needed time to figure out what it was I wanted to write about. I started out wanting to write poetic contemplations on my New York existence: like the bums on my block (there are several regulars), the music still played in my neighborhood bars, the Russian more-than-middle-aged men trying to pick me up on Brighton Beach, the love of food from everywhere – the simple everyday pleasure of walking around in the city of New York that refuses to be anything than the big melting pot it’s been forever. New York City makes it a promise to protect the people that make the city work. Therefor I love this city.

So I am back. Writing about what I see and think about. And for today – I am starting with Huerta – our own neighborhood Basque restaurant.  I am going there in two hours with my friend from Rome and my husband who is half Estonian and half Swedish.  eating Basque tapas. And tomorrow it might be northwestern Chinese.  All within a short stroll from my apartment. That is one of the reasons why I love New York my friends.

So I will continue with just these type of short contemplations on my life. See you!

Is it really closing?
my favorite NYC movie theater.
And rumor is that the developer
is not even keeping
the iconic front of the building

It opened in 1909
as a Yddish vaudeville venue
Re-named Sunshine in 1917,
was the Chopin theater
until it closed in 1945
and became storage
But still with that iconic front
i think.

And
since the mid-1990s
It has been
the Sunshine cinema
screening all of my favorite flicks
on the same Houston street
block as the
Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery

I hope they will stay….
But that is just a hope.

Please go and try a Knish today…

A clear sign of gentrification
in our neighborhood
was when Lenin
moved across the street

He had been on our roof
since the fall
of the soviet union.
We used to have great
sunset parties
by his feet

When our building was sold
to a real estate developer,
the old owner took Lenin with him

Now he stands on a roof
on Norfolk street
still keeping a check on
Wall Street

You can see him if you stand on
Houston and look south

We are very few of the old tenants left
and we no longer have
Lenin-sunset parties
on our roof

In 1992
I made
a very short film
five minutes long:
A Woman’s Point Of View During Sex

It was quite a success
won prices in Monaco
and Uppsala

I was interviewed

and it was sold to TV
in several European countries

A simple idea
You see the sex-act from
a woman’s point of view
The ceiling
And then the floor
and a woman’s
hands holding on to a sink
while the camera is moving.

You get the picture…

You will soon be able to see it
At the Swedish Film Institute’s
online library.

I tell you when.

And that was my
15 minutes of fame  nr.1

Now to
15 min of fame nr.2a

I wrote a novel
In Swedish
We had the book release
at the NK department store
in Stockholm.
That felt very special.

If you click here you can read about it
if you like.

And 15 minutes of fame nr.2b
was when the book
was translated to English

and we had a book release
party in New York.
The Black Cats NYC
were playing
This is how happy I was
at the end of that

Now – I just got back from the
bookstore at the
Museum of Modern Art
in New York
and that is my
15 minutes of fame nr.3

Robert Carrithers
and Louis Armand
has put together
this book
“Citiy Primeval
New York, Berlin, Prague”

and a piece of my writing
is in it
with photos
Page 225 – 229
It is for sale at the
MoMA Bookstore.
Imagine that.

This Friday Nov 10
there will be a book release
with performances
at Howl! on 1^st street
Please come !!!

So those were
my 15 minutes
of fame
times three

I am sure you
have had your
15 minutes of fame
Please tell me….

 

I really like the little people by Tom Otterness
There are more than 25 little people
in the subway by 14th and 8th

And an alligator
eating a little person

I also like the 27 seals by the East River
by Gerry Augustine Lynas

And I like the graffiti on the gates of closed stores or restaurants in the East Village.
I saw these early in the morning while walking a friends dog.

Normally I am never out
when those places are closed
and the gates are down.

Thank God for little dogs.

But there is this rabbit hanging high up in the air
at the beginning of first street.
Why is it there ??

A long time ago
I lived with a man
who was a teacher
at an art school
on 23rd street

He had a new student
who said she had a part
in a new film.

We didn’t know this film
but went to see it
expecting to see her being
and extra
or a waitress
or someone getting out of a taxi
or somebody’s friend’s friend

Something small

But this student
at that art school
on 23rd street

she was the star of the film

Never, ever just presume
anything.

And –
that’s all I have to say about that !