Notes of Revision

In all the different things I wrote yesterday (and the day before), I remembered this note I’d meant to post:

I’d just heard about the second plane crash when a woman approached me on the street, wearing pins for Vallone (one of the mayoral candidates), and asked me if I was voting for Vallone. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m voting for Ferrer.’ ‘Yeah, well, good luck.’ She started walking away as I asked her if she could give me a reason to vote for Vallone. ‘Well, sure, you see, he worked for Giuliani, I mean, he did, but he’s no Giuliani. I mean, look at this,’ she said, pointing down Park Avenue to the massive cloud, ‘This is a perfect symbol for how Giuliani failed New York. He failed us because he couldn’t stop this. Because he didn’t build a radar – ‘ ‘Are you blaming Giuliani,’ I interrupted, ‘for the plane crashes?’ ‘Well, he could have built a radar…’

I don’t remember what else she said. I have the card for Vallone sitting on my desk. Another note: I was trying to read two days ago to distract myself from the news and I picked up one of my favorite books, Lunch Poems, by Frank O’Hara. O’Hara is an incredible poet, pivotal in the New York School, and a former curator of MOMA. He has a poem, ‘The Day Lady Died,’ about the death of Billie Holliday which I never really understood (or, more truthful, I’d never really felt). Yesterday, somehow, with the times, the places, and the crushing ending, it made sense.