300! How did we get here? In some ways I can’t believe I’m already at my 300th post and in other ways, it’s hard to remember a time when I wasn’t doing this...and I will add that I would not recommend that someone not have a chance to be off their computer for 365 days straight.
As I approach the final stretch, I find myself simultaneously ready for it to be over and sad that the year is coming to an end. But most of all, I want to make sure that the positive changes my experiment has brought in me continue after I’m spending time blogging every day. I have to figure out how to keep an open and kind heart even when I’m not actively looking for people to honor who are out there slaying dragons on a daily basis.
I spent a lot of my time today writing about Lou Reed, who died today a 71. I interviewed him in 1996 for Billboard and it remains one of my favorite memories of my time there, simply because interviewing Reed for a journalist was a bit like getting into the ring with a bear. It felt like a rite of passage and many of us have our stories about tangling with him. Today, as I read a number of other pieces about him, I realized how much more I had to learn about his and the Velvet Underground’s music and am thankful that even when a great artist leaves us, his or her work lives forever for us to discover anew.
New York’s Lower East Side and Reed are synonymous, so today I’m giving to the Henry Street Settlement, a wonderful organization that serves Lower East Side residents through health care, social services and arts programs. It is a part of the neighborhood for 120 years and has made a real difference to those who use their services. It has expanded its programs to adjust to the changes in the LES over the decades with compassion and an understanding that serving the whole person —through feeding their soul and heart and dreams as much as their hunger— is vital.
Oct. 27: Henry Street Settlement
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