Crazy Stable

As regular readers are aware, the inhabitants of the CrazyStable turn devotedly to the New York Times for guidance in matters zeitgeist-related. I am grateful to report that the Times' music critic and hip-hop specialist, Kelefa "I Love Everything" Sanneh, has provided us with a succinct—nay, eloquent—New Year's resolution for our home-improvement efforts. Stay with me, here; I want you to relish this in context.

The mournful Mr. Sanneh reports on the untimely hotel-room demise of Mr. Pimp C, half of a rap duo called UGK (short for Underground Kings), just after the release of the duo's "great" double album and "sublime" single, "Int'l. Players Anthem."  Over to you, Kelefa:

"His bereaved musical partner, Bun B, gave a handful of eloquent interviews, trying to explain what he had lost, what fans had lost.

'I appreciate the concern,' he told Vibe. 'But I wouldn’t ask anyone to stop their life, because Pimp would’ve wanted us all to keep grinding.'"

Straight-faced but misty-eyed, the critic concludes: "If you’re looking for a two-word motto for hip-hop in 2007, you could do worse than that: 'Keep grinding.'"

Rather than conjure up my usual insanely ambitious list of projects for the new year, I have decided to heed the advice of the oracular Bun B. We will keep grinding, literally and figuratively:

* We will keep stripping paint, inch by tedious inch.

* We will keep busting up cement in the "garth garden", inch by...see above.

* We will put doorknobs back on when they fall off.

* We will forge ahead with our modest plans to repaint some rooms, like Child's (which still sports its gender-neutral pre-natal paint job) and the main hallway (still flamboyant as the lamented Mr. Pimp C in its "shrimp-bisque bordello" hue).

Sometime next year, a modest windfall might or might not permit more ambitious plans, like a new roof or exterior shingling. We will not look that far ahead, however. We will keep grinding. It's what Pimp would've wanted.

Happy New Year!

My man Busta K

To distract myself from contemplating the destabilization of nuke-owning Pakistan, I dipped into the cyberpages of The New York Times' 'Home' section, and was amazed to see, like the birth of a star in a distant galaxy, the tale of a CrazyStable being born anew in the Bronx.

My heart goes out to Sherrie and Marcel Deans, who fell in love with this crumbling stone manse in the rough-and-ready East Tremont section of the Bronx, still inhabited by a little old man and his treasures and debris. They estimate a renovation cost of $200,000 but admit that they expect to go "way over budget." Yes, dears.

I was touched by the similiarities to our story:

• They were kind of scared, yet strangely compelled to buy. (Left, Sherrie ascending the stairs--boy, do we know the interior emotional state behind her expression.) 
• They have cats patrolling the property.
• They bought into an area still pre-gentrified and "edgy," and have so far found nothing but welcome (and some curiosity).
• They paid "a song" (although their song of more than $650K was a much higher song than ours--about five times higher).
• They still have weird original sconces. (Theirs have shades, ours don't.)
• They found a cool antique bottle. (Theirs was brandy, ours was beer--very apropos.)

And then there are the crucial differences:

• This lovely young couple seem to bring adequate financial resources to the challenge. As opposed to, um, no resources whatsovever except a capacity for self-delusion and frequent restorative naps.
• Their house is made of stone, not wood, so the Big Bad Wolf is less likely to blow it down.
• They have tons of original detail, much of it in pretty great shape. It includes pixie lamps--gosh, I'd kill for original pixie lamps.
• Their house is 16 rooms and 3,300 square feet; ours is 16 rooms and 2,000 square feet, which means their rooms are even larger than ours are. (Good luck heating that baby!)
• Their owner was a quaint and endearing old fellow; ours was a jerk.
• They have their original blueprints; our earliest set dates from the 1940s, by which time the house was already chopped up into its current weird configuration.
• Theirs is a landmark; ours was just an anonymous eyesore.
• And the most critical difference in these tales: The Deans are not moving in just yet. They have wisely deemed their new house 'uninhabitable.' So was ours, but we didn't have any options for doubling up on rent and mortgage payments. So we moved in anyway, and demolition started happening around us--sometimes spontaneously.

Good luck, kids. You'll need it. You'll have it.

Hello young lovers, whoever you are,
I hope your troubles are few.
All my good wishes go with you tonight,
I've been in love like you.
Be brave, young lovers, and follow your star,
Be brave and faithful and true,
Cling very close to each other tonight.
I've been in love like you.

--The King and I,  Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II

Old-house owners of the world, there's a must-read in today's New York Times, whether you're a New Yorker or not: The lead-paint liability medicine show is gearing up to come to a town near you. If you work for a paint company, this should make you very sad, but if you (like any old-house owner) have lead paint slumbering safely in your intact woodwork, you also need to prick up your ears.  

I won't recap the dazzling breadth and daring of this evil scheme--let the Times' gutsy business columnist Joe Nocera do that. But suffice it to say that this is the lead-paint picture that the fat-cat liability lawyers would have you believe:

and this is the reality.

Images: Top: Death of Little Nell; Bottom: Boss Tweed, by Thomas Nast

Every freelancer has some particular reason for chancing life outside The Office. Having breakfast here, instead of at my desk in a fluourescent-lit cubicle, is one of mine. There are actually three huge windows, not counting the stained glass: one, facing east, just out of camera range to the left; one to southeast, behind the fridge; and a southwesterly one over the sink. The sun's first rays pour in from the garden, then flood the room in a shifting day-long westward march.

Want a nightmarish flashback? Oh, alright. Here we are, "move-in condition" circa 1986:

The stove had stood right below the stained-glass window, where the boarding-house residents had done wok-cookery for over a decade without, apparently, ever wiping up anything. Ever. The ambient aerosolized grease had settled all over the house, forming an impregnable foul layer we dubbed "bioscum"; in the kitchen, at ground zero, it formed an adhesive with the ferocity of flypaper. The vomit-green walls were a nice touch.

But even in this state, I could envision exactly my "country kitchen." Looking out the grease-blackened, fly-specked windows, I imagined dinner guests pulling up in the driveway as I stirred a fragrant pot. But it took five years to even start work--years during which we cooked downstairs in my mother's tiny alcove kitchenette and carried our food upstairs on trays to eat in front of our television set. (Eating together in Mom's apartment was an experiment that was tried and found wanting.) Yes: trays for five years, because the roof, boiler, and electric had sucked out all the cash we had. 

The dream, finally activated by a bequest from a deceased aunt and uncle, was a modest one.  Demolition back to the studs was a given. But without a budget to move plumbing stacks around, we were stuck with the same basic configuration, and because we refused to sacrifice the stained glass, we had little wall space for cabinetry.  The layout, however, worked out fine: I can mess around at the stove while people sit at the kitchen table and chat. Spouse says it looks like the set for a cooking show. (One with cats as stagehands.  Stagepaws?) The first episode, rushed into production as the paint dried, was an anniversary dinner for Spouse's parents in the summer of 1991; my mother-in-law, who wasn't well enough to fancy a restaurant meal, made it up the stairs for a home-cooked one, served up on china we'd unpacked from five-year-old newspaper in the wee hours of the morning.  We lost her the following month, but treasure the recollection of her presence as we "christened" the kitchen that one blessed evening. 

The CrazyStable Kitchen is a very messy set these days, and one badly in need of a paint job. But ours is not a family meant for one of those steely modern kitchens that looks like a minimalist morgue. Every bit that has settled here has a story to tell. There is plenty of colored glass in the windows to catch all that sun.  (The ruby gem was salvaged by Uncle Don from a demolished Manhattan church.)   

Here's the central medallion of the stained-glass window, sans bioscum. (It came off with a toothbrush and a product called Zud.)

The hutch, bought cheap at an auction, holds no cooler object than what I call "the head of Chef Otto," by a friend's talented sculptor sister in Ohio. My Friend with Exquisite Taste was responsible for the grey-kittie teapot; the blue-and-white ware comes mostly from Park Slope stoop sales.

But what caught my eye this morning was our multi-generational family art gallery. Top left, a watercolor sketch of a hawkweed by my grandmother, Fanny Granger Dow, a noted watercolorist in her day who studied with William Merritt Chase. Top right, a cat named Porkchop, painted on a wooden plank by my favorite "outsider artist," Uncle Don. Bottom row: watercolors executed in a family workshop at the Brooklyn Museum's "First Night" last weekend by (left to right) Spouse, Child, and StableMistress. As the young instructor noted over our shoulders, "I see a theme here."

It was a house you would not think

Could hold such sacraments in things

Or give the wild heart meat and drink

Or give the stormy soul high wings

Or chime small voices to such mirth

Or crown the night with stars and flowers

Or make upon this quaking earth

Such steady hours.

William Rose Benét, The House at Evening (1920)

Just in time for Halloween, a quick treat, something so horrible that they locked it up and threw away the key:

The original Hellpit...our Third-Floor Bathroom!!! Aiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!

When we first toured the house, I did a Ghostbusters on the door, whose key old Chang had conveniently "lost," and kicked it open. Oh...my...God.

After many exorcisms, it is now pink and rosy, and home to my aunt's collection of little Indian bronzes and assorted tchotchkes.

It's not perfect; the tiny stall shower leaks (blame Canada, where it was made), and the taping is coming apart in spots.  But so far, no ghoulish hand, Carrie-like, has shot out of the toilet to reclaim its fortress of evil. Of course, there's always tonight....bwahahahaha...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.  May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.  Amen.