Nicole Ferraro
Writer
Published Essays:
“The Tower of Babel,” is an 80-foot tower art installation of 30,000 books created by Argentinean artist Marta Minujín to celebrate Buenos Aires being the 2011 World Book Capital as named by UNESCO. The tower stood from May 7 to May 28, 2011, and when it was taken down some of the books (of different languages) were donated to visitors, while the remaining books will build a new “Library of Babel.” (via) (via 80-Foot Tower Of Books - The Rumpus.net)
Source: therumpus.net
How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
— Winnie the Pooh (via thedocta) Perspective.
“Lincoln was born into a national culture in which language was the most widely available key to individual growth and achievement. It dominated public discourse. No TVs, DVDs, computers, movie screens, radios, or electricity, and no sound-bites. Language mattered because it was useful for practical communication and for learning and because it could shape and direct people’s feelings and thoughts in a culture in which spoken or written words had no rival.”
I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away. There’s something very sensuous about it - overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.
—
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
It’s about the right time of year to read (or re-read) Gatsby. Why not go check it out? We have at least 153 copies throughout the boroughs…
(via nypl)
(via nypl)
Source: http
I recently was invited to be a story-teller at a show hosted by The Story Collider — a very cool organization through which people recite science-related stories. I told my story at their July 19th show, for which the theme was “technology.”
I was fortunate to be involved and grateful so many friends came out to show support and love. Public speaking/performing of any kind is out of my comfort zone but I enjoy forcing myself to do things that cause me extreme anxiety.
Above (and here) is a link to the podcast for my story. It just went live, making me officially downloadable.
“Expressive action begins with sensing a rupture in existence. The desire to eliminate this gap and become fueled with existence itself becomes the will to create art.”
Lee Ufan
Source: housingworksbookstore
So I’m back to the velvet underground… back to the floor that I love.
- Stevie Nicks, “Gypsy”
The name of my blog comes from the song “Gypsy” written by Stevie Nicks, an incredible Fleetwood Mac tune that speaks to my soul on so many levels.
When explaining the meaning behind the lyrics, Stevie Nicks said the following:
“In the old days, before Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey [Buckingham] and I had no money, so we had a king-size mattress, but we just had it on the floor. I had old vintage coverlets on it, and… even though we had no money it was still really pretty… Just that and a lamp on the floor, and that was it—there was a certain calmness about it. To this day, when I’m feeling cluttered, I will take my mattress off of my beautiful bed, wherever that may be, and put it outside my bedroom, with a table and a little lamp.”
It meant so much to me to know that she was speaking about the actual floor when writing those words, “back to the floor that I love,” because the floor is where I, too, find my calm.
It is where I find my most vulnerable self, my only self that feels detached from the constant movement and madness of things.
On the floor I am raw and in touch with the aspects of me that are otherwise silenced or pushed aside. It is as if, in taking to the floor, my body and mind are finally and at once willing to say, “it’s just us here… it’s our time to be heard.”
On the floor, there is a feeling of separateness from the demands and insanity of daily life. The world feels smaller — or perhaps my world feels smaller, but the entire world feels larger, so large that I can’t possibly factor into it in too important of a way, so it’s OK to detach, if even for a while.
For that reason, I sit on the floor (the kitchen floor, to be precise; I prefer the cool tiles of the kitchen to the warm wood of the living room) every day to write. The floor is where I find my center, myself. It is where I can find my most honest pieces and patch them together to create writing.
And so, with a heart full of gratitude for Stevie, I use those lyrics to name this blog, where I will showcase writing (mine and not mine), writing-related events, and other random musings and things I find inspiring.
With that said, I leave you, for now, with this:
