People have been texting throughout the day with their thoughts on the life and death of Elvis Presley. I’ve attended Elvis Week a few times over the years, which conveniently fell during a time each year when I visited relatives who lived within driving distance but who have since passed away. August 16th has always been poignant to me, and always will be for interrelated reasons. Someone I knew from my high school years was in Memphis this past week and shared pictures with my family, including one of the resting place of Lisa Marie. Here is something from Elvis’s final album, Moody Blue, released in June 1977 just two before he died. Contrary to popular belief, Elvis was still very much bringing it in his final years. Contemplative songs like this and “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” comprised much of his later catalog, which tells you something.

I was on the subway this morning on my way to the Whitney Museum. As I stood up to get off at my stop a young girl of about five walked up to me and handed me the drawing you see above. She explained that she had drawn me during the ride and wanted me to have it. The object in my hand is a book. Being the good New Yorker that I am, I always make sure to have reading material handy when on the subway. The drawing is hanging now on the refrigerator. Re the Whitney, I had not been to the museum since it moved from the Upper East Side to the Meatpacking District several years ago. I was glad when I heard several years ago that they were moving. The Whitney always had something of an identity crisis when it was on East 75th Street, what with the Met ten blocks to the north and MOMA 20 blocks to the south. Now, on Gansevoort Street, not only does it stand alone, but closer to its roots in the Village where Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney founded the institution in the early 1930s.

Graveyards and cemeteries mean as much to me as historic sites themselves. When you see someone’s resting place they become more than just a figure in a book. Plus, they’re a good reminder of one’s own mortality. Hodie Mihi, Cras Tibi.

I took the image below of John Nixon’s resting place in Philadelphia’s Saint Peter’s Church cemetery in Society Hill last Saturday and knew immediately that I would post it today. His name may not be familiar, but it was he who read the Declaration of Independence for the first time. Colonel Nixon read the text from the State House steps on July 8, 1776 while couriers were racing to the other colonies to spread the word. The famous reading in New York City’s Bowling Green with its tearing down of the statue of George III was the following day. His table-design headstone was damaged by a fallen tree sometime in the past, as this unfortunately undated post on the St. Peter’s Church website explains. Diarist Christopher Marshall described the scene at the State House 247 years ago today as a “Warm sunshine morning. At eleven, went and met [the] Committee of Inspection at [the] Philosophical Hall; went from there in a body to the lodge; joined the Committee of Safety (as called); went in a body to [the] State House Yard, where, in the presence of a great concourse of people, the Declaration of Independence was read by John Nixon.” If one is Philadelphia today, the NPS is having its annual re-enactment at 11:45 this morning there at Independence Hall.