Are you up early, like me, or are you sleeping off last night's festivities? Personally, I don't get too revved up about the shift from one year-number to the next one. I think we live in days, and when life is good, normal days are the best, and the truth is, we live in days:
But if our lives are to have meaning, don't we need to knit those days together?
If we should take account on an annual basis — to put the Ann in annual — why should it be on this outwardly imposed occasion, this flip of the calendar from December to January?
"Yeah, I can get with that!"
Showing posts with label New Year's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year's. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Monday, December 31, 2012
"Thirteen years ago, I happened to be at my folks for New Year's."
"Both my Dad and my significant other were asleep in couches and Mom and I were sitting drinking and gossiping."
The subject of resolutions came up and somehow we decided we were going to do a good deed at least once every day for a year.
It seemed so much better than depriving ourselves of something or quitting something or losing weight or whatever. It could be as simple as letting someone ahead of us in traffic, helping a person find the right aisle in the grocery or even being nice to a telemarketer.
My Mom passed away that year. I have done a good deed every day since, for the last thirteen years. And every time I do, I think of her.
At the New Year Café...
... say hello from 2013, if you're out there on the globe somewhere where it's next year. If you're still waiting in 2012 with the rest of us laggards, feel free to talk about anything.
How to read a book a day for a year.
Choose short/easy/audio books.
Actually, I read a book a day and have for years — but it's an audiobook, and most of this reading is done while asleep.
Do you have an reading-related New Year's resolutions? Let's think up some reading projects for the new year. We don't necessarily have to do them. Let's just contemplate them. I've already thought of 2, one of which I plan to do. First:
Actually, I read a book a day and have for years — but it's an audiobook, and most of this reading is done while asleep.
Do you have an reading-related New Year's resolutions? Let's think up some reading projects for the new year. We don't necessarily have to do them. Let's just contemplate them. I've already thought of 2, one of which I plan to do. First:
Maybe a good project would be those "History of..." pages, not just for their most common words — WAR! — but to have had it run through your head, at least once, what happened in all of those places. Do you know how many pages we are talking about? The number of members in the United Nations is not the right answer, but do you know that number? It's 193. Wikipedia lists 206 sovereign states (including those with disputed sovereignty).That will start on New Year's day. Don't worry, I'll make it amusing. Second:
Let's make a New Year's resolution: Each day, read one Wikipedia "History of..." page. Will you join me? We'll go in alphabetical order, and I'll prompt you with blog posts.
What I like [about "The Great Gatsby"] is that each sentence is good, on its own. Seriously. Test it out. "As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon." Every sentence is a writer's inspiration....With commentary, of course. For example, here's my commentary on the hot-whistle-simmering-hush sentence (responding to a commenter who complained that "trains do not 'emerge' from tunnels. They blast, speed, rip, explode, hurtle. E.B. White and Orwell would have hated the verb 'emerge'):
I feel like starting a blog devoted to individual sentences in "The Great Gatsby," chosen randomly, and continuing until all the sentences have been used up.
Now, one reason the train can't "blast" or "explode" from the tunnel — and by the way, oh, you men, with your cocks — is that the "only" sound was the "hot whistle." Otherwise, there was a "hush." That's all very surreal, no? Why didn't the train make any noise? It emerged, because it wasn't a screaming cock blasting through a vagina tunnel, as happens in your (presumably) E.B. White-approved works of fiction. Why was the train silent, why were the whistles hot, why was the hush simmering, why was it noon, why were the whistles biscuit whistles, and why wasn't it the biscuit, rather than the whistle, that was hot?
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Blogging, paying attention to each day as it happens, makes it hard to assess a whole year.
So I'll feel better once we've crossed over into the new year. All this year end business is a drag to me. I used to do these year-end posts where I'd highlight one blog post from each month of the past year or list my favorite quotes. I had my archive to mine for this sort of material. But I've written close to 5,000 posts this year. I'm not going to run through all of that, even quickly. I can only wonder what the hell was it? I know the feeling of assurance that there is always something to write about, that each day brings a new set of topics, but I'm puzzled, at year end, at the what could have mattered. 5,000 things?!
If I had to list what really mattered, not for its day, but enduringly, what would it be? Of all the things we talked about, each in its own day, what do we carry with us into 2013?
I know: President Obama got reelected. We did a hell of a lot of yammering for that one take away. Is everything else ephemera?
If I had to list what really mattered, not for its day, but enduringly, what would it be? Of all the things we talked about, each in its own day, what do we carry with us into 2013?
I know: President Obama got reelected. We did a hell of a lot of yammering for that one take away. Is everything else ephemera?
A map depicting each country in the world with the single word that appears most often...
... on that country's "History of..." page in Wikipedia (excluding the country's own name along with some list of common words like "the" and "was"). The project seems designed to throw "war" in our faces, so what I found interesting was looking for whatever isn't war. For example, Australia gets "new." Here's the big image of the map for your inspection.
Onlyone has 2 have the name of an individual human being. Not North Korea, because "Kim" isn't just one person. And, no, kids, Monte Video is not a guy, though he sounds like an amusing guy. That's Montevideo, broken into 2 lines. You knew that, but don't be so pleased with yourself, because, chances are you don't know one thing about the history of... Do you even know where Montevideo is?
Maybe a good project would be those "History of..." pages, not just for their most common words — WAR! — but to have had it run through your head, at least once, what happened in all of those places. Do you know how many pages we are talking about? The number of members in the United Nations is not the right answer, but do you know that number? It's 193. Wikipedia lists 206 sovereign states (including those with disputed sovereignty).
Let's make a New Year's resolution: Each day, read one Wikipedia "History of..." page. Will you join me? We'll go in alphabetical order, and I'll prompt you with blog posts.
Only
Maybe a good project would be those "History of..." pages, not just for their most common words — WAR! — but to have had it run through your head, at least once, what happened in all of those places. Do you know how many pages we are talking about? The number of members in the United Nations is not the right answer, but do you know that number? It's 193. Wikipedia lists 206 sovereign states (including those with disputed sovereignty).
Let's make a New Year's resolution: Each day, read one Wikipedia "History of..." page. Will you join me? We'll go in alphabetical order, and I'll prompt you with blog posts.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
At the New Year's Eve Café...
... have a drink with us. Or just hang out with us. We're staying in for the night. Who goes out on New Year's Eve? That's crazy!
Let's talk about 12.
1. Write a poem about the new year. There are only 2 words that rhyme with 12: delve and shelve. You could expand the possibilities for rhyming with "12" by adding an additional word to the end of the line, such as "is." For example: "2012 is/a year without Elvis." Improve on that concept.
2. 12 is the largest number with a single-syllable name, so think of all the time we'll be saving saying "2012" instead of "2011." (That said, there were more rhymes for 11, including a few that are much more useful in poetry than "shelve." I'm thinking of "heaven," "seven," and "leaven.")
3. 12 feels nicely stable and satisfying, because of the familiar concept of a dozen and the number of inches in a foot. I guess that's why the 12 Steps program has 12 steps. And why there are 12 persons on a jury. You have 12 pairs of ribs too, you know. 12 months in a year. 12 hours on the clock.
4. Here's the etymology of "twelve" (which highlights the oddness of its being "twelve" and not "twelf"):
5. 2012 is the last year when we won't have a name — a name that we actually use — for the decade. Next year, we'll be in the "teens." Don't tell me there really was a name for the first decade of the century. You can concoct something — I'd say "the 0s," pronounced "ohs" — but we didn't call it that casually and naturally, the way we said "the 80s" and "the 90s." The first 12 years of the century have been a weird respite from focusing on the decade-ness of the decade. And that has had some subtle effect on us. 2012 is that last year to experience that effect. And then next year, 2011 and 2012 will be swept into the decade that will thenceforward be called "the teens."
7. We'll ring in the new year at 12. At 12 it will be 12. Unless you're very young — and also very optimistic — you can't think that there will be any other day in your life when at 12 it will be 12. Unless you're extremely old, you've never before had the chance to realize: At 12 it will be 12. How stunningly unique today is!
2. 12 is the largest number with a single-syllable name, so think of all the time we'll be saving saying "2012" instead of "2011." (That said, there were more rhymes for 11, including a few that are much more useful in poetry than "shelve." I'm thinking of "heaven," "seven," and "leaven.")
3. 12 feels nicely stable and satisfying, because of the familiar concept of a dozen and the number of inches in a foot. I guess that's why the 12 Steps program has 12 steps. And why there are 12 persons on a jury. You have 12 pairs of ribs too, you know. 12 months in a year. 12 hours on the clock.
4. Here's the etymology of "twelve" (which highlights the oddness of its being "twelve" and not "twelf"):
O.E. twelf, lit. "two left" (over ten), from P.Gmc. *twa-lif-, a compound of the root of two + *lif-, root of the verb leave (see eleven). Cf. O.S. twelif, O.N. tolf, O.Fris. twelef, M.Du. twalef, Du. twaalf, O.H.G. zwelif, Ger. zwölf, Goth. twalif. Outside Germanic, an analogous formation is Lith. dvylika, with second element -lika "left over."So it's basically "2 left" (and 11 was "1 left"). It's the same concept as the "-teen" numbers, relating the number to 10, but 12 and 11 use subtraction — what is left after 10 is removed — and the "-teen" numbers use addition, with "-teen" meaning "ten more than." I wonder why. Does it have something to do with the development of a child? If the child is 11 or 12, you think of taking him back to a younger age, but at 13, you picture him standing on a foundation of childhood and building from there? If that is so, then maybe 2012 is the last year when we feel we've just entered the new century/millennium, and next year, we'll feel we are truly in it.
5. 2012 is the last year when we won't have a name — a name that we actually use — for the decade. Next year, we'll be in the "teens." Don't tell me there really was a name for the first decade of the century. You can concoct something — I'd say "the 0s," pronounced "ohs" — but we didn't call it that casually and naturally, the way we said "the 80s" and "the 90s." The first 12 years of the century have been a weird respite from focusing on the decade-ness of the decade. And that has had some subtle effect on us. 2012 is that last year to experience that effect. And then next year, 2011 and 2012 will be swept into the decade that will thenceforward be called "the teens."
7. We'll ring in the new year at 12. At 12 it will be 12. Unless you're very young — and also very optimistic — you can't think that there will be any other day in your life when at 12 it will be 12. Unless you're extremely old, you've never before had the chance to realize: At 12 it will be 12. How stunningly unique today is!
Happy New Year...
... 's Eve.
Any last loose ends to the year you need to tie up today?
What are the chances you'll stay up until midnight?
If 2012 is only exactly as good as 2011, will you be disappointed?
Are you going to be a better person in 2012, or did you set a pretty high mark this year, so that staying close to that mark is the most you're going to expect from yourself?
Any last loose ends to the year you need to tie up today?
What are the chances you'll stay up until midnight?
If 2012 is only exactly as good as 2011, will you be disappointed?
Are you going to be a better person in 2012, or did you set a pretty high mark this year, so that staying close to that mark is the most you're going to expect from yourself?
Monday, December 26, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Friday, December 31, 2010
New Year's greetings from the Central Time Zone.
Here it's 11:11 PM, but where you are, it's 1/1/11.
1!111!!!!!!!111111!!!!
1!111!!!!!!!111111!!!!
Are you going on a diet for the new year...
... like everyone else with the #1 most common and boring New Year's resolution?
Are you finishing up that bag of chips right now so you can get the house ready for the virtuous tomorrow? And what will you eat on that diet? Tell us in detail, but first, weigh in here:
Are you finishing up that bag of chips right now so you can get the house ready for the virtuous tomorrow? And what will you eat on that diet? Tell us in detail, but first, weigh in here:
"Retire early, unless some interesting project is underway on the computer. Rise at 3am."
It's the New Year's Eve plan of one of our very favorite commenters, rhhardin. He continues:
Chinese folk song I just put up; having recorded it in 1998 off Radio Taiwan.I featured Rufus in the post where rh comments. He continues:
Maybe somebody knows the recording, I was thinking. YouTube goes everywhere, unless they've banned it.
It's been through four transcodings, as well as being off shortwave in the first place; but the original has a nice bass line. Video is of transcoding 3 from real audio to mp3. Transcoding from mp3 to wmv was still to come.
Beats Rufus Wainwright.
I may set the backyard bird microphone to record the midnight gunshots before bed, though, if the wind is quiet and the grain elevators shut down for a while.We look forward to the gunshots recording, to more information about "At the Faraway Place - Love Song of the Plain" by Zai Na Yao Yuan De Di Fang, and to all the other recordings and photographs that rh might bestow upon us in the coming year, capturing the mystic essence of Ohio.
The shots last for about a half hour; and some guy always starts five minutes early. The clocks are not good out here.
Dogs respond.
It's the Ohio way.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, everybody!
If my new year's resolution was to get the first post of the day up early, I have already broken it.
Have you broken your resolutions yet? Do you have the classic cliché resolution to lose weight? At this point, you can probably remember everything you've eaten this year. Have you eaten the wrong thing yet? Me, I've eaten nothing this year but a glass of skim milk.
Vows of abstemiousness are all well and good, but the more interesting resolutions are about doing something, not avoiding doing things. And going to the gym doesn't count. That's still in the abstemiousness category. I'm interested in your resolve to live a larger, more expressive, more fully dimensional life.
If my new year's resolution was to get the first post of the day up early, I have already broken it.
Have you broken your resolutions yet? Do you have the classic cliché resolution to lose weight? At this point, you can probably remember everything you've eaten this year. Have you eaten the wrong thing yet? Me, I've eaten nothing this year but a glass of skim milk.
Vows of abstemiousness are all well and good, but the more interesting resolutions are about doing something, not avoiding doing things. And going to the gym doesn't count. That's still in the abstemiousness category. I'm interested in your resolve to live a larger, more expressive, more fully dimensional life.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The New Year's Eve live-blog.
7:27 Central Time: Shouldn't you be out carousing? No. It's smart to stay in on the night when everyone else is out. So hang out here if you like. I hope you don't mind that I'm doing Central Time. But one must be somewhere? Where are you? Are you already in 2009? I see from Site Meter, that there are currently 142 people on the blog. There are readers in Dublin, Brighton, and Germany, so, hello, people of the future.
7:44: Celebrations around the world, but "A number of Arab nations - including Egypt, Jordan and Syria - cancelled planned celebrations in solidarity with Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip after a fifth day of Israeli air-strikes on the coastal enclave."
8:24: Champagne cork popped.
8:44: I'm watching Mickey Kaus and Bob Wright doing their New Year's Bloggingheads.
9:27: "How cold is it in New York? Look at that jacket! What a candyass!" I exclaim, looking at Ryan Seacrest — whoops for a second there I called him Ryan Seaquest — who is wearing an overstuffed down jacket and ear muffs. We've turned on "Dick Clark's New York Rockin' Eve" — or whatever it's called. I check my iPhone. It's 19° in NYC. So: candyass! They go to commercial, and we switch to "South Park."
10:00: We're kind of excited about Kathy Griffin (along with Anderson Cooper) covering Times Square on CNN.
10:05: The sound technology on CNN is terrible! They're trying to talk to reporters in lots of different cities, and either they can't hear them or the crowd noise is blowing out the microphones. Now Anderson and Kathy can't hear each other when they are standing side by side. "Can we stop saying Pap smear?" Cooper asks, after Kathy makes a few Pap smear jokes.
10:52: CNN comes back from a commercial break with Lynyrd Skynyrd singing "Sweet Home Alabama" in Pikeville, Kentucky. It sounds terrible. Is it the CNN mikes? Or do they suck? Hey, is that Bill Clinton? Oh, that's not Kentucky now. It's New York City. And there's Hillary and Bloomberg. Bill is not wearing a puffy jacket. He's got a lovely brown leather jacket. Very attractive. He's got his values in order.
10:57: Close to the end in New York City. They're playing John Lennon singing "Imagine." Chris says: "It's sort of a downer of a song in the last 2 and a half minutes."
10:58: I'm kinda tired. Can I be on NY time?
10:59: The Clintons start the ball. The ball, the ball, the ball, the ball. Yay!!!! Happy New Year!!!!!!!
11:00: "Oh, I'm tired! Can I be on NY time?" "No! You have to be on the time that you're in!"
11:01: Oh! Good lord! The Clintons are dancing and it makes me cry! Now, Kathy and Anderson are dancing, and Kathy says to Anderson, "Are you seeing anyone?" and we all know that's a huge joke.
10:05: "2 thousand and 9. We got to the big 9." I say that, as if 9 is an especially magnificent numeral. CNN plays Frank Sinatra singing "New York, New York," then Ray Charles singing "America the Beautiful," then Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World."
10:08: Lot's of folks are wearing those 2009 glasses, and I suddenly realize that this is the last year for the 00 glasses. You'll have to wait until the year 3000 to wear glasses like that. Will we even have eyes in 3000?
11:30: We've finished the bottle of champagne, and I'm making herb tea, as if that will keep me up until midnight. I've muted the TV, which is really annoying me, and Chris and I are making lists of all the movies we saw in 2008 and putting them in order. This little effort wakes me up a bit. Here's my list:
11:47: Okay, now, who's in the Central Time Zone with me? The Central Time Zone rules!
11:51: "We're the only ones here! This is like a really messed up bar!" So says Kathy Griffin, looking down at Times Square. Anderson Cooper explains the notion of time zones.
11:59: CNN is playing some crap music. This is not the way I want to end a year or indeed what I want to do anywhere.
12:00: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! We watched CNN do the countdown in New Orleans. It was really lamely done. "Wouldn't it be great if there was a hologram of the Clintons dancing there?" says Kathy Griffin. We laugh. First laugh of the year. That can't be the biggest laugh of the year. Let's hope there are many laughs.
UPDATE, 10/22/11: I'm just reading this by chance and laughing at that last line Let's hope there are many laughs. In the year I was anticipating, I met Meade in January, fell in love with him in February, and married him in August. 2009 was brimming with excitement and happiness... and many, many laughs.
7:44: Celebrations around the world, but "A number of Arab nations - including Egypt, Jordan and Syria - cancelled planned celebrations in solidarity with Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip after a fifth day of Israeli air-strikes on the coastal enclave."
8:24: Champagne cork popped.
8:44: I'm watching Mickey Kaus and Bob Wright doing their New Year's Bloggingheads.
9:27: "How cold is it in New York? Look at that jacket! What a candyass!" I exclaim, looking at Ryan Seacrest — whoops for a second there I called him Ryan Seaquest — who is wearing an overstuffed down jacket and ear muffs. We've turned on "Dick Clark's New York Rockin' Eve" — or whatever it's called. I check my iPhone. It's 19° in NYC. So: candyass! They go to commercial, and we switch to "South Park."
10:00: We're kind of excited about Kathy Griffin (along with Anderson Cooper) covering Times Square on CNN.
10:05: The sound technology on CNN is terrible! They're trying to talk to reporters in lots of different cities, and either they can't hear them or the crowd noise is blowing out the microphones. Now Anderson and Kathy can't hear each other when they are standing side by side. "Can we stop saying Pap smear?" Cooper asks, after Kathy makes a few Pap smear jokes.
10:52: CNN comes back from a commercial break with Lynyrd Skynyrd singing "Sweet Home Alabama" in Pikeville, Kentucky. It sounds terrible. Is it the CNN mikes? Or do they suck? Hey, is that Bill Clinton? Oh, that's not Kentucky now. It's New York City. And there's Hillary and Bloomberg. Bill is not wearing a puffy jacket. He's got a lovely brown leather jacket. Very attractive. He's got his values in order.
10:57: Close to the end in New York City. They're playing John Lennon singing "Imagine." Chris says: "It's sort of a downer of a song in the last 2 and a half minutes."
10:58: I'm kinda tired. Can I be on NY time?
10:59: The Clintons start the ball. The ball, the ball, the ball, the ball. Yay!!!! Happy New Year!!!!!!!
11:00: "Oh, I'm tired! Can I be on NY time?" "No! You have to be on the time that you're in!"
11:01: Oh! Good lord! The Clintons are dancing and it makes me cry! Now, Kathy and Anderson are dancing, and Kathy says to Anderson, "Are you seeing anyone?" and we all know that's a huge joke.
10:05: "2 thousand and 9. We got to the big 9." I say that, as if 9 is an especially magnificent numeral. CNN plays Frank Sinatra singing "New York, New York," then Ray Charles singing "America the Beautiful," then Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World."
10:08: Lot's of folks are wearing those 2009 glasses, and I suddenly realize that this is the last year for the 00 glasses. You'll have to wait until the year 3000 to wear glasses like that. Will we even have eyes in 3000?
11:30: We've finished the bottle of champagne, and I'm making herb tea, as if that will keep me up until midnight. I've muted the TV, which is really annoying me, and Chris and I are making lists of all the movies we saw in 2008 and putting them in order. This little effort wakes me up a bit. Here's my list:
The Fall11:35: Chris IMs his movie list:
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Synecdoche, New York
The Reader
Mongol
Iron Man
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Faster, Bigger, Stronger
Standard Operating Procedure
U23D
Australia
Dark Knight
Children of Huang Shi
Doubt
Rachel Getting Married
Sex and the City
Milk11:40: A shot of Times Square: Everyone has cleared out. Weird. It was the place to be, and then it's nothing.
The Fall
The Reader
Synecdoche, New York
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
U23D
Mirrors
Rachel Getting Married
Sex and the City
11:47: Okay, now, who's in the Central Time Zone with me? The Central Time Zone rules!
11:51: "We're the only ones here! This is like a really messed up bar!" So says Kathy Griffin, looking down at Times Square. Anderson Cooper explains the notion of time zones.
11:59: CNN is playing some crap music. This is not the way I want to end a year or indeed what I want to do anywhere.
12:00: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! We watched CNN do the countdown in New Orleans. It was really lamely done. "Wouldn't it be great if there was a hologram of the Clintons dancing there?" says Kathy Griffin. We laugh. First laugh of the year. That can't be the biggest laugh of the year. Let's hope there are many laughs.
UPDATE, 10/22/11: I'm just reading this by chance and laughing at that last line Let's hope there are many laughs. In the year I was anticipating, I met Meade in January, fell in love with him in February, and married him in August. 2009 was brimming with excitement and happiness... and many, many laughs.
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