2010.12.31
151 Days Remaining

01. So we're down to the final 4.5 hours of 2010 as I type these words (according to my computer, synced to the official US time, it's 19:29. As I'm drafting these remarks I find that many of them are negative in tone or tenor, and so I'm going to revise this (the negative elements will be included, but hopefully not predominant). So, here on the eve of the calendar's turning, let me start with some positive notes, aesthetic, academic, and emotional.

02.01. I recently heard the Arcade Fire's new single, "Modern Man," which very nicely exemplifies a type of music that I find very compelling, sound-wise. Another example of this is Concrete Blonde's achingly lovely and somber (a personal favorite - and their best known song) "Joey." Somehow this music is all dark colors clearly visible and articulate in my mind's eye; it feels strong to me, despite lyrics that are often sad or troubled. I think that there is something dignified about it, rock and roll that isn't shouting or bright but solid. And, to balance out the darkness, last night I overheard my parents watching Wes Anderson's stop-motion film The Fantastic Mr. Fox (based off of a kids' novel by Roald Dahl); the closing credits ran over the song "Let Her Dance" by the Bobby Fuller Four. I can't find a full version on Youtube, but an abbreviated one is here. This is one of the best rockabilly songs I've encountered, and currently emblematizes for me the brightness and joyousness that rock and roll can achieve. So, dark and bright, I love them both. Not a bad way to end one year and start the next, with good music.

02.02. The author of my favorite fan-fiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, also published an online essay (very short) on the 12 Virtues of Rationality. They are worth reading, they actually exemplify many of the things that I've been striving to articulate and develop in my own approach to the world as a child (and, I hope, a productively maladjusted one) of the Enlightenment, and which I try to impart, as intellectual values, to my students.

02.03. I had lunch today with Aurelia, at the very nice "Extreme Pizza" restaurant that has only recently opened at the lower end of North Market Street in Wilmington (for those who know the area and are interested in trying it out, it's on the 100 block, just north of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd). And, before that, I spent a while on gmail chat with Belisarius (aka "Awesome Man" on his own blog: http://www.loudhandle.net/ where I am known as "Shrewsbury"), and was remarking about the ways I have been made a member of several families in addition to my biological one. I spent part of the afternoon talking to Selena and hanging out with her kids, Iunia and Euander, and then at my parents' house chatting sporadically with Momula. Sometimes it is worth remembering that we are surrounded by love, even if at any given moment we don't feel its immediacy. Hugh Grant delivered a surprisingly moving opening voice-over to the film Love Actually, in which he points out that none of the cut-off and frantic phone calls made during the events of 911 were motivated by hatred. In those last moments for all of those people, they wanted to speak with the people they loved more than anything else. Here, at the end of the year, I find it worth remembering that I am lucky to be cared for by so many people, and to care for them.

03. I am not a fan of New Year's for a number of reasons:

03.01. I dislike the disjunction between the civil calendar and the natural world's cycles. As I've remarked earlier, I'd prefer the New Year to coincide with my Yule celebration on 21 December - but that would necessitate reworking the calendar en toto, which project's success would require socio-cultural efficacy far beyond my pay grade. The gap between Christmas and New Year's is actually ritually marked in several folk calendars in Europe as powerful but dangerous: visiting, fortune-telling (when better to predict the future than when it is literally about to begin?), haunting, and demons about in the countryside. But all of that depends on living in near proximity to people, gathering together and playing. In my experience, these final days of the year are more of a winding-down, and feel like they're empty instead of full.

03.02. As a child I far preferred Christmas and found the actual celebration aesthetically and emotionally dull. Not being a drinker, nor a partier in general, New Year's Eve parties have never particularly appealed to me (the few I've been to in my adult life have all confirmed this repeatedly). Again, if I could gather together many of my people, perhaps it would be different. But the holiday itself doesn't particularly inspire me. I find the Solstice much more amenable to such an idea.

03.03. Dick Clark frightens me.

04. This has been a strange and, in many ways, sad year for me and far too many of my people, and for far too many people anywhere. I think that is why the only New Year's song that I have ever particularly liked is on my mind a lot right now: "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" (performed by dozens of singers and groups over the past several decades) is about hope and taking chances for better outcomes. Here's the Persuasion's take on it.

05. So, as the New Year sweeps over the globe today/tonight, I hope that 2011 will be a better year for us all.