Wednesday, December 31, 2008

New Year's Peeve


Can we all just agree right now that New Year's Eve is the stupidest holiday ever invented? I mean, even Valentine's Day is more exciting. Then at least you can make little hearts out of doilies, and eat a lot of chocolate without feeling guilty. On New Year's Eve there is nothing to make or do - you are just supposed to "celebrate." But celebrate what? The beginning of winter? The end of the holidays? the reprisal of your diet? the departure of your in-laws? (Now that's worth a few fireworks...)

Tonight while sitting diligently through a "festive" dinner, I went through my mind to remember some of my "New Year Highlights", or should I say, "Lowlights"? I list them here for your perusal, in no particular order. For no reason except that I remember them and feel like dragging them out one more time - if only to remind myself why next year I should stay home and watch a movie and eat popcorn (which is exactly what I wanted to do this year, but got pulled into "celebrating.").

-- Well, there was that time in Spain when I almost choked to death trying to eat the obligatory 12 grapes at midnight - one grape for each strike of the clock bell. (Who thinks up these rituals anyway? Obsessive compulsives?) Later the man I was with got violently ill (probably from eating the grapes), threw up everywhere, and passed out. Happy Frickin' New Year!

-- Then there was another time, in high school, when I ended up on a couch making out with someone that I not only didn't like, but absolutely hated. Go figure. I think I may have been drinking Frangelico liqueur that night.

-- Oh, and let's not forget the time I slipped on ice and broke my elbow, while wearing ballerina slippers on a subzero New England night (yes, I was young and foolish then, and my mother told me to wear more sensible shoes, and she was right). Actually, that wasn't a New Year's Eve, but it felt so crappy - and ended so badly - that it could have been.

And there were others....they all blur together. Mostly what I remember about New Year's Eve is feeling cold and tired, being drunk but not happy-drunk, looking desperately for fun in various places and mostly finding stragglers like me looking for the same thing, and finally wanting only to go home. And then - oh joy! - waiting for a taxi, or a bus, or some way to get back that doesn't involve walking for miles and miles (though I've done that too).

I would say that I'm going to boycott New Year's Eve next year - but I say that every year. And every year I give it one more chance. If New Year's Eve was a person, I should have broken up with him a long time ago. This is a completely dysfunctional relationship.

(Note: I do not include Chinese New Year in this diatribe - because Chinese New Year makes so much more sense! Seasonally, it is closer to spring, and there are pretty fruit blossoms and interesting things to do and eat and a parade you can watch without wading through snow - usually, anyway.)

Resolutions for Les Autres

My whole life I've tried to be a good person, and every single new year's I make a list of yet more things to improve on, get better at, be better at, etc etc.

Lately I've been thinking. This whole self-improvement, self-actualization thing has been exhausting, expensive, and overall a big waste of time.

I don't need to change another thing about myself. I'm fine the way I am - and anyway, did making resolutions for myself ever really change anything?

So I'm committed to making resolutions now only for other people. People, who, unlike me, really DO need to change. Here are some .

Stop killing eachother. I won't say which people in which countries I'm directing that to, but I think you can think of a few right off the top of your head. Listen, there are a lot of folks in my life who have pissed me off big time, as well as ripped me off, and even done physical harm to me and people I love. That doesn't mean that i have to KILL them. Solve your problems and grow up!

Stop hurting eachother. Again, this can apply to governments as well as individuals. Stop torturing, stop abusing, stop being MEAN to eachother. See a counselor, talk to the UN, talk to your priest, rabbi, spiritual leader, DEAL with it!

Stop consuming so much - OK, this applies to me too. But still. I am not living in a 10,000 square foot house with 10 bathrooms, driving a Hummer, or flying around in a private jet. Go get some therapy if your life feels empty. Plant a garden. Or start a blog!

Somerville Miscellany




Today i'm posting leftover photos from 2008...this and that, here and there, above and beyond and in between the cracks.

These are from a walk sometime in December before the snowfall: 1) a window of collectibles, 2) cool vintage car with xmas tree, and 3) some characters from the "Jingle Bell Road Race" - an event we didn't participate in but caught the end of, while walking the dog.

More posts to follow (first I have to shovel some snow).

Night Trees in November




Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Worst Creche in the World!


This creche is outside a parochial school which I walk by every day. I'm not religious, nor am I advocating for any particular religion, but I have to ask what kind of message does it send to kids to have your religion's holy figures portrayed as blow-up dolls? And cheap, flimsy ones at that? Maybe this sort of creche would be OK in another climate, but here in New England it verges on the ridiculous. If I was religious, I would be deeply offended to see my school's creche buried like so much trash under the snow every other week, not to mention constantly blown around by wind (in this photo it looks more like a nativity scene on a raft, to be honest). Two thousand years of religious art, cathedrals, stained glass, and now this? Ladies and gentlemen, the separation of church and art is now official.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Ice Ice Baby!






Icicles are another byproduct of winter that I had forgotten in my long absence from the chilly northeast.

One morning after the first snowfall they just appeared, both delighting and frightening me with their cold pointy tips. I amused myself on a walk thinking up names for them, until it got too cold and I had to duck into a coffeehouse to get warm.

Here are some names - can you think of others? (This could be a fun game to play when the power goes out.)

Jellyfish popsicles.
Fragile daggers.
Frigid hair. (Bonus pun!)
Icy knifey. (ok, that one is bad.)

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

French Impressionists in Winter?


I see this house every day outside my bedroom window, but it wasn't until it was covered with snow that I thought of Gustave Caillebotte and his famous painting of snowy rooftops. It's something about the windows. There is another French Impressionist painting that this reminds me of, but I haven't figured out yet which one it is. If you find it, let me know!

A Tale of Two Snowmen


One, deflated and flat, lying in the gutter. The other, bright and shiny, glowing in the coldest weather with arms outstretched. What makes one snowman survive and thrive, and the other one
fall so easily?

Frozen Trees

This was before the big snowstorm. The ice was just a warm-up, if you will.

Make Like a Tree






Autumn leaves. Yes, it does. It leaves to make way for winter. Winter couldn't come if the trees didn't shake their colors off to make room for snow instead. But I was so in love with autumn this year that I actually felt a bolt of depression when the last leaf fell. I feared that I would grow resentful of winter, and its leafless, more barren landscape, and end up wishing I lived somewhere where the leaves stayed neatly on the trees, thank you very much.

But I forgot about the negative space! The negative space which is in art and in life, and which plays off the "positive" space - like empty space in music or taking a breath between words. The wonderful patterns that branches make when they don't have leaves, the worlds of shapes that live between the branches and the sky. Not to mention the shadows, oh the delightful shadows! How could I have forgotten this?

A friend reminded me recently - as I was lamenting my inability to get going on several projects (including, oh, earning an income again) - that winter is not a time for growing, for starting new things. It's a time for drawing inwards, holding onto what one already has. Then I found a note I wrote to myself (when? on a bus? in a doctor's office? i couldn't remember), that said basically the same thing: "Don't do more. Do more with what you have."

I can't think of a better sentiment to start the winter season with, especially this particular winter season. Hence my return to this blog after a brief absence. Yes, I have time on my hands, and yes, I'd rather be blogging right now than buying Christmas presents for people who don't need another single "thing" (ever, for the rest of their lives - I certainly don't) - except, maybe, that most elusive non-thing, the negative space, the space between the branches - or should I simply call it - breathing room?

Tree Shadows






Song for the Bleak Midwinter



I miss singing Christmas carols. One of the most wonderful things about my childhood was that there was always music, at home, school, or at friends' houses. Someone was always playing piano and singing, especially at holidays. I realize now that this is not the norm for everyone - and if I want carols in my life now, I will have to seek them out. People are not out "wassailing" as they are in Dickens novels or old MGM films - or perhaps they are, on Beacon Hill or some toney area of Boston, but they certainly aren't in Somerville.

I will also have to purchase a piano at some point, which seems rather daunting to my debt-riddled budget, but I shouldn't let cost get in the way. After all, during one of the bleakest financial moments of my childhood, I remember my mother went out and bought a piano for 10 dollars - yes, 10 dollars (in 1972) - at a yard sale. It was an old upright (what brand? i don't remember), and completely out of tune, which didn't seem to stop any of us from banging on it and singing our little hearts out (we were most likely out of tune ourselves, after all).

Anyway, this was one of my favorite Christmas carols that I sang growing up. Not exactly cheerful - and it gets rotely religious after this first verse - but it has a melancholy, indeed doleful, quality to it that always pierced through my bones. And I love the phrase, Snow on snow, because that's exactly what it feels like to look outside while it is snowing: snow on snow on snow on snow, like an endless loop of white.


In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on Snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.