Until 2020!

Haven't done a New Year concert in years. Hope you enjoy these! Warning, some lengthy ones in the middle. See you in 2020!

Fireworks



Listen for snatch of The Marseillaise around 4:50.

Drink


Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča (saw her Carmen 3-4 years ago) in a tidbit from Offenbach's La Périchole.

Brooks on Trafficking

No, not that kind of trafficking, that would be too controversial.

Image via YoungInRome.

We may or may not have skirted the danger of war on the Korean peninsula, the situations in Yemen, Ukraine, Myanmar, and other places continue to degenerate, President Macron is trying to take over the Middle East peace process, Congress is about to attempt to provide a real appropriations process for the first time in well over a year of living from continuing resolution to continuing resolution, news is out that Donald Trump tried to shut down the Russia investigation about eight separate times, fearless federalist attorney general Jefferson Beauregard is declaring war on the 29 states where some kind of marijuana use is legal, and a new book is out (four days ahead of schedule after Trump's advance denunciation of it increased demand to an irresistable level) providing credible evidence of the president's diminished cognitive capacity, so naturally David F. Brooks ("How Would Jesus Drive?") is writing about how grateful we should all be that some people have good traffic manners.

Moreover, Pope Francis agrees with him on that, in his homily for the New Year's Eve Vesper service at the Basilica of Saint Peter:

Team Optimist

Image via verywell.com.

I'm once again on the holiday relief squad for Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog, and seeing as how Steve is a world-class pessimist, one of the things I try to bring there is a touch of sunny idiocy, as contrast, especially appropriate for the season of fresh starts and resolutions. And pretty challenging this time around, if we're talking politics, as we lurch into what seems certain to be the worst US presidential administration at least since Buchanan's, probably ever, led by a walking personality disorder in an impasto of pumpkin-colored pancake makeup.

And that's just for starters.

Is it possible that anything good can happen in 2017, or anything bad be forestalled? Not, surely, by the conscious intention of our president-elect or his Cabinet of Deplorables or the dreadful Republican leadership of the Congress. Maybe in states like California, where Governor Jerry Brown has already announced his determination to fight any Trumpian assault on environmental research and regulation:

Happy New Year! 猴年大吉!

Hóu Nián dà jí! Lots of luck in the Monkey Year!

Chen Yi's 1997 Spring Dreams, because New Year is the Spring Festival, setting a Tang-dynasty poem by Meng Haoran (translation somewhat original):

春眠不覺曉，
處處聞啼鳥。
夜來風雨聲，
花落知多少。
Chūn mián bù jué xiǎo,
chùchù wén tíniǎo.
Yè lái fēngyǔ shēng,
Huā luò zhī duōshǎo.

Spring mornings you sleep in, without noticing dawn,
though everywhere you hear the cries of birds.
At night, it was the sound of wind and rain
blowing the blossoms to ground, who knows how many.

Happy New Year!

The Brooksie Awards

Kokoro ("Heart"), 17th-century Japanese calligraphy via Onmark Productions.

David Brooks writes:

In my work as projectile-eclectic philosopher and continental observer at good old Yale University, where I have served in recent years or at least months in an endowed chair as W.F. Buckley Memorial Professor of Humility Studies, I frequently have an opportunity to tell students eager to learn the writer's craft from a diligent if diffident craftsman that eighty percent of the work is done before a fellow puts thumb to thinkpad, in preparatory work, in the accumulation of the literary gold dust of fact and wisdom, and in hammering it into preliminary shape in the interior of one's mind.

Thus when it comes time for me to write a column, after a hearty breakfast and an hour's sitting meditation, I like to begin by gaming it out in [jump]

Oh, and... yes, Happy New Year!

From Karen at The Graphics Fairy

Care for some champagne?

A little more, perhaps?

A little too much?

Other singers may be admired for their mad scenes, but only Frederica von Stade can take a drunk scene from everyday clowning to highest comedy...