Random Musings for the New Year-

-We've had no measurable snow (usual snowfall at this point around here is 13"), and none is in the forecast. It's going to be 50 degrees tomorrow. This apparently does not have to do with Global Warming, but with El Nino, but still, you have to wonder... I am noticing a subtle change taking place in the Reactionary Stance regarding Global Warming- although they still deny it could be taking place, in more and more "negative" polemics you'll see a new emphasis on the dual argument that "nobody's proven it (Global Warming) is a bad thing". I saw this just last week in an article I've now lost. Very oddly, after starting out with the usual denial that it was happening at all, the rest of the diatribe was focused on the benefits of Global Warming, stated in a way that assumed it was happening. Hey, as far as I'm concerned, the less heating oil we burn the better, and Texas is not nearly as far above sea level as my house, so it's all fine with me.


-Amy and I spent New Year's Eve with two good friends at the Coolodige Park Cafe at the Hotel Northampton. This is the second year we've gotten the table that sits in a little glassed-in alcove overlooking the center. Northampton has a First Night celebration, with all sorts of things going on all around town, and then at midnight they drop a ball from the flagpole of the Hotel, right over our heads. So at midnight there were thousands of people in the center counting down and cheering as the ball dropped right above us, and there we were all cozy, warm and slightly toasted, raising our glasses to them as they all cheered back. And God Bless this town- fifteen minutes later the center was deserted and the street sweeper was cleaning up.

We drove into Boston yesterday for another party, and Boston is still cleaning up. We've been gone a year and a half now, and except for our local food-coop supermarket and the subway, there's not all that much that we miss. I guess Green Acres is the place for me...

-Is it my imagination, or did college bowl games become a lot less interesting when they all got named for car-rental & computer companies? I know college football is a huge commercial racket anyway, but please, I just cannot bring myself to watch something called the 3-M Packing Tape Bowl.

-Speaking of football, nobody is going to pick them to be there, but make a date to watch our New England Patriots play some hapless NFC team at this year's SooperDooper Bowl. After some early season problems, the Pats, who were always solid anyway, are peaking at just the right time.

-If you're looking for a good mystery read, Ian Pears has a series about an English art dealer in Italy and his girlfriend who's an Italian art-squad cop. I found out about the series when I picked up three of them from Daedalus, where a paperback edition is on remainder at the moment. They are fast, humorous and very well written, and you don't actually need to know anything about art to enjoy them. If you do know anything about the art scene, though, you will appreciate some of the charaterizations and humor all the more. Pears also wrote a novel/thriller called "The Portrait" which Daedalus also has copies of which is not from this series, but well worth reading, for the same reasons.

Speaking of books and art and such made me go find the photo at the start of this entry, which is of the French actress Emmanuelle Seigner in one of my favorite movies, "The Ninth Gate". If you want to know what bookselling is really like, watch this movie. It's just like that, really; or at least for me it always has been.

Honest!