I completed my end-of-year tasks by buying pajama bottoms. Then I started thinking about how to greet the new year publicly, i.e., here.<\/p>\n
Couldn’t come to any decision about the words to use. “Happy” is out of it. So what could possibly describe my sense of what is coming, and my hopes for what could be coming if we’re all ready to do battle?<\/p>\n
I am listening to Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto, Dmitri himself at the piano. It’s a thrill which temporarily gives me a vacation from thinking about life stuff, and remembering what Shostakovich <\/a>himself had to live with–a Russian tyrant monumentally more lethal than Putin. (Putin, although also a certifiable paranoid, is so far only able to aspire to the monstrosity of Stalin.)<\/p>\n As I listened, I found what I put in below.<\/p>\n My gratitude to the New York Times, which published it, and the artist, Tucker Nichols<\/a>, for this colorful and witty piece of new year art. As an erstwhile but maybe one day again eternal optimist, I’m going to allow it to say what I’m thinking. (Apologies both to Mr. Nichols and you: I’m not particularly competent at moving images around so the work is pushed too far to the right, but on the other hand you can read everything.)<\/p>\n