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Live, And More

I don't really care whether or not Beyonce lip-synched the National Antrhem, so much as I am fascinated by why a fairly modest, unsurprising decision redounded so badly for her. And I think the problem is twofold, and intertwined: a failure to be frank and up front, and a desire to preserve an unrealistic illusion.

Beyonce Knowles is a curious kind of star, at least for me; though she's obviously quite talented, her success has a lot to do with a long term, carefully managed strategy dating back to her childhood. Very little, ever, was left to chance. Destiny's Child (which is, literally, a description of her) went through several iterations before the carefully managed combination of Beyonce, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland became the  standard bearers. And even then, this was never a fantasy of Supremes like equality before Diana Ross got pulled forward. The ultimate goal, always, was solo stardom for the lead.

The notion of carefully controlled image, of carefully managed impressions, tends to dog Beyonce constantly. The internet rumors that her pregnancy was faked or stage managed, the presentation of her marriage, the ups and downs of her acting and singing careers... always there's this dissonant sense of what's real and what's "faked", and how to square the public presentation with overheard, "private" impressions.

The first thing that flashed in my head when suggestions of Beyonce's lip-synch surfaced was of Whitney Houston, naturally, and the 1992 Super Bowl, when she, as they said, "performed to a safety track" she'd recorded in advance of her appearance. It was lip synching, and essentially, no one cared. No one cared, I think, for those same couple of reasons: Arista (her label) was pretty up front about what happened, and no one, really, thought Houston couldn't handle live singing. Ever.

Impressions of Beyonce as a live performer tend to be somewhat more precarious. And more pointedly, her public persona is more carefully managed, for better and worse, than Houston's ever quite was.  Houston probably needed more protection, less overexposure. But it'e telling that, even now, neither Beyonce nor her spokespeople have particularly addressed the performance at the Inauguration, even after a week. Even a simple, "yes, she performed to tape" statement would kill a lot of the speculation and surmises that follow from the gossip.

Two things about the performance probably stick: the first is that faking a performance at the Inauguration is not a huge deal, but it's an odd choice, especially when, in the Obama years, Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, and Kelly Clarkson all managed live singing in similar, or identical circumstances (it's worth pointing out, too, that all three of those names are extremely seasoned live performers; and, too, that Franklin's performance wasn't her best... but no one cares). These are the days when, warts and all, the public has come to expect live event singing at particular venues and events. The other point is that Beyonce probably didn't help herself by recording a small, fairly intimate version of the National Anthem that didn't necessarily play well in the expanse of the National Mall. Big events tend to call for a "big" reading of the Anthem; we're full on Americans in our moments of natiuonal patriotism. Beyonce's version was small and quiet in the early going, and it felt small, and kind of tentative. It doesn't mean her performance choices were bad... but I tend to think she's still learning, as a singer, to be the kind of performer her fame suggests she already is - bigger than the room, up there with the legends. Her stardom is huge; her performing abilities are not, always. And again, that tends to be a reflection of her place in her generation, not necessarily a knock on her potential. A lot of these younger stars - whose fame seems outsized, and who have been carefully stage managed - seem overwhelmed when stepping into the shoes of these giant moments.

As I started, I don't care whether she lip synched; and, like RuPaul, I think she probably lip synched it better than most; she made it look so genuine, it was hard to believe the stories, at first. But I think the point is, lip synching wouldn't be a big deal if Beyonce and her people were honest about it, and if they challenged the occasionally absurd expectation that "live" singing should be an expectation or an ideal. But both, really, would be challenging and asking people to let go of their illusions. And that faith in illusions, I think, is still the problem Beyonce Knowles has most. Be fake if you must... but really, you might as well be honest about it. That's how to get to the place where no one cares.

West Of Memphis: These Are, Indeed, Their Stories.

By now, I think those who know me well know how leery I am of jumping on popular bandwagons. I'm a big believer in the lonely voice of dissent, the ones who doubt the wisdom of crowds, those who see no need to support a cause celebre. I can do this even when the easier course is to just join the 99%, while still thinking that the 1% are no heroes. Bitter... party of one.

West of Memphis, then, presents all kinds of muddle. How can one support an injustioce? How can one not support three poor young men railroaded into an unfair, unjust sentence? How can one deny a good cause, even if it has celebrities attached? Well, it's not easy... but let me try: West of Memphis is a documentary act of political theater. What it documents is powerful and even moving. What that document means, and what it shows about our popular culture... may not be its real strength.

The film documents the events that led to the cause of "Free the West Memphis 3", three young men accused, tried and imprisoned for the murders of three young boys back in 1994 in the town of West Memphis, Arkansas. Pulling together work from three other documentaries, made for HBO, and with new footage, the film traces the  initial horror of the original crime, the sensational aspects of the original trials, and the arduous process of hunting down and providing information for the eventual appeals that led to the recent release, under difficult circumstances, of those three convicted, yet demonstrably innocent, killers.

West of Memphis works best in that part of pop culture mindset put in place by CSI and SVU (with side order of Justified) - as people sift through the questionable forensics, retrace the statements of witnesses, and gradually piece together a horrific, and tragic, alternative take of events, the film works as a mystery thriller whose revelations, even when obvious, still feel breathtaking. The unfortunate thing is how these developments play out over many years, reminding out that TV's one hour dramas tend to misstate the real abilities of even the best detective to suss out the real truths. 

The cause of the West Memphis 3 was originally championed by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, the couple responsible as well for the astonishing adaptation of Lord of the Rings (and now, the somewhat more endless feeling Hobbit), and of all the celebrity participants, their roles feel the most natural and organic to the proceedings. The case was, and is, clearly, as much an obsession for them as it was for those closest to the convicted men, and their passion for finding the truth, and eventual justice - without inserting themselves too heavily into the process - is admirable, and quiet moving. 

I have no doubt that others, like Henry Rollins and Eddie Vedder, are also genuine in their search for justice. But the celebrity quotient of the documentaries steadily rises over the years until it begins to overwhelm at least some of the good intentions. The concerts, the press conferences, the chumminess through prison vistor glass... all starts to feel a bit too easy, too familiar, too much about "look who's here" and less about the tragic case and all the lives damaged in the wreck. The surreality surely is topped off by the fact that the penultimate major victory of the justice seekers comes out of a (dismissed) nuisance lawsuit against Dixie Chicks lead singer Nathalie Maines.

The ultimate resolution for the West Memphis 3 - freedom at the price of a useless, meaningless guilty plea for each of them - isn't exactly the most uplifting, and the film squarely evades the hard questions of what, really, will happen to all of these sad lives once the cameras are off and the real world moves in. Mystery solved... what else is there left to see?

West of Memphis raises some hard questions about class and crime and the search for justice in the small towns of the south... but generally avoids, as a film, much in the way of illumination beyond familiar tropes and easy stereotypes. It's hard being different, a bad attitude can get you imprisoned, society can be cruel to the developmentally disabled... these are not revelations so much as cliches, absent acknowledgement of other, more complicating social ideas. And the film does little to move beyond the cliches in trying to give context to these tragic turns of events. The result, then, is a documentary which left me, for all the interesting details and cunning detective work, a little nonplussed and emotionally distant. I'm glad they're free, I'm not sure its justice... and I tend to wonder what real life looks like for these folks when the cameras get turned off. And I don't think Johnny Depp can answer that for me. Or you. 

... Including And, And The

I'm less interested in Lance Armstrong "coming clean" about his doping habits than I am about the sense that it was appropriate, or necessary, for him to take his confessional to Oprah, and why Oprah seems to think of herself as national obsolver of celebrity sin. Armstrong's behavior, and his lying about it, strikes me as fairly clear well before he admitted it on television; and Oprah showed, yet again, why this role of confessor is hardly her strongest suit. She got few if any specifics about his doping practices, rarely challenged his (debatable) accounting of past events, and was hardly probing nor suggested the kind of familiarity with cycling or the medical issues around doping to quiz him in any thoughtful way.

That's hardly new; along with the casual assumption of her role as celebrity confessor comes a docile media rarely willing to hold Oprah up to her own past, challenge any aspect of her (even still, however limited) popularity, apparently awed, still, by her (even somewhat reduced) wealth and clout. Oprah's strength in daytime talk television was never particularly related to her strengths as an interviewer (I'll maintain Donahue was way better, forever), but more her ability to empathize and speak for a segment (a surprisingly large segment, in retrospect) of the audience who shared her sense of struggle over personal issues and sense of empowerment from within. OWN has lately, with some desperation, been programmed with significant amounts of old "Oprah Show" broadcasts, and they are, often as not, fairly illuminating just in terms of the host's own transition from charming neophyte to polished celebrity sob sister. The sobbing didn't change... but she did.

Armstrong's fall was, in its way, mostly inevitable; our society lauds athletes in weird ways, and leaves them few options as their athletic prowess fades. It doesn't diminish the talents of those who can run faster, kick harder, jump higher to point out that those physical skills are temporary, at best, and no proof of overall personal greatness. You don't have to be a good person to be a great athlete, and too often we grant too much of the former and, in a sense, take the latter too much for granted. It's why, after so many years of watching, I find Olympic athletes, especially the stars, more sympathetic than laudable. Outside of those grand arenas, out in the real world, I'm not sure those unicorns really have a place in the world.

"Doping" is a curious scandal, one that I'm not prepared, as some are, to call a hanging offense. How much of Lance Armstrong's success was the extra kick of steroids and EPO and blood replacement will be hard, if ever, to sort out, and in the end, hardly matters. He shouldn't have done it. But we can't, I think, confidently claim to know what would have happened if he never had. Perhaps the really sad story is that, without drugs, Lance Armstrong could have achieved many remarkable things, and those things, the true things, are the ones we'll never know.

Instead, we are left with Lance Armstrong, the man who lied and lied and lied again, who lied when it would have been easier to tell the truth, and who, most likely, hardly knows enough to know how to tell the truth, fully, at this late date. It's okay, though, because Oprah says so. I mean, it is... right?

(The title of this post comes from Mary McCarthy's memorable line about Lillian Hellman during their decades long feud, mostly about Hellman's "memoirs" that put herself central to the major developments of major events. "Every word she says is a lie," McCarthy said. "including 'and' and 'the'.")

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Les Miserables: There's A Grief That Can't Be Spoken

Of all the "big eighties" musicals (Phantom, Cats, Dreamgirls, etc), I've long suspected that Les Miserables is the best known and least understood of the bunch. More than the others - only Phantom really comes close - Les Miz isn't really so much a traditional musical comedy as much as it is light opera, a style very popular early on in American musical theater, but that eventually got subsumed into the opera houses of most of America (along with Gilbert and Sullivan and Porgy and Bess). Light operas and operettas were the sort of thing Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald did for MGM, where there was a lot of emphatic singing and usually little spoken dialogue, but it didn't quite qualify as "serious" opera because they were more recent, and tended towards more popular melodies.

Few people get that Les Miserables, in French, was originally more of a song cycle with some staging, before Cameron Mackintosh swept the whole thing up, translated it into English and gave it an elaborate staging in London. Even then, the initial reaction to it as a piece of theater was as more of an event, not easily categorized as traditional, straight musical theater. As it made its way to Broadway, Les Miz became treated more conventionally, even though, as a show, it actually has next to no spoken dialogue, is mostly sung-through, and relies heavily on recitative as well as traditional "numbers," which often function, in the show, more as solo arias, or duets and trios, amongst main characters. It's a short hop, really, from Les Miz to La Boheme, shorter than the hop to, say, a Phantom. The musical themes assemble and reassemble in the different numbers, and the show's first act closer, "One Day More," gradually blends the different threads preceding it into a stunning thematic whole.

Thus, in some ways, it's unfair to come to Les Miz expecting the familiar contours of the form that's been identified, since World War 2, as the American musical comedy. Les Miz is more thematically dense, more musically demanding, even if it does not, fully, fit the form of conventional opera. More than any show in recent memory, it is a singer's show - it requires, first, singers who can act more than actors who can sing (never mind dancers; the show is almost entirely free of traditional choreography). Arguably, Les Miserables has attained its cult status, and its rabid fan base by being staged as a musical, while playing to its operatic pretensions.

And so Les Miz arrives on film, proving that it still has worlds to conquer, its operatic pretensions in place, its place in pop culture secure. Tom Hooper's adaptation is all the junkies could expect - big, bold, brash and full of soaring musical moments. However well made, it cannot entirely mask the show's book flaws, and while visually magnificent, it can often feel somewhat less than the sum of its parts. And as always, the show rises and falls, most, on the strengths and weaknesses of its singers.

Many have argued that the film's weakest link is Russell Crowe as Javert, obviously the most actorly of the film's lead singers. Crowe has worked hard, and he does have singing experience (a band with him and his brothers is big in Australia), but his limited range is apparent, and at times he does struggle. But I think Crowe is being sold short for what he brings as an actor (and then too, the part of Javert is easy to treat harshly). At his best - his version of Stars, or Javert's eventual death scene - Crowe wisely undersings and retains the humanity of his character where others would go for bombast, or reach for the rafters. Crowe knows film well enough to understand its intimacy, and he connects with the camera in ways that others don't do quite as well. It's an idiosyncratic, star turn performance that works more than it doesn't.

On the other hand, there's Hugh Jackman, muscling his way through Jean Valjean with his usual scene chewing, always "on" qualities, who seems genuinely miscast. Valjean is the show's most brutal part, a screamingly high tenor role where the singer has to hit the highest notes with a full on belt. It's a singing skill that really encompasses a handful of men (there have been, I think, maybe 8-10 Valjeans  on Broadway in the life of the show)... and Jackman just isn't one of them. It's painful, really, to see the vocal strain as he tries to put over crucial numbers, none more so than the cruelly high "Bring Him Home." Lord knows, Jackman's qualities of pure showmanship can overcome most obstacles... but a note out of reach doesn't magically get reachable. And his acting can only take that so far.

The film starts with Valjean being paroled after 19 years in hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread during the French Revolution. Unfortuately, his parole makes him (shades of today) a virtual persona non grata in civilized society, and so he faces an agonizing (those notes!) dilemma of turning to crime or hiding in a new identitity. Assuming a fake name and a false identity, Valjean becomes a town mayor and factory owner, where a young woman named Fantine loses her job when the other women turn on her because of the foreman's obvious preference for her good looks. This leads Fantine on her own downward spiral, which she describes in her number "I Dreamed A Dream."

Anne Hathaway's appearance, 20 minutes in (she's gone by about 20 minutes later) is the film's down payment on greatness, and Hathaway shines so bright the effect is nearly mesmerizing. Gaunt and grim, she slogs her way through Fantine's travails, and though she's not the vocally strongest Fantine (Patti Lupone, for Christ's sake, was the original), Hathaway has that quality I've only seen in Marion Cotillard on film, of truly being able to act a song so thoroughly, all other doubts wash away. Bewildered, hurt, scared and desperate... all of this and more plays across her face as she attacks the song, sometimes letting emotion overwhelm her notes, other times, hitting them all the harder and more accurately to let the music do its job. Her performance is the most solid Oscar entrant I've seen all year.

Les Miz is a sprawling show, and Fantine's death leads to the real meat of the show, where Valjean adopts Fantine's daughter, Cosette, from a rapacious couple of innkeepers whose every thought is stealing (the Thernadiers, here played expertly by Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen). Still running from his jailer Javert, Valejean and Cosette wind up in Paris in 1832 as an eventualy botched student revolutionary protest sweeps up a group of young men, including Marius, Cosette's suitor, and the Thernadier's daughter, Eponine.

This is one of the great legendarily down shows, and virtually all of the show's most memorable numbers are death scene last gasps, interpsersed with dripping declarations of undying love and the occasional call to stand up and fight for freedom. The ideas are big, the music swells, but the lyrics are often surprisingly small, and often trite. Les Miz succeeds best, and affects most, when its not trying too hard, pushing too high, or smacking us with the obvious. But even its most shameless moments can pack a surprising punch.

After Hathaway, Jackman and Crowe, the biggest vocal surprises are Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried as the lovers Marius and Cosette. Redmayne is a foursquare romantic tenor in great voice, and Seyfried has a glorious light soprano that lifts her material way higher than I remember when I saw the show. The Eponine role is a natural stunner and she delivers. Carter and Cohen are aces as the Thernadiers. And the smaller roles - Gavroche, Enjolrais - work as reliably as one should expect.

Tom Hooper's direction is less assured than one might expect, as he seems to struggle with balancing the intimacy of the characters and their solos with the bombast and enormity of the action surrounding them. Les Miz, on stage, is memorably presented on a spinning disc, rotating characters on and off, and Hooper does his best to try and recreate the effect with pull backs and dolly shots to surround the sets, but he also frames his soloists in super tight, unforgiving closeups (Hathaway's lack of Hollywood vanity is remarkable), and the mix of shots doesn't make either choice necessarily effective. Hooper's focus on soloists robs "One Day More" of some its punch, Fantine's death is poorly staged, and Jackman's showiness would look less desperate if Hooper pulled back. None of this can diminish the power of the strongest numbers (Dream, On My Own, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, Master of the House), but  by the end, the show feels more like a slog than a journey.

Still, for its flaws, indeed perhaps because imperfection keeps this monster human scale rather than enormous and bloated, Les Miserables manages a surprising amount of subtlety, genuine emotion, and soaring power. Indeed, the film's attempts at intimacy solve a number of the second act book problems the show carries with it, which allows the show to feel more like an altogether more inclusive whole. All of which make it, for me, the Oscar contender to beat for Best Picture (I'll do Lincoln shortly), and a glorious adaptation of a misunderstood theatrical event. Someone may try again... but good luck with that. This one will stand pretty tall regardless, for a long time. 

I Wish Every Day Could Be Like Christmas (I Really Do)

The Swedish traditions for the holidays are to leave the tree up well into January, a way to preserve some of the spirit of the season into the new year. And, really, doesn't that alone recommend Swedish culture? Who else gives you Christmas that lasts almost an entire month?

(I got that from a book I gave to a friend to help her grow accustomed to the ways of the American Swede she married. Welcome to the family!)

Today the tinsel came down, the baubles came off, and I carefully repacked the lights. I remember how, as a child, my father explained that one day I would be the Man of the House. Most men can recall some version of that conversation, I find, and for years I dismissed those talks, as we do, or considered them cheerfully anachronistic (also, they usually involve a discussion of lawn mowing). As with many things (including lawn mowing), I can admit in middle age that my father was, in at least some sense, right. Even gay men will, at some point, have to learn what it is to be a man. And that being a man is okay. And as I carefully put away the Christmas lights, I feel the reality of being that man.

Taking down the Christmas tree this year feels, like so many things, somewhat bittersweet. Christmas is definitely over; it's time to move on. Onward and upward... that's my approach to the year so far. The presents I got were fine - a nice new pair of Puma sneaks for work, a couple of lovely cookbooks (with elaborate recipes I'm not sure I can attempt), the DVD collection of a British series featuring psychopathic killers - these are my simple pleasures.

And yet... there's a sadness, a sense of the things that are missing, time passing too fast. I can't explain it all that well, and I worry that this is what life is these days, something not quite good enough, quietly disappointing. That's not the Christmas spirit I was raised on, and I feel a little lost without it. 

All of which is why, more than most years, I feel like putting away Christmas, while necessary, can't really be an improvement. January just looks darker, and all the more grim, with the candles snuffed out, and the twinkling lights stored away in the basement. More than most years... I wish every day could be like Christmas, this year. I really do.

Saturday Singalong: The Best Of What We Heard

A couple of caveats about this year: I don't think this was a great year for a diehard pop fan, especially given that a good number of female stars either released little (Katy Perry) or weak new product (Kylie Minogue's ill-advised orchestral rerecordings is one stark example). When a Madonna album comes and goes and almost no one remembers... well, an era has ended, if you ask me. I mean we do even remember American Life. 

Second, technology continues to change, well, everything. This year was all about YouTube and downloaded singles and, for me, the occasional thrill of finding an obscure no-name or small sensation with maybe a keyboard and some digital editing skills. Still, my torch burns brightest for straight-up pop, and this, for me, was what worked best:

Carly Rae Jepsen, Call Me Maybe. There's a thin line between having one of the all-time top singles and teeing up the ultimate Worst Song Ever, and Jepsen walked it pretty miraculously. Absurdly overplayed, way too influential in the zeitgeist... yet somehow Jepsen led the way with the brightest piece of ear candy in years. Maybe it's "ripped jeans, skin was showing", maybe it's the emphatic ambivalence of the title, which can't even sum up the nerve to be commanding (call me... maybe?). Which of course, it is just crazy to hand your number to some stranger you've just met. It's the details, the small but true observational aspects, I suspect, that gave this song wings. And Jepsen may not be able to match it, but the 25 girls who wish they'd sung it don't have anything nearly as catchy.

Psy, Gangnam Style. What am I, dead? Of course I heard it. And couldn't turn it off. Sure it's the arresting video and the YouTube thing, but Psy's real wonder was creating a piece of noisy techno-dance that wasn't so ear insulting as to require turning it off. Catchy, danceable, and a charming lyrical mess (i have no idea what "Gangnam Style" is, but at least we know it isn't some sort of anti-American gang violence). And sure, as it filters down into the wedding reception and prom market it will be.... unfortunate. But by then, shouldn't we just put on our coats, congratulate the lucky couple, and go?

Deadmau5, The Veldt (featuring Chris James). Deadmau5 is already a superstar as a dj and remixer, so why not cross over into making the music as well? The Veldt is one of those dance songs that clears away the clutter of what came before it, a complete rethinking of the rhythm and the tone of the night. That it's also brainy and engaging (adapted from that Ray Bradbury story where kids trap their parents in a videowalled room turned into an African Veldt) isn't just a plus... it's what it lifts it to greatness.

Pink, Blow Me (One Last Kiss). Not her best, but not her worst; much of Pink's material is starting to bleed into one raucous party song where the party always about to get going (and you can stay if you're not a douchebag), contrasted with a long dark ballad in which love is like some sort of addiction. Still, she's balls-out the biggest badass on the block, still outsinging most everyone, and wittier by far. "No more sick whiskey dick" and "we've had a shit day" do count for cutting through the clutter of niceness that tends to prevade pop these days. But perhaps a change-up of some sort, next time...?

Fun., Some Nights. I still think "We Are Young" is something of a disaster, but not for want of trying: the verses of that song are surprisingly thoughtful. But Some Nights is proof that Fun. can do it right and do it well. Maybe it's the creamy Queen-level harmonies, the foursquare marching band rhythm (Tusk?), but for me, it's the sobering, questioning stance of the soaring lyric. "Who the fuck wants to die alone?" Not me. And when I look into my nephews eyes... some of the most amazing things can come from some terrible lives. Gets me every time.

Austin Mahone, Say Something. Keep your Bieber. I'll keep looking.

One Direction, Live While We're Young. Last year, they were teens for the tween set, asking you to believe for yourself what they saw in you. Now it's all one night stands and easy sex... or did no one actually listen to the lyrics of this even catchier ear candy? ""I know we only met but let's pretend it's love... tonight let's get some, and live while we're young." Indeed.

The Ready Sets, Give Me Your Hand (Best Song Ever). Like I said this time last year, I find myself drawn to a slew of these (fairly interchangeable) po-up bands with a lot of digital skillz, peppy tunes and autotune vocoding. A song so airy and content free that it suggests - nay, insists - that some other song is actually the best ever, what I like is how well it sells this with an air of tuneful assurance. That kind of charm is missing from a lot of pop these days.

JTX, Seven Day Weekend. And not just cause he actually took the time to read my praise for him last year. This one is just a cheerful piece of party pop... but at least it's a party that actually sounds like fun.

Olly Murs, Troublemaker. Murs is another contest winner (Britain's Got Talent, I think, or some one of those) who is already enjoying a solid career in the UK, and surely can ride the coattails of 1D to the US. Not just teenboy pop, but teenboy pop that harks back to early Britney, and by extension, the career Justin Timberlake is too big to condescend to.

Bruno Mars, Locked Out of Heavan. A truly wondrous production, some sort of answer to the question of what would have happened if Michael Jackson had gone to England and recorded Beat It with Sting and Andy Summers, circa Roxanne. There may be an eighties revival, and Mars is the reason to hope it brings us more than just recycled cheese.

Maroon 5, Daylight. I've been wondering if "Overexposed" the title of their album is actually an ironic wink to their current reality, or an unwitting confirmation of their slide to selling out. I've already dissed Payphone, I can't even muster the energy to pan the pale white reggae-ish of One More Night, and then there's this. It's a lovely single, with a better soaring lyric than the others... but it's still awfully generic pop, a Chris Brown single with modest pop aspirations. And in a bad year, it's better tha most... if that's enough.

Winter Land

Mom and I are off on our new family tradtion, a post New Year's gathering in Maine at my Aunt and Uncle's, including my two cousins. Like last year, Mom and I broke up the drive, spending the night around Portland.

This morning I walked outside to get my hair dryer (I hate packing hair dryers in my suitcase; I need a separate piece of luggage for technical, maintenance type equipment. Or something), I was welcomed by a pleasant blast of crisp, cold winter air. I've mentioned, for years now, how much I like the change of seasons, and the weird world we have now, when the reality of global warming pushes winter further and further out of reach. 

Still, I was struck by the visceral joy of the cold weather today. Seeing my breath, bundled up yet my puffy cat unzipped. It's only in the high thirties, and while many would find it weather to complain about, on a sunny morning with little wind and low humidity, it's really very pleasant. It's the morning I understand the people who drive miles to ski, when I miss those fun winter days in the city, walking around window shopping, enjoying the cold.

Things simply aren't that cold anymore, not very often, and not for very long. I am not someone to wade deeply into the politics - or even the science - of climate change; I worry less about the sense of impending disaster than I do simply mourn the loss of the things I genuinely like - a cool day, snow on the ground, leaves off the trees, when those limited hours of sun really brighten a day. A good and proper winter.

So, rather than watch it wistfully out the window, I'm off to walk around in it. More later.