“‘No accident that _débâcle_ is a French word,’ observed my brother once…. The word _débâcle_ suggests the going-wrong of an elaborately conceived plan: a disaster that somehow leaves the principal parties not only having lost what they were aware that they were risking but much more besides, as if an attempt to charm the boss by inviting him to dinner and cooking an ambitious favourite dish of his were to result in the death by poisoning of his wife, the loss of one’s job, collapse of one’s marriage, one’s bankruptcy, turn to violent crime, and subsequent death in a shoot-out with police – when all one was worried about was the risk of curdling the hollandaise. Compare the implication of mismanagement, of organization going wrong, in the Gallic _débâcle_ with the candidly chaotic, intimate quality of the Italian _fiasco_, or the blokishly masculine and pragmatic (and I would suggest implicitly reversible and therefore, in its deep assumptions, optimistic) American _fuck-up_.”

- John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure.

As usual Neil Gaiman has the best wish, which has managed to condense thoughts that took me three pages to write for my niece into a few short lines. Well, that’s why Neil gets the big bucks and I don’t, isn’t it?

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

If one does fall prey to the most common New Year’s Eve mistake, there is this helpful guide from Slate to guide us through those first, often fraught, hours after waking: Drinking in the Morning After – The do’s and don’ts of imbibing in the a.m.

Drinking at breakfast is a rare pleasure with a noble heritage, and you need to show some decorum. If self-respect is beyond you at the moment in question, then settle for showing some respect for the institution. Treat this as a special occasion and dress to impress—a feat easily accomplished by waking up in or near your tuxedo. At the very least, affix a boutonniere to the lapel of your bathrobe.

Finally, while it’s still nice and quiet and we all have time to plan, I’ll remind everyone that I have declared January 2 to be Introvert Day — the only holiday that you celebrate by deliberately NOT gathering with beloved family and friends. Enjoy your precious solitude, and may 2012 bring you happiness.

The Evil That Walks By Night

There is an evil that walks by night, stalking a nurse just off the night shift, stomping a gay guy, snapping the crucifix from a headstone.

Unchecked and unchallenged, it becomes bolder, enjoying the ability to strike fear or cause pain or create suffering. Sometimes it finds like-minded companions and begins to feel safe in the daylight and to contemplate even larger evils.

When that happens, there have always been those willing to force the evil back into the night. Some of those brave men and women don’t come home, leaving families in need of help. Some return from the battles with scars it takes time to heal.

That’s where the money raised by Poppies goes. And wearing one designates you as one who understands that sometimes sacrifice is required and you respect those who chose to pay the price.

But it also marks you as one who knows that there is evil in the world and that you stand against it.

“You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!”

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, from On the Shortness of Life

“Receiving a tax cut is like standing up at a concert in order to get a better view. It’s easy enough to see why an individual might be tempted. But if everyone does it, the gains become much less clear-cut.”

- Stephen Gordon, on the illusory benefits of tax cuts.

[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/stephen-gordon/the-truth-behind-tax-cuts-you-might-not-be-better-off/article1960947/]

“Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know why I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.”

- Will Rogers
Quotation of the Day for April 21, 2011

Quotation of the Day for November 9, 2009

“That same afternoon I was sitting on a stool in an intoxicated condition in Grogan’s licensed premises. Adjacent stools bore the forms of Brinsley and Kelly, my two true friends. The three of us were occupied in putting glasses of stout into the interior of our bodies and expressing by fine disputation the resulting sense of physical and mental well-being.”

- Flann O’Brien, from his novel At Swim-Two-Birds.

Yesterday I had the chance to see a whole bunch of people I haven’t seen in ages, along with a whole bunch of people I see often. We ate and drank and talked and laughed and generally had a lovely time.

Today I am smiling and, as the quote says, full of a sense of physical and mental well-being (despite a lack of stout and intoxication). It is a privilege to know all the people I know, even if I only see some of you every couple of decades, whether I saw you yesterday or ten years ago. Thank you, all of you.

http://abbie.blogspot.com/2005/09/today-is-sad-day-i-am-vffeeling-very.html

Rest well, Rita Kalda. December 4 1924 – February 7 2011.