New Year, New Blather

Or the same old...

Item the First: The Postulant designates me a Superior Scribbler. I thank him but realize that all memes of this type generally die here.

Item the Second: I had a month of blog silence there. It's been a rather hectic couple of months, involving three transcontinental round-trips (well, come next week) and one intercity train journey. In that time, I've attended three services of Lessons and Carols, all somewhat different. I've also been to two conferences and presented two talks and two posters. I've seen the Wren Chapel at William and Mary, where services are far more rubrically proper than I've seen in a long time. Reflecting on this busy time, I realize that I must have been having a lot of fun, but it was intensely exhausting.

Item the Third: In the new year, I have a thesis to write. Being single and childless, this is easier for me than others we know. But I'm also going to try to learn to drive and get a job during the same period. So will there be long periods of blog silence in the new year? As events warrant.

Item the Fourth: The anonymized title of my thesis is Flying Particles of Nanophase Iron Oxides and the Boreal Spring and Summer Weather of a Cold, Desert Planet. Take that, Google.

Item the Fifth: James Howard Kunstler's predictions for the new year include multiple families living in suburban housing, farming organic gardens. Some of these families will become a new servant class to replace our broken service economy. In addition, the Federal Government, who is the ultimate source of compensation in my current future, will become gradually insolvent. Living in a state with thousands of vacant units of suburban housing, a potential water shortage that will pit the needs of the nation's fruit basket and my thirsty metropolitan area, bonds that cannot be floated, and a treasury that will be insolvent before the lions of March come calling, I say that Kunstler's future is looking plausible indeed.

Item the Sixth: I am currently reading Don DeLillo's Underworld , which might be called an American Foucault's Pendulum thematically, but proves quite convincingly why Europeans don't respect our authors come Nobel time. I should write about this more later.

Item the Seventh: I disagree somewhat with bls about Slumdog Millionaire but only because I suspect my cinematic standards have been warped by the subpar offerings of the last year. But I disagree with any claims that it is the "best movie ever." It will be Oscar-competitive, but it has its faults, especially in how it presumes knowledge of the complex religious politics of Mumbai and the surrounding state, which is important for understanding the early scenes. In other news, did you know that Sony Pictures is making Bollywood movies now? I hope they show some of them in the United States.

Happy New Year!