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| Cover illustration by J.C. Leyendecker, 80 years ago. |
I like this New Year philosophy by Neil Gaiman:
"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."
11 comments:
thats great advise, Annie..
Happy New Year to You, AnyJazz and all your Family.
Here it is, just a few hours into 2016, yet it feels and looks the same...LOL. I can't say that I'm too into New Year's. An artificial marker on an artificial calendar of days. I always walk GiGi after she eats her dinner, which is almost always after the national news completes...we leave the house about 6:20 PM or so...and in about a week from now, I'll start noticing that there's a tad more light as we start our journey. I suppose that's my marker for the new year.
Geeeeez...lots of fireworks last night. Jr the cat went into hiding, but he was on his hot pad this morning. There were some nice aerial displays. Some incredibly loud and reverberating explosions...not sure what devices those were, as they were way too loud for the common firecracker. Maybe we have some junior pipe bombers nearby.
It was too late to watch a full-length movie by the time I settled into the chair in front of the TV, so I watched the "Dick Clark's New Year" special, and the New York City celebration. Interesting line-up of young musical talents...I recognized several, but most were unknowns to me. Overall, not very entertaining, so I switched to "America's Test Kitchen" for 30 minutes, then back to New York to see the ball drop 30 minutes later.
Neil Gaiman's quotation - I should do fine in 2016, if making mistakes is the hallmark of a good year. I can manage that without even trying...LOL. Our candidates for presidency should have a good year, too, on that basis.
Sonny ~ It is! Make 'em, learn from 'em and accept those the others make - and learn from those too! :-) Happy 2016 to you and yours, sonny!
mike ~ Agreed - today looks much like yesterday and the day before that - cold and clear, with news sites online still concentrating on the same old same old stuff. We weren't even treated to the sound of fireworks at midnight - not a single sound was heard. Could be that a fireworks ban is still in force here, due to grass fire danger I guess. What with lack of the sound of fireworks and lack of any countdown for central time zones on TV at midnight, 2016's entry was...a very damp squib for us.
Mistakes? As some anonymous person once said, after having made one Never say, "oops." Always say, "Ah, interesting!"
I can do that!
:-)
A new word (it was for me) for the first day of 2016, bildungsroman:
"a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bildungsroman
"A Bildungsroman relates the growing up or 'coming of age' of a sensitive person who goes in search of answers to life's questions with the expectation that these will result from gaining experience of the world. The genre evolved from folklore tales of a dunce or youngest son going out in the world to seek his fortune. Usually in the beginning of the story there is an emotional loss which makes the protagonist leave on his journey. In a Bildungsroman, the goal is maturity, and the protagonist achieves it gradually and with difficulty. The genre often features a main conflict between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist and he/she is ultimately accepted into society — the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over. In some works, the protagonist is able to reach out and help others after having achieved maturity.
There are many variations and subgenres of Bildungsroman that focus on the growth of an individual. An Entwicklungsroman ('development novel') is a story of general growth rather than self-cultivation. An Erziehungsroman ('education novel') focuses on training and formal schooling,[citation needed] while a Künstlerroman ('artist novel') is about the development of an artist and shows a growth of the self."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsroman
mike (again) ~ New one to me too. Trust the Germans to come up with yet another batch of eye-crossingly difficult to read words to describe stuff we had previously just considered to be ...stuff! :-)
We saw "The Cider House Rules" (Netflix) at some point over the holidays - that is a Bildungsroman type story, I suppose. If you haven't seen it, it's rather good, both as a bildungs-wot-not and a deeper examination of the RULES we humans adhere to - or are supposed to - due to either either moral grounds or because someone else has demanded it of us.
I came across bildungsroman a week ago, then again today referring to James Franco's book of poetry to be released soon...quinkydink. Last year's big-hit, German word was schadenfreude, which I find is a very suitable word to utilize in many circumstances, eg Bill Cosby's current pickle, or KaloBios Pharmaceutical's filing for bankruptcy after Martin Shkreli's arrest for securities fraud. Bildungsroman doesn't carry the same emotional satisfaction as schadenfreude, but we'll see how the usage develops as 2016 clicks onward.
Thanks for "Cider House"...maybe I'll watch it tonight. Sounds like I'll need a couple of hankies nearby.
Oklahoma has gained global recognition:
"Oklahoma has become one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world, with the number of quakes magnitude 3.0 or greater skyrocketing from a few dozen in 2012 to more than 800 in 2015."
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/01/oklahoma-earthquakes-oil-gas-industry-wastewater-injection
mike (again) ~ Schadenfreude - yes, good one, it's been around for a while - I remember looking it up. I like lumpenproletariat too. On the whole, though, I prefer French, Italian or even Latin expressions to the German. Old prejudices die hard. ;-)
Okie quakes? Yes they've become a way of life - happily for us most are a good way north of where we are, around Okie City or north of there. It'll take something major to stop them fracking - main cause of the quakes. Gov. Mary Fallin will do nothing.
I received a mid-evening, well-wishing telephone call last night that didn't conclude until after 10 PM. "Cider House" is a 2 hour movie, so I scanned the offerings and settled on "Before I Disappear", which was far better than I thought it would be...had edges of "Pulp Fiction" and wasn't a family-values type of film at all.
Due to the call, I didn't view the BBC-PBS first-ever simulcast of the "Sherlock" New Year's special. I read the review in the Guardian and it was given extraordinarily high remarks. I hope to catch it on Roku's PBS channel, but it will be shown again on January 10th on regular PBS.
mike (again) ~ I'll put "Before I Disappear" on our list of "to give it a try".
Re "Sherlock" - we did watch a couple of episodes of the series a while back. I wasn't overly enthused, but can see why it would have gathered many fans. I'll try to remember to take a look on PBS 10 Jan. We keep missing stuff on regular TV because of constant Netflixing. We missed the Kennedy Center Honors show last week - don't think it's repeated. Dang!! Ah well, I do know that the last season ever of American Idol starts this week, and shall definitely watch that - a guilty pleasure (as they say about anything that might appear to some as being ever so slightly infra dig.) ;-)
Do, please, let me know what you think of "The Cider House Rules" if you see it.
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