What Will You Be Doing For New Year's?

We've all been brought up on various New Year's traditions. For example, if you kiss someone at midnight, you'll have luck in love throughout the rest of the year (wonder if smooching a kitty counts?).  Eating pork is a symbol of good luck because pigs root forward (chickens and turkeys scratch backwards so don't eat poultry today). Black-eyed peas symbolize prosperity because they resemble coins, so eat up!

But there is a whole host of bizarre traditions from around the world. Therefore, if you're stuck on what to do to ring in the New Year, here are some other options:

South Africa

In downtown Johannesburg, locals throw old appliances and furniture out the window. These items can range from toasters to full-sized couches as a metaphor of out with the old and in with the new.  Heads up!

Colombia

Hoping for a travel-filled year, residents tote empty suitcases around the block.

Japan

The faithful wear a costume of the next year's zodiac animal (2014 is the year of the horse) to the local temple, where bells chime a sacred 108 times in alignment with the Buddhist belief that this brings cleanness.

Denmark

The Danes ring in the New Year by hurling old plates and glasses ... against the doors of friends' and relatives' houses.  They also stand on chairs and then jump off them together at midnight.  Leaping into January is supposed to banish bad spirits and bring good luck.

Spain

At midnight on New Year's Eve, it's customary in Spain to quickly eat 12 grapes (one at each stroke of the clock). Each grape supposedly signifies good luck for one month of the coming year. In Madrid, Barcelona and other Spanish cities, revelers congregate in the main squares to chow down on their grapes together while passing around bottles of cava (Spanish wine).

Finland

It's a longtime Finnish tradition to predict the coming year by casting molten tin into a container of water, and then interpreting the shape the metal takes after hardening. A heart or ring shape means a wedding in the new year; a ship forecasts travel; and a pig shape signifies plenty of food.  Hmmm... Not sure which one I'd wish for most.

Panama

Effigies of well-known people are traditionally burned in New Year's bonfires. The figures can include anyone from television characters to political figures.  The effigies represent the old year; immolating them is meant to drive off evil spirits for a fresh New Year's start.  Can you imagine who we might burn in effigy? 

Scotland

During the New Year's Eve celebration of Hogmanay, "first-footing" is practiced all over Scotland.  The custom dictates that the first person to cross the threshold of a home in the New Year should carry a gift for luck - whiskey is the most common gift. <gasp>  No! Say it ain't so!

Belarus

During the traditional celebration of Kaliady, still-unmarried women play games to predict who will be wed in the New Year. In one game, a pile of corn is placed before each woman, and a rooster is let go; whichever pile the rooster approaches first reveals who will be the first to marry. I assume the losers get to kill, pluck, and eat the rooster.  In another game, a married woman hides certain items around her house for her unmarried friends to find; the woman who finds bread will supposedly marry a rich husband; the one who finds a ring will marry a handsome one.  

Central and South America

In Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela, it’s considered lucky to wear special underwear on New Year’s Eve. In cities like São Paulo and La Paz, market vendors start displaying brightly colored underpants a few days before the holiday. The most popular colors are red and yellow -- red is supposed to bring love in the coming year, and yellow is supposed to bring money. Wonder if they have half red, half yellow undies.

Chile

In Chile, families spend the night in the company of their deceased loved ones by sleeping at the cemetery.

Ireland

In Ireland, they hit the walls with bread to get rid of evil spirits.

Siberia

There is a Siberian custom of cutting a hole in the ice covering Lake Baikal and diving to the lake’s bottom while carrying a New Year’s tree. Note: only professional divers participate - thank goodness.

North Carolina

Even in America there are strange customs. To ring in the new year in Brasstown, N.C.,  a live possum in a plexiglass box is lowered to the ground from a pole outside a convenience store, aka the "Possum Drop". This year's unusual tradition was in jeopardy after a PETA lawyer argued in court that the lights, noise and crowd of people can wreck a possum's nerves and health. However, a judge ruled Monday that the annual New Year's Eve show can go on. 

And you thought the ball dropping in Times Square was exciting.

"This is Where I Leave You" - in Stitches!

Last Sunday, my brother called me to tell me that my mother had passed away after a 10 year battle with Alzheimer's which left me with having to travel down to New Jersey for the funeral. I stopped in NYC for a couple of days to spend some time with a friend of mine. I happened to be chatting with this friend about dreading seeing certain members of my immediate family at the funeral and she said that she had a must read book for me. She proceeded to hand me Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You (2009). Over the course of approximately a day and half, I started and finished this 340 page novel.

Summary:  "The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman clan has congregated in years. There is, however, one conspicuous absence: Judd's wife, Jen, whose affair with his radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Simultaneously mourning the demise of his father and his marriage, Judd joins his dysfunctional family as they reluctantly sit Shiva -and spend seven days and nights under the same roof. The week quickly spins out of control as longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed and old passions are reawakened. Then Jen delivers the clincher: she's pregnant.

This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's most accomplished work to date, and a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind-whether we like it or not." (Amazon.com)

Review: Tropper puts the fun in dysfunction with this hilarious novel! This is the first time I have read a Jonathan Tropper novel and I was mesmerized. His ability to combine tragedy and humor sets him apart from many other writers.

Judd Foxman's life is a mess. He comes home early from work to find his beautiful wife, Jen, in bed with another man. And not just any man, but his boss. After moving out of his charming suburban home and into a shoddy basement apartment, he is informed of his father's death. Surprisingly, although he was never a religious man, his dad's dying wish was for his family to sit Shiva for one week, in his honor. Reluctantly, Judd heads to his mother's house.

Judd's family is a comedy lover's dream. Dysfunctional doesn't even begin to describe this clan. His mother is a world renowned parenting expert who can't even begin to understand her own children. His youngest brother, Philip, is a playboy who is constantly finding himself in one crisis or another. He comes to the family home with a guest that no one can quite figure out. Paul, the oldest brother, harbors a lot of resentment towards Judd. He and his wife are also struggling with fertility issues. Judd's sister, Wendy, is his rock. But she is stuck is a loveless marriage and dealing with her own romantic disasters. Now all these siblings are forced to stay under the same roof. Add to this list a number of oddball mourners who come to pay their respects and you've got a week of maladjusted comic drama. The repercussions are laugh out loud funny and poignant at the same time.

These characters are oddly lovable and relatable. The family dynamic is incredibly familiar and easy to identify with. The Foxman's are everyone's family. Sure, they are somewhat eccentric and manipulative, but the love they have for each other is clear. Yes, they may despise each other at times, but underneath the chaos is an undying loyalty to each other. And isn't that pretty much how every family works?

This book is a must read for anyone who has a dysfunctional family. You will probably begin to feel a little better about your own family after spending time with the Foxman clan. For the 2 or 3 lucky people in this world who don't live with dysfunction in their lives, this novel will give you a good idea on how insane some families can be. The only negative comment is that female readers may find it a tad too "guy-oriented" - though it does provide valuable insight into the very simple testosterone influenced mind of most men.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Christmas, No! Solstice, Yes!

It's no secret - I hate this time of the year. No, wait... I loathe this time of the year! In June 2012, I wrote a blog about my complete contempt for the time that runs from Thanksgiving until February 15 and how much I would like to hibernate through those months, but I haven't really explained my reasoning on why I don't like the holidays. There are many, many factors - some of which date back to my childhood, but I will enumerate my top 3:

Let's first talk about the crass commercialism that goes on between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day, particularly during the Christmas season. If I see one more fecking commercial about what type of overpriced jewelry men should be buying their women during the holidays, or the latest and greatest POS that parents should be purchasing their offspring, I may just scream! Apparently, the only way anyone can enjoy the holidays is by going into massive debt -- buying crap that nobody actually needs. Meh!

Next, there's the fact that the holidays seem to be geared specifically for people who have families and significant others. As I have neither, I am constantly bombarded with the idea that my life is less than stellar because of these facts. I already know that, I don't need a constant and daily reminder that my life has not exactly turned out the way I wanted it to, although I'm fine with the fact that I never had children (more than fine, even). But stop throwing it all in my face!

Then there are all the annoying Christmas specials - the worst being Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer which features a Santa who's a complete ass and Donner, who is so embarrassed about his "different" son that he forces him to hide who he really is. Don't tell me about how the ending is about acceptance, it's a shit special. Holiday movies are equally annoying and even though It's a Wonderful Life is a great movie, I really never want to see it again. Too depressing! I will say the one holiday movie that I can embrace - Die Hard. C'mon, Bruce Willis as John McClane who single-handedly kills or maims a whole host of European "terrorists", bombs an entire floor, and ends up saving the day (without shoes even); all of which is set with a Christmas backdrop. You even have McClane punching a reporter to the tune of Let it Snow! "Now I have a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho!" Good stuff.

All in all, I'd be fine if we could get rid of the holiday season altogether. As that's not a remote possibility, I need something as a replacement for the holidays. I have decided to embrace the Solstice. Centuries ago, the ancients thought the sun stood still in the sky, hence the Roman name for this event: Sol (sun) Sistere (to stand still). This is how the sun -- at it's lowest or highest point depending on whether it is summer or winter where we live -- appears to us from earth: as though it is taking a grand pause before shifting direction.

For contemporary people, solstices -- summer or winter -- are a chance to bring some internal quiet to ourselves, to behold the glory of the cosmos, and to take a breath with the world. Solstice also gives us the opportunity to ask whether or not we are on the correct course in our lives.

How should this event be honored? In the Northern hemisphere, friends gather to celebrate the longest night. They may light candles, or dance around bonfires. They may share festive meals, or sing, or meditate. Some tell stories and keep vigil as a way of making certain that the sun will rise again. Something in them needs to know that at the end of the longest night, there will be light.

This year's December solstice is set to take place today at 12:11pm, which is in a couple of hours time. Sometime today or tonight, I urge you to take stock in the world which surrounds you, gather with some friends, light candles, dance around a bonfire, share a meal, sing, and revel in the cosmos. These choices are so much more beneficial than spending your time at the mall, purchasing a bunch of crap that you and your loved ones don't actually need.

Stonehenge - during the December solstice.
So pretty!

You Did What? And Why?

Do we ever stop being surprised by people's stupidity? Is the surprise doubled when supposedly intelligent people perform a truly dumb (and criminal) act? So what's got my panties in a knot today?

This past Monday, a 20-yeard old Harvard student, who was looking to get out of a final exam, allegedly sent several anonymous emails indicating that there were four bombs planted around the campus. It all turned out to be a hoax. Of course, the authorities figured out where the threats came from and the student has been arrested and charged with a federal bomb hoax which carries "a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine".

When I heard about this event on the morning news, I was aghast! How could someone who apparently is intelligent enough to get into Harvard do something so incredibly stupid?! This young man has the potential to ruin his life over a final exam?!? How stupid is he? Seems to me that this person could be an honorable mention for the Darwin Awards. For those of you who don't know about the Darwin Awards, "named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it" (from the website). Honorable mentions don't actually die by their stupidity, but are called "At Risk Survivors", which cracks me up!

One of my favorite Darwin Award winners:  "'It was just a freak incident,' said an investigator, that caused the death of 43-year-old Gary Allen Banning. Gary was at a friend's apartment when he spotted a salsa jar containing a mystery fluid. Thinking that it was an alcoholic beverage, he helped himself to a sizeable swig of gasoline! Naturally enough, he immediately spit out the offending liquid onto his clothes. Then, to recover from the shock, Gary lit a cigarette."  Let's hope this person didn't procreate before immolating himself.

&*#@ SNOW!!!!!

While falling tonight on the snow covered ice - twice, I started wondering: "Why the f*** do I live in fecking New England!?!?" As my area prepares for its second significant amount of snow in the past 3 days (and it's only December), I've seriously started to rethink my choice of location. Eight to nine months out of the year, I love where I live, but then winter hits and I am miserable. I hate winter, I hate the cold, I hate the snow! 

Well that's not entirely true. I like snow - if I'm sitting on my couch, watching it fall prettily and don't have to drive in it, shovel it, or walk in it. But otherwise, I'd be happy if I never saw another flake in my life. Whatever happened to global warming? Everyone grab a few aerosol cans and let's warm up this world.

Also, I wish someone could explain how it is that I live in a state that gets copious amounts of snow almost every winter but doesn't have the faintest clue about how to clear the shit off the roads! I've spent the past two days, white-knuckling my way around the area because there's still way too much snow and ice all over the place. Perhaps Massachusetts can take lessons from Alaska, Colorado, or Michigan on how to deal with the stuff. Yeah, I'm starting to think San Diego might need a good English teacher... or perhaps, Key West... or, how about New Zealand?

In the meanwhile, I will dream of warm, sunny days and hope that this winter is a mild one.  Fecking snow!

What is the Worst Emotion to Experience?

Books are written about it, songs are sung about it, plays are performed about it, but living with this emotion is harder than you can ever imagine: 

Unrequited love

If you had asked me the above question 4 years ago, I would have remarked that the worst emotional experience would be "never having loved and (conversely) never having been loved by another", but I know better now. I am talking, of course, about romantic love. I'm not counting familial love or the love of friends. Additionally, I am not talking about 'pie in the sky' "love" ("I love Colin Firth...Hugh Jackman...Kenneth Branagh...etc.") - that is not true unrequited love but humorously implausible attractions, based on nothing real. 

No, what I'm talking about is when you meet someone, immediately feel an attraction to them, get to know them over a period of time, and find yourself falling for that person. Then you add into the mix in which said person gives plenty of indication that they feel the same about you, but for some reason you are not made privy to, "it can never be." But then you come to realization later (sometimes years later) that it was all lies and that person never actually cared for you - romantically. You then feel the fool having spent an inestimable amount of time giving of yourself to someone who never really cared, except perhaps as a friend (and maybe not even that). Seemingly, this person has forgotten all about you and moved on with their lives, while you continue to care for them from a considerable distance (physically and emotionally). Now that hurts! While you wish this person well and hope only the best for them, it doesn't stop the pain.

With all due respect to Poet Laureate of England and Ireland during Queen Victoria's reign, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and his brilliant poetry, I cannot agree with him when he wrote in his poem, "In Memoriam A.H.H.":

                    I hold it true, whate'er befall;
                    I feel it when I sorrow most;
                   'Tis better to have loved and lost
                   Than never to have loved at all.

Sorry, mate. But I would rather not have loved at all than to be living with the constant emotional pain of having experienced a one-sided love. I keep thinking that some day I'll get over this hurt and look back at that time in my life differently than I do now, but as the clock is ticking on the end of my life (as it is for us all), I'm not sure I'll ever get there. Well, we all have a burden to bear and this is mine. I suppose it could be worse.

 

Stupid Cupid!

"Life is One Crisis After Another"

Other than the Great Emancipator, you won't find me often quoting Republican presidents, given my complete loathing of that party. But due to yet another crisis which loomed its ugly head over me, I have been contemplating the above quote attributed to Richard Nixon and how accurate it is for many people - myself included. His entire quote is:

"Life isn't meant to be easy. It's hard to take being on the top--or on the bottom. I guess I'm something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things. . . . Life is one crisis after another."

While Nixon was the creator of some of his crises, he certainly knew a thing or two about constant pressures. The quote is definitely apropos to his life, but it echoes the lives of so many people. Frustratingly, I have a hard time coming to grips with how a select few of lucky people go through life with almost no stress or major life disasters, and others seem to have one major catastrophe after another. While I am completely aware that life is not fair, why does it feel so unbalanced? For the unlucky ones, it seems like just when you think you have a handle on your most recent major life emergency and will have a period of relative calm, another crisis is dumped unceremoniously in your lap and you have to jump over yet another hurdle.

I don't actually have any answer for this phenomenon but it is just an observation through the examination of my and my friends' and family's lives. But I find it really annoying and disheartening.  I just want to scream to the mountaintops: "Can I just get a break for once!?"

Do you concur with my conclusion? What are your thoughts on the subject?

"Blue" is a Color at Most, Not the "Warmest" for Sure

Let me preface this posting with the following information about me: I love foreign films and watch them on a fairly regular basis. I particularly love French and Italian films, so it was with great eagerness that I recently went to see the 2013 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner - Blue is the Warmest Color (La Vie d'Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2). The Palme d'Or is the highest prize that is awarded at Cannes and some of my favorite films are Palme d'Or winners (i.e., Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Pulp Fiction, Secrets & Lies, and The Pianist - just to name a few), therefore I fully expected Blue to be of that caliber.

Plot:  "Adele's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself, finds herself." (imdb.com)

Review: I highly anticipated this film, mostly because of the glowing reviews by those who evaluate movies for a living. Therefore, it is sad to say that the movie itself was a big disappointment for me. It's marketed as a realistic, wrenching love story about two women; I was hopeful that such a movie would be somewhat female centric in its point of view. I was wrong. This is a movie for men by men. It is replete with beautiful young women who are (surprise surprise) extremely sexual. There are many shots of the main character's backside (in jeans, in pants, in a dress) as she walks away from the camera which feels highly objectifying and gratuitous. The sex scenes are terribly unrealistic and likely represent the director's fantasy of what a woman's sexuality is like - in addition the sex scenes are borderline softcore pornography. Now, I'm not a snob about pornography but there are places that I expect that type of film and this was not one of them. 

I will admit that the movie was well acted (very well acted, in fact), well shot, and yes - well directed. I think the editor(s) should think about another career though. Part of the art of film making is deciding how much of the footage you have shot should be included in the final film. In this case it looks like they said – "oh well we went to the bother of shooting the scene, we may as well keep it in." The story could have been told in less than 2 hours and it would have been much more satisfying and entertaining. At a whopping 3 hours, this movie is just too long and there isn't enough going on for a movie of this length. I mean - girl meets girl, girl falls in love with girl, girl loses girl, etc. etc. There were so many scenes that could have (and quite frankly, should have) been cut. I might have liked this movie better if it had been under 2 hours. 

So while this movie has been garnering rave reviews, my advice is not to waste your money or time seeing this film. While I didn't hate it, I certainly would not recommend it.

Rating:  4 out of 10 stars.

Can Assassinations Be Fun? Yep!

I am ever so slightly obsessed with Sarah Vowell, the American author, journalist, essayist, and social commentator.  I cannot believe that I haven't written any book reviews of Vowell's texts and it is something that is long overdue. For anyone who does not know about this writer, you are missing an amazing storyteller. In addition to hearing Vowell's commentary on NPR's This American Life and her many hilarious appearances on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, I have been fortunate to read two of her books (Take the Cannolli, Partly Cloudy Patriot) and am always amused by her observations on life, but until yesterday, I had not yet read her much lauded book, Assassination Vacation (2005). 

Summary:  "Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue -- it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and -- the author's favorite -- historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult."  (book jacket)

Review:  The reason I ended up reading Vowell's book over this weekend is because a colleague and I are assigning a portion of the book (the Lincoln assassination) to be read with our literacy class, so I definitely needed to read the text before the students read it. But I would have eventually gotten around to reading this book because of my affection for Vowell's writing. In this funny and evocative book, she has produced a delightfully charming, witty, and introspective look at, of all topics, presidential assassinations. 

Fans of Sarah Vowell know exactly what to expect when picking up a Vowell book: something interesting and funny, with pieces of reflection thrown in. As always, she delivers the same in this book. Vowell, a self-avowed history nut, decides to drag certain hapless acquaintances around the places associated with three presidential assassinations: Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Like Vowell, I have a fascination with the Lincoln assassination and knew quite a bit about it before reading her text and yet, I still learned several new things about this sad time in our nation's history. I would gladly have been dragged around the country on her assassination vacations.

Along the way, she shares information she has researched or learned, which makes this book one of her more scholarly, if that word could ever be applied here. She actually makes history more palpable, more real for people to digest in an entertaining way. How many of us would desire reading a book about the famed assassin Leon Cgolgosz? Believe me, I've tried - snoozefest!  But put Vowell's name on the cover, slap a salty title on the book, and bang, we're lining up book-in-hand to purchase it.

Whenever you read a piece by Vowell, invariably, you never read it in your own voice, but hear Sarah's voice ringing through (or was it Violet Parr from The Incredibles... oh wait, it's the SAME person). I guess that's the mark of a good writer, that she has developed her own style strong enough for us to hear her reading it to us. At any rate, as a mild history nut, I give this book five stars for a truly enjoyable read from a truly enjoyable writer.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Confucius is a Big, Fat Liar!

Okay, the title of this posting might be a bit extreme, but I saw a quote attributed to the Chinese teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, Confucius (551-479 BC) which read:

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

And all I could think at the time: "He's a big, fat liar!"

Normally, I find most of Confucius's quotes inspirational, but I have a problem with this specific quote. It's abundantly clear that Confucius never worked as a high school teacher in an inner-city school. Because while I do love my job, I have never had to work as hard as I am working this year. People who are not educators probably won't understand this rather strange phenomenon but it is universally known that the second year of teaching is twice as hard as the first year. One would think that it should get easier and eventually (I hear) it does. But oddly enough, every veteran teacher that I speak with all say the same thing: the second year of teaching is infinitely harder than the first year. It's no wonder that "[n]early 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession within their first five years." (NCTAF.org).  I would estimate that I spend more than half of my days in my classroom being appalled, disgusted, frustrated, and disillusioned by the behavior of my students; not to mention my current deplorable passing rate of ~30%. So why do I keep going back? Because I genuinely love what I do. (Although, when I recently discovered that metastatic cancer is considered a disability and I could be sitting on my couch collecting a check from the government, I did think "hmmmmm.")

Therefore, with all due respect to Confucius and while I thank him for his many words of wisdom, I cannot actually say that the above quote is accurate. 

I do like this quote!

Latest Cancer Update...

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, today is the day that I received my latest CT results.  There is (mostly) good news:

While I am not "cancer free", the nodules that remain have been severely reduced. There is one nodule (a 3mm sized one) that has not changed since treatment began which means that it's probably benign. The other nodules have been reduced from the September scan by about 60%.  A 5mm nodule is now 2mm, etc. 

What this means moving forward is that in 3 months, I will go for another CT scan and we will see if there is any growth. If so, the doctor would recommend a new course of treatment or a clinical trial. I, of course, will weigh my options and decide whether or not to move forward with any treatment. Meanwhile, it's a waiting game.  

Quite frankly, I'm fine with not having to deal with or mention cancer for 3 months. I'm kind of over the whole "I'm a cancer patient" thing. It's truly annoying. So as Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) said in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy living, or get busy dying."