Goodbye 2006:

2006 has been one difficult year: heartbreak, loss, professional reevaluation, family health scares. It's also been one of bold aventures, impending opportunities, limitless possibiltiy and friends old and new. In spite of that mixed blessing, I am not sad to see it go.

But ya know what? I'm still here, battered, wounded but wiser. Ten months ago, all I could think about was how I would whether this enormous loss and still be me. Today all I can think about was how I did. Tonight I'll be in the company of friends and loved ones. Tomorrow is, as a wise boy and tiger once put it, a "big white sheet of paper to draw on...The world looks brand new...A day full of possibilities."

I've got big plans for it which I'll discuss later. For now, I'm thinking about that phrase "when the student is ready, the master appears." The other day I heard a song which grabbed everything I'm feeling in 4 proud minutes.

"Please don't ask me how.
I'm doing what I'm doing now.
It just all makes sense somehow.
Let's go back and start again.
Where you going, where you've been?
Seats for the wall flowers and their friends.
Who turned out angels in the end."

--"Angels in the End" by The Good Sons

Welcome home 2007. I've been expecting you.

Gleanings: First Nights, Google, Movie Going:

• First Night Boston, the oldest "First Night" celebration in the country, will be putting on its 31th festival this evening. First Nights are arts-related alternative celebrations of New Year's Eve (via NPR).
• Although I can't find a link for it, I have heard that many chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor runs on New Year's eve for fellowship members
• My Friend's Place is a homeless youth center on Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles. I've been interested in the dichotomy of wealthy cities of dreams like Los Angeles and my own since seeing the movie Where the Day Takes You many years ago. I'm on the lookout for a similiar organization to support here in San Francisco (via KCRW).
• The New York Times discovers that (surprise) Google is a fun place to work.
• Cinema Treasures asks "What are your movie going rituals?"

Home Now, ya hear?

I'm back in San Francisco and all is well, spending time with friends and unpacking little by little. Family's health and well being is strong. I'm more sleep deprived than I'd like be the weight of this very difficult year is lifting. I can feel it go.

One Sentence Movie Reviews: "We Are Marshall"

We Are Marshall (2006): "Grief is messy, often destructive, if we only live in it rather than learn from it."

Notes: The Huntington Herald-Dispatch, the newspaper that serves Huntington, West Virginia where Marshall University is located has extensive coverage of the movie, the crash, and the impressions of the community.

Thought of the Day: "All Things"

"Men cannot be all things to all men. They cannot, unfortunately, be all things even to themselves."

--Danny Kaye eulogizing Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures.

(from An Empire of their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler, which I just finished reading)

Word of the Day: "Dandling"

Dandling (verb): "to move lightly up and down, as on one's knee or in one's arms."

Usage: "Dandling an elephant may result in sore knees"

Thought of the Day: "Who I Am"

"I want to know who I am. And where I came from."

--Louis Leaky

Gleanings: LA Times, Pandora, Al Gore

• Does the LA Times have a Latino problem? (via LA Observed).


• San Francisco is considering building the tallest skyscrapers in the city's history. SFgate has the story.


• Business Week looks at Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth presentation from a public speaking point of view. Very instructive (via Micropersuasion).


• Arts Journal has completey redesigned. Man, is this thing dense.


• Pandora has a bunch of new community features. Anybody tried them yet?

One Sentence Movie Reviews: "Dreamgirls"

Dreamgirls (2006): "This is the Eddie Murphy we knew was hiding inside Vampire in Brooklyn."

A Solid Gold Christmas:

A very happy yule from Kevin and the Solid Gold Dancers...