“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.“

Henry David Thoreau, “Walden; or Life in the Woods“

Okay, this is a hard one! So much to say! The account of New Year’s Day is of necessity aligned with an account of New Year’s Eve – the one insinuates the other, affording a sense of recovery both emotional and social and sometimes physical and spiritual. So many things have transpired since 5:00 PM yesterday afternoon – New Year’s Eve – when Diana greeted us at her front door radiant in a midnight blue gown remarkably without competing jewellery, welcoming us to her’s and Ziggy’s cocktail party.

We’re on the outer lip of the seasonal festivities. The week between December 24th and December 31st is first-rate. Though we do nothing traditional on either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve the entire period is diverting and signal. Nobody can deny the universal absorption in colour and congeniality that overtakes us all. Last night I lingered at the window mesmerized by the shimmering tiny white lights in the swaying fronds of the palm trees by the pool. The prospect of entering the year 2020 is a touch of heaven! The New Year affords the gusto of novelty.

It is natural on a gloomy day when approaching the end of the year to be drawn into remorse. The drizzly mist hangs upon the low ceiling; the dampened buildings and sidewalks are reduced to taupe. The prospect of ending one year and starting another promotes pangs of conscience, a broad reflective disposition perhaps enhanced by an element of reconstruction.

The spirited provocation of youth is undeniable! So is the attraction of reposing by the fire in an armchair. During our evening on St Armands Circle over dinner we spanned the resources of the two seductions. First though we had to find a place to park. Round we drove in search of a spot, through a bank parking lot and round again repeating our exploration, then at last discovering the perfect location – between two driveways suitable for one car only. The night was off to a fortuitous start! We walked noiselessly in the blue evening air along the boulevard, ducking the pendulous viridescent ferns folded against the towering white gates, allowing the enthusiastic young families to pass. It was still only 6:18 pm; we may have arrived ahead of our dining companions. But no! From the front desk of the restaurant we spotted them – looking resplendent – at a corner table! The youngest of the gaggle was quick to approach. She was was sylph-like, the colour of fine porcelain and had the unspoken generosity of her parents. We embraced, hugged and kissed the others, gripped a handshake with the paternal member and the evening was off in a swirl of animation!

Longboat Key is a town in Manatee and Sarasota counties along the central west coast of the U.S. state of Florida, located on and coterminous with the barrier island of the same name. Longboat Key is south of Anna Maria Island between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

On November 13, 1955 the town was incorporated by a 186–13 vote. At the time only about a third of Longboat Key was developed and roughly 215 people lived on the key. When the town was incorporated it changed its name from Longbeach to Longboat Key.

In the 1960s and 1970s the Arvida corporation purchased the south end of Longboat Key and developed it for $13.5 million. President Bush had arrived on Longboat Key on September 10, 2001 the day before the September 11 Attacks to read to second graders in a campaign at the Emma E. Booker School in Sarasota. On November 14, 2015 the town of Longboat Key celebrated its 60-year anniversary.

On February 1, 1958, the name of the Longbeach post office was changed to Longboat Key. 

The median income for a household in the town was $290,251, and the median income for a family was $307,983. Males had a median income of $261,157 versus $230,104 for females. The per capita income for the town was $280,963. 

The upcoming 2020 presidential election in the United States of America hasn’t as much to do with getting rid of Trump as it does with changing the face of America. And I don’t mean the colour – red or blue. The historic money-grubbing theme which has predominated political argument is being replaced by what the so-called conservative Republicans would prefer to abrade as socialism but what Americans of every stripe have recognized as humanitarian – health care, climate change, energy alternatives, employment fairness, equality between men and women, toleration of sexual diversity and gun control.

“I’m Afraid of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”
Murder by Death, Album “Like the Exorcist, but more Breakdancing“

I didn’t mean to make you feel out of place
By the comments on your clothing
Or the makeup on your face
I didn’t mean to pre-empt the chase
You’re the drama queen of every scene
Perfectly out of place

So you cry yourself to sleep
On your blanket of snow
With your tiara of barbie doll heads
And your arms crossed for a pillow

If you can’t make up your mind just how different you should be
Reorganize your priorities to expect more sympathy

Only cynicism can get through to you
Expand the image up the insults negativism through and through
All of this pretending makes me feel a bit confused
You’ve spent your life losing yourself and now you’re marked as used

As my dear old pal Johnnie (an addlepated alcoholic) was wont to detail, “Well, I got up“. If I recall correctly it was around 9:30 am this morning that I first stirred beneath the enveloping duvet. I had that satisfying sense of recovery from a pleasant dream. Removing my sleep mask it required tactical effort to descry the weather. Bright sunshine happily streamed into the bedroom through the drape on the door and the cracks in the window shades. The footling intelligence instantly buoyed my percolation.

We have in the studio Bertrand Russell, who talked to us in the series “Sense Perception and Nonsense: Number 7, Is this a dagger I see before me?” Bertrand Russell.

Russell: One of the advantages of living in Great Court, Trinity I seem to recall, was the fact that one could pop across at any time of the day or night and trap the then young G. E. Moore into a logical falsehood by means of a cunning semantic subterfuge. I recall one occasion with particular vividness. I had popped across and had knocked upon his door. “Come in,” he said. I decided to wait awhile in order to test the validity of his proposition. “Come in,” he said once again. “Very well,” I replied, “if that is in fact truly what you wish.”

I opened the door accordingly and went in, and there was Moore seated by the fire with a basket upon his knees. “Moore,” I said, “do you have any apples in that basket?” “No,” he replied, and smiled seraphically, as was his wont. I decided to try a different logical tack. “Moore,” I said, “do you then have some apples in that basket?” “No,” he replied, leaving me in a logical cleft stick from which I had but one way out. “Moore,” I said, “do you then have apples in that basket?” “Yes,” he replied. And from that day forth, we remained the very closest of friends.

Classic text on bare plurals