![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
comings and goings
Jan. 1st, 2005 07:53 pmNew Year's Eve was deliciously mellow and low key. At midnight we had champers (Perrier Jouet, which I don't like as much as Madame Cliquot, but still good enough that I drank most of it and was totally blotto by 2am)and heard fireworks and horns and stuff all throughout our neighborhood while the local classical station played this New Year's carol--a traditional folk song/text set to music by Benjamin Britten:
Sing reign of Fair maid
With the gold upon her toe
Open you the west door,
And let the old year go
Sing reign of Fair maid
With the gold upon her chin
Open you the east door,
And let the new year in
For we have brought fresh water
All from the well so clear
To wish you and your company
A joyful happy year.
And this afternoon after brunch we went to see The Life Aquatic. The usual quirky and fairy-tale-like Wes Anderson stuff. Good soundtrack! How can you not love David Bowie songs sung in Portugese? I thought it was pretty funny and surprisingly moving, unlike the Royal Tennenbaums, which just seemed a little too wrapped up and enamored of its own little perverse world. (Although admittedly I thought Gene Hackman was a hoot in that film.)
Finally, I came across this recollection of Susan Sontag, who died earlier this week. I reckon Sontag was a very intensely private person since among the obits and notices of her death, I find very few mentions of a spouse, or a former spouse, or scant mentions of her family. (It makes my homophobia radar go off.) Nonetheless,fiercely intelligent women of Sontag's caliber are becoming more and more scarce (I'm looking at you, Paris and Nicky!), so this is a loss that feels particularly acute. What kind of role models will the next generation of girls see in a world without Sontag?
Sing reign of Fair maid
With the gold upon her toe
Open you the west door,
And let the old year go
Sing reign of Fair maid
With the gold upon her chin
Open you the east door,
And let the new year in
For we have brought fresh water
All from the well so clear
To wish you and your company
A joyful happy year.
And this afternoon after brunch we went to see The Life Aquatic. The usual quirky and fairy-tale-like Wes Anderson stuff. Good soundtrack! How can you not love David Bowie songs sung in Portugese? I thought it was pretty funny and surprisingly moving, unlike the Royal Tennenbaums, which just seemed a little too wrapped up and enamored of its own little perverse world. (Although admittedly I thought Gene Hackman was a hoot in that film.)
Finally, I came across this recollection of Susan Sontag, who died earlier this week. I reckon Sontag was a very intensely private person since among the obits and notices of her death, I find very few mentions of a spouse, or a former spouse, or scant mentions of her family. (It makes my homophobia radar go off.) Nonetheless,fiercely intelligent women of Sontag's caliber are becoming more and more scarce (I'm looking at you, Paris and Nicky!), so this is a loss that feels particularly acute. What kind of role models will the next generation of girls see in a world without Sontag?
