Happy new year!

A wish for 2015

No more mournful cello.

Hmm

Everybody limbo!

Likely not enough pizza

Those eggs in hell you were concerned that maybe I hadn't made this year

"Let's throw wrapping people at guests!"

CHANGE we can believe in

Cindy gave Rafe a large bottle full of pennies, which I duly counted (bliss!) and
tamped together for the bank.

I hoped that little Maecenas would be more excited about a trip to the bank,
but no, his mind is focused on more important stuff (turtles).

A farewell to doors

 Those stupid-ass doors from that hide the washer and dryer are gone.

Presentation of soft weapons

The laying out ceremony

The "shit yes!" reaction portion of presentation

Bowing...

Attack!

Almost that Wes Anderson symmetry that people cared about in April or whenever it was

Mawkish, but it happened

Someone not really visible wanted to look at the Christmas-eve rain, then deemed it
cold, so a blanket was procured, after which things were adjudged "cozy."

Shepard-y

Art Institute 8

Art Institute 7

Fine art

At my mother-in-law's

Art Institute 6

Yes, yes, we are all Mommy's puppets.

Art Institute 5

New baby needs this, right?

Art Institute 4

Shit got all Kubrick-lighting for a time.

Art Institute 3

Bought a print of this for my office

Art institute 2

Japanese Deco exhibit - pictures taken surreptitiously, so shhhh.

Art Institute 1

Floors

Nuke-proof

If you would have told the six-year-old me that, someday, my second's wife's mother and sister would polyurethane my dining and living room floors, I would not have believed you.  But how could I have, what with the threat of nuclear war ever-present in my mind all the time?

Stay together

Author photo of the damned

A correspondent forwards:

Saving for later

Oh, and The Americans

I hope they don't ruin it, because six episodes in it is the best.

Also, The Wire

Watched some of The Wire, which I had never seen; middle of Season 2, so thrown in with no context at first.  One difficulty was all the characters were floating in space via that "not made for HD/watching on HD" phenom.

I will say that someone needs to make an HBO drama about the making of The Wire featuring Lebron James AS Idris Elba.

Best gift ever

If only it had happened [sobs, runs off]...

Merry Christmas

So much to be happy about here

Particularly the drummer going "full Doughman" at around :49.

At dad's office

"But, dad, what is it that you do?"

Bun and Bo

Hanukkah Miracle!

There WAS enough oil to make amazing latkes!

Amazing!

Complete with full prayers and everything!

Amazing things I've read lately (although amazing is perhaps too strong a word)

(1929)

This is fine, but how about a shot of the Communards making one of the
best albums of late 1986?

Also crazy, though I left the book [Black Sun, about hedonist/suicide publisher Harry Crosby] at my mother-in-law's so cannot quote exactly, was a description of some family (the Van Renssaelears?) being bequeathed twenty miles of land along the Hudson in 1629 (maybe 1689) which they ran "like a duchy."  Nice.

"Shiny happy identical people"

Pig in basket, part infinity

Generic Saturday

Helping the hopeless

Meanwhile, an amalgam of Gorilla Glue, mucilage and "broth" is formulated
to re-embed Nick's broken temporary crown

Who needs a pony, anyway?

Speaking of the future,

if this picture is the only item of human history-recording that survives some sort of coming "sentient convergence" or whatevs, I think it will still convey everything that went wrong.