It's New Year's

This week is stuffed with Events of Significance (unless, maybe, you are among those who refuse to bother with the nation's political and economic fate, or consider all of this merely Big Billion Dollar Media Smoke'n Mirrors, nor can I blame you, or, among those, like myself, who go "Football? That's war games by another designator ...." or like a gay friend wrote to me on Monday:

[ A lineup of men, bent over at waist to reveal dozens of spandex form-fitting buttocks, the shoulder pads, dark eyeliner, the vulvic headdress with the fellatio-inhibiting chin guard - you really dont WANT to remove that guard. The enormous men jumping on top of each other in a pile, trying to grab the same little ball - covered in pigskin, a ceremonial re-claiming of the foreskin. It's all just too gay, even for me." ] )

That took care of Sunday and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Today it's New Year's for our Asian friends.

[ Ha Tran was applying the final swipes on Saturday to a 20-foot Buddhist statue inside a Chinatown temple. It took two days, but Mrs. Tran, a 62-year-old Vietnamese immigrant, lovingly washed every one of the deity’s thousand arms and did the same for its 10 heads. Balanced on scaffolding, she painstakingly removed 12 months of accumulated dust and incense in time for the Chinese New Year on Thursday, her yearly rite for 22 years. ]

There's a slide show of the preparations by the nuns of this Buddhist temple that goes along with the story, that are marvelous to look at. It's delightful that this is going on so close to where I live.

I've been over to Broadway and Canal Streets -- there's such authentic joy in the crowds. If you are fond of dragons, this is the day to be in downtown New York.