The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this report. I’m passing it on.
The ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating toward the poles or in some cases going extinct.
The oceans are rising at a pace that threatens coastal communities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide given off by cars and power plants, which is killing some creatures or stunting their growth.
Organic matter frozen in Arctic soils since before civilization began is now melting, allowing it to decay into greenhouse gases that will cause further warming, the scientists said. And the worst is yet to come.
Our nephew sent us a postcard from Marfa Texas. The card is a color polaroid glued to a piece of cardboard, a shot he took of a building there with a sign on it that read “Sun Ra Building.” The note on the back was typed (with a typewriter). He is decidedly “old school” and I am jealous. Maybe it’s just a y2kX reaction.
Roberta Smith had a great article in Friday’s NY Times Weekend Arts section, entitled “Time, the Infinite Storyteller“, encouraging New Year’s readers to “take refuge in art.” She more or less suggested wandering in the Met and letting the works of art mark the old and formulate the new. She started with works created in 1353 BC and finished by talking about painting. It “is also good for exploring all-too-real forms of psychic time, as in Philip Guston’s aptly titled “Stationary Figure” of 1973. It shows said figure in bed, prostrate — paralyzed really — with a bad case of night sweats or racing thoughts: wide awake, he smokes and stares, at the clock, the bare light bulb, the black sky visible through his window.”
Ken brought his big bass to the Little on Wednesday and it sounded amazing. I fully expected Pete LaBonne to surprise us and show up at the gig even though he emailed that it was too cold in the mountains to leave. The place was packed and the band sounded good as a foursome. Jeanne Perri was there with Trish from the LDR. They brought us a a bottle of a Caravella that Jeanne said was the rage in Italy. It was in a bag that lit up so we displayed it on Peggi’s amp.
I stacked the iTunes deck for New Year’s Eve with Pete LaBonne and Dreamland Faces but it was almost too loud to hear the stereo. The kids kept telling me to turn it up so I cranked it and some guests went in the the other room to escape. I had a separate list ready for when people started dancing and I may have switched to that prematurely. Chris Schepp asked me if I had any music by white guys? I put on Marvin Gaye’s “A Funky Space Reincarnation.” John, Maureen’s friend, told me he had “a perfect palette” and I was trying to imagine what that meant. Someone brought “Blue Moon” beer and I didn’t even get the connection until today. We had more beer left over after the party than when we started. I found two double A batteries in our compost and we had ten empty quart bottles of seltzer when we were done. George Jones’ “Once You’ve Had The Best” came on about three o’clock and Brian Williams shouted “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This.”
