CHRONICLE OF COOLNESS FORETOLD

The ball dropped, the fireworks displayed the final showers, and the last sturgeon egg from the bottle of cheap caviar exploded in my mouth already. In a different year I would have said "And now what?", but I won't because this year, this moment of this year, there is a different kind of coolness residing in my chest...

Right now it is 12:30 am of the new year and I'm listening to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss do the third track from the cd Raising Sand, and her voice crooning -

Strange things are happening
everyday I hear the music
up above my head
through the side of my head
I hear music up above

- which complements the Appalachian pages of the book I am spending some time now on, 13 Moons by Charles Frazier of the Cold Mountain fame.

Ahhh, new year. I would have loved to welcome you more aggresively for not the fact that remnants of the old year included meeting some of the most amazing people this world had produced from Dante of the 13th.