Letter from the Editor
January 2006

Best wishes for the new year

I'm not an avid New Year's celebrant. I've never had the slightest desire to stand in an inebriated crowd in Times Square, much less watch the revelry on TV. Yet, I always do take time at the end of the year and assess. I resolve to live more fully, more enthusiastically. I strategize ways to solve problems in the coming year. I establish benchmarks. And while I rarely accomplish all that I set out, I am pleased to see myself move, year by year in the directions that I have chosen.

When was a young man, I lived for a time in Italy. On New Year's Eve, some folks celebrated by getting rid of old household items. At midnight, amid the bottle rockets and tooting horns, plates would sail out the window and smash in the street below. You definitely wanted to be under a roof when the year turned. I was too poor to throw my few kitchen supplies out the window.

In recent years I have looked forward to attending the ceremonial rolling of the flaming croquet ball and subsequent burning of the Christmas tree, presided over by my friend and Voice columnist Richard Jaeggi. There seems to be something cathartic about destroying a symbol of the past as we head bravely, or otherwise, into another year. This year, I was unable to attend Richard's party. But, more than ever, I did long for some ceremony to lay 2005 to rest. Good riddance. A deadly quagmire in Iraq. An imperial presidency. Hurricane Katrina. More cuts to the social safety net. Growing national debt. Stagflation. Less focus on the environment. Apathy about the looming energy crisis.

I am ready for change. I don't know how or when it will come, but I need it. We all need it. This leads me to recall Federico Fellini's warm-hearted recollections of his childhood in the film Amarcord. The movie begins with the fresh winds of spring. To celebrate the renewal of life, the townspeople build a bonfire of the broken past--old chairs, clothing, dead branches. Winter ends with hope as symbols of the past are destroyed. But it is notable that Amarcord is set in fascist Italy. Good memories and hope and renewal come in all sorts of situations. Perhaps it is during bleak times that they are most important.

I suppose that this is not the most cheerful New Year's message. Yet, I do wish for cheer and hope and the best in humanity, as we pass from a year in which all three seemed to be in short supply. I think that it's up to us to provide those things. And I do think that we will. Each of us just needs to resolve to do it. Buon Anno Nuovo!

—Eric Bond, publisher

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