Some New Year’s comments:

In my mention of my Album of the Year, I totally forgot to mention Bruce Springsteen’s exceptional We Shall overcome: The Seeger Sessions. I enjoy folk music so long as it is not staid and this album is absolutely invigorating. Ya gotta hear it!

New Year’s Eve we went to First Night in Morristown where two acts particularly excited me. One was the Nai Ni Chen Dance Company doing traditional Chinese dances, and the other was the Guy Mendilow Group which performed some very distinctive and enjoyable folk music from around the world. I enjoyed it so much I bought a copy of the cd they were selling.

If you enjoy travel books or history books or, better yet, both, then I strongly recommend H.V. Morton’s classic A Traveler in Rome which combines some fascinating looks at various famous sites in Rome, the Italian people themselves, and a strong dose of history which occurred at those sites. When I finish this book, I will certainly buy his companion book A Traveler in Italy.

Today the first woman–and, I believe, the first Italian-American!–became Speaker of the House. This has to be an improvement than a lot of the men who have held that position in recent years.

I am not a big television watcher; in fact, I only watch a single program at all: Deal or No Deal. I don’t know why, since the show is all about greed. I think I like the statistical and probabilistic choices the contestants must make repeatedly during the show. And Howie Mandel is a fabulous host. I remember watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire a few years ago and totally disliking Regis Philbin as host.