Ange Postecoglou: “I’ve loved my first six months as head coach of this fantastic football club. We are still very much in the early stages of our journey. We have been moving in the right direction in terms of the squad, style of play, results. Hopefully, you are enjoying the team we are becoming.” ⚽️

Without a doubt, my 2023 personal Word of the Year is "Ange Postecoglou".
(Two words, but you get it.) Coming in at #2 is "mate."
Come On You Spurs! ⚽

Louis Menand: “[Sontag] forbade her son to look out the window when they rode in a train; he needed to read about a place if he wanted to understand it. She never looked out the window herself.”

Mike Godwin:
     ... has the sheer absurdity of so many hyperbolic Nazi comparisons in popular culture made us less vigilant about the possible reemergence of actual fascism in the world? I think it shouldn’t — comparisons to Hitler or to Nazis need to take place when people are beginning to act like Hitler or like Nazis...
     We had the luxury of deriving humor from Hitler and Nazi comparisons when doing so was almost always hyperbole. It’s not a luxury we can afford anymore.

Sunday in late December
calls for one, with a celery stalk
and faint taste of Worcestershire,
to be sipped while eating
poached egg and corned beef hash,
in a hotel dining room
with someone you love. Touch
the hairs at his wrist
as the warmth endorses
all bed-lingering, non-churchgoing.
It's the solstice, remember,
when your frugal father
would hand around dollar bills
so the day would last longer. 
Stir ice into the rich red
and consider such Celtic rituals,
as you watch, beyond the tall windows,
pilgrims traveling the paths
past snow-fringed trees in the park.

O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the King
And peace to men on earth!

Happy Christmas, friends!