A Writer's New Year's Mummer's Day

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Above, l-r:  Gardner Dozois, Barbara Purdom, Susan Casper (in red), Marianne Porter (with orange scarf), Michael Swanwick (in red), Tom Purdom (with red cup), Greg Frost (in black), Frank Crean (with blue cup). Photo taken by Christopher Purdom.


Well, that's it in a nutshell.  I wasn't well enough to make the New Year's Eve dinner party with friends or the waiting-for-Dick-Clark-to-fall-over party with other friends.  But on the first I was strong enough to drop by Gardner Dozois's and Susan Casper's open house, where we sat around critiquing the Mummers groups on TV.  (I thought Duffy was looking pretty good this year!)  And talking with old friends, of course.  It felt great to be out of the house.

I am not, as you may have noticed, much of a snapshotist.  So how do I get shots worth keeping?  I pass the camera around at parties and ask everybody to take one shot.  Usually, there's somebody in the group who knows how to frame a photograph.  In this case, Christopher Purdom.

And I cannot help but point out . . .

I have kept my mouth shut about the DHS's shameful failure to protect us in the most recent citizen-thwarted terrorist attempt and the even more shameful aftermath as well because, frankly, the Web has enough angry voices already.  But luckily Christopher Hitchens has already said it for me.  Here.

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