At the end of Manhattan, Woody Allen's self-projection Isaac gives a list of things that make life worth it, and he includes Groucho Marx, George Gershwin...and Tracy's face (Tracy being, of course and ironically enough, his underage girlfriend). As most things do, this got me thinking, thinking about what makes life worth living on the 4th of January 2011, and here's what I've got:

Friends, first and foremost.

• Coltrane's Sax solos
• Nina Simone's vocals
• Rock n' roll, real, true rock n' roll with all of its fire, all of its passion, and nothing related remotely to Nickleback.
• James Joyce
• Woody Allen Movies
• The occasional, ridiculously gory zombie flick
• Kurt Vonnegut
• And finally, and of course most importantly, an odd, deep-seated, unshakeable hope that no matter how bad things are, or how bad they are going to get under this 112th Congress, one day, one day, the wrongs will be righted, the lowly lifted up, and justice, to poorly paraphrase Martin, shall pour forth and flow over the land

Buenas Noches, all.