By David Fortier
Come Sunday morning, somehow the presents will all have been wrapped and found their way under the tree—a miracle since I will not have wrapped one item. During the day, we are hosting Christmas dinner with two families, one from Norwalk and the other from Bridgeport—toting grandkids and grandkid traveling stuff, Uncle Charlie will be overnighting, and the youngest and her Australian shepherd, Quinn, are now part of the household.
I am talking care of dinner and Mary, the pies (and the wrapping).
Christmas Eve will have taken a turn from the typical Christmas Eve—from Mass, pizza, and “It’s a Wonderful Life” to Mass and pizza and getting ready for the big day. Mass was at 6 p.m.–the Mass for children at St. Joseph Parish, where some kids lector, others sing and others sit for a tableau of the Holy Family, with a living breathing baby. Father Ivan provided his usual inspiring homily, this time including brief interviews with the students in the tableau.
(Note: As always, the church is beautifully, artfully, decorated, and the music, again, artfully presented.)
“It’s a Wonderful Life” will have had to wait until Christmas night, when things calm down (are a little more manageable). It is a film I always look forward to. Even though I have watched it more than a dozen times, I still get choked up a couple of times during each viewing.
One such moment In the movie comes when the Martinis move into their new home and George and Mary Bailey “bless” their new abode with a gift of bread and wine and salt: bread, that the people in the house never know hunger; wine, that they experience joy and prosperity for ever; and yes, salt, that life may always have flavor.
Gets me every time.
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Reading/listening: I am still working my way through The Books of Jacob, a really terrific book, tome really, since it weighs in at over 900 pages. I say working my way through because I have only been able to steal a few minutes here and there for snippets. What I really would like is a couple of hours—maybe this week?
As for listening, I may have mentioned Joscha Bach being interviewed by Lex Fridman as part of the Lex Fridman podcast. Bach is a polymath—know a lot about a lot of stuff—who thinks a lot about artificial intelligence. The podcast episodes typically run over two hours and the ones with Bach run around three hours. (I listen to them on my commute.)
Listening to these conversations is not for the weak-hearted. Despite all that, I highly recommend listening to them. Click here for a first interview, “#101 – Joscha Bach: Artificial Consciousness and the Nature of Reality,” that took place in June 2020, and click here for a second interview, “#212 – Joscha Bach: Nature of Reality, Dreams, and Consciousness,” in the August of 2021.
***
Enjoy your week.
And here comes 2023!
“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism. He can be reached at dfortier@bristoledition.org.
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