On a personal note, this year’s Christmas (my favorite holiday), coming after a final exam and minor surgery, was especially rewarding. I had planned to post here before December 25 to wish you, dear reader, a merry Christmas. I was not feeling up to it. For now, the tree stands and the smell of pine and firewood fills the air. Besides classic Christmas albums by Ella Fitzgerald—18 tracks of Ella’s smooth voice (with liner notes)—and a cheery country Christmas CD by George Strait, I can’t stop listening to Sarah McLachlan’s enchanting Wintersong. The ethereal singer’s gentle renditions of Gordon Lightfoot’s Song for a Winter’s Night and In the Bleak Mid-Winter match how I feel this year. One of the most enduring Christmas songs is Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt—whom we just lost—which I have on Rhino’s 14-tune collection, Lifetime Presents Christmas Belles CD, which I also recommend. Decades ago, I had the pleasure of serving Miss Kitt when I worked at a café on the Upper East Side. That doll was always dressed to the nines. She was a class act.
Speaking of days gone by, I’m re-connecting with friends on Facebook, which incidentally offers a means of tracking posts on this blog. Of course, the most direct means is my e-mail bulletin or my feed, which highlight new content.
My former business partners at Box Office Mojo publicly announced the news that we sold the Web site this summer to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb, which is owned by Amazon.com). With the new boss pledging to bring what he calls IMDb’s passion for getting things right to Box Office Mojo, reporting and analyzing box office numbers may continue to thrive online. For me, the sale marks a new beginning.
