Mars Saxman / Archives

Friday, the 27th of December, 2002

Wednesday, the 25th of December, 2002

Sunday, the 15th of December, 2002

This year, it was my turn to supply holiday greeting cards. This is an interesting challenge; neither of us are comfortable with religious sentiments, but Kelly wants something that isn't even specifically Christmas-themed. This is hard to align with the fairly traditional look I had in mind this year. How do you infuse a card with the spirit of the season when you can't make any specific reference to the holiday being celebrated?

I came up with a few designs; the winner will be printed onto glossy paper, French-folded, and mailed out to as-yet-undetermined friends and family members. I'll probably post it around the end of the year. In the meantime, this is the runner-up.

Sunday, the 8th of December, 2002

Yesterday's picture shows me dressed up as "Goth Santa" just before heading off to Santarchy. The costume consisted of the clothes I'd been wearing all day, plus a black stocking cap trimmed with a marabou feather boa and a pom-pom. Leftover marabou was wrapped around the tops of my boots. It was simple, but it made people laugh, so I think it worked. As the evil Santa from the South Pole, I travel the world in a submarine pulled by barracuda, distributing gifts (made by my genetically-modified rat helpers) to that critically underserved market segment, the undead - or so the story went by the end of the evening.

Saturday, the 7th of December, 2002

Monday, the 2nd of December, 2002

I listened to a lot of Enya when I first discovered commercial radio and recorded music. One of the songs on her first album, "The Celts", had a line that caught my ear - "na laetha geal m'óige" - and this phrase has whispered through my mind ever since. Those were the days before Google, and an abortive attempt at learning Gaelic notwithstanding I never made out what it meant.

The web lays all mysteries bare. Here is the original song, followed by its English translation:

Na Laetha Geal M'Óige, by Roma Ryan

Ag amharc trí m'óige
Sé mé bhí sámh
Gan eolas marbh
Bhí mé óg gan am

Anois táim buartha
'S fad ar shiúl an lá
Ochón is ochón ó

Na laetha geal m'óige
Bhí siad lán de dhóchas
An bealach mó a bhí romhan ansin
Bhí sé i ndán dom go mbeadh mé slán

The Great Days Of My Youth

Looking back at my youth
I was content
Without dead knowledge
I was young, without time

Now I'm sorrowful
Those days are long past
Sadness and loss

The great days of my youth
They were full of expectation
The great journey that was before me then
Happiness was in store for me

Such a coincidence! For all these years I've remembered this song without knowing what it means, and I just happen to look up its translation at a point in my life where thoughts like these have been flowing around in my head already...