In 1975, an amazing episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show hit the airwaves, entitled “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” which was written by David Lloyd and directed by Joan Darling. This miraculous program has been wildly praised for nearly fifty years — one might say that it has been over-praised, but in fact that would be impossible. This hilarious, macabre episode holds up incredibly well decades later.
At the end of the show, when the team from WJM returns from a colleague’s funeral to the apartment of spunky news producer Mary Richards, played by Mary Tyler Moore, they each in turn ponder what sort of funeral they would prefer.
Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), the imbecilic and arrogant news anchor, his equally dim but lovable wife Georgette (Georgia Engel), gruff boss Lou Grant (Ed Asner) and snarky news writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod) all have their views, but it’s “Happy Homemaker” Sue Ann Nivens who gets the biggest laugh.
Relentlessly perky and sexually voracious TV host Sue Ann, of course, was portrayed by Betty White, who died on Friday. And now, with White’s death, they have all left us.
When an actor who portrays a TV character dies, generally the TV character also dies. So one might imagine that the crew of WJM, plus Mary’s best friend Rhoda and landlady Phyllis, have all passed on as well.
So here are their last wishes, adapted from the original program.
^^^
Cover image and cover dialogue adapted from “The Lars Affair,” the first appearance of Betty White’s “Sue Ann Nivens” character.
When many people think of New Year’s resolutions, they brainstorm ways to improve themselves for the year ahead. What if we expanded those aspirations to include resolutions that benefit our communities, society and the planet, too?
It might not be a typical approach, but it can broaden your horizons to show ways you can also be of service to others.
Here are four popular New Year’s resolutions with a twist for improving your relationship with nature in 2022 and beyond.
Exercise more consideration for how your actions impact the environment
We each have an environmental ethic reflecting how we value, manage and ultimately relate to nature. Balancing the scales of reciprocity between us and nature – how much we give and take – can improve this relationship in many ways. Whether it’s our addiction to one-use plastics that pile up in landfills or fossil fuels that warm the planet, a mishandled relationship with nature is not doing us or the Earth any favors.
In 2022, we can all take more responsibility for how our actions exacerbate environmental problems. We can also encourage governments and businesses to make it easier for people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds to protect the environment. This includes making recycled goods affordable and reliable public transportation widely accessible.
Check out the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s resources describing some very simple ways to reduce waste at home, work, in our communities and during the holidays. Tips from the website include turning off or unplugging lights during the day, reusing packaging materials and using online billing services instead of paper mail.
Lose the weight of social injustice – it harms nature, too
A recent study described how practices such as redlining and residential segregation led to unequal access to nature, excess pollution and biodiversity loss. These practices brought in highways and industries that harm environmental quality in marginalized communities. They also left neighborhoods with fewer parks and trees that provide cooling in summer and benefit the planet.
Perpetuating social ills like systemic racism and inequitable resource allocation is detrimental to the environment, marginalized people and society as a whole.
To help turn this around, you can speak out in your community. Join groups that are trying to promote environmental protection and social justice and are bringing nature back to communities. Call your city, state and Congressional leaders to urge them to take action. Also, refer to the Green 2.0 report’s section on making diversity initiatives successful for concrete ways that you can actualize this in your place of work.
Learn something new about nature and how to reduce harm to the environment and yourself
Clean air, water and soil are fundamental for our survival, but research shows many people lack basic environmental and health literacy to know how to protect themselves.
In 2022, get to know your own impact on the environment. Read more and start exploring ways to preserve the integrity of your area’s natural resources. For example, find out where you can stay abreast of local land-use decisions that impact the environment and your overall community.
You can also support local educators and encourage them to bring the environment into lessons. Environmental issues overlap many other subjects, from history to health. This website includes a framework and materials for educators to help students expand their environmental literacy.
Staying plugged in with media that discuss the latest research can enhance awareness. You can also try tying environmental facts and knowledge into your game night and team-building activities.
Spend more time with family and friends in nature
Studies show that spending time in nature, including urban green spaces, can improve your relationship with nature and with others.
Time in nature can increase social cohesion. Throughout the pandemic, many people discovered the outdoors as a place to decompress and reduce stress. Spending more time outdoors can encourage social interactions that benefit health, buffer emotional distress and encourage use of these spaces, which can help protect them for the future.
Here are some tools that outline best practices to enhance parks and recreation near you. Also, here are ways to make outdoor environments more inclusive for families in diverse communities.
Collectively, thinking about our relationship with nature and finding ways to protect the environment can help us be better stewards of the planet.
However, real life does go on, and if, on New Year’s Eve, you happen to find yourself in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea without access to the reliable internet needed for an immersive VR journey, don’t worry!
If you haven’t yet been sent to a secret prison, there are things you can do to make the New Year’s evening fun.
After all, North Korea is not all firing squads and starvation. Indeed, as you might already know if you are a fan of Netflix’s Crash Landing on You, for a certain strata of society, North Korea rocks.
If you are staying in Pyongyang, or in the nearby satellite city of Pyongsong, known as North Korea’s Silicon Valley, then on New Year’s Eve itself, you have a number of choices.
Head over to Kim Il Sung Square to watch the evening festivities among the populace, which will include a light show, a “synchronized drone display,” and fireworks over the Taedong River.
You might also see a musical performance of the Moranbong Band, North Korea’s most popular girl-power pop group, who have performed in past years, although their availability was unconfirmed at press-time. Maybe they’ve been arrested. (They were rumored purged in 2014 after they unexpectedly disappeared from public view for an uncomfortable length of time.)
If you want to avoid the crowds, watch the fireworks from the river, and enjoy a Taedonggang Beer aboard the Mujigae Ship, a truly beautiful floating restaurant with four decks, which can accommodate 1200 diners at a time.
In fashion reflective, with plaint or invective, We view in perspective the year in eclipse, The duties neglected, the faults uncorrected, The blunders, the failures, the slips! We note with depression that painful procession Of lapse and transgression which held us in thrall, The sins of omission, the vaulting ambition, The pride that preceded each fall! Regretful, alas! we are loth to remember The good resolutions we made last December!
The keen politicians who cherished ambitions To better conditions for sons of the State, Make private confession of wasting each session In fruitless and futile debate; The Peer of position regards with contrition That past inanition, so hard to resist; The social reformer grows sensibly warmer, To note opportunities miss’d; While Cabinet statesmen still seek (somewhat sadly) For patience to suffer the Suffragettes gladly!
But never despairing, each mind, greatly daring, Fresh programmes preparing, fresh projects revolves; New plans undertaking, new promises making, New plots, new designs, new resolves! With hopes unabated, and spirits elated, We feel ourselves fated, this year, to succeed, Devising and dreaming, suggesting and scheming To triumph, to conquer, to lead! With hearts that are wiser (though probably sadder), We start once again at the foot of the ladder!
^^^
This poem originally appeared in THE MOTLEY MUSE (RHYMES FOR THE TIMES), which was published in 1913.
As part of Audere’s mission to bring more poetry to the masses, our sister publishing house, Chickadee Prince Books, publishes Bloomsbury’s Late Rose, an acclaimed novel about the poet, Charlotte Mew. Read more Audere poetry here.
Image design by Steven S. Drachman. Illustrator: Lewis Baumer
Little children are usually snug in bed when the first holiday of the year arrives.
It comes at midnight when all is dark out of doors. Sometimes the weather is very cold, here in England, with snow upon the ground; and as it nears midnight on the 31st December there is a great silence beneath the stars.
The children are in bed; but in most homes there are grown-up people — fathers, mothers, uncles or aunts — who sit late and watch the clock. They watch; and when the clock strikes twelve they know that the first day of the New Year has arrived.
Then it is no longer silent out of doors. The bells are ringing loudly, and ringing merrily; they are ringing a welcome to the Stranger.
So the grown-up people, who have been watching the clock, rise up smiling and wish each other a Happy New Year. The father says to the mother: “I wish you a Happy New Year, my dear,” and in saying this they shake hands, and kiss each other. Then the mother, if she has children in bed, goes upstairs. They are all asleep; so she does not waken them. She simply kisses them, each one, and smiles as she whispers: “A Happy New Year to all of you, my dears.”
That is how the New Year arrives in England.
In Scotland there is more ceremony. There it used to be the custom for the whole household to sit up till twelve o’clock and bring in the New Year with singing and frolic. But that custom is dying out.
You children, I hope, get to know about the New Year in the morning. You find that everybody is looking happy, and wishing happiness to other people. Even although the sun is not shining there is brightness in the house and in the street.
People when they meet shake hands and joke and laugh. Your aunt will give you a good hug, and more than likely your uncle will put his hand into his pocket and give you something; something round and bright; something that will make you smile. Then you learn that the New Year brings gifts as well as gladness.
But nowadays the giving of presents is not so common as it used to be.
Far back in English history the grown-up people gave each other gifts on New Year’s Day, and some of these gifts were very beautiful and very costly. Diamond necklaces, gold caskets, jewelled swords, embroidered mantles—these were the kind of gifts which rich people gave to each other at the feast of the New Year.
Our English Kings and Queens, in the old days, received many such precious gifts. Queen Elizabeth got so many valuable presents in this way that a list of them was kept upon parchment, and in the history books it may still be read.
This custom of giving rich presents to rich people on New Year’s Day exists no longer in England; and that is well. For in many cases these costly gifts were given not from kindness but from selfishness; the gift-givers wanted some favour in return.
Now, it is an ill thing to begin a New Year with a spirit of greediness. None of you children, I am sure, will do so.
Be thankful that you have got the gift of another New Year’s Day. It is the first clean page of a fine new book in which you can write just what you please.
Write something cheerful; and see to it that there are no blots.
^^^
This article originally appeared in Holidays & Happy Days by Hamish Hendry, which was published in 1901, in London.
Governors Island has its top four for a new climate hub.
Four university-led teams are in the final stretch to win the right to build a new center for climate change and resiliency research on the 172-acre island, with proposals calling for everything from a “living lab” to deep-sea explorations.
The finalists for the project are teams from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Stony Brook University, and a group co-led by CUNY and The New School. The mayor and the Trust for Governors Island announced the top contenders Wednesday.
“We are feeling, as one of the world’s great coastal cities, the impact of climate change,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said as he announced the finalists from City Hall. “We are the place that has the talent, the drive, the energy to create the climate solutions of the future.”
The four were chosen from a long list of academic institutions and real estate developers interested in the project. The city had opened up submissions this summer.
Each of the four final groups will submit a more detailed application through a process that will begin in the spring of 2022, the trust said.
“These four proposals showcase ambitious and innovative approaches that underscore the urgency of addressing challenges posed by climate change,” said Clare Newman, president and CEO of the Governors Island Trust.
Eight other proposals previously reported on by THE CITY will not move forward, including one by a 15-university consortium named Renewable Nations L3C and another by former deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff.
All four final groups envision roughly similar complexes: a mix of educational, research and conference space to tackle the biggest challenges of climate change — in the middle of New York Harbor.
Climate Retreat
The location is a big draw for Kevin Reed, associate dean for research at Stony Brook’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, or SoMAS, who helped plan the Suffolk County state school’s proposal.
“It’s an opportunity to actually have a retreat-style hub within the center of the biggest city in the United States,” he said.
He described Stony Brook’s idea for the 33-acre parcel on the 172-acre island as a “living lab that convenes the top minds in climate change.” The university plans to incorporate research, education and workforce training in a campus-like atmosphere featuring dormitories, faculty housing and a hotel, with space for research, classrooms and conferences.
A rendering from Stony Brook University of what a climate hub could look like on Governors Island.
“It’s a hub of activity, meaning that people will come to the island maybe for a semester, or for a one-week conference, or for a two-week or two-year research or incubator project,” he said.
The Governors Island Trust has set aside the southeastern corner of the island for development of the new climate center, close to the current Brooklyn-bound ferry dock.
With the environmental work Stony Brook already does via SoMAS, Reed believes his team is well-positioned to take on the project.
From the Depths to The Heights
The other applicants made that case, too. Through its Environmental Solutions Initiative, MIT wants to bring a “solutions and innovation center” to the island with a focus on the “rapid commercialization and deployment of climate solutions,” a statement from the Trust said.
The most local team, CUNY and The New School going under the name C3: Climate Center Consortium, submitted a proposal that mixes academic, research and community organizations to merge “the work of climate adaptation, mitigation, and environmental justice,” the release said.
The project aims to combined CUNY’s “vast climate research, education and workforce development programs” and The New School’s “world-renowned design capacity, strong social science scholarship, and applied solutions-based scholarship,” CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez and New School President Dwight A. McBride wrote in a joint statement to THE CITY.
Northeastern “put together a team that would be able to reach from the poles of the earth to the deep ocean, to the littorals, into the harbor and on into urban neighborhoods,” said David Luzzi, senior vice provost for research at the university.
That includes members from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, the University of Tokyo and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.
The group wants to create a destination study and work location for students, a draw for the public to learn about climate change mitigation and a place to create “special experimental facilities” to draw researchers from all over the world, Luzzi said.
‘Unique Facilities’
What might that look like? He couldn’t say because the proposal is “proprietary.” But, for example, he noted, at Northeastern’s Burlington, Mass., campus, the school built a huge “Faraday cage” to allow experimental study of telecommunications and has the world’s largest supercomputer for analyzing wireless networks.
“We have built unique facilities not available elsewhere in the world, or in the country,” Luzzi said. “With Governors Island, we see the real opportunity to do that.”
Amy Chester, managing director of the resiliency planning group Rebuild By Design, said she’s glad to see “home-grown and nearby talent” recognized.
New Yorkers enjoying outdoor space on Governors Island.
All four teams will likely have a deeper understanding of East Coast-specific climate risks, she added.
“We look forward to seeing their vision of transforming an island vulnerable to sea level rise, increased storm surge and heavy rain to one that teaches about climate change,” she said.
The city and trust have promised $150 million toward the winning project. The total cost to create the new climate hub, however, will likely be much more — Cornell University’s 12-acre campus on Roosevelt Island, for instance, cost $2 billion — and whichever proposal wins is financially responsible for new facilities and programs, the trust said.
The final project winner will likely be chosen by the trust by the end of 2022, the groups said.
De Blasio announced the Governors Island finalists on Wednesday as part of a number of climate change-related measures, including signing the City Council’s bill banning gas in city buildings.
^^^
THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.
Audere Magazine frequently covers climate change issues, and reprints notable articles on the subject from other media.
[UPDATED 12/30, 5:14 pm] With the world closing down again, fireworks in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park cancelled because of the Omicron variant and the streets of Amsterdam subject to a new curfew, what should one do about New Year’s Eve?
The best way to celebrate safely in the Covid era is in virtual reality.
And this year, VR world-builders have created an embarrassment of riches, numerous beautiful and immersive worlds in which to party, filled with friendly avatars.
Because it is VR, you can hop from Paris to Berlin to New York City and back again in a night, without even a private jet at your disposal.
For those unfamiliar with VR, you can’t understand the extremely immersive nature of the experience; and for those who have used their headsets only for gaming, you may not realize the world that awaits you, and New Year’s Eve will be a good introduction.
What a great night it will be.
So if your New Year’s plans have fallen through, if you are afraid to venture into a crowded IRL club, or if you are just looking for something better to do, alone or with a date, here are a few suggestions.
Champagne and rose petals on the tablecloth, birds flying overhead, music on the streets of Paris, the babble of diners in the crowded restaurant, and that heartbreaking view of the Eiffel tower bathed in a magnificent sunset on the horizon.
If you have a date for New Year’s Eve, the Terrasse de l’Amour is the perfect spot for quiet, pre-party conversation. If you do not, this is the perfect spot to meet someone, maybe the virtual soulmate of your dreams.
Friday, December 31, 2021, from 8:30 PM to 12:30 AM (EST), in AltspaceVR, free
For this New Year’s Eve bash, organizer Jake Upfront promises three New York City clubs, one based on the legendary 1980s Tunnel nightclub, and possibly one rooftop club on 6th Avenue and a Central Park festival stage. The Tunnel is confirmed, but whatever the final lineup, Jake promises “one club per hour up until we drop from the dancing.”
Jake was a mastermind behind the Ecliptic Digital Rave just a few weeks ago, and his worlds are realistic, detailed, immersive and utterly convincing; and it’s co-sponsored by MOMA Rave, which brought us a terrific Tokyo nightclub a few weeks ago.
If you don’t live in New York City, we have no doubt that you will feel as though you do, for one night; and if you do, we have no doubt that you will feel as though you are back in the 1980s, for one night.
Friday, December 31, 2021, from 4 PM to 4 AM (EST), in AltspaceVR, free
Canadian Darryl Gold has recreated the Berlin Wall on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1989.
Darryl tells us that his event will be “a virtual recreation of the 1989 New Year’s Eve party in Berlin just after the Wall opened. The Wall, the Brandenburg Gate and surroundings have been built based on old photos and videos. The event tries to capture the gritty 80’s feel of the times and celebrate freedom from tyranny, which we hopefully can relate to.”
The music for this spectacular party will be era-appropriate, all Eighties — and here at Audere, while many of us didn’t love the 1980s, what-with Reagan and everything, we did love the music! — and it will last for twelve hours, with New Year’s countdowns from Europe to New York to Los Angeles.
We’re not sure if they played “Safety Dance” when the original Wall fell, but we hope they will play it when the virtual Wall falls.
Friday, December 31, 2021 from 4:15 PM to 9:15 PM (EST) , in AltspaceVR, free
While the other events focus on realistic recreations of actual places and events, the Inner Circle’s party will put you in the middle of amazing and immersive fantasy worlds.
Organizer Sonny Scholte promises a Psychedelic rave with plenty of Psytrance music in three different worlds.
First up, “Lonely Beach,” where, Scholte says, you will “party on the beach in an ancient forest.” Next, his Cave Valhalla is a “crazy party island on the north pole, next to a giant cave full of hidden mysteries and wisdom.” Finally, Twilight Zone, where, Scholte tells us, angels will fly you to a “church in the heavens above a dark-medieval village. The church is full of screens, giving you a full-on experience.”
December 31, 2021 from 3 am till January 1, 2022, 3:15 am, in Venues, free
If fireworks were canceled in your town, or you just don’t want to brave the crowds, the Venues virtual theatrical complex is showing fireworks on one of their gigantic screens for a little over 24 hours.
Listen: who needs reality?
^^^
Audere Magazine publishes stories on VR and technology frequently. Read more here.
Image of dancing avatar designed by Steven S. Drachman, background from an event by Jake Upfront
