Pete Buttigieg is so awful at his job people actually know who the Sec. of Transportation is.

— thebradfordfile (@thebradfordfile) December 29, 2022

Eishosai Choki (fl. 1780s-1800s), Sunrise at New Year

A bijin (beautiful woman), presumably a courtesan, has risen early to greet the rising sun of the New Year at the waterfront at Fukagawa in Edo. The woman is adjusting the top of her kimono to protect against the chill of the early morning. In the lower-left is a blossoming fukujuso plant, emblematic of the New Year.

Robert Burns, author of Auld Lang Syne

From Robert Chambers, A Book of Days, 1869:

NEW YEAR’S EVE, OR HOGMANAY

As a general statement, it may be asserted that neither the last evening of the old year nor the first day of the new one is much, observed in England as an occasion of festivity. In some parts of the country, indeed, and more especially in the northern counties, various social merry-makings take place; but for the most part, the great annual holiday-time is already past. Christmas Eve, Christmas-day, and St. Stephen’s or Boxing Day have absorbed almost entirely the tendencies and opportunities of the community at large in the direction of joviality and relaxation. Business and the ordinary routine of daily life have again been resumed; or, to apply to English habits the words of an old Scottish rhyme still current, but evidently belonging to the old times, anterior to the Reformation, when Christmas was the great popular festival:

Yule’s come and Yule ‘s gane,
And we hae feasted weel;
Sae Jock maun to his flail again,
And Jenny to her wheel.’

Whilst thus the inhabitants of South Britain are settling down again quietly to work after the festivities of the Christmas season, their fellow-subjects in the northern division of the island are only commencing their annual saturnalia, which, till recently, bore, in the license and boisterous merriment which used to prevail, a most unmistakable resemblance to its ancient pagan namesake. The epithet of the Daft [mad] Days, applied to the season of the New Year in Scotland, indicates very expressively the uproarious joviality which characterized the period in question. This exuberance of joyousness—which, it must be admitted, sometimes led to great excesses—has now much declined, but New-year’s Eve and New-year’s Day constitute still the great national holiday in Scotland. Under the 1st of January, we have already detailed the various revelries by which the New Year used to be ushered in, in Scotland. It now becomes our province to notice those ceremonies and customs which are appropriate to the last day of the year, or, as it is styled in Scotland, Hogmanay.

This last term has puzzled antiquaries even more than the word Yule, already adverted to; and what is of still greater consequence, has never yet received a perfectly satisfactory explanation. Some suppose it to be derived from two Greek words, άιαμηνη· (the holy moon or month), and in reference to this theory it may be observed, that, in the north of England, the term used is Hagmenu, which does not seem, however, to be confined to the 31st of December, but denotes generally the period immediately preceding the New Year. Another hypothesis combines the word with another sung along with it in chorus, and asserts ‘Hogmanay, trollolay!’ to be a corruption of ‘Homma est né’”Trois Rois lá¡’ (‘A Man is born ‘ — ‘ Three Kings are there ‘), an allusion to the birth of our Saviour, and the visit to Bethlehem of the Wise Men, who were known in medieval times as the ‘Three Kings.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Jeffrey Carter has a good posting, reminiscing about his days as a trader on the Chicago Commodities Exchange.

When I was perusing Twitter I saw this video put up by Matt Kenah (PAX). He traded on the floors too. Yours truly makes an appearance at around 5:24. This was when everyone started to leave the financial pits and come to the agriculture pits since the financial pits went to the screen. If I had to guess in this video I probably had 200-500ish spreads on and probably had an outright position of 10-100 contracts. I was a midsize hog trader.

People seem to like old trading pit stories so I thought I would start to sprinkle in a few. It’s good for my memory and it helps my writing.

Living daily in the pits meant that you had to get along with people. If you look at that video, there are guys in it that are worth $50MM or more standing right next to guys that are worth less than $500k. Liberals, conservatives, and all types. All ages. Educated and uneducated. Some were born with a silver spoon in their mouth and others were not. Some were born with a horseshoe firmly implanted up their ass.

The only real commonality is no one could be employed by a traditional employer. No corporate people down there.

There were some HUGE traders in that pit that took a lot of risk. Every pit had its big traders, but in the hogs, it was just different. I had known one of them since my first day on the floor. He went from runner to phone clerk and built a fantastic business. We were not friends in the end but I respected him immensely.

When I say huge, I mean huge. Some of these guys had balls bigger than Manhattan. We’d read about traders and hedgies doing some crazy stuff but it was always with other people’s money. OPM existed on the Chicago floors but mostly it didn’t.

Imagine trading an illiquid market with a couple of thousand spreads on. Your risk was only a meager $4 per tick. Just a mere bag of shells right? Of course, the market could easily move 100 points in a day so it was big money. By the way, no customers. It was our own money like you have in your checking account.

I always joked somedays my wife shopped shamelessly at Hermes but sometimes she went to Walmart. How’d you like to be on the hook for a potential $100k swing every day? Could you sleep at night?

RTWT

Alison Krauss with Yo-Yo Ma.

Es ist ein’ Ros’ Entsprungen is an early German Christmas carol and Marian hymn performed in a harmony written by Praetorius in 1609 by the Dresdner Kreuzchor.

Spelling Bee Contestant Asks The Definition of “Woman” pic.twitter.com/gOgDj9Oxsg

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 28, 2022

Bad news monkeys. <link>

Wikipedia:

The tune first appeared as a secular dance tune known under the title “Branle de l’Official” in Orchésographie, a dance book written by the French cleric, composer and writer Thoinot Arbeau, pen name of Jehan Tabourot (1519–1593). The words are by the English composer George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848–1934), and the carol was first published in 1924 in his The Cambridge Carol-Book: Being Fifty-two Songs for Christmas, Easter, And Other Seasons.

Ding Dong! merrily on high
In heav’n the bells are ringing
Ding, dong! verily the sky
Is riv’n with angel singing
Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis

Pray ye dutifully prime
Your matin chime, ye ringers
May ye beautifully rime
Your evetime song, ye singers
Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis.