Dots in the universe

See the muted colored dots speckling the screen of this your favorite blog? They are the duller cousins of the circular confetti that still swirls around Times Square. (Square fans, take heart: there were also some four-sided confettos.) Walking up from 32nd Street (after my traditional Korean new year's meal of dukk mandoo kuk) through the still impressively thronged TS this afternoon, I spotted an orange circle in the gutter and assumed it was a carrot slice. A block later, dots and squares of all colors could be seen on the pavement and—even better—swirling high in the sky. One was dropping vertically, as if it had been falling, Zeno-like, since midnight. Then a gust of wind picked it up and sent it south.

Dot dot dot . . .

All the way in the West 80s, I spotted a New Year's dot doing its little Ashlee Simpsonic jig in the brisk twilight air.

Incidentally, I'm reading Lucy Ellmann's novel Dot in the Universe.

OK, you Dizzyheads. Here's to a happy 2005.