Happy holidays to all!

The AMS :: ATX blog will be going dark for a few weeks for winter break, so we hope everyone has a restful and relaxing holiday season.

The Snowfall is So SilentThe snowfall is so silent,so slow,bit by bit, with delicacyit settles down on the earthand covers over the fields.The silent snow comes downwhite and weightless;snowfall makes no noise,falls as forgetting falls,flake after flake.It covers the fields gentlywhile frost attacks themwith its sudden flashes of white;covers everything with its pureand silent covering;not one thing on the groundanywhere escapes it.And wherever it falls it stays,content and gay,for snow does not slip offas rain does,but it stays and sinks in.The flakes are skyflowers,pale lilies from the clouds,that wither on earth.They come down blossomingbut then so quicklythey are gone;they bloom only on the peak,above the mountains,and make the earth feel heavierwhen they die inside.Snow, delicate snow,that falls with such lightnesson the head,on the feelings,come and cover over the sadnessthat lies always in my reason.Miguel de Unamuno

Happy Holidays!

Hello, dear readers. As winter break is upon us, we'll be taking a hiatus from publishing until January 2014. Until then, we hope you have a restful, relaxing holiday season.

The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness.

All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is invigorating to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness and purity are visible to the eye, and we would fain stay out long and late, that the gales may sigh through us, too, as through the leafless trees, and fit us for the winter - as if we hoped so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, which will stead us in all seasons.

Henry David Thoreau, "A Winter Walk"