Month: May 2005

Weekend reflections…

My sis and I saw “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” on Saturday in Brooklyn Hts. The website and the trailers are quite cool; the movie’s pretty good. A thumb’s up on the Ebert and Siskel scale; a grade of B — but I could push it to a B+ were I in a good mood. You don’t have to have read the book or heard the original radio show or seen the original BBC-tv show to enjoy the movie. Marvin the Chronically Depressed Robot is so cute (well, putting aside the depression stuff, which is majorly depressing) – the voice of British actor Alan Rickman! (“You could press that, but you won’t like it.” “I’m so depressed.” “Here I am, the brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to help you navigate? You call that job satisfaction? ’cause I don’t!”). There’s also more heart and sweetness to the movie than I recalled from the book (I’m one book and a half through the five book “trilogy”). I recommend the movie.

“Star Trek: Enterprise” – well, that episode was rather – – – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine-esque, with the galactic politics in play (we are supposed to be building toward the founding of the Federation, after all); human xenophobia (“xenophobia is bad!”), bad relationship building (umm, yeah, right; Star Trek does not do romance very well, oh…). Hmm…

Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival at Union Sq on Sunday – food, fun, and stuff. Music was all right. The amazing dancers. Everybody was more or less milling around for the guest of honor, Jet Li, who was being honored for his humanitarian work in Indonesia since the tsunami (as he was in one of the Indonesian resorts that day and he and his family had to make a run for higher ground). Well, the bigger cheers were for Morgan Freeman, who got to introduce Jet Li. After all, Morgan Freeman’s the Big Oscar Winning Actor/Cult Favorite (for “Shawshank Redemption” and possibly even for “Electric Company” for a certain bunch of Generation X’ers). Freeman and Li are starring in a movie coming out; they were at the festival for some five minutes. Oh, and I’ve a gripe about tall people – must they move to the front, as if their 6ft frames can’t allow them to see the stage? I mean, this tall guy walks right in front of me; pain in the ass! Makes me wish I were taller, but I’d blame that on genetics… Otherwise a good time was had by all.

So it goes; nicer weather, if a bit cool temperatures…

Ok, so at this hour, the on-line tv reviewers have posted their reviews of the latest next-to-last episode of “Enterprise,” but I am trying my best not to read them (since NYC’s local UPN has Yankees on TV on Fridays, no “Enterprise” until tomorrow). I can’t give in to reading the spoilers and ruin it for myself. And, thanks to Entertainment Weekly, for not giving away what will happen on next week’s series finale. I cannot bear to have it given away; I must watch to bear witness to the end of Star Trek (at least, the broadcast television version of it; I’ll have to take up reading more Trek fiction again).

Speaking of Yankees, what the heck is with them? Losing like heck. Eh. And, what’s with the hype about Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner’s horse going to the Kentucky derby and maybe being a Triple Crown winner? Eh?

Mets – real close (since they had the bases loaded near the end of the 9th inning) – but they won! Yeah!

Until tomorrow…

NY Times: Coping: In a West Side Apartment, a World. Japanese film editor has 40 years of Asian American historical stuff, slowly being given to NYU so he can put in a double bed. Sounds like my bedroom.

Behind on watching “Alias” episodes.

It’s a shame I missed this – the Super Jeopardy Tournament of Champions (a.k.a. the Road to Beating Against Ken Jennings) continues – and last night, NYPD Francis Spangenberg beat out the others. He was on Jeopardy way back when, as “Frank” – the guy with the handlebar mustaches. Way cool. I was waiting to see this happen – I remembered watching when he was first on Jeopardy. Wonder if Frank will beat Ken Jennings. Well, someone has to.

What the heck is with “The Apprentice” – the final two candidates are stuck with the idiot team members to deal with the final task. Eh? Is that wise? So the two women here have to deal with the difficult “employees” to prove their mettle to Donald Trump, but these are really lame employees. Oh well, at least either way, Trump finally gets a woman Apprentice.

So, the business with the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site means that the Freedom Tower is back to the drawing board. Newsday’s Justin Davidson has a great analysis:

What does it mean for a building to be secure? Nobody knows.

The most obvious deterrent to terrorism would be to erect a small, forgettable, insignificant building that would make no symbolic claims. But as countless bombs at Israeli cafes and at Baghdad intersections have made clear, even that is no guarantee.

Faced with the impossibility of preventing an attack, architects are instead learning to plan for the aftermath. They can limit the damage from a blast and try to ward off total collapse – that’s what the gridded cage of steel beams in the Freedom Tower’s now-rejected design was intended to do. They can widen exit pathways and provide more of them. Buildings can be designed to funnel people directly into the street rather than into the potential deathtrap of a jammed lobby. In these safety-first structures, smoke will vent, backup communications systems will automatically come online and rescue workers will have a separate access so that they do not have to push past the hale in order to rescue the wounded.

But it all comes down to a game of chance. Increasing the odds of survival is not quite the same as making a building safe. Architects and planners are limited to anticipating novel techniques of destruction. They know how to keep trucks away and are learning how to design skyscrapers that might – not will – be able to absorb the blow of a plane. But they can’t forestall what they haven’t thought of.

Danger comes in many forms, and warding it off can take counterintuitive forms. During the 1990s, the New York City Housing Authority wrestled with the problem of driving muggers, rapists and drug dealers from the forbidding, fortress-like, low-income housing projects that were fostering the very social problems they had been built to solve. The answer turned out to be glass. Rather than protecting a tower with a moat or a wall, the authority’s architects tried a windowed lounge with a card table – the sort of place where senior citizens equipped with cell phones would want to spend the day, scrutinizing visitors, who now had nowhere to lurk. [….]

The dilemma of keeping a crowded city secure is the conflicting need to make its public spaces open and accessible and simultaneously keep the wrong people out. But no building can determine a stranger’s intentions, and it’s almost impossible to make it friendly and forbidding. Just how starkly opposed these goals are is apparent at Lincoln Center, where the open Italianate piazza huddles behind a phalanx of concrete barriers. Officials there would like to make the campus more inviting to the city beyond its travertine perimeter, but they also want it to be secure. The result is an ugly compromise.

So will those temporary barriers eventually come down, or will they be incorporated into the structure itself? It’s the architectural version of the question Americans are asking about their country as a whole: Must an open society be a vulnerable one? There’s no answer yet, and it’s not likely that architects will provide one.

The question of re-building – do we build big, recapture “normalcy,” admit fear, find a new normal, build a fortress to protect ourselves, keep ourselves imprisoned from what we had? (don’t build big, because it’s dangerous?). I don’t know; these are just questions.

TGIF tomorrow…

It’s like I can’t resist blogging…

NY Times’ reporters report on the Right Wing Conspiracy Against PBS – or at least the attempt by the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to count how many liberal-leaning guests were on the (decidedly) liberal show of Bill Moyers. I mean, Geez Louise, if you want to get Bill Moyers on a rant, go ahead, audit the guy for who guests on his show and then accuse him of having liberal biases. At least he never denied his liberal leanings (more or less). And, oh yeah, he actually did get people like Ralph Reed and other conservative folks on his show (accusing Moyers of not being “fair and balanced”? Well, maybe he’s liberal, but he got out the stories the right leaning folks weren’t exactly covering – like the scary development of communication corporations swallowing all the mom-and-pop radio stations in the country – monopolies are supposed to be bad, as Moyers noted, but it’s not like the FCC was stopped the mess from happening; so where was FOX news on that story?).

And, if the conservative folks in D.C. are so concerned that PBS reflect “Fair and Balanced” opinions, why not also support PBS in putting people like Tavis Smiley on tv and in putting on series that reflect America’s diversity in history and society (Channel 13, local PBS, is celebrating Asian Pacific Heritage Month in May; last I checked, the networks and cable stations haven’t exactly jumped on that bandwagon). That’ll reflect the diversity of opinion and experience in America quite well too – forget just making PBS put Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot; not that I have a problem with Gigot – I actually considered his opinion when he was on Lehrer newshour; but I really have a problem with how the current administration seems to be pushing PBS around.

Ok, so I’m ranting. I just really hope the conservative extremists don’t end up hurting PBS; it’s so not right. And, besides – if the conservatives end up knocking on PBS, I have to wonder what is the matter with them – don’t they have more important things to do? I mean, really – what else on tv puts on ballets, dances, and operas and jazz, and so forth; plus silly British crap, and for free (access culture for the masses, which – admittedly – is a left-leaning idea, considering that PBS was born during the left-ish era of the 1960’s). I guess if it were up to the right wingers, we’d only listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Bill O’Reilley (in his current incarnation, not his old Inside Edition version, when he just cared about the tabloidy-trashiness of the story, not the direction of its political spin). But, then again, what do I know about what political direction is my form of media going; I’m someone who avoids extremes – I wouldn’t and I don’t bother listening or watching left or right extreme crap. I enjoyed Bill Moyers because he didn’t make me eat the bitter and just got me to think – it was about presentation of the message – not just smacking it at you. (oh, and the man cannot retire – he was hosting some documentary the other night on PBS; salute to Moyers). Politics is crazy, especially when it thinks it can interfere with the editorial or creative control of a network that’s struggling as it is.

Speaking of how pathetic politics is, I’m still thinking that Bob Kerrey is the better Kerr(e)y. See, Kerrey’s not pathetic (apologies to Kerrey, it’s just that the word “pathetic” is on my mind right now). Just when Kerrey got into the local news for his “Maybe I’ll run for mayor of NYC” musings (check out the amusing interview on NY1, wherein Kerrey says “No, I won’t run and no, I’m not a flake for considering in the first place”), I finished reading his book “When I was a Young Man” — his memoirs of growing up incredibly normal and average in Nebraska and then having that life altering experience during the Vietnam War. I think he is a flake (in the nice middle America kind of way; and yeah, backing away from mayoral musings like that kind of looks odd), but he’s not stupid – his dry sharpness makes him really interesting.

Anyway — Kerrey’s book felt like he really wrote it (there were parts that made me think that an editor/ghost writer could have done better). It felt like Kerry wasn’t entirely forthcoming about what he did in Vietnam as a Navy SEAL (not like I really expect him to disclose what really happened in Vietnam; the media kind of reamed Kerrey on that score; and his Author’s notes concedes that memory is a harsh thing and his own writing about his post-traumatic stress suggests some really bad stuff happened more than his previous paragraphs let on). His writing about losing his foot and coming home bitter from the war was poignant stuff. Generally, beyond his book – I think Kerrey’s refreshingly blunt; he’s Kerrey. I hate to make it derivative, but I feel as if he’s a Democrat’s McCain – he’s not afraid to be a bit conservative, but won’t deny being a Democrat. Nothing wrong with that.

We need more sunshine in NYC soon, or at least more consistent rain, instead of the weird on-off showers…

On Saturday, P and I went to the wedding of one of my work-study students who had recently graduated. Centerport, Long Island was the venue for the ceremony and the reception, which would have been perfect if it wasn’t raining cats and dogs. We reserved a Zip car and made the trek along the Belt Parkway, the Cross Island Expressway, and then the LIE. After this point, the directions in the invite were really fuzzy and it was hard to see signs in the bad weather; thankfully I had Mapquest directions, which saved the day.

The ceremony was homey in a Methodist church/school; the main sanctuary serves double duty as an auditorium when the pews are removed and replaced by chairs facing the opposite direction. The reception was really remarkable — it was held at the Thatched Cottage, which had excellent food. The cocktail two-hours had a dozen action cooking stations cooking Asian and American dishes. The actual luncheon was really Linner because it was not served until 3, but it was so good. There was a menu of 5 entrees, which were all cooked to order. We had the Long Island Roasted Duck in orange sauce with string beans, carrots, and mushroom shaped potatoes — it must have been some of the best duck I’ve ever had.

Sunday started out as a slow day until I had a call that our office floor had flooded out — apparently they were doing some work with the pipes, and some bizarre change in water pressure caused all of the toilets in the building to flush. Thankfully the worst that happened was that some of my boxes are waterlogged; there were no computer damage. Went to Lowe’s to pick up stuff for the apartment — P’s moving in at the end of the month and the apartment has to get out of bachelor pad mode by then. We also did mondo laundry – 4 whole bags worth, by which P got fed up at the end of the wash cycle and went home to take care of the dogs.

Exams are this week, and I’ve got to try to actually sleep to make it in to proctor a 9 am exam.

I watched most of “Enterprise” and its Mirror Universe Episode 2 thing. As much as I had (surprisingly) enjoyed Episode 1 (“poor Forrest bites the bullet again!”), I’m scratching my head about Episode 2. Enterprise’s Real Universe Vulcan Ambassador Soval made an appearance as Mirror Universe’s Downtrodden-2nd-class citizen Starfleet officer Soval. And, I liked his character (dignity, coolness, wow, Starfleet uniform Soval?), but there was the feeling of no-good-can-come-from-this (and nope, there wasn’t). Mirror Universe Archer became even more xenophobic, and plagued by hallucinations of Real Universe’s Archer and that Archer’s achievements (which Mirror Universe’s Archer considered to be a waste). Mirror Universe’s T’Pol tried to end the tyranny that is Mirror Archer. Mirror Hoshi Sato had some twisted tactics up her sleeve (not entirely surprising). In the end, the episode’s ending felt like “Star Trek’s Secondary Cast/People of Color Take Over.” Umm. Hmm. But, really, the way it ended for Soval, T’Pol, and the rest of Mirror Universe Enterprise’s non-human crew, it felt like an exercise in futility. Like, why give us this romp in the Mirror Universe when you only have a few episodes left?

I came away feeling like this: Gee, I wonder what would have happened if “Enterprise” had made Forrest captain or a starring admiral (admirals never really star in the show or get to be more than recurring characters in Star Trek); had Ambassador Soval as a main cast character (and therefore get more grittier with the politics of the Federation’s creation or Earth’s dealing with interaction with non-humans); and even had more quality air time for its secondary characters (yes, I’m talking about Hoshi and Travis (who has a well-chiseled body and sometimes looks like he’d love to act if they could only give him a few good lines)). We might have had better quality Star Trek (well, unless the writers screwed it up), maybe something more Star Trek:Deep Space 9-esque, with Star Trek: Next Generation’s equal opportunity positive feeling.

Heck, I always thought that DS9 was never fully appreciated; and its complex politics and references to an Earth in fear of war and terror would be fitting in this current age than it did back then. Oh, and the crazy soap opera ambiance of DS9 – everyone’s alienated from each other; everyone’s relationships are complex but significant, and so forth. Sure, DS9’s romantic relationships were nothing brilliant, but it was a step up than Next Generation’s. Even Voyager tried to push with the relationships on that show (well, let me not get on a Voyager rant). Had “Enterprise” played up on the positives of DS9, Next Gen, and Voyager, that would have been peachy.

I think we’re down to the last two or three episodes of “Enterprise” now. Oh well. I won’t mourn too much really. Maybe. We’ll see.