Month: December 2007

December Continues

Thanks to FC and P for the birthday gift!

The big 3-0 was spent very low-key. Birthday gift to myself – a few days away from the office.

Have I actually cleaned anything up, done real reading, or gotten much (fiction) writing done? Not really. Got some art stuff out of the way. Relaxed. Spent a few hours with a friend.

Daily News’ feature “Big Town, Big Dreams” – profiling NYC immigrants who make big contributions – profiles Tisa Chang, founder of the Pan Asian Repertory Theater. I had watched a performance they had done, and sorry to have missed their just finished production of “The Joy Luck Club.”

The passing of 1010 WINS’ former financial commentator, Larry Wachtel, most known for his closing line, “Gather those rosebuds,” and his thick Brooklyn accent. I remembered thinking, “Man, got to love that accent,” and never quite understanding the whole rosebuds thing – but that’s the beauty of NYC indeed.

Ex-Dodgers’ owner, Walter O’Malley, has been accepted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now, I know by rights, as a Brooklynite, I’m supposed to despise the O’Malleys for taking the Dodgers out of Brooklyn, but then again, I really can’t waste my energy on that, can I? He did make baseball history, whether you call him villain or not; it was not illegal; he was famous; Hall of Fame, right? Unlike, say, Pete Rose or even those tainted by the steroids scandal, O’Malley was the smart businessman (and an attorney). Love him or hate him, he’ll be at Cooperstown.

Law.com posts a profile (from the Fulton County Daily Report) of Sean Carter, legal humorist (whose past columns on the ABA E-Journal were some items I had linked in the past).

Watched Grey’s Anatomy last night – an actually decent episode. Meredith seems to finally get some things figured out; Chief Weber was the one person to be proud of her and say he was impressed – something she couldn’t get from her real parents; Christina railed at Bailey for making her help her with a white supremacist (guess Christina didn’t like being picked on as the Asian/Jewish person; as much as I wouldn’t like it either, she picked a bad time to rail at Bailey, whose marriage is crumbling and it wasn’t like Bailey wanted to treat the white supremacist either); Alex’s love life is messed up as usual; George and Izzy finally realize that they shouldn’t be together; and Lexie … well, seems to me that of the Grey (half) sisters, Lexie may be a fine doctor, but is she really going to cut it as a surgeon? I haven’t watched much of the season, but I feel like I really haven’t missed much, although it felt like real Grey’s Anatomy finally.

As noted in past posts, I’ve been all excited about the Seurat exhibit at MoMA. Went to MoMA tonight – saw the Georges Seurat exhibit. So cool! The on-line exhibit is also amazing. Highly recommended (but I’m biased, as I am a Seurat fan).

The Met re-opened its European galleries, and it sounds terrific, going by the review of NY Times critic Holland Cotter.

It’s not looking too good for the writers’ strike ending; we need a holiday miracle now!

Speak Up

Saw legendary travel writer Arthur Frommer live yesterday at an alumni hosted speaking appearance on Tuesday. Like the Zagats of restaurant rating fame, he retired from being a white shoe litigator to pursue his travel enterprises.

We as a society have lost the skills for long form oratory. Frommer presented non-stop for a whole hour with ease, possessing notes consisting of perhaps one index card, yet he were able to cite (at my count) over 2 dozen travel resources, including websites, distinct details of each venue or vendor – especially his tales of summertime study at Oxford of really ancient Egyptian history (as in pre-Pharaoh days). Afterwards, he went on for another hour at a reception that followed.

Nowadays, the norm is the sound bite. Even the best moot court advocate does not have to go on for more than 15 minutes without interruption! Presidential debates used to go on for days – the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates are a prime example. Now maybe you get 3 minutes for each of a dozen candidates.

If we just took more time for exposition, maybe we would know more.

Happy Birthday to SSW (that was yesterday)!

Stuff

Check out this search engine – a way to search and raise money for your favorite charities: GoodSearch. Seems interesting.

“Tin Man” on Sci Fi seems interesting. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, obviously. And, the cast – Zooey Deschanel was amusing as Trillian on the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” movie (really, an underappreciated movie!) and Neal McDonough (the one who played the DA of LA in the former NBC show “Boomtown” and the regrettably departed Lt. Hawke of “Star Trek: First Contact” – the Star Trek: The Next Generation movie where they pulled off all the craziest stuff – drunk Counselor Troi; Data continuing the Pinocchio thing; and of course, a really pissed off Capt. Picard). Come on; how bad a mini-series can this be? They don’t even make mini-series like they used to do!

David Henry Hwang and his latest project, on a character that sounds an awful lot like himself. Interesting reading on being APA and Chinese-American specifically.

In Brooklyn… 4th Avenue’s getting a little less seedy, huh, with coffee shops instead of auto repairs? Talk about things changing.

How to preserve the afterlife in Bensonhurst – the difficulties at the Old New Utrecht Cemetery.

“Heroes” on Monday night… the end of “Volume 2” (maybe even Season 2, if the writers’ strike isn’t resolved) – leave me feeling “uh?” and “Nooo!” Scroll down or turn away if you don’t want spoilers……

If you’re going to have to kills heroes, did it have to involve the same person we all wondered was going to kick the bucket the last season? I’ll say no more than that!

Tweety Bird, Donald Duck and others have been subpoenaed to go to court. In Italy. As poor victims of counterfeiting by some Chinese guy (umm, was it that important for the AP to mention the defendant was Chinese?). Sigh.