Author: F C

I’ve been negligent in contributing this week; it’s been busy. My uncle from Toronto showed up unexpectedly. I judged a moot court (law student) competition in Newark; they were short of judges, so I ended up judging three rounds, which was mentally exhausting. I’m going to Boston in the morning to watch the movie Robot Stories.

The New York Times has a story on how a paralegal was ordered to produce a three page memo on sushi restaurant options because that day’s sushi delivery was so poor. See also, Gawker. Sometime soon I will compose here my epic on pizza.

Stairmaster in your future?

[I’ve recreated this article from memory. I hope it matches what I wrote.]

My mom gave me this pedometer (see picture at right) that she got from the 99 cent store. She couldn’t figure out how it works, so that’s how I got it. I wore it watching the Yankees-Red Sox game 3 (pretty violent) and Kill Bill Vol. 1 (very violent), and racked up 6800 steps, or 3 and a quarter miles. People say you should walk 10,000 steps a day. Let’s see how I do during the week. [Today, I walked under 600 steps as I didn’t leave my apartment, so I have a lot of catching up to do!]

NYU suffered a second student suicide this year. The unidentified student walked off the side of the 10th floor indoor balcony of Bobst Library, the same way as last month. Supposedly there are psychological design features to discourage jumping, such as spike patterns in the floor and cross-shaped cross-sections in the railing. Up until now it seemed to have worked, because no one had ever dared to jump from there before now. When I went there, the preferred method was walking out of dorm room windows.

How is it that the world knows that a coach was cut on the nose, but students die so anonymously?

Something weird happened with my ISP. SSW15 and I wrote two articles on the 12th, and they both disappeared. I know that the server was down sometime this evening. I’m pretty sure I’m not dreaming, because I got a comment email on my article. We’ll try to recreate those missing articles….

Back of the train in Brooklyn

The hot water in the apartment came back on today after being off for the last two days. It was pretty bad in this nippy weather. It was back to the concrete slab bathroom and two pots of boiled water method of bathing. I can deal with a lot of rough living and inconvenience, but not having a hot shower really bites.

In other news, the semi-final results of the recall:
1. Arnold Schwarzenegger
2. Cruz Bustamante
3. Tom McClintock
4. Peter Camejo
5. Arianna Huffington
6. Peter Ueberroth
7. Larry Flynt
8. Gary Coleman
9. George B. Schwartzman
10. Mary Carey

Proposition 54 preventing collection of racial demographic data was soundly defeated, as well as Proposition 53 allocating up to 3% of the state budget to infrastructure.

The Boston Red Sox won the first game against the Yankees 5-2 for the pennant. I’m torn between supporting New York and supporting the underdogs.

Cue Soundtrack: Heather Headley, “If It Wasn’t For Your Love”. [Windows Media]
Go ahead, hit the link — it’s the couple’s song — and keep on reading.

Dragonboaters salute the new couple

There are certain experiences that are hard to put into words, or at least are easier to put in terms of another culture or another mode of expression. This wedding was one of those times.

Would I be standing here
After all these years
Among the stars above
Maybe not, if it wasn’t for your love

Just for the fact that this was a chicken dance-, electric slide-, macarena-, and (almost) conga- free wedding banquet automatically put it in the top five. Also, there were no Stupid Cantonese Wedding Tricks, which was also excellent. The food was quite good, the noodles were song (that’s al dente to everyone else) and the booze was free-flowing. But the fact that there were 65 tables of guests — that is 650 people — that put it over the top.

Smiling faces all around
Like when a king that has just been crowned
A battle has been won
That I’d have lost
If it wasn’t for your love

Waves of food served by an army of waitstaff, circles of dancers clasped and coupled every which way, the bride and groom carried aloft by dozens of people much like if there was a giglio (that’s an Italian dancing tower to you) during the “Hava Nagila” (“Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad”, a traditional Jewish wedding dance song). Just if it were Chinese with techno music. Agape would be the right word — the joy that everything is right for once in the world.

A fairy tale unfolds
More true than stories I’ve been told

One of the unspoken rules on this blog is that — to protect the innocent — we aren’t going to name anyone not in the public view, not even fellow writers. However, there were so many people at this wedding that I think the new couple qualifies as public figures. You’ve touched the lives of so many people in such a profound way that this is the fairy tale that you deserve: we’ll deal with tomorrow in the sequel, but today, the day is yours.

At last my chance to shine
And all in perfect time
The life I once dreamed of
Who’d have thought
If it wasn’t for your love

I think that was the night that I found it too.

Congratulations, Delphia and Darrow!

[I’m actually writing this on the 4th, but since I’m the admin, I get to warp space and time in this little domain. It also fits neatly that gap between the 2nd and the 4th.]

I went to the opening of the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, which is part of their new student center at Washington Square South. Wow, what we could have done if that were there when I went there! (say that three times fast). The premiere [AP/Atlanta Journal-Constitution] [N.Y. Times] was 5 dance segments by the Parsons Dance Company. The most amazing performance was by Angel Corella of the American Ballet Theatre in “Caught”. The performance used a carefully timed strobe light. When the stage was dark, Corella would move into position on stage. He would jump into the air, pose, and activate the strobe light. When the strobe flashed, the audience would only see the final result of the movement. In this way, he seemed to float across the stage, sometimes walking, sometimes gliding. At the end of each sequence, he would reappear standing ramrod straight in a single regular spotlight on stage, and he wouldn’t even appear winded. Absolutely amazing! I wished that I could have taken pictures. [The New York Times article has a full sized picture.]

World’s largest cube fridge

The temperature has taken a dramatic drop. It must be around 55 degrees F! There is that crispness in the air that is distinctive of fall.

In other freezer news, my freezer is defrosting. I’ve got one of those ancient circa 1950’s refrigerator/freezers. It’s so old that the freezer is a box inside the refrigerator, like a giant version of those dorm cube fridges. There ‘s no easy way to do it but to just turn it down low and just let it melt. They apparently hadn’t invented the drain pan yet, so it all ends up at the bottom of the cabinet, mostly in the veggie tray. I used the top of a spray bottle as a makeshift pump to get enough of the liquid out to pull it out without getting it all over the floor. Two half buckets of water and paper towels were deposited down the toilet. There is still about half a gallon of ice still in the box. I guess the advantage is that the stuff in my fridge had enough ice in there to keep it going during the blackout.

Did I mention that it’s getting cold in the living room?

For me the interesting television shows seem to be on CBS this season. Survivor 7 a.k.a. Pearl Islands [sirlinksalot links] is far more interesting this season because of the increased role-play. The survivors are really shipwrecked, and they fend for themselves more. That being said, episode two has one skinny guy trying for dear life to stay on, but gets voted off, while another manly man tries really hard to get out, but can’t manage it.

W. 42 St. facing east

In other reality show news, my all time favorite reality/contest show is The Amazing Race, which looks like it will be saved for another season because it won an Emmy. A Korean chica from NY won Big Brother 4 (the only other Asian — and fellow New Yorker — to win a reality show was on ABC’s The Mole 2), but it was not like she and the other final contestant turned the show into a “lesser of two evils” race to the bottom.

Joan of Arcadia‘s pilot is facinating if bizzare. It’s basically God as the guy in Quantum Leap from the perspective of the chick in Dawson’s Creek, if she’s always the one Touched by an Angel and her family was like the one in Family Matters (you know, the one with Erkle in it, where his dad is the police chief). The theme song, Joan Osborne’s “One of Us“, seemed to be the pitch song for the series: they literally had God as a “Just a slob…/… on a bus” during the first 15 minutes.

I watch a lot of Food Network, and I like the wierd, obscure shows. I guess technically every cooking show is a “reality” show. The closest touch between reality and irony was in this past week’s episode of Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour in Brazil. The focus was on “Fabio”, a bon vivant “carioca” (Rio de Janero resident) who is a professional beach bum by day, playboy by night. Comments that “life is short” and to the Umberto’s Clam House shootout are prophetic to the note at the end of the credits which say “In memory of our friend Fabio —–“.

This past weekend:Brooklyn Museum’s Pulp Fiction — interesting Anti-asian propaganda sub-exhibit. Kang Suh comes through again for dinner. A deja vou all over again house party on the West Side. Setting up a computer system for a single mom and her son. Not bad compared to the “no good deed goes unpunished” week that was. This week’s events: T—‘s birthday on Wednesday. College alumni event on Thursday. I’m ushering a 600 person Chinese banquet on Saturday. I had thought that it was this past Saturday; because I was such a ditz, I had to pay for dinner for P–. If you’re going to the “dragonboaters’ wedding”, I’ll see you there.

Five past six in the morning and all is right. That must have been some kind of song lyric I must have heard. It’s unusual that I’m awake this early in the morning.