Author: ssw15

So, anyway, how’s that Beatles song go? “The Taxman… Ye-ah, the Taxman…”

Let’s look forward to the final run of new episodes on various channels:

This Wednesday’s “Angel” on the WB channel – sigh… I hate that the WB is going to cancel this show, which has certainly had a pretty good season this season (storywise, emotionally-wise, etc.). This week’s episode was unbelievable. Like, how many more people from Team Angel will fall on the sword and make a sacrifice? First Quinn back in Season 1; then Cordelia going to another dimension in Season 3, but coming back to wreck havoc in her possessed form (was she really possessed? Who possessed her? Hmm, no one really answered those questions) and she then fell into a coma only to permanently say goodbye to Team Angel this season; and then the very sad thing the writers did to Fred six weeks ago, as her body loses her soul which was replaced by Illyria, a former evil (? – amoral would be more accurate) goddess; and this week, Charles Gunn, who choses to remain in the alternate suburban hell dimension to atone for his part in losing Fred, who he once loved and may always love. Ack. And, this is the beginning of the end – 1 episode down, 5 left to go before saying goodbye to Angel? No fair!!! And, meanwhile, Angel realizes that it’s that time again – he has to fight the good fight – it’s the end of the universe (again) and he has got to be so tired of it.

Previews promise the return of Angel’s son (!) – mind you, Angel sacrificed his friends’ one-year’s worth of memories and free will so that Connor could have a normal life and peace of mind. How will Connor make his return? Will he still be irritating, self-righteous, hate-my-daddy-’cause-he-doesn’t-love-me-enough? Hmm. And, what about Wesley, the Englishman who hates himself more than anything else, because he lost the love(s) of his life in the past two years and surely has lost his mind? Hmm…

“Alias” – also going running down to its last few episodes of the season; ABC is hopefully going to renew it (considering what else does that network has to look forward to? A “Practice” spinoff; more “NYPD Blue” which is aging; and (ugh) more “Bachelor”?). Secret Agent Sydney and Crew are almost on to the traitor in their midst. Meanwhile, is The (usually) Evil Sloane really evil or is someone getting him into trouble? Will Sydney’s trecherous mom, the deceptive and evasive Irina, going to return? Will we ever get answers to any of the questions?

“The Practice” – coming to an end on ABC. How is it that they can make the remaining partners, Ellenor, Eugene, and Jimmy look both sympathetic, dignified, but dim-witted all at once? How is it that guest star William Shatner is playing a more wacky character than James Spader? How is it that James Spader’s Alan Shore character suddenly being the one with any moral high ground? He’s still a psychologically dubious character – he admittedly doesn’t know what he wants in his life, loves his dear friend Ellenor and enjoyed torturing the rest of the practice – but knows he can’t stay. So, what does he want and who the hell is he really? Will Alan Shore grow up already? Methinks that the James Spader-as-Alan Shore spinoff will be more Ally McBeal-esque rather than serious, in that David E. Kelley mode.

The final three episodes of “Friends.” I’m so bad; I keep missing the episodes. Then again, I keep watching the syndicated reruns, so I don’t feel that guilty. But, it’s going to feel weird to see no more “Friends.” What will NBC do? More “Average Joe”? Blech. Can’t they put “Scrubs” in a decent time slot so that I can actually watch a funny sitcom, instead of struggling to remember what time slot to program the VCR? “Scrubs” on NBC and “Arrested Development” on FOX deserve better treatment to let them develop as sitcoms and make us laugh.

“The Apprentice” last night – I do feel sorry that Kwame got the wrong end of the stick in the finals; his teammates did not make it easy for him (I mean, really, losing singer Jessica Simpson in Atlantic City? come on!), and as much as he didn’t like to micromanage, he should have done so when he had such flakes on his team (Troy and Omarosa didn’t make themselves look too bright in the last episode). Bill did all right, so he was the winner, even if his own team kind of undermined him too (they didn’t make themselves look that stupid at least). Donald Trump – well, let’s just say he does not make for a good post-game show host. Couldn’t they have gotten Jeff Probst (“Survivor”) or Bryant Gumbel or someone half-way more talented than Trump to ask the contestants follow up questions? Oh, well. It was a guilty-pleasure kind of show, thanks to the good-editing and showmanship efforts of producer Mark Burnett.

Enjoy the spring weekend…

One hopes that the rain in the NYC area means May flowers, or at least a nice upcoming weekend.

Movie recommendation: I saw “Ella Enchanted” on Sunday. It’s a nice, harmless PG film (PG due to some snarky moments), about Ella of Frell, a daughter of an impoverished aristocrat. Ella’s fairy godmother gave her the dumbest possible “gift” – the “gift” of “obedience.” Some obvious plot holes (i.e., doesn’t it occur to Ella that obedience can still be defined within reasonable grounds? Or is that me-the-lawyer talking?). But, a cute movie, as Ella allies herself with the elves, ogres, and giants to overcome her excessive obedience problem; rebel against the evil Sir Edgar, who segregated the enchanted kingdom in the name of the regency on behalf of his nephew, Prince Char (short for Charmant, which appears to be French for “Charming”); inspire Prince Char to become a good king; and, of course, fall in love with Prince Char, who’s smitten with the decidedly disobedient Ella.

(sidenote: elf was campaigning to the prince to let said elf go to law school, because it was discriminatory to prohibit elves from the practice of law and restrict them only to the entertainment business; nice idea).

Apparently, it’s not true to the original kids’ book (then again, how many movies are truly true to their original books?), but I never read the book so it’s not like I knew that. Kids in the audience (and there were many) enjoyed it for the funny moments; adults liked it because it was something to take the kids to see and star Anne Hathaway was a nice watch because you could watch and know she has star wattage. My friend and I particularly enjoyed Hugh Dancy (who has played Daniel Deronda in Masterpiece Theatre’s “Daniel Deronda”) as Prince Char (a.k.a., the obligatory cute English guy); i.e., the filmmakers knew full well that we the adult female audience love some charming male eye candy who also looks like he has a mind and soul; sigh…

A fun movie all in all. So, feel free to take your kids, your nieces and nephews, and even your significant other (presuming you don’t get jealous about her drooling over said cute English guy).

Some serious stuff:

– David Brooks in the NY Times poses a question – how do we cope in a world of uncertainty? Says Brooks:

“Facing such great uncertainties, [former Secretary of State George] Shultz continued, the president has to take extra care to prepare the electorate: ‘The public must understand before the fact that some will seek to cast any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by us in the worst light and will attempt to make our military and our policy makers — rather than the terrorists — appear to be the culprits. The public must understand before the fact that occasions will come when their government must act before each and every fact is known.’

“The Shultz speech [back in 1984] opened a rift within the Reagan administration. Shultz’s argument was that uncertainty forces us to be aggressive. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, on the other hand, argued that uncertainty should make us cautious. As one Weinberger aide told The Times, ‘The Pentagon is more aware of the downside of military operations and therefore is cautious about undertaking operations where the results are as unpredictable as in pre-emptive strikes against terrorists.’

“Shultz and Weinberger were clear and mature. Both understood there is no perfect answer to terror and both understood the downsides of their respective positions.”

Brooks posits that we’re surrounded by political leaders who want to be like Shultz but are “Weinbergerian” over the Iraq issue; politicians these days are not consistent, Brooks says. Brooks says that we’re not being educated by our leaders about what it means to live in uncertain times, and he closes: “When you read the Shultz speech, you get the impression the country is aging backward. Twenty years ago we had a leader who treated us like adults, mature enough to cope with harsh uncertainties. Now we’re talked to as if we’re children, which, if you look at the hypocrisy-laden terror debate, is about what we deserve.”

Hmm. I wonder if it’s not just hypocrisy but also because the leadership is no more certain than the rest of us. Which is scarier – hypocrisy or plain old ignorance (and, to go with ignorance, indecision about what to really do)?

– I’ve also been following these stories about Justice Scalia, his public speech, and his marshal, who confiscated tapes/recordings belonging to the press who were recording for purposes of reporting on his public speech. Slate.com’s Dahlia Lithwick asked and answered the question that occurred to me: who the heck are these marshals who are doing that and on what (legal) grounds did they think they were acting? I’m amazed that Scalia apologized – but then said that he had no power over the marshals. So, if he has no power over the US marshals, then what on earth made them decide to do what they did? And, he apparently planned to continue to prohibit the broadcast press to record him but let the press media record him for accuracy purposes (because he did not like incorrect attributions or misquotes) – but how can one have it both ways? I’m just not sure of what to make of it.

Fascinating story in NY Times on NY’s own Justice Ira Gammerman.

And, on the Asian-American front: a NY1 story on modern bhangra, traditional Indian music with a twist – some hip-hop and reggae. NY1 even profiles an Asian Indian female DJ who spins her modern bhangra at the local club scene. Sounds like a fun story.

Some interesting bits:

– Fascinating NY Times’ article on the joy of Passover, when Orthodox Jews find a way to enjoy the Ringling Brothers’ circus and still be kosher.

– An Easter thing: Slate.com’s Explainer explains the meaning of the Peeps and Easter. Cool. So glad those little marshmallow-like chickies are only available once a year.

– Fascinating NY Times article on a Henry Louis Gates’ project of a database on a database of African-American biographies. Gates feels that this an opportunity to fills gaps in history. Shelby Steele and other African-American conservative scholars worry that such a project only serves to put African-American stories outside the mainstream, i.e., it separates their stories under the guise of putting them on a pedestal. John McWhorter, another conservative writer, questions the impact of these stories being put out – will they really inspire people, or convince people that African-Americans are tragic – considering the many stories of sadness and injury.

– An Asian-American law school friend and I had this conversation that is sort of relevant to what I read in that article about the African-American bios and I wonder, so, what are stories telling us about others/ourselves? See, my friend was unhappy by how the American mainstream media, particularly the NY Times, seems to always cast Asians, particularly China and Chinese, in a negative way. I didn’t necessarily agree with her that the media was anti-Chinese – but then again, I tried to counter that it wouldn’t be consistently easy to cast China in a certain positive a light when the mainstream doesn’t approve of Communism (as it officially still exists in whatever guise in China, putting aside other questionable things about China, like human rights dilemmas and environmental fears, etc.). Plus, I took the view that the mainstream media in general didn’t report on international news properly anyway.

But, really – how do the stories that get told, and the manner in which they’re told, affect us? Do people perceive Chinese people in America or Chinese in China more negatively than they should be, because the media reports them negatively, if it bothers to report their stories at all? Will the African-American biographies – and by extention, African-American history in general – be seen as just tragic? I just don’t know. I’d like to be positive and say that media consumers are savvy enough to not just accept stories at face value and realize that history isn’t inevitable – nothing in history says that things must follow a tragic end. Some stories turn out to be inspirational, but we don’t that they are either sad/happy until we even look at them. History develops; it’s only in hindsight that we think/realize that there’s is a direction.

Sometimes, I think blaming the media is too easy. Sometimes, I wonder if more people can be independent thinkers and weigh what they read before they say anyone is tragic or inspiring. There’s no quick and easy either-or anyway – just a lot of grays, since no one, in contemporary times or in history, is perfect.

Well, enjoy the spring; nice weather today.

Various stuff:

“Proudly Answering to ‘Jersey Girl,’” – writer Helene Stapinski traces the origins and the definition of the true “Jersey Girl.” Being from Brooklyn, it’s not like I know what being from Jersey means, but I thought that this article was fascinating. Apparently, the Jersey Girl is not just some 1980’s invention with the Big Hair/Make-Up/Thick Accent; she is the sweet but spirited gal of the 1890’s, back to the early development of Miss America’s Atlantic City origins.

So, even NJ – the state perpetually caught between Philadelphia and NYC – has some history none of us realizes. And, speaking of the turn-of-the-century, Times Square is celebrating its 100th Anniversary. Cool. Is everything celebrating something in NYC? The subway’s 100 years old; my undergraduate alma mater is celebrating 250th anniversary. People forget that NYC is an old city, since it’s constantly re-inventing itself and seems always new.

Connecticut (one of the newspapers quoted Coach Jim Calhoun of the men’s basketball team describing his state as one trapped between NYC and Boston) – is celebrating how UConn’s men and women basketball teams are NCAA champions. How does one school do it? It’s amazing – or maybe I’m a little jealous. Seeing one’s school like that – that’s just way too cool (well, putting aside the whole rioting-burning-the-school/town-down). Hmm.

Some Asian-related reading that I thought was interesting:

NY Times’ Dining section on Vietnamese cooking; sounds very interesting.

Slate.com is celebrating poetry month; poetry editor Robert Pinsky (former Poet Laureate) selects “Reading the Poetry of Meng Chao” by the 11thCentury Chinese poet Su Tung-p’o (translated by Burton Watson), a poem about reading bad poetry. Interesting poem – one feels the frustration of Su Tung-p’o in reading a not-very-good poem – apparently, a perennial feeling, no matter the century.

Some notable stuff:

UPS commercial – the Brown/Brun/etc… ads, wherein UPS men all over the world are doing their thing. I liked the one where the Chinese guy is telling the Chinese woman (in Cantonese, I think) about a UPS guy on the other side of the world… while the American UPS guy is doing the exact same thing with the American woman – and both women look at their respective UPS guys skeptically. Meanwhile, there’s still that FedEx ad, wherein Chinese man, muttering angrily in Cantonese about his delivery thing, and the young Chinese mailroom guy saying one thing: “FedEx.” “Oh,” said older Chinese man, feeling much better. Hmm. Two delivery service ads using Cantonese. Say, I bet if I watched more tv ads in Cantonese, I mights actually learn the mother tongue. (Umm, sure, in fantasy land, maybe!) But, at least I’m entertained (although, I really hate the idea of referring UPS as merely “Brown.” I mean, that’s just stupid – why on earth do I have to call you by your – umm – color? Can you really make the word for a color your trademark? Arguably, yeah, you can, but, it just isn’t a great idea to me, that’s all).

And, then there’s the interesting Verizon ads of late – where you have this Hispanic looking family using every Verizon product possible, while their three-year old is messing around the house. My brother noted to me that the family seemed bi-racial to him – since the dad looked a little too light-skinned and, well, a shade too clueless about importing his digital pictures to his e-mail. While dropping by NY Times.com, there was the link to the Verizon’s website, for more info on (what else?) their products and how the Perez-Elliotts use their phone/DSL/etc. service. I couldn’t resist and I clicked to see more info on the family. Personally, I like the idea of this multicutural/multiracial/multiethnic thing – it’s seems like a sunny look at the 21st century America. Plus, the mom turned out to be a lawyer – great plug for the legal profession and its demographics (“Yes, a Latina woman with four kids, a techno-clueless husband, and a really big dog can do her job just fine, thank you very much”).

In honor of baseball season’s opening, here’s a link to a profile of the 1986 NY Mets and how they made us feel good.

I could link this, but I’ll resist it for now – the latest Mary Worth comic strip storyline is mondo bizarre. The new tenant in Mary Worth’s condo is apparently a male chauvinist pig, as he expresses his view that he cannot marry a woman who has an “agenda” outside the home. Uh, okay, what century is he living in? You get the bubble thought from Mrs. Cameron, the neighbor, who’s pretty confidant that the guy is not going to do well in his new advertising executive job with his view of women. And, yet, there’s a hint that the guy may have a reason for his view – maybe he was scarred for life by his – gasp – evil, hard-working mom who abandoned him for her career. Jeez, this better unfold properly. I didn’t like the way Mary Worth gang ended their previous storyline.

And, another comical comic strip note – today’s Doonesbury was hilarious take on the Condileeza Rice v. Richard Clarke spat… (link to the Slate.com, wherein you too can find the link to the 4/5/04 edition of Doonesbury).

I was actually watching “Ten Commandments” last night – or most of it, anyway (I’m too much of a channel changer to watch the whole thing properly). Stuart Klawan’s NY Times article about Cecil B. DeMille indicated that ABC aired DeMille’s “Ten Commandments” to coincide with Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” (Klawan’s otherwise interesting article specifically includes this remark: “You may catch DeMille’s ‘Ten Commandments’ (1956) tonight on ABC (evidently broadcast in response to the success of ‘The Passion’)”) – I think Klawans had it slightly wrong to allude to such ridiculous intention on ABC’s part – ABC aired “Ten Commandments” every year around Holy Week/Passover time. Mel is the one with the sense of timing to get “The Passion…” during Lent. (ABC airing a movie on Judas a couple of weeks ago, when Mel’s movie came out – yeah, _that_ was crude of ABC; but the same cannot be said about what ABC did with “Ten Commandments”). I’ll give ABC that much credit for trying to stick with some shred of tradition.

To the Jewish folks – have a nice Passover. To the Christians – have a nice Holy Week. And, may we please have some warmer temperatures in NYC?….

Sunday NY Times’ reading – “For Japanese Girls, Black is Beautiful” – Japanese obsession of African-American hip-hop culture leads artist Iona Rozeal Brown to explore Japanese art – or, as the article caption puts it, “Iona Rozeal Brown’s works are a cross-cultural hybrid: a black artist using a Japanese style to paint Japanese women who are obsessed with black culture.” There’s irony atop of irony. Even Brown feels that the Japanese enthusiasm has some offensive elements to it, but she in turn doesn’t want to co-opt Japanese art. The article closes with Brown curious to look into China and Korea’s interest in hip-hop. Synergy is good, even if co-option may be negative.

Buddhist sculpture really does reflect Buddhist evolution, as Buddhism navigated from West to East, incorporating elements of India, China, Korea, and Japan. The Washington Post has a most enlightening article on a current Wasington, D.C., exhibit of Buddhist sculpture.

35th anniversary of “Sesame Street” – and somehow the Washington Post has this strange interview with Grover (who confesses that Julianne Moore broke his heart onetime – huh? The little blue guy gets around).

Have a good week.

One more entry for the day – I was away for awhile, so might as well make up for lost time, right? (and, FC, where are more California stories? Post them, if not a picture or something!)

– Men’s final four on Saturday – Georgia Tech v. Oklahoma State. As of this hour, Georgia Tech has won – not a team I picked at all. Duke v. U Conn is about to begin….

Need some on-line or news reading? Some suggestions…
(a) Political reading?
– Slate.com’s William Saletan has an interesting analysis on the George W. Bush camp’s criticism of the George W. Bush’s opponents and critics. If everybody who started out as supporting GWB initiatives/policies then didn’t like the execution of the initiatives/policies (or lack thereof), are such “flip-floppers” really so wrong, as the GWB camp would say they are? Well, I don’t think they’re traitors – maybe they legitimately changed their minds. Maybe they’re not just being “political” averse to GWB. Hmm.

– NY Times notes the Conservative Republicans’ attempt to oust moderate/old-time Republicans who aren’t as conservative, as seen in the example of a bunch of the conservatives out to take down Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pennsylvania). There is something not smart about what the hard-core conservatives are doing – they’re not being any better than George W. Bush camp’s “either you’re with us or you’re against us” line of thought. Why attack an incumbent senator, when your real target should be the opposition party, i.e., the possible Demoractic candidate? Have they not learned anything from the Democrats – intraparty problems won’t help in the long run? On the other hand, the Bush camp will likely make everyone in the GOP unite in time for the convention in NYC (heavens knows that some of these hard-core conservatives are scared out of their minds to be coming to my hometown because, you know, the hometown is Sin City to them, especially when there are a bunch of liberals around here) – but, seriously, I miss the true moderate Republican, and the conservatives’ blatant opposition to the moderates of their own party is unappetizing stuff.

(b) NY Times’ early posting of the travel articles – nice article on Macao. I’ve never been there, so I wonder if this article does it any justice. On the other hand, I thought it was fascinating anyway – never realized that the Portugeuse influence was so strong in Macao.

The latest American Express commercial with the golf course and the gopher from the “Caddyshack” movie – it’s funny – the gopher’s cute, in a psycho way (as he was in the movie – disclaimer: I have yet to watch all “Caddyshack” from start to finish, but have watched the commercials and parts of it often enough when WPIX Channel 11 used to show it every year). Anyway, Tiger Woods as the Bill Murray role (the guy out to get the gopher and couldn’t) – funny and very expressive (has Tiger been improving on the acting thing?). I almost didn’t realize that it was Tiger – he had the whole slacker-Murray look down well.

Plot: Tiger almost destroys the golf course because of his Ahab chase of Gopher. His clever move to get Gopher – using his American Express card to hire a terminator who knows the best way to get Gopher – using that darn song from “Caddyshack” will apparently “always works” to get Gopher out of the hole and do his little dance and create an ample opportunity to dump Gopher into a bag. Tiger is happy. Golf course back to normal. Does it make me want to use my American Express more? Umm, no. But, it does make me want to watch “Caddyshack.” And, again, Gopher’s so cute and furry, even if, well, destructive. B+ commercial.

So it goes. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Sleep to keep some shred of the lost hour…

Oh, jeez, I think I’m going to have to quit eating or something. Three days worth of alma maters events, and I’m just stuffed. These things are so good about good food – especially since my undergraduate alma mater was going above and beyond its usual cheese-and-wine (well, they always did have good cheese, so I won’t complain about that)…

Thursday night was a nice dinner at my undergraduate alma mater, honoring achieving alumnae (theme: honoring them for their achievements in academia, as professors/scholars in areas of history, sociology, and other humanities areas); so nice that we did this dinner instead of the usual cheese-and-wine offering. The food: grilled vegetables-with-cheese as appetizer; slightly overdone, yet flavorful chicken atop of a mango-like salsa, with pasta and some vegetable sides; and dessert – ooh-la-la, mousse between meringue/biscuit slices. Mmm. Worth the nominal donation to enjoy.

And, of course, Friday night was the law school alma mater alumni dinner – you know, that seminal event that brings in all the Asian foods that you can eat, for free (always good). And, dessert – ooh, the association has outdone themselves this year – spongy cakes with creamy goodness; cheesecake-y goodness; cookies; mmm…

And, Saturday – I went back up to undergrad alma mater for the Dean’s day stuff, wherein the very women we honored made lectures in their areas, along with other alma mater profs. I had a great time – the overview lecture on African-Americans of NYC of 1626-1865 was so good; the lecture on the colonial origins of the Old South made me re-think issues of race and slavery in this country; and the lecture on 18th and 19th Centuries Siberia’s attempts of using (exploiting) the domesticity cult to make undesirable convicts settle down in Siberia (yeah, like a good Christian marriage will really make a vagrant/theif/political dissenter love Siberia; no wonder the Russian government never convinced people to stop seeing Siberia as a convict colony) – why, the lectures all reminded me why I loved being a history major (especially the ones about American history) and made me so proud that alma mater has produced some really amazing alumnae (yes, co-education was really great for alma mater, even if it meant that the gender demographics are really skewed on campus, since the all-women’s school is across the street – but I think it’s worked out fine, really). Oh, and the dean – I love him, but it’s pretty obvious that I’ve attended enough events that I almost know what he’s going to say before he says it. And, in the middle of all of this, I signed up for the luncheon at the last minute – grilled salmon, some kind of vegetable roll, and salad side. Dessert: chocolate covered nugget of chocolate and vanilla mousse-y goodness… mmm. (I’m like Homer Simpson, drooling…)

What this means: I ought to work out to burn the calories. Perhaps it will only happen in my dreams. Do we even burn any calorie when we dream? And, when will the warm weather/sunshine come? Pretty please?

Watch out – one hour forward; lose one hour’s sleep. Aargh….

– Some interesting remarks about “American Idol” on Slate.com – personally, I still can’t believe that the red-headed young man from upstate NYS is still on “American Idol” after yesterday’s weak performance.

– Tonight, other than “American Idol,” I’ve also watched the full hour of “The O.C.” on FOX. Interesting show. I’m impressed that they managed to do a little Passover in their episode today. Nicely acted and tightly written (or certainly feels like it is well-written). But, if this is California, where are the people of color? (there seems to be some indication of Latinos, I suppose). Where are the Asians? (well, they weren’t on “Dawson’s Creek” and had limited appearances on “Friends”)…

– Alistair Cooke recently passed away. He was host of “Masterpiece Theatre”; it was before I started watching it (I’ve been watching more of it since Russell Baker became host), but I grew up appreciating and enjoying Alistair Cookie of Monsterpiece Theatre of Sesame Street, as Muppet-inspired as it was. Cooke has an impact, I can say that much and I liked all the articles on Cooke’s style and work. Slate.com has an interesting article, reflecting how the British saw him as the Americanized chap who could report on Americans while the Americans saw him as an English gentleman – when he was an American citizen who still reported for BBC all these years.

– NY Times’ Dining Section profiles this guy who takes digital pictures of his food, to keep a food diary. Kind of scary to think about – do you really want to keep that good a track of what you eat, visually anyway?

– And, in Asian-American news:
Asia Society appoints an Asian-American female art historian to be its president. Vishakha N. Desai, a scholar of classical Indian art, will be in charge in July 2004. Yay for Asian American women!

Beware the April Fool’s Day thing.

– Men’s NCAA Basketball Final Four: Georgia Tech v. Oklahoma State; Duke v. UConn. The only thing I got right was Duke, and I didn’t even pick Duke to be the final two or final one. Oh, well. Should be an interesting pair of games – wonder if UConn will beat Duke…? (the only “local” team left is UConn…)

– This weekend, I finished reading “An Antic Disposition” by Alan Gordon. Great, great book of a great series. Series summary: the series takes place in the late 12th century Europe; the protagonist the mysterious jester Feste of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” is more than meets the eye, in acting not just as a comedian but as a catalyst of geo-political matters of the times). The latest book is a version of “Hamlet,” picking up themes that Mr. Gordon has put in place in the series – and it’s such a wonderfully emotional story. Lest ye think that this isn’t blog-relevant, be advised that according to the bookjackets of each book in the series, Mr. Gordon is an attorney for Legal Aid Society in Queens – a member of the profession with remarkable talent.

– Actor/writer/humanitarian Peter Ustinov passed away yesterday. He will be remembered for a lot of things; I enjoyed watching him in one or two PBS documentaries, where he had such a sophisticated air and lovely plummy accent while regaling on the romance of the Orient Express. One of his more famous roles was as the famous fictitious Orient Express detective, Agatha Christie’s Hercules Poirot.

– On a pleasant note, baseball season is coming, baseball season is coming!!!