Category: Brooklyn

July 4th – watched “Wall-E” – great movie! Highly recommended. Leaves a lump in the throat about the fate of humanity – and the life of one little robot.

It also strongly reminded me about Asimov’s rules for/about robots. Ah, that Asimov.

TV on the 4th of July consisted of watching the fireworks and enjoying viewing on cable “1776,” the movie version of the musical (probably should be seen more as a play really, according to Wikipedia, considering how much lines are spoken rather than sang) of the Continental Congress and the grappling of how they agreed on independence.

And, yes, that’s right, that was William Daniels, the former Mr. Feeney of “Boy Meets World” and the voice of KITT of the original “Knight Rider,” as John Adams. Take that, Paul Giamatti! (who did John Adams in the HBO miniseries)… well, actually, if Paul Giamatti could sing, maybe he could try “1776” too.

A day after Venus Williams beat Serena Williams in Wimbledon, the Big News of today: Nadal beat Federer in Wimbledon.

Anyway, it’s soon that time of year – the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Voting continues until Jully 10 for starters; the game’s at Yankee Stadium, to enjoy before it goes away to history.

Recent reads; generally all good subway reads:

Following up on a previous post that previewed this, I finally got to read the book (and FC already read it): “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles” by Jennifer 8. Lee – what a great read! Not just a look at Chinese American cuisine, but also about what it means to be American. Highly recommended read (plus the official blog is pretty awesome too).

About two weeks ago, I attended Jennifer 8. Lee’s presentation on the book at an APA alumni event sponsored by another Ivy League institution (not Alma Mater); nifty! She’s engaging, and the slideshow she presented supplemented the book in a really invigorating and entertaining way.

“Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President,” by Lincoln Chafee – a read I got from the library. Chafee wrote about his experience in Congress as a frustrated moderate Republican – illuminating and disillusioning; but I’ll take off points toward his book as a moderate manifesto; it’s kind of hard to motivate moderates to become active fighters when the very nature of moderation is not to fight. It was an easy read, but sad – sad as in the sympathy I felt for Chafee, but I felt frustrated with him for how he described his frustrating situation – he could have done more to stand up to the problems with the Bush administration and the weak Congress, but he was only a junior senator who was dealing with his own Democratic-dominated state. Also, while I’m not as hard on either of the parties as Chafee may be, but he has an interesting perspective.

“Death by Black Hole” by Neil deGrasse Tyson – terrific read!! A collection of the astrophysicist’s essays, it makes you appreciate science. He’s opinionated, in a traditional NYC manner (he is a native New Yorker, after all), and smart and writes persuasively. Highly recommended read. Barnes and Noble has the hard cover edition as a bargain (well, that may actually depend on the store, but it’s available).

Neil deGrasse Tyson has also been a nifty host on Nova Science Now. See, I have a theory that if kids and adults watch more of this stuff, we might have a more educated populace. In theory, of course; I’m not sure what is the status of education as it is.

Hmm… okay, as noted in the previous post, I have a crush on Juan Diego Florez. 😉 He has such a charm and a voice, and can act very well (at least of the comic operas that I’ve seen so far on Channel 13). YouTube has quite some stuff, notably the report on how he got to those high C’s in such an easy sounding way (it probably isn’t easy!; plus, I didn’t realize and was fascinated that Pavarotti was made famous by that same role):

Sometimes I think that the NY Times has some fascinating obituaries of fascinating people – these are not just accomplished people – they’re people who cared about what they did and who they were; consider the recent passing of Kermit Love, the costume designer for various ballets – and behind Big Bird.

The tips on how to see movies in a cheaper way. Umm, if the theaters are showing less matinees at matinee rates, then I’m not sure what would be the best of solutions…

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick on the significance of the US Supreme Court in this year’s presidential election – whether people get it or not.

Oh, my Lithwick and Slate host the annual Supreme Court overview.

Tom Brokaw as the interim moderator on “Meet the Press” – well, I watched most of his interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the discussion with Chuck Todd. Tom’s the fair choice – he won’t ruffle feathers too much, he’ll do the job, and all that. NY Times’ Alessandra Stanley has her write up on Tom’s “Meet the Press” appearance, and she concludes:

It’s hard to know whether NBC has bigger plans for Mr. Todd, who, like Mr. Russert in his early days as Washington bureau chief, is a political savant first, on-air personality second. But no single journalist in NBC’s large pool of talent seems ideally suited to replace Mr. Russert. If that is impossible, then it makes sense to recast the job and return to the early days when guests really did meet the press, answering to a panel of inquisitors who together did what Mr. Russert did alone.

I like Chuck Todd too, and would love to see PBS’ Gwen Ifill back on network tv (“Washington Week“‘s almost like “Meet the Press,” only without the grilling of politicians). but I kind of see Stanley’s point – maybe it is time for a return to a more truer “Meet the Press” by actually having the press back on the show again.

Other Sunday stuff — watched most of Channel 13/WNET’s airing of “SundayArts” – with the opera in French: “La Fille Du Regiment.” I’m hardly into opera, but the good stuff can be good for you. Singer Natalie Dessay was funny and has such a voice as Marie, the daughter of the regiment; and Juan Diego Florez has a fantastic voice and he’s somehow both hot and cute. 😉 (I thought he was great as Count Almaviva in the previous airing of “The Barber of Seville“).

Waterfalls in the city — I’m going to have to see them – do they meet the hype, or is it over-hyped? Hmm…

Stuff to note just before the July 4th holiday… Slate’s Jacob Weisberg on the cool stuff out there in books and the web on early American history.

This will have to do until the next posting…

A pretty Saturday – such nice weather in the city! Did some ambling and shopping in midtown, after a writers group meeting. How nice and relaxing!

Argh — Time’s critic, James Poniewozik, on the probability of another tv strike, only by the actors. Please, SAG, don’t take the tv actors into a strike; losing a huge chunk of the 2007-2008 season was bad enough! I don’t want any more crappy replacement tv!

Seriously, I wanted to throw up as my family’s tv was on FOX’s “So You Think You can Dance” – why they were watching it, I don’t even know. The fact that I preferred PBS’ airing of “Swan Lake” on “Great Performances” (while still not quite understanding what this ballet is about) – well, goes to show you that I must be a tv snob, since I so can’t stomach various elements of reality tv.

Thanks to my friend (you know who you are), BBC has this fascinating story about Chinese-South Africans – who could be considered “black,” since being categorized as “white” hadn’t helped and the apartheid era categorized them as “mixed” or “colored.” Kind of reminded me of how Chinese Americans and Asian Americans generally are in this weird position in American history of race relations.

The NY Times’ Mark “the Minimalist” Bittman on banana paletas – basically banana sorbet popsicles. In the on-line video, Bittman makes the popsicles with the sort-of assistance of the mini-Minimalist. Aww! A mini-Minimalist!

NY Times’ Jennifer 8. Lee on the translation of Chinese food, pre-Olympics. Translating is complicated stuff.

A Newsweek article on how night owls may become morning people. The hard part would be following the tips; I’m sooo not a morning person!

NY Times’ Alessandra Stanley on Michelle Obama’s guesting on “The View” on ABC; Stanley raised some interesting points on how Michelle Obama had a somehow be real, but not too real (she apparently emphasized her mom role – a no doubt real role – but less on her law career – a real part of herself, too). I haven’t watched “The View” in years, but I must admit – it’s tough to be a prospective First Lady (Spouse) these days, since it means doing what you might not want to do to either combat looking too real or too fake – and downplaying who you really are.

For Sunday’s anticipation: Masterpiece Mystery! is airing Inspector Lewis episodes! It’ll be interesting to see how Lewis proceeds as his own man, now that he’s no longer Inspector Morse’s sidekick. The pilot episode of Inspector Lewis from a year or two ago made Lewis into a widower in mourning. Considering he was the good family man to contrast confirmed bachelor/beer-swilling Morse, I thought it was sad that they made Lewis into such a loner – so it’d be nice to see a somehow happier Lewis (to some degree; losing his wife and Morse to the afterlife were blows to the man).

NY Times’ Ginia Bellafante reviews the Lewis episodes and she says they’re good – and she notes the class/power dynamics between Lewis and his partners. My quibble: Morse may have been the erudite one – but was he more of a higher class than Lewis? If I remember correctly, he was a university drop-out and his parents were working class – but he did listen to way much more opera than Lewis would have cared. Lewis’ new partner is much more a clear upper class type — well, young Sergeant Hathaway isn’t Morse, that’s for sure.

Interesting little story – the inspiration for Kermit the Frog (or the source of Kermit’s name anyway) – a childhood friend of Jim Henson, passes away.

Sunday: I thought the Tony Awards show was interesting, but not that much fun. The ending was kind of rushed (as usually the case with awards shows) and there were too many samplings from the Disney musicals (I could do without those, even though I do understand that they have them for the purposes of trying to entice people to come see Broadway fare). Whoopi Goldberg’s skits were a little silly, but were again probably to entice people to come see Broadway fare. Not enough on the plays – would have liked some samplings of those.

But, I really enjoyed the samplings from “Sunday in the Park With George” and “South Pacific” (the stars were quite hot…), and enjoyed the enthusiasm of the new stuff “In the Heights” and “Passing Strange.” I also thought the “Rent” reunion was also poignant.

NY Times’ Jennifer 8. Lee on this Williamsburg artist who uses Ikea cardboard boxes into sculpture — okay, so, this craze for the upcoming new Ikea’s starting to feel just a bit much – just a bit…! 😉

The sad and strange firing of NY Mets manager Willie Randolph. I’ll grant that firing Willie Randolph as Mets manager may have been warranted; but it was the way that it was done that was terrible. 3am EST in California, after the Mets won a game? Ridiculous! NY Times’ William Rhoden notes that as bizarre and humiliating as it was, it wasn’t a surprising firing and it’s a resolution and now time to play ball. Newsday’s Barbara Barker notes that, whether we like Willie Randolph or not, it was how the firing was done. I kind of wonder if firing someone’s like a band aid – it may be painful, but you just got to do it. Being indecisive about it doesn’t make anyone look good.

Big Bird!!! (or at least a fascinating video profile on how Carol Spinney’s been doing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch all these years and counting — watch the end, where Carol Spinney, rehearsing a Sesame Street scene, waves to the Associated Press camera and says in the Big Bird voice “Bye, bye, everybody. Don’t watch Barney…” LOL! .. oh, and the text version of the profile‘s also interesting, but the video’s priceless.

On a sadder note: the passing of Cyd Charisse, known for her dancing on the MGM movies. I always loved this quote of hers, on how her husband knew who she was dancing with in a filming: “‘If I was black and blue,’ she said, ‘it was Gene [Kelly]. And if it was Fred [Astaire], I didn’t have a scratch.’” Watch those dance moves she had with Gene Kelly – wow, that was stunning stuff (not knocking Astaire, but I love Kelly). How sad that they’re now all gone.

Saturday: watched “Kung Fu Panda.” Sweetly funny, cute and exciting fight scenes. Not offensive as I was afraid it’d be (maybe because using furry animals helps avoid cultural stereotypes to some degree), and teaches some interesting little morals for the kids in the audience.

Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly’s at-large critic – and longtime tv critic – put in his two-cents in remembering Tim Russert.

WPIX, a.k.a. CW11, is celebrating its 60th Anniversary! So, it’s airing all a marathon of the old tv shows they’ve aired – “My Favorite Martian,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “The Odd Couple,” “Get Smart” (in time for the movie, really!), and a retrospective of the history. My big Channel 11 memory: Channel 11 was where I was introduced to Star Trek (Star Trek: The Next Generation, and then watching oodles of original Star Trek reruns, and then Star Trek: DS9). I remembered that “Voltron” was also on Channel 11. NYC’s Movie Channel at one point (during the Oscars time, they’d drag out all the Oscar winning movies from the vault), and for awhile, kept airing “Dirty Dancing” as an annual thing (or it sure felt like that). The afternoon, after school cartoons during the 1980’s and 1990’s (not to mention the weird cartoons on Sundays). The “Friends” rerurns, “Everyone Loves Raymond” reruns (before Channel 9 bought “Raymond”). It’s a NYC fixture – local all the way, kind of like how “Daily News” is the hometown paper that’s left standing (perhaps it’s no surprise that Channel 11’s in the Daily News building). Quite the local channel – I think Marvin Scott’s the one who’s been longest now on Channel 11? Happy Anniversary!

Around here on triscribe, Asian Pacific American Heritage is… every day, ’cause we’re Asian Pacific Americans (and it’s only fair to recognize all Americans)… so it’s only good to see a report that tackles the “model minority” myth.

US Federal Magistrate Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, once confirmed, may become the first Asian Pacific American District Court Judge of the Eastern District of New York. How exciting!

On a not-so inspirational-level story: Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of Federal Appeals’ 9th Circuit is in a bit of a pickle, having some not-good-stuff on his personal website, thus referring the matter to judicial ethics review. The NY Daily News goes even further, putting up photos about Ch. Judge Kozinski’s time on “The Dating Game” back in the 1960’s (what? he did that before he became the judge who wrote all the gripping opinions we became familiar back in law school, particularly in the area of Intellectual Property? Good Grief!). Hmm.

An interesting read on diversity behind and in front of the tv screen, in this week’s Entertainment Weekly.

The New Brooklyn — they think they want to bring Manhattan to Brooklyn? Geez Louise, what’s with people!

Enjoy Father’s Day.

No, it’s not yet Sunday, but what a shock – the sad passing of Tim Russert. NBC/MSNBC pulling out a massive tribute. Our Sunday mornings will never be the same – “Meet the Press” without Russert? The rest of the presidential campaign without this man and the white board?

It seemed quite fitting that Tom Brokaw, the longtime leader/face of NBC News, got to present the story:

And, I do agree with Tom: NBC won’t be the same – but, even more so – neither will broadcast news, which is increasingly marginalized and broken into different forums on the Internet or cable. In a way, I feel as I did when Peter Jennings passed – when I realized nothing would be quite the same with how we watch or learn from the news. At least we all knew Tim Russert. Tim (whom I felt I could look on as a first-name basis as I would the Dan/Tom/Peter era) was the face of politics on news television, and a man who made us think about our fathers and our sons. How sad that he passes before Father’s Day. His “Go, Bills” at the end of “Meet the Press” during football season, to remind viewers of his love of the Buffalo Bills; his love of Buffalo; and his great gotcha moments when he would point a Senator to the screen to see his own words – a litigator’s move to learn and appreciate; a New Yorker who became the consummate Washingtonian insider, without forgetting that he was a man who connected with other human beings.

Still thinking about the World Science Festival. Sounded like it was a rousing success; NY Times’ Dennis Overbye gave a good report:

That was the World Science Festival in New York City this past weekend: 46 shows, debates, demonstrations and parties spread over five days and 22 sites between Harlem and Greenwich Village, organized by Dr. Greene, the Columbia physicist and author, and his wife, Ms. Day, a former ABC-TV producer. Jugglers and philosophers, magicians and biologists, musicians and dancers — a feast one couldn’t hope to sample fairly.

Of course, I cannot fault Dr. Greene and Ms. Day for doing such a good job that I wanted to see much more than space and time permitted. In fact, you cannot help loving them. They are the first couple of New York science. And by their boldness and energy, they seem to have created a new cultural institution.

[…] Every event sold out — confirmation, as Dr. Greene said, of “the public’s desire to connect with science.”

It hardly came off without a hitch. Tales were rampant in the weeks leading up to the festival of disorganization, programs planned, canceled and resurrected. The ticket lines were confusing. But the organizers got a lot of things right. The panel discussions, many of them guided by pros like Charlie Rose and Alan Alda, were for the most part actual discussions, or, better, arguments, and not a series of lectures.

There were flashy graphics everywhere.

I knew it was all working when my 6-year-old daughter, Mira, grabbed my notebook at a magic and “brain tricks” show and started taking notes.

What follows is a hop, skip and jump through that notebook, vivid impressions that leap out of a blur of 13 very different events. [….]

I didn’t know quite what to expect at the Moth, an organization devoted to live storytelling, where scientists and others bravely volunteered to tell tales of experiments gone wrong. But there was James Gates, an imposing string theorist from the University of Maryland with a silvered Afro who folded his entire life as a black man and a physicist into a 10-minute tale of almost falling to his death on a mountain in Iceland. Falling off a mountain, he recalled thinking with some dismay, would be a stereotypical death for a physicist, just as being shot by the police would be for a young black, something that almost happened to him on a stroll one night through Pasadena, Calif.

“Make your own trail,” came the voice over the Icelandic mountainside when he called for help. Dr. Gates said he still doesn’t know whose voice it was.

I should have seen more; I managed to catch “Q.E.D.,” the play where Alan Alda plays physicist Richard Feynman. You get to understand the scientist – the man – and the thinking he did. Great stuff!

Plus, a great op-ed piece from Brian Greene about how “our educational system fails to teach science in a way that allows students to integrate it into their lives.” He opens his article about a letter he received from a soldier in Iraq who was enthusiastic about a Greene book. Greene further writes:

The reason science really matters runs deeper still. Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive and reliable — a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional. To be able to think through and grasp explanations — for everything from why the sky is blue to how life formed on earth — not because they are declared dogma but rather because they reveal patterns confirmed by experiment and observation, is one of the most precious of human experiences.

As a practicing scientist, I know this from my own work and study. But I also know that you don’t have to be a scientist for science to be transformative. I’ve seen children’s eyes light up as I’ve told them about black holes and the Big Bang. I’ve spoken with high school dropouts who’ve stumbled on popular science books about the human genome project, and then returned to school with newfound purpose. And in that letter from Iraq, the soldier told me how learning about relativity and quantum physics in the dusty and dangerous environs of greater Baghdad kept him going because it revealed a deeper reality of which we’re all a part.

It’s striking that science is still widely viewed as merely a subject one studies in the classroom or an isolated body of largely esoteric knowledge that sometimes shows up in the “real” world in the form of technological or medical advances. In reality, science is a language of hope and inspiration, providing discoveries that fire the imagination and instill a sense of connection to our lives and our world.

If science isn’t your strong suit — and for many it’s not — this side of science is something you may have rarely if ever experienced. I’ve spoken with so many people over the years whose encounters with science in school left them thinking of it as cold, distant and intimidating. They happily use the innovations that science makes possible, but feel that the science itself is just not relevant to their lives. What a shame.

Like a life without music, art or literature, a life without science is bereft of something that gives experience a rich and otherwise inaccessible dimension. [….]

But science is so much more than its technical details. And with careful attention to presentation, cutting-edge insights and discoveries can be clearly and faithfully communicated to students independent of those details; in fact, those insights and discoveries are precisely the ones that can drive a young student to want to learn the details. We rob science education of life when we focus solely on results and seek to train students to solve problems and recite facts without a commensurate emphasis on transporting them out beyond the stars.

Science is the greatest of all adventure stories, one that’s been unfolding for thousands of years as we have sought to understand ourselves and our surroundings. Science needs to be taught to the young and communicated to the mature in a manner that captures this drama. We must embark on a cultural shift that places science in its rightful place alongside music, art and literature as an indispensable part of what makes life worth living.

It’s the birthright of every child, it’s a necessity for every adult, to look out on the world, as the soldier in Iraq did, and see that the wonder of the cosmos transcends everything that divides us.

The science of sarcasm – in last week’s Science Times.

Oh, God: physicists who are Congressmen!

Speaking of scientific thinking, consider some experimenting in life: The NY Times recently did this article about the Buddhist couple who were never more than 15 feet apart (while remaining celibate, because they were still Buddhist clergy people, somehow); so Slate’s Deputy Editor David Plotz (whose book on the history of this particular sperm bank was quite hysterical and fascinating journalism) and his journalist wife Hanna Rosin tried out their own experiment. Funny and illuminating stuff – plus a Slate video on experience of the RosinPlotzes (Plotz’s own term).

In a non-science related note: Plotz is going to be the new editor of Slate, succeeding Jacob Weisberg, who succeeded the founder of Slate, Michael Kinsley (who still contributes).

The technical nature of moving a 200 year old house: NY Times has this awesome graphic feature that recreates how the moving of Alexander Hamilton’s house is being down; quite a feat, just to move it one block!

Oh goody – the astronauts in the space station has a working toilet again. Plus a lab called “Hope.” But, I’m sure the fact that the immediate concern has been resolved relieved (uh, oops – pun!) the astronauts based in the space station…

Ah, it’s hot, and I’m too sluggish to care about much.

Saturday – friend and I went to Brooklyn Botanic Garden and later saw the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Loved the roses, hated the heat, and still bemused by the otaku / anime subcultures – and certainly a little uncomfortable about the erotic nature of some of Murakami’s pieces. Oh well.

The changes in NYC (putting aside the heat thing) –

I had seen the new “Train in Thought” prose in a subway some time ago, but I’m already missing “Poetry in Motion” – so sad that it’s no longer around. NY Times’ Jim Dwyer has an article that gives the transition of the poetry in the subway some perspective.

Some politics:

Fascinating profile on Barack Obama – particularly found these lines of Michael Powell’s article most interesting:

“[Obama] has the gift of making people see themselves in him and offers an enigmatic smile when asked about his multiracial appeal.

“‘I am like a Rorschach test,’ he said in an interview with The New York Times. ‘Even if people find me disappointing ultimately, they might gain something.’”

NY Times’ Bob Herbert raises a great point – we still have a long way to go, whether we may ever have a black president or a woman president, but we ought to savor this time, because this is really something. It’ll be a quite the dream if we may ever reach a point that having either scenario isn’t too extraordinary at all (just running for presidency is a feat regardless of race or gender, I’d daresay).

I think this is the key quote in Dahlia Lithwick’s article, regarding the generational differences between feminists:

Yes, my generation grew up in the plush comfort of academic equality and equal access to jobs. It’s true that far fewer of us have bumped our foreheads on a rigid glass ceiling. But we’re not blind to sexism and we don’t tolerate it any more than our moms did. We’ve worked very hard to broaden our definition of feminism to include women of different classes and races and we are proud that the men we date and marry have met us halfway on the little things. We don’t think our choices are frivolous. We think they are complicated.

As Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter notes, the calculus in trying to see who could be Obama’s VP is ridiculously complicated (or not that complicated – just really hard to choose). Alter’s Newsweek colleague Howard Fineman writes how it’s no less easier for McCain to select a VP.

Ooh – found this lovely time-lapse video of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s cherry blossoms:

Last but not least: the passing of Jim McKay, who will forever be remembered for the lines: “the thrill of victory… the agony of defeat.” Modern broadcast sports owes much to McKay.