Triscribe

Category: Brooklyn

  • Carol of the Bells

    Haven’t gotten into the Christmas mood yet. It’s hard when the temps have been averaging in the 50’s, the news has been generally depressing, and its been real busy at work. At least the shopping is done – P and I have been giving our Amazon Prime membership a workout, and little brown boxes with the arrow smile have been trickling in over the past week.

    Of all of the holiday songs, the Carol of the Bells is my favorite. It’s relatively short, high energy, and one of the few that are in a minor key.

    Saks Fifth Avenue
    If you’re in New York, you have to check out this display, which is opposite the tree at Rockefeller Plaza.

    Joseph Dang & Texas A&M Percussion
    Starts out as a piano recital, and then just goes crazy from there.

    Trans-Siberian Orchestra
    The original rock orchestra version – in video form.

  • Holi-daze

    As I’ve been posting irregularly – well, apologies in advance for the long post below.
    Saturday: dentist in the morning; afternoon Xmas shopping. The new Borders at Penn Station/MSG (where McGraw-Hill’s place used to be) – cool. Plenty of variety of books, I must say (well, two floors of wide space should allow for that, you’d think; sometimes I feel that the Wall Street one is a little cramped).
    Then, I went to Columbus Circle’s Time Warner building to further the goal of shopping. Walked a bit in Central Park – where upon I spy an only-in-NY thing: a parade of people dressed in Santa Claus suits or elf costumes, plus one Hanukkah Harry in blue (seriously – he was yelling out “Happy Hanukkah,” and his costume – a blue version of the Claus robe – had white letters stitched identifying him as “Hanukkah Harry”). I couldn’t get myself to ask them what was up. They didn’t show up on the local news (no, it wasn’t that important, I guess). If someone knows, just let me know, pretty please.
    As we New Yorkers look forward to the swearing-in of Gov-Elect Spitzer on New Year’s Day, we can also look forward to having the first Asian-American female in the State Assembly: Ellen Young got profiled in the NY Times on 12/13/06 (along with the new assemblyman from Brighton Beach, Bklyn, who is a foreign-born from Russia). Jonathan P. Hicks writes:

    “This is part of a trend that has been going on for some time,” said John H. Mollenkopf, the director of the Center for Urban Research at the City University Graduate Center. “And there will be more of this happening as time goes by.”

    If voters and New York City residents paid little attention to the election of these two Assembly members, it might well be that they have become accustomed to ethnic firsts. In the last decade or so, the city has seen the election of its first Asian-American Council member, John C. Liu, who is also from Flushing. During that time, Queens elected its first Hispanic assemblyman and councilman, Manhattan elected its first Dominican assemblyman and councilman, and Brooklyn elected its first Jamaican-born councilwoman.

    The new Assembly members won two of the most hotly contested Democratic primaries in New York City, and won by the narrowest of victories. [Alec] Brook-Krasny won his primary by about 140 votes, and Ms. Young won a three-candidate primary by fewer than 100 votes.

    Ms. Young was an aide to Councilman Liu and has become known in Flushing as an advocate for immigrant issues, having organized programs to help immigrants fill out Census forms. She also has served as the president of the Chinese American Voters Association.

    Her election reflects a political coming of age for Asian-Americans in Queens. After Mr. Liu’s election to the City Council in 2001, Jimmy Meng became the Assembly’s first Chinese-American member in 2004. But Mr. Meng decided not to run for re-election this year, citing health concerns.

    Ms. Young said that since her election, she had been approached by a number of Asian-American women in her district who say they consider her election an important milestone. Slightly more than 50 percent of the 22nd Assembly District’s residents are Asian-American.

    “There are quite a number of Asian woman who say that I have inspired them,” Ms. Young said. “And they are looking to me as something of a role model. I think it’s nice. But I tell them that I didn’t run because I’m an Asian-American, but that I have been dedicated to my community for 28 years.” [….]

    As I understood it from NY1’s website, which linked to the NY Times’ article: “Inside Albany” – the show aired on local PBS stations to cover NYS government, is coming to an end. Darn shame. It was a good watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon flipping to Channel 13 and seeing what actually happens in Albany. And, these days, I don’t believe our local broadcast news does that in particular depth.

    The passing of Peter Boyle, who played Frank Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

    And, in today’s paper: the passing of a NY icon – the voice of the “It’s 10pm; do you know where your children are?” Tom Gregory of Channel 5 apparently had quite a broadcasting career than just his line, but still – memorable.

    Interesting AP article posted on MSNBC – what explains the longevity of ER? “It’s the writing, stupid.” Well, we’d like to think so, don’t we? But, I’d like to think there’s almost an implied contract between certain tv shows and audiences – people develop a kind of suspension of belief to stay committed to a beloved show, no matter how it’s written or what new character they bring in to stay “fresh.” I mean, come on – why else did Bonanza lasted for as long as it did? Oh, well.

    World’s first cloned cat has… kittens. Aww. Uh, and eerie.

    The Rosie O’Donnell debacle on “The View” – wherein she imitated the Chinese language to ridicule the coverage on Danny DeVito’s conduct on “The View” thereby offending Asian-Americans – well, she apologized. I certainly cringed when I watched the clips on the news of O’Donnell’s so-called joke. Too many of us grew up with the nasty kids in the playground yelling “ching chong” and I was pissed that an adult like O’Donnell was putting it out there on mainstream tv; there were others ways to joke about the coverage on DeVito. NYC Council member John Liu had called for an apology; and apaprently O’Donnell apologized – but after her spokesperson released a statement along the lines of “well, sorry you didn’t find it funny and no offense was intended.” A group of minority journalists haven’t quite considered this matter as resolved. The San Francisco Chronicle appears to have the most comprehensive article on this, so far as I can tell.
    And, last but not least: Time announces its Person of the Year. Over the last several weeks, they were polling readers and celebrities and even published some of the ideas; some two or so weeks ago, Dr. Andrew Weil suggested to Time that the American voter be the Person of the Year because the American voter was the one who brought change and got the (now tenuous) Democratic majority in the Senate – an idea I applauded (and – well, based on what Time printed, it was pretty obvious on whose side of the Congressional aisle Dr. Weil seemed to be!). Besides, otherwise 2006 didn’t strike me as that great a year. So… guess who’s POY this year? It’s… “YOU.” Eh? Time’s Lev Grossman explains:

    But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

    The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It’s not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.

    And we are so ready for it. We’re ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

    And we didn’t just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software.

    America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux. We’re looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

    Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I’m not going to watch Lost tonight. I’m going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I’m going to mash up 50 Cent’s vocals with Queen’s instrumentals? I’m going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

    The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

    Yeah, that’s right. Blame it on YouTube. What is this world coming to, right?  Anyway, congratulations to you – uh, us – on being POY.

  • Five Points

    Friday we went to CAPA‘s variety show event at The Five Points. The best performers were the filipino alternative band Striving in Greater Hopes (SiGH) and comedian Eliot Chang.

    Food menu:
    Silk Road Cafe/The Five Points (satay, small sandwiches, soybeans)
    N.Y. Noodletown (dry wonton mein with veggies, Singapore mei fun)

    Other people’s videos here:
    Misnomer(s) – Korean MC and her violin playing sister

    SiGH – cover of Cranberries’ Zombie:
    Get this video and more at MySpace.com

  • Milestones

    Birthday: P’s mom hit 70 on Tuesday. We took her out to Ping’s Seafood Restaurant on Mott Street. A little pricey, but worth it for the food and the service. Recommended.

    Searching: Three men are still feared lost on the face of Mt. Hood. One of them is a part Asian lawyer from Brooklyn that I know. There is still hope for them.

    Passing: One of the librarians at work was killed in a tragic accident in Brooklyn Heights on Wednesday. The funeral is in Ohio on Thursday. This is the most horrible thing that could have happened to such a kind person.

    Say a prayer, would ya?

  • Xmas Shopping

    Friday night: poked around Borders on Wall St.

    While there, I skimmed a bit of the book “The Man Who Saved Britain” – a non-fiction work by Simon Winder, about how James Bond fit in the context of British history, but that the movies more or less dumbed down Bond’s value. A sociological view of Bond, if you will. The NY Times Book review of the book, by Isaac Chotiner makes the point:

    When Winder turns his attention to the books and films themselves, his analysis is less deft. He is flat-out wrong to say Bond doesn’t change as the novels progress. Fleming’s hero becomes increasingly more depressed and exhausted by his job, and there is a melancholy air to some of the later adventures. Winder’s harsh judgment of the cinematic 007 is sometimes accurate (he rightfully flags a noticeable decline in quality in the early ’70s) but often misguided (the smooth appeal of “The Spy Who Loved Me” somehow eludes him). Bond fans can (and do) debate these particulars endlessly, but it would have been useful to get more insight into what now seems the most relevant question regarding Bond: why do millions of people, many of whose homelands were once British colonies, still love to watch a British spy save the world?

    Saturday: Xmas shopping in NJ ain’t what it used to be – at least, not when I prefer the Day-After Xmas sales or just buying store gift cards these days.

    On the ride home from NJ was seeing the weird lights along Route 1, in view of the Pulaski skyway: “It Is Green Thinks Nature Even” – in big red lights. Now, my siblings and I were like “Huh?” Weird. I was convinced that the sign was actually the other way around “Even Nature Thinks Green is it.” Which would kind of makes sense. The magic of Google provides an explanation: it’s the work of a conceptual artist. Sponsored by some environmental group, the full text is “It is Green Thinks Nature Even in the Dark.” “in the Dark” was apparently on the side of a building located on the perpendicular, which you can’t see unless you’ve an aerial view or on the Pulaski Skyway. The group’s website has photos and an explanation for the text, the brainchild of artist Mary Ellen Carroll. Curiously interesting. Although just saying “Even Nature Thinks Green is it” still seems fine to me.

  • Time

    Just when we’re trying to write a moot court problem, the Supreme Court has the lowest caseload since 1953. They’re at the point that they don’t have any cases left to hear this year, which means we’ll have to look elsewhere for subject matter.

    At the same time, the House under new leadership expands from 3 abbreviated workdays to 5 next term. OK, I understand that they have to spend time at home, but nobody said that they get to work only 100 days a year.

    Family man and CNET editor James Kim found deceased in Oregon. Very sad. It wasn’t clear on the digg.com discussion whether he was found alive but passed away soon after, or he was not found in time. Hopefully he knows that his family was saved.

  • B-day

    Mail still goes to the World Trade Center – weird and depressing to think about. Don’t we know that zip code doesn’t exist anymore? What asses (sorry – that’s the only word I can think of) don’t have the sense to update their bulk mail? Guess no one knows that the zip code 10048 was the World Trade Center. (or the addresses – World Trade Center 1 to 6 – aren’t any good).

    Leonardo DaVinci’s fingerprint may actually lead to any new research about him – even what he ate or that his mother was from the Middle East? Oh-kay – I had no idea that mere ‘prints could do that. Really.

    A story on the mental health of Asian immigrants in America:

    Asian immigrants in the United States have lower rates of mental health problems than people, including those of Asian descent, who were born in the country, a new study finds.

    For example, the study found that American-born women are twice as likely to have a depressive disorder as Asian-born women living in the United States.

    The researchers interviewed nearly 2,100 native-born or immigrant Asian Americans, 18 and older, about their history of a number of mental health problems: depression, anxiety, phobias, eating disorders, substance and alcohol abuse, and post traumatic stress disorder. [….]

    I’m always a tad skeptical about psych studies involving the completion of surveys. Only 2,100 people interviewed? That’s what, statistically +/- 4 percentage points of accuracy? Who’s to say that the interview subjects weren’t lying; the stigma of mental illness being what it is and cultural differences on what is mental illness and how one deals with stress may skew who among the Asian populace even has a mental illness. Oh well; just my two cents on this topic; it’s not like I read the study or know enough about psychology or the psychology of Asians in general.
    The passing of Robert Volpe, NYC’s art-theft NYPD detective. The obit’s quite interesting; sad about a NYC figure:

    Mr. Volpe began his art career painting pictures of tugboats as a teenager and selling them for $250. By the mid-1970s, after his work had turned more abstract, he was selling paintings for $1,500 when he was not on the job for the police, browsing galleries, attending auctions, lecturing at the Smithsonian, traveling to Paris or Rome or tracking down fiendishly clever criminals.

    European law enforcement authorities have estimated that crimes involving art and antiquities are third on the list of illicit trade, after drugs and weapons. As epicenter of the art world, New York brims with priceless art in museums and private residences, and according to Mr. Volpe, is the world’s clearinghouse for stolen art.

    Before Mr. Volpe was unleashed in 1971 as the city’s first and only art detective, art crimes were handled by the burglary division and other units. After his retirement in 1983, regular details took them up again.

    Mr. Volpe’s accomplishments as a painter and curator earned him a place in “Who’s Who in American Art,” and his sweeping mustache, shoulder-length hair and flamboyant clothing fit the part. He had an Armani suit to wear to auctions and a Groucho Marx disguise for no known reason.

    In later years he was an object of unwanted attention when his son, the former police officer Justin Volpe, was convicted of brutalizing Abner Louima in a Brooklyn station house in 1997. Mr. Volpe condemned his son’s action but publicly and repeatedly expressed his love for him. The New York Daily News reported in 2004 that Mr. Volpe had found some peace knowing that his son was creating art behind bars.

    Mr. Volpe essentially created his detective’s job after computer analyses pinpointed art theft as a growing problem. Asked to make a survey, he came back with actual arrests instead of a report — underlining the need for a special effort.

    He became that effort, making the New York Police Department the nation’s only one with a separate bureau for art crime. Around the department, Mr. Volpe was known as Rembrandt. Fellow policemen sometimes put nude centerfolds on his locker with the handwritten question, “But is it art?”

    His cases included art thefts, dealer fraud, vandalism and forgeries. He fielded 40 or 50 calls a day, as many from overseas as from Madison Avenue and SoHo.

    He recovered two Byzantine ivories worth $1.5 million, stolen from a museum in Pesaro, Italy. A photo of Italy’s foreign minister congratulating him hung over his desk.

    Robert Volpe was born in December 1942 and grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He studied art at the High School of Art and Design, Parsons, and the Art Students League. Fresh out of the Army, he joined the police to have an “offbeat” job while he painted, he said in an interview with The New York Times in 1977.

    He first walked a beat on the Lower East Side, did undercover work on organized crime cases, and was part of the narcotics squad that investigated the heroin-smuggling operation known as “The French Connection.” [….]

    Mr. Volpe recovered art pieces that were stolen before he was born. Other cases evolved faster: on Dec. 22, 1980, the British authorities notified him about a missing candelabrum, dating from 1858 and once in the possession of the king of Egypt. He recovered it by Jan. 2, 1981.

    Detective Volpe saw a little bit of everything: from stolen pictures worth $50,000 being sold on street corners, to suspected thieves eager to keep up with art-market trends sitting next to him at lectures. He learned that September and October were especially busy months, as the wealthy returned from abroad to find their homes looted. He was frustrated more than once when judges found convicted art thieves entertaining and romantic and declined to sentence them.

    Infrequently, his chases became dangerously dramatic, as when he pointed his gun at thieves of a Russian icon.

    “Grade B movie stuff,” he told The Times. “You find you have to behave that way. You don’t come right off with authority, you’re done.” [….]

    Newsweek has a Q & A with US-based Chinese writer Qiu Xiaolong, a writer of the Inspector Chen of Shanghai crime series. I just borrowed his book from the library – never heard of Qiu or his books before, so I’m really looking forward to reading this book.
    I’m a year older and only God knows if I’m any wiser. Eh. Here’s to many more…

  • Happy Birthday SSW!

    An insomniac birthday wish for SSW, which is today! All of my best wishes for another wonderful year!

  • Shoutout

    I got a shoutout on the show 5 Takes USA today in their New York City episode when Zach goes to St. Mark’s Comics! It’s on Travel Channel this week in the US (check your listings), or for you folks in Asia, Discovery Travel & Living on December 9 at 21:00 – guaranteed to make you homesick.

    Old reliable Joya for dinner. Haven’t been there in a while – and the only Thai place that manages wok hei without burning the pad see you. Had their Coconut soup to start for a change – was even better than the Tom Yum Gui soup.

    Went to our friends’ house down the street for their holiday/Desperdida party. Tree.. fireplace .. arts and crafts – traditional. They’re moving to Singapore for 2 years on an expat gig. Need to find an excuse to visit…

  • Weekend

    Since FC mentioned his and P’s latest foodie outing, I guess I can mention that, Friday night, my co-workers and I, in honor of co-workers who are leaving us for greener pastures, went to Negril Village (Carribbean food in the – what else? – Village). Food was pretty good – I had the Salmon-Crab burger, which was good. My co-worker had a roti that looked delicious. Appettizers were terrific; dessert – well, who resists dessert? (not me). The music was a little loud; bathroom was nice and pretty. (yeah, I notice that!).

    A weird and interesting article on whether this Ancient Greek device might actually be a kind of computer. The NY Times’ John Noble Wilford reports:

    The instrument, the Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world’s first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers deciphered inscriptions and reconstructed the gear functions, revealing “an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period,” it said.

    The researchers, led by the mathematician and filmmaker Tony Freeth and the astronomer Mike G. Edmunds, both of the University of Cardiff, Wales, are reporting their results today in the journal Nature.

    They said their findings showed that the inscriptions related to lunar-solar motions, and the gears were a representation of the irregularities of the Moon’s orbital course, as theorized by the astronomer Hipparchos. They established the date of the mechanism at 150-100 B.C.

    The Roman ship carrying the artifacts sank off the island of Antikythera about 65 B.C. Some evidence suggests it had sailed from Rhodes. The researchers said that Hipparchos, who lived on Rhodes, might have had a hand in designing the device.

    In another Nature article, a scholar not involved in the research, François Charette of the University of Munich museum, in Germany, said the new interpretation of the mechanism “is highly seductive and convincing in all of its details.” It is not the last word, he said, “but it does provide a new standard, and a wealth of fresh data, for future research.”

    Technology historians say the instrument is technically more complex than any known for at least a millennium afterward. Earlier examinations of the instrument, mainly in the 1970s by Derek J. de Solla Price, a Yale historian who died in 1983, led to similar findings, but they were generally disputed or ignored.

    The hand-operated mechanism, presumably used in preparing calendars for planting and harvesting and fixing religious festivals, had at least 30, possibly 37, hand-cut bronze gear-wheels, the researchers said. A pin-and-slot device connecting two gear-wheels induced variations in the representation of lunar motions according to the Hipparchos model of the Moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth.

    The numbers of teeth in the gears dictated the functions of the mechanism. The 53-tooth count of certain gears, the team said, was “powerful confirmation of our proposed model of Hipparchos’ lunar theory.” The detailed imaging revealed more than twice the inscriptions recognized earlier. Some of these appeared to relate to planetary and lunar motions. Perhaps, the team said, the mechanism also had gearings to predict the positions of known planets.

    The AP article discusses the debate:

    “It was a pocket calculator of the time,” said John Seiradakis, a professor of astronomy at the University of Thessaloniki who served on the international team.

    Ever since its discovery a century ago, the complex mechanism has baffled scientists.

    Edmunds said the 82 surviving fragments, dated to between 140-100 B.C, contain more than 30 gear wheels, and “are covered with astronomical, mathematical and mechanical inscriptions.”

    “It was a calendar of the moon and sun, it predicted the possibility of eclipses, it showed the position of the sun and moon in the zodiac, the phase of the moon, and we believe also it may have shown the position of some of the planets, possibly just Venus and Mercury,” he said.

    The box-shaped mechanism — the size of office paper and operated with a hand-crank — could predict an eclipse to a precise hour on a specific day.

    The new study of the ancient device, with the aid of Hewlett Packard and the British X-ray equipment maker X-Tek, more than doubled the amount of the inscriptions readable on the mechanism.

    “We will not yet be able to answer the question of what the mechanism was for, although now we know what the mechanism did,” Edmunds said.

    His fellow team member, Xenophon Moussas, an associate professor of space physics at Athens University, speculated that the device could have been used for navigation at sea or for mapmaking.

    The first comparable devices known in the West were clockwork clocks developed during the Middle Ages.

    Personally, I just think that the name of the device, Antikythera Mechanism, is just plain cool. A mouthful, but cool.

    As I have relatives in Canada, I can’t help but check in on what’s up in Canada. Methinks that the Liberal Party there can be as confused as the Democrats down here. In what was the most competitive party leadership election the Liberals had since the Pierre Trudeau days, the leading candidate for their party leadership, the intellectual-former Harvard professor-writer Michael Ignatieff, surprisingly lost. Stephane Dion won – the ex-environmental minister who apparently was someone with federal experience and no (apparent) corruption connection (which was apparently what got the Liberals out of office in the first place). He’s a politician from Quebec, but even people in Quebec don’t exactly love him, according to the Reuters article I linked here. Oh-kay, sounds like politics in Canada has craziness like anywhere else.