Category: Manhattan

Saturday: watched “Letters from Iwo Jima.” What a movie – Clint Eastwood’s quite a director. The movie, if nothing else, does quite well in showing how War Is Bad – and how one’s culture affects how one conducts a war. Actor Ken Watanabe – he is the man – as he plays a general caught in circumstances you’d wish he wasn’t in, as a character who had enjoyed his time in America and learning from American counterparts – but sadly fighting against them and misses his family. Tsuyoshi Ihara is a cutie – but more importantly strongly played Baron Nishi, a guy who also enjoyed his visit in the States as an Olympic athlete but also facing reality. The other soldiers prove to be quite human, ranging from the baker who just wants to go home and the young man who thought he had it in him to police others on their patriotism. Even the glimpses of the Americans at Iwo Jima were fascinating – this was no pretty battle for anyone. Check out the NY Times’ review by A.O. Scott – expansive view of it.

Speaking of how War Is Bad – the comic strip “Funky Winkerbean” kind of irritates me – a recent storyline took the comic strip back to Iraq, to follow up on Funky’s cousin, Wally (on his second tour in Iraq). Then, it looked like Wally was blown up by an IED and you’re left thinking: damn – you just knew something bad was going to happen, since Funky’s best friend’s wife survived breast cancer so someone else was going to have the bad luck. But, the next day, it turns out that Wally didn’t die/get injured – he was just playing a role-playing video game, and he “blew” up. Lousy – just lead on your readers why don’t you?!

Watching the Oscars as I write this – curiously interesting funny bits so far – but they’re dragging it out again – can’t you let the winners say a few words by cutting back on the skits? Hmm…

I was going up the elevator in the New York Hilton at a bar association dinner Thursday night, and I saw on the mini TV screen in the car the news of Anna Nicole Smith’s death. While most will be thinking about the parallels to Marilyn Monroe, others in the legal community will be thinking of the twisted bar exam question this has become (AP Wire article). Things still pending include the J. Howard Marshall II estate resulting from the ultimate May-December relationship. Both contestants to the estate, Marshall’s son and Anna Nicole, are no longer alive, leaving an unknown number of heirs of Marshall’s son, Anna Nicole’s long time lawyer and questionably married companion Howard K. Stern, a 5 month old daughter that have three possible dads, and a choice of Texas, California, Florida, or the Bahamas for residency.

Before becoming an oil tycoon, Marshall was an assistant dean of Yale Law School and apparently taught trusts and estates. I wonder if this was what he was thinking of?

Had dinner with my NYU circle of writer friends. One of them has a new book out, Your Career Is an Extreme Sport . She also writes for the WSJ – check it out.

I wanted to get the book SSW mentioned, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, because that would be me. It wasn’t in Barnes & Noble yet, so for my winter reading I got What Every American Should Know About Europe. I really don’t know a whole lot about Europe, mostly because I took European History in high school with immersion Spanish. I was pretty good with American History, so I’m sort of OK past 1750 taking it from our point of view, but between the Dark Ages and the middle of the 18th century (or Siglio XVIII as it was called in Spanish), I never really had a good grasp of what was going on. Remedial history for me.

After that dinner, we went out to the nearby Irish pub for a pint, and like a numnut, I left my camera and bag at the Indian restaurant. Today I spent a lot of time on the phone with one guy from the restaurant whose English is pretty much limited to food, and who after 3 phone calls tells me to call at 9:30 pm, I guess when his son shows up. Turns out that they had the bag the whole time, just he couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I make a mad dash back into the city to claim it back. It’s all in one piece, thankfully (P- won’t have to kill me too much).

I was walking back through Times Square to get to the subway and I recall the Daily News mentioning that 1.25 million out-of-towners are here right now. It sure looks like it – check it out yourself:

Invariably I needed to make a pit stop, and thankfully Charmin toilet tissue has rented out a place on Times Square to use the facilities for the holidays. They managed to make relief into a amusement ride. This is actually deluxe – 20 WC closets, a dozen attendants that sanitize the rooms between every use, and of course four rolls of tissue in each room. Over 390,000 people have used the facilities, including 2,000 people from Puerto Rico (that’s a village right there) and apparently 2 North Koreans. This is what the inner sanctum looks like:

If you gotta go, you outta go here – they have to be the cleanest restrooms I’ve ever seen.

New Years’ is in swing – they’re moving in the barricades, the lights and the concrete blocks. If it doesn’t rain it will probably be pretty warm. Not a bad day to stay out for 6 hours.