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Saw legendary travel writer Arthur Frommer live yesterday at an alumni hosted speaking appearance on Tuesday. Like the Zagats of restaurant rating fame, he retired from being a white shoe litigator to pursue his travel enterprises.

We as a society have lost the skills for long form oratory. Frommer presented non-stop for a whole hour with ease, possessing notes consisting of perhaps one index card, yet he were able to cite (at my count) over 2 dozen travel resources, including websites, distinct details of each venue or vendor – especially his tales of summertime study at Oxford of really ancient Egyptian history (as in pre-Pharaoh days). Afterwards, he went on for another hour at a reception that followed.

Nowadays, the norm is the sound bite. Even the best moot court advocate does not have to go on for more than 15 minutes without interruption! Presidential debates used to go on for days – the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates are a prime example. Now maybe you get 3 minutes for each of a dozen candidates.

If we just took more time for exposition, maybe we would know more.

Happy Birthday to SSW (that was yesterday)!

Check out this search engine – a way to search and raise money for your favorite charities: GoodSearch. Seems interesting.

“Tin Man” on Sci Fi seems interesting. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, obviously. And, the cast – Zooey Deschanel was amusing as Trillian on the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” movie (really, an underappreciated movie!) and Neal McDonough (the one who played the DA of LA in the former NBC show “Boomtown” and the regrettably departed Lt. Hawke of “Star Trek: First Contact” – the Star Trek: The Next Generation movie where they pulled off all the craziest stuff – drunk Counselor Troi; Data continuing the Pinocchio thing; and of course, a really pissed off Capt. Picard). Come on; how bad a mini-series can this be? They don’t even make mini-series like they used to do!

David Henry Hwang and his latest project, on a character that sounds an awful lot like himself. Interesting reading on being APA and Chinese-American specifically.

In Brooklyn… 4th Avenue’s getting a little less seedy, huh, with coffee shops instead of auto repairs? Talk about things changing.

How to preserve the afterlife in Bensonhurst – the difficulties at the Old New Utrecht Cemetery.

“Heroes” on Monday night… the end of “Volume 2” (maybe even Season 2, if the writers’ strike isn’t resolved) – leave me feeling “uh?” and “Nooo!” Scroll down or turn away if you don’t want spoilers……

If you’re going to have to kills heroes, did it have to involve the same person we all wondered was going to kick the bucket the last season? I’ll say no more than that!

Tweety Bird, Donald Duck and others have been subpoenaed to go to court. In Italy. As poor victims of counterfeiting by some Chinese guy (umm, was it that important for the AP to mention the defendant was Chinese?). Sigh.

Sorry that Triscribe was out most of the day Sunday, because I forgot to renew the domain name (whoops). Got it fixed in 10 minutes, and even snagged a coupon code. We’re good for 3 more years….

First snow this season – took P’s sister’s dogs out for a romp while she’s away in Belgium.

RIP Daredevil Evel Knievel, succeeding when actually failing to jump over objects, earning the Guinness World Record for broken bones (40).  In the weeks before his death, he amiably settled a trademark suit against Kanye West’s parody of Knievel’s Snake River rocket shot, and was baptized on the Crystal Cathedral’s Hour of Power show. Definitely did things his way.

Stuck into a monster collage aid bill is a requirement that colleges and universities provide subscription plans for download music and to implement blocking for P2P file sharing, or their students lose all of their federal financial aid. Let’s get this straight — we can’t make sure students have a health insurance plan (many college students lose their health insurance in their senior year soon after because they age out of their parent’s health plans – most law students are completely bare except for what they can get from the institution or the ABA, and that is generally major medical only) but we can mandate that they pay for a music subscription plan. What kind of logic is this?

Brunch: Belleville – P got an omelet, I got the Norwegian eggs Benedict. Both were served with hash potatoes and a green salad. Her omlete was perfectly fluffy; my dish was excellent except a dry muffin (but that could be our fault for showing up at 2 PM). Web reviews seem to be down on them lately, but if they can cook decent eggs, the kitchen deserves a chance.

Yeah! I surpassed the 50,000 words (and hence a NaNoWriMo winner) and came to An Actual End!!! The novel is… well, nothing spectacular, but it’s dark, grim, some parts funny, some parts actually good, and way much dialogue (along the lines of “You’re stupid”/”No, you’re stupid!”). As a murder mystery, it’s not that good (uh, clues weren’t clearly clues – they were more like anvils for being obvious telling rather than showing, I’m still not clear on the motive, etc.). But, character development was kind of there. More importantly, the first draft is done! I win, just for being done!

Man, I didn’t even have a title until 11/29/07; it’s entitled, “Bread and Circuses.” It’s a sort of NYC murder mystery, taking place in 1992; a look-at-the-life of a reporter who gets embroiled in a bunch of murders plus at least two or three subplots going on in his life; a sort-of spy thing, where this ex-spy kind of wishes he was back in the business; hints of mafia; small cameos of characters from my other stories; and the oh-whoa, I made it to an ending, not just surpassed 50,000 words! Yeah!

Will I learn to love to do second drafts? At least I’m out of the creative rut that I was in for weeks previous to this month.

Stuff:

The NY Times: Seth Kugel on these lovely (yet pricey) chocolate places in the city. Mmm, chocolate. But, yeah, pricey.

No new Mark Bittman video on NYTimes.com, but he writes on the concept of the hot pot, shabu shabu, and other aliases. Fascinating stuff.

Slate: Dahlia Lithwick on the transparency (or not really) of the US S. Ct.

Finished reading yet another Billy Collins poetry compilation, “The Art of Drowning.” Good stuff.

Earliest Christmas carol: I heard the Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…) on Veteran’s Day. That’s really lame, it’s almost like, let’s just get through Turkey Day to get to massive shopping the next. Kind of the same for my birthday – it was one of those, not a milestone, nothing to see, moving on type of days.

Jade Asian Restaurant, Flushing: Dimsum in the old Gum Fong. New decor is one part Shanghai Tang, one part Blue Ribbon. Ha gow and ha chern both excellent, as well as their other dumplings and buns. Jook (congee) was average, obviously using a boat motor blender as a shortcut. Check it out. Average tab: $15-20.

Downtown Atlantic: 10 minutes in this place, and you will be dying of hunger, as the scent of baking cupcakes will whet your appetite. Tried the Grandma’s Sunday Gravy (Spaghetti with tomato sauce with stewed meatballs and sausage, for those not having the privilege of having an Italian Sunday dinner). It was passable, but obviously they had to cut out significant trans-fat, which I had to supplement with dollops of butter. The other brunch options looked quite nice, topped off with your favorite baked good and a strong coffee.

Beltway elite now shopping at Costco. It’s rediscovering the Protestant work ethic for Thanksgiving – still feed everyone well, but at least you can say that you were frugal. I suppose that FreshDirect performs a similar function in New York City, although Fairway and Costco are serious competition here.

And the hunt is on for Christmas shopping – Black Friday loss leaders not worth it (and I’m not waking up at 5:30 to get them), but P and I bought snow boots at 20% off at EMS.  Anyone know where you can find a Wii? Happy Holidays!

In this Sunday’s NY Times:

In the NY Times’ Sunday Magazine, former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins reads his poem, “The Fish,” with accompanying seafood recipes (although I’m not sure that the recipes are from him).

The G subway line leaves so much to be desired, as this article on the upcoming subway lines report card notes.

A lengthy profile on Ang Lee, director, who lives in Larchmont, NY – and seems to enjoy it very much.

NY Times’ Motoko Rich on “A Good Mystery: Why We Read.”

Slate managing editor Jill Hunter Pellettieri suggests we move on from turkey leftovers. Are turkey leftovers that bad? But, it’s the American way! Well, okay, maybe it’s unnecessary, but so is the current hype on Black Friday – totally insane!

Slate’s found Michael Kinsley discusses how life experience is relevant to becoming, say, president.

Can I pull off my so-called novel before National Novel Writing Month ends? Will the writers’ strike continues? Stay tuned!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Food, lots of food.

In the NY Times: How to carve a turkey, butcher style. The accompanying video was also pretty enlightening.

The NY Times’ Mark “The Minimalist” Bittman has a lovely idea on how to use leftover turkey – make turkey and mushroom barley risotto. He suggests lots of butter, at least in the video he did…

A somewhat productive weekend – about halfway in the 50000 word National Novel Writing Month project.

Otherwise a sadly lazy Sunday. Watched Kylie Kwong on Discovery Home channel. As noted in a past FC post, I can’t get over her Australian accent. This particular episode I watched had her cooking noodles with her mom and her brother, and serving a whole bunch of dishes in entertaining her fabulous Brazilian friends.

A NY Times look at the law and economics analysis on the death penalty as deterrence issue. I still don’t know quite what to make of the question, since does a criminal really think, “Gosh, I could get the death penalty if I kill so-and-so”?

In the middle of the continuing tv/film writers’ strike – Saturday Night Live… on stage, to help the unfortunate colleagues.

NY Times’ Virginia Heffernan on the release of early Sesame Street episodes on DVD, and how they are so inappropriate for today’s kids (who are not to overeat like Cookie Monster used to be, or talk to strangers like Gordon or Susan or Luis, or notice the odd undercurrent between the roommates Bert and Ernie – hence a parental warning. A parental warning?).

Bill Clinton’s Presidential Library is now having a green roof. Cool.

And… well, I may go into further detail if anyone’s interested about Monday’s tv – a bit behind on “How I Met Your Mother” (a Special Thanksgiving episode) and … what an awesome “Heroes” episode! Mr. Bennet is The Man. Claire is… a dim-witted teenager with a serious power. Elle (played by the ex-Veronica Mars) is… a psycho whose Dad is probably no less foolish (and his identity was not a complete surprise to me; just love it when a theory gets proven true)… well, okay, so I won’t give everything away. Man, talk about timing by the writers’ strike…