Remains of the Day

Spider-Man, the musical

Titled Turn Off the Dark, with music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge and direction from Julie Taymor (Lion King), the Spider-Man musical will preview on Broadway beginning Jan. 16, 2010 and open officially on Feb. 18, 2010.

I can't help but picture a three melody ensemble piece: Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker, singing in his Spiderman suit, perched on the precipice of a tall building in NYC, Mary Jane (no thoughts who'd play her), many miles away, singing from a fashion catwalk where she stands as various assistants attend to her hair and makeup, and finally, Ewan McGregor as Eddie Brock, harmonizing from a NY city alley, as as Venom's inky black creeps across his skin and possesses him.

Bizarre.

New Year's Eve in Times Square

Hulu will carry a live stream from Times Square in NYC tomorrow, er, tonight, New Year's Eve. You can watch it on Hulu or here in this embedded video. Feel free to grab the embed code from the video player below and paste it on your site if you know of some poor souls who are without a TV but want some ambient party companions as the calendar turns over to 2009.

For the first time in my life, I'll be in Times Square for the big night, but not on the street among the poor, huddled masses, but up in a friend's corporate apartment, overlooking the madness.

The perils of sushi

Jeremy Piven is making an early departure from the Broadway production of Speed-the-Plow, which I saw when I was in NYC to watch James run the marathon in November, because of elevated mercury in his blood. Doctors blame his diet of two sushi meals a day.

The production team was sympathetic, for the most part, but the playwright David Mamet was less so. In true Mametian fashion, the playwright told Daily Variety, “My understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.”

Marathon Man

I was in NYC the first weekend of November to watch my brother James run his first marathon. It was a true family affair as James ran for Fred's Team to raise money for Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where my other brother Alan works. James raised something like $13,000, just an amazing amount.

I flew in late Thursday night. The next day, while James was off at work, I got up and just walked around. New York City is still my favorite among all the cities I've lived in, and I suspect it's because it's the one city where I can feel both alone and among people at the same time.

I stopped for lunch at Momofuku Ssäm Bar, one of the outlets in the David Chang empire. Back when I lived in NYC, I came here on its first day open, when they still didn't have a menu. It was like a burrito bar back then, and when I walked in the one guy behind the kitchen counter looked surprised to see anyone. Now it's transformed into a fairly chic sit-down joint with a menu and prix fixe lunch. I had crispy pork belly buns...

...and spicy rice cakes.

It was Friday, Halloween, but more importantly, it was the last day of the Banksy exhibit in the West Village, The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill. I managed to get there just about a half hour before it closed.

Banksy is to the art world as Michel Gondry is to music videos, just conceptually brilliant. This faux pet store wasn't populated with the real animals. Instead, there was a depressed and caged Tweety...

...a caged animatronic monkey wearing headphones, clicking on a remote control, and watching a TV playing a documentary about monkeys free in the wild...

...a rabbit looking in a mirror and applying lipstick...

...animatronic fish fingers swimming in fishbowl...

...and animatronic sausages squirming around like earthworms.

A leopard fur coat basked in a tree branch, its "tail" hanging down and swaying lazily. A rooster watched over its children, little Chicken McNuggets with legs bobbing for food.

Not Banksy's most subtle social commentary, but a humorous conceit executed simply. According to the security guard, the exhibit was on its way to London next.

That night I caught a production of David Mamet's Speed the Plow at the Barrymore Theater on Broadway. This three person meditation on the conflict between art and commerce in Hollywood starred Jeremy Piven, Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson on Mad Men), and Raul Esparza.

Bashing Hollywood for favoring money over art is hardly an original form of cynicism, but the underrated Piven is always fun to watch on stage. He plays a character not so unlike his Ari Gold from Entourage: Bobby Gould is a studio exec tasked with making commercial hits. When Elizabeth Moss, a temp secretary, playing someone not unlike her Peggy Olson in Season One of Mad Men, appeals to his conscience to push for an adaptation of a dense and decidedly depressing novel (for some reason I thought of Blindness by Saramago), the battle for his soul is on, with Raul Esparza playing the devil on his shoulder, having brought Gould a made-to-order action script with a big star attached.

Piven has a way of making greed warm and fuzzy. His Ari Gold and Bobby Gould both talk a game of mindless materialism, but the body language conveys a person not entirely comfortable with all the bravado. We see in Piven our own greedy nature, but because we sense his chance for redemption is our own, and so we root for him. Tony Soprano and Don Draper are part of a recently crowded stable of antiheroes, and Piven is like their comedic brother.

After the play, I set off to my old neighborhood haunt of Union Square. I'd read that there would be a flash mob of Sarah Palin look-a-likes this Halloween night, but only a few materialized. Dagmar and Alex, two other folks from UCLA Film School were in town for a thesis shoot, so I met up with them and followed them around, taking pics of Dagmar with costumes that struck her fancy. We snapped a lot Palins, among others. But the most popular costume, by far, perhaps for ease of creation, was Heath Ledger's smudged-lipstick-and-white-face-paint Joker.

The night ended, as many busy social days in NYC end, with my sister Karen hobbling in pain alongside me at 3am in her Audrey Hepburn circa Breakfast at Tiffany's high heels, the two of us trying and failing to find a single unoccupied taxi in Greenwich Village.

The night before the marathon, we all stayed at the Westin in Times Square as James and all the Fred's Team runners were put up there for their fundraising efforts. They got their own transportation to the start line.

The family met up to watch him at the Fred's Team viewing bleachers on 1st Ave., near 67th St, around mile 17. We saw the wheelchair division fly by. One man in a wheelchair stopped across the street, attached a pair of artificial legs below his knees, and ran. The competitive women and then the competitive men flew by, and we saw both eventual winners in those groups.

Thanks to the marathon's e-mail alerts, we knew when James was approaching. As he ran by, giving Alan and the kids a quick hug, I shouted out to him to "Drop the hammer!" He looked back, then down at the street, puzzled, thinking I'd said that he'd dropped something.

We tried to make it across town to the finish line to catch him, but he was too fast. He'd already finished in an impressive 3:57 by the time we waded through the Central Park mob.

Congrats, on both the great time and the amazing fundraising haul! Each speaks volumes, one to his obsessive nature, the other to his likability.

The moment you become a New Yorker

Article in the NYTimes about that moment, some period into your first year living in New York, when you become a New Yorker.

Though I can't recall a specific moment things changed for me in NYC, I did reach, sometime about four or five months into living in NYC, a state of harmony with the city, when I understood its rhythms and its personality, when I felt all the privileges of living in the country's greatest city open to me.

The city, like its people, can seem prickly, antagonistic, or even dangerous. But NYC has more layers than any city I've lived in, and the longer you're there, the more it surprises you.

Spiderman the musical?!

Marvel is in pre-production on Spider-Man the musical, to be directed by Tony-winner Julie Taymor with music and lyrics by Bono and the Edge.

Nice Flickr collection of the evocative name placards on apartment complexes here in Santa Monica. I agree with the photographer - these are the sole redeeming feature of the otherwise fugly apartment architecture ubiquitous in Santa Monica (and Los Angeles in general). You've never seen so much stucco and old shag carpet.

Kaoru Kubo is the famous voice heard on Airport Limousine buses ferrying passengers from Narita Airport to Tokyo. Very soothing.

A montage of beautiful title sequences by Kuntzel+Deygas who did the titles for Catch Me If You Can, among others.

Classified government report says Al-Qaeda is the strongest it's been since 9/11. How did this country ever elect Dubya? Perhaps Bryan Caplan is right.

Technorati Tags: LA, musical, photography, politics, travel

The Rape of the Sabine Women

Ah, to be in NYC right now. Today is the last day of a special premiere of Eve Sussman's video-musical "The Rape of the Sabine Women" at the IFC Center. Sussman's "89 Seconds at Alcazar" is one of my favorite pieces of video art, a high def short video that depicts the activities in the royal household leading up to the single moment immortalize in Velasquez's painting "Las Meninas." The Village Voice isn't high on Sussman's latest, but the NYTimes seems to admire what it calls an "overindulged, seductive, feline opulence."

The problem with video art is that it isn't very accessible to the public. You can watch it live or not at all. You can't find Bill Viola material on high-def DVD, even if you would like to have it on loop on the plasma in the foyer of your house. Video art also tends to be housed in galleries without a lot of seating, and watching a long piece while wedged between two other people and sitting on a floor can be uncomfortable. With the advent of HD, I'd love to see more of this type of work make it onto distributable media.

Technorati Tags: art, painting, video

Twas two nights before 2007

The NYTimes 2006 Year in Pictures.

After seeing Pan's Labyrinth, I couldn't help thinking of Insect Lab, a studio which combines dead insect bodies with antique watch parts and electronic components.

Okay, so NYC is not perfect. One problem being that is populated by lots of people like this.

LifeHack's 50 best hacks for your life from 2006.

Technorati Tags: hacks, insect, nyc, photo, photography

Clearing the TiVo of life

This list of cool stuff costing $10 or less is useful if you need a few belated stocking stuffers.

Gosh, I've missed NYC. I'm trying to reserve judgment on LA, but I have no doubts about my adoration for NYC. Being back and strolling the streets, mingling with the people, it's like CPR for the spirit. The weather in LA is fantastic, but it didn't take long for me to realize it's an urban planning disaster with perhaps no solution to come in my lifetime.

I didn't realize how draining my quarter had been until I arrived back in Manhattan the day after my faculty review. The first week, I've had to resort to drinking coffee three times to stay awake (I weened myself off of black gold in 1998), and when I sleep I have the types of vivid, often disturbing dreams I only have when exhausted.

The irony of film school, at least the first year, is that students have little time to actually watch movies. The night after my last final, I wanted to go see a movie, but when I looked up show times I realized it wasn't playing in any theater in the L.A. region anymore. The last time that happened to me was...hmm, I think that's the first time that's ever happened to me.

So among other things, while on break, I will catch up on movies. In fact, this winter break is a chance to catch up on everything that film school forced me to put off until later. I'm clearing out the playlist in my personal life DVR: sleep, good eating, exercise, natural light, movies, music, correspondence with friends and family (but no holiday cards this year, alas), drink, world news, the simple pleasures in life.

I wish the same to all of you. Happy holidays!

Technorati Tags: goods, gadgets, shopping

"The Hardest Button to Button"

Michel Gondry's video for the White Stripes' "The Hardest Button to Button" (Quicktime) was, as is par in Gondry's world, brilliant. The Simpsons' tribute to said video? Pretty damn good, too.

A team of Italians calling themselves HAL9000 has created an 8.6 gigapixel photograph of an Italian fresco by stitching together 1,145 pictures from a Nikon D2X. At 96,679 x 89,000 pixels, it's likely the largest digital image in the world, and on their website you can browse and zoom in on the image.

I know I'm late with this, but such is my school workload that I'm really out of it these days.: here's that controversial photo taken on 9/11 by Thomas Hoepker of Magnum Photos. Frank Rich wrote about it in the Times, then on Slate David Platz disagreed with Rich's interpretation, then two of the people in the photo wrote in to defend themselves against Rich and Hoepker's reading of the photo, and finally Hoepker himself weighed in. So in this case, a picture really was worth a thousand words or so.

1001 books you must read before you die--the list. Note that the book that the list is pulled from is not on the list itself, so it's a good thing the list is published on the web.

Hallelujah! Undercover Economist articles are finally available for free on the Financial Times website as of late September. Tim Harford is part of the transformation of economics into a sexy field.

How to turn your photos into Lichtenstein-esque pop art.

Wrecks

Klara designed the set for the new Neil Labute play Wrecks which just crossed over from London to New York City, and she scores some nice mentions in the NYTimes review. Neil Labute is surely the most interesting converted Mormon alive.

Oh, that I could be in NYC to catch this show in previews. For depth and breadth of theater, there is London and there is New York City, and the rest of us are on the outside looking in on the Thankgiving feast, hoping to salvage something out of the recycling bins in the alleyway.

Susan Sontag on self

The NYTimes excerpted Susan Sontag's journals in Sunday's Magazine. She's always fascinating and instructive.

Tim Harford offers some economic advice: in most cases, it only makes sense to insure ourselves against risks we cannot afford, not ones we can. Tornado? Qualifies. Losing a cell phone? No.

Links

New David Sedaris piece in The New Yorker this week. Also an interesting article on neuroeconomics.

Harold McGee answers some common questions about kitchen science on Chow.com, like what's the difference between pressed and chopped garlic and is it safe to heat food in plastic in the microwave.

50 Years of Janus Films - a 50 DVD box set. Pre-order before October 24 for $650, actually a bargain at $13 a disc. Drool.

Zyb - a site to back up your cell phone contact info. The service is free and works with over 200 mobile phones. Useful.

BP's Statistical Review of World Energy 2006.

One of my questions to Gothamist was posted to Ask Gothamist, though unfortunately the response didn't go live until I'd already left NYC. Before I left, I did find this useful list of places in NYC to donate goods of all types.

Trailer for Johnny To's next movie, a spaghetti Western transplanted to macau, Fong Juk or Exiled as it's known in English. Oh, I wish I were at the Toronto International Film Festival. Exiled opened there to strong reviews.

Trailer for the next animated feature from Satoshi Kon, Paprika. If I knew how to read Japanese, I could actually tell you something about the movie. Early buzz, though sparse, is good.

I wasn't a huge fan of Tony Jaa's Tom Yum Goong, but it sounds like the condensed version from the Weinsteins, retitled The Protector, is even worse. Oh well, we can shift our hopes onto Ong Bak 2, which Jaa will direct himself.

The Agent

New Yorker issues have a tendency of piling up around my place when I travel or when I'm busy as I can never bring myself to toss them out. Sometimes that can seem like a tactical error, as in times like these when I'm moving and have to lug about 275 pounds of unread back issues to the recycling bins in the basement.

But lying on my bare mattress now (all the sheets, pillows, just about everything is packed in boxes), I'm glad I saved the July 10/17 issue from last month. In it was an article titled "The Agent," (PDF) an excerpt adapted from Lawrence Wright's new nonfiction book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.

Though I'm exhausted from days of packing, the article, which I just finished reading at three in the morning, stunned me, introducing two characters and a story that will break your heart with how close we came to anticipating and perhaps stopping 9/11. We had all the puzzle pieces to assemble a picture of Al-Qaeda terrorists in our midst, but they were held by different U.S. intelligence agencies, and we couldn't assemble them into a picture of looming terror because of self-imposed bureaucratic walls that kept the CIA and FBI from sharing information. Our intelligence agencies, with their silly infighting, failed us.

Two charismatic characters are at the center of this story. Ali Soufan is the Agent, a Lebanese-American Muslim FBI agent whose Arabic language skills and tenacity made him one of our nation's leading assets in the fight against Al Qaeda. John O'Neill was the head of the F.B.I.'s National Security Division, figures more prominently in The Looming Tower, but also appears in "The Agent."

Soufan is the hero of "The Agent." O'Neill put in charge of investigating the bombing of the U.S.S.. cole in Aden, Yemen, in October, 2000. Soufan's investigation unearthed tracks that led back to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The CIA, in the meantime, learned of an Al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia and learned of two Al-Qaeda operatives, Khaled al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. Mihdhar had a U.S. Visa. The CIA did not inform the FBI about the two of them, and so they slipped into the U.S. unnoticed. The CIA does not have authority to operate within the U.S., so once Mihdhar and Hazmi were on U.S. soil, they were the province of the FBI, or would have been, had the CIA alerted the FBI to their presence.

In June of 2001, Ali Soufan sat in a meeting with CIA colleagues and was shown photos from the secret meeting in Malaysia. Among those in the pictures were Mihdhar and Hazmi, but Soufan did not know of them yet, and the CIA shared little except to see if the FBI knew of them. Another photo of the Malaysia meeting, displaying an Al Qaeda jihadi named Khallad, was not shown. Soufan and his team had a huge file on Khallad, who they suspected of being one of the masterminds of the U.S.S. Cole bombing. Had the CIA shown Soufan that photo, he could have connected the dots.

On August 27th, 2001, Nawaf al-Hazmi and his brother Salem purchased airplane tickets for American Flight 77 on Travelocity.com. Mihdhar also purchased a ticket for that flight online. They did not bother disguising their names, as they were not on the FBI terrorist watchlist.

Twenty months after their arrival in Los Angeles, on September 11, 2001, Mihdhar and Hazmi went to Washington Dulles International Airport. Hazmi set off the metal detector at the airport and was hand-screened, and Hazmi and Mihdhar were both flagged for an additional security screening at the gate, but both passed and boarded American Flight 77. One hour into the flight, the hijacked Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon, killing all 64 on the flight and 125 people in the building.

Immediately after 9/11, Soufan was told to find out who had perpetrated the hijackings. On September 12, 2001, he was handed an envelope with full details of the meeting in Malaysia. When Soufan realized that the CIA had known that Mihdhar and Hazmi, two of the hijackers, had been living in the United States for 20 months, "he ran into the bathroom and threw up." Wright notes: "Soufan's disillusionment with the government was so profound that he eventually quite the bureau; in 2005, he became director of international operations for Giuliani Security and Safety, a company founded by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York."

John O'Neill is an even greater tragic figure in the story of 9/11. His story is almost too unbelievable to be true. Perhaps no one in the FBI was more obsessed with the rising threat of Al Qaeda, but on August 22, 2001, O'Neill left the FBI after it was reported that his briefcase containing sensitive documents was stolen during an FBI conference in Florida. Though it was later found and though it was determined that none of the confidential material had been compromised, his career at the FBI was ruined.

O'Neill left to take a job as the head of security at The World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, just after American Airlines flight 11 flew into the north tower, John O'Neill received a call from his son who could see the smoke through a train window. O'Neill told his son he was fine and that he was going to assess the damage. After United Flight 175 hit the south tower, O'Neill called his girlfriend Valerie james, distraught. Yet later, at 9:25am, O'Neill called another woman he had been close to, Anne DiBattista, saying he was okay.

"The connection was good at the beginning," she recalled. "He was safe and outside. He said he was O.K. I said, 'Are you sure you're out of the building?' He told me he loved me. I knew he was going to go back in."

Another FBI agent, Wesley Wong, ran into O'Neill outside the north tower. She last saw him headed towards the south tower.

On September 28, 2001, O'Neill's body was found in the rubble of the World Trade Center. Wright reports:

...a thousand mourner gathered at St. Nicholas to say farewell. Many of them were agents and policemen and members of foreign intelligence services who had followed O'Neill into the war against terrorism long before it became a rallying cry for the nation. The hierarchy of the F.B.I attended, including the now retired director Louis Freeh. Richard Clarke, who says that he had not shed a tear since September 11th, suddenly broke down when the bagpipes played and the casket passed by.

For some reason, perhaps because I've come to adore New York City, I can't stop reading about 9/11. I've read the The 9/11 Commission Report in text form, and I'll probably reread it in its graphic adaptation. 9/11 and the events that led up to that day continue to haunt me, and Lawrence Wright's account The Looming Tower, which I've just begun, promises to be the best account to date. I'm not doing justice to his reporting here, so delve into "The Agent" if you want a sampling. Soufan is a fascinating character in many ways, particularly in his interrogation techniques, which demonstrate that torture is hardly the only way to extract information from suspects (torture has long been known to yield unreliable info). Soufan engages his subjects, demonstrates his knowledge and understanding of them and their cultural background, and uses his intelligence to checkmate them.

In the stories of Soufan, O'Neill, and bin Laden, there is a Syriana/Munich-style tragedy to be made. In fact, with its story of thwarted investigations and global conspiracies, it's the 9/11 movie I would have expected Oliver Stone to make, though from what I've heard his World Trade Center movie is a great departure for him.

Here is an online only interview with Lawrence Wright which came out at the same time as "The Agent." Here's a comprehensive list of Wright's articles for The New Yorker, including many on Al Qaeda. PBS Frontline came out with a documentary on O'Neill called "The Man Who Knew" and it's available online (Real Player and Windows Media).

Donating goods in NYC

This list of places in NY to donate goods of all types came in very handy these past few days as I tried to clear out my apartment.

Crossing the moat

This Times article on the housing virgins of NYC brought back unpleasant memories of my first New York City apartment hunt, though I can laugh now that it's behind me. I've never enjoyed living anywhere as much as Manhattan, but I've also never been more stressed out and depressed by apartment hunting anywhere else. Finding a place to live in NYC is like having to cross a moat filled with crocodiles (real estate brokers) to find a towering, fortified castle wall with ornery soldiers up top (landlords) lobbing buckets of hot oil and flaming arrows at your head as you climb, peering in through the occasional castle window to see one horrific dungeon after another (the old, dilapidated pre-war apartments of NYC). It can cause you to question why you're moving to NYC in the first place, and in extreme cases, it can turn people away before they ever encounter the charms of the city.

The housing market may be softening across the U.S. as a whole, but in the micromarket of Manhattan, vacancy rates are as low as ever, and so property owners can foist broker fees onto applicants. It's as unpleasant a real estate environment as you'll encounter anywhere, but to those who are going through it for the first time, I urge a healthy dose of perseverance. Once you're inside the city gates, it's a beautiful thing.

Show me the money

Talk about a horse: just one day after throwing 178 pitches in a 15 inning tie, Japanese high school pitcher Yuki Saito came back to throw a 118 pitch complete game victory to lead his team to its first National high School Baseball Championship title. It was Saito's fourth complete game in four days, and in the tournament he threw 948 pitches in seven games. My shoulder exploded just reading that.

Tim Harford uses game theory to explain why engagement rings came about. So that's why women want a huge rock! It's a security deposit on the marriage, so the larger the better.

Frank Bruni's first impression of L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon: very pricey, with slightly scattered service, but quietly thrilling. It's still in its soft opening (no reservations taken yet) so I've been thinking of stopping in for one last decadent meal before leaving NYC. But with prices like those...perhaps I'll just stop in, order Robuchon's famous potato puree (which happens to be my favorite potato dish ever; here is one online recipe, here is another), surrender my Amex, clap and spread my hands palms up like a blackjack dealer leaving a table, and walk out.

Bottom of the 9th

Okay, I'm back from a busy but enjoyable wedding weekend in Seattle (mostly Whidbey Island) and entering my final week in NYC. I do need a post at some point on just the weddings I've attended this year. By the end of October, I will have attended 8 out of 11 weddings, a record for me (I'm not the only one who climbed a wedding peak this summer). I had hoped to see many people in Seattle, but too much of travel is consumed by long security lines at airports these days (I'd been told to get to the airport three hours early for domestic flights, but the security lines turned out to be about the same as they were prior to the whole elemental profiling campaign against liquids). I will have to return to Seattle again soon, though. The summer weather there is perfectly neutral, such that you don't feel hot or cold, just an equilibrium between skin and air.

I made one concession to my culinary memory and stopped at Salumi for a sandwich. Salumi, an Italian Salumeria exported to the Pacific Northwest, is the creation of Armandino Batali, Mario Batali's father. It's my favorite Seattle restaurant, and they've begun shipping meats online through their website.

Things may go dark here for a bit as I'm canceling cable and Internet service in the next day or two, though I will try to siphon an hour or so of Internet oxygen through my neighbor's Linksys wireless router from time to time. But most of my time will be spent packing and walking the streets of New York, trying to swallow the anguish of leaving this, the city of my heart.

One of the things that will serve as a weekly rebuke of my departure for the West coast will be the weekly arrival of The New Yorker and the NY Times. So many sections of The New Yorker come to life when you actually live in the city, from Tables for Two and every other section of Goings on About Town to Hilton Als's and Anthony Lane's reviews of local theater and cinema. Before I lived in NYC, I just ignored Goings on About Town. Now that I've lived here, I will peruse it each week from afar and weep at the cultural riches just out of reach. Why would I torture myself thus? I don't know, but I believe Odysseus would empathize. Odysseus had his men stuff their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast of his ship when sailing past the Sirens so he could hear their irresistible song but not chase after it.

Speaking of The New Yorker, this week's issue is a good one, including Malcolm Gladwell again on the silliness of having companies supply health insurance and pensions, a system that cripples companies when their dependency ratios soar; George Saunders helping Iran to find some alternatives to popular English phrases that have infected its language; and James Surowiecki on the dubious ethics of management buyouts.

Okay, back to boxing and taping.

Perhaps this will shorten the lunch lines at Shake Shack

Shake Shack fails health inspection, earning 140 violation points from the NYC Department of Health. The average NY restaurant scores a 12, and a score of 28 or lower is required in order to pass the health inspection. Eater has posted the official response from Danny Meyer and company's Union Square Hospitality Group (thx to Anne for the heads up).

Sweat

It's been about 100 degrees in Manhattan the past two days. Sometime yesterday morning, my air conditioner lost its will and started spewing out hot air. Welcome to hell.

I thought it was a temporary failure, so I turned it off to let it rest and went to the gym in the late afternoon. The air conditioning at the gym is solid, but after a half hour on the treadmill, I was sweating buckets. The only time I can recall sweating more was on my bike ride up Mont Ventoux in 2002, when a literal waterfall of sweat formed on my nose.

In the locker room, I returned my towel to the laundry bin, the towel so soaking wet it was as if I'd dropped it in the hot tub. Outside, the pavement was disgorging all the heat it had soaked up from the sun during the day. I felt like the city was trying to sweat me out of its pores.

Back home, I stood in front of my air conditioner, muttered a little prayer under my breath, and turned it on. For a few seconds, cold air emerged, but the chill began diminishing at a steady rate. I hopped in the shower and took turned the water to the coldest setting and sat under it for as long as I could bear. It's probably not healthy to expose one's body to such extreme temperature swings, but I felt like I was overheating.

As soon as I got out of the shower, I started sweating again. I haven't stopped sweating since. My super still hasn't shown up. Last night I had to crash on my brother's sofa. I may try to sneak into Sephora tonight with a sleeping bag and crash behind the cosmetics counter. It feels like the North Pole in there.

Every now and then, something happens and my air conditioner works again for about a minute. Those moments remind me of those occasional euphoric highs, when for some reason one's internal chemistry aligns in a perfect eclipse of any anxiety or sorrow.

I think it was on a day with heat like today's that violence erupted in Do The Right Thing, or that Merusault shoots that guy on the beach in The Stranger.

Accomplice

Accomplice New York is "part theater, part game and part tour." Interact with actors in trying to solve a criminal mystery in New York, and experience the city in the process. They suggest 8-person teams, which is tough to achieve with just out-of-town visitors, but for locals it might be a fun alternative weekend activity.

To terrorize or not to terrorize

Two Tuesdays ago, I attended the NY premiere of the opera "Grendel." Elliot Goldenthal was the composer, and his partner Julie Taymor (seemingly most well-known for Broadway's musical "The Lion King" and for directing Titus and Frida and for her acclaimed production of Die Zauberflöte at the Met last year...my review of that here) was director, co-librettist, and puppet designer. George Tsypin, who collaborated with Taymor on Die Zauberflöte, reunited with her as set designer.

This was an adaptation of the novel by John Gardner that retells the story of Beowulf from the monster Grendel's perspective. I've not read the novel, but if the Goldenthal-Taymor adaptation was faithful, then both transform Grendel from a mindless beast into a Hamlet-esque brooder, an introverted philosopher wearied by the weight of his own thoughts. As with the revisionist musical Wicked, the opera traces his monstrous soul to mistreatment at the hands of cruel children in his youth because of his physical appearance.

I enjoy opera, but most are a bit long for me. It would be a lie to say I've survived all three hours of any German opera without my eyes and ears and mind wandering around the theater more than a few times. "Grendel," an English (of the new and Old variety) opera, is no exception, but a few things helped to focus my attention. Taymor/Tsypin always provide a dazzling palette for the eyes, and by the oohs and aahs of the opening night crowd, that might be enough in and of itself to earn a checkmark. Tsypin's main contribution is a gigantic, rotating wall with a pivoting cutout in the center that swings back and forth like a drawbridge. Taymor's puppets include those with her trademark geometric grandeur, including a massive dragon head. Constance Hoffman's costumes supply a pleasing contrast to the puppets, some of the other monsters in Grendel's cave looking like some first grader's terrifying crayon scrawls come to life.

I enjoy me some Taymor puppets dancing around Tsypin sets as much as the next guy, but the music is what stays with you. Goldenthal is most known to me for his film score work, and "Grendel" reminded me at moments of a Stravinsky-influenced film score. Much of the vocal line given to Grendel (hard-working bass Eric Owens, looking from my cheap seats like a man in a slate-colored body cast) reverberated past me, literally and figuratively, and I had to read the notes to the opera to catch all the nuances of the story.

At times, the opera includes a bit of welcome post-modern humor. I recall one scene, or perhaps it was the first act, ending with Grendel shouting, "Bullshit!" His first line upon appearing on stage: "And so begins the twelfth year of my idiotic war."

At the opera's conclusion, the crowd gave an enthusiastic ovation, and the snippets of conversation I heard in the mass exodus all concerned Taymor's puppets, Hoffman's costumes, and Tsypin's monolithic wall.

"Just beautiful, wasn't it?"

"Oh, it was just so gorgeous. Just wonderful to look at."

I won't go so far as to refer to "Grendel" as "The Lion King" for adults or with loftier aspirations, but sometimes I think you could set Taymor puppets on a Tsypin set to music from a CD and people would turn out eagerly, so visually starved are opera fans.

One benefit of attending opera (and theater) is that it's one of the few remaining social outings that makes me feel young, the average age of the audience at the Met skewing into another generation. One of the countless reasons I'm so depressed to be leaving NYC is that the Met's upcoming season includes more than one show I'd love to see: Anthony Minghella's interpretation of "Madame Butterfly," Tan Dun's "The First Emperor" starring Placido Domingo (with help on the libretto from novelist Ha Jin and some production assistance from Zhang Yimou), and Franco Zeffirelli's production of "La Boheme."

The Hobbit

Every time Dan spotted a poster for Lady in the Water this weekend (and this is NYC, so that would be every two blocks or so), he'd shout, "Frodo! Frodo!"

Bone marrow

In this interview, Anthony Bourdain lists Fergus Henderson's roast bone marrow with parsley salad as his "last meal before you die." I saw that in another article also, maybe it was in GQ. Here is the recipe.

If you're in NYC, perhaps the closest you'll come to trying this dish (without cooking it yourself, of course) is at Blue Ribbon Manhattan with their beef marrow and oxtail marmalade appetizer. Spread it over some crostini, sprinkle on some sea salt...soooo delicious. It's my favorite late night post going-out munchy cure.

Henderson has written a book titled The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating, the first edition of which is a treasured tome among foodies and chefs.

The Bourdain interview is a hoot, by the way. On vegetarians: "Joyless, angry, frightened, anti-human, and just plain rude. How can you travel and be a vegetarian? I don't like my grandma's cooking, but at least I try it."

On amuse bouches: "I think I've had enough amuses. I'm not amused anymore."

On non-smoking laws: "I'll stand out in the cold and smoke until I drop. All the cool people are outside anyway. In New York, there are people who actually pretend to smoke, because that's where all the cool women are."

On Rachael Ray: "A bad tipper. Come on -- ``$40 a Day''? I find her relentless good cheer terrifying and distrust anyone who could stand in front of a camera and eat mediocre food and say it's good. Be honest and say it sucks."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

I attended the taping of The Daily Show yesterday. I'd tried to get tix a few times before, to no avail, but this time I included a sob story about how I'm leaving New York in the fall (true story) and perhaps that melted the heart of the person on the other end of my e-mail. The show is taped at a fairly nondescript studio out on 11th Ave. between 51st and 52nd St. A sign hangs over the entrance: "Abandon news all ye who enter here."

I arrived a bit after 2pm and was fifth in line. Hmm, maybe I was a bit too early, but since no one is guaranteed a seat, I thought I'd better be safe than sorry. Thank goodness it was one of the cooler days in recent memory. I stood as still as possible, trying not to sweat. They finally opened the doors to us between 5:30 and 6:00pm.

I always enjoy when various young folks come out to greet us in line with phrases like, "Jon is very excited to see all of you." It sounds so odd, and yet people get excited upon hearing it. The next time I have people over for a party, I'm going to hide in my bedroom and send out a few greeters.

"Eugene is very excited to see you. He'll be out shortly. Now remember, turn off all your cell phones and make lots of noise. Lots of noise! Eugene does not use a laugh track."

The studio seated 200 according to my rough scan. A warmup guy, the audience fluffer, so to speak, came out and made comedic banter and led us in rehearsals of wild applause and screaming. If you're the type of person who turns his nose up at such behavior, preferring to stand with hands in your pockets or arms folded, the warmup guy will single you out and force you to rehearse in front of everyone else, so if you're such a person, best to stay home and watch on TV. If, like me, you've wondered why the audience of The Daily Show sounds like a mob of drunken frat boys, know that they encourage that. The audience actually consists of a fairly normal cross-section of society, but the warm-up guy and the ear-thumping soundtrack they pipe in the studio gets everyone worked up to a froth.

The studio consists of Jon's chair and desk in the center and three large screens arranged in a semicircle behind him. Jon came out to field a few questions before the show. Among them:

Who is more vile, Ann Coulter or Karl Rove?
Ann Coulter, because she has succeeded in dehumanizing those who disagree with her. I honestly don't think she'd feel a thing if they were killed in front of her. But someday, she'll learn the true meaning of Christmas.

When is Rob Corddry getting his own show?
I believe we have him through October, then he moves over to his own show on Fox(?). His brother is already gone. You have to watch out for those Corddry's, they'll f*** you. When we found him, he was just an orphan, emaciated, abandoned. I found him behind a dumpster, fed him, raised him, and what do I get? A knife in the back.

What size are your shoes?
[beat] Size 14.

On somewhat of a slow news day, the field report was from Samantha Bee, reporting from San Andreas (the Grand Theft Auto neighborhood). They shoot those segments right next to Jon Stewart, in front of a greenscreen, so the studio audience can see Bee or Corddry or whoever is the field reporter. The guest this evening was Anderson Cooper, fresh off a two hour interview with Angelina Jolie, who Stewart referred to as the "Bono of hotness."

Before recording the usual check-in with Stephen Colbert, Stewart and Colbert chatted for a bit. Stewart complained about fatigue from raising his two kids, and Colbert responded, "It's like wrestling inexhaustible midgets." As with many of these live tapings, most of the funniest moments are the ones not shown on TV, when hosts like Conan O'Brien or Stewart just ad lib and chat with the audience.

Colbert screwed up the punchline of the check-in segment so they had to record it a second time. Then Stewart recorded the lead-in for the international edition of The Daily Show which airs on CNN International. I saw that a few times while on vacation in E. Europe. It packages a week's worth of Daily Shows into one long Daily Show.

One more item to cross off the NY checklist.

Doubt, the movie

After the performance of Neil Labute's Some Girl(s) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre last night, John Patrick Shanley came on-stage for a talkback (fancy word for mini-interview and Q&A) with one of the MCC Theater's resident playwrights. I didn't realize Shanley had won the lifetime triple crown: an Oscar for best screenplay Moonstruck, a Tony and a Pulitzer, both for Doubt. He also wrote and directed Joe Versus the Volcano. Shanley mentioned that just yesterday, he closed a deal to adapt and direct Doubt as a movie.

"People who are utterly certain are vulnerable to a brand of foolishness that people who maintain a level of doubt are not," Shanley has said. It's clear that he was referring in part to a certain sitting President, especially as compared to said President's most recent electoral opponent who was crucified for changing his mind about the Iraq war.

Tiny bubbles

How can best put $1 to use? The author's conclusion is to lend it via a microfinance organization.

Interactive population growth map. Covers the world from 1955 through 2015, helping to visualize the growth in urbanisation.

Man jokingly rents out tree house for $150/mo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and receives 30 offers. Do you count as a rural or urban dweller if you live there?

As seen on the Chappelle Show, perhaps: the pre-sexual agreement.

Not happy with comments from Frederic Rouzaud, managing director of Louis Roederer, about hip-hop's long association with Cristal, Jay-Z has switched his allegiance to Krug and Dom Perignon. As a show of allegiance to my Man, I'm switching to Krug and Dom to fill my hot tub.

Cat Power at Town Hall (June 9, 2006)

I took friends to see Cat Power last Friday night at Town Hall. I'd seen her once before, a long time ago, opening for Liz Phair, and I braced my friends for the worst. Cat Power, real name Chan (pronounced Shawn) Marshall, is notorious for her sometimes jumbled concerts and jittery onstage persona. When her Memphis Rhythm Band appeared on stage and began playing, the microphone standing there alone at the center of the stage, I tensed. Maybe Marshall had decided not to come onstage? Maybe, like Eminem in 8 Mile, she was throwing up in a backstage bathroom, overcome with stage fright?

The band consisted of two guitars, a bass, two violins, a cello, drums, two backup vocalists, a piano, saxophone, and trumpet/coronet(?). I may even be leaving someone out. After an overture or two from the band, they jumped into the opening bars of "The Greatest." Still no Cat.

And then she appeared from stage right, barefoot, dressed in a sleeveless black top and black capri-like pants, dancing around like the crazy alternative girl you see on the dance floor grooving, doing her own thing, the one you think might be crazy but who is also unsettlingly alluring. She jumped into "The Greatest," flashing a smile and flexing her biceps after the opening line: "Once, I wanted to be the greatest." We had a perfect view from our seats in the sixth row, center Orchestra.

That voice. It seems to carry a built-in reverb, a raw purr that, like its owner, seems sexy, wistful, and fragile all at once. Having heard her mostly on CD up until now, it was clear during this concert that her voice is best appreciated live, in performance, when its warm density gives it a texture that seems palpable. On a cold night you could wrap it around yourself like a blanket of smoke.

For most of the concert, she seemed happy and at ease on stage, prowling back and forth on the stage, standing on her tiptoes, gesturing with her arms like Q’Orianka Kilcher's Pocahontas in The New World. Whispered speculations and the requisite drug use jokes could be heard from time to time in the seats nearby us, but I think she was much more at ease on stage than I remembered her being the last time I saw her. Her band and her fans seemed to be encouraging her, cushioning her, trying to blanket her with their love like they would a newborn infant.

Mid-concert, she disappeared midway through the ballad "Where Is My Love," leaving the band to carry the tune for an extended series of reprises. Finally, after everyone in the band had done their turn, a few members of the band could be seen peering towards stage right. "Where is my love?" sang one of the backup vocalists, and she shrugged as the audience realized that even the band had no idea where Marshall had disappeared to.

When she finally reappeared, I almost didn't recognize her. She had changed into a white strapless dress, and she'd pulled her hair back, allowing her attractive face to come out from behind her bangs. I was aware of a new train of thought disrupting my focus on the music. Cat Power was hot.

It's like revisiting an old high school buddy years later and discovering that his little sister has grown up to become a knockout. Perhaps the bangs are a security blanket, or a defense mechanism, but with her hair pulled back, Marshall was like a gangly but lovely swan. She sang the refrain one last time and brought the song to a close, and then the band left her alone on stage. She proceeded to sing a few songs alone, on guitar or the keyboard, and for the first time the fidgety Cat Power returned.

She started one song, and while strumming the guitar just ended it abruptly, saying, "Anyway." She started another tune, stopped and asked someone to remove a rolling snare, started the song again, then stopped to complain about a buzzing monitor. She fiddled with her guitar strap. Later, the keyboardist Rick Steff(?) gave her a smooch on her lips, and when he had his back to her, she wiped her lips as if grossed out (Steff, or whoever it was, seemed very touchy-feely with Cat Power, adding a creepy subtext to their interplay).

But Marshall never seemed at risk of falling over the edge. At one point, after moving her cup of water back and forth a few times like someone with OCD, she joked about herself, "Whatever keeps you sane!" At another point, she smiled between songs and proclaimed, "Sober!" From time to time she'd wave at friends in the crowd, and that voice. She covered The Animals "House of the Rising Sun" by herself, just a guitar to accompany her voice. It was lovely. Her voice needs little adornment, and using it she not only covers songs but makes them all her own.

She came back onstage for one encore, and then she was gone. As I filed out, I felt relaxed, all the tension having drained out of me. Our little baby had grown up.

Tonight, his journey ends

Tuesday morning, parts of Spiderman 3 were shot in Manhattan at the Broadhurst Theater (slideshow).

Deadspin has an anonymous source that claims that one of the people named in Jason Grimsley's affidavit as a person who referred him to an amphetamine source is Chris Mihlfeld who happens to be Albert Pujols' personal trainer. No one wants to find out that Pujols was on any illegal substance. It's bad enough thinking back to the Sosa-McGwire home run battle of 1998 that supposedly saved baseball and thinking that both of them were more artificially enhanced than Joan Rivers.

That short Samantha Bee American Idol-esque video retrospective on al-Zarqawi on The Daily Show last night caused me to laugh water out my nose. "Tonight, his journey ends. Let's take one last look back." It was set to that cheesy pop tune; I'm not sure of the name or artist. I wish the video was online to link to; perhaps it will be in a day or two.
UPDATE I: The tune accompanying shots from al-Zarqawi's terrorist training clip montage, a helpful reader informs me, was Daniel Powter's "Bad Day."
UPDATE II: Here we go, the Samantha Bee clip is in the middle of this clip.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Google Browser Sync is a Firefox plugin that syncs your Firefox browser settings across all your computers. Useful to me because I'm always bouncing between my desktop and laptop.

Al Qaeda leader Zarqawi is dead, killed in an air strike north of Baghdad.

Jon Stewart vs. Bill Bennett on gay marriage. If you wanted to send someone from the right to match wits with Jon Stewart on this issue, Bill Bennett probably isn't on the shortlist.

The Yoda backpack makes it seem as if Yoda is hanging on your back so you can look like Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. Pair this with a Force FX lightsaber and, well, you might as well lop off your manhood and put it in that backpack because it won't be getting any use.

Speaking of Star Wars, the DVDs for the original, unaltered Star Wars trilogy, Eps IV through VI, are being released in September, and the fans are already killing them with customer reviews on Amazon.com. All three DVDs currently average about 2 out of 5 stars in customer ratings. It's not just that fans are being forced to buy yet another set of Star Wars DVDs but that the original, unaltered movies will be released in non-anamorphic widescreen and will not have a new Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix. Some fans say it's just the original laserdisc transfer (I own those laserdiscs, by the way). Oh, the horror.

An online strategy guide to rock, paper, scissors. There's even a book in print called The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide. I went to a book reading/signing by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner today. It was fun to finally meet them in person. They mentioned that they're going to write a sequel to Freakonomics to be titled SuperFreakonomics. Their talk strayed to the topic of rock, paper, scissors. Phil Gordon is going to throw a $50,000 rock, paper, scissors tournament so Levitt can study the play. It just so happens that Levitt is studying the human ability or inability to randomize. He mentioned some initial studies that indicated that football (I think he meant European football) players are superior strategy randomizers. He's not sure why. If given 4 strategies to employ against each other, the optimal mix is something like 40/20/20/20 (or so Levitt said), and football players do that naturally. Rock, paper, scissors is a good test of that human ability. Gordon believes that some people are gifted randomizers and can consistently win at rock, paper, scissors, but it sounds like Levitt's skeptical since different people make the rock, paper, scissors finals each year.

Chip Kidd is the guest blogger at PowellsBooks this week. Among the his to-do's for the week:

• Design a cover for Christina Garcia's forthcoming novel, A Handbook to Luck.
• Construct and photograph a miniature set for Martin Amis's new novel, House of Meetings. By Thursday morning.
• Redesign a poster for a Pedro Almodovar film festival.
• Do the mechanical for Robert Hughes's Goya, newly in paperback.
• Get an approval on a jacket for a book on the history of relations between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Middle East (by Zachary Karabell).
• Do research on a poster for Sofia Coppola's upcoming film, Marie Antoinette (I'm so, so behind on this and Sony's being very patient).
• Design a cover for a play by Cormac McCarthy, entitled Sunset Limited.
• Do same for Kim Deitch's new graphic novel, Alias The Cat, which I am also editing. And which rules.
• Reconfigure my design for the Surprise CD by Paul Simon in order to adapt it to, of all things, vinyl.

Even Danny Meyer's wife and kids have to wait in line at the Shake Shack.

Nicole is blowing up

Last year, I caught some of her U.S. Open matches on the outer courts (pics here, here, and here), even chatted with her after a mixed doubles win. That's not going to happen again.

Former Mariner top prospect Ryan Anderson, or the "Little Unit," is now in culinary school and wants to open a steak restaurant.

Drive-in Movies at the Rock (Rockefeller Center) return tonight through Friday evening. Tonight they're showing I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, followed by Air Guitar Nation tomorrow, Once In A Lifetime Thursday, and Kettle of Fish on Friday.

Faith Healer, and my Tony-nominated friend

One of the things I hope to recover when my desktop computer returns is my iCal calendar. I spent a good part of yesterday trying to recall big upcoming events in my life by looking over credit card receipts. To my surprise, I had two tickets to a matinee showing of Brian Friel's Faith Healer this afternoon. Who buys two tickets to a Wednesday matinee?

I spent a futile day trying to find someone to attend an afternoon matinee of serious theater with me, to no avail. Fortunately, a series of glowing reviews, and perhaps the presence of Ralph Fiennes as the lead, had attracted a huge audience this gorgeous afternoon day. I found a taker for my extra ticket in the cancellation queue, a man who handed over a tattered $100 bill with a furtive glance over both shoulders, a gesture that left me feeling like a drug dealer.

Faith Healer is not a conventional play. Rather, it is a series of four monologues or soliloquys. Frank Hardy (Fiennes) delivers the first and last, and in between we hear from Grace Hardy (Cherry Jones) and Teddy (Ian McDiarmid). They each tell stories about the same events, but their recollections differ in revealing ways.

Frank is an Irish faith healer, Grace his wife or mistress, depending on who you believe, and Ted is Frank's manager. They recall a time when they drifted about the Scottish and Welsh countryside staging "performances," as Frank refers to his healing performances.

Frank's healing ability comes and goes. He carries with him a press clipping about one of his triumphs, a time when he healed all ten people who came to him in a Welsh town. Those triumphs surprise even himself, and yet he is haunted by his failures. "I always knew when nothing was going to happen." Frank represents every artist who has prostrated himself at the foot of his Muse in desperation, anger, and incomprehension. For the most part, he paints his past in such grand and overly theatrical prose that one suspects him of artistic vanity and insecurity, but Fiennes manages to flash enough of his self-loathing at the audience to earn its pity.

Grace is both transfixed by Frank's gift and disgusted by his abusive treatment of her. She was a lawyer once but ran off with Frank, drawn to the his magnetism and the allure of the arts. Ted's soliloquy begins the second act and begins with a welcome comic embrace, what with Ian McDiarmid's Cockney accent and ghastly combover.

As the monologues unfold, a sense of dread creeps through the theater. Frank Hardy is a maelstrom into which Grace and Ted have been drawn, and that they are not on stage together augurs badly.

The acting is first-rate. Though I found myself yearning for a close-up shot of some of the actors during their intimate confessions, all three were skilled enough on the stage that their emotions registered with me in row L. Fiennes gives one of the best performances on Broadway by a silver screen star that I've seen in my time in NYC, and I've seen quite a few, and Cherry Jones gives a strong followup to her Tony-winning performance in Doubt. Ian McDiarmid proves that he was no fluke as the best actor in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

The play requires the viewer to pay close attention. At times my thoughts wandered into reverie, and I'd struggle to catch up with the narrative sudoku, trying to balance three competing recounts of various events. It's no simple task for my hyperlink-addicted mind to remain focused on a single storyteller for nearly 3 hours, nor was it a cinch for many of the middle-aged to older audience in attendance this night. At times, the play left me yearning to see the three actors on stage together interacting in a more dramatic situation.

And yet, to structure the play any other way would be to undermine one of the play's more haunting messages, and that is the loneliness of human existence. How could three people who cared so deeply for each other offer such varying accounts of events they were the only people to experience? As each of them twists and kneads their memories on stage, they come to seem like, each of them, a ghost, doomed to forever struggle to communicate to each other across scenes, but doomed to forever appear on stage alone. Only the audience hears all of their stories, and yet the task of weaving them together into a single coherent narrative is like trying to visually resolve an optical illusion.

The old woman next to me dozed in and out, occasionally waking with a start before drifting slowly off again. At the end of the play, she proclaimed grumpily, "I didn't understand that."

"I guess you had to be there," I said.

Happy footnote: Along with the regular Playbill, I was given a special Playbill focused on the 2006 Tonys. I'd already heard the good news from Peter, but seeing it in print was still a thrill. Klara had been nominated for a Tony in the category of Best Scenic Design of a Musical for her work on Jersey Boys. I'll be watching and rooting for her on TV on June 11.

From the Tony website:

Prior to Jersey Boys, Klara Zieglerova designed the set for the Broadway revival of Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. This is her first Tony nomination.

Comme ci, comme ca

What if someone steals your Mac laptop? Undercover is a piece of software for just that type of scenario. Report your laptop stolen, and the next time it connects to the Internet it will send network info and snap pics with its iSight. 10 minutes later, a team of Delta commandos armed with semi-automatics will crash through the skylight and neutralize the perps with tear gas and rubber bullets (okay, I made this part up, but it would be fantastic as a premium plan). If authorities fail to recover it promptly, the software will simulate a screen failure.

One other thing that Europe has over the U.S.: sunscreens with mexoryl which do a far better job of blocking UVA rays. Unfortunately, mexoryl is still banned by the FDA. The NYTimes covered this a while back. Mexoryl-based sunscreens are thought to reduce wrinkles, so as you can imagine, a healthy bootlegging trade has cropped up here in NYC, where you can get your hands on it, at a ridiculous price, if you ask at the right drugstores on the Upper East Side. You can also purchase it online from Canadian pharmacies. I'm kicking myself for forgetting to snag a couple tubes while in Europe.

The puggle: half pug, half beagle. For the NY bachelor who needs a NY-pint-sized dog that is, in the words of Thrillist, "passably masculine."

A Frankensteinian commencement speech spliced together from celebrity commencement speeches across the country in 2006. Did Jodie Foster really quote Eminem? Oh Clarice! My guess is that line was received with the silence of the lambs.

Ryan Seacrest breaks bad news.

Must. Have. Sugar.

Last week I invested in some new running shoes. My previous pair, the Adidas Supernovas, had carried me through the NY Marathon, but only when paired with off-the-shelf insoles. The Supernovas didn't offer much arch support, and without the new insoles they left bruises on my arches. I have really, really flat feet, so I'm prone to overpronation, so to speak.

Fortunately, most motion control running shoes are cheaper than the average running shoe. Most manufacturers' top-of-the-line running shoes aren't motion control models. This time around I didn't want to have to buy separate insoles. I ended up with a pair of Saucony and a pair of New Balance motion control shoes to alternate with. Both had wide toe boxes to accommodate my toe-side-wide flippers.

Though stores let you test shoes out on treadmills or out around the block, you still never know just how well a pair of shoes fits you until you've put a few miles into them, which is why I cruised down the East River Park to the Brooklyn Bridge last Friday afternoon. The weather has been erratic lately, but on my return trip the sun was strong. Back at my apartment, I had to sit for a long time to cool off before jumping into the shower. I hate getting out of the shower while my core temp is still high and sweating some more. By the time I'd dressed, I didn't have time for dinner before catching a showing of The Odd Couple down on Broadway.

While waiting for the subway uptown, I bought a roll of SweeTarts and a tiny bag of gummy bears, two of my favorite candies. During the show, as Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick mugged on stage, I snuck one candy after another into my mouth, trying to chew discreetly. By intermission, I'd consumed all my sweets. You medheads can probably sense where this horror story is headed.

After the show let out, about 10:45pm or so, the plan was to grab dinner. My friend got called back into work, though, so I walked her back to her office and then headed out in search of food. A bit past 11:00pm, another friend called and said a bunch of folks were congregating at Katz's Deli for food and drinks in half an hour. Could I wait and join them there for a meal?

My stomach wasn't rumbling, so I agreed. As I walked towards the nearest subway stop, I started to feel hot inside, an odd sensation on such a cool evening. I pulled off my jacket, but it didn't help. I started to sweat, at first a little, and then a lot. I've never sweat like that in my life. Then my head started to spin, and my legs went weak. I could barely stand up, and at each street corner I held onto lampposts for dear life. What was happening to me?

My only thought was that I probably needed food. I'd bonked on a bike before, but it felt nothing like this. I staggered into the next restaurant I saw. The name of the place escapes me. A red lantern with a Japanese character on it was hanging out front, and I practically fell through the front door, a few smokers out front shooting quizzical looks my way. The hostess inside gave a start when she saw me, perhaps because I looked like I'd just emerged from four hours in a sauna. I signaled for 1 with my index finger, and she escorted me to the bar, where I sat and put my head down on the counter.

The bartender brought the usual Japanese restaurant amenities. I've never been so thankful for a wet towel, which I used to wipe my face and neck. I couldn't stop sweating, and now my hands were shaking. I ordered a coke, then called Alan and Sharon. Thankfully Sharon was up, and when I told her what was going on, she calmly diagnosed hypoglycemia and recommended something with sugar, like a fruit juice. When my coke arrived, I chugged it like I was chasing something awful, then immediately ordered another. A few appetizers dropped in front of me, and they disappeared just as quickly. By the time my meal was over, I'd stopped sweating and no longer felt like passing out.

Let's rewind to the start. After the run, my blood sugar was low. Then I shocked my system with the candy, and the sugar overload caused my body to release insulin. By the time the show was over, my body was entering insulin shock. I only know this now because Derek told me that researchers study hypoglycemia by doing roughly what I did to myself, except they give patients glucose drinks instead of SweeTarts and gummy bears. Self-experimentation isn't all that safe when done outside a controlled environment. Passing out on a dark street late at night in NYC? Not priceless.

APC hack

This hack may only be of use in Manhattan, where the lines at the post office for human post office clerks are never short.

Much to any tech-saavy customers delight, he USPS joined the customer self-service movement a while back by installing machines/kiosks called Automated Postal Centers at many of their branches. By following directions on a touch screen, you can weigh letters and packages and purchase postage using your credit or debit card. This saves customers the trouble of waiting in line for their most common mailing needs.

The reliability of these machines, though is poor, and the glitch in the interface is that the APC often allows you to go all the way to the end of the process before informing you that, due to one error or another, you have to go to wait in line for a clerk after all.

When that happens, I've found a workaround that seems to be effective most of the time. From the opening screen, instead of hitting the "Mail a letter or package" button, press the button that says "Look Up Information." Then, press "Look Up Domestic Mailing Costs." Weigh your letter or package, type in the destination zipcode, and the machine will tell you the postage. But then it will also offer an option to purchase that postage. You can then proceed to purchase the stamp with your credit/debit card.

For some reason, that method always works, even when proceeding down that "Mail a letter or package" branch of the menu fails.

Stroked

Wednesday night I went to the Strokes' first concert of their 2006 tour at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Great show, and I don't have anything to add to Stereogum's summary of the concert (and setlist). The last time I saw The Strokes was in 2003 in Seattle at the Exhibition Center, just an awful place to see a concert.

The Strokes came complete with their own fly girl, Lucy Liu, dancing up a storm in the lower stage left box with uber-Strokes-celeb-groupie Drew Barrymore, who was content to tilt her head back and mouth the lyrics towards the ceiling with a stoned grin while squeezing a cigarette between her fingers.

I left the show with just the right amount of deafness in my ears and blood racing through my head. I want to be Julian.

Whatever People Say I Am Thats What I Am Not

Google Pages is a free, online web page creation tool.

Whatever People Say I Am Thats What I Am Not, the mega-hyped new album from maybe the most hyped new band of the last year, released yesterday. The good news is the album is a whole lot of damn fun, and the hype is forgivable because the band allowed MP3s of their tunes to float around the Internet for a long time before they released their work. That helped to build the buzz and a fan base. Even before their CD released, they sold out a few concerts in NYC before most people could hit redial on their phone. It helps to be good, yes, but it also helps to realize how to feed the machine that is the Web hype monster with some choice cuts. Cheap, efficient marketing.

NYTimes food critic Frank Bruni reviews NYC's midtown Hooters in his new blog. "They may wear skimpy attire, but they have big hearts."

The Manhattan Trader Joe's could be opening in mid-March, ahead of schedule. Some localization will occur: Two-buck Chuck will be three-buck Chuck due to Manhattan inflation.

Tiger Woods annihilates his first opponent in The Accenture Match Play Championship, 9 & 8 (basically, Tiger won every hole of the match, nine in a row, with 7 birdies and 2 pars). Even I, with my terrible game, might have been able to eek out a tie on one hole on the front 9. Before the match, Ames had made a comment about Tiger's driving to the press, saying, "Anything can happen, especially where he's hitting the ball." After the match, when asked if he had any response to Ames' comments, Tiger responded, "9 & 8." Just this once, it would have been great if trash talking was allowed in golf. Every time Tiger sank a birdie putt, he could've turned to Ames and said, "How do you like where I hit that ball, you $*@#!?" Everyone knows if trash talking were allowed, Tiger would be even more dominant than he is. He'd be like Jordan, just cruel and relentless.

I forgot to point out yesterday that Sports Guy's latest column, summarizing his NBA All-Star Weekend trip, was awesome.

236 phrases/keywords censored by a Chinese blogging service. Among them:

• Set fires to force people to relocate
• Hire a killer to murder one's wife
• Fetus soup

Always look on the bright side

Brian came all the way up from Philadelphia today to go see The Odd Couple with me. I'm not a big musical guy, but among the things I wanted to do in NYC before I left was to see a live show starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Even though chances are that Matthew Broderick will look exactly the same for the next twenty years, the same cannot be said for Nathan Lane. For tonight's show, I had second row seats, dead center.

We grabbed dinner beforehand at Fatty Crab, the new and much buzzed-about Malaysian restaurant in the Meatpacking District. It's one of those tiny NYC restaurants where weaving between the tables and all the people standing inside waiting for a table requires holding your hands over your head like you're dancing to hip hop, shimmying sideways, and wriggling your hips like a hula hoop dancer. It's an entire restaurant of two-person tables, so arriving with an Allen Iverson-sized posse is unwise.

To avoid some of the restaurant's usual claustrophobia, we arrived at 6pm, about a half hour before the dinner rush. The menu is manageable, just a few pages, and the food is meant to be eaten family style, with dishes arriving in random order, whenever the kitchen happens to knock them out.

The first of our dishes to arrive was the Fatty Duck, a plate befitting its name, much like characters in Chinese karate movies. Take, for example, Zu: Warriors from Magic Mountain. In this movie, one of the characters is an old man with huge, superpowered eyebrows. His name? Long Brows. Take almost any Chinese martial arts movie where the hero has an overweight sidekick, and 8 times out of 10 the sidekick's name will be translated as Fatty or Piggy or Porky. The Jet Li/Tsui Hark classic Once Upon a Time in China has one character named Porky, another named Buck Teeth Soh. Their appearances, I assume, are vivid in your mind.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that the Fatty Duck consists of four pieces of duck, each topped with a healthy, juicy layer of fat. Brian and I attacked this dish with forks, then chopsticks. Then we conceded and grabbed it with our hands, and the waiter nodded his approval. Spicy, sweet, salty, awesome.

Second place in the race from kitchen to dinner table were the Heritage Foods Slow-Cooked Pork Ribs. I'm a huge fan of braised meats in general, especially when eating out because I'm too impatient to spend the time braising at home, and if you take braised meats home as leftovers, they taste just as good or better the next day. These ribs, coated in a sweet sauce, were so soft they melted in our mouths like butter. By the time we finished, the two of us looked like two-year olds after consuming a bucket of ice cream with our bare hands. I shudder to think of the carnage had we ordered the signature dish of Chili Crab.

Once our Nasi Lemak arrived (coconut rice, chicken curry, slow poached egg), we realized we'd over-ordered by just a bit, a sentiment confirmed a minute later when a steak/noodle/clam/chili pepper dish (whose name escapes me now) arrived to complete our order. There is a wine list, but this is food to be enjoyed with beer, and we washed our meal down with a Hitachino Classic, a sort of IPA.

This is food that's survived the journey across the Pacific. I cringe at the words Pan-Asian or Asian fusion, and all the Jean-Georges Asian fusion restaurants have been disappointments, massively over-priced for food whose roots lie in cheap street-side food stands, but this isn't a remix, it's a faithful rendition of flavorful Malaysian cuisine, with all its intense flavors. It will cost you a whole lot less than a meal at a Jean-Georges Asian joint like Spice Market and leave your taste buds a whole lot happier. The best news is that it's open until 4am from Thursdays through Saturdays, making it another addition to my list of really late night weekend food oases. Add Fatty Duck to the Beef Marrow and Oxtail Marmalade at Blue Ribbon Restaurant as two of the most pleasing and decadent ways to counteract (or top off, depending on how you view it) a weekend drinking buzz.

After cleaning our hands with turpentine in the bathroom, we hopped a cab up to the Brooke Atkinson Theater. The show was set to start in 15 minutes, and already a long line had formed. A man was passing out flyers to everyone in line, and then he pressed one into mine, and it took me a minute to digest the news. The show had been cancelled because Nathan Lane had laryngitis. I was crestfallen and felt like a failed host, but Brian took it well considering he'd travelled all the way from Philly for one night. He suggested a movie instead. As we walked away from the theater, a ticket broker materialized out of the shadows, like an ambulance chasing attorney at the scene of a traffic accident.

"How about seeing Spamalot instead?" he said, leering through a mouth in which every other tooth appeared to have never grown back, or perhaps he'd pawned them off to someone coming out of a dentist's office. "Show starts in five minutes."

I responded with my best poker face, as if I'd hit a set on the flop and was contemplating a fold. But inside, I knew this was the lucky break we needed. I hadn't seen Spamalot yet, it won the Tony for Best Musical in 2005, and it was among the more difficult shows to score tickets to. Brian was a huge Monty Python fan, knew nothing of the show, and had watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail "a thousand times." The ticket broker interpreted my frown as skepticism and produced a business card as proof of his legitimacy. It read "Tix R Us".

A few moments later, each of us $50 lighter, Brian and I were sprinting through the usual Times Square sidewalk traffic down to 44th St. Dashing up three flights of stairs, we sat down just as the lights went down, our $50 having bought us seats in the second to last row in the theater, a thin pole about seven rows up bisecting our view (though the theater was cozy and we were in the center).

At first I thought the entire show would be a literal rehash of the movie on stage. It began that way, and I was worried that we'd paid $50 to watch what we could've watched at my apartment for free. To my relief, the musical does branch away from the movie to generate some parallel identities, for example as a post-modern spoof of musicals themselves (one of the songs is titled "The Song That Goes Like This" and begins: "Once in every show, there comes a song that goes like this. It starts off soft and low, and ends up with a kiss. Oh where, is, the song, that goes, like this."). And, as the lady working the cashbar told us with breathless excitement at intermission, a portion of the French guard skit was improvised every night. Even she, having seen the show countless times, had no idea what was coming.

This is somewhat of a spoiler, but if it's the same gimmick every night, it may be worth knowing ahead of time if you can choose your premium seat, but the Holy Grail ended up being located below seat D101 in the Orchestra. I don't know if it's always seat D101. From our nosebleed seats, we couldn't see who occupied the lucky seat, but apparently it was not an attractive woman, because the cast member who went to bring the lucky audience member on stage said he'd have to choose a surrogate and ended up bringing what appeared to us to be a hot young woman named Elizabeth Riley on stage. She was presented with a trophy and a Polaroid of her standing with the cast. So, if you're a really attractive young woman and can obtain seats in the general vicinity of seat D101, or seat D101 itself, you stand a better than average chance of ending up a part of the show.

The reenactments of famous skits from the movie didn't do much for me, but some of the musical numbers were both funny and catchy. The Lady of the Lake in Act I is a tickle (Lauren Kennedy). The cast members probably have the best time of anyone in the theater, but the audience is a close second. It's a musical I'm putting on the recommended list for out-of-towners, so many of whom deem a musical an essential part of a successful New York visit.

So The Odd Couple had been cancelled. Hey, as one song in Spamalot urged, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." It was hilarious when all the crucified folk in Life of Brian were singing it to Jesus, and it was sage advice for me on this night. Brian and I were whistling that little ditty the whole subway ride home.

Trader Joe's to open near Union Square in 3 months

Yahoo!

Always be cobbling

Always
Be
Cobbling
(thanks James)

If they just sent in Alec Baldwin, the city could have averted this transit strike.

Artwalk

Ken visited this weekend, and, as usual when this walking encyclopedia of art is in town, we tried to take in some of the exhibitions that interested him. Our first stop was the Neue Galerie which owns and is currently exhibiting the largest collection of Egon Schiele works in the world. Schiele's portraits and nudes are really arresting. The portraits are intimate, as if he caught the subject letting down their guard and then drew them the instant they reacted to being discovered. The female nudes exhibit a shamelessness that seems very modern in retrospect, their legs spread or splayed at all sorts of obtuse angles like turn of the century porn stars.

I suspect Schiele's work was a huge influence on Peter Chung's Aeon Flux visual style as well as on Frank Miller in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Miller's Joker in that book resembles a Schiele.

Incidentally, the wait for the museum cafe, Cafe Sabarsky, was almost an hour. If you've a hankering for Viennese food...

Our next visit was to the Marian Goodman Gallery, currently exhibiting paintings from 2001-2005 by Gerhard Richter, renowned for being the the most expensive living artist, at least in auction. We were told that most Richters sell for several million in auction, with even letter-sized prints fetching $800,000. Most of the exhibition showcases his Abstraktes, not my favorite of his works, but at the last room of the exhibition are four of his Silikat pictures, massive grey paintings based on photographs of molecular structures. As such, they straddle the line between abstraction and representation, like all of his photo-based paintings. Any of his Silikats would make a fabulous desktop wallpaper.

Richter made many paintings based on photographs. Only two were on display here. One was Mustang Squadron (1964) which sold for $462,000, and the other, Waldhaus (2004), looked like a picture of a country home nestled among the trees, shot out the window of a moving car. I wasn't in New York for his 2002 MOMA exhibition, the one that traveled to Art Institute in Chicago, SF MOMA, and the Hirshhorn in D.C. Someday I hope to see his Iceberg in Fog in person.

Our final destination on the Artwalk was the James Cohan Gallery in Chelsea, currently exhibiting a Bill Viola exhibition. At some hours, it's nearly impossible to hail a cab, so by the time we arrived, we did not have enough time to watch the hour long video piece The Darker Side of Dawn, which depicts an oak tree against a sunrise and sunset. The most beautiful piece was Night Journey, a slow reverse zoom which begins with a few candles and then zooms back to reveal a woman lighting several dozens of candles. Other works including a slow-motion high-def video of a man and woman's hands under running water, a man and woman submerging their face in water and holding their breaths for as long as possible, and two lovers entwined below the surface of a darkened pool of water, thrashing, gasping for breath, and finally sinking into the darkness until they disappeared. Inspired by Elizabeth Berkley and and Kyle MacLachlan in Showgirls? Artists don't kiss and tell.

Some of his pieces were projected on walls or screens, while some other HD videos were shown on plasmas oriented vertically. Along with my desire for Richter wallpapers, I'd love to have some Bill Viola screensavers, but I suspect either would cost an arm and a leg. Actually, my arm and my leg probably wouldn't be enough, sad to say, though for that price I might be able to procure a few PAL videotapes.

Some excerpts from Viola's pieces can be seen in this Quicktime video at the Getty website. The Viola exhibit at the James Cohan Gallery ends Dec. 22.

Review: King Kong

[SPOILER PREFACE: Because this is a remake of such a well-known movie, I will refer to major plot points, but none that I consider to be revelations to anyone familiar with the King Kong story. Jackson remakes the 1933 version but makes some changes in the process. I try not to reveal any major changes that I consider to be surprises. Of course, if you don't know the King Kong story or want to see the movie without any critical preface, then click or scroll away to your next destination. There really is no such thing as a completely spoiler-free review.]

Peter Jackson's has long spoken of how important the 1933 King Kong was in driving him towards a career in film, and so his remake is a loving tribute, all the way through the last words of the credits, a dedication to the creative team behind the original, from Merian Cooper to Fay Wray to everyone in between. As I tried to stay warm while standing on the sidewalk yesterday, I wondered just how faithful Jackson would be the original. Can you really make the necessary improvements on someone else's work of art, especially when it had such an influence on you?

King Kong, both the 1933 and 1976 version, are noteworthy in my moviegoing history as well. The 1976 version was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater, in Salt Lake City. My parents couldn't afford a babysitter, so they took me with them. When those helicopters shot Kong off of the World Trade Center, I cried like a baby. Actually, I was a baby. I was two.

I can't remember the exact year I saw the 1933 version, but it was magic. Like many boys, I loved dinosaurs and stop-motion animation, which seemed like childhood toys come to life in a way we could otherwise only conjure in our imaginations. King Kong was really the feature film birth of stop-motion animation, and even today it has a magical fake-real duality that computer-generated effects can't duplicate. The shots of King Kong groping for Jack Driscoll over the side of the cliff still gives me a jolt of joy.

However, some things in the 1933 version couldn't be updated through merely improved special effects and a budget over 400 times larger than the original (which was shot for $500K, still a princely sum in those days). As much as I love the 1933 version, the story is hokey and the acting campy, and that's being generous ("Holy mackerel, what a show!" exclaims Denham upon seeing the natives performing a dance to Kong). Jackson wasn't working from source material on par with Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. On the other hand, his adaption of that book couldn't have been any more successful. My concern wasn't with the movie's ability to recoup the investment or to earn massive box office over the holiday season. Of that I had little doubt. I had a different checklist of hopes in my mind under the lights of the marquee of the Times Square Loews. For example, could he infuse the thrilling adventure with some dramatic depth? Could he give Kong a real personality? When would I regain feeling in my feet?

Jackson checked a lot of items off of that list, certainly enough to consider the movie a success as a rousing Christmas crowd-pleaser, and at the movie's center is a breathtaking action sequence. A few items remain problematic. Some seem fixable, and others might have to wait for the next remake of King Kong, which at this rate should arrive in 2041 or so.

As we sat in the theater (for the world premiere, the movie played on 38 different screens in Times Square, split between the Loews and AMC on 42nd St.) waiting for the movie to begin, what sounded like James Newton Howard's score for the movie played over the sound system. It would have been a nice touch to have Overture displayed on the screen as in the 1933 version.

The story from the 1933 King Kong has the thematic weight of a fairy tale, encapsulated in Carl Denham's famous concluding line: "It was beauty killed the beast" or in the quote appearing at the start of the movie:

"And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead."

Kong also serves as foil to the ruthless film director Carl Denham, though the jabs at the entertainment business are more prickly than sharp. Kong also functions as Christ-like figure in some ways, worshipped by the Skull Island natives, crucified by Denham on a structure of wood and chains of "chrome steel," chains he snaps like Samson, but he's more a general martyr than a specific reference to any religious figure.

It's not Shakespeare, but Jackson's version does a better job developing the theme than the original. A couple things help. First, the movie is three hours seven minutes long, almost twice as long as the original. Jackson spends much more time in the first third of the movie, in New York City, setting up the journey to Skull Island. Naomi Watts is a superior dramatic actor to Fay Wray, and the gap in acting ability between 2005 Kong and his predecessor is equally large. To be fair, the original Kong had the dopey face of a simple, tempestuous child of an incestuous relationship, while the updated Kong is aided in large part by the addition of an iris and a pupil in each eye. New Kong feels like a grownup male who still a good woman to teach him how to use silverware and to communicate his feelings. His eye-of-Sauron-sized orange-black eyeballs express more in a few frames than the black-on-white eyeballs of the original Kong did in an entire movie. The new Kong, like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, was modeled in part on the actions of Andy Serkis, and as before, the process works. Kong is just as facially expressive as Gollum, and that 10 foot mug, combined with the realism of his gorilla-like movements, contribute to the most emotionally complex Kong yet.

Naomi Watts has some evocative eyes of her own, and they're just one reason she's perfectly cast as Ann Darrow, the good-hearted, down-on-her-luck performer. When Watts opens her baby blues wide, few faces can match hers for vulnerability, disappointment, and sorrow. It's one reason she was so moving in roles like the ones in Mulholland Drive and Ellie Parker. That hint of emotional fragility renders her beauty approachable, and so if a giant gorilla was able to discern a vulnerable heart in a human female, Watts is as likely a choice as any. And, fans will be glad to hear, her screams are as piercing as those of the best of them.

Both beauty and beast need every bit of that acting talent to convince the audience that a giant gorilla and a 5'5" woman could fall in love. In the 1933 film, Fay Wray never warmed to the original alpha male, issuing glass-cracking screams every time Kong laid a hand on her. The 1976 version added an almost cockamamie romance between Jessica Lange and the giant ape, but that dose of sugar was endearing and heightened the poignancy of his eventual demise. Jackson sides with the 1976 remake in the Darrow-Kong relationship. Darrow finds in Kong the only male that never lets her down, one both sensitive and fierce. They share two extended scenes of alone time, one on Skull Island, one in Manhattan, and both are magical and hokey all at once. I'm as prone as anyone to rolling my eyes at the first hint of mawkish sentimentality, and though I won't reveal what occurs in these two scenes, thankfully they're closer in spirit to Dian Fossey picking lice out of a gorilla's hair than Kong and Darrow sucking on the same spaghetti strand at an Italian restaurant, or Darrow and Kong running down the beach hand in hand, the late afternoon tide lapping at their feet. Celebrity marriages rarely last, but had the paprazzi and machine-gun-toting biplanes simply let this couple be, I would've given them even odds of a happy union, and that's about as loving a relationship as I can recall between a human and a digital character in the movies.

At one point, I thought I spied another giant gorilla skeleton on Skull Island. Kong is the last of the giant gorillas, and his scars imply he's an older, lonely one, perhaps even a widower. Perhaps this movie can be added to a long list of autumn in new york romances, the older man with the younger woman, a simian companion to Lost in Translation.

Jack Black has some memorable eyes himself, or perhaps it's his eyebrows? He was an interesting casting choice. I love Jack Black, but his eyebrows work against him here. As the unscrupulous director Carl Denham, Black wields that trademark arched eyebrow that italicizes everything he says and that bug-eyed intensity that wins you over with its hyperbole. His Denham feels more like a rascal than a fiend, and in part it's because you can't help liking Jack Black even when he's a raving lunatic, as in High Fidelity, for example.

Jackson's remix adds some additional layers of plot. A trope comparing their journey to Skull Island to Marlow's journey up the Congo feels too loose and undeveloped. Jamie Bell plays a young shiphand who is reading a copy of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. During a key dramatic moment, he says to his mentor Hayes (Evan Parke): "This isn't an adventure story, is it?" (He's referring, of course, to the book in his hands and their expedition to Skull Island).

Hayes replies, in a basso profundo with halting gravitas, "No, my friend, it isn't." I had to chuckle at that.

Some other hokey elements from the 1933 movie remain, but fans of the original may find themselves more and more forgiving of those as the movie progresses as it becomes clear that Jackson is quoting many of them in tribute. Some scenes, camera shots, and character movements are almost exact duplicates of their 1933 inspirations: Darrow and Denham's meeting at the apple stand, the pan up the giant marquee in Manhattan announcing Kong as the eighth wonder of the world, the way Kong opens and shuts the T-Rex's limp and broken jaw like a handyman testing a broken hinge, or the way Kong fingers the bloody bullet holes in his chest after the first assault by the biplane squadron.

Other remnants of the 1933 movie I could have done without. The savage natives of Skull Island return, though this time the ship's most noble crew member is black. Nevertheless, critics of the worldview of the 1933 movie will have some of the same issues to work with here. The natives of Skull Island revere Kong; the visitors from New York treat him as a marketable commodity. Only Darrow connects with Kong. The other carryover from 1933 that could have been excised is Charlie, the Chinese cook with the Fu Manchu, coolie outfit, and broken English accent circa Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. He always made me cringe. He returns here in a bit part, as a random deckhand, Choy.

Of course, what most people will want to see are the special effects, and this movie is filled with them, even more than The Lord of the Rings. With a budget of over $200 million, King Kong is at the bleeding edge of CGI and reveals the current capabilities and limitations of the technology. Some shots, most notably the brontosaurus stampede that's shown in the trailer, clearly look like green screen. The humans in the foreground are set off from the dinos in a way that resembles an old school matte. Some of it is due to the sharpness of the humans and the softness of the background dinos, but the lighting seems to be a larger issue. I'm not sure how that problem will be solved, but it's still a challenge that remains. I suspect that sequence is the most technically challenging in the movie because everything is in motion, the brontosaurus, the humans, the foliage, and the rock formations.

In several long shots, characters or vehicles moving in the distance seem to stutter. I noticed it in one shot when an army jeep with a gun loaded on back turns a corner under the subway tracks, in pursuit of Kong. Also, in another shot, when one of the Skull Island natives pole vaults for the first time (you'll understand when you see it), the motion looks a bit odd.

The hair on Kong is beautiful--CGI can handle individual hairs rippling in the wind. Rough skin textures, as on Kong or the dinosaurs, remain less than photo-realistic. Glossy or reflective surfaces, like the exoskeletons of insects, seem easier to render. One centipede (an insect that really grosses me out) gave me a case of the willies. Jackson's remake of the lost spider pit sequence is not crucial to the story, but it provides a chance to show off a massive and impressive special effects sequence. Supposedly the original was excised from the 1933 film after causing audience members to vomit, and even if that's an myth, it makes for a great story. Jackson and team recreate Manhattan, and the view of the city from the sky, from atop the Empire State Building, are beautiful, like a digital watercolor.

All this technical detail is less relevant to the story's impact than something I'm curious about. Modern audiences, well-versed in CGI, are more discerning of its flaws, but at the same time are well-practiced in using their imagination to bridge the gap. This tangential discussion arises only from my own interest in CGI and its capabilities. Hopefully on the DVD or in interviews, Jackson will reveal his own thoughts. He was fairly candid in assessing what he liked and didn't like about the SFX in The Lord of the Rings trilogy in those DVD commentaries.

The central action sequence, the one everyone will be discussing, is the famous confrontation between Kong and the T-Rex. To paraphrase Teri Hatcher in Seinfeld, it looks real, and it's spectacular (Jackson adds a twist, one I won't reveal here, but one that ratchets up the fun quotient over the original). It's one of those action sequences which just keeps elevating the insanity, long after you think it has reached a climax. When it finally concluded, the entire audience erupted in cheers and applause. Like many boys, I love dinosaurs, so I was in heaven. Instant classic.

Another moment that took my breath away was the shot of Kong's fall from the Empire State Building. The camera shot is gorgeous, a combination pan-and-rotate camera move that induced just a hint of vertigo. The only way to pull off a camera shot like that would be to fly over a city with a movie camera mounted on an aircraft, shoot over a miniature, or create it digitally. The latter is proving to be the most cost-efficient and controllable choice for big-budget action movies. For action fans, one of the most enjoyable results of these advances is some of the complex shots directors can pull off now. The opening shot from Episode III, which plunges the viewer into the chaotic air battle, is one example. Some early unbroken shots in King Kong pan around the ship as it spins and bounces off of rocky outcroppings off the coast of Skull Island. Video games have long allowed for more three-dimensional reedom of perspective, but movies are catching up now that so many sets are digital.

At the movie's end, as Jack Black's Denham approaches the body of the fallen Kong, I realized that he was going to utter the same closing line as in the original, and I found myself wishing he wouldn't. It doesn't feel right in tone. But given Jackson's adoration of the original, I also couldn't imagine him ending the movie any other way.

This is hearty, holiday season comfort fare. Hollywood marketing has trained us to expect several categories on the cinematic holiday menu every year, as traditional as Thanksgiving turkey and hot cocoa. One of the entrees is always the mega budget action spectacle, escapist entertainment. It's the porterhouse of the holiday movie season. By virtue of Jackson's success with The Lord of the Rings, he's earned the freedom from studios to turn out three hour movies, and this movie already feels like a director's cut, with several scenes that feels like they would have been deleted scenes if the director lacked the stature of Jackson. I don't know about you, but at least once a holiday season, I like to let myself go and indulge in a meal with all the fat and trimmings and extra gravy. Now it's time for some salad.

***

A few other random notes:

• See the movie in a theater with a premium surround system setup. The movie has several scenes that make use of the surround and rear speakers. When Kong emerges from the forest for the first time, the camera locks on Darrow's face as she looks out in horror, and behind you, the sound of leaves rustling and tree branches snapping announce the entrance of the big guy, like the first bars of Enter Sandman or Hell's Bells when Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman trot in out of the bullpen. The 360 degree sound mix in the biplane attack is good fun, too.
• James Newton Howard had only two and a half months to birth the score as a last minute replacement for Howard Shore. In its quieter moments, which aren't many, it's evocative, but it doesn't feel uniquely Howard. I can usually retain key melodic themes after leaving the theater (for example from Howard's fantastic score for Unbreakable), but not in this case. Three longer sample clips can be streamed here.
• The movie contains some intense moments. I'm not one to give parent advisories. My parents brought me to see the 1976 King Kong when I was 2 years old, and I saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers with my dad at a drive-in in 1979 or 1980, leaving me scared for several months. But if you bring your young children, be prepared to put a hand over their eyes during the spider pit sequence or when the Skull Island natives go wild.
• I thought I spied Godzilla in one of the Skull Island rock formations, a glimpse of a head poking out of the ocean.

First white

It's not as if I haven't seen it before, but I still experience a childlike flash of wonder when I see winter's first snow dusting the city, as I did this morning when I walked down to try and grab my Sunday Times from the lobby. Now it feels as if winter has officially begun.

As a sidenote, damn you anonymous newspaper thief who keeps taking my weekend paper. One of these days I'll catch you in the act, and won't you be sorry when I show you how I roll, yo, the Chicago way.

Tailwind

Jason and all the major ladies in his life--mother, wife, daughters, mother-in-law--visited this weekend for his sophomore effort in the NYC marathon. Just like old times, the first time we met up this weekend was early in the morning, after a night of little sleep. He arrived Thursday night, slept a few hours. I was up late Thursday night editing, slept about two hours, and the two of us met up at a diner for a 7:30am breakfast looking like extras from a George Romero movie.

Jason sounded resigned to trying to just equal his time from last year because a hectic work schedule had cut into his daily runs, but I felt he'd improve. He'd lost a ton of weight since last year and weighed about what I weigh now, and he's much taller than I am. Endurance athletes often look drawn and malnourished before their best performances, like the way Lance Armstrong looked every time the Tour rolled around. Jason had also done more super long runs, some five 22-milers, and based on my limited training experience, those are the most critical marathon training runs. The lack of the occasional midweek run leading up to the race would allow his body to rest for the big day.

On race morning, as Jason was running through Brooklyn and Queens, the Kilar clan and I were fighting our own race to get up to the Bronx. I have great empathy for mothers who have to ride on subways with child and stroller. Many stations have no entrances other than stairways, and I saw one woman just pick up an entire stroller, with child and sundry childcare items in it, and just hump it down four flights of stairs. That may be why you don't see many obese NYC kids; at an early age, their parents force them out of the stroller to walk.

A record 2.5 million people watched this NYC Marathon, the largest crowd ever to watch a marathon. The 4 and 6 trains were packed, and we found ourselves squeezed out of a packed train or two. We finally learned to go all the way to the back car. The distribution of people across an entire NY Metro subway train resembles a mesa, with steep dropoffs at the front and back. Switching from the 6 uptown to the 4 uptown at 59th St. required a two mile descent down a staircase, putting us about a story or two above the ninth circle of Hell. Jamie's mother had the back of the stroller, I had the front, and we both got a good bicep/shoulder burn.

We popped out at 138th St. in the Bronx, right alongside the course between miles 20 and 21, at around 12:15 pm. Our immediate concern was whether or not we'd missed him already. That would have been awful, for both Jason and us. I tried to spot a pace runner but saw none. I asked a spectator who looked like a serious marathoner what pace the runners passing us were on. He said they were probably on a 2:40 marathon, so I felt better.

Still, after half an hour, I started to have doubts, so I called Karen and woke her up on the West coast to log in to the marathon website to look up Jason's splits. The website was slow and crashed her browser, so she had to fire it up again. While on the phone, I looked down the road and saw a guy in a black tank top with JASON written across the front. Jamie spotted him and started waving, and I sprinted out to the street to snap a few photos.

As he passed, he pointed at his Garmin sports watch with a look of surprise on his face. He flashed a thumbs up and looked to be in good spirits. What did it mean when he pointed at his watch, we wondered as we rode the subway to the finish line.

Once there, we found out. He finished with a time of 3:21, shaving over twenty minutes off of his time from last year. Unbelievable. We just sat near the family reunion area and soaked in the triumph of the moment. As we rested and Sadie carbo loaded, Jason and I discussed what might have been responsible for his dramatic improvement. Less weight. More marathon experience and miles in his legs. More long runs in his training. A bit more mid-week rest leading up to race day.

But in retrospect, I like to think that something psychological played a role. People who are excited about what they do are running downhill in the game of life.

Jason and Sadie at the finish line (Click on the photo for more pics)

Hornets, Mechanical Turks, and swords, oh my

If you absolutely can't wait to see Tom Yum Goong in American theaters, you can pre-order the VCD. The quality will be terrible, though, so I recommend making the soup instead and waiting for the movie to arrive on the big screen.

How to defend against Teen Wolf.

Once a year, Popular Science publishes a list of the Worst Jobs in Science. This year's list included a link to this bizarre video clip (MPEG) of a ballerina dancing around a NASA robot which resembles a giant, umm, unmanned vehicle. Yeah.

Red square: keep away, if you can. [This and the next two links via Me-Fi]

A condensed jpeg of Ground Zero from straight overhead, a short while after 9/11. The not condensed version of the photo. Meanwhile, with scant media buzz, construction on the new World Trade Center began two days ago.

Sword swallowers actually do swallow swords, though the swords rarely reach the stomach. I saw a sword swallower in China put a long fluorescent light down his throat, and then they turned off the house lights and he turned on the lamp, and we could see the light through the skin of his throat. Now there's a great opener the next time you want to start a conversation with an attractive stranger at a bar.

One of the last projects I heard about when I left Amazon.com and its Web Services team looks to have launched, sort of: The Mechanical Turk. It allows software developers to add human intelligence to their programs, because there are still many things humans do better than computers. A devious use might be to have humans interpret captchas for your automated ticket hoarding program. A less nefarious use might be to help an AIBO interpret human facial expressions or tone of voice. What incentive do you have to help out a computer program with tasks like these? Cash. Reminds me a bit of that marketplace for human talents in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.

Curbed's Eater publishes the complete list of 507 restaurants in the New York Michelin Guide.

Thrilling if gruesome video (Windows Media File) of a couple dozen giant hornets massacring a colony of some 30,000 honey bees in order to plunder the honey and larvae. By massacre I mean they just use their jaws to bite the bees in half, one after the other. Sheesh. I tried to trace the movie back to its original poster, but gave up after about ten or so hops, so I'll credit J-Walk, who published some great references on Microsoft Excel and who maintains a prolific weblog.

This week's Out of 5 is a good one: They Got It Right the First Time - Great Songs Better Known Via Inferior Covers

Results of the Michelin Guide to NY 2006

Here's the press release announcing highlights of the first ever Michelin Red Guide 2006 New York City. Highlights:

Three star restaurants

• Alain Ducasse
• Jean-Georges
• Le Bernardin
• Per Se

Two star restaurants

• Bouley
• Daniel
• Danube
• Masa

One star restaurants

• Annisa
• Aureole
• Babbo
• BLT Fish
• Cafe Boulud
• Cafe Gray
• Craft
• Cru
• Etats-Unis
• Fiamma Osteria
• Fleur de Sel
• Gotham Bar and Grill
• Gramercy Tavern
• JoJo
• Jewel Bako
• La Goulue
• Lever House
• Lo Scalco
• March
• Nobu
• Oceana
• Peter Luger
• Picholine
• Saul
• Scalini Fedeli
• Spotted Pig
• The Modern
• Veritas
• Vong
• Wallse
• WD-50

The Michelin Guide chose to acknowledge the existence of 507 other restaurants by listing them in the guide. The NYTimes captures the mixed reactions of some New York chefs.

Silly Billy

Panasonic launched a blog called Def Perception to discuss its HDV 24p camcorder the AG-HVX200 and high def filmmaking in general. To request a free instructional DVD on the AG-HVX200 (for U.S. customers only), go here. B&H is pre-selling a kit with the AG-HVX200 and two 8GB P2 cards for $10K.

Wednesday is the day when Michelin releases its New York restaurant star ratings, with the release party that evening at the Guggenheim. Who will receive the coveted three-star ratings? Early favorites include Per Se and Alaine Ducasse. As a way of going long Per Se, I snagged a reservation for mid-November.

Yesterday, I attended a Halloween party with my nephew Ryan, looking as adorable as ever in his deluxe Thomas the Tank Engine costume. The parents association that sponsored the party hired a clown to perform, and I was so busy chasing Ryan with my camcorder that Anita had to point out that the clown was none other than David Friedman, from the Andrew Jarecki documentary Capturing the Friedmans. David was one of Jarecki's original subjects since the documentary began as one about birthday clowns. David seems to have shaken off any stigma from his father's pedophilia conviction and continues to work as the clown magician Silly Billy. Only in NY.

Ken reminded me that Cool Hunting linked to this collage of cassette tapes, many of which the two of us used to purchase by the dozens to dub our music. So many of these images still seem as vividly familiar as if they were sitting on my shelves now. Ah, those days when a metal cassette tape was like gold.

Apps for doing this on a Windows PC have long been available, but now Mac users can treat a GMail account as a hard drive using gDisk.

My old roommate Scott, in an aside, guessed that I'd heard of a movie titled Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Well, I hadn't, so I looked up the plot summary: On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who's a witness in protective custody, let loose a crate full of deadly snakes. Well, a title doesn't get too much more literal than that, and though it's not due out until 2006, it's already inspired a long and often chuckle-worthy thread of over 100 proposed sequels.

A list of John Peel's most treasured 7-inch singles. The White Stripes are big winners, with an amazing 10 spots on the list.

James forwarded me this little easter egg video of Yoda breakdancing, from the Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith DVD, releasing tomorrow.

U2

I caught the first of U2's seven shows at Madison Square Garden a couple Friday evenings back. When held up against the true U2 faithful, I'm a Gentile at best, but there are some rock concerts I'll attend because they're more than just concerts, they're Events. It was the day they were announcing the Nobel Peace Prize, so we almost saw a concert by a Nobel Peace Prize winner. That would have been a "Dear Diary" moment.

Keane opened for U2. I just can't get past the fact that Keane doesn't have a single guitarist; the fourth band member is a Mac laptop. I suspect their music won't age well, only because they do one type of heartfelt ballad well, and there's only so much of that you can do. The lead singer seems much too nice to be a rock star.

I've seen some interesting bands open for U2 over the years. The first concert I remember attending was a U2 Zoo TV concert in Illinois at the World Theatre(?). The two openers were Big Audio Dynamite and Public Enemy. You won't find a more docile and listless Public Enemy audience than the one that night, all sitting on their lawn blankets twiddling their thumbs trying to read Flavor Flav's chest clock to estimate how much longer before U2 came on stage.

The most common criticism of U2 concerts nowadays is that they're all the same, a tour of the greatest hits. I'm a fan of the revolutionary and the spontaneous in musical concerts, but I forgive U2 their retrospective ways. For goodness sake, they've been selling out massive arenas since I was in grade school. It's a miracle they've maintained their looks, let alone their fame and relevance. The audience at Madison Square Garden skewed older than for, say, the Franz Ferdinand concert I saw a week and a half later, but the standard deviation on the age of the U2 audience was also much higher. They are true cross-generational icons.

This was my fourth U2 concert through the years, and they've never put on anything other than a grand spectacle. Their canon is so well-known that the audience can sing nearly every word; it felt as if I was at a non-demoninational gospel service, with the arena lit by the electric glow of thousands of cell phone LCD screens instead of candles.

Extrapolate into the future and the logical endpoint will be a U2 farewell concert tour in 2020 or so, one in which Bono and the boys come out in arenas around the world, and Bono just holds a microphone up while the audience sings every song themselves. Each concert would include a moment in which Bono would pull a woman out of her wheelchair and command her to walk, or touch a blind man on the eyes and order him to see, and she would, and he would, for the first time in their lives.

Footnote: If you don't think U2 has relevance to the youth of America, that may change with the release of the dvd Mother Goose Rocks! Top 20 Video Countdown, in which Bono, excuse me, Mono, offers a rendition of children's classic "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes." No joke--check it out for yourself. I look forward to many viewings with my nephews this holiday season, and we will chuckle again and again to Dubya's inability to distinguish his shoulders from his neck. [Thanks to What Do I Know for the link].

"is comprised of"

One of the most common usage errors in English is the phrase "is comprised of." A Google search for the phrase returns 20.8 million results. A whole comprises the parts. In most cases when people use "is comprised of" they should use "comprises" or "is composed of." For example, "New York City comprises Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens." The incorrect usage is so popular, though, that fighting it might prove a losing battle.

Worthwhile usage lessons like this can be found in Garner's Modern American Usage, an essential reference for writers.

***

A hack: free SkypeOut calls. I'll need those and much more after reading this article on how much money you need to truly have "f*** you money" in NYC. Basically, without going into the detailed calculations, the article said I'll be eating ramen, watching pirated DVDs on my old laptop, and stealing wi-fi from my next-door neighbor for the rest of my life. Just passing through, just passing through.

***

The Michelin Red Guide 2006 New York City will be unveiled next week at the Guggenheim. Some of New York's prominent chefs weigh in. Anthony Bourdain provides the gossip:

The big question is who will get a top ranking: The thinking is that Ducasse is a shoo-in for three stars. If they don’t give it to Ducasse, it will just be a terrible slap. And if they don’t give three to Per Se, that’s really a huge turd in the punch bowl. If Per Se gets three, and Ducasse doesn’t, that’s a whole other political situation. At least that’s the girls’ talk—you know, when the chefs are all sitting around bitching and gossiping. As for Zagat, it’s devalued. It’s like, “Some say ‘delicious’; others say ‘smells like cat pee.’

Danny Meyer puts it all in perspective:

Particularly in its first year of publication, a Michelin star will represent nothing but upside for any restaurant. This year, the guide will award but not remove stars from any restaurant. Many will be helped, none will be hurt.

***

Evidence suggests that many U.S. Senators profit off of insider trading. That's not shocking considering how connected they are. What Martha Stewart did is hardly the exception to the rule, but making an example of her seems unlikely to curb the practice. Perhaps the only way to halt this, and it's not practical, is to prevent anyone in a certain position or job level from trading on certain publicly-traded stocks (like CEO's and Senators). This would constrain their investment options, but then again, they're rich.

***

This list of the 20 best license-free fonts on the web should have included any of the Peter Saville New Order/Joy Division fonts. They're flat-out gorgeous, and they're free. Now I just have to figure out how to convert them for use on my Mac.

Not on the bandwagon, or maybe I am

Jason Lee always seems to play a cantankerous sidekick in the movies, which is why his good-natured simpleton in My Name is Earl is such a pleasant surprise. Funny show.

I'm not one of those Cubs fans who wants the White Sox to lose. It's not a zero sum game fore baseball in Chicago, despite how many fans on both sides behave. I'd love to see Chicago with a national champion in its midst again. That's not to say a White Sox World Series victory will mean a fraction of what a Cubs World Series win would mean to me.

I love the version of the Jarhead trailer that is set to Kanye West's "Jesus Walks". It may be just a case of the music carrying the moving images, but when Jamie Foxx says "I...love...this...job" in cadence to the music, that's a beautiful thing. I've been editing army footage in class, and this trailer is driving me nuts because I'm overwhelmed by an inclination to set the footage to Kanye West.

Lincoln Burrows does escape from prison. I was walking back from class last week and he walked past me on the sidewalk. I couldn't place him except as the guy who had to escape from prison on that television show on Fox. How many degrees from fame are you when people recognize you from commercials for a show they've never seen because Fox blitzes all its programs with in-house promos?

Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 is rearing its head again in NYC.

To absolutely no one's surprise, some of the first content available for the video iPod is adult.

I'm not even sure exactly what Apple's new software Aperture does, and it costs $499, but already I want it. Apple seems to release something I want every other week now. I surrender, just take my Visa.

Life's so hectic right now, and I'm exhausted, so this is all you get, just a few brief thoughts and rabbit droppings.

Ninja NY

Ninja comes to NY. This giant Japanese restaurant chain features ninjas that leap out at you while you eat, or something to that effect. I heard that after a frightened patron had a heart attack in the LA facility, they turned the lights up and cut back on the ninja theatrics. The few reader reviews up at the NYTimes suggest that the type of geeks attracted by this theme aren't likely to be able to afford to eat here, let alone spell omasake. Rarely has kitsch cost so much.

Searching for information on what it's like to eat at Ninja, I stumbled upon a review from Alex, lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, on his blog. Since I couldn't figure find a permalink, I've excerpted it below. You can also find the original at his weblog by scrolling down to the July 30, 2004 entry. He visited what I assume is the flagship Ninja restaurant in Tokyo. That the most detailed review of dining at Ninja would come from the lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, who I'm seeing in concert in a week and a half, is a bit odd. So odd that I just looked up at my ceiling to make sure no ninja was clinging by his fingernails, ready to aerate my forehead with a few well-thrown stars.

Leaving For Fuji Rock, Tokyo
30 | 07 | 04
We arrived last night. It's close, humid and warm, the opposite of what we left down South. It's amazing here, almost overwhelming. There's too much to absorb. I feel like I've run my finger across the icing of a huge, intensely rich chocolate cake and licked it. A taste, that's it.

Last night, after we dropped our bags off at the hotel, we went out for something to eat. The restaurant was called Ninja and it wasn't just a restaurant. It was a themed adventure. When I walked in, the girl at the bookings desk brusquely ordered me back outside. "Your Ninja not ready yet! Outside!" I stood sheepishly in the street with the others, feeling the perspiration grow across my skin, watching the blocks of lucky salt by the doorway dissolve in the warm mist. "Hai! Come now! Ninja Ready!" We clattered back down the stairs. "Ninja! Ninja!" she cried, then clapped her hands twice. Another girl burst from a secret door into a forward roll in front of us. She was dressed in black with a scarf around her head. She wasn't an out of work actress, she was a Ninja. "Follow me! Watch head!" We followed her through another secret door into a dark passage. It was lit with a low green light. We stopped by an artificial fountain built into the wall, with plastic plants surrounding it. "This Ninja Shrine!" We murmured appropriate awe and agreement. It reminded me of the boat trip you can go on in Blackpool, where you go for a journey around the world, seeing what a guy from Blackpool's idea of Egypt and Africa is. "Watch head!" We followed her further along the dark passage, abruptly stopping by two windows with bars over them. We looked through and could see more plastic plants and fake rocks. "This Ninja Nest!" We murmured appropriate awe and agreement. "Watch head!" We followed her still further down the passage. We turned a corner. The Ninja's face creased in dismay. "Oh no! Not ready! Go back!" We shuffled back round the corner. The Ninja disappeared. Then reappeared. "Right! Come now!!" We shuffled after her. "Oh No! What happened?" I wasn't sure. She was pointing at the floor in front of us. There was now a sheet of perspex over some more fake rocks and plastic plants, Swith dry ice curling between them. "Oh no! How we get cross?" We murmured appropriate anxiety and perplexion. "It's OK! I'm Ninja! Hai!!" She clapped twice and a draw bridge suddenly fell down, allowing us to cross the thick perspex in safety, into the restaurant beyond.

...I sat down on a cushion at a low lacquered table on lacquered floorboards, enclosed by paper screens. Our Japanese friends ordered a selection for us, including warm Saki. That stuff is fantastic. As the food began to arrive, so did another Ninja. This one was a magician. He asked us if we liked card tricks. Before we could finish saying yes/hai he puked up a deck of cards across the table. There was then an intense ten minutes of concentrated, very impressive tricks, no time to linger on applause, just trick after trick, before he disappeared into the Ninja night. The food was incredible. Leaves with frozen smokey dressing and jellyfish. Soft-shelled crab tempura, like eating a tarantula with excema. Fish eggs, some tiny, some huge, translucent, red, yellow, black and orange, all glistening like jewels. Fatty belly of tuna, minced into a raw paste. Cuttlefish scored with a cross-hatch. Sea anemone perched on seaweed. Silver mackerel skins. Cold noodles in cold salty soup. It all tasted so wonderful, so many new flavours and textures, food like I've never eaten before, the feast of a lifetime. The saki melted my limbs and I began to slide under the low table.

When we got back outside, I'd forgotten how close and humid it was. The cicadas were belting it out in the trees, drunk businessmen fell out of a whisky bar with bottles of every Scotch ever distilled stacked in the window. I got back to my room and decided not to negotiate the electric toilet's high-powered cleaning jets, despite the helpful diagrams which illustrated exactly where the jets were aimed. I put on the complimentary kimono, span round a couple of times and collapsed on the bed, falling into a very satisfied sleep.

posted by “Alex”

Giant Squid! And the whale

The giant squid has finally been captured on film!

Longtime readers know what a big deal this is for me. Next we need video footage of a giant squid battling a sperm whale. For me, that's the real world equivalent of Godzilla vs. King Kong.

Loosely related, Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale is playing this week at the New York Film Festival. I caught an 8 AM screening of the movie at Sundance in January. It nearly killed me to get up at the crack of dawn to drive in from Salt Lake City, especially because I was the only one of my group left at the fest, but it was worth it.

Baumbach, most known up until now as Wes Anderson's friend and frequent writing partner, based his latest movie on his childhood experience with his divorced parents. Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels play the parents suffering from marital problems, and the movie chronicles the effect of their divorce on their two sons, especially older son Walt (Jesse Eisenberg). As an added treat for New Yorkers, the movie was shot in Brooklyn, where Baumbach grew up.

Baumbach has a similar sense of humor as Anderson, wry and ironic. Lots of tannins, but a hint of fruit in a long finish. In the opening scene, each of the two sons pairs off with a parent for a doubles match. Jeff Daniels tells his son Walt, in a hushed but serious tone, to hit to his mom's backhand because it's her weaker wing. Walt does so, setting up a smash for Jeff Daniels that nearly decapitates Laura Linney. That Daniels celebrates the point sets the tone for the movie--humorous, wistful, and melancholic. The title refers to the squid and the whale at the Museum of Natural History; its significance becomes clear once you see the movie.

As to my fascination with giant squid, I'm not sure how it all started. I loved whales and other giant sea creatures as a boy, as well as 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. I love eating squid, too, though I only acquired a taste for it later in life. Mom made me eat it as a child. I should have listened to her then, not just about the squid, but about keeping up with my piano lessons.

Late afternoon with Conan O'Brien

Joannie was in town last week through Thursday for a conference. She got out Thursday afternoon, just in time to join me for lunch at Burger Joint and then a live taping of Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Burger Joint, in contrast to the fancy surroundings of Le Parker Meridien hotel lobby, is a greasy joint, a literal hole in the wall that seats about 25 people at the most. I'd eaten brunch at Norma's, just across the lobby, and never suspected Burger Joint was there, ensconced behind a curtain, the only indication of its presence being a neon burger sign. The decor consists of a couple random movie posters hung on faux-wood paneling. The place is as simple as its webpage/menu.

I've read that the lines at lunch can be brutal, as at my current favorite burger joint, Shake Shack. Joannie and I were there at about 1:30 in the afternoon and had to wait about fifteen minutes for our burgers and fries. The burger, a bit bigger than a single burger at Shake Shack, is straightforward and quite satisfying. Worth the wait. The fries, which come in a brown paper bag, were not. I'm still partial to the Double Shack Burger at Shake Shack, with its combination of sirloin and brisket, but Burger Joint is a worthy player in the mid-priced burger scene.

The old cliche is true: the camera adds ten pounds. In Conan's case, that's a good thing, because in person he's, in Joannie's words, "weird-looking." On television, the extra ten pounds add a bit of softness to an otherwise angular face. He's also as pale as an albino. On this day, he'd cut himself shaving just before going on air, so he wore a band-aid under his lips the entire show. A good comedian relishes the unanticipated, and in this case the band-aid provided a few minutes worth of jokes that Conan interspersed between pre-planned material.

The camera also adds about ten yards, apparently. It's shocking how cramped the studio (located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza) is in person. It seats about 200 people and consists of two halves. On the left is the curtain from which Conan and guests pop out, in front of which Conan does his monologue. At the near left corner sits the band, the Max Weinberg 7. The right half of the stage is Conan's desk, where he does most of the show. Use some really wide-angle lenses and shoot up close, and a tiny space can look enormous on television. If New Yorkers could only experience their closet-sized apartments through just such a lens, they wouldn't feel so cooped up.

The camera does not make you funnier, but that's not a problem for Conan. He's funny on TV, he's funny in person, and he's funny even when the cameras aren't rolling. After the warm-up comedian did his schtick and just before the taping began at 5:30pm, Conan popped out for a quick routine of his own. He speaks fast, and if and when a joke crashes, he recovers quickly, usually by admitting the joke is bad and using his honesty to draw a laugh, and then moves on before you can dwell on the moment.

His deft comic touch carried this show as the routines were of middling quality. The guests were Kim Cattrall, pushing her new book Kim Cattrall Sexual Intelligence, Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live, and David Rakoff, author of Don't Get Too Comfortable and sometimes a contributor to This American Life on NPR.

On the Marc Jacobs

On the Marc Jacobs homepage, you can click a link to watch the video of his 2006 Collection runway show, which opened with the Penn State Nittany Lions marching band playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Never have so many band dorks shared the stage with so many babes. Fashion shows are inherently ridiculous, so twists like this one or the nude runway show at the end of Altman's Ready to Wear are to be expected. Still, I'd leap at the chance to see a fashion show in person if I could score tickets. Who wouldn't?

***

Among the 25 new MacArthur Fellows receiving $500,000 genius grants this year is Edet Belzberg. We will be editing her newest project, which isn't even listed at IMDb yet, in the second half of our class. She's most known for her first feature-length documentary Children Underground, which is now at the top of my Netflix queue. So exciting!

***

Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan fielded questions about the Chicago Cubs in the Chicago Tribune Sports page. Being a creative type, he chose to ignore the Shift key.

I can't even talk or think about the Cubs anymore, this season has been such a disappointment. I haven't watched one of their games since I left for China.

***

Stream the new Elizabethtown soundtrack at MySpace. I've never once touched my MySpace page, but it's MySpace has carved out a nice little niche for themselves in the crowded social community software space with their music content.

***

As NYC waits to see which of its restaurants will be crowned with three stars in the first Michelin Guide in North America, or even which 500 will merit mention at all (pre-order the Michelin Guide to New York City 2006 from Amazon.com for 32% off; it ships on Nov 4, 2005), it's useful to review what three stars from Michelin mean. According to Michelin, three stars denote "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey, where diners eat extremely well, sometimes superbly. The wine list features generally outstanding vintages, and the surroundings and service are part of this unique experience, which is priced accordingly."

I tried using a Michelin Guide once, but it wasn't nearly as useful as I'd hoped, in part because my French was rusty, but also because the guides don't actually provide much description of each listing. Fortunately, the web community will be sure to blog the 3-star winner(s) to death.

Michelin's inspectors have been paying anonymous visits to 1,200 NYC restaurants since February. During this time, I have been tempted, on more than one occasion, to stroll into some of NYC's finest restaurant with a Moleskine notebook and Mont Blanc pen, wearing some stylish metal frame glasses and sporting a French accent. I'd look all about me like a tourist entering a cathedral in Europe, and after the first bite or two of each dish, I'd jot notes in my notebook.

You laugh, but simply bringing my camera into a restaurant and snapping photos of my dishes before eating them has led to no shortage of free dishes, compliments of the kitchen, and face-to-face meetings with the head chef.

***

Epicurious lists ten restaurant trends they hate. Personally, the most exasperating thing about the NYC dining scene is the impossibility of getting a seat at any half-decent place. If you have to make a reservation weeks in advance, any meal starts to seem like an ordeal, placing undue pressure on the experience. One is bound to be disappointed in some way. It's less the scarcity of reservation slots as it is the dearth of walk-in availability that disappoints me.

I enjoy being able to stroll into a neighborhood joint to enjoy a spontaneous bite, to feel like I can run into a friend on the street and be enjoying an unplanned but delightful meal together just a few moments later.

***

Google WiFi service to launch shortly?

***

Which animal kills more people in the U.S. than any other?

The Complete New Yorker

The Complete New Yorker, 4,109 issues and half a million pages of The New Yorker on 8 DVD-ROMs and a 122 page book, ships tomorrow. The New Yorker store sells it for $100, but Amazon has it for $63. I love the tactile heft and feel of printed matter, but I look forward to tossing some old issues I've kept for years. This collection runs from February 1925 to February 2005.

If you consider that simply purchasing a paperback of Nobody's Perfect, a collection of some of Anthony Lane's movie reviews, from Amazon.com would cost $11.53, and buying the book and CD compilation The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker would cost $37.80, then for $13.67 you're buying everything else: all the short stories, articles, photos, ads, and illustrations. And it's searchable (I'm curious to see how usable the search function is).

Very cool, though even better would be a way to just search through all this content directly through the Internet. Then I wouldn't have any DVD-ROMs to deal with at all. The New Yorker was probably concerned about bandwidth issues, which will diminish rapidly, and sharing of online accounts, never as much of a problem as content providers anticipate, especially at these prices. We're not talking Lexis-Nexis subscription fees. Also, putting it all online would have put a huge onus on site usability and design, something that doesn't appear to be a New Yorker strength, judging by their online site today.

Baby steps, I guess. It's still an exciting achievement, in my opinion. I often think of certain articles that I've read in The New Yorker, and now I'll be able to look them up. How will the search work? Is content organized by decade across the DVD-ROMs, or will I be frustrated by having to constantly pop one DVD out and another one in because content is spread all over the place? Will I be able to copy and paste text and illustrations from the interface, or will it be so securely locked up that it's read-only? The devil is in the details, and the description online doesn't reveal much. I'll post a brief user report after my copy arrives.

In somewhat related news, The New York Times launched TimesSelect today. As a home delivery subscriber, I receive access to Op-Eds, which I used to have to pay for, and the ability to save 100 articles every month to an online archive for future perusal. I'll also be able to preview articles online, before they arrive on my doorstep in print form.

I can't tell how useful this will be yet. I rarely have time to read the paper the day it arrives, so the article preview function may not be that useful to me. Also, I'd rather have the option of being able to read and save 20 articles a month for free from anywhere in the archive than having to keep up with hundreds of articles each month in order to pick out 100 to save before they disappear into the pay-per-view vault forever.

Ripple and Roll

On the way to see Arcade Fire at Central Park Summerstage tonight, I strolled past Sean Connery. I was tempted to intone, in my best Gert Fröbe cackle, "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." But Connery was looking wearied by age, and if he did pass away in the next week or so, how awful would I have felt?

Arcade Fire put on a great show. Their music is anthemic, hyper-infused with emotion, so seeing them with a choir of rabid fans is like attending a fire and brimstone sermon with some true believers. You can't help but hum, clap, wave, and head bop to their tunes. It helps that the band members look like they're having such a good time on stage. The drummers ran around in a frenzy, banging on everything with their drumsticks (one of them nearly ran through the back curtain and fell off the stage). The lead singer tried to punch a hole through the stage with his mic stand.

For their encore, Arcade Fire brought surprise guest David Bowie on stage. He was looking dapper in a white suit and matching fedora. They accompanied him on one of his old tunes, then he played guitar and sang a bit of "Wake Up". He participated in the same way earlier this week at a Fashion Week party (I linked to a recording of that yesterday), but seeing him live was still a bonus. There may have been a CD released in the past year to year and a half that I loved more than Funeral, but if there was, it's not top of mind.

On my way into the concert, a security guard told me my zoom lens was too long. No sexual innuendos, she was being literal. She gave me two choices, dump my zoom lens somewhere and pick it up after the concert, or hand over my digital camera battery. Since I had nowhere to stash my zoom lens, I neutered my SLR and handed over the battery, which she then proceeded to stick down her pants. I guess she ran out of pockets. So I wasn't able to snap any pics of Arcade Fire's stage antics, though I did end up with a very wary battery at the end of the concert.

I started my editing intensive class at The Edit Center this week. It has lived up to the "intensive" advanced billing, but I'm loving every hour. Along with improving my Final Cut Pro editing skills by leaps and bounds, I've gained a newfound appreciation for movie editors and how much impact they have on the final product you see on the big screen. Like book editors, their best work is largely transparent to audiences, most of the credit going to the director or actors, just as no all credit for books goes to the author. The only time you notice an editor is when they've missed something.

Our class field trips are mostly outings to see movies, and that's a type of field trip I can appreciate. We hit the Lower East Side to see Edge Codes.com, a movie that, like The Cutting Edge (not the D.B. Sweeney/Moira Kelley hockey/figure skating flick), does for movie editors what Visions of Light did for cinematographers. Andrew Mondshein (editor, The Sixth Sense) and Christopher Tellefsen (editor, Gummo, Kids), interviewed in the movie, attended the screening and fielded questions.

Mondshein spoke of how the first few times they screened The Sixth Sense for audiences, the theatre erupted in whispers and confusion when Bruce Willis's ring hit the floor at the end of the movie. So he added in the flashbacks, to Haley Joel Osment saying "They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead." To Willis's encounters with live people, like his wife at the restaurant. Mondshein threw in just enough so audiences could connect the dots, appreciate the "Aha!", and return to enjoying the movie's conclusion.

Tomorrow's technology today: fusion and nanotechnology, in consumable goods form

Banana Nutrament has an MP3 of David Bowie and Arcade Fire singing "Wake Up" together. Bowie vocals on one of my favorite songs of the last year...cool. I'm going to see Arcade Fire on Central Park Summerstage Thursday evening. It will be my first Central Park concert.

How efficient is the Red Cross? Is there a better charity to donate to when crises like Hurricane Katrina strike? It's the most linked to charity for donating to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, but someone expressed reservations about how efficiently the Red Cross channeled those funds to aiding victims. I don't know the answer, but I found this evaluation in which the Red Cross online earned a four star rating (out of four). Not sure how objective or accurate this evaluation is, though I was hoping more knowledgeable folks had already done the legwork on this. The president and CEO, Marsha Evans, does indeed make a really generous salary ($450K a year, according to this site), though overall program expenses seem reasonable at around 5.6% of revenues.

The new iPod Nano is cool (the ROKR is not), most people agree, but while I love my iPod(s), I really hope the quality control on this new edition is better than that on previous editions. I don't know anyone who's purchased an iPod who hasn't had to bring it in for repairs at some point. Ironically, my most reliable is my first one, the first generation iPod. My other iPod, the Shuffle, is temperamental, like a crazy girlfriend.

Stream the new Sigur Ros CD Takk

Yet another Godfather novel on tap for next year. Sounds like this one weaves the Corleone saga with the Kennedy assassination.

Xbox 360 has a launch date: Nov. 22

Gillette unveils yet another razor, the successor to the Mach 3: Fusion. This baby has an enhanced indicator lubristrip, 5 blades, and a precision trimmer blade for side burns and shaping your goatee.

Heather Havrilesky rates the fall television comedies. Those that rate well on her scale are Ricky Gervais's HBO series "Extras," Chris Rock's UPN series "Everybody Hates Chris," and, to a lesser degree, NBC's "My Name is Earl" and Fox's "Kitchen Confidential." "Extras" premieres Sunday, Sept 25, at 10:30pm. That's the one I'll be tuning into for sure, along with every other fanatical devotee of "The Office."

Red Sox outfielder Gape Kapler ruptures his Achilles tendon running around second base after a teammate hit a home run

Canon jumps into the HDV camcorder fray this week with the XL H1. It will cost $8999 and ship in November. Cool looking camcorder, but surprisingly, Canon won't offer 24P or 720P recording, only 1080i in HDV mode. Whether or not they believe 24P is useful or not, it's clear many users do, and the user is king. Panasonic will offer that in their HVX200, and they'll take market share because of it.

More from Flushing

I attended three sessions of the U.S. Open this year. Twice I was there on days when Sharapova was scheduled to play. Once I visited during the evening, and she was scheduled in the day session, and the other time I attended during the day session and she appeared in the evening session. I realize that if she seems me in the stands she might just quit tennis and elope with me, but this conspiracy to prevent me from seeing her in person is getting out of hand.

Not that the pro women's tennis tour isn't stocked with other tall, leggy, attractive blondes. I'm resigned to the fact that it's impossible for the general public to obtain decent seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium, so I spent much of my time at the U.S. Open this year strolling the outer grounds instead (a grounds pass is a good value that first week because so many to players are pushed to the outer courts). There aren't as many seats outside Ashe, but the views are far superior (some of my US Open pics here on Flickr).

Everywhere I turned, I encountered gigantic model-sized women's players from Russia and Eastern Europe. Among all professional female athletes, tennis players probably have the most normal and attractive (though extremely fit) physiques. Tennis doesn't produce any disproportionately sized muscles or odd body shapes. More than just looking good, though, these girls can play.

Based on my scouting, the one to own in your keeper fantasy tennis league is Nicole Vaidisova (warning; loud, repetitive techno music on her temporary homepage) of the Czech Republic, only 16 years old but already 5'11" and a client of IMG. I watched from courside as she and Mark Knowles pulled out a third set tiebreaker to win their first mixed doubles match. She's been hyped as the next "it" girl on tour, one to follow in the footsteps of Sharapova with her combination of game, height, and looks.

Afterwards, she hung out courtside, and I chatted with her briefly. Several people interrupted to ask if she'd pose for photos with their kids. She was generous with her time, not at all unapproachable like many baseball players, to pick on one sport. For a 16 year old, she has big all-around game, including a big first serve. Project her growth, both of her game and her height, and the forecast is sunny. Did I mention she's not ugly?

I also caught matches starring some of the Russian contingent of top women's players. Elena Dementieva always wears a saffron/pumpkin dress and matching visor, her long hair tied in a pony tail or braid. She has huge quads that help her generate massive pace off of her groundstrokes, but she's most well-known for her shaky second serve. She throws her toss way out to the right and hits a feeble but heavy spinning slice serve that often flutters into the net.

I've always had a soft spot for Dementieva because of it, even though it's something she could and should correct as a professional. It's like watching a defiant bird with a clipped wing. Simply having to contemplate hitting it, knowing everyone in the stadium, including her opponent, is anticipating it, is a heavy mental burden, but to her credit she has learned to live with it. For a serve that travels so slowly, it's unexpectedly effective. I watched both Capriati last year and Davenport this year struggle to attack it, both of them falling to Dementieva in the semifinals. And once the serve is in play, Dementieva just crushes the ball.

I also caught bits of matches with Daniela Hantuchova and Anastasia Myskina. Hantuchova is a giant. What are they feeding the kids these days? Lebron James, Maria Sharapova, Dwight Howard...if someone offered to let me relive my youth with an extra 6 to 12 inches of height in exchange for not having one of my fingers or toes, I'd have to spend a weekend thinking about it. Hantuchova doesn't hit as hard as you'd expect of a 6 footer, and at the age of 22 she may be over the hill. Just kidding. Sort of.

Myskina is exasperating to watch when she's struggling. She's always berating herself, shouting at her coach, screaming at her racket, gesturing in disgust. She's like the hot-tempered, somewhat inconsistent poker player at the weekly game whose a lot of fun to be around when they're winning, but who always blows up when the inevitable collapse occurs, leaving everyone around them to stew in an uncomfortable silence.

I saw Gustavo Kuerten ("Guga") play, though only briefly, on court 11, as Tommy Robredo dispatched him in four sets, leaving Guga's contingent of Brazilian fanatics all dressed up in face paint with nowhere to go.

I also saw Roger Federer play again. Last year I saw him annihilate Tim Henman and Lleyton Hewitt in the semifinals and finals to win the Open. It was the best tennis I'd ever seen from anyone, ever. He made Hewitt look like a club pro in the finals, breaking the little Aussie battler three times to win 6-0 in both the first and third sets.

In the match I watched this year, Federer beat Nicholas Kiefer in four sets, but it was a sloppy four sets. Federer even tossed his racket in frustration once, a rare display of emotion for the usually level-headed Swiss superstar. He still moved on. Some players just put others out of their comfort zone, and perhaps Kiefer is one of those nuisances for Federer.

Federer has dominated Hewitt recently, but Hewitt is playing near the peak of his game. If Federer plays like he did versus Kiefer, Hewitt could beat him, but if Federer plays like he did just two days later versus David Nalbandian, then no one left in the draw can touch him. I watched Hewitt dominate Dominik Hrbaty in straight sets. Hewitt's not my favorite guy - the racial incident with Blake and that line judge still lingers in my mind, all those "C'mon's!" when he's beating up on a lesser opponent are ridiculous, and he just reminds me of a silver spoon country club brat - but there's no denying that he's a fabulous hard court player. He resembles a video game tennis player in his impenetrable consistency, and seeing him advance was the lesser of two evils considering Hrbaty's pink shirt. That's quite possibly the ugliest sporting outfit in the history of tennis.

I caught Andre Agassi on center court against 6'10" Ivo Karlovic, a Croatian with perhaps the hugest serve in men's tennis. He doesn't get it up over 140 mph like Roddick, but it's a more consistent and deceptive serve, if you can call a 137 mph serve deceptive. He was bombing it into the corners and aced Agassi 30 times. To cut off the huge bounce of the Karlovic serve, Agassi had to move up to try and catch the serve on the rise, which is like moving to the front of the batter's box against Randy Johnson. Agassi's return is so good that he actually got a few. One Karlovic serve came in at 137 mph to Agassi's forehand in the deuce court and came back a millisecond later at about the same speed right down the line for a winner. Karlovic had soft hands at the net and should have serve and volleyed every point. Neither guy could break the other, so it went to three straight tie breaks, all going to the American.

Agassi, if he can overcome Ginepri, and if he has the legs, has enough power from the baseline to attack Federer, who is still prone to some errors off his backhand wing. Plus, Agassi has Gil Reyes, one badass looking personal trainer, in his corner. Just having a guy like that in the stands, in his dark, pinstriped suit and black shirt, has got to be worth a few points. I'd just like to see two players at their peaks in the men's final instead of a blowout.

The fans at Flushing Meadows appreciate an underdog which means they usually root for Federer's opponent. But more than that, his personality hurts him with New York fans. He's not demonstrative, he wins with an effortless ease, and he rarely shows much emotion. He's like Sampras in that way. It's too bad; he seems by all accounts to be a good guy, a generous one with charity, and his game is just classically beautiful. New Yorkers like their demonstrative, almost histrionic players (witness their support for an almost boorish Jimmy Connors in that legendary match against Aaron Krickstein), but they should rally for a classy guy in Federer.

Another up and comer who I caught on the Grandstand was #1 seeded junior boys player Donald Young. He's a 16 year old southpaw, just 5'9", 145 lbs. He looks slight, like a young kid just hitting around on the playground, but then he unloads a 131 mph serve up the middle and you realize he's got some game. He's feisty, a perfectionist. Everytime he missed a shot he held his hands up towards the sky in supplication and disgust. Someday, after he finishes growing and maturing, he'll be back at Flushing Meadows in the men's draw.

One thing I like about tennis players as opposed to golfers is that tennis players can deal with noise while they're serving, playing. During the match between Agassi and Blake, fans gasped and shushed and screamed during points, but the players never lost a beat. The average overpaid pro golfer (hell, even a recreational player) has a conniption if a mosquito passes gas, and this is with their target sitting motionless on the ground instead of moving at 100 mph with movement. No players on the outer courts complained as I snapped pics with my SLR during their matches.

One tip for making an Arthur Ashe match more enjoyable, especially if you're in the nosebleeds, is to use your American Express card to rent one of the free radios they offer. The radios allow you to listen in to the USA Network television commentary (usually of the Arthur Ashe match), and the color commentator these days is often John McEnroe, one of my favorite announcers in any sport. It also adds a lush aural environment, amplifying the audience murmur to an "ocean-in-seashell" level of white noise, allowing you to hear the thwack of the ball, cheers of the crowd, and grunts of the players more clearly than the annoying banker two rows behind you, blabbering on his cell phone. I rented one this year and will never watch another center court match without it.

McEnroe is a great tennis analyst. He and the always incisive Mary Carillo help to carry whatever tennis novice CBS employs as the play-by-play guy, usually Dick Enberg. Replace the bland commentary of Enberg with the dulcet English tones of Cliff Drysdale instead and you'd have the strongest announcing trio in any sport. I spotted Johnny Mac hitting around after announcing two matches during the day session and snapped a photo or two of him through the fence. He's the same old Mac, with that corkscrew service motion and hot temper. After missing one serve, he cursed, "Shit!" The first week of the tournament, he has a great work schedule. He stops in at Ashe to announce when he wants to, and if he's bored he seems to have free reign to go off and hit.

The outer grounds are fairly nice, with shops where you can buy anything from the Sharapova tennis outfit to Roger Federer's racket to a $40 giant tennis ball by Wilson, the most popular item for collecting player autographs. The food is passable but crazy expensive. Prepare to pay $10 to $15 for a burger or sandwich and $4 for a drink.

AOL sponsors an indoor entertainment center where you can test the speed of your serve and participate in a variety of other tennis challenges. I stepped into the net cold to test the speed of my serve and nearly tore my arm out of its socket just to hit 92 on the gun. If you're going to go for Roddick-type serves, make sure to warm up first.

Awesome

The James Blake and Andre Agassi quarterfinal match tonight? Awesome. Classic. I think it's the most gutsy comeback I've ever seen from Agassi (3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (6)).

Most everyone knows Blake's trials and tribulations this past year. He broke his neck when he fell into a netpost, lost his father to stomach cancer, then lost movement in half of his face due to shingles. His tennis career looked to be over, but he came back and came within a few shots tonight of reaching the semifinals of a Grand Slam for the first time. He was born in Yonkers, and he was a sentimental favorite this U.S. Open.

The first two sets, he played like the James Blake from the Top Spin video game. In every video game, some players just seem to be best suited to the way the video game physics and controls are set up. It isn't always the player whose best in real life. In Top Spin, that player was James Blake (followed closely by Lleyton Hewitt). Blake's video game doppelganger had the super fast feet, a bomb of a first serve, and, if he got a floater, could hit a nuclear rocket of a forehand for a winner, perhaps the most important shot of all in a tennis video game since it's so hard to put shots away.

The first two sets against Agassi tonight, Blake played like his video game counterpart. He was hitting winners off both sides, just smearing the ball. He was getting to everything Agassi hit; Blake may be just be the fastest player I've ever seen on a court. I thought Agassi was done (and learned later that he'd never come back from two sets down at the U.S. Open, so my feelings were justified).

It didn't seem possible, but Agassi started hitting harder in sets three and four. It was the epitome of modern tennis, groundstrokes like lasers screaming back and forth over the net. Both Blake and Agassi seemed capable of hitting a winner on nearly every shot. As defines a great match, more rallies seemed to end with outright winners than unforced errors, and more of the unforced errors were actually forced.

The fifth set tiebreaker was a classic. Down 5-4, Agassi jumped on a Blake second serve in the ad-court and punished it inside-out for a clean winner. 5-5. With Agassi leading 6-5, Blake ran around a ball to hit an unbelievable forehand winner down the line. 6-6. On the next point, Andre drew Blake in with one of his patented backhand dropshots down the line, then hit a clean pass right back down the same chute. 7-6. Befitting the greatest returner in the history of tennis, Agassi scorched an outright winner off a Blake second serve to end the match.

One thing the U.S. Open has that no other Grand Slam has is night tennis. There's nothing like the last match of the night at Arthur Ashe Stadium. During the daytime, fans can be lulled by the blazing sun. New Yorkers don't do so well early in the day anyhow, and fans' attention is divided among matches all over Flushing Meadows, streaming in and out between games. At night, for the last match of the night, only Arthur Ashe is lit, and more often than not, the match ends past midnight. The fans who remain are die hards, the crazies. They have to be to want to take the 45 minute ride back to Manhattan on the non-express 7 train.

My first taste of the U.S. Open this year

Caught my first live taste of the U.S. Open this year last night.

They've made a few changes this year. First, they've painted the courts blue to make it easier to see the ball. I'm a big fan as it really works. Secondly, if balls are hit into the stands, fans can keep them. Considering each ball costs a dollar or two, I think that also makes sense. Lastly, after each match in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the winner autographs four balls and hits them into the stands.

I still have no idea how you score courtside or even halfway decent seats to Arthur Ashe Stadium if you just purchase through publicly available outlets. I maxed out a 300mm zoom lens, multiplied it by 2X, and tried to handhold from my nosebleed seats. If I were any higher up my head might brush up against the Goodyear blimp.

The "Where's Andy's Mojo?" American Express billboards and banners and posters are everywhere. I imagine they'll be up for the rest of the tournament, a painful reminder of what a huge upset his first round loss was.

In the first match, Serena Williams toyed with Catalino Castaño and moved on 6-2, 6-2. It was a fairly lackluster match, and Serena was spraying the ball. Fortunately for her, clay court specialist Castaño didn't have any weapons to hurt her with, so Serena could attack at will. She still moves great and can cream the ball. The crowd wasn't all that engaged but gave a warm embrace to Serena when she announced in the post-match interview that she'd donate $100 to victims of Hurricane Katrina for every ace she hit through the end of the year.

Before the next match, the rains came and forced a delay.

The final match of the night featured Rafael Nadal playing American teenager Scoville Jenkins in gusty conditions. Nadal is the Mallorcan tennis prodigy, now ranked second in the world, whose known almost as much for his capri pants and chiseled physique as he is for his game. Nadal comes bounding onto the court, even just for warmups, wearing a sleeveless body-hugging t-shirt. Older men all around me explained to their wives and daughters, "That's Nadal, the hot young guy on tour." The women checked him out on the jumbo screen and clucked their approval.

It was my first time watching Nadal in person. I can see why he's so unbeatable on clay. He's lightning quick around the court, and he hits his groundstrokes with a massive amount of topspin. It's a heavy ball. On clay he's difficult to attack because the clay slows down any offensive shots, allowing Nadal to get to nearly every ball, while Nadal's heavy groundstroke bounce up around his opponent's shoulders. To attack his groundstrokes you have to have faith that Nadal's topspin will bring his groundies down short, moving in to attack them on the rise. It's easier said than done, though easier to do on a hardcourt.

At least once in every match he's involved in, Nadal pulls off his trademark crowd-pleasing, signature reversal. His opponent will hit some deep, seemingly unretrievable shot to the corner, but Nadal will streak across and get it back, then quickly scramble all the way to the other corner to snatch the opponent's next near winner. This will go on for a few shots until Nadal gets into position to buggy-whip a winner past his amazed and disgusted opponent, causing the crowd to leap to its feet with a roar. When he pulls of such points, Nadal sprints, leaps, and pumps his left fist Tiger Woods style. Federer is still my favorite player to watch, especially in person (he's one of the rare players who is more impressive in person than on television), but Nadal brings a youthful flair that offers a nice contrast to the stoic demeanor of the average USTA pro.

If Nadal can flatten out his groundies, and if he can move in and take some of his returns earlier (he stands a good seven or eight feet behind the baseline to return serve), he can be even more dangerous on the hard courts. He was conservative relative to Jenkins, who had a big first serve and forehand and went for it on both strokes to try and neutralize Nadal's speed. Jenkins gave Nadal a tougher than normal second round match but ultimately made too many unforced errors. Nadal was not playing all that way, not hitting many winners, not forcing the action. Jenkins was the one dictating play, but too many of his attacks ended up in the net or long. Nadal will need to play better to move far in the tournament.

Watching Williams and Nadal today highlighted how much lightweight graphite rackets changed the sport. I started off with my dad's wooden racket, then his aluminum Wilson T1000. Those rackets were so heavy that you had to make a full shoulder turn on your groundies, addressing balls with a neutral or even closed stance.

Graphite rackets are so light and stiff that they allow players to hit wristy forehands with a Western grip and an open stance. It's easier and quicker to get into an open stance than a closed stance, and the follow through with an open stance can bring the player into a ready position for the next shot almost immediately. Meanwhile, the racket does a lot of the work, as stiff as graphite is. Nadal regularly hits forehands off his back foot, yet he crushes the ball. If players today tried to hit that type of forehand with a wooden or aluminum racket they'd be felled by a debilitating case of tennis elbow before their eighth birthday.

NY vs SF

Andy Roddick bounced in the first round of the U.S. Open in 3 straight tiebreak sets
Where is Andy's mojo indeed?

New York vs. San Francisco
Written with tongue-in-cheek, but humorous reading for anyone who's lived in both cities before.

The first of a multi-part series on The Game, the thinking man's scavenger hunt
While living in Seattle, I heard so many stories about it from participants. Always wanted to play but never pulled a team together. It sounds awesome, though.

Laser-sighted slingshot
A video shows it splitting pencils. If only they had this when I was a kid.

A though experiment by George Saunders
"But dropping the idea that your actions are Evil, and that you are Monstrous, I enter a new moral space, in which the emphasis is on seeing with clarity, rather than judging; on acting in the most effective way (that is, the way that most radically and permanently protects my chickens), rather than on constructing and punishing a Monster."

The Evian Water Bra
Fill it with cold water to keep your breasts cool. Someone signed off on some Evian summer intern's project without reading the proposal.

Location is everything?

My apartment is the size of Bill's kitchen. I state it that way because it's a compliment to my apartment. Looking out his window, I see, no joke, a hummingbird sucking nectar from a flower on one of the bushes, bathed in the golden glow of sunrise. It's as if I died and woke up in heaven, or perhaps my friends sedated me yesterday and put me into a rehab clinic in Southern California. Any minute now a fat nurse will be in to give me an enema.

This is the first clean air I've breathed since...I can't even remember anymore. I'm also reminded that I really miss DirecTV.

Okay, off to the U.S. mecca of golf.

Mugged

Short story by Tobias Wolff in this week's New Yorker
I long ago stopped reading the weekly New Yorker short story unless it happened to be by an author I know and love, like Wolff. Also in this week's New Yorker, Noah Baumbach wrote the comedy bit, titled "Tom Cruise is My Dog." I heard Baumbach speak after the screening of his movie The Squid and the Whale at Sundance this year. Baumbach, a close friend of Wes Anderson, did not seem like the type of guy who'd write a piece like that, but I guess I was wrong.

Upcoming cookbook by Ferran Adria contains recipes from his famed El Bulli
Will cost $210 and include interactive CD-ROM.

Entourage gets a third season

Tattooed fruit could mean the end of the annoying little stickers you have to peel off

***

I'm away from NYC a lot in the next month, so every day here is spent running errands. This stretch of days where I have to venture out onto the street just happens to coincide with the muggiest weather since I've moved here. Within a minute of walking out into the heat, I feel like a damp towel. NYC feels like a sauna with a concrete and asphalt floor, brick and metallic walls, and the sun for a heat lamp in the ceiling.

***

Every camera store I've been to in NYC so far is owned and run by Hasidic Jews, including the massive B&H. Yesterday I had to drop off my inkjet printer for repair at a local camera store and was greeted by a store full of Hasidic Jews, just like B&H. It's the fourth such store I've visited. Interesting cultural phenomenon.

Do camera stores have really low margins? Are photographers a jealous, misanthropic lot? How does one explain the awful customer service at camera stores (it was the same at Glazer's in Seattle)? A majority of camera store employees I've dealt with are rude and curt, as if they disdain my business. I have no idea why that is but it's really unnecessary.

The late night employees at Whole Foods, on the other hand, are just careless and indifferent. Twice the clerks there have forgotten to pack one of my items, and each time I've had to stand there waiting while the checkout clerk carried on a social conversation with one of their peers. In this heat and humidity, it's more than aggravating to walk 10 blocks round trip to retrieve a single item. When this happened again last week, I had to throw a tantrum on the phone to the manager to get him to credit me for my salad (which I pictured the manager eating himself as he replied "uh-huh" "uh-huh" to my litany of complaints). I'm not going there in the evening anymore.

***

I only caught a bit of the British Open, but it seems safe to say that Tiger Woods' swing changes have worked themselves out. To hurt Tiger, a course needs to punish him for errant drives, and if that doesn't work, competitors have to hope he's putting badly. The rough at the U.S. Open handled the former, and Tiger couldn't putt that week. But the British Open links layout didn't punish him when he hooked or pushed his drives. Errant tee shots landed in the next fairway over, and he simply hit irons from wherever he landed. The fairway bunkers? Tiger drover over most of them.

***

While in DC last weekend, Joannie and I visited the Holocaust Museum thanks to Rich's sister Catherine who works there and left passes for us. Even several years beyond its opening, it's still an attraction that requires advanced planning in order to secure a spot. The main exhibit is linear, winding down from the top floor back to the main floor. For some subjects, like this one, I prefer that format over an open format where you have to choose your own path.

Impressive exhibit and well worth a visit. Of course, I also dragged Joannie to see the insects at the National Museum of Natural History. As a compromise I went with her to view the Hope Diamond and other assorted bling.

Thank goodness the DC Metro stations are air conditioned. It was so hot that wandering from museum to monument to museum felt like strolling in a ceramic kiln. At the Supreme Court we viewed a video interview with the current Justices. Ginsberg commented that when the Constitution was written, women couldn't vote and blacks were still suffering the indignities of slavery, among other injustices to be rectified in later years. While she spoke, the video cut for a few seconds to the face of strict constructionist Scalia, and it was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes. High comedy. Scalia's a nut.

The trip to DC was a success. Joannie found an apartment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. It will be great to have her and Mike closer by, just a three and a half make that four five hour bus ride away. The bus drivers this time around sure took their sweet time.

On the way down, the in-drive movie was that awful movie in which Jennifer Lopez and her daughter and haunted by a crazy guy, presumably her ex-husband (I wasn't watching that closely). The lunatic was played by the guy who played Carter Buckley on The O.C. this season. Finally, after being terrorized by the guy for the entire movie, J.Lo trains herself in boxing and goes after him. Our arrival in DC cut off the final fight scene, to no one's dismay.

***

I keep receiving a phishing e-mail for eBay, an excerpt of which appears below. This fraudster needs a copy editor. If you want to steal someone's money, at least put some effort into it.

It has come to our attion that 95% of all fraudulent auctions are caused by members using stolen credit cards to purchase or sell non existant items. Thus we require our members to add a Debit/Check card to their billing records as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. Your Debit/Check card will only be used to identify you and bill any open seller fees incase your initial credit card gets declined. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the eBay® service. However, failure to confirm your records will result in your account suspension.

Review: Marathon, Princess Raccoon, Mindgame

I grabbed Scott to see the Korean movie Marathon last last Sunday night as some inspiration for his upcoming attempt at an Ironman. The last several Korean movies I've seen have been excessively disturbing, with graphic violence and sex a magnitude of order higher than anything in American movies. Though I have nothing against such movies, I wasn't in the mood for that Sunday night. Marathon's description portrayed it as a feel good movie, and though I've been fooled by such for Korean movies in the past, thank goodness this one wasn't kidding.

Based on a true story, Marathon was the top-grossing movie in Korea this year. Cho Won is an autistic young boy. Like other autistic children, he has problems relating to other people, including his younger brother and parents. Fortunately for Cho Won, his mother (Mi-suk Kim) is strong and loving, with the type of patience only a mother could have. When we jump forward and see Cho Won at age twenty, his mother is still caring for him, though her husband lives elsewhere, perhaps driven away by his wife's all-consuming interest in her Cho Won, or perhaps just unable to summon the same patience and energy needed to raise such a child.

Cho Won's mother has found an outlet for him in running. He's good at it and places in 10K's in his special classification. She decides to find him coaching so that he can train to run a marathon. When a former Boston Marathon winner is assigned 200 hours of community service at a school for autistic children for a DUI, Cho Won's mother senses and opening and asks him to coach her son as a way to work off some of his community service obligation. The coach's best days are behind him, and he lives from one beer to the next in a slovenly apartment. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Jung-wook translates as Morris Buttermaker.

Autistic children display a very limited range of emotions, and as such they serve in movies as mirrors through which we see the nature of the people around them, their problems and natures, as in Rain Man. Do people try and take advantage of them? Do they try and care for them? How do they handle the autistic child's inability to show gratitude or love? Autistic children interpret everything literally, and some comedy ensues in the failure of the coach to understand that about Cho Won.

Does Cho Won actually enjoy running? No one is certain. When asked if he likes running or not, Cho Won says he likes it. But phrase the question a different way and he'll say he doesn't. Can Cho Won even run a marathon safely if he doesn't learn how to pace himself? The story of Cho Won is mostly a story of his mother and how she struggles to best raise Cho Won. Does she want him to run a marathon because it's what she wants? Is he only a puppet for her own dreams? Whenever she lets her attention wander for just a moment, Cho Won seems to get himself into trouble, yet at other times she's accused of clinging to him too tightly or ordering him around simply to make her own life easy. It's a complex role, and Mi-Suk Kim plays it from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other with genuine heart.

The movie builds to somewhat of an expected ending, but the road there twists in surprising ways. The climax of the movie stays with Cho Won all through a race, the only sequence in the movie where its emotion seemed forced. Since Cho Won is autistic, it's not clear that all the flashbacks and thoughts shown on screen could actually be his, and we can't empathize with an autistic character the way we'd empathize with the other characters. It's one of the few times where I wanted more cutaways to the mother, brother, and coach during a climactic sports scene.

But it's a minor quibble with a touching story, one that resonated with me even more when the on screen epilogue noted that Cho Won's character was based on a real-life autistic Korean boy who ran a marathon in 2002. His time, just over 2:57, is still a record of some sort (the details elude me). As The Sports Guy often writes, it was mighty dusty in that theater.

***

Princess Raccoon (official Japanese site) is an operetta by Seijun Suzuki, whose Tokyo Drifter was a stylish post-modern gangster movie in which the lead character whistles his own theme song. Suzuki is nothing if not unique; when you see one of his movies, you knew who the hell directed it. That applies even more so to Princess Raccoon, so odd a merger of operetta, costume dramas, animation, film, and commercials that it's utterly incomprehensible. I'd summarize the plot but I'm sure I'd be doing the movie an injustice even if I happened by chance to be accurate. Still, for reference's sake: a vain king seeks to kill his son, the prince Amechiyo, when a prophet envisions that soon Amechiyo will surpass the King in beauty. Fortunately, Princess Raccoon (Zhang Ziyi) has eyes for the prince and protects him with some magic.

Some of the visual cuts and transitions are kind of brilliant, and the very mannered performances, much like those of singers in an opera, are so different from those in almost all other movies that they provide a type of cognitive dissonance that one hopes to find at a film festival. Much of the movie is a comedy of the absurd. On the other hand, the story is both too simple in its overall structure and too unintelligible in its detail to hold a viewer's interest for nearly two hours. I was glad I didn't bring someone with me to sit through the movie; this one should be rated D, for daring audiences only. Some plotless movies speak to the subconscous with their surreality; this one's simply a Tokyo drifter. At one point a golden magic frog appears on screen and starts speaking. If you can get your hands on one, I recommend trying to smoke it before watching Princess Raccoon.

***

Even if you don't smoke some golden frog, though, you'll feel like you did while watching Mind Game, a remarkable animated feature film from Japan (trailer). Recent Japanese animation has been a letdown. Appleseed had an insufferably banal plot while Steamboy offered one-dimensional characters, long a bane of anime.

Mind Game has a hero with a soul and a personality in Nishi, and the wide-ranging animation styles on display are not just for show; each style reinforces the character's feelings or the scene's mood in a synergistic way that reminded me of well-drawn manga. On average, though, the animation is less Ghost in the Shell and more The Triplets of Belleville on acid.

Nishi has been in love with his childhood friend Myon as long as he can remember. Since he met her when she was but a child, we can presume he loves her for more than the outrageously ample bosom she sprouts by the time we meet them in their early twenties. Nishi is shy and neurotic, though, so passive he can't express his true feelings for her, and now she's engaged to marry another guy. The three of them meet up with Myon's father in a diner to catch up over a meal when suddenly two members of the Japanese mafia drop by in search of the owner. The tension in the diner escalates, and one thing leads to another, culminating with Nishi in heaven, conversing with God. Nishi wants a second chance at life, a second chance to tell Myon how he feels. He feels so strongly he outraces divine creatures to return to the world and change his fate.

And then the movie really takes a turn for the bizarre. What seems like a straightforward story transforms into almost a religious or metaphysical fable in the second half, the plotline involving the gangsters discarded like a dream. If I sound vague it's only because I don't want to ruin the story; the unexpected turns are part of the movie's joy.

***

The New York Asian Film Festival feels like an underground movie festival. The bad:

• The Anthology Film Archives Theatre, where the first half of the festival screened, is a dump of a movie theatre. The projection is too dark, the seats are uncomfortable, and the air conditioning barely works.
• The popcorn at ImaginAsian Theater, where the second half of the festival screened, feels and tastes like salty packing peanuts.
• A Venn diagram of nerdy film geeks who attend the NY Asian Film Festival and people who don't shower daily would show two circles sharing a lot of area.

The good:

• Good movie selections, on a whole.
• The ImaginAsian Theatre serves Asian snacks and drinks like Pocky and Guava Juice. Mmmm, guava juice.
• They don't show the festival's promotional commercial before every movie.
• At each screening they raffle off a few prizes before the movie starts. I won lousy DVD and $2 of Jet Li postcards, but who am I to turn a cold shoulder on a gift horse?
• One of the festival's promoters introduces the movies with breathless enthusiasm, somewhat of a welcome change from the usual dull speech from some film festival promoter explaining exactly why you should enjoy the movie you're about to see.

Team Time Trial, and my breakaway attempt

A highly competitive team time trial today, the closest ever, marred by David Zabriskie's crash near the finish. It's one of my favorite events, as I love the feeling of riding a blazing pace line with other riders. One of the things I most look forward to about going to France each year is flying through the French countryside with a couple of other riders, each taking a short turn up front. A group of riders like that can go faster than any one of the riders can alone, so a paceline like that allows you to sustain higher average speeds for longer periods of time. The feeling is exhilarating, and the formations of the professional teams resemble flocks of birds in their precision, a beautiful color-coordinated backlash of man and machine.

Photo ©: Roberto Bettini www.bettiniphoto.net

It's still not clear what happened to Zabriskie. The commentators theorized that he crossed wheels with the rider in front of him, but I haven't read any definitive account of the crash. A rider usually knows when he crosses tires with someone in front (UPDATE: Zabriskie has blamed a skipped chain). CSC is very fortunate in one sense in that they'd just come out of a corner, slowing them down just before the crash. Otherwise, I'm fairly certain that Roberts and more importantly Basso would have gone head over heels over Zabriskie. That would have lost Basso another minute or two on Armstrong (the crash was outside the 1km red flag, so Basso would not have received the protection of sharing his team's time).

Cyclists everywhere had to be wincing in empathy watching Zabriskie roll slowly to the finish line, the left side of his cycling shorts ripped open, revealing a massive patch of bloody, gravel-scored skin. As any rider knows, Zabriskie is in store for some hellaciously painful showers and several days of riding with a mixture of throbbing soreness, joint and muscle stiffness, and a sharp stinging pain. On a positive note, he's a bit lighter now, having lost some blood and skin to the road.

Team Discovery Channel set a team time trial record, averaging 54.93 kph or 34.13 mph. To sustain that for over an hour and ten minutes is absurd. Just silly fast. I'd need a long stretch of downhill to get myself up to that type of speed, and if I was lucky enough to sustain it for several minutes my heart would explode. That's assuming I could even turn over a 55-11 gearing. With a flat course and a tailwind, the conditions did not seem to favor huge time gaps, and the negligible time difference between CSC and Discovery Channel showed that to be true.

The next few days will be somewhat uneventful, as Lance and Team Discovery would prefer. They spoke of perhaps sending George up in some breaks to see if they could transfer the yellow jersey from Lance to George, but I'm skeptical. It would tire George out needlessly before the mountains. I'd love to see it happen, though. These are the least interesting stages of the Tour de France, everyone riding together to the finish, perhaps chasing down a break or two, before the sprinters amass for the insanity of the bunch sprint. The first several stages, with the team time trial and a longer than usual prologue, has probably left many riders exhausted, so riders will be more reluctant to break away the next day or two.

Tom Boonen has just been a beast this season (he won the Tour of Flanders and the fabled Paris-Roubaix), and it's just a shame Alessandro Petacchi isn't at the Tour so the two leading sprinters in the world could duel it out. That would make this first week more compelling.

***

I went for a bike ride yesterday, trying to find my away to the George Washington Bridge and across into New Jersey. I printed out a cue sheet and stowed it in a sandwich bag in my rear jersey pocket. The first time I reached for it, up in Harlem, it was gone. I may have lost it within a block or two of leaving my apartment. Finding my away across the GWB wasn't difficult, but once over to the other side, I had no idea where to go.

Though most cyclists seemed to have stayed home to avoid the auto traffic for the 4th, I managed to run across a local who talked me through a moderately hilly loop just on the other side of the bridge. He was a scrawny, stick-armed, middle-aged man with a big white beard and a deep tan, riding an old, beat-up road bike. I imagined him to be the town crazy, spotted everywhere but rarely spoken to, the kind that turns out to be a former Nobel Prize winner in the movies. He had a voice like Will Ferrell's Old Prospector from SNL.

Harlem streets are rough (literally). My rear tire flatted on the return trip. It wasn't a blowout, so I managed to drag myself home by stopping every two or three miles to put a few pumps of air in. I'll have to change that tube and find some tires more suited to shattered-glass-and-pothole complexion of New York city streets.

I didn't realize so many New Yorkers abandon the city on summer weekends, especially holiday weekends. I should have stolen away, somewhere, anywhere. I think I need a time out from the city. Riding around the city by myself and past so many families out at parks with picnic coolers and BBQs, I felt a vague sort of longing that the warm summer air always seems to stir up. A yearning for something, but I wasn't sure what.

Well, that's not exactly true. I am yearning to be in France, where my life would be as different as possible from life in Manhattan. My daily concerns on Tour de France bike vacations has always been so wonderfully circumscribed. Wake up, prep my bike clothes and equipment, eat a good breakfast, study the route map, check the bike and pump up the tires, and set off. Then you eat, stroll through quaint little French towns, watch the race finish, and choose a restaurant in which to eat a two to three hour dinner. Then it's back to bed or on to the next town.

Everything moves slower except the cyclists. People walk more slowly, meals are eaten at leisure, and one senses that everyone around them has the same, simple outlook and daily concerns. Even when I'm out for a leisurely stroll around NYC, I can't help but be swept up by the current of suits streaming in both directions on sidewalks and subway. People here are like molecules compressed into a low volume space, oscillating at higher speeds under the pressure. Compare it to Los Angeles, a horizontal city as opposed to New York's vertical configuration. With so much horizontal space per person, everything moves more slowly, and even those looking to speed around get caught in gridlock.

I do think that finding some routes out of Manhattan on my bike will help. My breakaway didn't quite succeed, but attack enough and one day you'll outrun the peloton. I'm going to tape that cue sheet to my forearm on my next trip.

Oodles of pixels

How many megapixels is your digital camera? Try 4 billion.
The gallery zooms in on tiny portions of the master image to show you just how much detail the camera can capture. Let's turn this on Nicole Kidman's face and see if she has any pores.

An opera composed by Tan Dun, with libretto by Ha Jin, directed by Zhang Yimou, and sung by Placido Domingo
Coming to The Met Dec. 21, 2006.

I applied for David Letterman tix online, submitting three free days off my calendar. Only a day later, I got a phone call from the box office. I had to answer a trivia question and two guaranteed tickets would be mine. I haven't watched Dave much recently, so I flubbed an easy question and missed out on seeing Tom Cruise on Letterman.

Elizabethtown trailer and music video

10 seconds from Peter Jackson's upcoming King Kong movie. The teaser trailer airs on the NBC networks tonight.

Chicago Police try to combat prostitution through public embarrassment, posting photos of solicitors online (via Freakonomics)

If I'm Hermes, I work quickly to cut off the Oprah PR disaster. Free purses for everyone in the studio audience! On the other hand, perhaps Oprah is the only one on set of her shows who can afford to shop there regularly.

James told me to tape the World Poker Tour Saturday, and I did. Scanned it last night to watch Doyle Brunson destroy Lee Watkinson heads up at the final table. A thing of beauty.

Trailer for videogame Alan Wake

Videogames and movies continue to converge in style and marketing

Godzilla Final Wars

I saw Godzilla Final Wars at the New York Asian Film Festival yesterday evening (video clips here). Of all the movies at the festival, this was the first to sell out. The Godzilla following remains strong. Fans of Godzilla and campy movies will eat this up, much as yesterday's groupies did. Every time Godzilla belted out his trademark roar, the audience erupted in kind.

At some point in the future, suddenly all of Godzilla's past monster foes appear all over the world and start razing cities. The Earth Defense Force tries to fight back, but they are helpless, especially when the monsters are discovered to be in the control of aliens called Xiliens. It looks grim for Planet Earth, but the most dangerous weapon the Earth has ever known remains frozen in ice at the South Pole...GODZILLA!!!

The camp knows no bounds. This is the "man in rubber suit destroying mini models of famous landmarks and cities" school of Godzilla movies. Some characters speak in Japanese with English subtitles; Captain Gordon (Don Frye), who provides the most memorable of the movie's intentionally histrionic performance, speaks in English with Japanese subtitles. Everyone understands everyone else perfectly. Apparently they can see the subtitles also. Characters toss the term "monster" about as if it is a scientific term.

Before the movie began, festival promoters gave away prizes to those who could answer obscure Godzilla trivia. These were truly some hardcore fans, able to selectively recall which monsters appeared in which of the three different Godzilla movie series. This lizard is right up there with Zatoichi in Japanese cinematic productivity.

I am unfamiliar with all of Godzilla's foes, but among the ones to make an appearance in this movie are an armadillo, a spider, Rodan (who appears to be a descendant of a pterodactyl), what appears to be a giant Gremlin with Mad Cow Disease named King Caesar (sp?), a flying ant, the three-headed mutant offspring of Hydra, and Gigan (a cross between a lizard, a wooly mammoth, Cyclops, and a chainsaw). Also appearing are Mothra (yes, a giant moth) and what looked like a baby Godzilla; did the big guy father an illegitimate child somewhere along the way? Godzilla junkies got more of a kick out of each of these monster's appearances than I did, though even a novice like myself could revel in the paradox that is the movie's realistic yet completely unrealistic look. It's similar to the child-like joy of seeing stop motion animation, like seeing one's childhood toy fantasies enacted on a larger scale. Combined with lots of sake and a sushi dinner, Godzilla Final Wars could make for a fun night out.

The movie's score is by Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus, Azumi, Alive) directs.

Best man speeches

Bawdy best-man speeches given by the actual best man on earth at the time
I hate to generalize based on such a small sample size, but based on all the weddings I've been to, the Best Man speech is humorous, poking fun at the groom and leaving the room in stitches. With a bit of alcohol, there's always a chance that something inappropriate might be said. The Maid of Honor's speech is sentimental and weepy, leaving the entire room uncomfortably silent, a few girls dabbing at their eyes while the guys look at the floor wishing it would end.

Phil Jackson returns to coach the Los Angeles Lakers

Asafa Powell of Jamaica breaks the world record in the men's 100 meter dash
He ran it in 9.77 seconds to beat Tim Montgomery's disputed (b/c of doping suspicions) record of 9.78.

The magic sunscreen that's still illegal in the U.S.
Mexoryl is not FDA-approved, but it blocks UVA light better than any ingredients in sunscreens in the U.S. Bootleg it from drugstores on the Upper East Side or from Canadian pharmacy websites.

Discovery Channel goes 1-2-3 in final stage of Tour de France tune-up race
George Hincapie, Yaroslav Popovych, and Lance Armstrong take places 1 through 3, respectively, in the final stage of the Dauphiné Libéré. Armstrong finishes fourth overall, behind unknown Inigo Landaluze, who was the only rider on his team to finish the race, and Santiago Botero and Levi Leipheimer. Vino finished fifth. Should be a really competitive Tour de France. I recall that OLN TV had much more coverage of cycling leading up to the Tour last year. Much to my disappointment, cycling television coverage has been sparse this year outside of the Giro d'Italia.

The New York Asian Film Festival 2005 has a sweet lineup of movies

Michael Jackson to change his lifestyle
"Michael Jackson's lawyer said today that the singer will no longer share his bed with young boys."

Rockefeller Center hosts free Drive-In Movies from tonight through Saturday evening at 9pm each night. Seating begins at 6pm.
The lineup this year is documentary-heavy:
June 14th - “Rize” - David LaChapelle's documentary about krumping, a style of dancing from the L.A. ghettoes. Saw and enjoyed this at the Tribeca Film Festival.
June 15th - “The Baxter” - Michael Showalter romantic comedy set in Brooklyn.
June 16th – “All We Are Saying” - Rosanna Arquette's star-studded documentary on the state of the music business.
June 17th – “Show Business” - documentary about the brutal Broadway production business.

The 27th Annual Museum Mile Festival

Once a year, all the museums along Museum Mile in Manhattan open their doors for free for a few hours. Fifth Avenue closes to automobile traffic, allowing various performers entertain pedestrians up and down the street.

Much to my delight, the Merovingian from The Matrix Reloaded showed up to sing German cabaret songs. Okay, his name is Daniel Isengart, and maybe he wasn't the Merovingian from The Matrix Reloaded. Sure looked and acted like him, though. Of course, if he was the Merovingian, he probably would have brought Monica Belluci along to play the pianola instead of Daniel Pearl, and then you'd be looking at pictures of her playing the pianola instead . That said, Isengart's amusing blend of German Kabarett and French chansons had the crowd of mostly middle-aged woman gushing, and he'd be a massive hit on the wedding circuit.

As you'd expect, the lines to enter all the museums were long. It's the curse of NYC--anything good, and there's a lot of it, is overrun with people. The summer promises all sorts of iconic NYC experiences, but only to those willing to spend long hours in line. Shakespeare in Central Park, trendy new restaurants, outdoor movies at Bryant Park, free concerts in Central Park, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien. Everything except Last Call with Carson Daly. I think those are available for the taking; someone's always giving some of those away.

Thankfully, the street performers at the Museum Mile Festival weren't overrun. More pics from the festival over at my Flickr page.

Who's so vain?

What do you call a book that is not a novel and not a collection of short stories but something in between?

5 movies Alex wishes people would stop quoting

Usually I find those anti-piracy ad spots to be annoying and self-righteous; that said, I would've liked to have seen this one.

Who was Carly Simon singing about in "You're So Vain"?
NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol paid $50,000 for the answer at a charity auction.

Teaser trailer for Revolver, the new Guy Ritchie flick starring his bud Jason Stratham
Guns, gangsters, goons, gambling, Guy Ritchie.

***

Early reviews of Batman Begins are positive
Ebert calls it the only Batman movie he's liked thus far, though I'm not sure I'll trust him on this series if he didn't like the original Burton Batman. I watched the 10 minute Batman Begins preview during the season finale of Smallville, and it seemed decent, but Christian Bale's Batman voice was very strange, almost choked. Okay, what does it matter? Mike and I are going to see it in IMAX the day he gets into NYC.

***

Did anyone see the Federer-Nadal semifinal? I wasn't even sure when it was on television. I'm not a huge fan of clay court tennis, but that would've been something to see. I tried to set my DVR to grab it, but instead it grabbed the other semifinal which I had no interest in. Nadal is one of the quickest players I've ever seen, and he hits with a filthy amount of top spin, especially off the forehand side. Good to see Safin and Nadal pushing Federer in the first two slams this year. The French Open isn't the most interesting tournament to watch on television, but Paris in early June? It might be the best Grand Slam to watch in person. I'll have to see it in person some year.

***

I'm sad that the Phoenix Suns got knocked out of the NBA playoffs. They were the only storyline sustaining my tepid interest in the NBA playoffs. Amare Stoudemire is a freak. I could watch him and Nash running the screen and roll all game long. Stoudemire is so quick, his arms so long, and his vertical so explosive that he always seems to get the basket, no matter who's guarding him and how much space they give him. If you had to pick one player from the NBA to play with you in a 2 on 2 game, I'm not sure you'd take anyone besides Amare.

The Suns play the type of basketball that's fun to watch on television. Otherwise, NBA basketball is dull as can be. The officiating doesn't help; it's awful, even to the naked eye of the average fan. I went to a Bulls-Sonics game in Chicago earlier this year with Mike, and the game set a record for most fouls ever in a single game at the United Center, over 70 of them. Every ten seconds it seemed like a whistle blew. Just brutal.

***

So much for the spring. Summer is upon NYC, and I'm sweating. My old and cranky air conditioner is a raspy SOB. Let's hope it holds out.

Hub

Living in NYC is like hosting a party attended by a lot of supermodels. Or getting a boob job. People you haven't seen in ages just drop in all the time. I've had old friends in town for seven weeks straight now. Compare that to living in Seattle when I'd be surprised if more than one person visited within the span of half a year.

Jen stopped in over a month back, and we grabbed dinner at Blue Ribbon Sushi in Soho. It was my first time there. Visitors are always a good excuse for a nice meal out. Who else did we spy in the lobby of Jen's hotel? Clive Owen. I wanted to ask him to repeat one of the funnier lines from the movies in 2004 (delivered with his signature venom in Closer, "You writer.").

Rich was in town the week after. Martinis at 2pm in the afternoon, and a slab of bacon at Gramercy Tavern at happy hour (my first time in the bar area there; the bacon entree, if it's still there, is artery-clogging nirvana). After that, Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway, followed by an 11 pm surf and turf dinner at some steakhouse near Times Square. They brought out a slab of red meat the size of half a loaf of bread. It took me a week to recover, and even then, angioplasty looms large.

Then Bill dropped into town. More late afternoon martinis as we waited for a seat at Union Square Cafe. Seated at the bar, we battled the dizzying influence of the martinis with USC's famous garlic potato chips, then chose some heavier artillery in the roast suckling pig.

Karen was in town for James's birthday, and we visited EN Japanese Brasserie in the West Village. We had the omakase dinner. I've been a few times now, and I prefer to order a la carte. The omakase wasn't all that satisfying taste-wise or portion-size as compared to the food my previous visits. Go a la carte, order the pork belly. I can't but help thinking of izakaya restaurants in Vancouver when I try izakaya in NYC. Vancouver's are better and two orders of magnitude cheaper.

Who was next? Howie, I think. His tastes are quite specific. We had Double Shack burgers at Shake Shack on a sunny afternoon. Nothing better, though the lines there are borderline prohibitive. The burgers are really good there, but remember to get at least a Double Shack burger. The regular Shack burger doesn't have enough meat, the Double is just right, and the Triple is indulgent. I needed all the calories to keep up, what with Howie keeping me up past 5am some four nights in a row. My body clock is still on the graveyard shift some two weeks later.

This past weekend, I was waiting for Scott to join me for a bike ride when Audrey called me on my cell. Turns out she was in town for a wedding and only a few blocks away. I rode over and walked her and her boyfriend and friends down to the Ashes and Snow exhibit, then met back up with Scott where we battled the annoying Fleet Week crowds all the way up the West side until we reached Central Park. The Central Park loop of 6 miles was just barely tolerable, what with pedestrians wandering out in front of us with nary a look in either direction. We couldn't really go that fast for fear of running over some fellow New Yorkers. We rode back down 5th Ave., my first taste cycling NY city streets in high traffic, and it was an adrenaline rush. Just plain terrifying. Scott rode without a helmet; he's crazy (Scott's also training for an Ironman, more proof he's crazy). A few times I felt like I was in a BMW commercial as city buses on either side of me collapsed in on me. This must be what it felt like in the approach run towards the exhaust chute of the Death Star in Star Wars. Not an experience I'd seek out, and I shudder to think of someone trying to learn to ride clipless pedals in Manhattan.

I also visited my new nephew Evan and happy/tired parents Alan and Sharon out in Long Island this weekend. We celebrated Sharon's birthday by battling Mace Windu and General Grievous in James's copy of Revenge of the Sith for XBox. No wait, correction. We ate cupcakes to celebrate Sharon's birthday. The light saber battling was just calisthenics for the fingers.

Dave's in town this week. We had dinner tonight downstairs at BLT Fish (upstairs, the fancier half of the restaurant, is reservations only). I hadn't eaten all day when I met up with Dave, and two beers on an empty stomach left me a little loopy. This always happens when people are in town--I end up drunk before dinner. My fish and chips? Nothing special, but Dave's striped bass impressed. Afterwards I stumbled home, and just as I collapsed on my sofa, my phone ran. Bill was in town for Book Expo. A short cab ride later, he was sitting on my beanbag. We caught up again for an hour or two. By the time I jumped online, Dave had already posted about our dinner.

Emily's in town next week, and then nearly the entire family comes through the week after. Cirrhosis the weekend after? Exhaustion, at a minimum.

Of course, I'm under no illusions that anyone is here to visit me. I'd like to think it's personality, personality, personality, but as with real estate, it's all about location, location, location.

Somewhat related note: is there a term for someone you haven't heard from in ages who suddenly e-mails, then when you respond, they go silent? E-mail and run? Pump fake?

Tribeca Film Festival mini reviews

These thoughts about the movies I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival are really late, but then I've been behind on lots of things these past several weeks.

My introduction to the Tribeca Film Festival came in the form of David LaChapelle's documentary Rize (QT trailer). It tracks the rise of a form of dancing called clowning which evolved into its more well-known incarnation: krumping. Invented by kids in the ghettoes of Los Angeles, krumping fuses hip-hop, African tribal dancing, stripper dancing, and the convulsions of an epileptic in seizure. Its movements are so fast and furious that a disclaimer appears at the beginning: none of the footage has been sped up in any way.

The theme of the movie is that these youths struggling to survive in the ghetto have found a creative outlet of expression and an alternative to the gangster lifestyle in krumping. Midway through the movie, clowning originator Tommy the Clown (a birthday clown for the ghetto, second from the left in the pic below) leads his group of Clowners in a dance battle against a new wave of krumpers, packing an entire arena, and the intensity of the competition and trash talk reveal a competitiveness at the heart of krumping. At dance parties, krumpers regularly shove each other off the dance floor, but the physical confrontation, as aggressive and combative as it appears, is peaceful in spirit.

The most charismatic dancer was Miss Prissy (she's the crazy-ripped girl in the movie poster), and she was one of the few stars not to attend Q&A because she'd gone on to become a backup dancer for the rapper The Game. Is krumping a fad? It's too early to say. It has yet to spread beyond Los Angeles, but perhaps the release of this documentary will spread the movement to other parts of the country. Though the documentary ties krumping to the ghettoes of LA, its violent and uninhibited movements look like a physical release of universal teenage feelings: alienation, anger, rebellion, and the conflicting desires to stand out and fit in.

In Red Doors, the NY Narrative Award winner, nearly all the characters are nearly at the end of their story arcs when the movie begins, and the story cliches shorten the distance they travel. All signs pointed to a family dinner with everyone's significant others at movie's end (Joy Luck Club style), and so it came to pass. Maybe some of the familiar tropes of these dysfunctional Asian American family stories are just too familiar to me as other people around me seemed to really enjoy it. The story of how a few college girlfriends banded together to stitch together financing and bring the movie to the festival, revealed during Q&A, was the portion of the screening that caught my attention. It's the type of story one hears over and over at film festivals, but it still hasn't gotten old for me.

Puzzlehead revives the Frankenstein myth. In this sci-fi thriller, a man who builds a robot of himself, only to lose control of it. The main actor was so wooden, I lost track of who was the robot, who was the man. Poor acting is a risk with any low-budget movie, but an audience will forgive if the movie is original. This one isn't able to outrun audience expectations. I felt as if I'd skipped ahead in the presentation and reached the finish while the movie was still presenting the first chapter.

I loved the docudrama 24 Hour Party People, by Michael Winterbottom, and 9 Songs was said to include concert footage by Franz Ferdinand, among others, and lots of sex. The movie should have been more accurately titled: 9 Songs, 24 positions. A young couple, Matt and Lisa, meets at a concert and begins an affair that alternates between live music and home-schooling in the kama sutra. The story is narrated in retrospect by Matt, now working in Antarctica on some sort of geological expedition. Long shots of the desolate, icy white snowscape hint at the shallow and empty nature of Matt and Lisa's relationship, but that idea isn't as tragic as it aspires to be considering how shallow both Matt and Lisa seem. The overall effect is much less provocative than it sounds, though at least it's an attempt to push audience buttons, something movie festivals should provide as an alternative to the average fare at local cineplexes.

Runaway is directed by Tribeca veteran (yes, there is such a think even though the festival has only been around since 9/11) Tim McCann and follows a pair of brothers on the run from a dark family past. Older brother Michael works at a convenience store and leaves his younger brother Dylan at the cheap motel that serves as their home base. Michael begins to fall for a fellow clerk named Carly (a back from wherever she's been Robin Tunney with the best performance in the movie), and as she opens up about her past, so does Michael, leading to a massive twist at movie's end. It's the type of twist which has become somewhat popular in movies in recent years, using a visual metaphor for an internal state of mind (I won't reveal what the trick is as it would ruin the movie). The first time you see it in a movie, it's surprising. Now, having been used several times, it feels a bit like a magician's invisible string. It's a dangerous game, because the gimmick also causes the audience to have to re-evaluate much of what they've seen. Leaving aside the plot twist, though, the greater problem is that Michael isn't sympathetic; it mutes the tragic payoff.

Fox Searchlight had already picked up Night Watch for distribution prior to Tribeca, so the Stuyvesant High School auditorium screening I attended had an unusually strict security detail. At the door, they took my phone and backpack and still security-wanded me before allowing me in. The director came on stage beforehand and billed Night Watch as the first fantasy movie to come out of Russia.

Night Watch is the first chapter of a trilogy, so it's particularly unfortunate that it's a mess. Take a vampire movie, zombie movie, a few witches and magic spells, and a heavy dose of CGI, put in a blender, top with a dollop of squid ink to darken the cinematography, and puree. The ending is a setup for part two of the trilogy and offers little emotional satisfaction. I welcome new entries in various genres from foreign countries, but the same economic pressures that produce unoriginal but globally palatable Hollywood fare can work in reverse. Night Watch feels a bit like Hollywood genre movies refracted back by a Russian fun house mirror, a Frankensteinian quilt of genre chunks. A movie like The Return, though it's in a genre with a long-standing tradition in Russia, feels far more original and unsettling.

Gorillaz in Union Square

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of the Gorillaz visited the Union Square Virgin Records store yesterday afternoon along with their latest producer, DJ Danger Mouse. Virgin was giving away 7" picture discs (A-side: "Feel Good Inc" B-side: "68 State") with the purchase of Demon Days.

left to right: DJ Danger Mouse, Damon Albarn (2-D), Jamie Hewlett (Murdoc)

Feel Good

Eat fat to lose fat
Now there's a headline I can get behind.

Party Ben mashes Gorillaz and Cake: "Never Feel Good" (MP3)
Gorillaz "Feel Good" is the catchiest single I've heard this year. Not sure how long until the new Apple commercial spoils it for me, but not yet. It stands alone better than it does mashed up. Ironically, it sounds best played large, on a full-size sound system. I love my iPod, but it's not the best device for really showing off music, and people who only listen to music on the iPod are missing out on something good (and possibly damaging their hearing)

Alinea, the latest entrant in the avant-garde food movement, debuts
Let's hope the food is better than the website. Grant Achatz is widely regarded as a prodigy in the culinary world. I wanted to go there when I was in Chicago earlier this year, but it hadn't opened. Instead, I took Mike and Joannie to Moto. I've been meaning to write up my meal there. Before I do, though, let me summarize: I'm a fan. My dessert at Moto was donut soup. It tasted like a liquid Krispy Kreme donut. Awesome.

Eliot Spitzer brokers a deal b/t Time Warner and Cablevision so Mets and Yankees games can be seen by Time Warner Cable customers (like yours truly)

Two thoughts: how ridiculous is it that a huge portion of NYC, the largest baseball market in the world, couldn't see their home teams on TV, and what doesn't Eliot Spitzer do?

Is their a way to get Mac OS X Tiger's Dashboard widgets to persist? If not, there should be, especially for the multi-day weather forecast widget.

Roast pork, docile elephants

After reading a stellar write-up of this joint in The New Yorker, I had to try Tony Luke's. Headed up towards Central Park, I stopped in along the way for a sandwich. It's most well-known for importing its cheesesteak ingredients (and a chef who apprenticed with Tony Luke himself) from Philly, but I opted for its other claim to fame, the Roast Pork Italian sandwich. With variations of just three basic sandwiches on the menu, Tony Luke's sticks to its specialties.

The restaurant itself is nothing to speak of, though people who know give it props for an authentic Philly atmostphere. White tile floor, fluorescent lights, and a counter and bar stools on the right and left lead to an ordering window at the rear of the shop. The woman behind it slid the window open, took my order, and slid the window shut. I felt like I was at a Western Union waiting for money to be wired over from family on another continent. A short while later, a different window opened, and a pair of arms passed me my sandwich.

The roast pork Italian is $7.95 and offers roast pork, provolone cheese, and broccoli rabe on foot long, soft-baked bread. They don't cheat on the length--I think mine may have been a foot and a half long--and they also don't cut the sandwich in half or offer any utensils. If there's an elegant way to eat the sandwich, it's likely limited to people with Michael Jordan-sized hands. I just stuffed my face with it, pork and rabe and provolone and grease spilling out in all directions.

Simple, and effective. The bitterness of the rabe, the sharpness of the provolone, and the saltiness of the pork form a beautiful love triangle, delivered on a plush bed of dough whose starchy taste stays out of the way. My one grips is that the restaurant offers only napkins. You need a sink with soap or at a minimum three wet naps to clean the grease off your hands afterwards.

Tony Luke's is on 9th Ave. between 41st and 42nd St. Next time I visit (after my arteries clear)? Cheesesteak.

Before stopping for a sandwich, I stopped at the Ashes and Snow photography exhibition (at Hudson River Park's Pier 54 until June 6). The exhibition is housed in a "nomadic museum" building designed by Shigeru Ban and built out of shipping containers and paper tubing (Ban is famous for building all sorts of structures out of cardboard tubing).

The photographs and 35mm film by Gregory Colbert reveal elephants, whales, cheetahs, falcons, and other animals living in peace and harmony with humans. In many of the photos, man and animal seem to be meditating together. Having lived without pets and in cities most of my life, the photos seemed fantastic, even artificial in the empathy depicted, but nothing I read at the exhibit indicated that the animals were anything but wild, or that the photos were manipulated in any way. In fact, one text said that the man free diving with the humpback whales was Colbert himself.

The 35mm film featured slow motion footage of the same subjects, but in motion they're even more mysterious. One shot showed a young girl lying asleep in a canoe, drifting down the river. The shot was from overhead and followed as the canoe passed below an elephant standing in the river. Was the elephant wild? How did they film some of these scenes? The large crowd of onlookers stood in rapt attention, like pilgrims in a temple.

If you're in NYC and looking for a peaceful way to spend an hour or two, Ashes and Snow is well worth a visit. If you're not in NYC, perhaps the nomadic museum will stop near you in the future, or you can check out more of the photos online or purchase some of the work here. A few more Colbert pics after the jump.

Media bits

iTunes 4.8 released, offering playback for Quicktime videos
After ogling the H.264 codec clips in Quicktime 7 on my G5, I can finally envision paying for video downloads through the web, for viewing on my computer. This new version of iTunes could be a step in that direction. People have speculated that Apple might focus on video downloads for a device like the iPod, but they could easily start with downloads for playback on laptops and desktops if those are the only devices capable of hurdling a minimum quality floor.

A torrent of New Order's May 5 concert in NYC at the Hammerstein Ballroom (and a bonus Peter Hook DJ set at Hiro in the Meatpacking District from that same night)
Hearing Peter Hook's bass riffs and New Order's distinctive guitar melodies makes me feel nostalgic.

The next song to be featured in the iPod commercials: Gorillaz' "Feel Good Inc" (iTunes Music Store)

Catchy tune.

Wicked

Either Wicked or Spamalot is the hottest musical in town. Wicked has been running over a year now, and somewhere along the line it blew up. I receive e-mails from Ticketmaster offering tickets for Wicked shows six months from now. Most shows from now until then are sold out. A friend walked up to the box office and managed to score good seats to last Thursday's show, and while I'm not a musical aficionado, I look forward to heading out on the town for a show.

The Gershwin Theatre, one of the larger I've been to in NYC, was packed. The atmosphere was that of a rock concert. Everytime Elphaba (Shoshana Bean) finished a solo, dozens of young girls stood up and screamed their support. Depending on your frame of reference, it had the atmosphere of a Beatles or Justin Timberlake concert. Usually an overzealous audience is a drawback, but perhaps for a musical it helps to energize the cast. Most shows that have been running for a long time go stale which is why it's often worth the price premium to see a show while it's fresh and hot.

I didn't know much about Wicked going in except that Kristin Chenoweth (most familiar to me as Annabeth Schott from The West Wing) had originated one of the leads before leaving in July. As soon as the musical started, though, it was clear that Chenoweth had played Glinda. As played by Jennifer Laura Thompson, Glinda sounded and acted like, well, Kristin Chenoweth as a peppy, ditzy blonde. Either Chenoweth had made the part her own, or it was perfect casting. Probably somewhere in between, especially when I recalled the movie version of The Wizard of Oz and recalled that Glinda was indeed a bubbly and spacey fairy. If Phoebe Buffay was your favorite character on Friends, Wicked's Glinda makes this the musical for you. Her comic performance and plenty of faithful references to characters, events, and dialogue from the movie provide most of the humor and a-ha pleasure in the show. The production value of the set is top-notch; the giant animatronic wizard has an impressive mechanical grandeur.

Wicked is the back story of The Wizard of Oz, but it also spans the entirety of the movie. It's a canny concept, just the right mix of familiar and foreign that musical productions favor. None of the music stuck in my brain, and the surprise ending is awful, but musical fans will embrace it for many years to come. I suspect I'll leave New York City before Wicked does.

2005 James Beard Foundation Awards

The Oscars of the restaurant world were announced. NYC is the Miramax of the restaurant world, or at least when Miramax was in its prime.

NY winners:

• All-Clad Bakeware Bakeware Outstanding Pastry Chef Award: Karen DeMasco of Craft, NYC - if I were a flying squirrel, I could jump out my window and glide to the doorstep of Craft. I really should go.
• All-Clad Cookware Outstanding Chef Award: Mario Batali of Babbo, NYC - is that the trophy Batali is holding, or is he about to bludgeon one of his foes on Iron Chef? I like a chef with a little heft; it's visible confirmation that they like to eat.

  

• American Express Best Chef, New York City: Andrew Carmellini, Caf� Boulud
• Ecolab Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional Award: Joseph Bastianich, Italian Wine Merchants, NYC
• Illy Best New Restaurant: Per Se, NYC - Beat out, among others, Spice Market, Cru, and The Spotted Pig, also of NYC. I've been to Spice Market, and while the space itself impressed me, the food, supposed to recall Asian street food, left me unmoved and much poorer. I'd rather go to Asia and buy real street food for loose change.
• Waterford Outstanding Wine Service Award: Veritas, NYC, Wine Director Tim Kopec - the corollary to liking large chefs is trusting wine directors who hit the bottle. Tim didn't wait until the post-party to imbibe.

  

• Waterford Wedgwood Outstanding Restaurateur Award: Danny Meyer, Union Square Hospitality Group, NYC - hospitality is an appropriate name. Every Meyer restaurant I've been to has impressed with friendly service

On set of The Sopranos

Wednesday I took a tour, led by Phil's sister Rebecca, of Silvercup Studios out in Long Island City. Its most famous tenants in recent years have been The Sopranos and Sex in the City. I strolled through the backroom of Bada Bing and sat in Tony's chair while admiring the voluminous collection of porno posters. We took a walk through the base level of Uncle Junior's house, gazed into Artie Bucco's Vesuvio's restaurant, and toured the inside of Tony's house. The exterior shots at Tony's house are shot somewhere else. For the view of the outside world as seen from inside Vesuvio's, the production designers use a long transparent curtain on which is painted a street scene. When backlit, the screen (its name eludes me) is indistinguishable from a real street scene backdrop.

I may soon be sleeping with the fishes in the Hudson River for publishing this photo, but I think millions of people are already familiar with Tony and Carmela's kitchen. I peeked in the refrigerator and was disappointed not to find any leftover ziti.

Sopranos fan eagerly awaiting the next and perhaps final season of the show shouldn't get too worked up. Filming on that season hasn't begun yet.

Wine and swine me

Two Mondays ago I attended a food and wine tasting event. The theme? Pinot and pork; these are a few of my favorite things. A local wine importer sponsored the event, and proceeds went to Slow Food U.S.A, an "educational organization dedicated to promoting stewardship of the land and ecologically sound food production; reviving the kitchen and the table as the centers of pleasure, culture, and community; invigorating and proliferating regional, seasonal culinary traditions; creating a collaborative, ecologically-oriented, and virtuous globalization; and living a slower and more harmonious rhythm of life."

The pork dishes? Delicious. As soon as the event began, everyone was fighting for a spot in one of the food lines to grab a sampler from one of the participating restaurants. A bite of pork belly here, a bbq pork sandwich nibble there, and before you know it you're stuffed. Quaff the equivalent in pinot and you're loopy to boot. Rookie mistake. Next time I'm going to pace myself and wait for everyone to tire themselves out, and then I'll make my move. The space, which appeared to be a night club after hours, didn't have enough tables. People were standing around trying to hold a wine glass and a small plate of food and to eat and drink, all at once. Not an easy task with only two arms.

My old roommate Robert first turned me on to pinot noir. Ever since Sideways, the popularity of pinot has soared, and unfortunately, most of the pinots I've tried since just don't measure up. The pinot noir I love tastes like earth, and the pinots I tried at this event tasted fruity, like light burgundies. This seems especially true of pinots from California, though I haven't sampled enough to assert that with any confidence.

Scatterplot

The whole world's getting fat
The prime culprit cited is urbanization and the changes it causes in diet and lifestyle. People move to cities and drink more sugary soft drinks and food drenched in cheap vegetable oils, while automobiles and tv's facilitate more sedentary lifestyles. Also, the market value of processed foods is 3X that of the foods straight off the farm, so multinational food companies add cheap sugar, fats, and oils to agricultural products.

On a related note, the USDA released a new food pyramid...s
Only available online, the pyramid is customized according to age, sex, and physical activity, 12 different pyramids in all. Seems to confusing to be practical. I'm to eat 9 ounces of grains, 3.5 cups of veggies, 2 cups of fruits, 3 cups of milk, and 6.5 ounces of meat & beans daily. Probably not going to happen. Not that I expected a magic bullet, but if one of the criticisms about the old pyramid was that everyone ignored it, this new pyramid isn't going to do much better. That little stick figure needs to work on his calves, and he has no neck, hands, or feet, which is quite sad.

Divorce rates not as high as people think
The common saying is that one in two marriages end in divorce, but the actual rate has never exceeded 41 percent, and it is on the decline among college graduates.

A handy new mid-range zoom for Nikon's digital SLRs
I've been looking for a lightweight mid-range zoom like this, especially for shooting sporting events. The lens is slow at f4-5.6, but that doesn't matter as much with a digital SLR b/c of adjustable ISO as long as the focus is quick.

Highlights from last week's late-night talk show monologues
Letterman on Tiger Woods: "Congratulations to Tiger Woods. Won his fourth Masters golf tournament. What an amazing accomplishment, tremendous. I was not aware of this, but if Tiger Woods wins one more green jacket, he officially becomes a Christo project."

An animation using the recent and popular Craiglist/GoogleMaps integration to show that as you move up in price in New York rentals, you move in closer and closer on Manhattan

This latest entry at Postsecret (a site that displays postcards, mailed in by random people, containing secrets) is funny, and mean

A Boards of Canada remix of "Broken Drum" from Beck's very cool Guero

Die Zauberfl�te

Last Friday I saw the Julie Taymor production of Mozart's Die Zauberfl�te (The Magic Flute) at the Met. When I first moved to New York a half year ago, this was the first ticket I put down my money for, and all I could secure at the time was a ticket for a show six months away. I've learned by now. The world's cultural riches pour into NYC, but you'd best be dialin' or clickin' as soon as tickets are available for sale, otherwise you might as well give your bank PIN code to a ticket broker.

This one's worth the price of admission. Taymor is now more well-known to the masses for her musical The Lion King or her movies Titus and Frida, but this is her finest work to date.

The signature of a Taymor production is its visual inventiveness, and George Tsypin's sets and Taymor's costumes live up to the anticipation. Rather than attempt a realistic set, Taymor and Tsypin took inspiration from the metaphysical nature of the opera and went with a kaleidoscope of colorful symbols and forms taken from "Masonic, cabalistic, Tantric, and alchemical imagery." The centerpieces of the set are a series of tall cubes and circles built from plexiglas that is more transparent than frosted. These structures rotate, transforming to evoke, in an abstract fashion, gateways and portals to gardens and magic forests. Given that the opera is about the sexual and spiritual journeys of two youths, the nonrepresentational set and costumes feel appropriate.

The costumes and puppets draw from a multitude of cultures and mythologies. The first creature to appear on stage is a serpent that evokes Asian dragons during Chinese New Year, while Sarastro's magic beasts look like mirages of polar bears, fluttering in the wind. Some of the characters, like Tamino and Sarastro, are dressed and face-painted like Japanese opera singers, while Pamina looks like an Eastern European barmaid. Papageno, the bird-catcher, wears a green full-body suit with a beak on his mask.

As for the music, the performances were impressive all around. The Queen of the Night aria, the most well-known portion of The Magic Flute, always impresses, and upon hearing it I always feel this overwhelming urge to try to chirp like that myself. How does someone do that with their vocal chords? Maybe next time I'm in the shower I'll give it a go.

Only two things marred the show. My seats were in the second balcony level, towards the front left. An older woman in the box nearest to my seat kept waiting until the quietest parts of the opera to unwrap something in plastic wrappers. Secondly, I sat next to and in front of about seven really young children. Good for them, to have wealthy New York parents willing to drop $120 on each of them for an opera, but not good for those of us sitting nearby who had to listen to them asking their parents about every occurrence on stage. How do you explain The Magic Flute, with its Masonic rituals, to such young children, especially while the opera is playing out out on stage?

A few tickets remain for the three remaining shows (Apr 16, 20, 23). New Yorkers who appreciate opera should snap them up. I hope Taymor directs more operas at The Met in the future.

Around my brain in 80 seconds

Congrats Dave and Karen!

Whole Foods opens in Union Square this Wednesday, Mar. 16
Whoo-hoo! I've been waiting for the store to open ever since I moved to NYC. In another city, Whole Foods would count as a premium grocery store, but relative to other NYC stores, I think its prices will be reasonably unreasonable. Trader Joe's may invade Union Square this year as well, providing some downward pricing pressure. [news via Gothamist]

Bill Gurley blogifies his "Above the Crowd" newsletter/column
RSS feed for the column here. Always an interesting read, though Gurley's last post up until this week was from Fall 2004. The blog format should encourage more activity

The fantasy baseball league I play in, Mendoza Baseball, implemented an arbitration simulator this spring. Really cool. I don't think I've seen that in any other fantasy baseball simulation anywhere. I went to arbitration with some of my players today, and it was nervewracking waiting for the browser to refresh and display the arbitrator's decision when the player and I differed on salary judgments. Yes, I'm a total geek for caring about this, but some of you out there must play fantasy baseball, and if you're interested in trying to be a fantasy Billy Beane, check it out. The league has all sorts of interesting participants, from professors to students doing their PhDs on fantasy baseball

Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools hit bookstores this week. The book details the Enron scandal. I have a soft spot for white collar criminal non-fiction. Eichenwald's The Informant, about price-fixing at Archer Daniels-Midland, was excellent.

From The Onion: "According to a study released Monday by the Center for Media and Social Research, the reality-TV genre is unfairly biased against black people. The study revealed that reality is unfair to blacks, as well."

And from The Onion frontpage: "Could Hillary Clinton Have What It Takes To Defeat The Democrats In 2008?" and "Thick Sweater No Match For Determined Nipples"

Last Friday, Mike, Joannie, and I caught DJs A-Trak and Diplo at Sonotheque
Amazing stuff by DJ A-Trak, an honorary member of Invisibl Skratch Piklz and the first DJ ever to win all three major titles (DMC, ITF and Vestax) and the first DJ to win five world championships. He was Kanye West's personal DJ on tour last summer. A-Trak's first DVD and soundtrack Sunglasses is a Must comes out this summer on Audio Research Records

...

Darn, Lance is going to skip Paris-Roubaix after all

I like this week's New Yorker cartoon of the week. My nephew Ryan is a Babar fan; I'll have to save this for him.

New York Magazine's Best of New York 2005

John Updike reviews Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Updike would have preferred the novel slightly further away, and a bit quieter

Food porn
Agh, I'm so hungry

Waiter Rant
Meant to post this a while ago--I think I saw it it in a NYTimes article a while back--but it's still a fresh read

The movie rental version of "Who's on First?"

NASA's World Wind is a sweet app that allows you to browse photos on any place on earth via satellite photography
Sadly, it's only available for Windows users, but I demoed it on a friend's computer and it's cool, if a bit slow

The Whitney

Mark and Ken visited at various points this weekend. Ken led me to the Whitney Museum of American Art on Saturday afternoon. It was my first visit there. He wanted to see the Bill Viola exhibit, specifically. I wasn't familiar with Viola's work before, but after seeing Eve Sussman's hypnotic high definition video installation "89 Seconds at Alcazar" at MOMA, I had a newfound interest in video installations as an art form.

Viola's exhibit at the Whitney (purchased in 2002 with the Tate, London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris in a three-way partnership) was titled "Five Angels for the Millenium." On each of five screens in a darkened room, slow-motion video depicted images of angels flying up out of or down into pools of water. Slow-motion and reverse footage was employed in some shots to entrancing effect. It takes some patience to wait out each of the five angels; much of the time, the screens simply depict a dark pool of water, a few ripples reflecting colored light, or a few bubbles rising or falling. It also takes a while for your eyes to acclimate to the near total darkness in the room, so it's best to slow down once inside lest you nearly tackle some complete stranger as I did. I'm not sure what each of the angels represents, but the videos are mysterious and powerful, like a vision.

I also enjoyed the Tim Hawkinson exhibition. Many of his works examine his own body in unique ways, inspiring some new meditations on self, consciousness, and identity. "The Wall Chart of World History from Earliest Times to the Present" resembles a tub of intestines rendered in red ink as a tightly packed coil of spirals. "Signature" is an ingenious machine mounted on a school desk that continually signs the artist's name on a piece of paper before chopping it off and dropping it in a pile surrounding the desk. "The Emoter" is a mechanical face animated based on electrical readings from programming on television. Really fascinating body of work.

The Whitney admission prices are $12 for adults, $9.50 for students and seniors. Fridays from 6-9pm is pay-what-you-want admission.

Eve Sussman is now working on a video installation titled "Raptus," a modern recreation (set in Brooklyn) of the Jacques-Louis David painting "The Rape of the Sabine Women" (some images from the filming can be seen here).

Phenomenon of the plastic smile

Eric forwarded me this interesting article from the Seattle Times about the "phenomenon of the plastic smile," or the "Seattle Freeze." That is, Seattle-ites being extremely friendly in passing situations but stingy with genuine friendship and intimacy. After reading it, I scanned my seven years in Seattle to see if I agreed. My conclusion was that I experienced a very mild case of the Seattle Freeze. Relative to a place like New York City or Chicago, the two places I lived around my Seattle years, Seattle natives can seem reserved. But I've always done plenty of things on my own, also, so who knows where the blame lies. I was fortunate to work at a company with hundreds of out-of-town imports, all around the same age group, all new to the city. We made our own little social circles.

The idea that New Yorkers are unfriendly is a myth, though. In my half year here, I've found most New Yorkers to be really friendly, if not in passing situations, then in more intimate social settings. Sure, the person sitting across from you in the subway may be lost in his or her iPod and paperback, but that may just be claustrophobia. There are a lot of freakin' people crammed on this island, and you have to form a social bubble just to maintain some personal space for a few hours each day. But people are socially voracious here, especially relative to folks in the Pacific Northwest. Meet someone out and chances are you'll have traded cell phone #'s and e-mails by evenings end, and next weekend you'll have one more option for a weekend out. People are always looking for people to hang out with, perhaps because we all live in shoebox-sized apartments. The more the merrier is the general philosophy in NYC, and so Evites are passed around like so many phone numbers and photos out of Paris Hilton's Sidekick.

There's more open space in the Pacific Northwest, less intense pressure to be out and about in the scene. It's part of the laid-back feel out there. I enjoy both styles of living, but the ideal would be perhaps to have a house in Seattle and a penthouse in Manhattan. And a private jet to hop back and forth between the two cities.

Hunter Thompson commits suicide

Hunter Thompson shot himself Sunday night

The Seattlest, the latest in city blogs descended from The Gothamist
This link's for my old Seattle pals

The New Yorker on The Gates
"“The Gates” succeeds precisely by being, on the whole, a big nothing. Comprehended at a glance, it lets us get right down to being crazy about ourselves, in a bubble of participatory narcissism that it will be pitiable to have missed." (As an aside, my favorite critique of The Gates was Stephen Colbert's from The Daily Show (Quicktime))

More cool downloads from Salon's Audiofile: MP3s from Return to N.Y. by AK-Momo

The compressed world of Manhattan

I was chatting with a guy in my cooking class, and he mentioned he was from Austin. I told him I wanted to visit Austin sometime to do the Ride for the Roses, and he said his brother was best friends with Lance Armstrong and helped to organize the ride.

"Wait, your brother is Bart Knaggs?" I asked, in some disbelief.

"Yeah!" he said.

I met Bart the first time I visited the Tour in 2002. On the last day of our trip, he joined us for dinner at our hotel. Good guy, and a bull of a rider.

Today I read that one of the finalists is New York Citi Habitats real estate broker Judd Harris. He was one of the brokers who showed me apartments when I first arrived in NYC. He was one of the more humane of an otherwise sleazy profession, though he didn't find me any sterling properties. I'll have to check in on American Idol from time to time this season to cheer him on. May he sell to Simon, Paula, and Randy better than he did to me.

The Gates

The sun and mid-50's weather made an unusual appearance in February in NYC yesterday afternoon (or maybe not so rare in this age of global warming), so after cooking class, I rushed up to Central Park on the subway to catch Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates before sundown. I saw them for about an hour before the sun disappeared behind skyscrapers to the southwest.

I wasn't sold on The Gates prior to seeing them, perhaps because of the sheer volume of build-up, but they won me over as the afternoon passed. The more gates I walked under, the more at peace I felt. Is it the orange color? The feeling of returning to childhood evoked by walking under wind-swept swaths of fabric? The rustling of the breeze against the nylon reminded me of rolling in piles of leaves in the autumn, or of lying under bedsheets billowing in the wind sweeping in an open bedroom window. The effect of The Gates is not the visual punch in the face that results from sheer magnitude or scale but instead one of repetition and color (one can only imagine what the impact of the installation would have been if the artists had received permission to put up 15,000 gates, as they originally wanted, instead of the 7,500 they were ultimately granted). To my eye, they add something to Central Park (which I've never thought of as breathtakingly beautiful). Also, it's a treat to see one of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installations in person in my lifetime. Since they're only temporary and since Christo and Jeanne-Claude funded them, I don't understand New Yorkers who grouse about them as if the city had been assaulted (one crazy woman on the subway yesterday asked me if I'd seen them, muttering to no one in particular that "they'd raped Central Park"). A more understandable objection, though the details are not clear to me, is the environmental one. Environmentalists worried about the work's effect on Central Park's birds.

A few pics here, with a couple more available on Flickr...

...

Fighting cancer with HIV

Best places for viewing The Gates in Central Park

Lance Armstrong to ride Paris-Nice this year
Awesome. He's also riding the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold, Fleche Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege as part of his renewed commitment to the one-day classics, i.e., he was bored of dominating the TDF

Interesting sports photo from the Paralympic Games
Lots of other great 2005 World Press Photos of the Year. Some others I like (here here here here here here here here here here)

Google Print
Google's answer to Amazon's Search Inside the Book

Fruits of my Pseudo A.D.D.

One of the most useful Firefox Extensions is SessionSaver
In the event of a crash, it restores your browser as it was

You really can die from heartbreak
Which is why it's unbelievable when you see octogenarian Cubs fans

Sofiane Sylve, considered the world's foremost Balanchine dancer
One of the NYC bright talents I need to see sometime

Linky is a Mozilla plug-in that allows you to open multiple links at once
Saw this in Boing Boing. It's a godsend for pages with lots of photo thumbnails

Video for "An Honest Mistake" by The Bravery
Touted as one of the hot bands to watch for 2005. Reminds me of alternative music I listened to in the late 80's (in a good way), back when alternative was more, well, alternative

The Penny Black Project from Microsoft Research
This particular anti-spam approach attacks spammers by consuming CPU cycles for each message sent. I've read many variants on this approach, including charging a tiny amount per message, and it always sounds reasonable and feasible. My spam filters keep my inbox manageable, but I'm all for new approaches

Graphic, brutal, pro-vegetarian video from PETA titled "Meet Your Meat," narrated by Alec Baldwin
I turned vegetarian for a half year once before, and this video has me feeling it again. If anything, it's at least a powerful argument against factory farms and for purchasing organic meat from more humane farms, if at all possible

Ever since installing Mac OS X Update 10.3.8, my PowerPC G5 fans have been turning on and off constantly
If they ran all the time, I'd probably forget about the noise, but the constant on and off is really distracting

A primer on how to cut various fruits and vegetables
Excellent--lots of wisdom I learned in my knife skills class is available here for free!

The Nike Dunk Pidgeon sneaker
When I saw this, I thought it was perhaps the most beautiful sneaker I had ever seen. No idea why.

Pseudo A.D.D., brought on by the Internet
I am almost certain I suffer from this

IKEA is freaking dangerous
Just a half year ago, at least 3 people were crushed to death at an IKEA store opening in Saudi Arabia. Competitors might also take this as a sign that the world really, really needs cheap furniture

I wanted to laugh at this guy, but he's having a lot of fun, and I do the same thing myself from time to time

I agree, this change to the NYTimes e-mail an article functionality stinks
You can no longer e-mail the body of an article. I used to e-mail bodies of NYTimes articles to my GMail acct for future reading, my GMail acct being like a meat locker for mobsters to stash bodies

The year of poultry

Happy Chinese New Years to all. We now enter the year of the rooster ("year of the cock" jokes seem like they might be funny, but in actuality aren't), though the previous two lunar new years (nos 4700 and 4701) were very kind to poultry also. I was suffering from a head cold today, but not so badly that I wanted to risk the bad luck that might come from not having some Chinese noodles and fish in Chinatown.

What a madhouse. I wasn't even there for the parades and fireworks show, but I nearly lost my eye several times as young kids everywhere tossed those noisemaking poppers in all directions and drunken revelers pulled strings that launched confetti and streamers out of plastic containers. The streets of Chinatown were blanketed in confetti. Poor street cleaners.

I've always wondered why it is that anyone would believe that everyone born in a certain year or particular month (astrology) have the same personality. But if you do and are giving birth to a child this year, expect him or her to be aggressive, adventurous, and industrious. Famous roosters include Confucius and Britney Spears. Plus, everything will taste like your kid.

According to Chinese tradition, roosters are worst suited to rabbit year people. Famous rooster: Jennifer Aniston. Famous rabbit: Angelina Jolie. Wow, this stuff really works!

Knife Skills 1

I cashed in one of my Christmas presents yesterday, taking the one day Knife Skills 1 class at NYC's Institute of Culinary Education. The class was three hours long and taught by Norman Weinstein, a colorful character. I'm no dynamo in the kitchen, but I considered myself competent, though self-taught, with a knife. What I aspired to was the speed and accuracy of the chefs I'd seen on television. Like Daniel LaRusso, I walked in expecting to break boards, and instead was handed sponges and paintbrushes and told to wash cars and paint fences.

This was a good thing. We started with basics, the knives themselves. Weinstein was a huge advocate of Wusthof knives, and those were the type provided for the class. They're the same knives provided to the professional students at the school (we were the recreational track). I was glad to hear it as the 8" cook's knife and 3.5" paring knife I have at home are both Wusthof. Something about the way they feel in the hands just feels right versus knives like Henckels, and they have a nice heft to them. Some people prefer lighter blades, but the techniques we learned in the class rely on the heft of the knife to do a lot of the work, so wielding lighter knives (e.g. Global knives) would require more effort and strain from the arm.

Along those lines, Weinstein sold me on the idea that size matters, and by the end of the class I'd come around to his line of thinking (I could hear Paul Hogan's voice in my mind's ear: "8" cook's knife? That's not a knife. [Pulling out 10" cook's knife.] This is a knife"). I spent most of the class wielding the 10" cook's knife, and at the end, I took advantage of the one-time 10% discount they offer to students of that class to purchase a Wusthof Classic 10" Cook's Knife from the school store. That special discount brings prices for Wusthofs down below those you can find on the internet and was an unexpected benefit of taking the class.

The most important thing I learned in the class was not to ever chop down with a knife. Let the blade do the work, and the blade works best when it's moving more horizontally than vertically. Most of our cuts were made pushing the knife away from us, angled slightly down. With the proper technique, cutting vegetables became effortless, almost zenlike, the bolster of the knife tracing a tilted ellipse in the air.

We learned how to grip various knives, which knives to use for which tasks, what the best cutting board material and brand was, how many knives we needed to own, how to hone and sharpen knives, and, of course, how to cut a variety of vegetables. Of course, some of it was Weinstein's opinion, and different teachers at the school have their own preferences. Another student who was preparing to work in a restaurant soon mentioned that another teacher she'd had at ICE used nothing but the Wusthof Santoku Knife. Most all the experienced chefs and cooks there use the same basic techniques, though, and now, hopefully, so will I.

Fun class, and recommended for all who have a few hours to spare to learn basic kitchen knife skills. Everone in the class was older than I was and had spent a lifetime in the kitchen, and even they had much to unlearn and learn. I may have to pony up for Knife Skills 2 and 3.

Eleven Madison Park

Last week was Restaurant Week in NYC. I sampled several participating restaurants, but the one providing the best experience was Eleven Madison Park. From my point of view, a restaurant that participates in Restaurant Week should do so to attract new customers who might otherwise be intimidated by the normally steep prices or just by the unknown. Therefore, you should put your best foot forward for customers stopping in that week.

Eleven Madison Park was the only restaurant I visited that seemed to subscribe to that theory. After my friend and I had finished our lunch ($20.12 prix fixe lunch in honor of NYC's bid for the 2012 Olympics), chef Kerry Heffernan stopped by our table to ask how our meal was. Then they gave each of us a $20.05 gift certificate for our next meal there and a large chunk of chocolate shaped like a leaf. Exceeding expectations? Check. Return customer? Check.

The staff and service were impeccable, a common denominator of all the Danny Meyer restaurants I've been to. No need to flag down a waiter; simple eye contact sufficed for any request since the waiters were always looking out for such cues. I'm anxious to try The Modern, Meyer's newest restaurant (just opened this Monday) at the MOMA, and Blue Smoke, his BBQ joint.

Another Google beta

Google Maps is sweet
Nice, clean interface, especially relative to Mapquest, and a sweet DHTML implementation. I like the 3-D pushpin results for businesses; try "pizza near [your zip code]" for example. What's needed now, for us Manhattanites, is a merger with HopStop functionality

Region 3 DVD of Kung Fu Hustle available for pre-order, ships Feb. 25
Aww yeah

miscellany

A company employs Third World laborers to play MMORPG 24/7 to create digital weaponry and later sues the game's creator for trying to crack down on the practice
And other humorous tales of lawsuits brought on by virtual events. I have this new image of my childhood, me taking a bath while someone I'd hired sits there rocking a joystick back and forth, helping my character run the 1600m run in the Decathlon for Atari 2600

Smoking ban in NYC hasn't hurt business
Though the analysis cited is far from scientific. Still, it's a blessing that coming home smelling of smoke and having to dry clean your outfit the next day is a distant memory. Let's hope public bathrooms without automatic flushing sensors will also go the way of the pterodactyl in the near future

Vietnamese man survives bird flu. Doctors puzzle over two mysteries: how did he contract the disease, and how did he survive?
Frightening possibility is that the disease has recombined with human flu and evolved the ability to pass from person to person, not just from bird to person. That could lead to a global pandemic. Docs believe one reason this man survived was his fitness; he runs 14 miles a day. If that's the level of fitness required to survive bird flu, I'm in trouble

Humorous ACLU ad about the implications of some type of national identity data warehouse
Of course, the private sector (e.g. Wal-Mart, your local pizza joint, Citicorp) sees this as a holy grail and has already made numerous efforts to build such global views of their customers

Implicit Association Tests
I stumbled home from drinks with a friend slightly buzzed tonight and took every one of these tests. It's embarrassing to have one's biases revealed so easily

Bode Miller wins first in the men's downhill at the world Alpine ski championships
Daron Rahlves finished second, making it the first 1-2 finish for U.S. skiers at a world championship. Said Miller afterards: "I don't have any weaknesses really. I'm decent on the flats, but not the best, I'm good on turns, good in the air, off jumps I don't really make mistakes. There's no hole in my skiing."

Police use Photoshopped photos to ID the location of a child pornography site
The police used the invisibles technique employed primarily for puzzles up until now. By erasing people from photos, they made it easier for the public to identify the location

A new movie by Shunji Iwai titled Hana & Alice
Umm, shoot, I can't read Japanese. I'm a huge fan of Swallowtail Butterfly and All About Lily Chou Chou (out on DVD Feb. 15, 2005!) though, so I hope this makes it to NYC. All About Lily Chou-Chou felt to me like a Japanese New Wave movie

Ourmedia.org will offer a place to host audio and video content for free, with unlimited bandwidth
Wow, how are they going to afford that?!

Fat Pig

James and I went to see Fat Pig on Jan. 19. Neil Labute's newest play had premiered in NYC on Nov. 17, 2004, and as In the Company of Men is one of my favorite movies (to admit to liking it is repugnant to some people, especially those who consider the movie and Labute to be misogynist, but I enjoy professing my love for that movie the way I imagine certain Americans enjoy telling others that they like to take their coffee black, and strong; and I don't consider Labute misogynist, though I'm not sure I'd want him dating one of my sisters), I couldn't resist grabbing tickets to a premiere of his latest work. James is a huge Jeremy Piven fan, so I was hoping we'd catch him in the lead role as Tom, but Piven departed in early January to complete work on season two of Entourage.

Jo Bonney directed this production, and it showed at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the Village. The premise of the play is simple: Tom falls for an extremely overweight woman named Helen. Does he have the courage to not just admit his new relationship but continue it in the face of the merciless scrutiny of his shallow coworkers Carter and Jeannie (also his ex-girlfriend)?

Fat Pig is more watchable than most Labute work (its run has been extended through Feb. 26). The dialogue is straightforward, and despite one's best intentions, it's difficult not to laugh at some of Carter and Jeannie's crass pronouncements about Tom and Helen. In doing so, you understand Tom's struggle. We all have prejudices we wish we wish we could shed, and our slavish devotion to conventional ideals of beauty is one of the strongest. Most of us can't summon the courage to oppose this socially accepted norm, but we pull for Tom to find it in himself to stand up for not only Helen but himself.

Steven Pasquale (currently starring on FX's series "Rescue Me") replaces Jeremy Piven as Tom and manages to evoke the requisite sympathy for a man who is perhaps too weak to be a protagonist. Andrew McCarthy plays Carter with a mannered sliminess; Labute's villainous men are not just chauvinists and misogynists but brazenly so. When McCarthy came on stage to take a bow after the play was over, he still wore an expression on his face as if to say, "My god I was fantastic out there tonight." I couldn't help wonder what Aaron Eckhart would have done with the part. Ashlie Atkinson, also from "Rescue Me," offers a brave and honest Helen who deserves the courage that Tom tries to summon. Jessica Capshaw, of "The Practice," plays Jeannie. Keri Russell played the part of Jeannie up until recently, and I would have enjoyed seeing her in that role if only because it goes so much against type for the former "Felicity" star.

I struggled with the idea that Tom would be friends with Carter and Jeannie given how purely repulsive both of them are, and what are the roots of their shallow attitudes? Is it a product of a Darwinian workplace or just so common a human trait as to be an archetype? The play doesn't reveal much. Still, if that aspect of the play feels sparse, it also contributes to the fable-like quality of Labute's work.

By play's end, the title takes on new meaning. The "fat" refers to Helen, and the "pig" to Carter, but both of them have the courage of their own convictions in a way that Tom may never have.

The introduction to the opening scene of Fat Pig:

A woman in a crowded restaurant, standing at one of those tall tables. A bunch of food in front of her, and she is quietly eating it. By the way, she's a plus size. Very.

MOMA

Aaron, Roswitha, and Otto came to NYC, and, after an aborted attempt to visit the United Nations (closed for some undisclosed reason), we all went to visit the MOMA for the first time since its splashy re-opening. We visited on a Saturday afternoon, and as expected, a long line awaited. Individual tickets cost $20 each, and an individual membership, which allows you to purchase guest passes for $5 a person, costs $75. Purchasing a membership was a no-brainer, especially as I'm sure many more out-of-town visitors will want to see the new MOMA.

I wonder if Otto, who I barely recognized he'd grown up so much in the six months since I'd seen him last, looked around at some of the Miro or Pollock paintings and thought, "I'll be painting something like that in about two years with finger paints." With his long locks, a few strangers confused him for a girl, he has the look of a budding young artiste.

MOMA has perhaps the most impressive collection of modern art in the world, at least that I've seen. So many works you'd study in any introductory art history class are on display here, and MOMA has hundreds of other works still in storage, waiting to be hung. Another great thing about MOMA is that visitors are allowed to take photographs as long as they don't use flash.

One of my favorite activities in modern art museums is guessing the titles of works, or telling friends the titles of three works and having them guess which is which. The level of abstraction in modern art can turn it into a guessing game.

Too many interesting works to recount, but one that particularly struck me was a video piece depicting the buildup to the scene depicted in Velasquez's famous painting "Las Meninas," or "The Maids of Honor," which I saw at the Prado several years ago. The video piece was silent, as far as I could tell, and it was haunting. I was reminded of paintings that would come to life at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

Another arresting piece was a series of three videos, shown side by side, of views of and from Yoshio Taniguchi's other museums, all of which are in Japan. One of the beautiful things about Taniguchi's museums, and the new MOMA is no exception, is that they afford unique views of the environment around the museum. In the case of MOMA, windows on all floors allow visitors a great perspective on the density and diversity of buildings and architecture surrounding the museum.

We stayed until closing time, until a security guard ushered Aaron and I out of the video room. Though all the pieces can be seen in an afternoon, I'll have to return sometime to soak more of it in. The greatest drawback to the MOMA right now is its popularity, and the dense crowds stand in sharp contrast to the wide open spaces of the museum and the amount of white space granted each piece. Imagine visiting the museum alone, being the only person strolling through every room. Its the great paradox at the heart of NYC, that the great art and culture that the city's population attracts is also overrun by that same population.

Aaron and Roswitha are extremely knowledgeable about and appreciative of modern art, and art in general, so it was a special treat to visit the new MOMA with them.

Drip drop drip drop

The radiator in the apartment upstairs sprung a leak, so I this week I had to put buckets and towels out to collect the dripping water through my ceiling. What started as a tiny, spherical water stain slowly spread and morphed into a giant, unsightly, urine-colored drip painting. The upstairs tenant was out of town, and the super didn't have a key. All night, I listened to the metronomic plip...plop...plip...plop of drops of water cliff diving into my bucket. I felt like Hitomi from Hideo Nakata's Dark Water (or Jennifer Connelly from the upcoming remake).

Next installment of JibJab: [Bush's] Second Term

John Hollinger picks his NBA All-Stars

Steve Jobs to deliver Commencement speech at Stanford in 2005
Great...my commencement speaker was William Perry

Google plans to offer a tag that will help bloggers to signal the search engine to ignore links in comments, hopefully neutering comment spam
It will also render eliminate the Googlerank value of legitimate comment URLs, but that's a minor side effect in my mind. I despite comment spammers

Autumn Thunder: 40 Years NFL Films Music
A 10 CD box set featuring the martial tunes from NFL Films. Great background music for that Superbowl party with your buddies. All that's missing is narration by Steve Sabol and Harry Kalas

Over holiday break, we watched Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy on DVD
That will surprise no one who knows of me and my unhealthy love for Will Ferrell. Now, Anchorman is by no means a classic or even a good movie (I'm not going to bother reviewing it), but no true devotee of Ferrell's oeuvre would miss it. Without seeing it, I wouldn't understand the subtext and nuance of half the things my brother James says, and now the same can be said for people who speak to me. I do think it's cheesy that the studio forces you to buy a more expensive DVD giftset in order to get the Wake Up, Ron Burgundy supplemental disc that contains Burgundy's other two interviews from the MTV Movie Awards (Burt Reynolds and Jim Caviezel--"Tell me, Jesus, do you ever use your superpowers in games of chance?"). The video of Will and the gang covering Afternoon Delight by Starland Vocal Band (excerpt)...well, let's just say, if you don't think it's good, I will fight you. Anchorman was also geographically relevant to our family vacation, the movie being set in San Diego.

Ron Burgundy: The Germans discovered it in 1904, and they called it "San Diego", which in German means "whale's vagina".
Veronica Corningstone: No, I don't think that is what it means. No, it doesn't mean that.
Ron Burgundy: I don't know. I was just trying to impress you. I don't think anyone knows what it means anymore. The translation was lost hundreds of years ago.
Veronica Corningstone: Doesn't it mean "Saint Diego"?
Ron Burgundy: ...No. No, that isn't it.
Veronica Corningstone: No, I'm pretty sure that's what it means.
Ron Burgundy: Agree to disagree.

To distract free throw shooters of the visiting team at a basketball game, wave your thundersticks in unison, rather than randomly (maybe)

Wacky warning labels and past winners
Warning on can of self-defense pepper spray "May irritate eyes" and a waring on a fireplace log warns "Caution - Risk of Fire"

Could thousands of people have been saved from the tsunami if notified via cell phones or the Internet?
Interesting question that many probably wondered as they watched news videos of people hanging out while waves began to climb higher and higher up the shores, oblivious to the much deadlier waves racing their direction

3 DJs suggest wedding mixes
One of them opened one wedding with "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division, I hope as a joke. Dan Finnerty lists "Making Love out of Nothing at All" as the most inappropriate song for a wedding.

Dell CEO Kevin Rollins calls iPod a fad like the Sony Walkman
Rollins needs to rethink his business analogies. The Walkman was one of the most successful consumer products in history, and just because Sony couldn't recognize when portable music players morphed from Discmans to portable MP3 players doesn't mean Apple will make the same mistake

Company creates downloadable cards for reprimanding rude cell phone chatterers
New Yorkers have a simpler method. At the U.S. Open last year, a man took a business call during a semifinal match. When it was clear he didn't plan to either leave the stadium or cut the conversation short, several other fans stood up and shouted at him with a menacing glare, "Hey, shut the f***ing cellphone off!"

Denali Fitness

Sang quit his job in Seattle to open a gym with Dave C. Denali Fitness (logo by the lovely and talented Juli) replaces the old Madison Park Sound Mind & Body. Good to see his own thing, and even better that it's something he'll enjoy. I believe that most people have a cap to how happy they can be, some internal equalization that stabilizes our state of mind over time, but the floor to our unhappiness is much lower than the cap to our happiness is high.

If you're in the neighborhood, drop in at Denali and work out on cardio machines fitted with televisions.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for Denali to open a New York City branch. With temperatures dropping below 10 degrees, and since I feel like I gained seventy-five pounds over holiday break, I've begun researching Manhattan gyms. It's not a pretty picture. Prices are as high as my gut is voluminous. I haven't been able to pull the trigger in the face of crazy initiation fees and monthly dues, required year-long commitments, all for rather middle-of-the-road facilities. The best NY gyms charge exorbitant fees. The backup plan is lots of push-ups, sit-ups, and riding on my bike trainer while listening to "You're The Best" by Joe Esposito on my iPod.

ICE

For Christmas, Karen got me a gift certificate for the Institute of Culinary Education in NYC. Today I signed up for Knife Skills Workshop 1 and Techniques of Fine Cooking 1. My goal is to learn to chop vegetables and throw knives like Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Cooking in NYC isn't always fun or worthwhile. My kitchen is the size of a hall closet, and so I have precious little counter space. And groceries are more expensive, so the cost benefit of cooking instead of going out to eat is often negligible. Still, every dollar counts, and so I plan to cook more in the coming year. My super lives down the hall, and she's always preparing meals for her family. The smell wafts down the hall and drives me insane, so cooking is also a way to send my own mouth-watering scents out my door to wage combat.

I received a copy of Jacques Pepin Fast Food My Way over the holidays, and I prepared pork chops the Pepin way the other day. Fast, simple, and tasty: all elements of an ideal NYC recipe.

Hurlyburly

I saw a preview performance of the David Rabe play Hurlyburly last night at the Acorn Theatre on Theatre Row. I hadn't seen the earlier productions on Broadway or the movie adaptation.

This production, directed by Scott Elliott, had the following cast:
Phil - Bobby Cannavale
Mickey - Josh Hamilton
Eddie - Ethan Hawke
Bonnie - Catherine Kellner
Darlene - Parker Posey
Artie - Wallace Shawn
Donna - Halley Wegryn Gross

The play revolves around the interactions of a couple cocaine-charged Hollywood types living in Los Angeles in the 80's. The play opens with Eddie lying on the sofa in his apartment, ass crack showing through his boxers, when Phil bursts in. From then on, I counted just a few moments when Eddie wasn't smoking dope, snorting cocaine, downing Jack Daniels or beer, or popping ludes or valium.

Phil is an emotional volcano, recently separated from Suzy (he explains after he burst in that he struck her during their latest argument), and you come to understand that their relationship is doomed to be tumultuous because Phil is unstable. He's always either breaking up with Suzy or trying to reconcile. Why is Eddie friends with Phil?

Mickey is Eddie's roommate, a smug, cynical, and saracastic slickster who receives most of the plays most comical lines (I can only imagine the zest with which Kevin Spacey played Mickey in the movie) and wardrobe (Josh Hamilton sports a porn star mustache and is constantly changing from one Miami Vice inspired outfit into another). Mickey seems to care about little but enjoys skewering all around him. Artie is a producer of some sort who drops in at one point with Donna, a stray he found in an elevator. He leaves her for Eddie and his buddies as a sexual "care package."

Most of them have artificial relationships with each other, but they don't care. At one point, Eddie asks Mickey after one stinging barb, "What kind of friendship is this?"

Mickey responds with a shrug: "Adequate."

At another point, Bonnie, a dancer and mother of one who the guys all know to be loose, is thrown out of her own car by Phil. She comes back to Eddie's apartment and laments, "This town is just mean." She seems oblivious to the fact that these guys, some of so-called chums, trade her about as a sexual asset, much as they swap Donna. Eddie is barely listening as he tries to center his own thoughts: "We're all just background in each other's lives."

The play is about 3 hours long, not including intermission, and nearly all of it is filled to the margins with rapid dialogue. At times, it lost me, as manic and drug-addled as it was. Over the course of three hours, though, I came to understand Eddie to be the one sensitive romantic of the group. He is smitten with a "dynamite" girl named Darlene, and he believes, for once, that he may have found true love. But when they finally connect, they speak the usual lines of romantic dialogue with a forced tone that exposes the superficial nature of their feelings. Deep underneath all the dense layers of circular dialogue are the remains of caring people, but years of drug abuse and cynical dealings have all but obliterated them.

I'm a huge Parker Posey fan, and she brought a wonderful physical comedy to her line readings. Hawke is suited to the role of Eddie, channeling that role's hyper sensitivity. He wants to care about others, but more than that he cares what others think of him. When Phil comes to lament his latest argument with Suzy, Eddie is all ears until he discovers that Suzy claimed to hate Eddie as well. He is stunned and instantly pre-occupied with why Suzy would dislike him.

There aren't any bad seats at the cozy Acorn Theatre. From my seat in the fifth row, I was at stage level, and I felt as if I was sitting on the stage. I left the theater nearly high myself from all the faux marijuana fumes from Eddie's pipe, and I could see clearly that one of the LPs in Eddie's collection was Technique by New Order. Ethan Hawke and Parker Posey looked like giants, and I felt as if I could reach out and pull Wallace Shawn's ridiculous hairpiece off. At some point, I'll grow accustomed to seeing such recognizable actors up close, but for now it's still a delight.

By play's end, I was exhausted, my ears having been talked off by all these vampires. I almost reached out and tapped Eddie on the shoulder to ask him for a hit on his bong.

P.S.: I noticed while looking at Parker Posey's IMDb page that she was in Blade: Trinity. Huh?

On set

I volunteered to help out on an NYU student film shoot. Before the holidays, I worked with the production designer to tweak the space a bit and purchase props. The past week I've spent most of my time on location during the shoot, doing a little of everything.

As anyone who's worked on a set will tell you, it's not that exciting, unless perhaps you're the director or you're applying body paint to Rebecca Romijn. Most of the time, everyone's standing around, and then suddenly it will be interrupted by a flurry of activity, and then everyone's milling around again for a while.

The days on this film shoot were long, at least 12 hours a day. I was an extra warm body (officially the art director), and was employed as such. One morning I found myself running around NYC trying to assemble a complete Santa suit from the detritus that remained of the Xmas section in all the costume stores. It's tough to keep your composure when you're asking one of the costume store workers where to find a Santa wig and beard and the Goth-themed worker with pale face, black lipstick, and a mohawk just stares at you and shrugs with indifference. 90% of your store revenue comes in one month of the year you unhelpful freak!

Sometimes I stood in for the lead actor and actress when the director blocked out shots. I was an extra in one shot. For an exterior night shot, I had to water down the street (standard technique so the water reflects street lights, otherwise the street just looks like a sea of black on screen). A family friend of the director got cold feet at the last minute and wouldn't let us take water from her sink. That might have been a good thing, considering we had only three buckets and she lived on the eighth floor of a walkup. We ended up splurging on eight gallons of water from a local grocer.

During lunch break one day, we played charades. Every answer was a movie title, but not like you'd imagine a normal game of charades. This was charades with film nuts. In one case, we got the clues that the movie title was two words, and the first word rhymed with rooster. From that, someone correctly guessed Brewster McCloud. Brewster McCloud.

On our one day of exterior shooting, the temperature was in the 30's. Fortunately, the rain failed to make call time that morning. I lost feeling in my toes by the end of the day, but by that point, I was beginning to feel the rhythm of filmmaking, and I was beginning to enjoy myself. On set, there are few meetings and little of the monotony that can seep into office work. It's not all fun and games, but it's closer to that than most jobs.

We could only afford to rent one generator, and supposedly it put out 27 amps, but we discovered otherwise. It felt as if we were Gary Sinise in Apollo 13, figuring out the maximum amount of power we could draw while still having enough juice to achieve re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. We cycled through tradeoffs. You can have the coffee maker or the hot water machine, but not both. You can one space heater, but it will cost you one light in the alleyway shot. What about two heaters at the lowest setting and one light? One heater on low and the hot water machine?

People always stop out of curiosity when they see a crew gathered around film lights on the street. What are you shooting, people would ask. Once, I told a lady we were shooting a few minor scenes from War of the Worlds. She didn't know what that was, so perhaps she'll be looking for that setting when that blockbuster hits screens this summer.

One day involved a montage of sex scenes. I felt like Ricky Jay during the Mark Wahlberg-Julianne Moore sex scene in Boogie Nights. It's true what they say--simulating sex in front of a camera and crew is not all that romantic, unless you're used to performing in front of a group of other people. I had to run into one scene to strew some more underwear around the floor while the actors stood there partially clothed, mid-coitus. I avoided all eye contact.

Everyone was professional about it, and we defused the situation with humor. The combination of the clinical and the vulgar in some of the direction was very odd.

"Continuity question. _____, were you wearing that watch when ____ was humping you over the bathtub?"

"_____, can you increase the horizontal displacement of your thrusting?"

"Whoa, we need to adjust the lighting. Your moonshine is going to overexpose the film."

I was impressed by the communal spirit of the cast and crew. Most everyone on set was a student, a mix of first, second, and third years. Everyone was pitching in to help the director finish his movie, and I didn't sense any competitiveness subverting the shoot. Most everyone was friendly (you might imagine film school students to be film snobs or aesthetes, but this group didn't exude that vibe), and I learned a lot chatting with various people during breaks in the day.

In the last hour of our exterior shoot, at some 2 a.m. in the morning in a dark alleyway in the West Village, we had just finished the last shot when the assistant director called for silence. We needed to record thirty seconds of street noise. The sound guy called speed, and we all stood in silence, heads bowed, nothing but the golden neon hues of street lamps reflected off puddles to leave halos in our hair. New York City is almost always a cacophony of noise, but for that thirty seconds, we heard nothing but the low hum of the city, like the sound of the ocean in the distance, or perhaps the sound of subway trains coursing through the veins of the city below our feet.

[silence]

That's a wrap.

Scissor Sisters

I caught the Scissor Sisters at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Sunday evening, after another great home-cooked meal by Angela (coq au vin, a classic French dish). When I emerged from the cab in front of the concert hall, it was snowing. Or hailing. Or someone was pouring bags of salt out of an apartment overhead. And it was really cold.

Through a few hops of the social network, I ended up attending the concert with Chris and her friends. I had met Chris once or twice in Seattle, but in typical New York big city small world fashion, we ended up attending a concert together and catching up over beers afterwards. Six degrees barely covers six short city blocks in NYC.

DJ Sammy Jo (the Scissor Sister's personal DJ) and VHS or Beta opened. I really dug DJ Sammy Jo, who has a catchy, danceable pop sensibility. VHS or Beta sounded like the Cure, but more punk. The Scissor Sisters were crazy. They love New York, where they as a band were born, and New York loves them back. They once opened for VHS or Beta, and now the tables were turned.

After the concert, the temperature had dropped even further, into the low teens, and a light coat of snow dusted the streets, like powdered frosting on a chocolate donut. We shivered our way to the nearest pub, and after that, sprinted to subway stops to disperse across the city back to our respective holes.

My apartment was an ice chest, and it still is. I have really tall windows lining the entire side of apartment facing the street, and they might as well be screens so much cold air seeps through. I tried a ceramic space heater and promptly popped the fuse. Looks like it's time to layer, and I now look forward to the sunshine of southern California with genuine longing.

Klein, Cartier-Bresson, Rutgers, and Macchio

I went New York holiday sightseeing Saturday with a friend. We went by Rockefeller to purchase a Christmas ornament at the Swarovski booth. I could have sworn the Christmas tree at Rockefeller was much taller in years past. Perhaps I've just grown taller?

Our next stop was the Met. One of the exhibits we visited was the compact photography exhibit "Few Are Chosen: Street Photography and the Book, 1936-1966". It's not a large collection, but it contains work from my favorite photographer, William Klein, and a few of my other favorites, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank. They had old, old copies of the books Life is good & good for you by Klein and The Americans by Frank behind glass cases, but not a copy of Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment, an out-of-print book I'd love to own. The image to the left is perhaps Cartier-Bresson's most famous, "Behind Saint-Lazare station, Paris, France, 1932."

After a Xmas-tree ornament-hanging party Saturday night, James and Angela took me to Blue 9 Burger in the East Village. Good burger, often referred to as the NYC equivalent of In & Out, but not quite that good. A burger with a bit of grease or fat? That's okay, much better than a dried out patty. I always feel guilty eating burgers with Angela because she orders them without the meat; it's the anti-Atkins burger. I'm not sure what you call that. The man behind the counter said, "Oh, you want grilled cheese."

Sunday, I took the train out to New Jersey to meet up with Scott and Ruby and their golfing buddies for a round at the Rutgers course. We lucked out with a sunny day after the previous day had nearly brought snow. I haven't golfed since the end of September, which just means that I hadn't grooved my already ugly stroke. The first nine holes, I felt like a beginner to the game. I could barely remember how to grip my clubs, and I shot a 55, one of my ugliest nine holes in years. Then I shot a 39 on the back nine, maybe my lowest nine hole score ever (from holes 10-18 I went triple bogey, par, par, par, par, par, bogey, bogey, birdie) and actually had a ten or eleven foot putt for eagle on the 18th, a par five I reached in two. What a schizophrenic round.

It was my first round of golf since moving to NYC, and I now have a sense for what's involved: a long train ride out of Manhattan, with clubs in tow. Not the easiest thing in the world, but doable. I need to get in my rounds with Rob before he becomes a father (of twins, no less!). I know enough new parents to know what that means for one's free time.

Yesterday night, I went with friends to see It's Karate Kid! The Musical. With tickets costing $15 and set in Teatro La Tea in a community center on a somewhat sketchy street on the lower East side, I was fairly certain as I walked in that I wouldn't be seeing Sarah Brightman as Ali. And yes, at least a third of the audience were friends of the cast. This buyer be warned.

Now, Karate Kid is a movie that could be adapted almost straight up and serve as a comedy. It's a much-adored cult classic (at last check, a new first print of the DVD was selling for $99.99 on Amazon). I even remember seeing it in theaters with Tim Rush and his parents back when parents had to take my friends and I out to see movies. But this adaptation chose to dial the spoof up to 11. Almost every character in the musical was gay except Ali and Mrs. Larusso, who was bisexual. Picture Mr. Miyagi as a black drag queen, and his magic hand-rubbing-chiropractic-magic-move administered while seated on the back of a moaning Daniel Larusso and you'll have a good sense of what type of play this was. Don't bring your child if you don't want to be answering "What does [insert sexual obscenity] mean?" all night. The entire show is built on a conceit that doesn't hold up from start to finish (and I never picked up on any latent homosexual overtones in the movie; Top Gun, sure, but Karate Kid seemed fairly asexual to me), and the dance moves and music don't even attempt to aspire to Balanchine or Gilbert and Sullivan. The dialogue and lyrics were often difficult to make out as speakers fired the songs out in all directions in a somewhat echoey room. But the show has its moments. My personal favorite was "Miyagi's Lament," a rap tune that I'd love to get on tape.

The funniest moment, though, came when Scott told us at intermission that the actor playing Johnny Lawrence was the same guy that Scott had just beaten up at a restaurant a short while ago. Supposedly this guy and his friend were being extremely rude to Scott and his date, and so Scott had gone out to the sidewalk and chucked this guy into a car. In Scott's version of the story, the actor was the big guy, and his friend was a short bald guy.

After the second act of the show, Scott was certain this was the guy. So I looked up his bio in the program, and it turns out that this actor had most recently directed and starred in several Saturday cartoons for Fox, the Kids WB, and PBS, and was gay. When I'd first heard the story of Scott's altercation I was picturing the big guy as Vin Diesel, and it turns out he was a gay drama student. I'm going to blame the lighting--trendy New York restaurants are dark, so dark you can't tell if you're drinking red wine or tap water, beating up a bouncer, or one of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Fab Five.

Nate, Heather, Bialystock and Bloom

This was the week I turned in my grad school app, and so I've come up for air. I've allowed myself to leave the computer for more than just bathroom and food breaks, and it's been a literal breath of fresh air. Walking the streets here is so invigorating, perhaps because everyone walks at such a brisk pace. I've never been to a city where so many people walk faster than I do.

I haven't run since the marathon, but Tuesday night I played two hours of pickup basketball with some bankers down in SOHO in a church gym. I heard about the game through a friend of a friend, who connected me with her friend, who heard about the game through his friend. And it turns out that I knew this guy (the friend of a friend of a friend) from a summer camp from 1992. Six degrees of separation in this world, but with over one and a half million people living in Manhattan alone, you can eat through six hops in one subway ride.

Running a marathon? Not much help in the sprinting of full court basketball. In fact, I venture to say that the benefits from running a marathon translate best to, well, running a marathon. Running up and down the basketball court, I almost passed out at one point, but it was a good feeling. Anywhere in the country, you can find a pickup hoops game, and it has to be one of the most foolproof ways to immediately see other guys for what they are. Pickup hoops is like a truth serum of some sort. It bares people's souls (and yes, some i-bankers do have souls, contrary to popular opinion). Like hunting in Hemingway's day, I suppose.

Wednesday, an old high school friend came to town. I haven't seen Nate since the early to mid 90's, and I also finally got to meet his wife Heather. Nate is as I remember him, and he still has a sharp memory. I enjoyed hearing news of former classmates and having Nate fill in missing names and events from my high school days. Heather is amazingly sweet, and they were kind enough to tolerate this NY novice as a pseudo tour guide. We visited Rockefeller and the newly lit Christmas tree, Central Park (where I learned from Nate and Heather that John Lennon got shot outside the Dakota building which is on the West side of the Park), the Plaza Hotel (where Carmela and Meadow Soprano took their annual mother-daughter tea, and where Tony stayed when Carmela booted him out of the house), and Times Square.

Nate and Heather were also kind enough to treat me to see The Producers. I actually knew very little about the show, only that it was THE SHOW to see when Lane and Broderick were playing it. I'd also seen a scene or two as played by Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was much funnier than I anticipated, a type of meta-Broadway show.

Just after I made it home that evening, I got a call from Bill, playing in NYC that night only, at the Paramount Hotel. So I retraced my steps up to Times Square and caught up with him at the hotel bar.

I've also ventured out more this week for food. My favorite eatery nearby is Wichcraft, the sandwich shop companion to Craft and Craftbar. Wichcraft's sandwiches are tasty. Really tasty. The shop name is apt.

Union Square is host to a whole series of holiday tents where artisans are hawking crafts and clothes and the usual assorted junk. I walk past most of it when getting off the subway without wasting a glance on any of it, but today I stumbled on a soup vendor. The smells called to me and summoned me. What better to repel a late autumn, early winter cold snap than a bowl of hot sweet corn chowder. Tasty. I haven't visited the Soup Nazi yet, but if his soup tastes like this, then I'll shut up and place my order promptly. No questions asked.

Thanksgiving 2004

I had a great Thanksgiving feast at James and Angela's place last Thursday. I've thrown a few pics online. Angela, as anyone who knows her can tell you, is highly detail-oriented, an overachiever, and so the most memorable thing about the whole dinner was that she used some leftover woven paper from her wedding and printed up menus to put on every place setting. So classy--I saw them and immediately rushed home to change into my tux.

I finally tried Angela's brown sugar/butter sauce. James had been raving about it, and holy moly it is sinful, but in the best sense. I poured it over my baked sweet potato and experienced that side dish in an entirely new way. James had two such sugar bombs, and we had to inject him with insulin and carry him to the sofa afterwards.

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. (Jon Stewart)

Noir

They're filming bits of War of the Worlds (two dudes named Spielberg and Cruise are working on it) in Brooklyn and NJ.

Weblog of a casino cheat

Even if you don't live in NYC, this list of essential American film noir from the Film Forum is really cool. I caught Mildred Pierce there--good good good.

When trends gain enough momentum to go mainstream, that's when Microsoft jumps in

Giambi brothers admit to having used steroids while in the major leagues
The clouds around Barry Bonds darken, but until he's proven guilty, he's innocent. I think that's how it works in this country. Personally, I'm not convinced that steroids actually help a baseball player. In football, yes, but baseball? I read a convincing case from a baseball-crazed physicist who argued that steroids wouldn't aid a hitter. Since only stories about good hitters or successful players using steroids make the news, the public may have an unjustified bias towards thinking steroids are helpful. What of all the lousy players (Jeremy Giambi being one) and minor leaguers who never make it who used steroids? Sosa and Bonds could hit tape-measure home runs even when they were skinny. Perhaps steroids helps to stave off the effects of aging, allowing guys like Bonds to retain their skills later into their careers.

GQ's 100 funniest jokes of all time

Summer road trip pics

During my road trip from Seattle down to Los Angeles to deliver my car to Karen, I snapped a few photos. Many were shot blind as I drove, right hand on the steering wheel, left hand pointing a compact digital camera out the car window. By the way, I don't advise doing that unless you have multiprocessors in the brain. I swerved on to the shoulder a few times.

My last game at Safeco Field. Sang took me to see the Mariners play the Twins. I looked at the lineup and thought two things: "Johan Santana is pitching, and he's filthy, and Justin Morneau is a good young hitter." Santana pitched one run ball for 7 innings, and Morneau hit two homers. Santana went on to win the Cy Young, and he was the best pitcher in baseball this year. I was grateful to see him during his amazing second half run, to see major league hitters flail over the top of his daffy duck changeup. How does he grip it, I wonder, and how crazy is it that he can throw it 75 mph out of his palm when I can't throw a baseball at that velocity holding it normally?

Maelle and Sadie, at my going away BBQ. Maybe babies really do appreciate their awesome complexions.

Eric and Christina bought me this cake. It reads "NYC Ya Later Euge!" The entire outside of the cake was one solid layer of marzipan. Sinfully good.

Frankly, Otto found my imminent departure inconsequential. I pointed out that he had three chins. We reached an uneasy truce.

Taking this photo, I almost drove off the road.

Great weather for my drive down to San Francisco.

I think this is Mt. Shasta, though to be honest I can't remember anymore.

Almost thirteen hours later, I finally crossed the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, my legs having lost all feeling. Another thirteen hours later, I found a parking spot in the city.

Jon took me to catch a game at SBC.

Look where Barry Bonds' bat is relative to the ball. Would you believe he pulled this one foul? That's how ridiculous his swing speed is.

In Los Angeles, Karen took me to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl featuring music from MGM/UA movies (Sept 5). For some of the movies, film clips played on screen while the orchestra played. Maestro John Mauceri would introduce each movie and piece. For some reason, his voice reminded me of Phil Hartman, never more so than when he came out for an encore and then said, "Ladies and gentleman, we are honored to have with us here, Sheena Easton." And then she walked out and sang "For Your Eyes Only." If you had only heard this scene, you'd swear it was from an episode of The Simpsons. Of course, they played bits from Pink Panther, James Bond, Rocky, and West Side Story, but the highlights for me were the clips from Spellbound and City Lights.

Finally, I arrived in NYC, where I stayed with James and Angela. Gorgeous weather blessed us my second weekend there, and I met them in Central Park for a picnic.

Free U2 Concert in Fulton Ferry State Park

Yesterday, U2 played a free concert in Brooklyn as to capture some video footage for their new album. I had heard about this rumored gig in the middle of the night through Gothamist, and when I woke in the morning, I just had to take a break from my grad school apps. So I hopped the subway and took a field trip out to Fulton Ferry
State Park, just north of the Brooklyn Bridge.

With the Internet and cell phones, rumors spread quickly. Thousands of people were already there when I arrived. Half the people had printouts of tickets, perhaps from 1iota.com. I stood in line with the general admission masses for about an hour and a half under overcast skies, reading a magazine.

U2 had been traveling through Manhattan on the back of a flatbed truck, playing songs along the way, and that same flatbed brought them across the Manhattan Bridge.

The crowd went crazy, and U2 waved and played Vertigo.

It was a long time before I made it through the gates into the park, and another hour, at least, before U2 actually made it to the park and onto the stage.

The track list:
Vertigo
All Because of You
Miracle Drug
Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
City of Blinding Lights
Original of the Species
She's A Mystery To Me
Beautiful Day
I Will Follow
Out of Control
Vertigo

Whenever Bono would announce the title of the next song they were going to play, the crowd would cheer.

"Hey, how do you all know this shit?" Bono asked. One particular fan screamed in response. Bono added, "Hey Edge, I think I know who got hold of that CD."

They finished playing in the dark, the city skyline behind them.

I didn't now many of the songs because so many were off of their new album, but with the exception of Vertigo, many of their new tracks were more solemn, wistful. I'm not a die hard U2 fan like many people I know, but I've always admired the near secular spirituality they bring to every song. There's no denying their status as rock icons, and a free concert? Anything free in NYC is a blessing.

The Complete U2 is available at the iTunes Music Store, and it may take you a lifetime to work through it.

Like this and like that

The sequel to Popular Science's list of the Worst Jobs in Science, which amused me last year

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are going to wrap Central Park

In a world where the costs of prescription drugs and health insurance are rising, one procedure has bucked the trend: laser eye surgery. In fact, it has decreased in price. How can that be?

Howl's Moving Castle, Hayao Miyazaki's latest animated film, set a Japanese box office record with $15 million in its opening weekend. I can't read Japanese, but you can guess what most of the links are by hovering over them with your cursor and reading the link name in English in the browser status bar. Studio Ghibli's online site hosts an extended preview (Quicktime).

Football Outsiders will produce Pro Football Prospectus 2005
That's good news, as the team at Football Project put out by far the weakest of the three Prospectus books.

Java-powered Monkeys trying to write Shakespeare
While I watched the simulation run, the record was the first 22 letters of Cymbeline. [From an article in the NYTimes about computer programs that can write fiction]

V-Girl
A 3G virtual girlfriend, supposedly driven by artificial intelligence. She'll send you text messages asking "Do I look fat on your cell phone VGA screen?" and throw a hissy fit if you take a discreet camera phone pic of some hottie wandering by.

Mint Lifestyle
For just $12,000 a year, and with just 200 members in every city, this luxury personal concierge service will set up just about whatever your filthy rich little heart desires. Examples on their site include:
"I want a Porsche GT Coupe. Can you get me to the top of the list?"
"I would like to have dinner with President Clinton. Can you make it happen?"
"Can you put the kids on the G5 and send them down to Cabo?"
"There's a really beautiful Miro on display at Christie's. Do you think I could borrow it for the evening?"
"I think Wynton Marsalis is fabulous. Do you think he could play at a small dinner party I'm planning?"

UpSnap.com
Like Google SMS, except you can simply reply to a template they send to you so you don't have to remember any numbers. For those of us who can't afford Mint Lifestyle, I guess we could try sending "Porsche GT Coupe 212" as a test message and cross our fingers.

The DNA of Literature
I've been reading some of the archived Paris Review interviews, which they've announced they'll be putting online for free over the coming months. Some are already posted. I've always been a huge fan of the Paris Review interviews of writers at work, and they seem even more relevant now that I'm back to writing regularly. A quote from Faulkner's interview (PDF):

Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failng at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

The current issue contains an interview with Tobias Wolff. You'll have to buy a copy to read it in its entirety, but it's worth it for those who are interested in writing as a way of life.

Cold snap

Did I complain about how warm it was during the marathon? I take it all back. Yesterday evening temperatures dropped below freezing, and today the high was 41 degrees Farenheit. To run on a gorgeous autumn day through NYC was a blessing.

Today, I can walk normally again. Everyone told me the first two days post-run would be the worst, and they were right.

A thousand empty paper cups

I've been reading the 9/11 Commission Report, and the 9/11 timeline at Center for Cooperative Research has been a useful copmarison. More and more, I doubt the former and trust the latter. Paul Thompson is also planning to publish his terror timeline in book form.

A treasure trove of SNL transcripts

It was a great year for humor books

Halo 2 sells $125 million in its first 24 hours
I...must...resist...

The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches (sent from James)

Trailer for the remake of the Japanese suspense flick Dark Water
The remake is directed by Walter Salles. I saw this with Bean at the Seattle Int'l Film Fest a few years back and enjoyed it. Unlike Ju-On, the creepiness of the original didn't derive just from camera tricks and audio. At its root the mother in the story is haunted by her own feelings of maternal abandonment, and that overpowering sorrow pervades the movie. I'm not high on these remakes of Japanese horror movies, though. I love Jennifer Connelly, once a dormmate of mine, but having highly recognizable Hollywood stars instead of relatively unknown Japanese actors in these roles reduces the sense of everyday horror by a crippling amount.

Interesting quiz on population and health and economy - I only scored 60%. This quiz, on agriculture and food, was even tougher. I only scored 50%.

Amazon follows in BMW's footsteps with a series of short filmercials.

Informative graphics illustrating the ebb and flow of the electoral vote from 1940 through 2000.

The trailer for the videogame based on Star Wars III: ROTS gives away more about the action scenes in the movie than the trailer for the movie itself.

Now that the nearest snowcapped mountain is further away for me, maybe I need to turn to alternatives to snowboarding, like Freebording. Seems like it would be a lot more fun in San Francisco, where there are hills, than New York, where you're likely to end up as a multi-colored advertisement on the side of a cab. Looks like fun, regardless. Clever design.

David Foster Wallace reviews the new Borges biography for the NYTimes, using 7 footnotes in the process.

Ramen restaurants in NYC
Mmmmmm, just in time for the winter cold snap.

Through the 5 Boroughs

A marathon post about my marathon

Today, my body is tied in knots. Some ligament or tendon on the outside of my left knee is throbbing, and my legs are so sore and my hips so stiff that I have trouble walking up and down stairs. My back is stiffening, and I've been on Advil non-stop since yesterday morning. I went outside today to run errands, and I walked down the street like Kevin Spacey playing the part of Roger "Verbal" Kint in The Usual Suspects, my left leg dragging behind me like bag of dirty laundry. If I'm standing, it hurts to sit down. If I'm sitting, it hurts to stand up.

The way I feel this morning (physically), I can't help but try to understand why it is that I ran the NY Marathon yesterday. Human bodies, with the rare exception of some outliers on the edge of the bell curve, are not optimized to run that distance. But whereas most animals might be willing to push their bodies to the limits for survival (to find food, procreate, escape predators), only humans do so for recreation. Only a human could transform such a physically traumatic experience into something transcendent.

I wasn't thinking about that when I tried to fall sleep the night prior to the marathon. I'm normally a night owl, so even to lie down at 11 p.m. was an odd feeling. I didn't have high hopes of getting much sleep, but I didn't worry about it as much as I had in the past. I've never slept well before big endurance events like Seattle to Portland, RAMROD, or riding up Mont Ventoux, whether from jet lag or excitement or anxiety, or all of the aforementioned. For single day events, one night's sleep is not as important as all the nights leading up to the day. So I didn't stress about the thumping bass from my next door neighbor's Saturday night party (the funkiness concluded around 1 a.m.) or the blaring of horns from eternally impatient cab drivers on the street (their impatience never ends). I finally fell asleep sometime around 2:40 a.m., and just as I did, my phone rang.

Who could be calling at this hour? I looked at my phone. It was my phone alarm, and it was 5:00 a.m. already. I showered, dressed, skipped breakfast, and cabbed over to the NY Public Library to meet Jenny and Jason for the buses to Staten Island. Thousands of runners snaked along several blocks to load hundreds of buses. On the over hourlong bus ride, we all knew it would be a warm marathon day. The sun, not filtered by a single cloud in the sky, heated up our bus like a sun room and had us all stripping out of our outer layers.

Jenny was in the Orange start group, Jason and I in the Blue (all marathoners were split arbitrarily into three groups--Orange, Blue, Green--to split the traffic flow into three manageable streams during the first several miles of the race). Jason and I spent most of that time waiting in line for bathrooms, applying more sunscreen and BodyGlide, and snacking.

I felt calm, though anxious about one decision: should I wear the black, long-sleeved Under Armour shirt my sisters and brother-in-law had purchased for me as a gift, or should I wear one of my regular short-sleeve running shirts? My long-sleeve had "Go Eugene" ironed on the front, and to distort a Steve Martin line from The Jerk, "This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need. My name in print. That really makes somebody. Things are going to start happening to me now." Namely, people would cheer for me by name. Never underestimate the power of personalized cheering. On the other hand, in that sunshine and heat, a black long-sleeve would probably be too warm. Temperatures would reach the mid-60's by mid-day. Jason suggested I pin my number to my shorts, allowing me to switch between the two jerseys. I took his advice and started out in the hometown black.

Jason started further up in the line, in the 8000's, while I was near the back with my 36137 race number. When the cannon fired, I stood among strangers alongside a fence, far from the start. As we walked towards the start, I saw, in the distance, the first throng of runners streaming across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge like an army charging towards its enemy. A steady drizzle of runners left line to run to the fence to relieve themselves, and I felt sympathy for the women, who had to have friends devise creative means to offer them some privacy. A veteran marathoner to my right asked me what my goal was. I really had no idea, but I wore a 4:30 NikeRunning pace bracelet that felt about right. Our line wound through an opening in a fence into a parking lot, and at the end of a row of buses, the line opened up and everyone began to run. Several minutes later, I crossed the official start line, about six minutes after the opening cannon.

The first mile to mile and a half was uphill, to the midway point of the longest suspension bridge in the world. Runners were full of energy, and runners stopped to climb onto the low wall separating the two halves of the bridge for photos. Runners whooped and hollered in French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Russian, Swedish, Japanese, Chinese, and some other tongues I didn't recognize. Helicopters circled us from above and both sides. If there's one thing that always adds excitement to any event, whether it's a sporting event or a police chase, it's helicopters. So much cooler than blimps. The frantic pulsing whooshes of the helicopter blades brought me back to race day on Alpe D'Huez,

I had no idea how fast I was running, but the second half of the bridge, I tried to run as fast as possible to pass as many runners as I could. Because everyone was running different paces, everyone was accelerating and decelerating, weaving back and forth, bumping into each other, apologizing, trying to shoot through temporary gaps. I wasn't sure how I'd feel during the run, but by now I knew. My heart rate was higher than normal, and I was more worked up than on my solo training runs through the darkness of Central Park at night. Not a huge surprise, but could I sustain this for the entire run?

The first crowds appeared at the end of the bridge, in Brooklyn, lining both sides of the street, cheering passionately. I moved to the right side of the road to soak in their energy, to see their faces. I felt the urge to accelerate and pass people much more than usual. I realized later, talking to Bill, that it was in part because with so many runners, you could always spot someone who you felt like you should pass. Someone overweight. Someone much older. A group wearing rhinoceros heads. Scooby Doo and Batman. A transsexual wearing a tutu. Superman, wearing an afro. It's only after you finish that you realize unless you're a 110 pound Kenyan, you're likely to be surrounded by such people the entire race.

So many runners were pressed so close to me that I couldn't even see the road. I kept my head high, soaking in all the sights. So I didn't see a pothole emerge under the runner ahead of me, and when my left foot reached out for that next meter of pavement, it caught just a millisecond of additional air, and my foot landed at an angle. I stumbled and felt that yet-to-be-named ligament or tendon on my left knee scream in pain, and I hobbled for a few steps as the runners behind me swerved to either side like a stream flanking a boulder. This same tendon had been bothering me during the final few weeks of my training, though never enough to put me out of commission.

I panicked. I immediately thought I was done, and the anxiety overwhelmed the rush I had been riding just moments ago. I rubbed the muscle and tried to walk a few steps. Lots of pain. I bent my leg at the knee several times, standing in place, and the joint felt stable. My watch ticked out hundredths of second with a furious speed. So many runners were passing me by, and without thinking, and only with the thought to chase, I began to run. The first few steps hurt, but I realized that the injury bothered me much more when walking or starting to accelerate than it did once I achieved my natural pace. I melded back into the pack, and my heart rate settled back down. I learned, eventually, to stay to the right side of the road, because a road that slanted down to the left bothered my knee.

The crowds in Brooklyn were fabulous. One high school band played the theme from Rocky, numerous people, young and old, of all races, held out their hands and high-fived me as I passed. When people cheered my name, I'd always turn around to take a mental snapshot, because I'd pass them before I could get a good look at their faces. At the first rest stop, just past mile 3, I hit the first Gatorade or water stop and spilled an entire cup over the front of my jersey trying to drink and drive. I recalled Bill's advice to me, to pinch the cup to form a narrow spout and drink through the side of my mouth. My second cup was more successful.

At mile 6 or 7, I had to stop and change out of my long-sleeve jersey. I was roasting in the heat. It didn't help that I am a profuse sweater. I pulled on my short-sleeve and tried to tie the long-sleeve so my name still showed, but after some thirty seconds of fumbling, I gave up and just jumped back in. I wasn't racing, so I don't know why I was so anxious to keep going. In the moment, I was being swept up up in the race against the clock even though the difference of just a minute here or there would mean little to someone like me over such a long distance. When I crossed the 10K sign, I thought about my race alert e-mail flying out to my friends and family around the country (more on that later).

Arya had said he'd watch out for me by some tower. I couldn't remember if it was a clocktower or some other type of tower, but I looked for him at every tower-like structure. At mile 8 or so, I spotted him on the right side of the road, talking on his cellphone. I high-fived him, and he held out his cellphone. "Say hi to Karen!" I shouted a hello and surged on, too scared to try the stop and start with my knee the way it was.

At mile thirteen or so, when the leading men and women were facing the finish line, I had to face my second crisis. I had to use a portable bathroom. You wonder why I, a guy, wouldn't just find a bush or tree, like all the other men. Here's where I say, why do you think? And then you nod, in recognition. I had been running with the 4:30 pace group, the leader a girl who held a bunch of blue and white balloons marked "4:30." Dancing in place in line for the bathroom, I saw them round a corner and disappear, and I wanted time to stop, but I had no choice. I tried to stay calm, and after what felt like an hour, I sprinted out of the portable bathroom in hot pursuit. I didn't hold out much hope of catching them, but what I didn't realize was that they had been ahead of pace, and the pace group leader was slowing them down.

I sprinted through Queens, passing people left and right, and when I turned onto the Queensboro Bridge, the sharp incline allowed me to see far up the line of runners ahead. I spotted the 4:30 pace group balloons, several hundred yards up. This gave me a huge boost of confidence, and I began a desperate attempt to chase them down. The tight passage on the bridge made it difficult to make up long stretches of ground at a time. The hill went on for a while, but I didn't feel it. I powered on. Up ahead, I heard the a group of people singing happy birthday. At the end of the bridge, during the 180 degree turn back towards First Ave., I caught them. And for another mile on First Ave., I stayed with them.

The protracted chase had sapped me, though, and at mile 18 or so, the 4:30 balloon began to drift away, meter by meter. This time, when I tried to call on an excess reserve of energy, to press the burst button on the video game controller, nothing happened. Those several miles up First Ave. were depressing. I could see way up ahead, and First Ave. seemed to run forever, off into Canada. We were also running the wrong direction, away from the finish line, so every stride I took was another one I'd have to duplicate on the return trip. The crowds lining First Ave. were amazing, but my pain and exhaustion were pressing in on my consciousness, and I started to lose touch with the my environment.

The Bronx and Harlem were quieter than Manhattan. Around mile 20, I ran under a giant orange Nike billboard on an overpass that said something like "Run through the Wall like it's a street, 6.2 miles long." An earlier Nike billboard, at mile 14 or so, had read "Run like all of Queens is behind you." I passed Batman, whose full-body dark outfit had left him well done. There's a reason Batman only works at night and why Robin's outfit got him killed all those times.

Somewhere in this stretch, I missed Scott at the Willis Bridge. I may have passed before he arrived. I'm not certain. Back on Manhattan, the crowds burgeoned. I didn't hit a wall so much as a gradually rising incline. At mile 21, I stopped to open a packet of PowerGel. When I tried to run again, my left knee wouldn't bend. I had to limp along, swinging my left leg out wide, because it was locked straight. For a few steps, I sloshed and hobbled through a lake of Gatorade and empty paper cups, and just like the right leg of "Verbal" Kint transforming into Keyser Soze, my left leg metamorphosed from a useless stump to a working leg. I decided at that point it was too risky to stop any more until the finish line.

When we reached the northeast corner of Central Park, the crowds were in a frenzy. The screaming of the crowds lining both sides of the avenue was hypnotic. The sounds, along with the visual cacaphony of boldly designed signs, vibrating noise sticks, and wildly waving arms, reminded me, for some ridiculous reason, of the concluding fight in Karate Kid II, when Mr. Miyagi and all the spectators are twirling those hand drums. "Daniel-San, this not tournament. This for real." It pulled me into a trance in which my awareness narrowed. A few times I closed my eyes, to avoid seeing how long and endless the street looked, and to simply feel myself running. I could distinguish the occasional individual face, maybe one of every twenty people.

When I turned to enter the park, I recognized the road. I had run it many times during my training. I locked back onto the energy and incredible enthusiasm of all the spectators and race volunteers, and it lifted me along. For them to spend hour after hour, cheering, for the most part, complete strangers, meant so much to the runners.

I put my long-sleeve shirt back on when we reached the southern end of the park and turned right towards Columbus Circle, both in the hopes of some last minute crowd support, and in case James and Angela were nearby. I looked down and realized that most of the ironed-on letters had fallen off. What remained was "G Eug." Very cryptic. Many spectators looked at my chest, ready to scream, only to scrunch their faces up in confusion. But one girl, just past Columbus Circle, used her Wheel of Fortune skills to see the hidden message and shouted, "Go Euge!" I could have kissed her, but I could only manage a backwards glance and a smile, a much-needed smile.

I tried to summon one last kick as I saw the finish line, but even with so magnetic an oasis before me, I had none. I raised my arms as I jogged under the finish clock. I could finally release my poor body from its task, and I slowed to a halt. Twenty seconds passed before I remembered to stop my watch. I looked at the time. 4:36 and change. A volunteer handed me a foil blanket which I wore like a cape. I kept walking, and another volunteer handed me my race medal, and another placed a bottle of water in my hand. I stopped for a race finish photo and then joined the throng of finishers in the long walk to pick up our start-line race bags from the UPS trucks parked along the road.

On both sides of me, runners were leaning against faces or hunched over on the curb, vomiting. Numerous runners lay on stretchers, medical personnel massaging their legs, asking them questions like what is your name? Do you know where you are? Yet others were embracing, and many were weeping from what I surmise was an overpowering cocktail of elation and pain. Those of us still standing staggered along like a procession of refugees from a war, wrapped in our foil blankets like so many ballpark hot dogs.

My UPS truck, number 72, turned out to be the last of all the trucks, and so I had to hobble along for what felt like another 26 miles until I retrieved my bag. I changed out of my running clothes and walked out of the park to the friends and family greeting areas. I didn't see anyone in my area which wasn't surprising because I hadn't told anyone which group I was in, so I headed on south towards subway stop under the Museum of Natural History. While walking, I turned on my cell phone. Ken had left me a message during the race, having followed my splits on the marathon website. I tried calling James and Angela to see where they were, but all cell circuits were busy.

Just before I walked into the station, James got through to me, and they met me at 81st and Central Park West. I had missed them at the turn near Columbus Circle, but I was really thankful I didn't miss them now. I could barely walk, my legs were so sore and stiff. We couldn't find any cabs near the Park, so we took the subway down to 14th. They escorted me home, holding me up as I struggled up and down subway stairways, and they took me all the way back to my apartment in a cab. As with cycling, once the race stops, all that race hydration becomes excess, and I had to go to the bathroom every five minutes for the next half hour. I was starved by now, and the banana and apple and granola bar they had given me at the finish just didn't appeal to me. Angela walked to a nearby deli and bought me a roast beef sandwich, and it was the best roast beef sandwich I've ever had.

I checked online and realized that none of my race alerts had reached my friends and family. The Google Group I had set up was private, and only members of the group could send messages to the group. Since the NY Marathon e-mail server wasn't a member of the group, its messages had all bounced.

I saw my race splits for the first time:
1:08:05 10K
2:19:49 Half marathon
3:32:05 20 mile
4:36:12 Net time*
4:41:51 Finish time
*Net time is adjusted for when my chip actually crossed the start line, while Finish time is not

Almost everyone who called to congratulate me asked if I would run another. I don't know yet. On the one hand, with enough time to complete a full training schedule, on a flatter course, on a cooler day, I'd love to see how much I could improve my time. When I had ran my 20 mile long run, several times around Central Park, on a cool night, I had run a 9:12 pace for every mile, and I felt strong the whole way. If I could peak like that on race day, maybe I could even approach a four hour finish time. And the experience of having millions of people cheering you over 26.2 miles and five boroughs is something you can only earn by being on the road, not the sidewalk.

On the other hand, I've never felt so beaten up after a sporting event. I'm worried about my left knee, my right knee, my ankles, my arches, and my hips. 26.2 miles of pounding them against the concrete was a cruel thing to subject them to. And the training, even though I only ran for two and a half months, seemed like an eternity, mostly because I did almost every run alone. So I'm uncertain whether I'll run another one, and for now, I'm in no hurry to decide.

Almost anyone can finish a marathon. That I'm convinced of after having seen all the different types of finishers, from octogenarians to the overweight to the physically disabled. I saw a man with one leg, and another on crutches, and one man with cerebral palsy pushed himself backwards in a wheelchair from 8 a.m. until 6:49 p.m. to finish in darkness. But is it worthwhile? Some say that running 26.2 miles changes you, extends your belief in what you can accomplish. Others argue that running such distances is unhealthy and needlessly so, especially in pursuit of feelings one can achieve in safer ways.

They're both right, perhaps. An event like a marathon is difficult enough that every person must answer that for themselves. Running 26.2 miles has become, in our culture, the world's pre-eminent incarnation of a trying physical and mental quest, a walkabout for the modern man. I don't love running, and I find long distance running boring and extremely painful, but the marathon put me back in touch with a mental toughness I wasn't sure I still possessed. There's strength in feeling like you can endure discomfort for longer than the next guy, and that translates into all aspects of life. I had never run more than four or five miles before I began training for the marathon, and in just eleven weeks, I worked up to 26.2 miles. Most everyone of reasonable health can do the same; the most significant barrier to doing so, for me, was mental.

Just past the finish line, I saw a middle-aged man, bald except for hair on the sides of his head. He wore a long beard, lined with grey, and he was lying on a stretcher on the sidewalk while medical personnel attended to other delirious runners nearby. The man's legs splayed out awkwardly, and his eyes were shut, but not enough that I couldn't see that his eyes had rolled back into his head as if he was unconscious. His breathing was shallow. His right arm lay to his side, hanging off the stretcher, limp. If he had been in a hospital, one might think he was near death.

His left hand, though, clutched the medal that hung from his neck. And his lips curled up ever so slightly at the edges, offering a hint of a smile like Mona Lisa's, as if he had just discovered an unexpected treasure locked away in the darkest corners of his heart.

Ryan's first Halloween

Sunday, the weather was gorgeous. I needed the surprising dose of sunshine, and fortunately my schedule contained a morning outing in Central Park with Sharon and my little nephew Ryan. With the marathon coming up this Sunday, deadlines for grad school applications hanging over my head, and the election tomorrow, I haven't been sleeping that well. The sunshine, family, and autumn-hued mosaic that was Central Park was a refreshing break.

I asked Ryan for a GQ pose, and he turned to the side, took a knee, and flashed the "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time" look in this first pic:

In the early evening, Ryan and his playmate Zoe went trick-or-treating in the building. Ryan was dressed as a Chinese man from olden times. Both of them are at the age where they can imitate everything they're taught to say, so they were able to say "trick-or-treat" at every door, though it sounded more like "twickrtwee."

Children's costumes sure have come a long way. The first costume I remember wearing for Halloween was one of those molded plastic masks with two eyeholes and a thin rubber band to secure it to your head. I was Darth Vader, with a mask and plastic cape. Good times, except for that lady who was giving out lone pennies. Even at the tender age of three or four, or however old I was, I discerned that little pleasure was to be had from a single penny, either directly or in barter.

Scaled electoral map

Even though it doesn't make a difference, I find it much more reassuring to look at colored electoral maps scaled based on share of electoral votes than geographically scaled maps.

Because you can't get fat enough from going to McDonalds and picking up a meal, McDonalds offers free delivery in NYC in partnership with Delivery.com.

Another note from my eagle-eyed vigilance for all things giant squid: squid biomass now exceeds that of humans. I keep expecting we'll get footage of a giant squid alive in the ocean one of these days. That or a Cubs World Series victory first? In my lifetime? Please?

Physicists have solved the falling paper problem. It reminded me of the solution to the billowing shower curtain problem.

Union Square Cafe

James, Angela, and I went to Union Square Cafe Sunday night. From the outside, it really does look like a small cafe. The interior is more spacious, though still cozy. Danny Meyer's restaurant, which opened in 1985, is a New York institution. We enjoyed both of the things it's famous for: chef Michael Romano's excellent New American/Tuscan cuisine, and the hospitality.

Our appetizers were the butternut squash gnocchi and terrine of duck foie gras with pear/apple chutney. The butternut squash gnocchi were super, and the terrine of foie gras solid, but I wish they had seared foie gras instead. For entrees, I had crispy duck, James the herb-roasted baby lamb chops with garlic potatoes and mustard greens, and Angela the special entree, hangar steak with basil risotto and chanterelle mushrooms. The lamb chops really stood out. Cooked to medium-rare perfection, and those garlic potatoes just melted in our mouths. For dessert, James ordered butterscotch mousse, Angela the pumpkin upside down cake, and I the Baked Alaska. The wine list is both extensive and impressive.

Our waiter, a very young guy, was extremely friendly and knowledgeable. I wonder, though, if the restaurant's hospitality would be as notable in another city. At restaurants of similar quality and price range ($9 to $16 for an appetizer, $24 to $30 for entrees, $8 to $10 for desserts), isn't top-notch service de rigueur? Or perhaps it's the warmth of the wait staff that's the novelty, not the service quality? Smiling, courteous waitstaff, a reliably solid meal--I can understand the restaurant's status as bedrock of the NY dining scene.

The three of us decided to try and visit one expensive and renowned New York restaurant a month (if a restaurant is good and cheap, you can visit anytime). Any and all foodies are welcome. For November, perhaps we'll target one of the hot new eats in the Time Warner building.

Shake Shack's "Shacktoberfest"

Angela was the first one to tell me about Danny Meyer's newest restaurant, Shake Shack. Meyer is the man behind Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, respectively ranked as Zagat's Most Popular NYC Restaurant in 2004 and 2005. So when I first visited and saw Shake Shack a few weeks back, I was a bit taken aback.

It was literally a shack, albeit one with modern lines and lettering, situated in Madison Square Park.

As for the food, it wasn't anything fancy. The menu's staples include...

Of course, this is New York, so you can order a glass of wine with your Chicago Style Hot Dog.

The difference between Dick's in Seattle and Shake Shack is one example of the difference between Seattle and New York City. A deluxe burger at Dick's cost $1.80 (I think; it's been a while). A Shack Burger costs $3.95. Both, in their contexts, are considered cheap eats. I was never a huge fan of Dick's burgers but could understand the appeal of one to satisfy a case of late-night munchies. The Shack burger is pricey but really tasty. The secret is the Shack Sauce, a concoction that reminds me of Thousand Island dressing with more zing and spice.

Shake Shack's Chicago Style Hot Dogs are, to this former Chicagoan, quite good. I've already lauded the Shack Burger; I much prefer it to their plain hamburgers and cheeseburgers. The meat is ground daily from sirloin and brisket. I have yet to sample the fries; Dick's had good fries. I also haven't sampled the plain frozen custard, though, so I can't compare it to Ted Drewes in St. Louis (good stuff). I did try one of the concretes (frozen custard blended at high speed with homemade mix-ins) and it lived up to its name. It took me an entire day to finish one cup it was so rich and thick (The Concrete Jungle: hot fudge, bananas, peanut butter, mixed with the frozen custard of your choice).

Yes, I'm a big fan of Shake Shack. It's just a few blocks away from me, and sometimes if I've run a lot during the week I treat myself to one of its temptations. Today I stopped by on my way back from midtown and discovered, much to my pleasure, that they're running "Shacktoberfest," featuring special beers, sausages, and hot dogs. Special sausages

• Rocky Mountain Wild Elk Sausage stuffed with Jalapeños & Cheddar Cheese
• Wild Boar Sausage stuffed with Cranberry & Apricot
• Wild Buffalo Sausage stuffed with Jalapenos & Cheddar Cheese
• Pheasant Sausage stuffed with Mushroom, Spinach & Parmesan

The special beers:

• Brooklyn Brewery's Oktoberfest
• Kostritzer, Schwarzbien
• Reissdorf, Kölsch
• Ayinger, Oktober Fest-Märzen
• Smuttynose, Pumpkin Ale
• Victory, Festbier
• Rogue, Dead Guy Ale

Tomorrow, all the special sausages and beers will be available. And three new concretes: Caramel Apple, "Shakes" Pear in the Park, and Pumpkin Pie.

I tried the featured Wild Buffalo Sausage and Reissdorf, Kölsch combo today. On a grey, cool autumn day with a brisk breeze blowing, the meal was so pleasing. Nothing like a light beer buzz mid-day.

Sadly, Shake Shack shacks up for the winter Nov. 1.

Remains of a weekend

I haven't set up my television here in NYC, and before that I was traveling for months so I had just sporadic access to a television. I haven't missed it nearly as much as I thought. It's given me time to read and enjoy life outside my apartment. I'm sick of reality television, have no need for CSI: Minneapolis ("Hmm, I think Steve Buscemi died when his partner axed him in the head and put him through the wood chipper. Yaaaa, I do."), and any television show I really want to watch can usually found on BitTorrent. For example, the clip of Jon Stewart on Crossfire as he bitch-slapped Tucker Carlson. Deeply, deeply satisfying. I can't stand Tucker Carlson. What a buffoon. If you don't know how to use BitTorrent, you can see the clip just fine here at iFilm. Could Jon Stewart be any more golden right now? I walked by the Union Square Barnes and Noble when he was there for his book signing, and by the looks of the drooling women in line, you'd think Jude Law or Brad Pitt was there to sign a swimsuit calendar.

Of course, I must have my television set up by this Thursday, when The Office Christmas Specials (part 1, part 2) air in the U.S. on BBC America. I tried to find it on DVD in London this summer, but all I could turn up was pity from Londoners who tsk tsk'd as they revelled in recounting the rapture of humor the special had bestowed upon them. The DVDs? Release in the UK Oct. 25. If you haven't seen the show yet, I either pity or envy you. And who the hell are you and where have you been living?! The show has no laugh track, because you'll provide one. But don't take my word for it. The New Yorker calls it perfect.

Malcolm Gladwell writes about the high cost of prescription drugs with his usual (i.e., unusual) insight.

Wal-Mart.com, of all sites, has audio clips of the Friday Night Lights soundtrack. I'm just about over my Friday Night Lights kick. After watching the movie I bought the soundtrack and inhaled the book (recommended and recommended, respectively). The music has been a nice change of pace from the usual stuff in my "Running" playlist in my iPod, all of which I've heard about eighty times by now.

The baseball stadium in Houston is a joke. People are hitting pop flies out of the stadium in left field for home runs, and that hill with the pole in it in center field is ludicrous. What an atrocious baseball playing field (I've never seen the exterior, but it seems fine). The fact that all baseball stadiums have different dimensions in the outfield used to never bother me, but if they standardize the dimensions of all playing areas of all MLB stadiums, allowing architects to customize all other aspects and dimensions of the stadium, I'd have no objections. Imagine one NBA basketball court having baskets nine feet high instead of ten, or a three point line that was shorter than in other stadiums.

Games 3 and 4 of the ALCS were brutal. Each game lasted about two days. Alan, Sharon, and I rented a movie, started watching when game 3 started, and when the two hour movie finished that game was in the fourth inning. I don't know how anyone who's not a Yankees or Red Sox fan could stay awake. I remain steadfast in my hope that MLB will speed up the games. If you adjust your batting glove and then stand there to take a pitch, why do you need to step out and adjust it again? Is the velcro defective?

I met James, Angela, some of their college friends, Alan, and Sharon for lunch at Carnegie Deli today. The Carnegie sandwiches are MASSIVE. RIDICULOUS. I had a reuben, their specialty, and it was actually just a mountain of pastrami covered by several layers of cheese. It looked like an elementary school model of Mt. St. Helens erupting cheese. I finished about a quarter of it and will nibble on the remains for the rest of the week. Carnegie Deli is a mecca for pastrami and corned beef lovers.

I didn't miss my car until I saw this promotional clip for the new BMW M5. Sweet mother of...sometimes, late at night, when the subway seems like it will never arrive, wouldn't you just like to hop into something like this and just play Pole Position with the cabs.

NYC's arts lineup is overwhelming. Everyday I find at least five things I'm dying to go see. Monday night (oh, that would be tonight) Ricky Gervais is speaking at the Museum of Television and Radio before a screening of The Office Christmas Special. I'd kill to see Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) at the Met. Alex Ross raves about it. What stops me is the memory of my first NYC credit card bill. Upon opening it and reading the balance, I screamed, dropped the bill, my eyes rolled up into my head, and I fainted theatrically, like a swooning movie diva.

The weekend ended with puppet entertainment. No, not the marionettes of Team America World Police, but the puppets of Avenue Q, the much acclaimed musical that won the Tony for best musical in 2003. I am not a huge musical fan, but I enjoyed this one for not taking itself so seriously. It offers quite a contrast to the melodrama of most musicals and seems a descendant of the Rent lineage of musicals, one that's sadly sparse. The show features a cast of puppets and people who live in a rundown neighborhood in Manhattan as they sing about life and its problems. But these are HBO-class puppets, not Sesame Street or Jim Henson muppets (even though some of the characters really resemble Ernie and the cookie monster), so they swear, drink, and have sex. As Phil said at intermission, it might not a musical you'd be comfortable seeing with your parents. The puppets are held by actors who stand alongside them as puppeteers, singing, with their hands clearly inserted up into the puppets or waving their arms around. It's jarring for just the first few seconds, but then, the rest of the time, as the cast sings songs like "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" or "The Internet is for Porn" or "Schadenfreude", you realize it all feels on some level like a clever deconstruction of the musical as an art form. Would Kermit and Miss Piggy have grown up to be a dysfunctional married couple? Would Bert have come out of the closet to confess his love for Ernie? Would Big Bird be surfing porn on the Internet? I'm of the generation that wouldn't find those stories surprising at all, and I'm glad some musicals have caught up.

I dream of closet space

Dreams are contextual. The other night, I dreamt that I walked into my entrance hallway and discovered two huge walk-in closets that I had inexplicably overlooked while unpacking. I was overjoyed until I woke up with the same two meager closets in my bedroom as before.

Game Two

Alan and I took the express 4 up to 161 St./Yankee Stadium last night for game 2 of the ALCS. This time I sat in the center field bleachers instead of right field.

I realized what it is I like about Bob Shepperd's voice (he's the public address announcer at Yankee Stadium): he sounds like he's being piped in direct from the 1930's, through a hole in the space time continuum. Before the game started, Alan and I watched some Red Sox take batting practice. At one point, Pedro Martinez came to the outfield to play long toss to stretch out his arm. Of course, the "Who's your daddy?" chants began immediately.

Why he made that daddy remark I'll never know. He claimed after the game that he didn't regret what he said, but if he doesn't, Red Sox fans and his teammates will. You just can't give the most obnoxious, arrogant baseball fans in the country ammunition. He'll be hearing that chant for the rest of his career at Yankees Stadium, unless, of course, he joins the Yankees this offseason. The Yankees would probably overpay for him, and he's clearly on the downhill side of his career, but still, if you're the Red Sox, do you want to see Pedro in pinstripes? It would be an echo of too many painful memories, and it would just tickle Yankees fans to death.

[Note: the chanting of "Hoosier Daddy" at Bobby Knight when he was still head coach at Indiana remains the most original usage of the phrase]

When the game started, I realized that roll call only occurs from the right field bleachers. Inevitably, we were seated near a completely inebriated Yankees fan who was teetering all over the place. He kept falling into me, and every time he went to buy another beer with his buddy I hoped he'd pass out somewhere and not return. And of course, we had the alpha-obnoxious Yankees fan running up and down our aisle, cursing out anyone who wouldn't stand up and scream along with him. There seems to be one in every bleacher section. He was dripping with sweat, his face red, his voice nearly hoarse. He kept apologizing to a young boy of eight or nine years old everytime he dropped another f-bomb. What a f***.

Most of you know how the game went by now. In the bottom of the first, Pedro walked Jeter on 4 pitches, hit A-Rod, and then gave up line drive single to Sheffield to give the Yanks a quick 1-0 lead. Alan and I were looking at the stadium radar gun, and Pedro was hitting mid-90's with his fastball. He looked to have decent velocity and stuff, certainly better than the last time I saw him here, when he got shelled, but his command was just a bit off. A few non-strike calls here and there hurt him.

One thing I did like about Shea Stadium which I remembered last night was that they post not just the velocity of each pitch but what type of pitch it was. How they figure that out I have no idea, but they do. Most pitches you can identify by the velocity and the path it takes (fastball, curve, slider, changeup, and split are easy to identify). However, for one pitch at Shea the board displayed "cutting fastball." Huh? Amazing, to think that it's someone's job to sit there all game and press a button to display the pitch type. At the Yankees game, from where I was sitting, I had some difficulty identifying between some of Pedro's changeups and curves. We were just a bit too far away for me to see the pitch path clearly.

A side observation: MLB needs to speed up games. I know they tried, a few years ago, but they failed. Umpires at my community softball game do a better job of keeping games going. Batters step out after every pitch to unstrap and restrap their batting gloves, tap their feet, take practice swings. C'mon. Batters shouldn't get to call time or to step out of the box after each pitch. That should be a rule. MLB also doesn't need two minutes between innings. Most pitchers ready after just a couple warm-up pitches. There should be a rule banning the fake pickoff throw to third and then to first. Pedro did that several times. Has that play ever worked? They should just make that a balk.

Meanwhile, the magic pixie dust they sprinkle on players when they join the Yankees to revive retreads was working as Jon Lieber was mowing down the Red Sox, and Olerud hit a go-ahead two-run homer off Pedro in the sixth. Lieber has a nasty slider. It's especially effective against right-handers. Whenever it was 0-2 on a batter, I'd look at Alan and say "slider." If he didn't get the strikeout with it, I'd say "slider" again. The Red Sox had to know it was coming, and they still couldn't lay off of it.

Teams with two million or so lying around can do worse than invest in a pitcher who's coming off of Tommy John surgery. Look at A.J. Burnett, Lieber, Kerry Wood, Ryan Dempster, John Smoltz, Matt Morris, Tom Gordon, Eric Gagne, and Mariano Rivera. It's as commonplace in baseball now as ACL reconstructions in basketball and football. Someday we're going to see a mediocre pitcher undergo pre-emptive Tommy John surgery just to see if it adds some velocity and stability.

Are there a pair of weaker center-field arms than Damon and Bernie? Watching Bernie warmup before innings is painful. He has a strange hitch in his throwing motion. Damon's arm is just plain weak.

They flashed a picture of Jack Nicholson up on the scoreboard at one point. Jack's a Yankees fan? He roots for the most hated basketball team in the country and now the most hated baseball team as well? The next time I watch Karate Kid I half expect to see Jack sitting ring-side, sharing laughs with the Cobra Kai Sensei and cheering on Johnny as he take out opponent's legs.

Gary Sheffield scared the crap out of me everytime he was at bat against the Cubs in last year's NLDS, and he's still imposing in the box with that menacing way he waves the bat around as if to say, "This thing is like a toothpick in my hands it's so light." Baseball needs to do something about batters standing on top of the plate, though. The rules are just stacked against pitchers. It's nearly impossible to throw inside anymore. You either end up hitting the batter, whereupon he either takes first or yells at you and elicits a warning from the umpire, or you hit the inside corner but the batter jumps out of the way, making the ball appear inside, and it's called a ball. They should move the batter box away from the plate a bit, maybe two to three inches. Jeter, A-Rod, and Sheffield were right on top of the plate, and Pedro couldn't drive them off of it.

Against the Yankees in the playoffs, you have seven innings to make some noise. Otherwise, out beyond the center field wall, an unnatural force named Mo begins to stir...

I imagine Mariano Rivera lounging around during games like Brad Pitt's Achilles in Troy, dozing on a couple of furs with a couple naked women, when the bullpen coach comes running in.

"Mo, Joe needs you."

Rivera looks up, somewhat groggy. "Have them lay out my uniform, shoes, and glove. In the meantime, two hot towels and my razor, please."

And then Mo comes trotting out to Enter Sandman, the entire stadium starts rocking, because it's easy to be an arrogant, cocky Yankees fan when Mo comes in to clean up the mess. He comes in, and like Achilles with that jumping-shoulder-stab move, wields his cut fastball like the sickle of the Grim Reaper, not just handcuffing batters but literally boring through the handles of left-handers bats, leaving the debris of exploded bats lying all over the grass in front of home plate.

Now comes news that Schilling can't start Game Five. If the Yankees play the Cubs' arch nemeses the Cardinals in the World Series, I'm not sure who I could root for.

Wingwomen.com

A new service called Wingwomen.com offers females to escort you out as your wing women.

Shockingly, most novelists are planning to vote for Kerry instead of Bush. Well, except for Thomas Mallon, Robert Ferrigno, and Orson Scott Card.

Review: House of Flying Daggers

I saw a midnight screening of House of Flying Daggers at the New York Film Festival Saturday night. While walking into the theater, I saw a pseudo-red-carpet alley being formed by throngs of people. I went over to see what the commotion was about, thinking that there was no way it could be...and it was. Zhang Ziyi. She is stunning. Some people never lose the skin they had as a baby. I had an urge to reach out just to run my fingers across her cheeks, but then I remembered that I'd probably get tackled and beaten by a few aspiring Vin Diesels, and I still did want to see the movie.

Director Zhang Yimou also walked in. Both of them received a Cannes-lite reception. Inside, Zhang spoke a few phrases which were translated into English. He mentioned that he was almost too intimidated to attempt a bamboo forest fight scene after Ang Lee's success with the same in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but that he was pleased to have found a unique way to shoot it which he hoped we'd enjoy. Zhang Ziyi came out to the crowd's delight and said in shy, halting English, "Thank you for coming. Please enjoy the movie."

I've never seen a movie at Alice Tully Hall before, and especially since my seats were in the back row, I wasn't too hopeful about the acoustics and picture. I was wrong. As the picture came on screen, a huge drum sounded, and it was LOUD. No surround sound, but the acoustic picture in the front half of the theater was distinct and LOUD. I was so pleased, because as the movie progressed, I realized that the sound design and soundtrack of the movie are critical to its effect. The sound of drums shaking the air, the whisper of silk fabric sssssliding across itself, the whistling of (flying) daggers slicing through the air, of leaves rustling as horses or soldiers rush past...all of them came through crystal clear.

As with Hero and Raise the Red Lantern, Zhang favors lush, saturated color palettes. The scenery, shot in parts of the Ukraine and China, is gorgeous, and the actors outfits are often coordinated to the environment. When Zhang Ziyi dances at a brothel, her blue dress complements the hall decor. When she's running through an autumn forest, she's dressed in muted navy and gold, and near movie's end, when she's in a forest of bamboo and leaves, her spring green robe blends in such that an interior designer would be proud. Those ancient Chinese had great fashion sense. The finale brings together all the color palettes from the movie and highlights them against the neutral backdrop of a white snow-covered landscape.

The House of Flying Daggers is a clandestine rebel group that steals from the rich, gives to the poor, and combats the waning Tang Dynasty government. Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kanehiro) are two soldiers in the General's Army, given the assignment of capturing the new leader of the House of Flying Daggers in ten days. Jin, a ladies man, is sent undercover to the Peony Pavilion, a brothel, to investigate and win the heart of a new blind dancer, Mei (Zhang Ziyi), rumored to be a member of the House of Flying Daggers.

Anyone who's seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero or any of the classic wuxia movies will realize that to summarize any more of the plot would be difficult. Wuxia movies always involve complex, labrynthine plots full of double crosses and shifting loyalties. Whereas the characters, love stories and, combat in Hero felt so ethereal and mythic and pure as to be constricting and suffocating, HOFD contains more humor and humanity. Jin and Mei, both played by real life heartthrobs, flirt and laugh, a refreshing change from the formal, muted romances between Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in Hero. The scale of the story also stays at an individual level, focusing on Jin, Mei, and Leo, instead of rising to the level of a national epic.

The combat is somewhere between that of a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where characters could fly, and a Bruce Lee movie, no wires required. The warriors in HOFD can certainly leap in a manner that defies physics, but not so much that they seem superhuman. In Manhattan, they'd still have to take the subway to get from downtown up uptown. More importantly, the combat has force and impact. Characters bleed and sweat and stumble in the leaves and snow. Not that there's any shortage of the balletic. As in CTHD, there are battles set at treetop level in a forest, and a fight that soars up and down stalks of bamboo. Yimou uses a combination of special effects shots and wire work to achieve some lyric shots. Overhead shots frame Mei's acrobatic backflips, and the bullet-cam shots so popular with John Woo allow the camera to circle and follow daggers and arrows as they rip through forests and over fields of wildflowers, traveling impossible distances to slice and stab their targets (Jin is Aragorn with the sword, Legolas with the bow and arrow). It's technically ravishing.

The acting and dialogue are true to the wuxia tradition which is both a strength and a limitation. Wuxia movies won't ever provide the type of dialogue or elicit the type of acting that wins Oscars. It takes a game actor to keep a straight face pronouncing some of this dialogue, and it's even more difficult for the audience to keep a straight face listening to much of it (the subtitling was actually quite good, even if it failed to convey bits of nuance here and there). Some people find the chivalry and heroism of wuxia movies touching, and others hokey. HOFD is not as geniunely moving as the pictures Yimou made with Gong Li, but the emotional hooks dig deeper than those of the typical swordplay movie. At the very least, Lau, Kanehiro, and Zhang are a handsome group, even when their faces are frozen in the wuxia tragic mask--expressionless, stoic, as a tear runs down one's cheek to hang for dear life at the corner of one's chin.

[The movie was dedicated to the memory of Anita Mui, who died from cervical cancer during filming. Zhang rewrote the script to remove her character. Kathleen Battle sings the theme song.]

Timing is everything

I've been spending my time between the West Coast and New York serendipitously. I left NYC during the RNC and enjoyed some gorgeous sunshine driving from Seattle down the West coast to Los Angeles. Then I landed back in NYC in time for the first blushes of autumn. Now I've landed back in Seattle just as tropical depression Jeanne wreaks its final fury on NYC before sailing off into the Atlantic

I found it a strange coincidence that this Gothamist post was titled "You Are Not Living In Seattle". As if addressed to me. Yes, I don't live in Seattle anymore, but for a few days, I can pretend as if I still do. And yes, Seattle has less avg. annual rainfall than NYC.

You bleeping bleeper! Bleep bleep!

Sunday, I visited Yankee Stadium for the first time to catch the rubber game of the Yankees-Red Sox series. My seat was in the right field bleachers, a few rows down from the DiamondVision scoreboard.

Before the game started, I took in the view of the stadium. It didn't impress me. The history of great players and great games played there is undeniable, but the actual structure itself is non-descript and rather dumpy. It lacks the distinguishing visual features of other stadiums of seniority like Wrigley Field (ivy-covered outfield walls, manual scoreboard, views of Lake Michigan and buildings outside the outfield walls) or Fenway Park (the Green Monster). The thing I do like about Yankees Stadium is the P.A. announcer. The deadpan delivery (a refreshing contrast from the biased, Michael-Buffer-like grandstanding of most home team introductions) and the acoustic texture of his voice as heard through the old-school speaker system gave me goosebumps. I'm not sure how to describe it without a sound clip, but every name he uttered sounded like a legend, even Miguel Cairo.

The best bleacher seats in sports are those that attract the die-hard, loud-mouthed fans. The ones at Wrigley Field certainly do, and by the end of the Yankees game, I had no doubt that the ones at Yankee Stadium did as well. Bleacher seats are the modern day equivalent of the standing-room only cheap seats at the Globe Theatre back when a Shakespeare play was mass entertainment, except nowadays the rabble are further from the stage than the well-to-dos. These are the fans that will throw back a home run ball if it's hit by an opposing player, assuming they're sober enough to toss it in the right direction.

And of course, they also taunt everyone, from opposing players to opposing fans. I wasn't surprised to hear profanity-laced trash talk from the fans around me, but the sustained viciousness impressed me.

Any Red Sox fan brave enough to venture into the bleachers was serenaded by a rhythmic chant of "ass...hole...ass...hole" and pointed out by a forest of jabbing index fingers, moving in time to the chanting. A few younger boys, Red Sox fans, had their Red Sox t-shirts turned inside out. I suspect their mothers forced them to do so out of fear for their lives.

In the top of the first inning, after the Yankees took the field, the bleachers conducted roll call. They started by chanting Ber-nie, Ber-nie, Ber-nie, until Bernie Williams acknowledged them with a wave of his glove. Then they moved to Mat-su-i, Mat-su-i, and then Sheff, Ole-rud, Cai-ro, Je-ter, and A-Rod. No roll call for Mussina and Posada, busy pitching and catching. I hadn't seen roll call performed at a baseball game like that before, and it was impressive. It offered a sense of camaraderie between the right field bleachers and the players, even if most of them were purchased as free agents like so many bobble-heads off of eBay.

In the bottom of the first, the bleacher fans turned from love to hate, and the target of nearly all their ire was center fielder Johnny Damon, who hasn't cut his hair since the Carter administration. I'm not sure what to call his coiff--a caveman mullet? His do and the varied hirsuteness of his teammates were a great affront to Yankees fans, perhaps in deference to the strict grooming rules passed down from Steinbrenner.

Some of the chants directed at Damon (these choruses were chanted to the "Let's go defense" cadence, i.e., [chorus in four beats], clap clap clap-clap-clap, repeat):
You're a wookie
Jesus Damon
Get a haircut
You're a homo
Take a shower
You're a [two syllable expletive]
[expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive]

One Red Sox fan sitting in front of me had on a Red Sox cap, white and red and navy blue Red Sox t-shirt, and dark, thick-rimmed glasses. A Yankees fan walking up the aisle saw him and started shouting "Where's Waldo? Where's Waldo?" Then, pointing at the Red Sox fan in glasses, "Here's Waldo!"

In the sixth inning, between innings, the Village People's YMCA played. Yankees fans sought out all the Red Sox fans and pointed at them while altering the chorus: "Whyyyy are you gay?"

By the seventh-inning stretch, when the famed Irish tenor (so famous I've forgotten his name; if he's so famous shouldn't he have another gig somewhere else?) popped out to sing God Bless America, the game was out of reach. Pedro Martinez got knocked around pretty good by the Yankees. Pedro has lost a few mph off of his fastball (reducing the velocity differential and effectiveness of his nasty changeup) and some bite off of his curveball. He's still good, but he's no longer dominant. The score was 8-1 by now, Pedro had stalked off to the showers to a derisive chorus of PEEE-DROOO, and Yankees fans were preening in triumph.

One particularly obnoxious Yankees fan, a young punk with a bandana on his head, was nearly frothing at the mouth. He found one mild-mannered Red Sox fan and stood over him, screaming, "You're an asshole! Boston sucks! Get your ass back to Boston!" Unlike some other Yankees fans, Punk Yankee Fan lacked the gift of wit or creativity, so that was all he could muster, over and over. The Red Sox fan, who looked like a skinnier version of Alan Cummings, was a bit shell-shocked, so stunned he made the mistake of forgetting to remove his cap during God Bless America. Some Yankees fans shouted at him, "Hey asshole, remove your effing cap!" Though I doubt he was a Communist, Alan-Cummmings-Lite refused to acknowledge requests uttered with such disrespect, even if it offended the crowd's sense of patriotism.

After the seventh inning stretch was over, Punk Yankee Fan went over to Alan-Cummings-Lite and knocked his Red Sox cap off and kicked it down the aisle. The two of them started shoving each other and had to be separated.

The Yankees won, increasing their AL East lead to 4 1/2 games, and everyone piled back on the uptown 4. Needless to say, I wouldn't recommend bringing young children to the Yankees bleachers for games against the Red Sox, even if those are the cheap seats. The threat of collateral damage is just too great.

Next week they repeat a 3 game series, but this time in Boston. I wish I could be there to see how Yankees fans are received in the bleachers at Fenway, though I suspect the reciprocity principle holds true here.

A New York minute

I haven't had Internet access since my arrival in NYC, thus the blackout on my site. It will likely continue for another week or two as I get settled.

My first night, I arrived to a dark, empty apartment. I had electricity but no lights. The screen of my laptop wasn't enough to illuminate much more than my face, and I also lacked some basic living essentials, like toilet paper and somewhere to sleep. Thank goodness for family. I headed over to James and Angela's right away, as much for the welcome feeling of friendly faces as for a supply run. Angela loaded me up with an air mattress, sheets, a towel, toilet paper, and a dose of goodwill. I lingered there perhaps longer than usual, drawn in by the presence of furniture, lighting, and the lived-in warmth of their apartment.

Sharon and Alan have also offered a ton of support. They call just about once a day to see what I'm up to and to make sure I'm not spending all my time in an empty apartment. Several times, I've gone over to their place for dinner, and they often have leftovers I can polish off. I'm so grateful to have family here to soften my landing.

My primary focus right now is furniture hunting. I need a bed, a sofa, a dresser, and some standing closets, among other things. I happen to live in a furniture district of sorts, though it's not the type of furniture any normal humans can afford. The first store I visited was Ligne Roset, just because it happened to be across the street from me. Gorgeous furniture, horrific prices. A sectional I admired cost $8,695. I may have to resort to catalog shopping yet again.

The morning after my arrival, I locked myself out of my apartment. Smooth.

Most of my time has actually been spent at Flushing Meadows, watching the U.S. Open. I watched the women and men's semis and finals on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Mostly I wanted to see Roger Federer play, and I got my wish. Having watched him destroy Tim Henman and Lleyton Hewitt, I can confirm what the tennis cognoscenti have been saying: he is the best tennis player of all time (though of course I'm discounting longevity).

I've seen Sampras, Agassi, Lendl, Edberg, Becker, and Wilander play, all in their prime, and none of them matched the quality of tennis I saw from Federer this weekend. He has no significant weaknesses and a long list of strengths: the best forehand I've ever seen, a powerful and accurate serve, a beautiful and dangerous one-handed backhand, incredible court movement, mechanically solid volleys, off-the-charts tennis smarts and anticipation, and the calm and cool of a contract killer. All this, and he doesn't even have a coach. I've seen him hit a variety of full-swing, half volley forehands on the move that are just absurd.

Hewitt was on a huge roll coming into the finals, and Federer made him look like a college player. I think Hewitt won all of five points in the first set. In fact, the match was a bagel sandwich: 6-0, 7-6, 6-0. Federer's play that weekend has been the highlight of my stay.

I'm trying to take advantage of the city's cultural wealth. I grabbed a few tickets for the NY Film Festival in October, though many shows sold out instantly. I have tickets to see Avenue Q and I'm My Own Wife and the opening night preview of Reckless starring Mary Louise Parker. And this weekend, if a few things fall into place, maybe I'll take in a Yankees Red Sox game.

Okay, my one-hour Starbucks wi-fi pass is running out. Back out into the NY night, where everyone's still awake.

Eat to run, or run to eat

Marathon training continues, invigorated by an infusion of new routes thanks to Manhattan. I've jogged on the trail that runs along the east side of Manhattan (noisy and loud as it shoulders the FDR), along the west edge of Manhattan (lots of eye candy with the Hudson River to the west and the city skyline to the east), and of course Central Park (plenty of route permutations through its dense network of trails, and it contains the only soft surface I've found thus far in the 1.5 mile loop around Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir).

This marathon training is turning out to be useful, because without it I would've gained ten pounds in my one and a half weeks here. Manhattan is an embarrassment of riches for foodies. In just a few meals out, I've had insanely good sushi (Bond Street), delicious authentic Korean (Kang Suh), inspired American (Gotham Bar and Grill), cheap Chinese comfort food (Sammy's Noodle Shop), and satisfying wurst and corn fries (Mandler's Original Sausage Co.). I've run by at least a dozen other places I'm dying to try, and that's just to add to the list of twenty five or so places I've been told I must try. I could live here for the rest of my life and still be singing the same tune.

That pleases me.

Mission accomplished

I finally found an apartment in NYC. It's a loft-style apartment on the second floor of an old building, and the windows overlook Park Ave. I don't adore it, but then I realized that no apartment in NYC satisfies anyone's every wish, and in that way, the city equalizes everyone, rich and poor.

The location is extremely convenient. I'll be living in the Flatiron district, named for the famous Flatiron Building. I'm only a few blocks away from James and Angela and Union Square (mmmm, Union Square Cafe), and it will feel like I'm living in New York City. That feels right for my first year here.

No one enjoys apartment hunting in NYC, and now I understand why. It's a feeding frenzy driven by short supply and excess demand, and something about seeing one overhyped dump after another drains the soul. Add in a half dozen sleazy brokers calling you three times a day to hawk the next dump ("pre-war charm" is a euphemism for "old and filthy"; they claim to mean WWII but I'm suspicious). At the end of each day of apartment hunting, I'd check my wallet before taking a shower.

Brokers demand fees for soliciting and screening prospective candidates for the building owners and landlords. The fees demanded in NYC are outrageous, typically 15% of your first year's rent. In weak markets, owners/landlords will often pay the fees on behalf of the renter, but the vacancy rate in NYC is 1.7% right now, about as low as it goes in Manhattan. That means very few apartments are no-fee. Many building owners force you to go through a broker even if you contact them directly.

Thankfully, it's a process I can ignore for another year. I feel as if I've paid my membership dues for one of the most exclusive country clubs in the world.

The Day After

I felt better at work today. Distracted perhaps.

Then I came home and went for a run. When I returned, I turned the TV back on and browsed the web for the latest news. And as various individuals began recounting their personal stories of family members they had not heard from, and cameras observed people who kept a candlelight vigil at the reflecting pool in Washington D.C., I felt a deep sorrow again.

I was glad to see images tonight of Palestinians who brought flowers and stood outside the U.S. Embassy in a show of sympathy. The images yesterday of Palestinians celebrating the attack on the U.S. were unfair, one-sided. It reminded me how easy it is to search for black and white, for a reason behind these tragedies. For now, the only absolute we know is that the people who coordinated and perpetrated these crimes against innocent people are evil. Let's hope the hand of justice comes down on them with righteous anger. Those who urge that we expel Arab Americans from our country, who desocrate mosques and vandalize Islamic offices, these idiots remind us of the ignorance that led to this attack in the first place.

We also know that hundreds of firemen gave their lives by dashing into a building they knew would likely collapse on top of them. We know, perhaps, that citizens on flight 93, knowing they were going to die, decided to attack the hijackers to prevent them from using the plane as a weapon against their fellow citizens. Jeremy Glick called his wife, who informed him that other planes had hit the World Trade Center. At that point, he dropped the phone, and when he returned, he said that the male passengers had decided to attack the hijackers to try and take back the plane.

I understand now how people felt when they volunteered for the war in 1941. The feeling of wanting to drop everything around you to go to war, to protect the ones you love. I wish I was an FBI agent, helping to hunt down these murderers.

Officials suspect two of the hijackers may have studied at this flight school in Florida.

As of 11pm today, Amazon had collected over $1.8 million from nearly 58,000 individual contributions.

Perhaps an indication of how much people are grasping for answers, the Amazon.com books topseller list and video topseller list are filled with works about Nostradamus, the prophet. When I think about how many people must be buying these books to push them so far up the top seller lists, I had to wonder. How did so many people suddenly decide that they might find insight in Nostradamus? Curious, I scoured the web.

I found that this quatrain was spreading throughout the web in the wake of the World Trade Center catastrophes:
"In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
two brothers torn apart by chaos,
while the fortress endures, the great leader will sucumb.
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning."

Hmm, doesn't seem like a very accurate prediction to me.

Oh, that unfortunate album cover by The Coup that I wrote about earlier? Fortunately, the album had not yet been released, and the label is going back to redo the cover.

So many moving images. At the United Nations, when a vote was taken on whether or not to support the United States in its efforts to find the terrorists responsible for this tragedy, instead of raising their hands to signify their agreement, all the delegates stood. Citizens holding flags out the window as they drive.

Everytime I see them replay the image of the airplane flying head on into the World Trade Center, I cringe. I've seen it probably nearly a hundred times by now, and it is still the most horrific thing I've ever seen. It is a thousand times more emotionally awe-inspiring than any manufactured image in a Hollywood film. I will remember it all my life.

I can't find the stomach to watch any TV, to watch a movie. I may not watch a movie for weeks. I can't fathom reading any fiction. The coverage on TV and in print and on the web has transfixed me. I can't remember a time when I watched more television--hour after hour. I feel guilty for watching the footage again and again. What would it have been like to stand there in the streets of NYC and watch the World Trade Center collapse in on itself as if the earth had swallowed it? I feel like a voyeur.

I fear that nothing our government does will provide us with that cathartic release we all yearn for. Those who most deserve to be punished died in the plane crashes. Unless countries around the world band together and force the terrorists living among them to go on the run, we may never capture all the guilty parties.

In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani recalled a quote from Philip Roth in 1961:
"The American writer in the middle of the 20th century has his hands full in trying to understand, describe and then make credible much of American reality. It stupefies, it sickens, it infuriates, and finally it is even a kind of embarrassment to one's own meager imagination. The actuality is continually outdoing our talents, and the culture tosses up figures almost daily that are the envy of any novelist."

Kakutani also points out some recent works of fiction, many from Hollywood, which have depicted acts of terrorism involving bombs and airplanes:

For the most part, however, large- scale terrorist plots and huge public disasters � so sensationalist in tone, seemingly so far removed from our daily reality � have remained the province of commercial screenwriters and novelists like Tom Clancy, whose 1994 novel, "Debt of Honor," featured a plot in which a Boeing 747 is crashed by a Japanese airman into the Capitol building during a joint session of Congress, killing virtually everyone. The Sylvester Stallone movie Daylight postulated a disastrous explosion in the Holland Tunnel; Die Hard 2 showed terrorists taking over the air control system at Dulles Airport and crashing an airplane; and Black Sunday depicted an extremist group planning to blow up the Superbowl with explosives loaded on a blimp. Executive Decision depicted Arab terrorists armed with a nerve-gas bomb who take control of a 747 and head for Washington.

Articles

Lots of excellent articles at Salon.com. Here's an interview with Michele Zanini, a security expert who makes some interesting recommendations about how the U.S. should fight these terrorists.

Some books which are rising the charts at Amazon.com in the wake of this disaster:
Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center
The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism

This article at Yahoo indicates that names of suspected terrorists with ties to bin Laden were found on passenger rosters of the hijacked planes. But no name was given, just "a government source."

Another analysis of why the buildings collapsed, noting that the terrorists hit the buildings in the perfect spots. Any higher, or much lower, and the buildings would have likely survived.

In many ways, the people who built those two towers, and the buildings themselves, are heroes. The buildings held up long enough that many people could escape. This despite being hit by a massive 200 ton commercial plan. Then, when the buildings finally fell, they collapsed inward instead of toppling over onto surrounding blocks.