Transgene

In the city that never sleeps, I really need to

2008-07-31T01:19:00.003-05:00

In four hours I have to wake up. I'll have to disassemble my bed, and then leave the apartment that I have spent so much time in, grown so much in, and head off to begin a new experience. As I said, new york is like a dream. Soon it will be time to wake up.

There was so much I wanted to write about in my last few days here, but, as always in this city, the time just flew by. The entire last month has been a blur. The Met, the Cooper-Hewitt, Greenwood Cemetery,and tiny little galleries. The Staten Island Yankees vs. the Batavia Muck Dogs and the Coney Island Cyclones vs. the Vermont Lake Monsters. Fireworks and more fireworks. Introducing old friends to new, reconnecting with folks from my past, and burning a few bridges for good measure. Dancing - oh lord, the dancing! 'til all hours of the night and morning - at Taj, at Lincoln Center, at Pier 54, and on the roof of good old 271. I said goodbye for now to some of my very best friends and loved ones. I ate a ton of incredible food, and I came to strongly realize that the me who came to New York City, twice, is not the same me who leaves here now. I hope I can say more about all this later, but it's late.

So here we go, kids! Off to a new adventure!

Time left in the city: oh, about three-and-a-half hours now.

I want to be a part of it

2008-07-21T02:42:00.003-05:00

Topping the good list, though, is easily this: the scale and complexity of new york; its energy, its liveliness, its spirit. Like living under power lines pumping a billion volts throughout - you can't help but feel it and take it into your bones. So much to do; you'll have to say no to 95% of the things you actually hear of to do, which comprises maybe 1% of the things going on at any given time. People are unabashedly creative here. They go searching for whatever it is they're after and they live these big, bold lives. You could never see or experience it all, even if you lived here a hundred years. It's incredible, and alive, and so diverse, and, while this sounds terribly snobby to say, if you're not here, you can't really understand it. It's just amazing. And I'll miss it terribly.

The concrete flower has poisonous charms, of the sort for madness

2008-07-21T02:39:00.003-05:00

Numero uno on the bad list.
I'm going to keep the details light here for the sake of those who read this, but first and foremost on the "bad" list has to be dating. The very first woman I went on a date with in NYC warned me that dating here is, in her word, "brutal." She could not have been more right. Frankly I'm tired of it. It's so easy to get exhausted by the you-can-be-my-self-confidence types, the I'll-dress-up-like-snow-white-and-leave-the-shades-open-so-the neighbors-can-watch (and they will), the i-really-just-want-to-date-my-not-so-dear-old-dad. The requests and demands for physical violence, emotional abuse, verbal degradation, for a relationship that improves status at the office or fits into a gym schedule; they pile up with the phone numbers of women I won't be seeing again. As the woman who loved to fantasize about actually torturing her cheating ex used to tell me, "dating is kind of intense here." And by all accounts from some of the more normal women I know, this insanity is not contained simply to the female gender - it's everywhere. And it's horribly disheartening. "We are all just big, wounded, walking responses," says playwright Carol Churchill. Nowhere more so than in the dating world of New York City.

Brooklyn Was a Dream I Had

2008-07-21T02:33:00.003-05:00

The conclusion of my time in New York brings with it the expected retrospection and autopsy. The unexpected guest to arrive, though, is that realization of how I regard the time I've spent here: that is, as a dream. Or dreamlike, I'm not sure. Definitely parallel to, but distinct from, the regular or normal course and drift of life. New York is like another planet, and the experiences I've had seem similarly extraterrestrial. So may I recount to you that which was the stuff of pleasant dreams, and which of nightmares? Well, I'm going to, so there.

Days left in New York: 10.

Birthday'd!!

2008-06-02T10:50:00.003-05:00

You might at first think this post is late for my birthday. "But Graham," you'll say, "your birthday was more than a week ago, on the 25th of May!" and yes, technically, in your bithdo-fascist worldview, you'd be right. A single day for your birthday is a crime - it's impossible to schedule around and really isn't very much fun that way.

This year was different. On the friday before, I went out dancing with my friend Rachel from undergrad, saturday was taken to dinner by another friend, sunday went to dinner with a whole bunch of folks at this fantastic Tibetan restaurant, then went to see Indiana Jones (which we all really enjoyed). Monday, my much-loved salsa teacher turned the regular Monday night party into a birthday party for me, and Tuesday night (while not a birthday matter but still good news) I was installed as an officer of my Masonic Lodge. The following Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday I was taken to dinner again by friends, and then concluded my birthday week with a lovely day in the park. See? Isn't that a much better way to celebrate? I am totally spoiled by having really great friends.

i really don't know what to make of this

2008-04-21T17:15:00.004-05:00

I like pro wrestling. If you want, we can have a talk sometime about how it's the greatest dramatic performance around. But when you have the three candidates for the highest office in the land doing this for the fanbase...

candidates laying the smackdown very awkwardly

I start to get weirded out.

P.S. Obama is almost too good at that.

Regina Spektor and the Very Good Saturday

2008-04-20T23:42:00.004-05:00

After a somewhat jumbled plans with Marit D (who played the secretary in The American Superhero Applies for a Job and the president in Grandma + Robot = Outer Space) and some of her friends, both the weekend and the season got off to a pretty kickass start on saturday.

Kristen Baker (of Confectioners' fame) and I went to see Regina Spektor live at a tiny, tiny venue in williamsburg. She was so good! The set was short but really very excellent, and we were in the 1/4 or so of the people who turned out who actually got in to see the show.
After that, Kristen and I went for a picnic and nap in the park (well, I napped and she read to me from a pamphlet about composting, it being earth day and all). Next we went to a bar for a BBQ for a friend of Kristen's birthday. Unfortunately, it started to get cold, so everyone went to the entirely shady clothing stores around the bar and bought ridiculous but warm things to wear. Kristen and I managed to find totally not lame $5 matching sweatshirts (which will I'm sure make her boyfriend oh so jealous).
Then I broke off from the party to attend not one but two parties in the same building back in manhattan, being thrown by some work friends. After a while I started to fade, so I headed home, but along the way got pulled out by some surgeon friends to go watch the Hopkins vs. Calzaghe fight on HBO. I hung with them for a little while, then headed home to sleep.

I LOVE spring in the city. This was a perfect start.

And now a Master Mason

2008-04-16T11:41:00.002-05:00

On Saturday, April 12, yours truly was raised to the Third Degree of Freemasonry, that of Master Mason. This puts me on the level, masonically, with everyone else - George Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the rest. Furthermore, being raised to Master Mason affords me unrestricted access to the Masonic library and to any information about freemasonry I want to know. This will be a very exciting new chapter for me!

And, on a more personal note, it's wonderful for me to be able to share this with my grandfather, even after his passing. The experiences I'm having now are ones he, too, once had, and ones he encouraged me to have - something that's always on my mind when I put on my tuxedo and gloves.

Mysterious mysteries all around!

2008-04-13T21:58:00.002-05:00

So....long story short, Selcen and I happened to hang out again, and she wanted to find this book for the kids she nannied years ago. The book was about this young female crime-solver, sort of Nancy Drew with special effects. We found the book, and in it was a description to you, the reader, of how to find some of new york's most infamous locations and secret spots. We got excited, and we went to find out if any otfthe places mentioned in the book were real and/or as the book said them to be.

First up was Doyer's street in Chinatown, which the book said was where more people had been murdered than anywhere else in the city. Also, it had a secret tunnel underneath. We found it, and the tunnel underneath (which is now full of sketchy shops, but still not obvious) and the internet says there's some truth to the murderous claim as well for the "bloody angle," as Doyer's was known.

Next up was the Ear Inn (James Brown House), a building which, we came to find, in its long history since first being owned by an ex-slave turned revolutionary war hero, has been a brothel, a boarding house, and a smuggler's den. It is also haunted.

We didn't make it to the other places, but I'm hoping at some point to make it to a few. New York has so much cool stuff!

i didn't order snake

2008-04-10T14:03:00.004-05:00

I've got a weird mix of spring fever and senioritis. How will I disract myself? I want to be outsiiiiiidddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeee.

In the meantime, this gentleman on the online had no choice but to draw 200 bad comics. Here they are. A few of my favorites are below.

I am eating bunny marshmallows and commenting on Art

2008-04-09T20:56:00.002-05:00

First of all, this movie looks fantastic:
"The Fall," directed by Spike Jonze. A bit like Pan's Labyrinth meets Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

Second, I am calling shenanigans on the Jonathan Schorr Gallery. I went there for a birthday party with Erin (my de facto cooking teacher) and one of the installations, well, I was immediately struck by its similarity to the beautiful lithographs that adorn my edition of Dante's Divine Comedy. Upon closer inspection - that's exactly what they were: the "artist" had, as he stated in his description of the piece, cut the lithographs out of the book and pasted them together. That's it. How does that get you a spot in a gallery?

Maybe I'll stick some of these bunny marshmallows together and put them in a gallery.

Grupo Corpo is worth the trip, OR, Naomi and I try to hurry spring along

2008-04-09T13:30:00.002-05:00

Selcen is a friend of mine from college who now lives in new york, and on the most recent of our rare, once-in-a-blue-moon get-togethers, we made the trip up to White Plains to catch one of the last North American performances by Grupo Corpo. The show from this Brazillian dance copmpany was really incredible, fun, and inspiring; a video preview of their show can be seen here. Enjoy!

The following day, Naomi Milstein came to brooklyn for the day - she had been nearby at a conference - and we went to the Brooklyn Botanical gardens. This choice of activity might rightly be construed as seasonal optimism - nothing is yet in bloom, and it was kind of a chilly day. But we tried, and that's what counts, right? Can it be spring now, please?

(Of course it was endlessly wonderful as always to spend time with Naomi, a dear friend for ten years this fall!)

This is Easterween, this is Easterween...

2008-03-24T02:58:00.004-05:00

I am the bunny sleeping under your bed....

I don't know what's weirder about this picture:
a) the t-shirt was bought for me by one of the dearest people in my life, sarah, who told me she knew immediately it was for me (and she was right!)
b) this is the first time those bunny ears have been off the clock in the living room in recent memory
c) i wish this were my driver's license photo

Happy Easter, everybunny....

"Sho' yo' gonna be a doctor, baby!"

2008-03-19T17:05:00.003-05:00

That's always been my favorite line from Raisin in the Sun. And today, it's more than funny. It's true.

Well, it's official. Today the emphasis is on the once and future dr. science. I have made my decision: I have accepted the invitation of the University of Michigan to attend in the fall for my doctorate in neuroscience.

Also: Happy Birthday, mom!

Patty Freakin' McGuire, that's who.

2008-03-18T01:43:00.003-05:00

I suppose it's only fair. I've got to revise my previous stance on facebook (i.e. "Guns don't kill people, Facebook kills people"). After all, a "foolish consistency," says Emerson, "is the hobgoblin of a little mind."

You know when the last time was I used that quote? About the same time I last saw Patty McGuire - my junior year of high school. Through the creepy magic of facebook, we got back in contact, and when she happened to be coming to new york, we were able to arrange to have brunch in Brooklyn.

Patty's awesome. Always has been. Funny, smart, and super creative. It'd been what, 10 years? 11?

Nicely done, Facebook. You've won this round.

Ain't no party like a natural history museum planetarium dance party with music by DJ Jazzy Jeff because a natural history... (well you get the point)

2008-03-05T22:53:00.004-06:00

A super-fun dance party last Friday with Kristin Baker (co-founder of the free-cookie acquisition squad known as The Confectioners) and a metric hojillion other people. And yes, it was that DJ Jazzy Jeff. Also, yes, this is picture of a meteorite from space in which someone has deposited their empty beer can. C'mon, people, it came from Space! Show some respect.

Anyways, fun times.

The District and I have a slumber party

2008-02-29T01:41:00.005-06:00

It's no less true the more I say it: I have really amazing friends. And it's sad when the course and drift of our lives makes for diaspora more than continued life in the same circles, but, by that same token, it's really wonderful when we get to reunite.

I needed badly to get out of NYC for the weekend, and I'd been talking for a long time about heading south to visit Elizabeth McQueen in DC. Liz is a former U of M cheerleader who decided to do some theatre when we were in college together, and appeared in Information for Foreigners. She has since gone to grad school and now works redesigning airspace (no, I'm not kidding). She is ridiculously smart and curious and funny and I really miss spending time with her.

The train ride to DC is about 3.5 hours, which flew by (courtesy of my nintendo DS and Professor Layton and the Curious Village; I love that game so hard). Once I got to DC, Liz and I had dinner and went out dancing (followed by a dance party in the car on the way home, to such wonderfully bad dance songs as "Relax, Take it Easy" by Mika and "World, Hold On" by Bob Sinclair).

Saturday we spent lazing about at Liz's in Maclean, Virginia, (which I don't have a picture of but, is in the same city where the CIA is headquartered), and went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum so I could see some dinosaurs. Then we met up with her friend Sarah and Heather and saw "Be Kind, Rewind," which was gorgeous in a typical Gondry fashion but not so well acted. Then we headed into DC with Liz's friend Mike to meet with my friends Drew and Isabelle for salsa dancing at this tiny club. Liz and I stayed up until something like 6 (which was just like old times) talking about everything. Sunday was spent hanging out in Dupont Circle (pictured here). Voltaire's is gone - replaced by a new Thai place, sad as that is. We returned home and I jumped on the train and headed back.

I had forgotten how much I love DC. I'd happily move there (and maybe I will when it comes time to look for postdocs) and seeing Liz was really good for me. With so much instability and craziness in my life over the last year, it's great to spend time with people who are characterized by being consistently great, even as they grow and change.

I am indeed the future Dr. Science

2008-02-28T19:28:00.003-06:00

I've held off talking about this online not only because I respect the jinx more than most, but also because I've heard horror stories about applicants' online words finding their way to interviewers' eyes - but at this point it's looking more and more like the matter is settled, so...let me start by saying: The application process for phds in neuroscience/genetics is really long and complicated. There are an awful lot of pieces that have to be compiled, you have to take the GRE, and then you have to battle the labyrinthine university bureaucracies who will try to tell you that what you've submitted never actually arrived/was in the wrong form. Several hundred dollars later, though, there's some fun to be had in the form of interview trips.

Of the schools to which I've applied, I was fortunate enough to get interviews at the top two. Which is a mystery in and of itself, I guess: Why would the top two programs in the country want me, but not the safety state schools to which I applied? Odd, that. Anyways, the program that's not in NYC, a neuroscience program, flew me out, put me up in a hotel, bought me every meal at fancy restaurants, and basically fawned all over me to get me to go there and it was AWESOME. Everyone should have that experience at least once in their life, that's for sure. The program in NYC, in genetics, was not so splendid, but still kind of cool with more subdued fawning.

That difference is really indicative of the contrast between the programs, though: the latter is unquestionably the most important school in the history of genetics, but seems to be resting on its reputation and laurels in the expectation that students will still want to attend. The former is making a real giant-size move for science, is already ranked #1 for behavioral neuroscience, and clearly wants to assemble the resources for a bright future. And their students get paid to fly all over the world for conferences and to give lectures; I met students who'd just returned from China and London. And they called me a day after the interview to tell me I was in (which both programs sort of unofficially told me on my interviews).

At this point I still have to hear from a few more schools, but these two were, at the outset, my top picks. I'm really surprised by the program in NYC's shabby present state, given its pedigree, but folks I talk to tell me that's not the first they've heard of it. I'm definitely leaning strongly toward the neuroscience program, but though the location is not ideal (exactly how much that should matter, I don't know).

I'll keep you posted on what I decide (which will have to happen soon, whether or not I hear from my remaining schools).

Blogging is not like this...

2008-02-25T16:30:00.003-06:00

...so feel free to get excited for updates from grad school interviews, science, freemasonry, a birthday message for Alan Trammel, and notes from this weekend's super-awesome trip to DC. Coming very very soon!

Oh, internet. Don't ever change.

2008-01-17T02:04:00.000-06:00

Man, I'd forgotten how amazing Engrish.com is. And speaking of wonderful ways to spend (cough waste cough) time when you're frustrated from work and preparing for your upcoming interviews, did I mention I met the guy who draws the Perry Bible Fellowship? Actually, I take that back. I'm pretty sure the guy who does the perry bible fellowship played a joke on the bookstore and sent some dude off the street (who may or may not have been stoned), because when people would say, "hey, we love your website!" he'd look really confused and respond, "Website? Oh...yeah. Lot of good stuff on that...website."

Also worth checking out if you've got "spare" time:
GORGEOUS TINY CHICKEN MACHINE SHOW with your host Kiko This is first on the list because if you haven't seen it then you are a bad person. Watch both episodes.

Got a big bag of crabs? Here's an idea for you.

I LOVE YOU EGGS "Eggs I really love you, like the skies above." Um...what? Oh, and carrots, too.

The Meth Minute 39 is a series of short, really odd and funny cartoons. "Watermelon Nights" is amazing, and "Mike Tyson's Brunch Out" is a classic.

30 Hornets annihilate 30,000 Bees Honestly the most insane thing I have seen to come out of nature in a long time. Who knew hornets were such killing machines?

Enjoy!

Ye Olde Holiday Newsletter, OR, Well here comes trouble

2008-01-04T12:56:00.000-06:00

The holidays were lovely, even if also a little jagged. Christmas saw a brief trip to the motherland, with Hilary and I cooking up some food for the big day, as well as a rather dramatic Christmas eve mass in a church devoid of lights or heat. Oh, and while I never get to see everyone I want to when I go home, I did happen to finally cross paths with someone of particular importance...

That's right, the muse of the visual arts herself, Lindsey Sherline (complete with stylish fake hair). I hadn't seen her in something like 3 or 4 years, and we've both been through a lot of changes. But we had such a good time catching up, and it genuinely does me good to spend time with her.

New year's was the most fun I've had in a while. Cousin Heather came to town and we attended a dinner party at Rachel Razgunas's. Rachel recently moved here with her fiancee, and this was a sort of housewarming/welcome to new york/happy 2008 party. Then Heather and I went dancing at the Brooklyn Lyceum until we were both ready to collapse. Let me tell you - with 2007 having been such a complex and painful year, counting down to midnight while you dance your brains out is a pretty good remedy. Hello, 2008. Let's be friends, shall we?

p.s. I don't want to jinx anything, YOU KNOW I DON'T, but so far (and it's really early still) I've heard back from two of the ten grad schools to which I applied, and both have asked me to come and interview! So keep your collective fingers crossed, internet.

A Transgene Special Report (sort of)

2007-12-27T18:10:00.000-06:00

Of the myriad characters created to market products to children, perhaps none were so bizarre as those inhabiting McDonaldland, which opened its doors to the world in 1971. From the milkshake-obsessed, walking, talking tumor known as Grimace to the utterly baffling Mayor McCheese (were we supposed to want to eat his head?) the citizens of McDonaldland presented a puzzling, yet tantalizing, view of a world in which McDonald's food products were not only purchased by everyone, but actually became everything in the world itself.

That is, until recently. From Wikipedia,
Late 2007
As the ongoing obesity epidemic in western nations has been increasingly noted by the mainstream media, McDonald's and other fast food chains have been under increasing pressure to revamp their products and advertising with healthier alternatives. As part of this campaigns, McDonald's has agreed to discontinue marketing to children under the age of twelve and the McDonaldland characters will be completely eliminated;[citation needed] Ronald has been recast as a role model for healthier lifestyles.

This news item, while as yet unsubtantiated from other sources, raises an important question: what will become of those characters who filled the ranks of the McDonaldland Army? What's next for this cast of rogues?

To answer these questions, I sat down with perhaps the most beloved of these characters, the Hamburglar, in his hideout in McDonaldand.
TG: So, thanks for meeting.
HB: No problem, robble. Did you bring those hamburgers I asked for?
TG: (handing over a bag of mcdonald's hamburgers)
HB: (quickly eating the hamburgers)
TG: You're still eating McDonald's, even after the news? You aren't angry with the company?
HB: Hey, think about that for a minute, robble. This is the only food I've eaten for the past thirty-six years. Doesn't that seem strange to you? Like there wasn't any other food around? Why'd I keep trying to steal hamburgers? They made me an addict, robble. That's why. Got me hooked. I try to stop the stuff, I get the shakes. Bad.
And hell yes I'm mad at them. Robble. I'm a kleptomaniac who's got a criminal background and a speech impediment, robble robble, and no work experience in the past four decades. What can I possibly do? Ain't nobody going to hire me now. (the Hamburglar begins to sob uncontrollably)

Careful, he'll hypnotize you with treats, and that's when he sneaks in the Judaism

2007-12-19T00:44:00.000-06:00

Oh look! Free pie! My favorite kind of thing to find in the kitchen!

And aww, it's from Andrew!

WAIT WAIT WAIT...what's this in small print at the bottom?

Well, I'm sorry Jesus, but that was some excellent pie. Perhaps you'd like to make a delicious counter-offer?

HALLO-WHOA this update is late

2007-12-19T00:10:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so as I find myself listening to the Mountain Goats' song "This year" on a daily basis for its resounding chorus of "I am going to make it through this year if it kills me," it appears my blog updates have been absent for some time from my "Oh good lord get this done right now" list. But after a harrowing trip to New Jersey this evening (feel free to go ahead and die, New Jersey) I decided to do some end-of-the-year updating. So here are a whole bunch of pictures from halloween! Sorry they're not getting the treatment they deserve. Also, hooray for mermaid dog!

someone please buy me this right now

2007-11-05T15:36:00.001-06:00

I'll have trip updates soon. in the meantime, somebody start bidding because christmas is coming soon!

UGH.

2007-10-24T13:03:00.000-05:00

Why do all these people with chronic and persistent mental illness persist in having chronic mental illness? Seriously you guys, feel better soon. Even though you won't see this post.

Let me just say that working in theatre at Fountain House has really made me have to learn how to adapt techniques on the fly and how important it is to plan for people slipping off meds, ending up back in hospitals or homeless, etc. In other news, the recording of several new plays, monologues and songs from people I've been working with is almost done! I will be sending it everywhere and to everyone when it's finished.

No one wants to play Sega with Harrison Ford; Christopher Walken builds a Robot

2007-10-22T14:32:00.000-05:00

"Bad Day on the High Sea" is the title of this piece by Brandon Bird, who paints some pretty great things. If you liked Perry Bible Fellowship and can identify Chuck Norris, you'll like these. So you should go here and see them!

(also, RC 40th update coming soon)

This is pretty crazy right here

2007-10-09T01:51:00.000-05:00

This is pretty freaky. I see it going clockwise, but I can get it to reverse if I think about it. Bizarre!

Oh man, Teen Wolf!

2007-10-09T00:36:00.000-05:00

I love movies. And the more movies I see, the more I appreciate those that really stand out - the ones you keep talking about weeks after you see them, or that you honestly get excited about when you see they're coming on TV.

Just this past week my friend Maria (just back from seeing her family in Italy) and I saw "Cranes are Flying," a remarkably shot film from 1957 which tells the story of a Russian family's involvement in WWII. The director does some pretty impressive things, and his later film, "I am Cuba," has been brought back for circulation by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorscese. I'll be seeing that this coming weekend.

I also saw the new edition of Blade Runner at the Zigfield Theatre at my brother-in-law's suggestion as part of my eldest sister's birthday celebration (what a convoluted sentence). The new version looks great - the flaws from the old version have been touched up along with the music, and the film's plot holds up surprisingly well.

And tonight, Teen Wolf is on AMC! Teen Wolf!

Oct. 31 is coming!

2007-10-02T21:54:00.000-05:00

Is there any good night for a curse? Um...let me check my calendar. How's Thursday for you? Anyways, despite whatever nonsense scheduling advice Castlevania II: Simon's Quest might have to offer, Halloween is coming! I can't wait! I woke up today with the song "this is halloween" stuck in my head, and I downloaded and listened to the Mercury Theater's radio production of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is available here for free. Now I kind of really want to watch that old cartoon version of Sleepy Hollow. Oh, this is my favorite time of year!

Update: Sometimes I do love the internet. Here are the two best parts of that same cartoon telling of the Headless Horseman, the song which tells the legend and the final chase scene, courtesy of Youtube. You can't reason with a headless man.

The Muse of dance has a birthday party

2007-10-02T21:16:00.000-05:00

In my life I have met some very amazing people, and every once in a while someone comes along who is so creative and passionate in their art that they become a sort of Muse to those around them. Anne Koivunen, of whom I've spoken before, is one, and Lindsey Sherline has been inspiring me, and all those around her, for years.

And if Monday night was any indication, that list now has to include my salsa teacher. Monday's usual salsa night at Taj became her birthday party, and the night was a series of singers, dance performers, drummers, and others all marking her birthday. It was so much fun, and it was really something to see how so many creative people from different backgrounds came together to celebrate her.

I have to say, as though it weren't apparent already, that through all of the nonsense that's gone on in the past many months, my work with my salsa teacher has been great therapy and has really helped me make it through. Happy Birthday, Talia!

On the subjects of Freemasonry, salsa dancing, and Die Hard: The Puppet Musical

2007-09-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday I attended a rare performance of Die Hard: The Puppet Musical!! If you liked the first Die Hard movie, you really owe it to yourself to see it acted out by puppets. The whole thing is totally, wonderfully, over-the-top ridiculous. The production's kinda sloppy, but in some strange way, that works. Puppets exploding, making friends, committing goofy acts of violence, falling in love, and singing funny songs...do you really need anything more?

On Tuesday, my salsa teacher was on the Today show! She participated in the Today show's version of Dancing with the Stars, which entailed her teaching Tiki Barber how to cha-cha. She did a great job, particularly considering how little time they had to work together. Just another reason I'm so proud to be her student!

And in my most important news, I passed my second degree test and am now a Fellow Craft (2nd degree) Mason. (Only one more degree to go.) Our lodge, being a very old-school lodge, handles the test differently, in a way that is more stressful and asks more of the candidates than other lodges. But I really think I got much more out of the experience because I was held to high expectations. In theory I'll take my third degree test in February.

No cancer for this kitty; International Talk Like a Pirate Day; the GRE is to fun as...?

2007-09-20T02:08:00.000-05:00

Hooray! My sister's cat Bast does not have cancer, as was feared! Bast is a tremendously awesome cat who means a lot to my sister and her fiance, and, as you see below, totally comes equipped with an eye patch. Don't let the sweet (and a little dumb) exterior fool you. Piratecat is on to you.

I was going to post about international talk like a pirate day, but I was studying for the GRE and now it's the day after talk like a pirate day. The GRE is a weird thing. My princeton review book says, and I'm inclined to agree,that the GRE only tests your ability to take the GRE and nothing else. Not knowledge, not intelligence, just whether you can figure out what the test-makers were thinking when they wrote that question. That's it. So when the question asks...

Treaty of Ghent is to oxoglutarate dehydrogenase as:
a) badger is to footrace
b) schooner is to Batman
c)-12 is to lunchbox
d) Mischach is to Abednego

you know the answer is clearly (e) you are wasting time and money on a test your prospective neuroscience programs require you to take but don't really care about.

In other news, I don't want to presume anything, but I think this is about me. I even saw this person and everything! ("acrossed?") Man, this whole internet business kinda frightens me.

Except for this guy. He never frightens me.

Shakey Jake (????-2007)

2007-09-17T15:08:00.000-05:00

I was in my head, and there only, as I strode down the street. Jaw clenched, more stress than usual - too much work, too little time, and too much juggling of science and theatre and a million other things. Too much in my head, though, to actually get anything done. And then, a tiny man hobbling just as fast in the opposite direction. A big, leopard-print, fur-collared coat. A straw hat. A guitar with only three strings. Large and unmistakable sunglasses. "I got to do my job," he said, happily, addressing me. "Ain't nobody else going to do my job but me!"
He passed by, and I couldn't help but laugh. It was suddenly so clear. He had his job, I had mine. I got back to work.

Shakey Jake passed away on Sunday. His job was, by all accounts, being Shakey Jake. A local icon like no other. Loved by his host city of Ann Arbor, and always happy to bid you a hearty hello or a simple, conspiratorial nod, like he knew what you were up to and he wanted you to know he approved. Did he actually know how to play that guitar? Where did he go when he wasn't on the street? How did he know what I needed to hear? Probably neither I nor the thousands of residents of Ann Arbor with similar stories of Jake will ever know. He was just Shakey Jake, and he did his job. Rest in peace, Jake.

Of particular interest to Luke, or anyone else who likes creepy space skeletons

2007-09-17T00:49:00.000-05:00

I saw the band O'Death at a new artists showcase (for which my favorite radio station was kind enough to put me on the guest list) some months ago. They completely tore the place down - do you know how hard it is to get hipsters to dance? These guys were like what you'd get if the Manson family formed a band, and were incredibly fun to listen to. Well, they've finished their first music video, and here it is. (The claymation galley slaves are the best part, methinks.) Go watch it!

I love brooklyn (cont.d), Or, Is that giant snake monster sponsored by beer?

2007-09-17T00:40:00.000-05:00

Woo, lord it does take me a long time to keep this thing up to date. My point being, the best event in all of NYC was held, for the 40th year in a row, on labor day a stone's throw from my place of living. And the West Indian Cultural Festival/Parade did not disappoint. They say somewhere between 3 and 4 million people attended! Some of the dance troupes had upwards of 200 members! It's really just amazing, and I know it couldn't happen anywhere else.

Help!

2007-09-01T13:57:00.000-05:00

Someone last night left me a voicemail message saying "Hey, it's me," and explaining that their sister has to have surgery to remove pre-cancerous cells, and asking me to call. But they didn't say who they were, and I couldn't tell from the message! There was no record of a missed call, because my phone was off, so...if this was you, PLEASE CALL ME BACK AND LET ME KNOW!

For the millionth time, i LOVE brooklyn

2007-09-01T13:47:00.000-05:00

(this is also one of two such posts glorifying my borough of residence that you'll find this weekend, for with monday comes the best event in NYC)

I went to Coney Island last night with a friend for the fireworks. Walking around you'd be hard-pressed not to crack a smile at the surreal joyfulness of it all - the games, the rides, the music, the food. It was a perfect night, weather-wise, for laying on the beach and watching the fireworks. And there, amidst the brightly-colored commotion in the sky and on the ground at Astroland, as we rose from the sand in the shadow of the monolithic parachute jump tower sitting silent nearby, some siren Brooklynite began to really belt out the Fugees' "Killing me Softly," at a Karaoke booth on the boardwalk. And I fell in love with Brooklyn all over again.

Batch update #72 - Laziness on a saturday

2007-09-01T13:25:00.000-05:00

I am SO bad about keeping this thing updated! Things pile up and then you get posts like this one.

I flew home recently for a family reunion. It was a really nice time out at my uncle's apple orchard in Romeo, Michigan. He's had a lot of work done on the place since last I was there, and it looks great. Seeing the fam was, as always, re-energizing and calming all at the same time. I also cooked dinner with Hilary (as has become our tradition) and we made Opah.

I also have the pleasure of announcing that Sarah has bought a house with her boy Joey (who will be pictured here when blogger stops being stupid). The house is huge and they are completely renovating it (as if this girl didn't amaze me enough before). The parts that have been redone are like something out of a magazine. I'm so happy for her!

My old tango partner came to town recently, which was great fun. I got to take her out dancing with me at the usual monday night spot, and she really liked it.

Otherwise, things have been good. Work is work, I'm starting to jump through the hoops for my phd applications, and I've been dancing and cooking and running about.

A brush with greatness that could have ended in the Cobra Clutch

2007-08-17T11:22:00.000-05:00

After a harrowing ride from a cab driver I'm pretty sure was drunk or on something (he drove backwards down the freeway part of the trip), I arrived at the airport this morning and ran into an old college friend, Marit Dewhurst (who played the receptionist in The American Superhero Applies for a Job). She was on her way to Seattle, and we were catching up as she lined up to board her plane. I happened to notice the person lining up behind her, and I quickly whispered to Marit, "Do you know who that is standing behind you?!" She didn't, so I told her. And she said, loudly, "Sergeant who?"

" Sergeant Slaughter!" I said. I broke my practice of never approaching celebrities, and said hello to him and shook his hand, and told him I was a big fan. The line started to move then, and Marit kept asking, "wait, who is that?" so that was about it. Afterwards, a young couple came up to me to ask if that was the Sarge they'd seen, so I was a little glad I wasn't the only one to be caught up in the nostalgia of simpler days and better pro wrestling!

EDIT: you know, looking at that wikipedia page, I see we share a birthday and a home town. Coincidence?

"Three hundred people living out in West Virginia/have no idea of all these thoughts that lie within you"

2007-08-16T18:08:00.000-05:00

She said: "I'm thinking flashbacks. I want to show my past in flashbacks, very romantic and exciting, like a soap opera, with the pink border and everything, so that by comparison people can see how bleak my present is and how I have no future. What do you think?"

To which I replied: "That sounds amazing."

While I was really thinking: "Oh my god. This is some serious you-just-found-out-there's-no-santa-and-your-baby-bunny
-has-to-eat-sand kind of business."

Yep. Beautifully told stories to make you feel terrible and fortunate all at the same time can only mean one thing: another theatre workshop at Fountain House! I've been running these for a while now, but Wednesday's was particularly good. We had some new folks who seemed especially talented and creative - and who brought especially sad stories. It's really weird sometimes to try and match their excitement about telling these things. "Oh, abandoned by your family in an abusive hospital, you say? Forty-some shock treatments? Sure, we can stage that." Still, I am always reminded that their ability to survive all this crap and then be willing to get up and talk about it makes them a lot braver than I think I'd be.

Man, bunnies do not like sand.

This might have been the best weekend ever, Or, I guess this means we're not getting back together? (bwahahaha, i kid, i kid!)

2007-08-14T23:46:00.000-05:00

I can't even hope to accurately convey how much fun I had this weekend. Susie Harter got married! Her wedding was an adorable celebration of the pure, hopeful love that can only exist between two such wonderful and caring people, and was set against the backdrop of an idyllic, pastoral setting. I really could not be more happy for Susie and Josh!

The wedding was held at a summer camp/resort in upstate New York, and involved a weekend full of campfires, canoeing, hiking, delicious food, dancing, dancing, and dancing. I got to see some folks from college I hadn't seen in a long time, and I met some great new people, too! And, in keeping with my previous post about my friends, I was very pleased to find the guest list for this incredible couple's wedding included a neuroscience phD candidate, a very laid-back physicist who slows down single atoms in the hopes of creating the world's most accurate atomic clock, a man who not only runs health services outreach to HIV positive ex-cons, but also studies the best method for doing so, a gentleman who councils small businesses on environmental sustainability, and many, many other such inspiring folks - all of whom were, even more importantly, as sweet and sincere as can be.

The reception for the wedding was like none other I have been to. It was a fantastic dance party which culminated, very late in the night, in this hilarious and yet also really cool interpretive contact improv dance to "total eclipse of the heart," involving all of the remaining friends and family. Very strange, very funny. Then on to another campfire!

And, even though I got about an hour's worth of sleep all weekend, I still managed to keep things rolling through a very foggy-minded monday to go salsa dancing that night with the incomparable Margaret Conway (pictured here in resplendent hat)!

Tuesday night I was convinced into going to see Bonnie and Clyde at McCarren Park with some friends, but sooner or later I'm going to need some sleep!

P.S. Even though our fling lasted a very short time back in the day, it's still odd to have another ex who's married. This is what, four or five now? One has a baby, for crying out loud, and another's pregnant. Not too much pressure to move things along.

This is the kind of world I want to live in

2007-08-10T12:48:00.000-05:00

Last week there was a crazy huge dance party at the Brooklyn Museum for their First Saturday celebration. I haven't missed one of these in a while, and I'm glad that's the case, because they're always really fun. This week was a Pan-Carribean dance party held under the stars with yours truly and Marie the Swede, together with about 300 brooklynites dancing the night away. Tonight is "bollywood goes to brooklyn," an event which seems to have drawn its creative genesis from Symplex B's Gumnaam remixes.

And as if that wasn't enough joy in the world, behold! A giant LEGO man from the sea!

fun with downtime

2007-08-09T16:01:00.000-05:00

The Perry Bible Fellowship

is pretty great.

Like the Supefriends, only more than seven, and no monkey

2007-08-02T23:29:00.000-05:00

"Did you murder my father?"

Monica's father was killed in 1982 by poisonous chemicals he was exposed to while working at Hughes Research Laboratories. This is one of only ten or so facts she knew about her father prior to a roadtrip this summer. The destination? Finding out who her father was, and what actually happened to him.

Her tale is presented in "Reading the Water," a one-woman show that ran for only two nights this week at a small theatre space in Manhattan. The story is one of tremendous courage; a willingness to confront the past, and to, as one of her father's coworkers put it, "open up a very dark closet."

Monica's father was a hero, and she is so very much his child. When he wasn't working he was a volunteer search and rescue diver, renown for his ability to find anyone, even in the deepest darkest waters. After he became aware of his poisoning, he fought to protect those with whom he worked and tried to change the health conditions at Hughes. Monica has been a fighter, an unparalleled, whirling dervish of activism, someone who cares tremendously for the well being of others since long before she danced into my life.

I could not be more proud of Monica than I was after seeing her show. To confront all that she did, to ask the questions she asked...a young woman searching for her father:it's both tremendously inspiring and heartbreaking all at the same time. This is an old picture of Monica and I - a picture she titled, "a pair of sad scientists."

I think something that really struck me about her piece was that I realized that there was no doubt in me as to whether or not the Monica I know would take on such a difficult quest. There's a scene where she's boxing with the Hughes corporate goliath, and I realized that this was the Monica that had always been there, even in quiet moments, just under the surface.

This all got me thinking about the rest of my friends. A motley, eclectic, and, at times, degenerate bunch of folks though they may be, they are all insistent on change. None among them is so contented as to be inactive or cower away from the world. Be it to make better, more meaningful art, to change unjust laws or social conditions, to fight corruption or any other from a host of mildly Quixotic charges, my friends do not back down or shy away. Spotted, sure, our relationships have been, but there will always be a communion of passion and restlessness. And I love them for that.

Splendor in the garden of scientific delights, Or, spotshine of the sun-owled which?

2007-07-25T16:15:00.000-05:00

I sometimes forget I have this blog, which brings me to the topic of today's post. While doing a literature search at work today I came across an hypothesis that has been kicked around, killed, and reborn several times over the last few decades. Called the "reconsolidation hypothesis," it states that when you recall a memory, there's a window of time wherein that memory becomes susceptible to erasure (either by drug treatment or, it seems, strong enough stimuli). There are even a few scientfic studies wherein the phenomenon is demonstrated. The debate continues about whether this hypothesis holds weight or not, but I find it fascinating to consider.

Take, for example, how important it can be to recall certain memories in times of crisis (for more well-developed examples of this, see Harry Potter books 1-7). These memories can provide great strength or comfort, but what if you could only revisit them once? Would people go around always trying to make new powerful memories to draw on? What if missing your dead wife actually made you forget her? Even now I think people have the power to reshape memories to give them the memory they need or fear most. I am constantly overwhelmed by the power of nostalgia in my recollections. We know so very little about memory!

(as an aside, I also love the mental image of one's memories being susceptible to the band Erasure. "who needs love like that!")

Now if only I could remember where I left my frozen cochlea slides...

Rest in Peace, Pere Rice

2007-07-16T00:43:00.000-05:00

Pere Rice was the best teacher I've ever had. And I don't just say that because he spent our entire first day of French class freshman year teaching us to swear. Or because he made us learn the lyrics to the songs of his lady love of music, Edith Piaf, and his favorite poet, Jacques Prevert. No, more importantly Pere Rice was everything I love about old-school Jesuit education: he was tough, ridiculously smart (to the point where odd bits of information would fall out if you got him going in the right direction), witty, irreverant, and supremely dedicated to the idea that with hard work the boys at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy could become good men. Men for others, to be exact.

Pere Rice must have been in his eighties by the time he was teaching me. He was renowned as the midwest's oldest teaching jesuit, and I attended school with guys whose fathers and grandfathers had been taught by "le Pere."

Something that very few people know is how Pere Rice helped me through the hardest time in my days at The High. My best friend in junior year was also a student of Pere Rice's, and he had a nervous breakdown that led into a prolonged catatonic state, followed up with a terrifying bout of mania. This became a cycle of extremes. Things got especially tough for me when my friend's mother asked me what I thought she should do. Who was I to know? I couldn't understand what was happening to my friend, and I couldn't do anything about it. I went to Pere Rice for help. He told me everything he knew about my friend's condition, which was a great deal, and what I could do. The thing was, though, he said what he did with such a kind sadness in his voice, and I won't ever forget that. It was as though in his tone he was saying he was sorry my friend was going through what he was and sorry I had to deal with it and sorry we couldn't thereafter be the same way boys at that age at the High are supposed to be, just worried about girls and science tests and homework. But he laid it all out for me, didn't pull any punches, and showed me he had faith that I could handle the situation before me.

He knows I thought the world of him, and, I won't ever forget his faith in me. Rest in Peace, Pere.

"Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-la...
Quelle connerie la guerre..."

The 4th of July: America's Rooftop Spectacular

2007-07-16T00:40:00.000-05:00

yep. everything seems to be in order here.

A Freemason, I.

2007-07-04T00:38:00.000-05:00

My computer's been broken about a week (and also I've been busy with things like work and latin dancing 'til 2 a.m.), but I just couldn't put off writing about this any longer. As of last tuesday, I have been initiated in the ancient order of Free and Accepted Masons.

I think my sister Patience put it best when she said, "Part of why I'm so excited for you is that this is basically something you've wanted since you were about 10." And she's right. And what's even better? All of the build-up I've had in my mind about this event was totally correct. In addition to being tremendously moving and inspiring, the ceremony is full of crazy secret stuff: secret codes, handshakes, and everything else you could possibly ask for. I can't give you the details, but suffice it to say if this is any indication of what's in store for me in freemasonry, I couldn't have made a better choice.

Edit, 7/4: Yep, just like this. Only totally different. More than one friend has also admitted to assuming the Stonecutters' episode of the Simpsons has given them an accurate portrayal of the Masons. And on that I cannot comment.

On the subjects of Martin Walsh, the wonders of Canada, and the beginning of the end for my favorite place in NYC

2007-07-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

The arb show this year was the Tempest, and while there were some good things and some bad things about this production, what was outstanding was the performance of Prospero by one Martin Walsh. I - and many others - have been waiting for him to take this role for a long time. And it was worth the wait.

While I was home for the arb show, my mom and sister hilary and I took a trip to some of our old haunts in Canada. And while anyone reading this should find the following as no surprise, I LOVE CANADA.

Do you want to see pictures of my childhood? Well, here you go. Most of the images I recall from that time include canada from the backseat of a car, and a few choice locations like the ice cream parlor in Amherstburg, (what's left of) the Copper Kettle, fields upon fields, Duffy's, the barn with the apple, etc. I love Canada. I love the people, the values, the comedy on TV there, everything.

Last but not least, I attended this year's Mermaid Parade. This may or may not be the last one, because, as you may have heard, Coney Island is set to be developed. I don't know what the extent of the demolition/building will be, but things will be different. So while I had the chance, I took in the parade, the freak show, and the beach with some friends.

Updates a-comin'

2007-06-22T16:54:00.000-05:00

Soon to return with notes on the arb show, a trip to Canada, and (after tomorrow) the Coney Island Mermaid Parade! For right now, science!

Hey! I can see my house from here! WAIT WHY CAN I SEE MY HOUSE FROM HERE?

2007-05-31T17:31:00.000-05:00

Dear Google,
I can't really be bothered by you, with your adorable business strategy ("Don't Be Evil") and your giving Sarah a good job and all, but...this new "street view" map thing edges ever closer to being downright freaky. Why do I get the impression that if your trend of business innovation continues, I will awake one morning to find context-sensitive ads on the inside of my eyelids and an index of my head available online?

Sincerely,
Sketched out in Scienceland

Birthdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

2007-05-26T01:55:00.000-05:00

This picture can only mean one thing. Yeah, so, turning 27 had me a little worried. It just seemed so old, and hadn't I just turned 26? How could I explain another year gone and so many problems still left to fix! But, then I had a great week (salsa lesson, coffee with tilotama, a great session at fountainhouse, salsa dancing out in the city, awesome black tie dinner with the masons, dinner with Patience and Brian) and capped it off with a great dinner with a few friends:

and seeing Pirates 3. These events brought me to a certain conclusion: If this can be how I spend the week leading up to my birthday, and spend my birthday in such good company, maybe I'm doing something right and 27 won't be so bad. Besides, it's either turn 27 or die, really, so thank you but I'm going to pick 27. Here we go!

An Andrew and Graham Sunday Cooking Picto-Story

2007-05-14T00:30:00.000-05:00

Three to four hours later...

Tribeca Film Festival (the final four)

2007-05-09T12:53:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's late! This week has been nothing if not, um...interesting. So let's finish this!

Thursday
I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal
This documentary was produced by the film unit of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, meaning the film-makers had the best access to, and most command of, the material. And with a life as eventful as Wiesenthal's, that's very important. How do you tell the story of a man who survived the concentration camps, but lost his mother and most of his family, and who went on to become the most relentless, effective, and well-known hunter of Nazi war criminals? There's the Wiesenthal who successfully tracked down Eichmann and others and the Wiesenthal whose obsession came first above his family and his own health, and both are essential to telling this story. The film does a great job of managing the hundreds of cases and many long years of Wiesenthal's life, and is an inspiration to watch.

Friday
West 32nd: The plot of this Korean gangster movie is at times fun, at times really exciting, and at times weighted down with cliche gangster flick elements. But what I was excited by - and judging by the 200 people who had to be turned away for this sold-out show, I'm not the only one who was excited - was that this film brings to the big screen a really solid group of 6 or 7 young Korean actors with big, big potential. Like a modern-day rat pack, there is some real talent in Korea and I'd definitely like to see more of these actors. In talking with friends, I hear there is starting to be quite a buzz around Korean cinema. (Also, the friend who was to accompany me had to bail at the very last minute, so my extra ticket went to the film-maker's wife, who would otherwise not have been able to see the movie!)

Saturday
Hard As Nails: Okay, this one's going to be hard to write. Anything I write will only provide the elements of this documentary with minimal context, and the film already had to strip a lot of the context for the sake of time, so...consider that there may be some better explanation out there somewhere to what I am about to describe. This documentary tells the story of Justin, who runs a youth evangelism program for catholic kids and catholic schools in the Northeastern united States. He's clearly emotionally unstable - and admitted to being so in person at the screening, but more on that in a second - but from the film it seems his tactics include getting kids to re-create the stations of the cross by carrying a cross and being screamed at, threatened, and thrown to the ground. The kids are made to cry, expected to open up about their darkest past experiences (e.g. rape or molestation), and then screamed at some more. There's a pair of horrendous examples: 1) An obese young woman is pulled from the audience. "I'm going to speak the truth," says Justin, "she's fat. Admit it. That's how people see you. And the truth is that you are fat. And you," he says, turning to a boy chosen at random in the crowd,"you know that's what you're thinking. So say it. (screaming) Say she's fat right now! Say it!" (boy does not respond) Justin screams, "Well, forget you then!" 2) Justin asks all the students in the audience who have ever seriously considered suicide to come to the front. They do, and Justin then turns to the audience and screams, "You are the problem! You are why these kids feel this way." The film shows Justin getting kicked out of a school - the teachers and principal object to his tactics and claim they are not at all equipped to deal with the fallout of upset kids - and then the whole Catholic Diocese of Vermont bans him from the state. But he continues, as sure as ever that what he is doing is right. And that's the weirdest part - the film shows kid after kid who claim their lives were saved by Justin's workshops (and one kid whose shoulder was separated when he was thrown to the ground, who happily responds along the lines of, "I'm just happy to be able to suffer for Jesus.") The theater was at least 1/3 full of these same kids. It was a very strange viewing.

At the Q&A afterwards I asked if getting kicked out of the vermont school was an isolated occurence, and after these kids open about being molested or trying to kill themselves or whatever, and after they go through all this highly emotional stuff, whether there is any follow-up after Justin moves on to his next gig. Are the kids checked out by a counselor or anything? No, he says, because he's just one guy. He says they're starting to add some of that, because a psychiatrist has volunteered his time, but with 60,000+ kids a year going through these workshops, almost no one gets any follow-up. Any suspicions I had gotten from watching the film about whether Justin should be in his position and whether he is acting irresponsibly were loudly answered by seeing him answer questions in person: he needs to stop or be stopped from doing what he is doing.

The documentary was very intense and tells a very current and important story - I just hope somebody with some authority sees it and stops this guy before it's too late.

Sunday
World Narrative Award Winner: My Father My Lord
See this movie. Whatever you must do, whoever you must rob, see this movie. It is gorgeous and powerful like nothing I have seen in a long time, and the acting is almost supernaturally good. The film tells the story of a family of very devout Orthodox Jews. I won't tell you more about the plot, because I don't want to spoil it. But the person who introduced the film said that because of the overwhelming audience reaction and overwhelming juror votes in favor of the film, it was more than likely going to get world-wide distribution. So see this movie!

Tribeca Film Festival (Wednesday)

2007-05-03T13:46:00.000-05:00

Brave Story: Even with an incredible plot like "young boy's father abandons the family, boy's mother tries to kill herself so boy befriends another boy (whose father killed his family) and together they travel through a magical door in a spooky old house to a far-off land to learn that suffering is an inextricable part of life," Brave Story is actually pretty standard fare as far as anime goes. It's got occasionally gorgeous, almost 3D animation, but with other near-flawless heavy-hitters like Spirited Away and FLCL telling similar stories, Brave Story has some stiff competition. Still, if you're into movies of that sort - and I am - and you're looking forward to some downtime after a hectic workday - and I was - then Brave Story does a great job.

Tribeca Film Festival! (Tuesday)

2007-05-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

My Best Friend: Tonight I saw this charming little French comedy about a man who realizes he has no friends and will die alone. While witty and well-written, I'm pretty sure it's small enough and French enough that it won't ever see major distribution here - so much the better then that I got to see it at the Festival!

Tribeca Film Festival! (Monday)

2007-04-30T23:17:00.000-05:00

Tonight's fare was the documentary/docudrama The True Legend of Tony Vilar. In the 1960's Antonio Ragusa changed his name to Tony Vilar, and became a huge teen idol in European and South American music. He was on top of the world, until one fateful day when he just disappeared. His friends and relatives seemed to know where he had gone and why, but they weren't saying. Now a young Italian singer (himself a distant relative of Tony's) has decided to track down the man and find out where he went and why.

It's tough to fit this film into a particular notion of type - it's more like a dramatization of a documentary with a lot of comedy and musical numbers thrown in. And yet, it's a true story and describes real events. And the cast of strange and endearing characters really fill this movie out nicely. The screening itself was a hoot - the audience was about 98% Italian (the Q&A with the director was in Italian, with a translator for the rest of us) and seemed to all know each other - it really felt like somebody's family reunion. Which, as it turns out, it sort of was. See, in the movie, the young song writer finds Tony Vilar, once again Antonio Ragusa and now a used car salesman. As the movie unfolds he reveals that he had lost his hair at the age of 24, and, while passing through a mob of fans one night, had his toupee ripped off. Tony believed that he couldn't be a singer and be bald, so he moved to America, leaving his identity behind and starting over as Antonio.

In talking with the young singer, though, Antonio decides to give it one more try. And not only is this shown in the film, but Tony Vilar was at the screening and sang a little! He also thanked the filmakers for "bringing him back to life!" All in all, a fantastic and bizarre time.

Tribeca Film Festival: What a weekend!!

2007-04-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

Special Note: These were all premieres, and an such, the directors were there for every movie and conducted Q&A sessions afterward!

Friday:
Bomb It: A documentary about the origins of graffiti and how this medium has been developed and adapted in different cities around the world. It was so fascinating to see how graffiti can bring together people dedicated to social change and rebellion the world over!

Planet B-Boy: This movie is insane - if someone you knew were ever to believe that bboying (breakdancing) is not a legitimate form of dance, or that it does not have a tremendously profound effect on those involved, all you'd have to do is show this movie. This documentary follows five teams from different countries as they prepare for the largest and oldest b-boy contest in the world. It's a very touching film, utilizing the personal stories of the dancers to show how this art form can change lives.

My date for these movies hadn't seen much of either graffiti or b-boying before seeing these films, and was floored! These films are both excellent cultural ambassadors, it would seem.

Saturday: (the marathon)
Kristy Messer managed to make it through the marathon with me!

Nobel Son: I got to see Alan Rickman in person! And Bill Pullman! And Eliza Dushku! Oh, and also they showed a decent movie about kidnapping in which all those people starred. Sadly, though, I failed to compliment Bill Pullman on his "this is our independence day!" speech from ID4 during the Q&A. Greatest speech ever. Movie? Meh.

Life Support: A collection of four short films. Tower Block tells the story of two brothers scamming their neighbors [if you've seen Duck Season, which you should have, it's much like that]; Last Dog in Rwanda depicts a photographer trying to make sense of his assignment in the aftermath of genocide; Three Towers is a brilliant and totally enjoyable film based on a short story by Etgar Keret about the life of a couple on a small farm; Illegal ends up, despite whatever intentions the filmaker had, basically comes across as a stupid PSA about not hiring illegal immigrants. Lots of folks laughed at how over-the-top movie-style intense Illegal was, and then we found out the director was in the back of the theater. Awkward.

Heckler: Jamie Kennedy made a documentary about what happens to comics when they are heckled or criticized unfairly. The film was hilarious and made some interesting points about taking responsibility for what you say - and the Q&A afterward with Jamie Kennedy himself and the director was extremely lively and really funny.

Sunday:
The Grand: Woody Harrelson stars in a mocumentary about a poker tournament, with comic assistance from David Cross and a host of others. This movie was very, very funny. I really hope they distribute it more widely - it showcases the talents of a number of comic actors who would usually otherwise be relegated to smaller supporting roles. See it if you can!

Doubletime: Who knew that competitive double dutch was such a big deal? This documentary examines two very disparate teams preparing for the double dutch championship at the Apollo Theater. The sport has a very positive effect on those involved, and displays the tremendous dedication of the coaches who support these kids.

So, yes, I saw seven movies this weekend. Seven! All, with the exception of Illegal, were great fun to watch, and the Festival has been just soooo much fun so far!

Tribeca Film Festival! (It begins!)

2007-04-26T22:02:00.000-05:00

Yep, I'm going the the Tribeca Film Festival! A LOT of the Tribeca Film Festival. Fifteen movies between now and next Sunday, to be exact. Some with company, some by myself, all courtesy of General Motors via charity auction at Eton Academy via my generous parents.

The Movie that kicked things off for me tonight was a Tunisian film called "The Making Of." It tells the story of Bahta, a young man desperately seeking the respect he feels he deserves. His unfocused anger - brilliantly played by actor Lotfi Ebdelli - leads him to join a gang, but there he's only appreciated for his dancing ability and his masculinity is often the butt of the group's jokes. His girlfriend flaunts her infidelity in front of him, saying that she's looking for a real man who can support her dream of being an actress. He wants to join the army and fight against the U.S. in Iraq, but he's dismissed as a child. He steals a police uniform and apes at being an authority figure, but as a result he has to go into hiding from the police. Bahta's insecurity ultimately leads him to be taken advantage of by Islamic fundamentalists, who tell Bahta that he will only be respected as a man when he returns to conservative Islam and becomes a martyr.

Bahta's anger makes him an unsteady candidate for martyrdom, though, and his manipulators cut him loose. He screws up his final, desperate attempt for respect and blows himself up, accidentally, in circumstances rendering his act entirely impotent.

The film is a discussion with the audience about a very real mindset - Bahta reminded me so much of young men in gangs I worked with in Detroit - and what can come from it. But "Making Of" is also careful not to claim it knows where to lay the blame. In fact, the film breaks down at a few key points as Lofti refuses to continue the scene and demands to talk with the director about what he's doing, as in one case where he feels Islam is being unfairly implicated.

A great start to what should be quite an experience!

Dr. Science, Freemason.

2007-04-25T00:09:00.000-05:00

My evening with the Masons on Friday last concluded with instructions to await a call from the head of the Lodge - who would let me know how things were going to proceed - and also some strange advice (more on this in a moment). The head of the Lodge contacted me to say that the investigative committee would report to the Lodge on Tuesday (the 24th) and the ballot for my membership would be voted on that evening. I was then invited to the black tie dinner which follows each Lodge meeting, and at dinner my fate would be revealed.

I have returned tonight with excellent news: I have been voted in! I was told by one of the Brothers that the committee and those who knew me presented my petition to the Lodge very enthusiastically and favorably, and that I was strongly received. I also find this especially flattering because of the talk at dinner which came up about the number of prospective Masons who had been denied admission to this Lodge.

Now, a word about Lux Aeterna, the Lodge I will be joining. They are held, in the Masonic world, in very high regard, having been begun a few years ago as a response to what was perceived as a shift in other Lodges over time to functioning more and more as just social clubs. This Lodge, then, is more old school - preserving the esoteric symbolism and complex ritual of Freemasonry while cultivating a discourse in pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment (purposefully like the discussions/debates found at the Royal Society or Academie Francaise).

So I'm in, but I haven't been initiated yet. And it was on the subject of that very event that I was left with the aforementioned strange advice. It was along the lines of, "We can't tell you what's going to happen, so just be ready and keep your mind open. Rely on your logic and strength of character and you will succeed." Me: "Um..." I'll be initiated and conferred with my first degree in June.

To be part of one of the largest contributors to charitable work in the world (there are Masonic (shriners') hospitals offering free care, Masonic burn units, child ID programs, substance abuse recovery programs, elder living centers, a cardiac research facility, etc., etc., etc.) and to join the ranks of Voltaire, Mozart, Ben Franklin, FDR, Harry Houdini and my Grandfather is a tremendous honor.

Interlude: I AM NOT OKAY (thanks, house party)

2007-04-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

The story of the Freemasons will have to wait until later this week (when certain events transpire) but there's something I have to get off my chest.

Now I know that in the blogosphere it can often occur that we post things to make other people - like ex's - jealous or think we're totally fine with something that happened. I am abandoning all that here.

"I stay up, clean the house. At least I'm not drinking.
Run around just so I don't have to think about thinking."
- Amy Winehouse, Wake up Alone

I am not okay. I know I said I'm being all dynamic now and doing a lot of cool stuff. And I have been doing very cool things, and getting out more, talking about moving forward in my life, maybe getting a phD. But not for one minute have I stopped feeling like I want to throw up all the time because of what I went through with my ex. I have tried so hard to get past it but there are a million things every day that remind me of her, that I would want to share with her. I miss her so much.

And I thought for a little bit that I was doing okay, but then last night I went to a house party and there was this woman there who looked just like her. And any progress I'd made disappeared instantly and I wanted to curl up on the pavement and die. My friends noticed a change in me, so I said I wasn't feeling well and left the party. When I got home, I foolishly checked her blog. (I mean, if you've fallen off the wagon, why not throw yourself under the wheels, right?) And I found she'd posted all these pictures of a happy vacation she took with him and I was left a total mess. (see? that's how you use a blog. not like this at all.)

So I'm right back to listening to Amy Winehouse songs and laying in bed. The worst part? I'm sure she's totally fine, and happy with whatever guy(s) she's with while I'm trying not to lose my lunch at the thought of it. The second worst part? (of course in this situation there would be two) Even after all the bad that happened, I would still let her back in without a second thought. I miss her so much.

I am not okay.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

2007-04-20T08:50:00.000-05:00

If you guessed the Freemasons, you'd be correct. I have my interview with the investigatory committee tonight!

Travel Update

2007-04-20T08:29:00.000-05:00

Last weekend/this week I ventured home to Michigan for a visit and also to celebrate St. Easter's Day (which falls about one week after regular Easter).

The trip was great, although it flew by! I did manage to see a good number of old friends, meet some new ones, get my ear pierced again, and just enjoy the gorgeous spring weather in Ann Arbor. Of particular note was going with Beca to get her nose pierced at a tattoo parlor where her piercer worked in front of a plaque declaring her a member of the NRA Legion of Honor, along with a signed picture of George and Laura Bush saying, "Thanks for the support!" It was quite the image.

The michigan fam and I also took in the Bodies exhibit at Detroit's Science Center, and I'll say again that if you haven't seen this incredible display, you need to. The presentation is both tremendously educational and downright awe-inspiring.

I was very glad to go home, and even though the trip was too short and the time in ann arbor was a mix of three-quarters happy and one-quarter sad (as it always is), I hope I can go again soon. I really miss my family and love spending time with them. And besides, Martin Walsh will be playing Prospero in the Tempest in June's arb show, for crying out loud!

p.s. Of course I saw Sarah, and I was overjoyed to see how set up she is at the new Google offices. The place is VERY cool and Google seems like a fantastic company to work for, so I'm really happy for her!

I saw the museum's new exhibit. It stunk.

2007-04-11T00:36:00.000-05:00

Nothing says "Welcome to the MOMA," and "thanks for using the precious few hours on saturday morning before you go to work by coming here," like poop on the floor. Honest to god poop. Thanks, MOMA. Elsewhere in the museum, the Jeff Wall exhibit is underwhelming, but the Armando Reveron retrospective surprised me by being very interesting. Dude was a weird guy, but I like his strange/creepy doll constructions and his white paint/off white canvas works. His self portraits really speak to his intensity and fixation of his work. And you can skip the Abbas Kiarostami exhibit; just enjoy how it sounds on paper and leave it at that.

I also may have eaten at the world's smallest Thai restaurant on Saturday. See why work appears as such a safe bet sometimes?

Okay, good news and bad news. Bad news? I have somehow set Blogger to German Language. I mean, I know what the buttons do, but still. Good news? I have invented "creme bruloaf." That is the what...I need the how!

Winter's End

2007-04-04T12:50:00.000-05:00

"Dodge: I don't wanna talk about anything! I don't want to talk about troubles or what happened fifty years ago or thirty years ago or the race track or Florida or the last time I seeded the corn! I don't want to talk!" -- "Buried Child"

Now the winter was bad, and I don't just mean the weather. From family strife to friends falling ill to money woes and a particularly bad kicking of my already scarred heart, the past few months really did me in.

But that's the thing: these months have passed. And the winter is over and I'm getting better. And I no more want to talk about my troubles now than I did then. Does that mean, as in Buried Child, that someday my son will carry a dead baby through my living room? So be it, friends! I'm going to tell you instead about some new goings-on.

Some recent highlights include dinner with the Freemasons (and putting in my petition for joining), buying a tuxedo, visiting with Craig Van Kempen and recording a new radio play for a Radio Theatre podcast I am putting together. I'm also in a play at the Provincetown, which goes up soon - it's a terrible play, but it's nice to be on stage again.

Saturday I headed to waaaaaay far out Queens for a breakdancing contest, and then onto no fewer than three gallery openings. At one opening, at the Joseph Levine Gallery, I saw the following painting by Matt Haber, entitled "Shipwreck!" which I absolutely love:

Sunday brought a private salsa lesson with my ridiculously hot salsa teacher, and then an evening dissecting at work.

This week will be a lot more rehearsal, but Saturday I've got fun museum plans. Until then!

P.S. Much like my dear Mango Pancakes, I am trying out a new blog template. I needed to shed the old one, but I'm still not totally happy with the new.

I Was a Teenage Prehistoric Forest!

2007-01-25T13:52:00.000-06:00

This is the Prehistoric Forest in Irish Hills Michigan. My family went there when I was much younger. I just found out it closed a number of years ago. But it's still there. The giant fiberglass dinosaurs, grossly inaccurate and as much fantasy as history, silent in the forest. Can you imagine stumbling onto a place like this at night?

Nearby is the Mystery Hill, where gravity is defied. We stopped there, too. It, though, remains in business. I wonder what that signifies?

(back to regular updates maybe soon)

OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY ... OKAY

2007-01-08T00:56:00.000-06:00

HERE IS A BLOG POST.

I owe you many more. From the Holidays, from the gleeful end of a largely bad year, to art shows and goings on in the big city. For now, you get a fat squirrel, because there's just too much on my mind to give you anything else.

Alec Bryce (Jan. 31, 1917 - Dec. 4, 2006)

2006-12-04T21:27:00.000-06:00

This photo shows how we will always be.

The iceskateer. The iceska-who?

2006-12-04T00:39:00.000-06:00

(no, you're right, it's probably never a good idea to make Rocketeer allusions for humor)

Marie the Swede and some of her friends and I went ice skating at Bryant Park tonight. Now, you may have heard me mention before how totally inept New Yorkers are at walking in anything even vaguely resembling an orderly and considerate fashion, so to understand tonight, just apply that idea to ice, and speed it up. Yep. Ridiculous.

And yet, I had a really wonderful time. That's the thing I'm noticing more and more these days. As much as you might not want to, New York City will make you love the holiday season. It's crazy. I'll walk around thinking about how I don't really even like Christmas, I hate the throngs of tourists/holiday shoppers, and I don't like that it's getting cold. Then they'll go and put Christmas trees on the street corner so the air smells like pine, or they'll add decorations which, however cheesy, find some way to warm your heart. It's crazy, but it's New York in December and there's no place like it.

pARTy, or, As if I needed ANOTHER reason to love Brooklyn

2006-12-04T00:15:00.000-06:00

Where else can you arrive at 9 p.m. to attend a dance party in the middle of a room full of expensive artwork, and take a break by heading downstairs to see the Ron Mueck exhibit? Or a huge selection of works by Walton Ford? Or a massive collection of photos by Annie Leibovitz? And all for free? The Brooklyn Museum is the place to be on the first saturday night of the month, and that's that.

Andrew, Rachel, Marie, Mingo, Brian, Brian's old college friend and I attended the festivities this weekend, and it was so much fun!

By the way, Ron Mueck's work (above is a picture I found online of one of his pieces being finished, and beneath that, a Walton Ford watercolor) is even more impressive (or creepy, depending on your style) as you think it might be. I found his strange-scale, perfect-replica people amazing.

Take THAT, corporate bookmobile!

2006-12-04T00:14:00.000-06:00

Saturday was the Independent and Small Press Book fair. It was really interesting to see all the stuff that's being put out by these small companies, and I had to fight pretty hard to resist buying huge piles of the stuff. So many good books! I ended up buying just two: a collection of writings by Latin American Jews on Judaism in Latin America as a present for Andrew, and a book for myself about understanding Islam. I'm glad I got out of there when I did, though, or I'd have needed a wheelbarrow to get all my purchases home.

These, right here, are good people. And then I'm in there, too.

2006-12-04T00:04:00.000-06:00

On thursday I was overjoyed to attend a soiree held by Annie, the sister of one Mango Pancakes, in honor of Ms. Pancakes' trip to NYC. The event afforded me the opportunity to catch up with some great people, three of whom are pictured here. I want to single two of them out, although, really, it's like singling out just one.

Margusie. Sugaret. Margaret and Susie, hetero life partners, have been an inspiration to those aspiring to friendship for as long as I have known them, lo these many years, and they are both such wonderful people in their own rights, too. Margaret does amazing things incorporating theatre into learning for children, and Susie teaches 2nd grade better and with more heart and dedication than anyone else, ever. These are two people who push the scales of the world balance back toward good while the rest of us jerks are out there screwing it up. Seriously, these two are so great and deserve such wonderful things. Which is also why I'm happy that susie has found herself engaged! Congrats, susie. And mingo, well, she's not engaged, but she's got herself someone who makes her very happy (and is so nice it almost creeps me out).

And as for Zack, pictured here, I think he'd appreciate being left undescribed. He knows what he did. It was great to see folks like these, as well as Annie, Brendan, the other Graham, Max, and Brian.

Freemasons (with purchase of regular masons)

2006-12-04T00:03:00.001-06:00

This picture is of a large meeting room in the Grand Masonic Lodge of the Freemasons here in New York. All of the other meeting rooms are smaller, and have measurements determined to be of the same proportion to rooms within Solomon's Temple. The building is a very strange place, full of remarkable and mysterious history.

I met with the head of one freemasons' lodge this past wednesday for donuts. We'd been in contact since I first took a tour of the Lodge building during Open House New York (a yearly event where you get to go cool places you couldn't normally go). We met at the lodge, and talked for over 3 hours. He told me about his life, and about Freemasonry - well, except the stuff he couldn't talk about. That's the most entertaining part about these guys. They're great, and affable, and they continually drop hints of there being secrets they have which you can't know. It's kind of a lot of fun.

Now I have my reasons for considering getting involved, most of which stem from the idea of accomplishing more charity work in congress with one of the largest charity organizations around, and from what they have to say about self-improvement. But I'd be a liar - and you'd know I was - if I said I also didn't love the mysterious ways and history. I mean, c'mon. Name a major male figure in American history, and most likely that person was, or had ties to, freemasonry. Ben Franklin assisted in Voltaire's induction. These guys are old school.
We'll see what happens.

" 'Cause everyone's your friend, in New York City. And everything looks beautiful, when you're young and witty."

2006-11-29T03:43:00.000-06:00

I recently ran into Katie Schorr, from college days, on the subway, and she's in this hilarious new improv show called "The NYC" at the People's Improv Theatre (the PIT). It's an improvised teen drama, and does an hilarious job of mocking shows like 90210, the O.C., and maybe even a little Degrassi. It's even serialized, so each week picks up where the last week's stories left off. I went monday night, and it was great! The less-than-stellar part, though? Katie's older aunt and uncle, who had never seen her on stage before, chose this show to attend (complete with its section where the guys need to pay off their debts at the Shake Shop and so film and sell a "guys gone wild"-style porno film in a janitor's closet). Hilarious for me, awkward for her.

Incidentally, I feel like I know a lot of people named Katie. It's like 128 Hot Katies up in here. Oh, and Katie Knott, whom I dated post-college in the D, just told me she is getting married! That seems to be happening a lot...

This is awful. Here, you try.

2006-11-27T00:47:00.000-06:00

I'm kind of surprised that I don't blog more about music. Recently someone told me that they had never seen me without my headphones either on or in my hand, and the person in question sees me pretty frequently. I walk with music, section and dissect at work with music, fall asleep to music - you get the idea. And while somewhere in the back of my head there lurks the vague beginnings of a "my NYC soundtrack" blogpost, I thought I'd take this opportunity to mention a few eccentric bits of music I think you would find fun because of their sheer terribleness:

1) Harry and the Potters - this is a band that performs songs based on the Harry Potter novels. Do I even need to say anything else? Their songs are awful both musically AND lyrically. The emo theme,"I am a wizard," is particulary awesome.

2) Starsplash - I'm not sure how many people know this, but I thrive in a work environment filled with terrible trance techno music. Seriously, I can pump out 50+ page papers like nobody's business when there's bad, mind-numbing trance music in the background. And if you've ever taken the time to listen to the lyrics, they're like horrible 7th grade poetry. One need look no further than Starsplash's "Travel Time":
Take my hand to travel time,
So we can run away forever,
There's a chance we cross the line,
And we can do this thing together,
And my heart goes out to everyone,
A light will shine on him,
So please lay down your heart,
'Cause this is who I am.
[drum breakdown]
Bass in your face!

3)Remixes that just don't work - Say, what's better than listening to one song you like? That's right: listening to two songs you like! But who has time for all that? Oh, I know, let's just lay one on top of the other and call it a remix. Don't worry if they clash horribly. Snoop Dogg and Riders on the Storm? sure, why not! An Eminem track and a song by Shaggy AND Survivor's eye of the tiger? Ooh, a hat trick of auditory trauma!

4) Anything with Lil' Jon - This man is a genius. He's the illegitimate musical love-child of Flava-Flav and James Brown and he has exactly ONE brilliant performance which he recreates on every single track on which he appears. And he's on DOZENS from countless rap artists. And a commercial for Subway sandwiches. The coup de grace? I once heard a music critic from the New York Times describe him as being the new minstrel show. The man shook his head in shame just from seeing Lil Jon dance! How is this not all you listen to?

There's a LOT of terrifically horrible music out there, just waiting to be found.

On a night like this

2006-11-25T12:40:00.000-06:00

The city was a ghost today. Even the Medical Center was eerily quiet, and everyone I saw seemed to be doing their best just to laze along. I went salsa dancing last night, but the event was about as exciting as a damp rag. And while yes, this is the city that doesn't sleep, it is apparently also the city that refuses to get off the couch following an overdose of tryptophan. So, take that, Friday.

Overheard on the way home, outside a movie theater: "That movie was great, even though it wasn't like the thing it was...even without being the thing it was. You know? And really both could have been good." Well, I didn't even see the movie, but I mean, YES. There's no way a statement like that can't be true.

Good Times with the Goodmans

2006-11-25T11:56:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving can be kind of a tough time for me. And not just because the Lions always lose. This is a holiday for family, and if I can't be with them, I'd usually rather occupy myself with something entirely different.

But this year Andrew would hear none of it, so I was brought to Woodbury, Connecticut for his family's holiday dinner. The best part about this story is that there really isn't much to tell: we made food, joked around, his mother made us sing Dona Nobis Pachem together in the kitchen, and we ate too much. That's pretty much it. And you know what? It was great, and I'm really glad I went.

Risotto-tastic (risotto-riffic?)

2006-11-21T21:49:00.000-06:00

So I'm learning to cook. I had wanted to take cooking classes, but it turns out they're crazy expensive here and didn't actually make learning to cook sound like much fun. Well, it just so happens that a little while ago I ran into someone I met during my college orientation at UM right here in the neighborhood. We'd never really gotten to know each other, but we were always on good terms and would say hello, that sort of thing. It turns out she's a chef at a well-known fancy restaurant in NYC - and here I cannot over-stress the importance of the following credential - the very same restaurant which has been reserved for Thanksgiving dinner by David Bowie.

Anyways, long story short, we struck up a deal for her to teach me to cook. We get together and shop for ingredients for a menu, preare the food under her instruction, and then host a dinner party. We had out first one Sunday, and it was so much fun!

We made risotto with roasted candy-stripe beets and kale, and a salad of roasted squash, bitter greens, and walnuts in a walnut oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. We finished it up with an apple crisp with soy cream. Perfect for a chilly fall evening with friends.

I think we'll be doing these every couple of weeks, so I'm very excited!

Crazytown checks in

2006-11-16T00:13:00.000-06:00

Every once in a while New York will flex its crazy-muscles just to remind me that it's top of the weird pile. Tonight was one such time. Roaming around and deep in thought though I was, something caught my eye and snapped me back to reality as I walked through Washington Square Park. And I could not regret more my not carrying my camera at the time.

The item in question was a taxidermied squirrel standing upright with a large paper model plane in its mouth. On it was a sign that read:

"Hello, my name is Kitty Boo.
I was electrified.
A nice man gave me this hat and airplane.
TAKE ME HOME."

The hat, sadly, was nowhere to be found; and no, I did not take Kitty Boo home.

This concludes our gentle reminder. Thank you for choosing New York City, where our motto is, "Yeah, sure, why not?"

This Sundae Would Kill Most People

2006-11-14T10:08:00.000-06:00

See, Carol, I thought they wouldn't understand - couldn't understand what we had to do. It was a matter of survival, man vs. nature and all that. Not a thing to speak of on a civilized blog like this. Children read this blog. How could I accurately describe the hugeness? The deliciopumpkinositude that trapped us in its carmely death grip and forced us to eat our way to freedom?

You know what I'm saying. You were there.

They'll never understand.

And that's not all!

2006-11-12T15:15:00.000-06:00

As for the rest of my trip, there were a number of great things. It was very hectic, and at times frustrating, but overall it was really, really good for me to be home. So, the highlights and lowlights, for your perusal:

- Spending 16 hours at Laguardia because stupid Spirit Airlines is managed by a bunch of stupid jerks. Never again, if I can help it, will I lash my fate to their bargain basement enterprise.

- Saw Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D!!! It was fantastic and looked great. I'd forgotten how good that movie is.

- Attended the Halloween Bang, which was filled with a very different crowd from previous The Bangs I'd been to, and not different good. Definitely the other kind of different. The drunken, ruiner-of-faith-in-humanity kind.

- Attended a co-op party where my good old pal JP's band was playing. This turned out to be, incidentally, the exact same co-op party as every other co-op party anyone has ever been to, ever. Just as strange, just as many people trying to have drunken sex on the floor of a crowded room, just as many kids smoking on the porch. (shakes head)

- Cooked pheasant. Pheasant! Who does that? My sister Hilary and I do. Pheasant, lamb, and lobster tail.

- Danced tango, salsa, and merengue. Sometimes in socks, and twice in Angell Hall.

- Made the annual family visit to Haunted Greenfield Vilage in costume as dead monks and were, again, confused for being part of the event. Ended up in a LOT of pictures again.

- Attended a workshop on theatre and social justice, where I talked about Matrix and its relationship to the RC, and was made to stereotype members of the Rotary Club for dramatic purposes. Not my shiningest theatre moment.

- Saw two of my oldest friends in the world, Craig and Naomi. It's funny how certain people can just make you feel more like yourself than you have in a long time, more comfortable and capable and happy. We recorded an audio-card for our friend who is getting married in New Zealand, and made sure to include vital marriage advice. I'm sure you can imagine how simultaneously helpful and misinformed our words will be upon reaching her.

- AND saw lots of friends, loved ones, and family. Ate lots of food, walked great distances, told stories, laughed, and had a very wonderful time.

This was Halloween, this was Halloween

2006-11-12T14:30:00.000-06:00

Sorry, kids, I've been occupied with other goings-on lately, and, when one posesses precious few mental faculties to begin with, getting distracted is tough to avoid. But, I mark my return by bringing photos of mirth and fantastic creativity (click for larger versions). Most of these were taken on the evening following the 31st, because the night itself we were all busy being pirates. You know, keeping our priorities straight.

This year saw the much-anticipated return of the pirate ship to our front lawn. My father attested to having folks stop by well in advance of halloween to inquire whether we would be doing our stuff again this year. I myself had to field questions from a surprising number of people who balanced their questions with compliments about how much fun they'd had in previous years at our house. Folks came from all over.

This was easily the biggest and most complex display yet - and of the new items, I think my favorite was this masthead my dad made. He carved the entire thing out of blocks of styrofoam, and it's just beautiful. On Halloween proper, we received overwhelming expressions of thanks from parents and kids alike for all the work and detail which had gone into making something everyone could enjoy (secretly, we enjoyed it most of all).

We tried to show folks the power of creativity and imagination. I think that is tremendously important, and inspiring, at the risk of sounding immodest. Putting together stuff from cardboard and other people's garbage and then acting like pirates for a few hours may sound crazy, but you'd be amazed how into it we can get, and the neighborhood can get. I have the most fun working with my family on making something from almost nothing - it's a really fantastic experience. And for our visitors, we offer a simple message, and it is those words, pictured here, which with I leave you. Happy Halloween, all!

What do you mean it's only barely monday? WHY IS IT NOT FRIDAY YET?!

2006-10-16T00:55:00.000-05:00

(While several months old, that is still the strangest AND least attractive picture of me. I mean, I hope.)

I've been working more than I'm entirely comfortable with lately to try and get as much done as possible for our major grant renewal application for the lab. In addition, the time I have is shortened because.....

I am going home on Friday to celebrate Halloween! Highlights include attending a masked dance party at Jose's all of a few hours after arriving in michigan friday night, seeing Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D with Kitty-Chan, attending a Halloween Bang at the Blind Pig, going to a haunted Greenfield Village, AND preparing for/pulling off the most fun Halloween display in the free world at the Atkin house.

Man, could I use a break from New York. I love the place, don't get me wrong, but it's been pretty nuts since I returned, and at times very, very stressful. So this trip will be excellent for me. I'm excited to see my family and Sarah and my friends at home.

Now, of course, because it's very late at night/early in the morning, I will allow a modicum of sentimentality onto the tail-end of this post by saying that my reading about recent life-events in the blog posts of certain friends have reminded me that they will not be around ann arbor when I go there, and that that does make me kind of sad. But then I recall that if they were in ann arbor hanging out with me, they wouldn't be out brightening up other areas of the world (Margaret's in Chicago, Susie's in Boston, and Jim's in Medicalville, for examples). Which, I think, you'll agree is pretty necessary given the news these days. So I guess it all evens out. That's it. End of sentimentality; back to the cold, iron fist of science.

Science!

Dr. Science answers: What's your deal with pirates?

2006-10-09T00:52:00.000-05:00

For reasons that will become clear at the end of this post (don't scroll down just yet!), I have decided to answer a question I get asked all the time: "what's your deal with pirates? Why do you like them so much?"

I've actually taken years to figure out this answer for myself. So let's start at the beginning, with what I believed to be the colossal failure of the staging of my The American Superhero Applies for a Job. Here I term it a failure because the discussion I was trying to provoke with that piece, one about the incompatibility of the superhero mentality with the modern-day business-driven world, did not once appear in the comments or feedback I received, which overwhelmingly identified the play as "funny," and only just that. In response, I wrote a new play that moved as far away from meaningful subtext as possible - a play about a lonely pirate becoming the new gym teacher for an elementary school. He said he just wanted to be able to be a pirate captain again, even if only of a gym class full of youngsters. In truth, the resulting piece, The Loneliest Pirate, is the same play as American Superhero, with all the meaningful subtext replaced with what I believed to be the insane ramblings of a lonely pirate. Whereas Superhero had eccentric characters with stark truths, Pirate had cartoonish characters with nonsense to offer. It, too, was received as "funny."

But something happened to me during the staging and performance of that show: Cap'n Scourge, my loneliest pirate, started to make sense. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to leave me wondering about things. This play, too, would be the moment identfied by the Fanciest American as beginning the "resurgence of pirate culture."

I've always liked pirates - who doesn't? - and after a number of pro-pirate events (parties, nights in the dorm, etc.) in the following months, pirates were more of a mainstay among my social millieu. Not much later, I found myself crafting, out of two cheap purchases at Kiwanis, the now-ubiquitous PIRATE sweatshirt. And I found I took great pride in wearing it.

At this point, against thet backdrop of piratey-fun goings-on, an author named David Cordingly makes his appearance in our narrative. His book, Under the Black Flag, became a favorite read of mine for the simple fact that it was tremendously interesting and had stories about pirates. But, to my fascination, Cordingly revealed a number of critical truths about his subject. Namely, that most of the pirates started out as honest sailors, working back-breaking labor for bad wages, who were forced to deal with inept captains - captains placed in charge by their ship-owner fathers with no experience to earn them their position. Too poor to own their own boats, these sailors toiled on some Fat Cat's boat with no say in their working conditions.

Those sailors made a crucial decision: that rather than continue in the unfair system, they could seize control of the boats, give every man an equal say in the decisions and an equal share of the profits they'd be taking from the Fat Cats. Pirate ships were, as Cordingly points out, some of the first real democracies the world had ever seen. He also notes that a great many sailors on those ships robbed by pirates elected to join their robbers' crew in order to get a more agreeable job.
In effect, the pirates decided they didn't have to take the deal they were being given; they didn't have to play the hand they were dealt.

Example? Cheng I Sao, the cantonese prostitute who decided she'd rather build the largest pirate fleet in history - one which frightened off the British Navy.

These stories told by Cordingly began to remind me of someone else. Namely, the pirate-y-est guy I can think of today, my father. A man whose tremendous artistic talents have (in the years I've been around) been grossly underappreciated and under-utilized by his employers, and has forged his own ways to express his creativity, with breathtaking results. Perhaps his greatest talent is taking garbage - literally, discarded materials - and turning it into beautiful works, not least amongst which are the displays that capture the interest and imagination of adults and children by the hundreds every Halloween. How's that for not just accepting things as they're offered to you?

In my own life, I think this defiant sense of being entitled to self-determination has largely underscored my theatre work. Whether dealing with teens in an area of extreme improverishment, who are told to strive for nothing more than mediocrity, or with adults with mental illness, who are told they are fundamentally flawed and undeserving of fair treatment, I have been proud to carry and spread the conviction that you don't have to take the deal you're given, and just because you were dealt a bad hand doesn't mean you have to follow the rules. And I have been very proud of what has come from that belief.

And from my father leading a hacksaw raid on an old stat camera being thrown out and making off with several hundred dollars worth of lenses, back to my rum-running relatives during prohibition, to my ancestors whose clan was synonymous with doing things in their own way, the pirates (albeit in an editorialized fashion) stand as colorful and tremendously fun exemplars of the aforementioned beliefs.

So now I'm proud to carry these beliefs in a new way, as I have with other fundamental tenets of my life:

I guess Cap'n Scourge needn't feel so lonely, after all.

The Big Reveal

2006-09-27T14:47:00.000-05:00

I don't usually like to jinx things. I take particular care to not let out bits of optimistic chatter when things might still not come to pass as I'd hoped. But, in this case, I've slipped up already to a number of you. And, after yesterday, my exciting secret plans have gotten even more exciting, so I'm just going to risk it and let you all in on my enthusiasm.

Fountain House is the oldest, largest, and most well-known clubhouse (read: member run support organization) for adults with mental illness in the world. It is also the clubhouse on which all other clubhouses are based, and, as one administrator there said, "If Fountain House does it, everyone else will do it." The Fisher Clubhouse, with whom I collaborated to create the Fisher Players, is one such clubhouse and ineed does have ties to Fountain House.

To make a long story short, it was through these ties and a performance by the Fisher Players attended by Fountain House staff that I was recently asked to start a program for Fountain House as I had done at the Fisher Clubhouse: a troupe to create plys based on members' experiences and focused on combatting the stigma around, and mistratement of, those with mental illness. I had one meeting and found that there was genuine interest on the part of Fountain House, and yesterday I went back for another meeting. This time, the meeting was even more successful - somehow, more sincere and meaningful that the previous one. In describing my previous work with the Fisher Players, one of the administrators with whom I was meeting said "this, what you are describing, is what Fountain House should be about."

Their reactions were tremendously complimentary to me and to the idea of this work (one even got a little choked up talking about his experiences with the power of applied theatre) and they were very serious about making this program a reality in the best ways possible. So I've still got some more planning to do and folks to talk to over there, but at this point I can't help but be really thankful to God, and Matrix, and the Fisher Players, and everybody who helped to bring me to this opportunity. Can you tell I'm excited?

Dr. Science meets The Strange Dr. Weird

2006-09-27T14:27:00.000-05:00

I just discovered the fantastic world of podcasts. You can download things like radio shows and lectures on a vast spectrum of topics FOR FREE and listen to them on your iPod. So while I've been enjoying this really well done lecture series on the origins of Hinduism, I decided to take a break for some lighter fare this morning.

The Strange Dr. Weird, voiced by Maurice Tarplin and broadcast on the radio from 1944-45, offers the listener chilling tales of suspense and the supernatural. Also included - at least in the stories I heard - is a bizarrely high ratio of characters present in the story to characters killed in the story. One episode has the murderer shoot every other character in the story in a span of five or so minutes. And each time a story ends, the Strange Dr. Weird returns to taunt you. "I'll bet you didn't expect that," he'll say, or, "If only he had known there was but a single pool of quicksand, but he didn't, did he? (spooky organ flare)"

So, if you ever find yourself in need of a good laugh, particularly one sponsored by Adam brand hats, then look no further than the preamble to each episode and "just look for the house on the other side of the cemetary - the house of the Strange Dr. Weird."

Good luck, Jen! Though the rest of you may really need it.

2006-09-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

Saturday I was at work until past nine, but I was able to rush over to a bar on the west side for a farewell send-off for my friend Jen from grad school. She was one of the few with whom I developed a real bond of friendship in grad school, and although she is going to be very happy working with a really fabulous organization providing arts opportunties to kids in Los Angeles, all of New York city will miss her.

And at that same event I crossed paths with two other friends from grad school, one of whom regailed the rest of us with disturbing tales of her apartment in a haunted old hospital in Brooklyn. The creepiest of many strange occurences described was the disembodied giggling of a young girl which will sound when someone else laughs in the apartment.*shiver* I advised that she and her roomate make sure to sleep under a blanket of crosses.

I was a Craig's List Missed Connection

2006-09-22T15:20:00.000-05:00

Yes yes yes, I've been sick and am behind on my updates. Well I'm also behind on my laundry, so we'll get to both of those later. For now, though, there's this:

For those unaware of the Missed Connection section of Craig's List, it's where people post messages about someone they either had a moment with in passing or just admired from afar while riding the same subway train, that sort of thing. I, and several of my close friends, read it quite regularly because it is brilliant for people watching - reading about moments shared and missed, unrequited love from someone you see everyday on the same train, and that certain totally random someone you just can't get out of your mind.

And now, after years as a reader, I am the subject of such a message.

I noticed this headline and message among the missed connections, in the woman looking for man category:
tall guy reading on the N from brooklyn - w4m - 28 I see you some mornings- usually you are reading a book and looking serious under your fraying baseball cap... What would it take to get you to smile?

So I think, "well, I take the N from brooklyn in the morning, I'm tall, I'm usually reading and not smiling, and I wear a frayed baseball cap." So I send a very simple message asking if this was about me, with a picture, and here's the response I got:

"yup, you are the tall stranger :)
I'm surprised (and a little
embarrased) that you actually saw my post! I didn't think these things
ever worked- what are the chances?? I just put it out there on a whim.
but I'm glad it made you smile :)

So um, I guess you know I think you're cute-- do you have a
girlfriend? Would you like to meet up sometime?

Colleen
PS- here is a pic of me from July"

Honestly, more than anything else I just find this flattering.

Free to good home: One horrible stomach flu

2006-09-06T01:21:00.000-05:00

Although it no longer fits in with my life, I should like to say up front that there is nothing wrong with the stomach flu I have had since saturday and am looking here to give away - as far as they go, this flu will fulfill all your expectations: stomach cramps, headaches, chills, a fever, lots of sweating, and a few other best-left-out-of-print symptoms. These latter features of the stomach flu make it an ideal match for the aspiring supermodel looking for that anorexia-chic. Why, eating will become a futile gesture useful only for social purposes - you won't retain a thing! Eating will be like the hood ornament on the car of your body. Your fashion forward body car, ladypants. Also, there may be some delirium included, I think.

Now a yearly tradition

2006-09-06T01:04:00.000-05:00

Mondayborday was labor day, and if you've been reading this blog and the Fanciest American before it, you should know that means I attended the West Indian Cultural Festival. Boasting an attendance figure from last year of 3.5 million - making it the largest parade in New York - this event has come to be my favorite single event here. The colorful costumes, the music, the food, and the overwhelming sense of fun combine for a really great day. Unfortunately, I've been very sick since saturday (which I will write about later) so I could only stay for about half an hour, but I got some photos and got to see some good stuff.

I took the russian novelist's mother out for a nice dinner and then never called her again

2006-08-28T14:52:00.000-05:00

By which I mean to say that I finished Fathers and Sons on saturday. Why was it so easy to read this time, and so impossible the others? I think this time benefitted from some combination or factors beyond my comprehension and also the realization that the book really picks up after the first few pages. All told, this is a fantastic book - is there anyone better than the Russians at subtext? - but Tolstoy worried for no reason. He's still the best.

I have since started reading Brave New World.

Do you want some good reading? Here's the story of the only POW dog (you have to scroll down a little).

Where's Clubber Lang when you need him?

2006-08-24T00:02:00.000-05:00

You have no doubt by now heard of Katrina survivor Rockey Vaccarella, depicted in the media as this common man on a mission, who drove his FEMA trailer to D.C. hoping to meet with the president and make sure he remembered the job unfinished in New Orleans.

What's that you say, Rockey? You're thanking Mr. Bush for the job he's done, and you have something else you'd like to offer? "But now, I wanted to remind the President that the job's not done, and he knows that. And I just don't want the government and President Bush to forget about us. And I just wish the President could have another term in Washington."

Um...that's...odd. Isn't it? This is pretty great for Bush, what with the Katrina anniversary and all, if it's all good, but why would this guy say that to Bush, whose handling of this crisis was, at its very best, totally incompetent?

And if Rockey intends to hold Mr. Bush to task, why would Bush - who's known to be insular as far as dealing with the public is concerned - agree to meet with him but not with Cindy Sheehan?

Who can help us unravel this mystery?

(That's our special rocky-themed, i-made-it-in-45-seconds graphic. I'm sure you can understand)
Anyways, it turns out that things are too good to be true. This guy was a GOP candidate. He's hardly a "small man," as he claims: he's a very successful businessman who owns 31 restaurants. And his meeting with Bush was scheduled beforehand. I'm not saying the guy didn't suffer greatly from the Hurricane. But things here are not as they are presented. Rove's up to his old tricks again, plain and simple. What's worse, though, is that the administration puts forth this schill (that's what he is) as though he were the mouthpiece for all the victims who therefore appear to have no ill will toward Bush. Meanwhile, things in New Orleans are still downright terrible and the government is still wasting time and money. Ugh. Heck of a job, eh?

The Devil vs. Billy Markham and Dr. Science vs. the Russian Novelist

2006-08-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

While I'm stuck at work - literally waiting for water to evaporate - I thought I'd offer a quick note on what I've been up to. Last week I took my chances again on the Fringe Festival and attended The Devil and Billy Markham, a one-man show presenting an epic poem by Shel Silverstein. That's right, the author of Where the Sidewalk Ends and other enduring children's classics wrote a poem about a human blues guitarist trying to out-trick the Devil. No, scratch that. The author of enduring children's classics wrote an incredibly profane and obscene epic poem about an anti-hero out-cheating the devil and god. (yes, you can follow that link to the text, and yes, it is actually very entertaining)

Who knew? Apparently Mr. Silverstein has a large body of adult-oriented work, even larger that that of his children-oriented work. It was very, very strange to hear those words being said with the same lyrical facility I recognize from poems read as a child. As for the play itself, it was a bit of well-played raunchy fun.

And now for literary matters from a different continent. In need of a new subway book (for which the criterion is that it must fit into my pocket), I have decided, once again after four failures, to try and tackle Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. Listen, this shouldn't be that hard - I love Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Tolstoy felt like he was always trying to live up to Turgenev's work, especially this book. But for some reason...I just haven't been able to get into this book enough to read it. Yet. 5th time's the charm, right? Right?

Anyways, I'm posting my subway-reading challenge here in the hopes that doing so will in some way hold me accountable for finishing what I set out to do. We'll see.

In which I meet with a Titan and attend a mediocre play, all before cupcakes

2006-08-16T01:16:00.000-05:00

The blooming of the Titan Arum was quite a thing to behold. It opened up at a time that was not so convenient for me (how rude!) but I was able to dash over on Saturday to check it out. Simply gorgeous.

I included a person in that image for size comparison. Pictures don't do it justice. It's this huge, dark flower that blooms desperately once, maybe twice in a person's lifetime. It didn't really smell much, and I was told that when it first opened it was sweating some kind of horrible putrid liquid, but by the time I got to it that had stopped, thankfully. It really was a sight to behold!

Later than evening, after a fabulous dinner at a nearby cuban place, my ex/good friend Elizabeth and I took in a show from the Fringe Festival. Although not the show we intended to see - there were some complications wth our plan - this show was not all awful. It was about two boys, friends, who are accused of planting a bomb at their school. The play examines the roots of violence in the home, although in a not terribly enjoyable/captivating/moving production. Well, that's Fringe for you. You spin the wheel and you take your chances.

From there we went to Magnolia for some cupcakes. At almost midnight on a saturday night, the line was around the corner and down the block! I recall when my sister Patience first took me there years ago, and informed me that they have a limit of cupcakes per customer. The place is still as busy as ever!

Because Al Qaeda hates PowerPoint, or, Today it's no liquids; what's next, no snakes?

2006-08-13T14:38:00.000-05:00

Via Arms and Influence, from Thomas Ricks' new book Fiasco: the American Military Adventure in Iraq comes this, an explanatory powerpoint slide created by the Joint Task Force IV, the group responsible for planning the final transitional stage of the US presence in Iraq. He includes this slide with the account of one senior military officer's problem that Rumsfeld's command failed to give clear orders with clear goals.

Um...you think? Seriously, if we're trying to put this plan into action it is no wonder everybody thinks we're jerks. My favorite is the arrow that points toward "stability." Why didn't they just make one pointing to "awesomeness?"

And while I've talked to a few of you about this, I just want to underscore my uncomfortability with the security response to this most recent plot against air travel. We get a big show, and people feel better sacrificing their conditioner and Fiji Water so that they feel safe on a plane. But medications could still be take on, right? And are they really going to check every prescription to make sure it's legitimate? It's not like they can make you take a big swig of your medication in front of them - some medications are lethal in high doses.

Maybe..I don't know, I'm just saying...maybe we could work on our foreign policy a little so that fewer folks would want to blow us up? It seems like all those civilian deaths in lebanon might not be a bad place to start.

sigh...only 5 more days 'til snakes on a plane!

Well, that used to be good news.

2006-08-08T15:56:00.000-05:00

I was informed today that my microscopy and imaging hero, Dr. Bechara Kachar, saw our lab's most recent paper, and more specifically, my pictures therein. He said, I am told, that he really liked the pictures and found them convincing.

Which was great to hear for about six and a half seconds, before I realized that the guy whose work I've been trying to match will probably see my stuff in the future. Hooray for more pressure!

Le Sigh.

p.s. Yes, these were the same pictures I didn't find convincing and asked that we hold off on publishing, which now have been described as "convincing" by the reviewers and Dr. Kachar. So maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about.

A Very Busy Week (part five of five)

2006-08-06T11:31:00.000-05:00

Whew! I'm getting winded just typing about all that happened this week, and you're only getting a few of the highlights! Restaurants, walks in the city, and more had to be left on the blogging room floor, so to speak.

In all this adventure, I was very strongly reminded of what a fantastic place Brooklyn is. Yes, all of NYC is a fun-and-garbage-filled wonderland, but Brooklyn has such heart, such honesty and sincerity and it feels so family-friendly. On saturday I passed by a free reggaeton concert where some costumes for the upcoming West Indian Cultural Festival were displayed, and this girl was standing with her family, and, I don't know, she just looked like Ms. Brooklyn, or something.

Afterwards we swung by Celebrate Brooklyn for part of the African festival, where good-smelling food and happy-sounding music were on display.

I mean, c'mon. Brooklyn even has its own Statue of Liberty! (though, admittedly, it's in a parking lot)

Next weekend at Celebrate Brooklyn it's Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, and Queen Latifah! Maybe this very busy week will become a very busy month.

A Very Busy Week (part four of five)

2006-08-06T11:12:00.000-05:00

What's this? Back at the Tokugawa gardens in Nagoya? Wrong! Brooklyn! This is the Japanese pond garden at Brooklyn's unbeatable 54-acre Botanical Gardens.

The Gardens, with flowers and herbs from all over the world, is a lush environs for spending a summer day with friends. You get to see all sorts of beautiful flowers and plants, from the lily pools to the rose garden and on and on.

BUT! There is excitement afoot! Big happenings! The BBG's Titan Arum plant (pictured here with people for a size reference) is about to bloom! This hasn't happened in NYC since 1939, and won't happen again for forty or fifty years! When it blooms, it produces a four-to-seven foot flower that is one of the largest in the world! Also, it will smell like death (hence its nickname, the "corpse flower."). I will go to see it when it blooms, and until then you can read more about it - and even watch it bloom online - right here at the Garden's website.

A Very Busy Week (part three of five)

2006-08-06T10:45:00.000-05:00

KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIJUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kaiju Big Battel! At the Warsaw in Brooklyn! Danger Happened!

It was Hell Monkey vs. the Grudyin in an intra-tag-team battle for a new team name! Shrooma Tango vs. Powa Ranjuru (which became Powa Ranjuru vs. the CIA, which became the CIA vs. Powa Ranjuru and Dusto Bunny!)! Hero-in-Training vs. all comers in a test to protect the new Brooklyn Bridge! Call-me-Kevin vs. Super Wrong in a "biggest loser in Kaiju" match (which, when super wrong roller-skated off the stage, became Call-me-Kevin vs. Louden Noxius)! And, in the biggest main event ever! Pedro Plantain, seeking revenge for the recent murder of his brother, teaming up with Kaiju Champ Kung Fu Chicken Noodle to battle Pablo Plantain's murderers, the brainwashed hero-turned traitor Silver Potato and the nefarious mastermind, Dr. Cube!

Oh, you want more? More better? How about the show opened with my favorite Japanese punk band, Peelander-Z? Although my company was a little unsure at first, by the end of the evening everyone agreed it was a night of monster-sized fun, not to be forgotten!