A Very Merry AAIFF Weekend in July

Stand on the Soapbox time: I read this Michael Daly column in the (dead tree) Daily News newspaper. He made good points: NYC is not South Dakota, nor should we apologize for having some questions for people who carry concealed weapons (for instance – why is your weapon concealed? Are you up to something other than to defend yourself? And, even if you’re defending yourself, do you really want to leave yourself liable for other possible causes of action?…).

As we’re past the half-way point of 2009, it’s good to note that apparently, year 2009 is good for something – especially for being the year to remember everything that happened in 1969 (what a year that was).

Fascinating item: Thought this was a good read – even as California’s trying to deal with the budget problems, at least they take the opportunity to apologize for past racist laws against Chinese Americans. I kind of applaud that they’re acknowledging past wrongs, and that this can be a teachable moment than anything else (the article notes that too). We might not see the US Government apologize for the Exclusion Act, but you never know.

It’s that time of year again – Asian American International Film Festival! I had really enjoyed it last year indeed. Plus, FC – who had participated in past 72 Hour Shootouts (see here for example) – invited me to help with writing the dialog for the latest entry – Team Triscribe’s own five minute film! Theme: Time’s Up. I think we did a great job – especially kudos to FC, YKC (they acted and wrote, and FC did much blood, sweat and stuff), and AS (who did a hilarious voiceover, I thought). We did not win, but – hey, cool! – two scenes of FC and YKC ended up in the 72 Hour Shootout trailer! (ok, I can’t find a link or an on-line version of the trailer, but we saw it on Friday, honest!).

Saturday – I saw two movies at AAIFF – Karma Calling and You Don’t Know Jack. I’ll say more on another post; suffice to say for the time being: they were both excellent.

Some great articles and pictures of the High Line, inspired me to check it out on Saturday, after I enjoyed the AAIFF movies. Here from NY Times – a great article on how the public reaction is going well so far; and this NY Times slide show by Bill Cunningham, on the fashion on the High Line (so true, so far as I could tell when I was walking along the High Line), and the video from Time magazine’s Richard Lacayo interviewing the architect Ricardo Scofidio – which was so great:

I’ll see if I’ll post pictures. I took a lot of pictures, but I’m not quite sure how well they turned out (there was haze and humidity to some extent).

More AAIFF on Sunday.