Month: September 2009
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Post-Runoff Day
As a follow up to Primary Day, I voted on Runoff Day. As reported, Bill DeBlasio is the Democratic candidate for public advocate and John Liu is the Democratic candidate for comptroller. More importantly, for NYC history, Liu is on the path to becoming the first Asian American in citywide political position.
Time writer Ling Woo Liu on China’s acceptance of the work of her great-grandfather as a doctor fighting an epidemic in 1910.
Good stuff on the official re-opening (and exhibit(s)) at the Museum of Chinese in America.
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Help for Typhoon Ondoy Victims in the Philippines
Source: www.google.com
http://www.google.com/landing/typhoon-ondoy.html -
LIFE – Google Books
Source: books.google.comAll issues of LIFE magazine now online free via Google, and you can search them! Three things I noticed in my birthday issue: co-ed college dorms were really controversial, ads had 200 times more words than they do today, and “Shaky”, the world's most powerful computer at the time, had less than 1 MB of memory! -
September Continues
Fell behind on stuff.
I did see “The Informant!” on Sunday — Matt Damon is terribly amusing, but it’s a weird feeling to realize that the way to portray corporate malfeasance and one man’s financial corruption is via comedy. Damon showed how his character was so average, yet clever, and mentally ill (probably). Scott Bakula as the good FBI agent was pretty cool. Steven Soderbergh (and producer George Clooney) had a whole bunch of people in the movie, even the Smothers Brothers.
Sam Yoon didn’t exactly get to go forward in the Boston mayoral race, but he seemed to have a decent showing. At least there’s progress f or APA candidates o the east coast.
Lack of sleep doesn’t help the immune system. Hmmm…
A little frightening to think that McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish might have caused serious fish problems.
Well, isn’t this exciting: Monet at MoMA!
Meanwhile, William Blake at the Morgan — weird stuff, that bloke.
This whole celebration of NYC’s Dutch past is a bit more than I thought – somehow feeling a bit superficial and wistful – and trying to be deep – all at once. Some exhibition, something over at Governor’s Island, Vermeer at the Met, and “Dutch New York” on Channel 13.
Fall preview of the coming season of “How I Met Your Mother”…
That season premiere was pretty good. Except… Ted’s supposed to be an architecture instructor at Columbia. And, they did throw in some exterior shots of the Columbia campus. But, the scene where Ted is running through campus to get to the correct classroom clearly has Ted in a Californian campus (viewers on one of the bulletin boards on-line say it’s either UCLA, USC, and I kind of thought it looked a lot like Stanford). Plus, no, the buildings at Columbia are not named as “Building No. 5.” As a Columbia alumnus, I was a little disappointed about that. Otherwise, thought it was cool that “Barnman and Robin” will be in their version of a relationship.
The season premiere of “Fringe” was entertaining — although, I’m not all that pleased with what they did to Charlie, the FBI agent who was Olivia’s friend. It was a J.J. Abrams-redux thing, really, and I do wonder whether this will just about crush Olivia’s spirit – to harm her FBI friend like that.
And the boss, Broyles, with an unusual sort-of romance with the mysterious Nina Sharp? I kind of called that last season – they had some amusing chemistry vibes and I’m glad “Fringe” would touch on that.
I didn’t watch the season premiere of “Heroes.” Television Without Pity covers the storylines that “Heroes” dropped the ball on. Those reasons — well, the whole dropping the ball on Claude and Lindermann and the alternate universe of Plague — along with what they did to Nathan last season are why I can’t watch this show anymore. You have to respect your characters; you have to come to a proper resolution to your stories, or you just have a pretty show to watch, but not much of a show. Just saying, that’s all.
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Gizmodo Gallery 2009: We're Back For Another Year! – Gizmodo Gallery 2009 – Gizmodo
Source: gizmodo.com
Free gallery of tech gadgets this week on Elizabeth St. – so going to check this out! -
Post-Primary Day
I voted on Primary Day; did you?
There will be a runoff between John Liu and David Yassky in the NYC Comptroller race. John Liu could be the first Asian-American elected to citywide office. Disclaimer: I had Yassky as a prof back in law school. Further disclaimer: I’m not going to mention who I voted for.
There will be a runoff between Bill De Blasio and Mark Green in the NYC Public Advocate race.
I don’t live in New York County, so I didn’t vote in the DA election across the river. Cyrus Vance, Jr., won; there will be a new DA in NY county, ending the Morganthau era. Funny, Vance doesn’t look like Sam Waterston’s Jack McCoy… (never mind; silly joke).
At least three city councilmen have been ousted, including Alan Gerson of lower Manhattan (the district covering Chinatown) who lost to Margaret Chin. More Asians will be representing NYC in city council.
Prof. Peter Kwong answers questions on the City Room Blog of the NY Times on the gentrification of Chinatown.
WQXR will be in a new radio frequency, moving from 96.3 to 105.9. I’m not big on change; it is weird that WNYC bought WQXR.Change in NYC. Ah well.
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Another Day, Another Year to Remember
Another time to remember, as we have done it previously.
Things change, but life has moved on, and the worst of our fears hadn’t arisen.
Time.com on “The Challenge of Memorializing 9/11”
And, from Slate, a photographic look of the skyline, the way it used to be.
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September Something
As I noted previously, in a vague way, there is an opening in the 2nd Circuit of the US Court of Appeals, and with Pres. Obama nominating Asian Americans for federal district court… well, at least we can hope around here in the NY area of what made happen for that next level: US Senator Schumer recommended Judge Denny Chin for the promotion. Considering the whole Bernie Madoff case and that Judge Chin has the experience – well, we’ll see!
Gregory H. Williams, President of City College of CUNY, will be leaving to be President of University of Cincinnati. I still have to read his book, “Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black.”
Apparently, Staten Island has more than pizzerias – a look at some cheap and diverse eats across the Verrazano.
A profile of Chinese tennis player Li Na, in the middle of the US Open – and finding that either Queens or Manhattan Chinatowns suit her fine.
Kind of weird to imagine: Disney doing an exhibition of their treasured stuff.
I’m not a Yankee fan, but I think it’s pretty cool that Derek Jeter tied Lou Gehrig’s franchise record.
I managed to watch most of the new episode of the new show “Glee” on FOX – entertaining, and seems to have potential. I do agree with Time’ James Poniewozik – the show seems to have humor and heart – and flaws. As much as I’m amused by Jane Lynch’s cheerleading squad coach character, I’m a little intimidated by her character (she’s quite a comedic actress; I’d hope for her character to be better than a one-dimensional broad caricature); and I do agree with Poniewozik – Jessalyn Gilsig’s character as the wife of Will, the Glee club faculty advisor – well, she was also way too one-dimensional (although, I think they were trying to move past that by the end of the episode – hard to tell) – and she’s an actress who deserves better than that (she made “Heroes” bearable to watch for me, and I watched “Boston Public” because of her time there). And, the OCD teacher (sorry, guidance counselor?) – well, she’s also a touch annoying.
But, I think Will and the Glee kids are sincere and hopeful (if not a little over their heads). We’ll see how this goes; I’ll give them a chance..
