Author: ssw15

I went museum-hopping today, even though I should have stayed home and properly recovered from New Year’s (especially in light of my minor complaining of having worked on the day after New Year’s – especially when it was a Friday). Nonetheless, consider the following:

American Museum of Natural History has a fascinating exhibit on “Petra: Lost City of Stone”. Petra is most recognizable as the weird city in the stone that Indiana Jones and his dad went to get the Holy Grail in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” Petra is real, not a George Lucas-made-up-facade, having once been a trade center in ancient Jordan. It was such a trade center of far reaches that even literature of China during the BCE era may have referred to Petra. It’s still open until July.

Meanwhile, my siblings and I managed to catch the El Greco exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, before it closes on Jan. 11, 2004. Incredible stuff – El Greco is the 16th-century painter named Domenikos Theotokopoulos – but will forever be “El Greco” because he was the Greek painter in the royal courts of Spain. His exaggerated, intensely psychological style made him seem ahead of his times, and inspired Picasso and others. I admired El Greco’s colors; the intense colors are not exactly traditionally synonymous with “Renaissance” – which made the art work even more remarkable.

The crowds were heavy – probably the one complaint I had about museum-hopping. NYC tourism is evidentally back in business, at least with popular exhibits. Popular exhibits open for a limited time are always sure to get crowds, but meanwhile, the permanent exhibits don’t attract the same numbers at all, considering how the Asian art galleries of the Met were otherwise empty. I had chills walking through the Central Asian stuff – Buddhist statues from Afghanistan were haunting reminders of the Buddha statues that the Taliban destroyed a few years ago.

NFL playoffs – stuff to make my other brother stay home and watch tv. Otherwise, bring on the new stuff on tv; I can’t take that much longer with the reruns.

Consider the New Year’s Day edition of the comic strip “Non Sequitor”. It’s such a post 9/11 type of New Year’s comic with its “theme” on the year’s “Top 10 news stories” (“I didn’t die, I didn’t lose my job, and maybe I’ve earned some money.”).

Dick Clark and the Times Square ball – umm, did that ball come down a little fast or was it just me?

NY Times’ food critic William Grimes turns in his last review on 12/31/03. There’s also a fascinating Interactive Feature “A Grimes Retrospective,” where Grimes is unmasked (literally, he is; his one-time appearance on a PBS show in NYC, his face had to be blurred so that the restaurants wouldn’t recognize him).

January 1, 2004: NY Times article about an art exhibit in Paris about the historical Confucius.

There are other interesting 1/1/04 articles, which I’ll read later, once I feel like I’ve made a better recovery of the whole New Year’s eve thing. Enjoy the bowl games in the meantime. It’s not like I know who to root for. I just don’t see the bowls as nearly as fun as NCAA basketball, for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include: (a) I don’t really appreciate seeing all these corporate names attached to the bowls’ names (Capital One Bowl; Fed Ex Orange Bowl; Tostitos Fiesta Bowl; like I’ll use the services/products of these corporate sponsors because I watched the bowl game). (b) And, I get such a sadistic kick out of watching my March Madness brackets be completely wrong, which the bowl’s don’t provide. ( c ) Plus, it’s not like my alma mater and its league are great in football either, such that I don’t have a reason to follow college football (but at least Alma Mater had a better record than last season, at least).

But, watching the bowls is a New Year’s tradition to enjoy. Cheers!

Slate.com’s new ad commentator, Seth Stevenson, presents a hilarious review of the ad for “Levitra” (a Viagra competitor). He’s different from Slate.com’s previous ad commentator, Rob Walker – Stevenson’s quite sharply funny (with fine tuned opinion-making), while Walker was more analytical and less ha-ha funny (but still witty and critical).

David Bianculli, tv critic of Daily News, the NY hometown paper, did his year-end list. I wouldn’t exactly put out a list, as I would have trouble ranking things. But, I’d note a couple of things.

ABC:
I’m still hoping ABC will improve its outlook (having long been my old favorite network), but it’s a slow climb to travel up the ratings.

– I agree that “Alias” is still strong – although it’s not as fun without Lena Olin as Secret Agent Sydney’s Evil Spy Mom, I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing Isabella Rossellini as Sydney’s Evil Spy Aunt (yet another European actress of a certain age making a shot at American television) – should be good viewing for 2004.

– “Karen Sisco” – will ABC put it back on? It had such potential, but, I kept wanting… more. Too bad actor Gary Cole only had a few episodes in the show – he was fascinating as Karen’s counterpoint.

– I’m pleasantly surprised that “8 Simple Rules…” has continued to do all right so far. Not bad. I still miss John Ritter as an actor, but good to see that his okay show is on.

– “Threat Matrix” is still on? Wow. I still don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.

WB and WB-related stuff:
– “Buffy” is sorely missed, even as it ended its run on UPN. But, “Angel” during the last quarter of 2003 has been amazingly picking up the slack in the Buffy universe/timeline. I didn’t quite like how the previous season of “Angel” ended back in May, but it has been solid so far in this television season. Let’s see who is the Big Bad Villain really is in 2004.

– “Everwood” on WB is good viewing, even in reruns. But, I wouldn’t get too excited about the WB otherwise; I’m not sure what to make of the so-called angst on the “One Tree Hill” (only knowing what I see when I see commercials and channel-change). Oh, and let’s not forget that 2003 said “so long” to “Dawson’s Creek.” It was a strangely moving series finale – satisfying, in an unfair way (for instance, did Kevin Williamson really have to do in Jen? But, ah, nice way of making Pacey and his brother settle down and making Dawson move on with his life (the Dawson storyline was the only thing predictable)). Anyway, the Dawson crew have moved on; so have we.

CBS:
Fall 2003 introduced us to “Joan of Arcadia” – and I’m still very impressed about it. It’s almost making me like CBS again (otherwise, I get so tired of being jerked around by the “huh?” plotlines of “The Guardian” and the “Good grief” plotlines of “JAG” and “Judging Amy” and tended to avoid the sitcoms, except maybe “Raymond” – and I have yet to forgive CBS for cancelling an old favorite show from long ago). “Survivor” still rules, apparently. Whether I like the rest of reality tv is a different story.

Cable:
I agree with Bianculli about “Monk” – it’s a fun, light show. A further plug for cable – I enjoyed much of the “MI-5” series on A&E (thanks to my sis for the cable access), a Brit-imported series about Britain’s counter-espionage agency. You never know who’s going to die in that show, unlike most American shows.

NBC:
I will miss “Boomtown.” Not an easy show to grasp, with its weird storytelling, but a creative tout-de-force nonetheless, even if NBC tried to make it simpler. I caught a bit of the episode yesterday (regrettably missing the marathon on Saturday – shame on me!), as NBC burns out what’s left of the first-run episodes – Neil McDonough as David McNorris, the deputy DA of LA – such a good tv actor. Can’t believe it’s time to say goodbye to “Friends” in 2004; and will we really say goodbye to “Frasier”?

FOX: “Arrested Development” is a strangely interesting. Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are… well, my brothers like “A Simple Life.” ‘Nuff said, I guess. “World Idol” has been a fun holiday thing, even if not very holiday-relevant. “American Idol” is what it is.

It has been quite a year for tv news – but, news junkies already know that. 2004 won’t end the media mayhem, but we should be hopeful for more positive news. Maybe.

I’ll say it now, while I can – Happy New Year! See you in 2004.