OK, here it is – the video that we made last weekend for the 72 Hour Film Shootout – we only had 72 hours from start to finish to do everything, from writing the script, shooting the scenes, editing the film, and geting it onto miniDV tapes to submit it for judging (the funny thing is that getting the edits onto miniDV was actually the hardest part of the whole thing). Hope you like it.
Category: Manhattan
First Weekend of June
Friday night – eating at Salaam Bombay. Decor – very nice. Food – very nice.
Chinese woman with headaches turns out to have had bullet in head for 64 years, something dating back to when the Japanese invaded. Ouch.
Interesting NY Times article on Dept. of Sanitation going after illegal dumpers. Sure, you could feel sorry for the dimwit who decided to dump the unwanted vacuum and computer desk in the middle of nowhere, where other dimwits already dumped crap. Still, just because others dumped crap there, doesn’t make that location a legal dumping ground – and the dumper surely knew that. Ignorance of the law is NOT a defense.
Recent Spring Reading:
“The Subway Chronicles: Scenes from Life in New York.” Thumbs way up. Great anthology – all the essays were wonderful on the slices of life that is in our subways. Great subway reading, of course!
“Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians” by Jane Hyun. Significant reading.
“Snow Falling on Cedars” by David Guterson. Historical novel – when a Japanese-American WWII vet is accused of murder in 1950’s America, all kinds of emotional baggage comes out – legal questions; prejudice; jealousy; love; hate; and Post-Traumatic-Stress about being in war. The imagery of the American Northwest – how the land was never quite the same when the community faced upheaval from the war. The scenes about what it must have been like in the US on the day of and after Pearl Harbor – strangely reminded me of 9/11/01 and 9/12/01 here in NYC – for a book published in 1995, it reminds me of how some things are quite evocative.
TGIF! – Post Memorial Day Week
Spending the Friday afternoon away from the office. Thank goodness. ’nuff said.
What is up with the Yankees? Well, glad that I’m more NY Met fan, but the media frenzy in NYC over the Yankees is kind of sickening.
The NY Times’ Mark “The Minimalist” Bittman on Soft Shell Crab Poor-boys. A la Homer Simpson: Mmm. Soft shell crabs. Beware of the video accompanying the on-line article – Bittman warns that there is brutal violence toward crabs.
The NY Times’ Linda Greenhouse on Justice Ruth Ginsburg‘s finding her voice via dissent.
Interesting profile in the New York Observer on Rohit Aggarwala, head of NYC’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and behind Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC (the whole trying to fix transportation and going green in the city plan). An APA in public service. Cool. Well, ok, disclaimer: he was my TA when I was an undergrad taking an American history course, and he was a nice guy. I may be cynical about how the hometown may one day be a better city, but I guess we got to keep hoping.
TV season finales — umm, yeah, I think I’ll write up some commentary on that. Soon. Really.
Cool You Tube video – amazing look at female portraiture in Western art over the past 500 years: