Just a reminder that I will be taking the next few days off from posting. I’m a firm believer in occasionally recharging the batteries, and the time seems right. I will post again either Sunday or Monday.
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IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Detail from Tuesday, by David Wiesner.
David Wiesner won the Caldecott Medal for this book in 1992. What is so interesting about his books isn’t merely the stunning artwork, but the fact that Wiesner tells inventive, whimsical stories that are full of fantasy and charm without using any words at all. His work is visual storytelling in the purest sense of the word, and his clean pictures — with their sense of motion, as well as their simultaneous realism and fantastic qualities — make plain the events that are transpiring. He even conveys a sense of character, no mean feat for a person not using words to tell his stories. He is one of the finest authors of children’s books today.
(The picture links to Wiesner’s official website.)
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My current screensaver is the SETI@Home program, which uses those ununsed CPU cycles — the ones that would otherwise be drawing pictures of pipes or scrolling marquees or a Star Trek-like scrolling starfield — to process data collected by radio telescope, in hopes of identifying possible signals from alien civilizations. I am a big fan of the SETI project, and I am thrilled to have this opportunity to help.
This kind of “distributed computing” project is not unique. There are many such projects out there, harnessing computer time donated by regular people to process data. Using a single computer to process these data would require a machine of enormous computing power, and many of these peojects do not have the funding to secure sufficient time on, say, a Cray mainframe or a Big Blue machine to do the work. Thus, they break it up into small chunks and farm it out to people with smaller machines like the Hewlett-Packard with 1.3 GHz Athlon processor sitting on my desk. It’s a wonderfully fun way to participate in a cause in which I believe strongly.
SETI@Home may be the most famous distributed computing project, but it is by no means the only one. If looking for LGM’s isn’t your speed, you may find a more interesting project here.
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Did you know that the scene in Star Wars Episode II where Obi Wan eludes Jango Fett’s ship in the midst of a dense asteroid field is scientifically impossible?
If you’re in the mood to scientifically nitpick Star Wars Episode II or a number of other SF films and TV shows, check out Bad Astronomy. This site is fun (the author loves his subject, but doesn’t take himself too seriously) and informative. Check it out.
(That scene is impossible because in a planetary ring system the “asteroids” would have long-since ground each other to dust particles.)
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Last week I wrote about Buffalo wings. I should note the other great Buffalo delicacy: Beef on Weck.
At first glance, this is a roast-beef sandwich. However, the meet is generally sliced a bit thicker than what you’ll find on the sandwiches at Arby’s. It is also kept sitting in its own juices until the sandwich is made, when it is piled high on a Kummelweck roll (hence the “Weck”). A Kummelweck roll is a hard, Kaiser-style roll which has also been topped with caraway seeds and pretzel salt toward the end of baking. Then, the thing is slathered in fresh horseradish (again, the real thing, not that “Horsey sauce” from Arby’s) and devoured — preferably with a very cold beer.
I’m not sure how these compare, healthwise, with Buffalo-style chicken wings. There is no deep-frying involved, but the Weck rolls are very salty, and these sandwiches are generally stuffed very generously with meat. But the plus side is that the proper amount of horseradish will keep one’s nasal passages wide open while eating the thing.
(An addendum to the earlier article on wings: True Buffalo-style chicken wings are NEVER breaded. Hooter’s can call their wings Buffalo wings until the End of Time, but the breading means that they are NOT Buffalo wings.)
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This article from The Buffalo News today reports that the City of Buffalo has been named the 9th best destination for the arts in the United States by American Style Magazine. The top ten, by ranking, are:
1. New York City
2. Santa Fe/Taos, NM
3. San Francisco/Berkeley
4. Pittsburgh
5. Chicago
6. Seattle
7. Washington, DC
8. Boston
9. Buffalo
10. Philadelphia
Buffalo’s appearance on a list like this will come as no surprise to people familiar to the area, with its vibrant arts community that includes such facilities as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, and events like the annual Allentown Arts Festival. It’s somewhat amazing to think that Buffalo, a city that has been experiencing economic hardships for nearly two decades and that is known nationwide for its weather and its football team’s failure to win a Super Bowl, could nevertheless be a better arts destination than such cities as Los Angeles, Portland, Minneapolis, or Atlanta. And this recognition appears to be based mainly on the visual arts; Buffalo’s performing arts scene is also fairly healthy: the Shea’s Performing Arts Center has in the last few years been renovated and its stage expanded so as to be able to meet the demands of today’s blockbuster touring productions (Phantom of the Opera, for example). The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, under the leadership of music director JoAnn Falletta, has in recent years overcome the kind of financial hardships that have plagued many of the nation’s major orchestras (including such powerhouses as the Chicago and St. Louis Symphonies); the orchestra has even begun recording (for the Naxos label) and has had several concerts broadcast nationally on public radio. Add to all this artistic variety and life the fact that Buffalo is home to a large number of buildings that are considered to be architectural masterpieces, and one must conclude that the arts are what Buffalo does best, and that the arts are the key to Buffalo’s future now that the days of the Erie Canal and the steel mills are over.
Sadly, the powers-that-be in Buffalo have apparently drawn a different conclusion. Budgetary mishaps of staggering proportion — for example, the recent admission by City Controller Anthony Nanula that he is unable to account for the city’s recent budget shortfall — and the failure of the State of New York to ride to Buffalo’s rescue (it seems that some other uses for the state’s money cropped up unexpectedly, right around September 11) led to the elimination of all arts funding by the City. Of course, the City government managed to come up with a large set of incentives in order to keep a single K-MART location open after that company recently announced plans to close four local stores following its declaration of bankruptcy. Of course, the City and State governments rolled out the red carpets for Adelphia Cable to build a new office building downtown, insisting that this would create upwards of 1000 new jobs in the city. That project is now in serious jeopardy in the wake of Adelphia’s “Enron”-style meltdown which also seems to be leading toward bankruptcy. And of course, the City and State are lurching toward casino gambling as the latest bit of ambrosia that will bring Buffalo back to life.
I remember exactly one thing that the guest speaker at my high school graduation said: “Figure out what it is that you do best, and then do it better than anybody else.” It seems to me that Buffalo has just been told what it does best, and that except for a few exceptions Buffalo does it better than anybody else. Maybe Buffalo’s leaders might realize it too.
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Yesterday I finished Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman. This two-part graphic novel mostly tells the story of Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, who along with his wife survived Auschwitz through both guile and luck — probably more luck than guile. The book is also the story of Spiegelman’s attempts to come to know his father, a seemingly bitter man who despite great business success has become so miserly that he will actually attempt to return partially-eaten groceries to the store for credit. Spiegelman seems to be trying to come to terms with his mother’s suicide some years before, although this is never stated outright.
What makes the book so interesting is its metaphoric construction. Jews are not depicted as people, but as mice (hence the name, Maus). The Germans are portrayed as cats, the French as frogs, and so on — the effect being a sort of Animal Farm construction, as well as a commentary on how so often people only seem to fill in “roles” rather than live distinct lives of their own. In several parts of the book, instead of actually showing the people of his book as mice, for example, he instead depicts them as humans wearing mouse masks — suggesting not only the continuation of past antagonisms into the present, but also reinforcing the idea that so much human suffering is a result of a failure to look beneath our real masks and glimpse what lies beneath. It is worth noting that Vladek Spiegelman’s bitterness, born in the depths of the worst of human atrocity, is passed on to a son who has grown up privileged and healthy in America. And yet the subtext is woven throughout the book, because of Anja Spiegelman’s suicide, that great pain always exists beneath the outward calm of our lives. The overriding emotions of the book are fear and anger, with sadness only placing third, and the book’s most angry moment comes not in one of the concentration camps but in the present, when Art learns that Vladek has long since destroyed his mother’s diaries. “Goddamn you!” Spiegelman cries, and then he calls his father a murderer — because what he has done is to kill the memories that his mother left behind.
Unlike, say, Schindler’s List, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale does not end on a hopeful note. It does not reassure us that heroism is possible even in times of greatest darkness, nor does it reaffirm that life goes on — unless it concedes the point through its main message, that pain endures. Toward the end of the book, Vladek reacts with unbelievable anger because Art’s girlfriend, Francoise, picks up a black hitch-hiker. Francoise is incensed, wondering how someone who has been through the horror of the Holocaust can still be a racist. Vladek fires back, “Do not even compare the blacks to the Jews.” The point is not belabored, nor is it expanded. Spiegelman is not endorsing his father’s disappointing racism, nor is he rejecting it; he only reports it, matter-of-factly, as if to say, “This is the world we have created.” And the book does not end with any sense of closure or understanding; it simply ends. It’s been a long time since I read a book that I would call “haunting”, but that seems the best descriptor for this one.
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Art Spiegelman is currently a features editor for The New Yorker, and frequently produces covers for that magazine.
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Now that May Sweeps are over, television is officially a wasteland of reruns, unsold pilots, unending NHL and NBA playoffs, and the like. This year’s glut of nostalgic “reunion” shows was endearing at first, but by the time ABC decided to air a That’s Incredible! reunion, whatever bloom the nostalgia rose had had was completely gone.
Anyhow, here are some thoughts on the season finales of shows I watch. (My thoughts on the series finale of The X-Files will appear in a separate article.)
:: ER. This season ended rather strangely, I thought. The whole “death of Dr. Greene” storyline really wasn’t handled very well, in my estimation. The episode where the ER staff learns, via faxed letter, of Mark’s passing was superb, and that really should have been the season finale. Dr. Greene’s actual death episode felt limp to me; we had to endure forty-five minutes of tortured attempts to connect with the rebellious teenage daughter. The acting was fine, but this really wasn’t anything we haven’t seen in any number of other television dramas. The last portion of the episode, where Mark finally dies, was very well done indeed — although I must admit that when I saw every cast member in attendance at Mark’s funeral, I couldn’t help thinking: “Who is running the ER right now? What if there’s one of those multi-car pileups that floods the ER with patients at least once a season right now?” And then, the actual season finale — in which the spectre of smallpox was raised — felt perfunctory (although it was nice to see the show finally start to fulfill the chemistry that exists between Noah Wyle and Maura Tierney). The last few episodes of the season tried to emphasize that with only Wyle remaining from the show’s first season — Sherry Stringfield doesn’t count, having departed for four years in the middle of the show’s run — a page has been turned and a new chapter begun. Unfortunately, the episode that best captured that feeling was the one that aired two weeks before the season actually ended.
:: Friends. The writing certainly isn’t as sharp as it once was, being too willing to descend these days into farce. The character’s carefree lifestyles are getting more unbelievable as time passes. It’s probably a good thing that the coming season — the show’s ninth — is set to be its last. But I still enjoy the show. It still delivers more laughs on a consistent basis than any other (The Simpsons has become very inconsistent lately, and FOX doesn’t air Futurama enough to qualify), and the writers do still know how to deliver a nifty twist on a story — if only NBC would ever stop with its incessant “You won’t believe the last five minutes!!!”-style promos. (NOTE TO NBC: A great part of the pleasure of a surprise ending is that there is a surprise ending at all, not just the surprise event of the ending!!!) In the case of Friends, Ross is heading to Rachel’s hospital room to propose marriage — except that Rachel thinks that Joey has just proposed (and Joey, in true Joey fashion, has absolutely no idea what’s going on). I’m looking forward to next season.
:: That 70s Show. This season ended in similar fashion to Friends: Eric is planning to tell Donna that he loves her, but before he can the possibility is raised that Donna may end up with Kelso. This show is still hilarious — the addition of Tommy Chong to the cast as perpetually-stoned Leo was brilliant — and the writing still sharp, although the show’s 1970s focus has faded somewhat recently.
:: Ed. Yet another series that ended its season with an unresolved love triangle: Ed is in love with Carol Vessey, who is at this moment going to spend a summer with boyfriend Dennis Martino. Much of the season finale dealt with Ed’s inability to tell Carol how he feels, though just before she leaves for her trip he surprises her with a passionate kiss. The tone of Ed, on the whole, tends toward the bittersweet, so I suspect that the show will acknowledge that when “love triangles” appear in real life, one of the three people involved usually ends up hurt. The show has been fairly unflinching on this point, refusing to make Dennis Martino a mere foil or plot-device designed to delay the moment when Ed and Carol will come together — Dennis is a well-rounded character in his own right, and the show does not ignore his feelings whilst exploring Ed’s and Carol’s.
:: The West Wing. In the episodes leading up to the season finale, a known terrorist — meant, probably, to be the Yasser Arafat in the show’s world — is coming to the United States to visit with the President, and President Bartlett must decide whether or not to have the man assassinated on his way home after a foiled plot to attack the Golden Gate Bridge is traced to this particular person. As a storyline, this was less involving by far than last year’s plotline involving the President’s disclosure of his multiple sclerosis, although its resolution was nicely done — the assassination is carried out while the President attends a play about England’s Wars of the Roses, a period where violence was more often than not the vehicle by which power was transfered from one King to another. Less well-done, though, was the storyline about CJ Cregg’s stalker and the romance between her and the Secret Service agent assigned to protect her. The resolution to the stalker storyline is handled off-camera — CJ’s agent gets a call on his cell phone that the stalker has been arrested — and then the Agent walks into an armed robbery in a New York City store, foils one of the robbers, fails to notice the other, and is shot and killed. The manner of the agent’s death was surprising, even if the fact of it was not — Mark Harmon was not announced as joining the show’s cast for next season, so clearly something had to happen to him — but we are left wondering what the whole reason for the storyline was in the first place. Is Aaron Sorkin merely illustrating the idea that “There but for the Grace of God go we”? Or will this serve as some kind of turning-point for CJ? As it is, the whole stalker story seems pointless. Two additional comments: Lily Tomlin’s addition to the cast, as the replacement for Mrs. Landingham (the President’s beloved secretary, who was killed last year in a car crash), is very welcome — although her introduction, in this year’s finale, felt odd — why would a major new character be introduced in the last episode of the year? Nevertheless, I’ve always like Lily Tomlin and look forward to seeing her next year. Not so Mary Louise Parker, though. She’s a lovely woman, but something about her voice has always bothered me — no matter what I’ve seen her in, she seems to always deliver her lines in a flat monotone, and she doesn’t enunciate very well. I’d rather see Jennifer Jason Leigh in this role.
:: CSI. It was a standard episode for the show, an effective mystery solved through science and deduction. There is the revelation that Grissom is losing his hearing, which ended the show on something of a down note, but this is still one of the most entertaining hours on television. (I’m looking forward to the spinoff next year, if only for a weekly dose of Emily Procter, whose West Wing appearances were too few.)