Being Alive

Twitter

2009-06-02T02:05:09Z

For those that don't already follow it, I have a Twitter feed readable here.

I first signed up for an account two and a half years ago, but didn't start Twittering with any regularity until last fall. My use of Twitter partially explains the reduction in Livejournal postings, so I finally figured I'd post a link for anyone who's been using this blog to keep up with what I'm doing.

Usage notes: Twitter posts starting with an @ and a name are replies to someone else's post. They will rarely make sense out of context. Also, many of my posts end with #fb. This simply causes the post to copy over into my Facebook profile.

Best YouTube video of the year

2009-04-17T01:55:19Z

Susan Boyle, for those you haven't seen her performance already this week. (I can be a sucker for sappy stories)

On the way to the doctor

2009-03-16T02:58:35Z

Last Wednesday I had an appointment to see my doctor for a checkup. As the 1 train pulled into the 157th Street station, we stopped rather suddenly. The doors didn't open, and we sat there for a minute or so. The conductor came on the PA to announce that the emergency brake had been activated, and we'd be moving again shortly.

Soon after that, he announced that the train would be taken out of service due to a sick passenger. The doors opened, and it became apparent that the train had only pulled about halfway into the station before stopping. I was only one stop away from the medical center, so I headed for the exit. As I walked down the platform, I passed a couple of cops making their way to the train, and heard the motorman explain to them, in a rather agitated tone, that a guy had actually jumped down in front of the train as it pulled in. Yikes.

I continued out the exit and up the stairs, and as I started walking up Broadway, I passed many emergency vehicles speeding toward the subway. I'd recently rewatched The Bourne Ultimatum, which has a scene or two where Matt Damon is quickly walking away from the scene of a crime while emergency vehicles congregate behind him. I had to keep reminding myself that I hadn't done anything wrong, hadn't witnessed anything useful, and had absolutely no basis for the feeling of guilt that I was feeling.

It's Greek to me

2009-02-27T02:04:43Z

We say, "It's Greek to me" when we can't understand something. What do Greek people say?

The Story of My Life

2009-02-22T21:44:48Z

On Friday I saw The Story of My Life, a new Broadway musical. It's of a type called a "chamber musical," just 90 minutes, two actors, and a single set. It's the story of two lifelong friends, their childhood, and the eulogy to be given by one at the funeral of the other.

And it was pretty bad. The music was repetitive and uninteresting; it seemed like nearly every line was a half-spoken lyric with an emphasis placed on the last word. The same themes -- "It's a Wonderful Life", books, butterflies -- kept coming up in the too-frequent flashbacks but didn't provide any compelling reason for us to care about the characters. It was strongly hinted that one of the characters is gay, but this wasn't explored at all for some reason. The actors did a good enough job considering what they had to work with, but they just couldn't make the characters interesting.

I saw four people in the audience walk out during the show, and had there been an intermission, I'm sure there would have been more. Opening night was Thursday, but with the bad word-of-mouth and mediocre reviews, the show is closing today after just eighteen previews and five regular performances.

Dallas

2009-02-19T01:28:40Z

I was in Dallas last weekend for a fraternity board meeting. This was my first trip to Dallas proper, so arrived early and explored the downtown area a bit. I rode the light rail, as well as a touristy trolley through the arts district, and visited the Sixth Floor Museum in the old Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza.

There wasn't much presented that I didn't already know about the JFK assassination, but it was still stunning to see the site, which has been so well documented and hasn't changed much in 45 years.

Oh yeah. That airport is BIG.

Mixing metaphors

2009-02-09T00:58:40Z

From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/business/02irradiate.html:

“Our society is running around with our head in the sand because we have ways to prevent illness and death that aren’t being used,” said Christine Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California, Davis.

1,474 megapixel photo

2009-01-27T01:09:57Z

High-resolution composite photo of Obama's inauguration

Just zoom in and browse around.

Remember when the whole web looked like this?

2009-01-23T01:08:31Z

Burbank's Bob Hope Airport is a convenient second-tier airport for the L.A. area. It's smallish (fourteen gates) but definitely not tiny. I went to the website today to look something up, and felt like I'd jumped in a time machine to 1996. Sites like this should be illegal.

http://www.bobhopeairport.com/

Theater wrapup

2009-01-15T02:39:53Z

Last year, I saw exactly 100 shows, the most since 2005. This included 50 plays, 24 musicals,16 concerts (the most I've ever seen in a year), and 10 shows that I don't consider to be any of the above.

Shows in Manhattan-88; London-4; Brooklyn-3; Queens-2; Los Angeles-2; Chicago-1

Shows I saw more than once in 2008: Spring Awakening, The New Century.

Shows that I revisited after seeing in previous years: Billy Elliot, Equus, Hair, On The Town, Rent, South Pacific, Spring Awakening, Sunday in the Park with George, Title of Show, Wicked.

Theaters/venues I visited for the first time: Cinema Haymarket (London), Keira Retirement Home (LA), Kenny's Castaway, Kodak Theatre (LA), Lyric Theatre Hammersmith (London), Nokia Theater, Oriental Theatre (Chicago), Theatre Ten Ten.

Favorite shows: 365, August: Osage County, Billy Elliot, Next to Normal, Saturn Returns, South Pacific, Spring Awakening, Sunday in the Park with George, War Horse.

Worst show: A Christmas Carol. This seemed so promising, with some big names (Christopher Lloyd, John Goodman) in the cast, and an expensive theater booked (the Kodak Theater, where the Oscars are held). But the direction and staging were so incredibly awful it was unbelievable.

So far this year, I've seen three shows:

The closing performance of Hairspray, which was a blast because the crowd was so energetic (and the score is so great);
Becky Shaw, a new off-Broadway play about a blind date and its effects on a family (good but maybe a little long); and
The Cripple of Inishmaan, a Martin McDonagh play set on the west coast of Ireland in the 1930's. Very well done. The cast received a standing ovation, which is unusual off-Broadway.

Back to the future

2009-01-02T05:51:50Z

I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that the "future" in Back to the Future 2 is now only six years away.

Only for now

2008-12-23T02:20:24Z

There's been various Internet speculation about what the writers of Avenue Q might do with the line, "George Bush is only for now" once he leaves office next month. Probably the most popular suggestion has been to replace it with "Prop 8," but even this seems, to me, to have not quite the bite of the original.

The writers/producers of the show have decided to hold a contest to choose a replacement lyric. The winner gets their entry used in the show, as well as various show souvenirs. I'm interested to see what gets chosen.

We'll see

2008-12-19T03:12:35Z

From TIME Magazine's Person of the Year interview with Obama:

When voters look at your Administration two years from now, in the off-year election, how will they know whether you're succeeding?

I think there are a couple of benchmarks we've set for ourselves during the course of this campaign. On [domestic] policy, have we helped this economy recover from what is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? Have we instituted financial regulations and rules of the road that assure this kind of crisis doesn't occur again? Have we created jobs that pay well and allow families to support themselves? Have we made significant progress on reducing the cost of health care and expanding coverage? Have we begun what will probably be a decade-long project to shift America to a new energy economy? Have we begun what may be an even longer project of revitalizing our public-school systems so we can compete in the 21st century? That's on the domestic front.

On foreign policy, have we closed down Guantánamo in a responsible way, put a clear end to torture and restored a balance between the demands of our security and our Constitution? Have we rebuilt alliances around the world effectively? Have I drawn down U.S. troops out of Iraq, and have we strengthened our approach in Afghanistan — not just militarily but also diplomatically and in terms of development? And have we been able to reinvigorate international institutions to deal with transnational threats, like climate change, that we can't solve on our own?

And outside of specific policy measures, two years from now, I want the American people to be able to say, "Government's not perfect; there are some things Obama does that get on my nerves. But you know what? I feel like the government's working for me. I feel like it's accountable. I feel like it's transparent. I feel that I am well informed about what government actions are being taken. I feel that this is a President and an Administration that admits when it makes mistakes and adapts itself to new information, that believes in making decisions based on facts and on science as opposed to what is politically expedient." Those are some of the intangibles that I hope people two years from now can claim.

Links

2008-12-18T02:26:40Z

A couple of interesting links I've come across lately:

Video of Apple products through the years. Ahh, memories.

Shots from Venice, Italy, during a recent flood.

Talking points

2008-10-30T01:04:00Z

How similar were the debates?

The well-regulated militia gets younger

2008-10-28T12:15:47Z

Boy, 8, fatally shoots self with Uzi at gun show

So is this another example of the criminals who will always be able to obtain weapons even if they're made illegal?

Or someone exercising his right to self-defense from a deadly pumpkin attack?

Or a mature adult making an educated decision to engage in risky activity?

Would this same accident and severity have occurred had it been a knife or nunchuk the boy was playing with? (After all, "guns don't kill people, people kill people.")

No, this is a direct result of lobbying actions by the NRA and their ilk to allow the possession and use of weapons that have no useful purpose in Massachusetts, and by a culture that thinks it's cool to see a third-grader shooting an automatic weapon. "And this is a picture of Christopher with an Uzi. Isn't he cute?"

Comments disabled. I don't want to hear your fucking excuses.

Some recent plays

2008-10-28T03:26:49Z

Clay is a one-man hip hop musical. It tells the story of Clifford, a suburban white teenager, his troubled family life, and his desire to become a rap artist. The show starts with a heavy dose of hip hop, which I'm not generally a fan of, but soon settles down. The story is compelling, and the creator/actor, Matt Sax, does an excellent job of portraying several different characters.

Streamers is a revival of a 30-year-old play studying conflict in an army barracks in North Carolina during the Vietnam War. Although the original production was Tony-nominated, I didn't care for the play at all. The story was uninteresting and the acting not particularly compelling.

Boys' Life, another revival, follows three post-collegiate men as they chase women and try to settle into life as adults. I found the characters unlikable and uninteresting, and the whole play rather tedious.

Corpus Christi first premiered in New York ten years ago, and at the time its allegorical depiction of Jesus as a gay man drew protests and death threats, while this production seems to have aroused no controversy. Although my limited biblical knowledge probably kept me from grasping the full impact of the play, I still found it interesting and moving.

What a wonderful country

2008-10-27T23:16:15Z

From this article about Ted Stevens' conviction:

Despite being a convicted felon, he is not required to drop out of the race or resign from the Senate. If he wins re-election, he can continue to hold his seat because there is no rule barring felons from serving in Congress.

Guess I'd better vote

2008-10-23T13:46:17Z

Silver

2008-10-20T01:25:34Z

This month marks the 25th anniversary of my starting school at UCLA and joining Triangle. In that time, the UCLA Chapter has initiated another 200 men, the fraternity overall has initiated over 7,000, and eight new chapters have been installed. If my math (and less reliably, my memory) is correct, I've held some sort of elected or appointed office within Triangle for all but 18 months of those 25 years.

In 1983 we were one of four fraternity houses in a row on the west side of Landfair. I still stop by every year or two; some things have changed around the house (no more attempts at growing grass in the yard by the front door) and some things haven't (the kitchen still gets pretty nasty over Christmas break).

I lived in Rieber 369 my freshman year. (I remember being disappointed that I was on an all-male floor. Times *have* changed.) To get from the dorms to Triangle, we could take a shortcut behind the Southern Suites, but there were no stairs, just a dirt path that wove through the trees.

On campus, there was no Bruin statue, no Sunset Village, no E-IV or V buildings. UCLA had a URL in 1983, but it had nothing to do with the Internet. Apparently the tour guides still tell the story about Bunche Hall and the helicopters that was told at our orientation. There was no Undie Run or Midnight Yell.

In Westwood, Broxton Avenue was a two-way street. Tower Records was on Westwood, and sold records. What is now Whole Foods was then a movie theater (three of them in fact). Tommy's of Westwood was brand new, and a favorite of mine (no change there).

Through Triangle, I got a campus job working for UCLA Engineering Extension, then located in Boelter 6426. Later that year, we moved to the Extension building, into offices just vacated by Peter Ueberroth and the LA Olympic Organizing Committee. I think I still have a building key.

I've had nine primary email addresses in my life, and I got the first one in the spring of my freshman year: cdkyf.

I love processes

2008-10-10T00:26:45Z

Something about understanding how something works fascinates me. Not just mechanical things, but procedures as well. So I was fascinated by this document, about the details of presidential succession.

Did you know that a bill was introduced in Congress last year to extend the list of succession past the cabinet officials to include five ambassadors?

Or that an Acting President can be bumped out of office should a higher-ranking position in the line of succession be filled?

(Some may remember that last year I wrote (much narrower) Triangle legislation to handle certain circumstances of officer succession.)

Palin Debate Flow Chart

2008-10-05T12:12:05Z

From www.adennak.com:

The Poetry of Sarah Palin

2008-10-02T11:47:35Z

http://www.slate.com/id/2201342/

London wrapup - part two

2008-09-24T01:13:08Z

After thoroughly enjoying last year's trip up to Newcastle, this time I decided to spend a couple of days in Cornwall. On Thursday morning, I hopped on a train leaving Paddington Station bound for Plymouth, where I changed to a slower train making mostly local stops.

I'd booked a hotel in the small village of Lostwithiel. (Yeah, I'd never heard of the place before either.) After getting off the train, I walked into town across a 700-year-old stone bridge, and then along a street lined with scattered pockets of charm interspersed with modernities. After checking in and dropping off my bag, I headed about a mile down the road to Restormel Castle, a twelfth-century castle.

I got there shortly before closing time, and there were only a few other visitors around. Then, about ten minutes after I arrived, they left. I've never had a whole castle to myself before. (The gatekeeper, in a cottage a hundred yards down the path, was probably the only other person on the grounds.) I sat and enjoyed the silence for a bit, took a final walk around the perimeter, then headed back into town.

After dinner at a local restaurant, I walked back to my hotel. It was about 8:00 at night, the evening commuter traffic had tapered off, and the village was calm and quiet. The only establishments open were a handful of restaurants, including, rather incongruously, a Chinese restaurant.

The next morning, I took another train further down the peninsula to St. Ives, a seaside town that had also become known in the late 1800's as an artists' colony. The mix of tourists, artists, retirees, and surfers strongly reminded me of Laguna Beach in southern California. The Tate Museum has a branch there, and it had a small but interesting exhibit on the beginnings of the St. Ives school of painting.

Then a quick visit to Penzance, the town at the end of the line, where I wandered along the waterfront and had some ice cream before hopping on a train back to London.

Arriving back at Waterloo Station around 11pm, I had to walk past numerous clubs and bars to get to my hotel near Covent Garden. The contrast between nighttime London and the nighttime Lostwithiel I'd seen one night earlier was striking. Neither one is fully to my taste, I suppose, but I still enjoy visiting.

London wrapup - part one

2008-09-22T03:33:05Z

Didn't have much time to blog during this trip, I'm afraid. I tired myself out the first day and never quite recovered enough to relax and reflect.

Theatre

I saw four shows this week, well under my average for a ten-day visit. 365 is a new show by the producer and choreograpaher of Black Watch, which I'd enjoyed immensely when it came to Brooklyn last year. This show was about the struggles faced by British youth after they left foster care and made their way into the real world. Like the earlier show, it was well done and quite moving.

War Horse was the only show that I'd prebooked tickets for. It's a play based on a children's novel about an English farm horse who is sold into the Army at the start of World War I. The story moves back and forth between the experiences of the horse and of the farmboy who raised him and eventually joins the army himself. The story is quite compelling and the animal puppetry, somewhat similar to that used in the Lion King, fascinating to watch.

Brief Encounter is a stage adapation of the movie about an affair between an English man and woman. This production gained attention primarily from its incorporation of projected images and other effects, and also from its breaking of the fourth wall. I enjoyed it, but was slightly disappointed. Too much of the play was spent on the secondary characters which I just couldn't find interesting.

Six Characters in Search of an Exit is an updating of the Pirandello play. I'd first heard of the play many years ago when The Twilight Zone did an episode inspired by it (and Felicity did an episode inspired by that) and had always been curious about it. Italian drama is not generally my thing, as its characters tend to use a lot of metaphor and symbolism, but the play was intriguing and worth seeing.