Awesome

The James Blake and Andre Agassi quarterfinal match tonight? Awesome. Classic. I think it's the most gutsy comeback I've ever seen from Agassi (3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (6)).

Most everyone knows Blake's trials and tribulations this past year. He broke his neck when he fell into a netpost, lost his father to stomach cancer, then lost movement in half of his face due to shingles. His tennis career looked to be over, but he came back and came within a few shots tonight of reaching the semifinals of a Grand Slam for the first time. He was born in Yonkers, and he was a sentimental favorite this U.S. Open.

The first two sets, he played like the James Blake from the Top Spin video game. In every video game, some players just seem to be best suited to the way the video game physics and controls are set up. It isn't always the player whose best in real life. In Top Spin, that player was James Blake (followed closely by Lleyton Hewitt). Blake's video game doppelganger had the super fast feet, a bomb of a first serve, and, if he got a floater, could hit a nuclear rocket of a forehand for a winner, perhaps the most important shot of all in a tennis video game since it's so hard to put shots away.

The first two sets against Agassi tonight, Blake played like his video game counterpart. He was hitting winners off both sides, just smearing the ball. He was getting to everything Agassi hit; Blake may be just be the fastest player I've ever seen on a court. I thought Agassi was done (and learned later that he'd never come back from two sets down at the U.S. Open, so my feelings were justified).

It didn't seem possible, but Agassi started hitting harder in sets three and four. It was the epitome of modern tennis, groundstrokes like lasers screaming back and forth over the net. Both Blake and Agassi seemed capable of hitting a winner on nearly every shot. As defines a great match, more rallies seemed to end with outright winners than unforced errors, and more of the unforced errors were actually forced.

The fifth set tiebreaker was a classic. Down 5-4, Agassi jumped on a Blake second serve in the ad-court and punished it inside-out for a clean winner. 5-5. With Agassi leading 6-5, Blake ran around a ball to hit an unbelievable forehand winner down the line. 6-6. On the next point, Andre drew Blake in with one of his patented backhand dropshots down the line, then hit a clean pass right back down the same chute. 7-6. Befitting the greatest returner in the history of tennis, Agassi scorched an outright winner off a Blake second serve to end the match.

One thing the U.S. Open has that no other Grand Slam has is night tennis. There's nothing like the last match of the night at Arthur Ashe Stadium. During the daytime, fans can be lulled by the blazing sun. New Yorkers don't do so well early in the day anyhow, and fans' attention is divided among matches all over Flushing Meadows, streaming in and out between games. At night, for the last match of the night, only Arthur Ashe is lit, and more often than not, the match ends past midnight. The fans who remain are die hards, the crazies. They have to be to want to take the 45 minute ride back to Manhattan on the non-express 7 train.

My first taste of the U.S. Open this year

Caught my first live taste of the U.S. Open this year last night.

They've made a few changes this year. First, they've painted the courts blue to make it easier to see the ball. I'm a big fan as it really works. Secondly, if balls are hit into the stands, fans can keep them. Considering each ball costs a dollar or two, I think that also makes sense. Lastly, after each match in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the winner autographs four balls and hits them into the stands.

I still have no idea how you score courtside or even halfway decent seats to Arthur Ashe Stadium if you just purchase through publicly available outlets. I maxed out a 300mm zoom lens, multiplied it by 2X, and tried to handhold from my nosebleed seats. If I were any higher up my head might brush up against the Goodyear blimp.

The "Where's Andy's Mojo?" American Express billboards and banners and posters are everywhere. I imagine they'll be up for the rest of the tournament, a painful reminder of what a huge upset his first round loss was.

In the first match, Serena Williams toyed with Catalino Castaño and moved on 6-2, 6-2. It was a fairly lackluster match, and Serena was spraying the ball. Fortunately for her, clay court specialist Castaño didn't have any weapons to hurt her with, so Serena could attack at will. She still moves great and can cream the ball. The crowd wasn't all that engaged but gave a warm embrace to Serena when she announced in the post-match interview that she'd donate $100 to victims of Hurricane Katrina for every ace she hit through the end of the year.

Before the next match, the rains came and forced a delay.

The final match of the night featured Rafael Nadal playing American teenager Scoville Jenkins in gusty conditions. Nadal is the Mallorcan tennis prodigy, now ranked second in the world, whose known almost as much for his capri pants and chiseled physique as he is for his game. Nadal comes bounding onto the court, even just for warmups, wearing a sleeveless body-hugging t-shirt. Older men all around me explained to their wives and daughters, "That's Nadal, the hot young guy on tour." The women checked him out on the jumbo screen and clucked their approval.

It was my first time watching Nadal in person. I can see why he's so unbeatable on clay. He's lightning quick around the court, and he hits his groundstrokes with a massive amount of topspin. It's a heavy ball. On clay he's difficult to attack because the clay slows down any offensive shots, allowing Nadal to get to nearly every ball, while Nadal's heavy groundstroke bounce up around his opponent's shoulders. To attack his groundstrokes you have to have faith that Nadal's topspin will bring his groundies down short, moving in to attack them on the rise. It's easier said than done, though easier to do on a hardcourt.

At least once in every match he's involved in, Nadal pulls off his trademark crowd-pleasing, signature reversal. His opponent will hit some deep, seemingly unretrievable shot to the corner, but Nadal will streak across and get it back, then quickly scramble all the way to the other corner to snatch the opponent's next near winner. This will go on for a few shots until Nadal gets into position to buggy-whip a winner past his amazed and disgusted opponent, causing the crowd to leap to its feet with a roar. When he pulls of such points, Nadal sprints, leaps, and pumps his left fist Tiger Woods style. Federer is still my favorite player to watch, especially in person (he's one of the rare players who is more impressive in person than on television), but Nadal brings a youthful flair that offers a nice contrast to the stoic demeanor of the average USTA pro.

If Nadal can flatten out his groundies, and if he can move in and take some of his returns earlier (he stands a good seven or eight feet behind the baseline to return serve), he can be even more dangerous on the hard courts. He was conservative relative to Jenkins, who had a big first serve and forehand and went for it on both strokes to try and neutralize Nadal's speed. Jenkins gave Nadal a tougher than normal second round match but ultimately made too many unforced errors. Nadal was not playing all that way, not hitting many winners, not forcing the action. Jenkins was the one dictating play, but too many of his attacks ended up in the net or long. Nadal will need to play better to move far in the tournament.

Watching Williams and Nadal today highlighted how much lightweight graphite rackets changed the sport. I started off with my dad's wooden racket, then his aluminum Wilson T1000. Those rackets were so heavy that you had to make a full shoulder turn on your groundies, addressing balls with a neutral or even closed stance.

Graphite rackets are so light and stiff that they allow players to hit wristy forehands with a Western grip and an open stance. It's easier and quicker to get into an open stance than a closed stance, and the follow through with an open stance can bring the player into a ready position for the next shot almost immediately. Meanwhile, the racket does a lot of the work, as stiff as graphite is. Nadal regularly hits forehands off his back foot, yet he crushes the ball. If players today tried to hit that type of forehand with a wooden or aluminum racket they'd be felled by a debilitating case of tennis elbow before their eighth birthday.

NY vs SF

Andy Roddick bounced in the first round of the U.S. Open in 3 straight tiebreak sets
Where is Andy's mojo indeed?

New York vs. San Francisco
Written with tongue-in-cheek, but humorous reading for anyone who's lived in both cities before.

The first of a multi-part series on The Game, the thinking man's scavenger hunt
While living in Seattle, I heard so many stories about it from participants. Always wanted to play but never pulled a team together. It sounds awesome, though.

Laser-sighted slingshot
A video shows it splitting pencils. If only they had this when I was a kid.

A though experiment by George Saunders
"But dropping the idea that your actions are Evil, and that you are Monstrous, I enter a new moral space, in which the emphasis is on seeing with clarity, rather than judging; on acting in the most effective way (that is, the way that most radically and permanently protects my chickens), rather than on constructing and punishing a Monster."

The Evian Water Bra
Fill it with cold water to keep your breasts cool. Someone signed off on some Evian summer intern's project without reading the proposal.

Location is everything?

My apartment is the size of Bill's kitchen. I state it that way because it's a compliment to my apartment. Looking out his window, I see, no joke, a hummingbird sucking nectar from a flower on one of the bushes, bathed in the golden glow of sunrise. It's as if I died and woke up in heaven, or perhaps my friends sedated me yesterday and put me into a rehab clinic in Southern California. Any minute now a fat nurse will be in to give me an enema.
This is the first clean air I've breathed since...I can't even remember anymore. I'm also reminded that I really miss DirecTV.
Okay, off to the U.S. mecca of golf.

Mugged

Short story by Tobias Wolff in this week's New Yorker

I long ago stopped reading the weekly New Yorker short story unless it happened to be by an author I know and love, like Wolff. Also in this week's New Yorker, Noah Baumbach wrote the comedy bit, titled "Tom Cruise is My Dog." I heard Baumbach speak after the screening of his movie The Squid and the Whale at Sundance this year. Baumbach, a close friend of Wes Anderson, did not seem like the type of guy who'd write a piece like that, but I guess I was wrong.

Upcoming cookbook by Ferran Adria contains recipes from his famed El Bulli

Will cost $210 and include interactive CD-ROM.

Entourage gets a third season

Tattooed fruit could mean the end of the annoying little stickers you have to peel off

***

I'm away from NYC a lot in the next month, so every day here is spent running errands. This stretch of days where I have to venture out onto the street just happens to coincide with the muggiest weather since I've moved here. Within a minute of walking out into the heat, I feel like a damp towel. NYC feels like a sauna with a concrete and asphalt floor, brick and metallic walls, and the sun for a heat lamp in the ceiling.

***

Every camera store I've been to in NYC so far is owned and run by Hasidic Jews, including the massive B&H. Yesterday I had to drop off my inkjet printer for repair at a local camera store and was greeted by a store full of Hasidic Jews, just like B&H. It's the fourth such store I've visited. Interesting cultural phenomenon.

Do camera stores have really low margins? Are photographers a jealous, misanthropic lot? How does one explain the awful customer service at camera stores (it was the same at Glazer's in Seattle)? A majority of camera store employees I've dealt with are rude and curt, as if they disdain my business. I have no idea why that is but it's really unnecessary.

The late night employees at Whole Foods, on the other hand, are just careless and indifferent. Twice the clerks there have forgotten to pack one of my items, and each time I've had to stand there waiting while the checkout clerk carried on a social conversation with one of their peers. In this heat and humidity, it's more than aggravating to walk 10 blocks round trip to retrieve a single item. When this happened again last week, I had to throw a tantrum on the phone to the manager to get him to credit me for my salad (which I pictured the manager eating himself as he replied "uh-huh" "uh-huh" to my litany of complaints). I'm not going there in the evening anymore.

***

I only caught a bit of the British Open, but it seems safe to say that Tiger Woods' swing changes have worked themselves out. To hurt Tiger, a course needs to punish him for errant drives, and if that doesn't work, competitors have to hope he's putting badly. The rough at the U.S. Open handled the former, and Tiger couldn't putt that week. But the British Open links layout didn't punish him when he hooked or pushed his drives. Errant tee shots landed in the next fairway over, and he simply hit irons from wherever he landed. The fairway bunkers? Tiger drover over most of them.

***

While in DC last weekend, Joannie and I visited the Holocaust Museum thanks to Rich's sister Catherine who works there and left passes for us. Even several years beyond its opening, it's still an attraction that requires advanced planning in order to secure a spot. The main exhibit is linear, winding down from the top floor back to the main floor. For some subjects, like this one, I prefer that format over an open format where you have to choose your own path.

Impressive exhibit and well worth a visit. Of course, I also dragged Joannie to see the insects at the National Museum of Natural History. As a compromise I went with her to view the Hope Diamond and other assorted bling.

Thank goodness the DC Metro stations are air conditioned. It was so hot that wandering from museum to monument to museum felt like strolling in a ceramic kiln. At the Supreme Court we viewed a video interview with the current Justices. Ginsberg commented that when the Constitution was written, women couldn't vote and blacks were still suffering the indignities of slavery, among other injustices to be rectified in later years. While she spoke, the video cut for a few seconds to the face of strict constructionist Scalia, and it was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes. High comedy. Scalia's a nut.

The trip to DC was a success. Joannie found an apartment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. It will be great to have her and Mike closer by, just a three and a half make that four five hour bus ride away. The bus drivers this time around sure took their sweet time.

On the way down, the in-drive movie was that awful movie in which Jennifer Lopez and her daughter and haunted by a crazy guy, presumably her ex-husband (I wasn't watching that closely). The lunatic was played by the guy who played Carter Buckley on The O.C. this season. Finally, after being terrorized by the guy for the entire movie, J.Lo trains herself in boxing and goes after him. Our arrival in DC cut off the final fight scene, to no one's dismay.

***

I keep receiving a phishing e-mail for eBay, an excerpt of which appears below. This fraudster needs a copy editor. If you want to steal someone's money, at least put some effort into it.

It has come to our attion that 95% of all fraudulent auctions are caused by members using stolen credit cards to purchase or sell non existant items. Thus we require our members to add a Debit/Check card to their billing records as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. Your Debit/Check card will only be used to identify you and bill any open seller fees incase your initial credit card gets declined. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the eBay® service. However, failure to confirm your records will result in your account suspension.

Review: Marathon, Princess Raccoon, Mindgame

I grabbed Scott to see the Korean movie Marathon last last Sunday night as some inspiration for his upcoming attempt at an Ironman. The last several Korean movies I've seen have been excessively disturbing, with graphic violence and sex a magnitude of order higher than anything in American movies. Though I have nothing against such movies, I wasn't in the mood for that Sunday night. Marathon's description portrayed it as a feel good movie, and though I've been fooled by such for Korean movies in the past, thank goodness this one wasn't kidding.

Based on a true story, Marathon was the top-grossing movie in Korea this year. Cho Won is an autistic young boy. Like other autistic children, he has problems relating to other people, including his younger brother and parents. Fortunately for Cho Won, his mother (Mi-suk Kim) is strong and loving, with the type of patience only a mother could have. When we jump forward and see Cho Won at age twenty, his mother is still caring for him, though her husband lives elsewhere, perhaps driven away by his wife's all-consuming interest in her Cho Won, or perhaps just unable to summon the same patience and energy needed to raise such a child.

Cho Won's mother has found an outlet for him in running. He's good at it and places in 10K's in his special classification. She decides to find him coaching so that he can train to run a marathon. When a former Boston Marathon winner is assigned 200 hours of community service at a school for autistic children for a DUI, Cho Won's mother senses and opening and asks him to coach her son as a way to work off some of his community service obligation. The coach's best days are behind him, and he lives from one beer to the next in a slovenly apartment. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Jung-wook translates as Morris Buttermaker.

Autistic children display a very limited range of emotions, and as such they serve in movies as mirrors through which we see the nature of the people around them, their problems and natures, as in Rain Man. Do people try and take advantage of them? Do they try and care for them? How do they handle the autistic child's inability to show gratitude or love? Autistic children interpret everything literally, and some comedy ensues in the failure of the coach to understand that about Cho Won.

Does Cho Won actually enjoy running? No one is certain. When asked if he likes running or not, Cho Won says he likes it. But phrase the question a different way and he'll say he doesn't. Can Cho Won even run a marathon safely if he doesn't learn how to pace himself? The story of Cho Won is mostly a story of his mother and how she struggles to best raise Cho Won. Does she want him to run a marathon because it's what she wants? Is he only a puppet for her own dreams? Whenever she lets her attention wander for just a moment, Cho Won seems to get himself into trouble, yet at other times she's accused of clinging to him too tightly or ordering him around simply to make her own life easy. It's a complex role, and Mi-Suk Kim plays it from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other with genuine heart.

The movie builds to somewhat of an expected ending, but the road there twists in surprising ways. The climax of the movie stays with Cho Won all through a race, the only sequence in the movie where its emotion seemed forced. Since Cho Won is autistic, it's not clear that all the flashbacks and thoughts shown on screen could actually be his, and we can't empathize with an autistic character the way we'd empathize with the other characters. It's one of the few times where I wanted more cutaways to the mother, brother, and coach during a climactic sports scene.

But it's a minor quibble with a touching story, one that resonated with me even more when the on screen epilogue noted that Cho Won's character was based on a real-life autistic Korean boy who ran a marathon in 2002. His time, just over 2:57, is still a record of some sort (the details elude me). As The Sports Guy often writes, it was mighty dusty in that theater.

***

Princess Raccoon (official Japanese site) is an operetta by Seijun Suzuki, whose Tokyo Drifter was a stylish post-modern gangster movie in which the lead character whistles his own theme song. Suzuki is nothing if not unique; when you see one of his movies, you knew who the hell directed it. That applies even more so to Princess Raccoon, so odd a merger of operetta, costume dramas, animation, film, and commercials that it's utterly incomprehensible. I'd summarize the plot but I'm sure I'd be doing the movie an injustice even if I happened by chance to be accurate. Still, for reference's sake: a vain king seeks to kill his son, the prince Amechiyo, when a prophet envisions that soon Amechiyo will surpass the King in beauty. Fortunately, Princess Raccoon (Zhang Ziyi) has eyes for the prince and protects him with some magic.

Some of the visual cuts and transitions are kind of brilliant, and the very mannered performances, much like those of singers in an opera, are so different from those in almost all other movies that they provide a type of cognitive dissonance that one hopes to find at a film festival. Much of the movie is a comedy of the absurd. On the other hand, the story is both too simple in its overall structure and too unintelligible in its detail to hold a viewer's interest for nearly two hours. I was glad I didn't bring someone with me to sit through the movie; this one should be rated D, for daring audiences only. Some plotless movies speak to the subconscous with their surreality; this one's simply a Tokyo drifter. At one point a golden magic frog appears on screen and starts speaking. If you can get your hands on one, I recommend trying to smoke it before watching Princess Raccoon.

***

Even if you don't smoke some golden frog, though, you'll feel like you did while watching Mind Game, a remarkable animated feature film from Japan (trailer). Recent Japanese animation has been a letdown. Appleseed had an insufferably banal plot while Steamboy offered one-dimensional characters, long a bane of anime.

Mind Game has a hero with a soul and a personality in Nishi, and the wide-ranging animation styles on display are not just for show; each style reinforces the character's feelings or the scene's mood in a synergistic way that reminded me of well-drawn manga. On average, though, the animation is less Ghost in the Shell and more The Triplets of Belleville on acid.

Nishi has been in love with his childhood friend Myon as long as he can remember. Since he met her when she was but a child, we can presume he loves her for more than the outrageously ample bosom she sprouts by the time we meet them in their early twenties. Nishi is shy and neurotic, though, so passive he can't express his true feelings for her, and now she's engaged to marry another guy. The three of them meet up with Myon's father in a diner to catch up over a meal when suddenly two members of the Japanese mafia drop by in search of the owner. The tension in the diner escalates, and one thing leads to another, culminating with Nishi in heaven, conversing with God. Nishi wants a second chance at life, a second chance to tell Myon how he feels. He feels so strongly he outraces divine creatures to return to the world and change his fate.

And then the movie really takes a turn for the bizarre. What seems like a straightforward story transforms into almost a religious or metaphysical fable in the second half, the plotline involving the gangsters discarded like a dream. If I sound vague it's only because I don't want to ruin the story; the unexpected turns are part of the movie's joy.

***

The New York Asian Film Festival feels like an underground movie festival. The bad:

• The Anthology Film Archives Theatre, where the first half of the festival screened, is a dump of a movie theatre. The projection is too dark, the seats are uncomfortable, and the air conditioning barely works.


• The popcorn at ImaginAsian Theater, where the second half of the festival screened, feels and tastes like salty packing peanuts.


• A Venn diagram of nerdy film geeks who attend the NY Asian Film Festival and people who don't shower daily would show two circles sharing a lot of area.

The good:

• Good movie selections, on a whole.


• The ImaginAsian Theatre serves Asian snacks and drinks like Pocky and Guava Juice. Mmmm, guava juice.


• They don't show the festival's promotional commercial before every movie.


• At each screening they raffle off a few prizes before the movie starts. I won lousy DVD and $2 of Jet Li postcards, but who am I to turn a cold shoulder on a gift horse?


• One of the festival's promoters introduces the movies with breathless enthusiasm, somewhat of a welcome change from the usual dull speech from some film festival promoter explaining exactly why you should enjoy the movie you're about to see.

Team Time Trial, and my breakaway attempt

A highly competitive team time trial today, the closest ever, marred by David Zabriskie's crash near the finish. It's one of my favorite events, as I love the feeling of riding a blazing pace line with other riders. One of the things I most look forward to about going to France each year is flying through the French countryside with a couple of other riders, each taking a short turn up front. A group of riders like that can go faster than any one of the riders can alone, so a paceline like that allows you to sustain higher average speeds for longer periods of time. The feeling is exhilarating, and the formations of the professional teams resemble flocks of birds in their precision, a beautiful color-coordinated backlash of man and machine.

Photo ©: Roberto Bettini www.bettiniphoto.net

It's still not clear what happened to Zabriskie. The commentators theorized that he crossed wheels with the rider in front of him, but I haven't read any definitive account of the crash. A rider usually knows when he crosses tires with someone in front (UPDATE: Zabriskie has blamed a skipped chain). CSC is very fortunate in one sense in that they'd just come out of a corner, slowing them down just before the crash. Otherwise, I'm fairly certain that Roberts and more importantly Basso would have gone head over heels over Zabriskie. That would have lost Basso another minute or two on Armstrong (the crash was outside the 1km red flag, so Basso would not have received the protection of sharing his team's time).

Cyclists everywhere had to be wincing in empathy watching Zabriskie roll slowly to the finish line, the left side of his cycling shorts ripped open, revealing a massive patch of bloody, gravel-scored skin. As any rider knows, Zabriskie is in store for some hellaciously painful showers and several days of riding with a mixture of throbbing soreness, joint and muscle stiffness, and a sharp stinging pain. On a positive note, he's a bit lighter now, having lost some blood and skin to the road.

Team Discovery Channel set a team time trial record, averaging 54.93 kph or 34.13 mph. To sustain that for over an hour and ten minutes is absurd. Just silly fast. I'd need a long stretch of downhill to get myself up to that type of speed, and if I was lucky enough to sustain it for several minutes my heart would explode. That's assuming I could even turn over a 55-11 gearing. With a flat course and a tailwind, the conditions did not seem to favor huge time gaps, and the negligible time difference between CSC and Discovery Channel showed that to be true.

The next few days will be somewhat uneventful, as Lance and Team Discovery would prefer. They spoke of perhaps sending George up in some breaks to see if they could transfer the yellow jersey from Lance to George, but I'm skeptical. It would tire George out needlessly before the mountains. I'd love to see it happen, though. These are the least interesting stages of the Tour de France, everyone riding together to the finish, perhaps chasing down a break or two, before the sprinters amass for the insanity of the bunch sprint. The first several stages, with the team time trial and a longer than usual prologue, has probably left many riders exhausted, so riders will be more reluctant to break away the next day or two.

Tom Boonen has just been a beast this season (he won the Tour of Flanders and the fabled Paris-Roubaix), and it's just a shame Alessandro Petacchi isn't at the Tour so the two leading sprinters in the world could duel it out. That would make this first week more compelling.

***

I went for a bike ride yesterday, trying to find my away to the George Washington Bridge and across into New Jersey. I printed out a cue sheet and stowed it in a sandwich bag in my rear jersey pocket. The first time I reached for it, up in Harlem, it was gone. I may have lost it within a block or two of leaving my apartment. Finding my away across the GWB wasn't difficult, but once over to the other side, I had no idea where to go.

Though most cyclists seemed to have stayed home to avoid the auto traffic for the 4th, I managed to run across a local who talked me through a moderately hilly loop just on the other side of the bridge. He was a scrawny, stick-armed, middle-aged man with a big white beard and a deep tan, riding an old, beat-up road bike. I imagined him to be the town crazy, spotted everywhere but rarely spoken to, the kind that turns out to be a former Nobel Prize winner in the movies. He had a voice like Will Ferrell's Old Prospector from SNL.

Harlem streets are rough (literally). My rear tire flatted on the return trip. It wasn't a blowout, so I managed to drag myself home by stopping every two or three miles to put a few pumps of air in. I'll have to change that tube and find some tires more suited to shattered-glass-and-pothole complexion of New York city streets.

I didn't realize so many New Yorkers abandon the city on summer weekends, especially holiday weekends. I should have stolen away, somewhere, anywhere. I think I need a time out from the city. Riding around the city by myself and past so many families out at parks with picnic coolers and BBQs, I felt a vague sort of longing that the warm summer air always seems to stir up. A yearning for something, but I wasn't sure what.

Well, that's not exactly true. I am yearning to be in France, where my life would be as different as possible from life in Manhattan. My daily concerns on Tour de France bike vacations has always been so wonderfully circumscribed. Wake up, prep my bike clothes and equipment, eat a good breakfast, study the route map, check the bike and pump up the tires, and set off. Then you eat, stroll through quaint little French towns, watch the race finish, and choose a restaurant in which to eat a two to three hour dinner. Then it's back to bed or on to the next town.

Everything moves slower except the cyclists. People walk more slowly, meals are eaten at leisure, and one senses that everyone around them has the same, simple outlook and daily concerns. Even when I'm out for a leisurely stroll around NYC, I can't help but be swept up by the current of suits streaming in both directions on sidewalks and subway. People here are like molecules compressed into a low volume space, oscillating at higher speeds under the pressure. Compare it to Los Angeles, a horizontal city as opposed to New York's vertical configuration. With so much horizontal space per person, everything moves more slowly, and even those looking to speed around get caught in gridlock.

I do think that finding some routes out of Manhattan on my bike will help. My breakaway didn't quite succeed, but attack enough and one day you'll outrun the peloton. I'm going to tape that cue sheet to my forearm on my next trip.

Oodles of pixels

How many megapixels is your digital camera? Try 4 billion.

The gallery zooms in on tiny portions of the master image to show you just how much detail the camera can capture. Let's turn this on Nicole Kidman's face and see if she has any pores.

An opera composed by Tan Dun, with libretto by Ha Jin, directed by Zhang Yimou, and sung by Placido Domingo

Coming to The Met Dec. 21, 2006.

I applied for David Letterman tix online, submitting three free days off my calendar. Only a day later, I got a phone call from the box office. I had to answer a trivia question and two guaranteed tickets would be mine. I haven't watched Dave much recently, so I flubbed an easy question and missed out on seeing Tom Cruise on Letterman.

Elizabethtown trailer and music video

10 seconds from Peter Jackson's upcoming King Kong movie. The teaser trailer airs on the NBC networks tonight.

Chicago Police try to combat prostitution through public embarrassment, posting photos of solicitors online (via Freakonomics)

If I'm Hermes, I work quickly to cut off the Oprah PR disaster. Free purses for everyone in the studio audience! On the other hand, perhaps Oprah is the only one on set of her shows who can afford to shop there regularly.

James told me to tape the World Poker Tour Saturday, and I did. Scanned it last night to watch Doyle Brunson destroy Lee Watkinson heads up at the final table. A thing of beauty.

Trailer for videogame Alan Wake

Videogames and movies continue to converge in style and marketing

Godzilla Final Wars

I saw Godzilla Final Wars at the New York Asian Film Festival yesterday evening (video clips here). Of all the movies at the festival, this was the first to sell out. The Godzilla following remains strong. Fans of Godzilla and campy movies will eat this up, much as yesterday's groupies did. Every time Godzilla belted out his trademark roar, the audience erupted in kind.

At some point in the future, suddenly all of Godzilla's past monster foes appear all over the world and start razing cities. The Earth Defense Force tries to fight back, but they are helpless, especially when the monsters are discovered to be in the control of aliens called Xiliens. It looks grim for Planet Earth, but the most dangerous weapon the Earth has ever known remains frozen in ice at the South Pole...GODZILLA!!!

The camp knows no bounds. This is the "man in rubber suit destroying mini models of famous landmarks and cities" school of Godzilla movies. Some characters speak in Japanese with English subtitles; Captain Gordon (Don Frye), who provides the most memorable of the movie's intentionally histrionic performance, speaks in English with Japanese subtitles. Everyone understands everyone else perfectly. Apparently they can see the subtitles also. Characters toss the term "monster" about as if it is a scientific term.

Before the movie began, festival promoters gave away prizes to those who could answer obscure Godzilla trivia. These were truly some hardcore fans, able to selectively recall which monsters appeared in which of the three different Godzilla movie series. This lizard is right up there with Zatoichi in Japanese cinematic productivity.

I am unfamiliar with all of Godzilla's foes, but among the ones to make an appearance in this movie are an armadillo, a spider, Rodan (who appears to be a descendant of a pterodactyl), what appears to be a giant Gremlin with Mad Cow Disease named King Caesar (sp?), a flying ant, the three-headed mutant offspring of Hydra, and Gigan (a cross between a lizard, a wooly mammoth, Cyclops, and a chainsaw). Also appearing are Mothra (yes, a giant moth) and what looked like a baby Godzilla; did the big guy father an illegitimate child somewhere along the way? Godzilla junkies got more of a kick out of each of these monster's appearances than I did, though even a novice like myself could revel in the paradox that is the movie's realistic yet completely unrealistic look. It's similar to the child-like joy of seeing stop motion animation, like seeing one's childhood toy fantasies enacted on a larger scale. Combined with lots of sake and a sushi dinner, Godzilla Final Wars could make for a fun night out.

The movie's score is by Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus, Azumi, Alive) directs.

Best man speeches

Bawdy best-man speeches given by the actual best man on earth at the time

I hate to generalize based on such a small sample size, but based on all the weddings I've been to, the Best Man speech is humorous, poking fun at the groom and leaving the room in stitches. With a bit of alcohol, there's always a chance that something inappropriate might be said. The Maid of Honor's speech is sentimental and weepy, leaving the entire room uncomfortably silent, a few girls dabbing at their eyes while the guys look at the floor wishing it would end.

Phil Jackson returns to coach the Los Angeles Lakers

Asafa Powell of Jamaica breaks the world record in the men's 100 meter dash

He ran it in 9.77 seconds to beat Tim Montgomery's disputed (b/c of doping suspicions) record of 9.78.

The magic sunscreen that's still illegal in the U.S.

Mexoryl is not FDA-approved, but it blocks UVA light better than any ingredients in sunscreens in the U.S. Bootleg it from drugstores on the Upper East Side or from Canadian pharmacy websites.

Discovery Channel goes 1-2-3 in final stage of Tour de France tune-up race

George Hincapie, Yaroslav Popovych, and Lance Armstrong take places 1 through 3, respectively, in the final stage of the Dauphiné Libéré. Armstrong finishes fourth overall, behind unknown Inigo Landaluze, who was the only rider on his team to finish the race, and Santiago Botero and Levi Leipheimer. Vino finished fifth. Should be a really competitive Tour de France. I recall that OLN TV had much more coverage of cycling leading up to the Tour last year. Much to my disappointment, cycling television coverage has been sparse this year outside of the Giro d'Italia.

The New York Asian Film Festival 2005 has a sweet lineup of movies

Michael Jackson to change his lifestyle

"Michael Jackson's lawyer said today that the singer will no longer share his bed with young boys."

Rockefeller Center hosts free Drive-In Movies from tonight through Saturday evening at 9pm each night. Seating begins at 6pm.

The lineup this year is documentary-heavy:

June 14th - “Rize” - David LaChapelle's documentary about krumping, a style of dancing from the L.A. ghettoes. Saw and enjoyed this at the Tribeca Film Festival.

June 15th - “The Baxter” - Michael Showalter romantic comedy set in Brooklyn.

June 16th – “All We Are Saying” - Rosanna Arquette's star-studded documentary on the state of the music business.

June 17th – “Show Business” - documentary about the brutal Broadway production business.

The 27th Annual Museum Mile Festival

Once a year, all the museums along Museum Mile in Manhattan open their doors for free for a few hours. Fifth Avenue closes to automobile traffic, allowing various performers entertain pedestrians up and down the street.

Much to my delight, the Merovingian from The Matrix Reloaded showed up to sing German cabaret songs. Okay, his name is Daniel Isengart, and maybe he wasn't the Merovingian from The Matrix Reloaded. Sure looked and acted like him, though. Of course, if he was the Merovingian, he probably would have brought Monica Belluci along to play the pianola instead of Daniel Pearl, and then you'd be looking at pictures of her playing the pianola instead . That said, Isengart's amusing blend of German Kabarett and French chansons had the crowd of mostly middle-aged woman gushing, and he'd be a massive hit on the wedding circuit.

As you'd expect, the lines to enter all the museums were long. It's the curse of NYC--anything good, and there's a lot of it, is overrun with people. The summer promises all sorts of iconic NYC experiences, but only to those willing to spend long hours in line. Shakespeare in Central Park, trendy new restaurants, outdoor movies at Bryant Park, free concerts in Central Park, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien. Everything except Last Call with Carson Daly. I think those are available for the taking; someone's always giving some of those away.

Thankfully, the street performers at the Museum Mile Festival weren't overrun. More pics from the festival over at my Flickr page.

Who's so vain?

What do you call a book that is not a novel and not a collection of short stories but something in between?

5 movies Alex wishes people would stop quoting

Usually I find those anti-piracy ad spots to be annoying and self-righteous; that said, I would've liked to have seen this one.

Who was Carly Simon singing about in "You're So Vain"?

NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol paid $50,000 for the answer at a charity auction.

Teaser trailer for Revolver, the new Guy Ritchie flick starring his bud Jason Stratham

Guns, gangsters, goons, gambling, Guy Ritchie.

***

Early reviews of Batman Begins are positive

Ebert calls it the only Batman movie he's liked thus far, though I'm not sure I'll trust him on this series if he didn't like the original Burton Batman. I watched the 10 minute Batman Begins preview during the season finale of Smallville, and it seemed decent, but Christian Bale's Batman voice was very strange, almost choked. Okay, what does it matter? Mike and I are going to see it in IMAX the day he gets into NYC.

***

Did anyone see the Federer-Nadal semifinal? I wasn't even sure when it was on television. I'm not a huge fan of clay court tennis, but that would've been something to see. I tried to set my DVR to grab it, but instead it grabbed the other semifinal which I had no interest in. Nadal is one of the quickest players I've ever seen, and he hits with a filthy amount of top spin, especially off the forehand side. Good to see Safin and Nadal pushing Federer in the first two slams this year. The French Open isn't the most interesting tournament to watch on television, but Paris in early June? It might be the best Grand Slam to watch in person. I'll have to see it in person some year.

***

I'm sad that the Phoenix Suns got knocked out of the NBA playoffs. They were the only storyline sustaining my tepid interest in the NBA playoffs. Amare Stoudemire is a freak. I could watch him and Nash running the screen and roll all game long. Stoudemire is so quick, his arms so long, and his vertical so explosive that he always seems to get the basket, no matter who's guarding him and how much space they give him. If you had to pick one player from the NBA to play with you in a 2 on 2 game, I'm not sure you'd take anyone besides Amare.

The Suns play the type of basketball that's fun to watch on television. Otherwise, NBA basketball is dull as can be. The officiating doesn't help; it's awful, even to the naked eye of the average fan. I went to a Bulls-Sonics game in Chicago earlier this year with Mike, and the game set a record for most fouls ever in a single game at the United Center, over 70 of them. Every ten seconds it seemed like a whistle blew. Just brutal.

***

So much for the spring. Summer is upon NYC, and I'm sweating. My old and cranky air conditioner is a raspy SOB. Let's hope it holds out.

Hub

Living in NYC is like hosting a party attended by a lot of supermodels. Or getting a boob job. People you haven't seen in ages just drop in all the time. I've had old friends in town for seven weeks straight now. Compare that to living in Seattle when I'd be surprised if more than one person visited within the span of half a year.

Jen stopped in over a month back, and we grabbed dinner at Blue Ribbon Sushi in Soho. It was my first time there. Visitors are always a good excuse for a nice meal out. Who else did we spy in the lobby of Jen's hotel? Clive Owen. I wanted to ask him to repeat one of the funnier lines from the movies in 2004 (delivered with his signature venom in Closer, "You writer.").

Rich was in town the week after. Martinis at 2pm in the afternoon, and a slab of bacon at Gramercy Tavern at happy hour (my first time in the bar area there; the bacon entree, if it's still there, is artery-clogging nirvana). After that, Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway, followed by an 11 pm surf and turf dinner at some steakhouse near Times Square. They brought out a slab of red meat the size of half a loaf of bread. It took me a week to recover, and even then, angioplasty looms large.

Then Bill dropped into town. More late afternoon martinis as we waited for a seat at Union Square Cafe. Seated at the bar, we battled the dizzying influence of the martinis with USC's famous garlic potato chips, then chose some heavier artillery in the roast suckling pig.

Karen was in town for James's birthday, and we visited EN Japanese Brasserie in the West Village. We had the omakase dinner. I've been a few times now, and I prefer to order a la carte. The omakase wasn't all that satisfying taste-wise or portion-size as compared to the food my previous visits. Go a la carte, order the pork belly. I can't but help thinking of izakaya restaurants in Vancouver when I try izakaya in NYC. Vancouver's are better and two orders of magnitude cheaper.

Who was next? Howie, I think. His tastes are quite specific. We had Double Shack burgers at Shake Shack on a sunny afternoon. Nothing better, though the lines there are borderline prohibitive. The burgers are really good there, but remember to get at least a Double Shack burger. The regular Shack burger doesn't have enough meat, the Double is just right, and the Triple is indulgent. I needed all the calories to keep up, what with Howie keeping me up past 5am some four nights in a row. My body clock is still on the graveyard shift some two weeks later.

This past weekend, I was waiting for Scott to join me for a bike ride when Audrey called me on my cell. Turns out she was in town for a wedding and only a few blocks away. I rode over and walked her and her boyfriend and friends down to the Ashes and Snow exhibit, then met back up with Scott where we battled the annoying Fleet Week crowds all the way up the West side until we reached Central Park. The Central Park loop of 6 miles was just barely tolerable, what with pedestrians wandering out in front of us with nary a look in either direction. We couldn't really go that fast for fear of running over some fellow New Yorkers. We rode back down 5th Ave., my first taste cycling NY city streets in high traffic, and it was an adrenaline rush. Just plain terrifying. Scott rode without a helmet; he's crazy (Scott's also training for an Ironman, more proof he's crazy). A few times I felt like I was in a BMW commercial as city buses on either side of me collapsed in on me. This must be what it felt like in the approach run towards the exhaust chute of the Death Star in Star Wars. Not an experience I'd seek out, and I shudder to think of someone trying to learn to ride clipless pedals in Manhattan.

I also visited my new nephew Evan and happy/tired parents Alan and Sharon out in Long Island this weekend. We celebrated Sharon's birthday by battling Mace Windu and General Grievous in James's copy of Revenge of the Sith for XBox. No wait, correction. We ate cupcakes to celebrate Sharon's birthday. The light saber battling was just calisthenics for the fingers.

Dave's in town this week. We had dinner tonight downstairs at BLT Fish (upstairs, the fancier half of the restaurant, is reservations only). I hadn't eaten all day when I met up with Dave, and two beers on an empty stomach left me a little loopy. This always happens when people are in town--I end up drunk before dinner. My fish and chips? Nothing special, but Dave's striped bass impressed. Afterwards I stumbled home, and just as I collapsed on my sofa, my phone ran. Bill was in town for Book Expo. A short cab ride later, he was sitting on my beanbag. We caught up again for an hour or two. By the time I jumped online, Dave had already posted about our dinner.

Emily's in town next week, and then nearly the entire family comes through the week after. Cirrhosis the weekend after? Exhaustion, at a minimum.

Of course, I'm under no illusions that anyone is here to visit me. I'd like to think it's personality, personality, personality, but as with real estate, it's all about location, location, location.

Somewhat related note: is there a term for someone you haven't heard from in ages who suddenly e-mails, then when you respond, they go silent? E-mail and run? Pump fake?

Tribeca Film Festival mini reviews

These thoughts about the movies I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival are really late, but then I've been behind on lots of things these past several weeks.

My introduction to the Tribeca Film Festival came in the form of David LaChapelle's documentary Rize (QT trailer). It tracks the rise of a form of dancing called clowning which evolved into its more well-known incarnation: krumping. Invented by kids in the ghettoes of Los Angeles, krumping fuses hip-hop, African tribal dancing, stripper dancing, and the convulsions of an epileptic in seizure. Its movements are so fast and furious that a disclaimer appears at the beginning: none of the footage has been sped up in any way.

The theme of the movie is that these youths struggling to survive in the ghetto have found a creative outlet of expression and an alternative to the gangster lifestyle in krumping. Midway through the movie, clowning originator Tommy the Clown (a birthday clown for the ghetto, second from the left in the pic below) leads his group of Clowners in a dance battle against a new wave of krumpers, packing an entire arena, and the intensity of the competition and trash talk reveal a competitiveness at the heart of krumping. At dance parties, krumpers regularly shove each other off the dance floor, but the physical confrontation, as aggressive and combative as it appears, is peaceful in spirit.

The most charismatic dancer was Miss Prissy (she's the crazy-ripped girl in the movie poster), and she was one of the few stars not to attend Q&A because she'd gone on to become a backup dancer for the rapper The Game. Is krumping a fad? It's too early to say. It has yet to spread beyond Los Angeles, but perhaps the release of this documentary will spread the movement to other parts of the country. Though the documentary ties krumping to the ghettoes of LA, its violent and uninhibited movements look like a physical release of universal teenage feelings: alienation, anger, rebellion, and the conflicting desires to stand out and fit in.

In Red Doors, the NY Narrative Award winner, nearly all the characters are nearly at the end of their story arcs when the movie begins, and the story cliches shorten the distance they travel. All signs pointed to a family dinner with everyone's significant others at movie's end (Joy Luck Club style), and so it came to pass. Maybe some of the familiar tropes of these dysfunctional Asian American family stories are just too familiar to me as other people around me seemed to really enjoy it. The story of how a few college girlfriends banded together to stitch together financing and bring the movie to the festival, revealed during Q&A, was the portion of the screening that caught my attention. It's the type of story one hears over and over at film festivals, but it still hasn't gotten old for me.

Puzzlehead revives the Frankenstein myth. In this sci-fi thriller, a man who builds a robot of himself, only to lose control of it. The main actor was so wooden, I lost track of who was the robot, who was the man. Poor acting is a risk with any low-budget movie, but an audience will forgive if the movie is original. This one isn't able to outrun audience expectations. I felt as if I'd skipped ahead in the presentation and reached the finish while the movie was still presenting the first chapter.

I loved the docudrama 24 Hour Party People, by Michael Winterbottom, and 9 Songs was said to include concert footage by Franz Ferdinand, among others, and lots of sex. The movie should have been more accurately titled: 9 Songs, 24 positions. A young couple, Matt and Lisa, meets at a concert and begins an affair that alternates between live music and home-schooling in the kama sutra. The story is narrated in retrospect by Matt, now working in Antarctica on some sort of geological expedition. Long shots of the desolate, icy white snowscape hint at the shallow and empty nature of Matt and Lisa's relationship, but that idea isn't as tragic as it aspires to be considering how shallow both Matt and Lisa seem. The overall effect is much less provocative than it sounds, though at least it's an attempt to push audience buttons, something movie festivals should provide as an alternative to the average fare at local cineplexes.

Runaway is directed by Tribeca veteran (yes, there is such a think even though the festival has only been around since 9/11) Tim McCann and follows a pair of brothers on the run from a dark family past. Older brother Michael works at a convenience store and leaves his younger brother Dylan at the cheap motel that serves as their home base. Michael begins to fall for a fellow clerk named Carly (a back from wherever she's been Robin Tunney with the best performance in the movie), and as she opens up about her past, so does Michael, leading to a massive twist at movie's end. It's the type of twist which has become somewhat popular in movies in recent years, using a visual metaphor for an internal state of mind (I won't reveal what the trick is as it would ruin the movie). The first time you see it in a movie, it's surprising. Now, having been used several times, it feels a bit like a magician's invisible string. It's a dangerous game, because the gimmick also causes the audience to have to re-evaluate much of what they've seen. Leaving aside the plot twist, though, the greater problem is that Michael isn't sympathetic; it mutes the tragic payoff.

Fox Searchlight had already picked up Night Watch for distribution prior to Tribeca, so the Stuyvesant High School auditorium screening I attended had an unusually strict security detail. At the door, they took my phone and backpack and still security-wanded me before allowing me in. The director came on stage beforehand and billed Night Watch as the first fantasy movie to come out of Russia.

Night Watch is the first chapter of a trilogy, so it's particularly unfortunate that it's a mess. Take a vampire movie, zombie movie, a few witches and magic spells, and a heavy dose of CGI, put in a blender, top with a dollop of squid ink to darken the cinematography, and puree. The ending is a setup for part two of the trilogy and offers little emotional satisfaction. I welcome new entries in various genres from foreign countries, but the same economic pressures that produce unoriginal but globally palatable Hollywood fare can work in reverse. Night Watch feels a bit like Hollywood genre movies refracted back by a Russian fun house mirror, a Frankensteinian quilt of genre chunks. A movie like The Return, though it's in a genre with a long-standing tradition in Russia, feels far more original and unsettling.

Gorillaz in Union Square

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of the Gorillaz visited the Union Square Virgin Records store yesterday afternoon along with their latest producer, DJ Danger Mouse. Virgin was giving away 7" picture discs (A-side: "Feel Good Inc" B-side: "68 State") with the purchase of Demon Days.

left to right: DJ Danger Mouse, Damon Albarn (2-D), Jamie Hewlett (Murdoc)

Feel Good

Eat fat to lose fat

Now there's a headline I can get behind.

Party Ben mashes Gorillaz and Cake: "Never Feel Good" (MP3)

Gorillaz "Feel Good" is the catchiest single I've heard this year. Not sure how long until the new Apple commercial spoils it for me, but not yet. It stands alone better than it does mashed up. Ironically, it sounds best played large, on a full-size sound system. I love my iPod, but it's not the best device for really showing off music, and people who only listen to music on the iPod are missing out on something good (and possibly damaging their hearing)

Alinea, the latest entrant in the avant-garde food movement, debuts

Let's hope the food is better than the website. Grant Achatz is widely regarded as a prodigy in the culinary world. I wanted to go there when I was in Chicago earlier this year, but it hadn't opened. Instead, I took Mike and Joannie to Moto. I've been meaning to write up my meal there. Before I do, though, let me summarize: I'm a fan. My dessert at Moto was donut soup. It tasted like a liquid Krispy Kreme donut. Awesome.

Eliot Spitzer brokers a deal b/t Time Warner and Cablevision so Mets and Yankees games can be seen by Time Warner Cable customers (like yours truly)

Two thoughts: how ridiculous is it that a huge portion of NYC, the largest baseball market in the world, couldn't see their home teams on TV, and what doesn't Eliot Spitzer do?

Is their a way to get Mac OS X Tiger's Dashboard widgets to persist? If not, there should be, especially for the multi-day weather forecast widget.

Roast pork, docile elephants

After reading a stellar write-up of this joint in The New Yorker, I had to try Tony Luke's. Headed up towards Central Park, I stopped in along the way for a sandwich. It's most well-known for importing its cheesesteak ingredients (and a chef who apprenticed with Tony Luke himself) from Philly, but I opted for its other claim to fame, the Roast Pork Italian sandwich. With variations of just three basic sandwiches on the menu, Tony Luke's sticks to its specialties.

The restaurant itself is nothing to speak of, though people who know give it props for an authentic Philly atmostphere. White tile floor, fluorescent lights, and a counter and bar stools on the right and left lead to an ordering window at the rear of the shop. The woman behind it slid the window open, took my order, and slid the window shut. I felt like I was at a Western Union waiting for money to be wired over from family on another continent. A short while later, a different window opened, and a pair of arms passed me my sandwich.

The roast pork Italian is $7.95 and offers roast pork, provolone cheese, and broccoli rabe on foot long, soft-baked bread. They don't cheat on the length--I think mine may have been a foot and a half long--and they also don't cut the sandwich in half or offer any utensils. If there's an elegant way to eat the sandwich, it's likely limited to people with Michael Jordan-sized hands. I just stuffed my face with it, pork and rabe and provolone and grease spilling out in all directions.

Simple, and effective. The bitterness of the rabe, the sharpness of the provolone, and the saltiness of the pork form a beautiful love triangle, delivered on a plush bed of dough whose starchy taste stays out of the way. My one grips is that the restaurant offers only napkins. You need a sink with soap or at a minimum three wet naps to clean the grease off your hands afterwards.

Tony Luke's is on 9th Ave. between 41st and 42nd St. Next time I visit (after my arteries clear)? Cheesesteak.

Before stopping for a sandwich, I stopped at the Ashes and Snow photography exhibition (at Hudson River Park's Pier 54 until June 6). The exhibition is housed in a "nomadic museum" building designed by Shigeru Ban and built out of shipping containers and paper tubing (Ban is famous for building all sorts of structures out of cardboard tubing).

The photographs and 35mm film by Gregory Colbert reveal elephants, whales, cheetahs, falcons, and other animals living in peace and harmony with humans. In many of the photos, man and animal seem to be meditating together. Having lived without pets and in cities most of my life, the photos seemed fantastic, even artificial in the empathy depicted, but nothing I read at the exhibit indicated that the animals were anything but wild, or that the photos were manipulated in any way. In fact, one text said that the man free diving with the humpback whales was Colbert himself.

The 35mm film featured slow motion footage of the same subjects, but in motion they're even more mysterious. One shot showed a young girl lying asleep in a canoe, drifting down the river. The shot was from overhead and followed as the canoe passed below an elephant standing in the river. Was the elephant wild? How did they film some of these scenes? The large crowd of onlookers stood in rapt attention, like pilgrims in a temple.

If you're in NYC and looking for a peaceful way to spend an hour or two, Ashes and Snow is well worth a visit. If you're not in NYC, perhaps the nomadic museum will stop near you in the future, or you can check out more of the photos online or purchase some of the work here. A few more Colbert pics after the jump.

Media bits

iTunes 4.8 released, offering playback for Quicktime videos

After ogling the H.264 codec clips in Quicktime 7 on my G5, I can finally envision paying for video downloads through the web, for viewing on my computer. This new version of iTunes could be a step in that direction. People have speculated that Apple might focus on video downloads for a device like the iPod, but they could easily start with downloads for playback on laptops and desktops if those are the only devices capable of hurdling a minimum quality floor.

A torrent of New Order's May 5 concert in NYC at the Hammerstein Ballroom (and a bonus Peter Hook DJ set at Hiro in the Meatpacking District from that same night)

Hearing Peter Hook's bass riffs and New Order's distinctive guitar melodies makes me feel nostalgic.

The next song to be featured in the iPod commercials: Gorillaz' "Feel Good Inc" (iTunes Music Store)

Catchy tune.

Wicked

Either Wicked or Spamalot is the hottest musical in town. Wicked has been running over a year now, and somewhere along the line it blew up. I receive e-mails from Ticketmaster offering tickets for Wicked shows six months from now. Most shows from now until then are sold out. A friend walked up to the box office and managed to score good seats to last Thursday's show, and while I'm not a musical aficionado, I look forward to heading out on the town for a show.

The Gershwin Theatre, one of the larger I've been to in NYC, was packed. The atmosphere was that of a rock concert. Everytime Elphaba (Shoshana Bean) finished a solo, dozens of young girls stood up and screamed their support. Depending on your frame of reference, it had the atmosphere of a Beatles or Justin Timberlake concert. Usually an overzealous audience is a drawback, but perhaps for a musical it helps to energize the cast. Most shows that have been running for a long time go stale which is why it's often worth the price premium to see a show while it's fresh and hot.

I didn't know much about Wicked going in except that Kristin Chenoweth (most familiar to me as Annabeth Schott from The West Wing) had originated one of the leads before leaving in July. As soon as the musical started, though, it was clear that Chenoweth had played Glinda. As played by Jennifer Laura Thompson, Glinda sounded and acted like, well, Kristin Chenoweth as a peppy, ditzy blonde. Either Chenoweth had made the part her own, or it was perfect casting. Probably somewhere in between, especially when I recalled the movie version of The Wizard of Oz and recalled that Glinda was indeed a bubbly and spacey fairy. If Phoebe Buffay was your favorite character on Friends, Wicked's Glinda makes this the musical for you. Her comic performance and plenty of faithful references to characters, events, and dialogue from the movie provide most of the humor and a-ha pleasure in the show. The production value of the set is top-notch; the giant animatronic wizard has an impressive mechanical grandeur.

Wicked is the back story of The Wizard of Oz, but it also spans the entirety of the movie. It's a canny concept, just the right mix of familiar and foreign that musical productions favor. None of the music stuck in my brain, and the surprise ending is awful, but musical fans will embrace it for many years to come. I suspect I'll leave New York City before Wicked does.

2005 James Beard Foundation Awards

The Oscars of the restaurant world were announced. NYC is the Miramax of the restaurant world, or at least when Miramax was in its prime.
NY winners:

• All-Clad Bakeware Bakeware Outstanding Pastry Chef Award: Karen DeMasco of Craft, NYC - if I were a flying squirrel, I could jump out my window and glide to the doorstep of Craft. I really should go.
• All-Clad Cookware Outstanding Chef Award: Mario Batali of Babbo, NYC - is that the trophy Batali is holding, or is he about to bludgeon one of his foes on Iron Chef? I like a chef with a little heft; it's visible confirmation that they like to eat.

  

• American Express Best Chef, New York City: Andrew Carmellini, Caf