Remains of the Day

It's Tour time, baby!

Ever since 1999, July has meant one thing in my mind: Lance in France. The 2005 Tour de France kicks off Saturday morning, and I'm all geeked up. One thing, though, does have me down. I'm not headed over to watch the Tour in person for the first time in four years. The cost proved prohibitive this time around, and I'm going to ache as much as if I had to work through the Christmas holiday season. There's nothing like being in France and watching the Tour in person. It's the type of vacation I could do every year for the rest of my life, and for a while I thought I just might. Everyone should try it at least once.

I'll miss riding through the beautiful sun-drenched French countryside, hundreds of thousands sunflowers swaying in the wind; suffering up the gorgeous but soaring Alps as if climbing into the azure skies; inching up the steep and unforgiving Pyrenees in sweet agony; eliciting a few cheers of my own from spectators from all over the world, camped out on the roadside waiting for the Tour to pass by; burning so many calories that no amount of delicious French food can keep me from dropping a few pounds; struggling to make sense of sweat-drenched paper maps and unmarked backcountry roads; French cheese and bread; the thrumming bass of helicopter blades from further on down the mountain, portending the arrival of the head of the peloton; the sound of several hundred thousand fans, worked up to a frenzy; partying with crazy Dutch contingent on a mountaintop finish (so generous the past two years with their satellite television, their beer, their music); the invigorating chaos; feeling the breeze from these god-like cyclists screaming by at 35 mph just a foot or two from my face; les femmes françaises; discussing cycling with people who've followed the sport nearly all their lives, who know cycling like few people in the American public do; Paris.

I wish I could be there to watch Lance's last Tour. As those of you close to me know, I feel a particular kinship with Armstrong. I lost my mother and grandmother to cancer in 1998, the year Armstrong came back from cancer to prepare for the Tour. My left knee exploded (just about) that same year, that awful year, and after surgery my physical therapist prescribed cycling, a low-impact way to regain mobility in my knee and strength in my legs. In 1999, when Lance Armstrong shocked the cycling world by winning his first Tour de France, I purchased a road bike and became a cycling junkie. In 2000 I completed the Seattle to Portland (STP) one-day ride with a group of friends. In 2001 I got a taste of what it means to suffer in the mountains during the Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day (RAMROD).

In 2002 I really learned what it meant to suffer in the mountains during a Tour de France cycling camp led by Lance Armstrong's coach, Chris Carmichael. Tom Simpson died on Mont Ventoux in 1967, and under a scorching French sun I thought I might join him. In 2003, on my second tour of duty in the south of France, Lance survived all sorts of calamities to tie the record of five Tour victories. And last year, my most recent trip to France, Lance broke that record.

Though American television has carried very little of Lance's race season, I've followed his performances online. He looked strong in the Dauphiné Libéré, and he looks to be peaking at just the right time. Meanwhile, Jan Ullrich looks just a bit heavy and slow, as if he'll have to ride himself into shape during the Tour yet again. Some things never change.

I don't see any reason why Lance shouldn't be favored to win again. He has Tour preparation and his team dynamics down to a science. Despite living at the eye of a hurricane of publicity and fame, he has an iron grip on every variable in his control.

The team he's bringing to the Tour de France is, on paper, the best cycling stage team ever. The new ICU rules requiring teams to enter all the Grand Tours actually consolidated power with the top teams, and Discovery Channel Cycling is now the strongest team in the world. Among those shepherding Lance around the outside of France:

• Jose Azevedo, sixth in the Tour in 2002 and fifth in the Tour last year.
• Manuel Beltran, three time top-10 finisher in the Vuelta.
• George Hincapie, Lance's faithful lieutenant, someone who's evolved into the ultimate domestique. Also the guy who's lived every male cyclist's dream by hooking up with one of the Tour de France podium girls.
• Yaroslav Popovych, perhaps the best of the rising young stars in the cycling world and Lance's future successor as Discovery Channel team leader.
• Jose Luis Rubiera, four time top-10 finisher at the Vuelta and Giro.
• Paolo Savoldelli, winner of the Giro in 2002 and this year!

If they stay healthy, they'll be a juggernaut.

At this stage in his career Lance would not ride the Tour de France unless he felt he could and would win. The athlete Lance reminds me of most is Michael Jordan, and not just because they both have their own buildings at Nike HQ. Both are hyper competitive, brash and magnificently arrogant, and both maximize their freakish genetic athletic gifts with an unmatched work ethic. Both say the right things to the press, managing their public images with meticulous care, yet ask any of their opponents and they'll tell you that Lance and Michael are vicious, ruthless killers. I remember reading an article by Jason Williams (the one who shot someone on his estate) in which Williams described Michael as a "hard, hard man," that if you crossed Mike on the court he'd track you down and utter, "I'll f***ing break you" in what I can only imagine was a voice from hell. Mike even cracked many a teammate in practice, before they'd even made it into an actual game. One of the images of Michael I'll always remember is his face-off with Xavier McDaniel in the 1992 Eastern Finals. The Knicks had been beating up on the Bulls all series, and the X-Man had finally crossed a line. Michael locked foreheads with McDaniel, shooting him a look of raw fury and uttering what I doubt was the Lord's prayer. Then Jordan went out and led the Bulls to a Game 7 rout.

Various stories of how Lance and Mike gain a psychological edge on their chief competitors circulate among followers of the sport like myths. Lance calling his competitors during the offseason from mountainside climbs and asking them if they knew where he was. Michael trash-talking opponents like Charles Barkley during offseason rounds of golf, probing for any sense of doubt or weakness. Jeff Van Gundy called Michael out on it one season in the press, and the next time the Bulls played the Knicks, a game I was at, Jordan dropped 51 on the Knicks and then cussed Van Gundy out from the court after points 50 and 51 dropped through the net.

They both also demand absolute loyalty from those around them. Slip up once and you'll go from the inner circle to the doghouse just like that, and that doghouse is like a max security prison. Pippen was the perfect teammate for Jordan because he didn't want to be the alpha dog. Hincapie is the perfect sidekick for Lance because for three weeks each July he has no thought other than to put and keep Lance in yellow. Lance's teammates who've left for other teams--Kevin Livingston, Roberto Heras, Floyd Landis--well, let's just say Michael Corleone telling Fredo, "You're dead to me now" comes to mind. One can't shake the sense that even those loyal to Michael or Lance are scared of them. Tiger Woods is the same way, as his former caddy will attest. At this year's Tour of Georgia, when Lance Armstrong helped lead out teammate Tom Danielson to the overall race lead over ex-teammate Floyd Landis on the brutal Brasstown Bald climb, Lance pointed at Landis and then the race clock as they crossed the finish, as if to point out that Floyd could have had the race lead if he'd just stayed by Lance's side.

Even if they didn't have enemies, I suspect Lance and Michael would conjure some up. Both athletes have origin stories for their greatness, almost like comic book heroes. Peter Parker became Spiderman when bitten by a radioactive spider and when his neglect of a criminal led to his Uncle Ben's death. Michael Jordan set out to prove the world wrong when cut from his high school basketball team. Lance Armstrong carries an eternal chip on his shoulder because his father abandoned he and his mother to grow up in a rough neighborhood in Dallas. Later, the cancer that nearly killed him actually transformed him into a champion. Mentally, he had cheated death, and no human competitor could ever intimidate him. He'd live life to the fullest because he had been given a second chance. Physically, it didn't sap his power but did shave some ten or fifteen pounds off his frame, turning him into a that rare combination: a cyclist who could climb and time trial. Who knows if these events have any significance at all? The stories may be passed around more for the rest of us than for Lance or Michael.

Both elevated their sports in unique ways. Jordan, as documented in Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam, Jordan was a once in a lifetime player on the court and off the court, transcending his country, sport, and race to become an international mega celebrity. The NBA is still searching for Jordan's successor as its international mega-ambassador. Armstrong's first Tour win came a year after international cycling seemed ready to collapse under a series of drug scandals. Though cycling still has the drug-use sword of Damocles hanging over it, Armstrong has stayed clean and remained the sport's top story. Having beat cancer, Armstrong is more than just a cyclist; he's an living miracle, an all-purpose motivational speaker, and a deity in the cancer survivor community. Though not everyone loves to see one person dominate a sport year after year, having a single lightning rod for the fan's adoration and attention or hatred allows mythologies and legends to sprout. The NBA hasn't been the same draw since Jordan retired from the Bulls, and I highly doubt the Tour de France will see the same number of American spectators in 2006 that it did in 2004.

Lance's toughest competitors in the 2005 Tour? Himself and bad luck. He's definitely older, not quite as dominant in the time trials on mountains as he once was. For a professional cyclist he's an old man at 34. In a three week stage race, when only minutes or seconds separate the top several riders after over 90 hours on the road, any number of mishaps can cost a rider the race. A crash, an injury, one bad day on a mountain, food poisoning, an overzealous fan, a political protester, mechanical failure.

After that, his toughest competitors, as named by Johan Brunyeel, will be Jan Ullrich, Alexandre Vinokourov, Ivan Basso. Ullrich is a great time trialist but isn't explosive on climbs, and he's like Patrick Ewing or Karl Malone to Armstrong's Michael Jordan: perhaps just not vicious or cold-blooded enough to deliver the winning blow. Vino is a brave, aggressive rider, but not a great time trialist, and he'll be marked the whole race through this time around. Basso hung with Armstrong on two mountaintop finishes last year, but his time trialing isn't in that topmost echelon. Levi Leipheimer, and old teammate of Armstrong's, is also a strong time trialist and climber, but his team may not be strong enough to carry him through. None of Armstrong's former teammates has ever really damaged Lance in the Tour, and there may be a psychological barrier at play there.

Two ways to get pumped for the Tour this week: read Lance Armstrong's War by Daniel Coyle and watch the Lance Week programming on the Discovery Channel family of cable networks. Sang first alerted me to Coyle's book (his cousin used to date Coyle), and then I spotted a few rave reviews in the press. I'm a sucker for any non-fiction Lance Armstrong and/or cycling-related book, and the details at the book's official website sealed the deal. In particular, don't miss the Q&A with Coyle about Lance. Coyle moved to Europe and followed Lance for the year of his sixth Tour de France win, living my dream life, and in doing so, Coyle appears to have captured a more intimate portrait of the man. Most people who've been around cycling for many years know that Lance can be brash in a Texas-sized way, and Coyle donned his wings for a flyby of the sun. This quote from a Velonews interview with Coyle is revealing: "he is a good hero for my 10-year old son, but I wouldn't necessarily want him to date my daughter." Sounds like Michael Jordan, no?

I just received my review copy of the book today, and it will be a miracle if I don't devour it in the next few days.

Tour coverage in the U.S. will be on OLNTV, as usual, live from 8:30 to 11:30am EST daily, with several replays on into the evening. In most years, the Prologue doesn't provide much separation among the race contenders. This year, however, the Tour begins with a medium length time trial rather than the more customary short prologue time trial. This will limit the top finishers to true time trialers, of which Lance and Ullrich are two of the best, and it might provide significant separation among the contenders right away. Santiago Botero and Michael Rogers are also excellent time trialists, and Lance's former teammates Leipheimer and Floyd Landis could be near the top as well.

Follow daily updates on the Tour online at Velonews. Find collections of links at the Tour de France blog, which I'll be checking out this year for the first time and through which I discovered this gorgeous infographic on Lance (PDF). Read commentary at The Paceline and Team Discovery Channel websites. And this year Sirius is offering a daily Lance in France podcast during the Tour; iTunes 4.9 makes it a cinch to subscribe.

And to ease the blogging load on myself so I can keep up with the Tour, I'll try to post bits from my personal journal from my first visit to the Tour de France in 2002.

Google Earth

Google Earth, an interface to the world's geography.
[Sniff] Not available for the Mac.

Hollywood plans a remake of Don't Look Now
The original is one of the creepier movies I've ever seen, but most people who've heard of it know it only for the brilliant time-jumping lovemaking scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Don't wait for the remake; just watch the original.

In the latest round of man vs. machine in chess, it's the machines by a huge margin
I enjoy reading the articles by the Brits summarizing the matches. Much like their countrymen in the golf broadcasting booths, the English have a knack for pulling off the colorful metaphor. In golf, instead of hitting into the water, a golfer's golf ball plummets into a watery grave. Instead of being badly beaten by the machine, Michael Adams "was cut down by the monster machine with one ruthless thrust."

Disney and Dolby Labs to roll out new digital 3-D digital projection systems
Chicken Little, a cartoon, will be the first to try the new tech on for size.

Wimbledon.org has a feature called Shot Tracker that displays animated views of each shot in a match for featured matches
Sadly, the website does not have any feature allowing for animated 3-D views of Maria Sharapova. The statistical summaries of each match are quite impressive. I've never seen tennis coaches charting tennis matches the way baseball scouts chart opposing pitchers in baseball. I wonder if it's because they can grab all the info from technologies like Shot Tracker after the fact.

Maverick Remote-Check Wireless Thermometer allows you to multi-task while bbq'ing
Nifty. Too bad I live in NYC and can't grill. Here's the product page.

Salon.com looks into Scientology so the curious don't have to risk their own lives doing so
Parts 1 and 2 of the 4-part series are up. Tom Cruise is rumored to have reached the OT-VII level, one of the highest echelons of Scientology (OT standing for Operating Thetan). Supposedly at this level one gains the skills to master one's universe. Mock him and Scientology at your own peril. BTW, the term "clear" has now gained a few new meanings for me: (1) a steroid-like cream and (2) an optimum individual who has had engrams removed from the reactive mind. Hmm, not so clear anymore.

The latest Six Feet Under soundtrack has some intriguing exclusive tracks
Including one by Arcade Fire and one by Interpol. I don't appreciate albums like this that try and force the buyer to purchase an album for the few exclusive tracks they don't already own. The Apple Store only allows you to get the Arcade Fire and Interpol tracks if you purchase the entire album. Sorry, no thanks.

Paris is the leading candidate for the Olympics in 2012, just ahead of London and Madrid
New York is second to last, just ahead of Moscow, this all according to Gamesbids.com's BidIndex

Fireworks

One of the most pleasing feelings in the world is when water in your ear clears. It's like a hot explosion in your ear.

Corrales-Castillo, or King Kong vs TRex? Yes please.

Corrales-Castillo II? Oh yeah.
I finally tracked down the torrent and downloaded a video of their first fight. Unbelievable. Just an epic fight.

Here's that new King Kong trailer
The link goes straight to the Kong-sized version. Trying to navigate from the main site through the trailer link just sent me to the Volkswagen site. Very annoying. I'm looking forward to seeing the Kong vs. TRex fight. I was two years old when the John Guillermin version of King Kong came out. It was the first movie I ever cried at. I was sad that the big monkey got killed.

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

@&*#!

How much cussing is there in Deadwood? A lot (audio, not for @#$%&*-ing sensitive ears).

Since Michael Lewis published Moneyball, have major league front offices corrected for the undervaluation of on base percentage (OBP)? These professors suggest they have, due in part to the ascent of some members of the Oakland A's front office to General Manager positions elsewhere. Valuation of OBP took a huge jump up in 2004, leaping above the valuation of slugging percentage (SLG) for the first time.

New York Metro profile of Jean-Georges

Upcoming videogames: The Warriors, and The Godfather
Videogames borrow from movies, movies borrow from videogames. Paramount is big on derivative stories: Aeon Flux, War of the Worlds, The Honeymooners, The Manchurian Candidate, The Bad News Bears. Related: an e-comic adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (with art by D'Israeli).

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.

Fe Fi Fo Fum, here's the Yes review of an Englishman

Anthony Lane reviews Yes, a movie spoken in verse, in verse

“Darling, ‘Yes’ is playing. We could go
And skip the ‘O.C.’ rerun. Shall we?” “No.”

More Commencement speech stuff: Barack Obama's Commencement speech at Knox College (via TNR) and the audio of Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement speech (via Carpe Aqua)

Trailer for Peter Jackson's King Kong to hit television June 27th

Are you a precog? Take these tests of your psychic abilities.

Want good seats to a hot concert? Good luck.
In a city like NY, one might think the sheer wealth of cultural offerings would counteract this phenomenon, but getting tickets to anything here in NYC, even a reservation to a popular restaurant, is a challenge.

Paris, je t'aime: a movie loveletter to Paris, with a huge roster of directors focusing on one arrondissement each

Via AICN, the poster for Cameron Crowe's next and highly-anticipated (at least by me) movie, Elizabethtown, starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst:

Come out and get your whuppin, Charlie

New teaser trailer for the next Tony Jaa flick Tom-Yum-Goong
Part of a Thai food trilogy?

War of the Worlds tix available for pre-order (Movietickets.com, Fandango, AOL Moviefone)
Internet exclusive 5th trailer available at the official site if you log in

World Series of Pokerbots
Most of the competitors acknowledged testing their programs by running them on PartyPoker, against that site's rules. I don't see why a computer program can't someday soon be competitive at the World Series of Poker. A computer's inability to read his or her opponent can be offset by a massive amount of recall on opponents' previous hands, and a computer's playing speed can be varied with complete randomness. At the highest levels, most players say that opponents mask their tells very well, for the most part. Still, I do suspect that the best players have an intuition about his or her opponents that may be almost subconscious (or simply something they cannot verbalize), and a computer also can't easily tell when his or her opponent is getting flustered and how to press the advantage. I'd be interested in seeing an amateur like myself playing with a computer partner against a world-class player.

No. 1 on David Letterman's top 10 list of "Things Overheard During the Michael Jackson Verdict" last night: "Another case of a white guy getting preferential treatment."

Cutting Edge 2?!

Did anyone watch Evander Holyfield on Dancing with the Stars this week, dancing the Jive in a fluorescent yellow dress shirt? Oh, sweet mercy. He was awesomely bad, and he scored 13 out of 30, by far the lowest score of the night. I laughed and cried, and this is one of those times when that the simultaneity of those two acts made perfect sense. As the judges heaped harsh criticism upon him, I felt two things. One, pity. This poor former heavyweight boxer, despite competing against amateurs like Stacy's Mom (Rachel Hunter) and J. Peterman (that dude from Seinfeld, I have no idea what his real name is), was thoroughly outclassed. You take thousands of punches over the years and lose one earlobe to Mike Tyson's mouth and see how nimble you are on your feet. And, as Holyfield's face fell, that false smile fading into a grim and bitter stare of humiliation, I felt fear, for the judges, for his partner. At the end of the show, they just toss a couple out right then and there, unlike American Idol in which elimination is delayed by a day. It was too late for me to call in and register my vote to try and keep Evander on the show, and he was eliminated. He was the only reason I watched the show for the first time this week, and now they went and tossed him out, the best part of this show. To further push their luck, they actually forced the losing couple out onto the floor for a final dance. Evander was pissed, and he looked none too happy to have to prance around the floor one last time after his dismal evening. I expected him at any moment to toss his partner aside and go after the judges a la Ron Artest. "Come out and get your whupping, Charlie!" This was a great television moment cut too short. Really, does anyone care who the best dancing C-lister in show business is? Bring back Evander. I've always had a soft spot for Evander, even though he's fathered something like thirty children. The man got robbed in the Olympics in 84' and his just due tonight. It should have been the reverse.

"Death is very likely the single best invention of Life"

This time of year, Commencement speeches of note get bandied about the Internet through e-mail and the web. Though most of us are not graduating this month, the advice in such speeches is often relevant to almost all of us trying to graduate to something greater. The speech du jour seems to be Steve Jobs' Commencement speech at Stanford. He tells three stories in his speech, and each is better than the next. The second story offers a simple message:

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

Straightforward, though the simplicity can be lost in the real world when other factors enter the equation and muck up the mantra.

The third story is about death. It's similar to Stephen Covey's advice in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (I think; it was assigned reading one summer when I did an internship at Procter and Gamble) to imagine people speaking at your funeral and living so you could be remembered the way you wanted to be remembered, but Jobs story has a sort of Buddhist-geek-rebel spin:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that your are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

It reminded me of something Jeff Bezos would say because both he and Jobs think of such ideas in a very pragmatic and analytical fashion. He and Jobs both think of and refer to concepts like Death or regret as inventions or mechanisms. Banal philosophical truisms become prescriptive with an almost quantitative persuasion in their hands, and it's always more powerful to hear such advice from true believers. They live that way not because the ideas sound good but because they really believe it's the best long-term strategy.

Bezos' version of Jobs' death concept is "regret minimization":

At the end of the day, when you're eighty years old and looking back on your life, you want to have minimized the number of regrets you have. That's what should drive people. Not how much money they have. It's regrets that I think haunt people at the end of their life.

Related: Other college graduation speeches to achieve immortality on the Internet - Jon Stewart, Will Ferrell, Conan O'Brien, Kurt Vonnegut (urban legend)

Conquer the heat, and you become...a legend

The day the air conditioning died. That would be last Sunday, sometime in the afternoon. When I returned to my apartment that evening and opened the door, a blast of warm heat enveloped me. I do really badly with heat when I'm trying to sleep. Psychologically I can cope, but my body has the cooling system of an Apple Powerbook. That is to say, it sucks. I opened up the air conditioning unit, one that looks to have been manufactured about the time that A/C was invented, or the wheel, whichever came first, and discovered a filter so crusted with dirt that it had simply frozen solid. I immediately began thawing it out by turning the unit off, but it wouldn't help much until morning because no stores were open to replace the filter at that late hour anyhow.

I tried opening the windows but the humidity outside was so high that it overwhelmed any cooling effect from the night air. I lay on my sofa, but the suede-like fabric didn't breathe, so I lay on the living room floor, trying to lay as still as possible in the hopes that my body's screen saver would turn on. No such luck. My skin began to overheat, degree by degree. My entire body burned as if combusting with fever. Any hopes of sleeping that night would be futile. Despair and madness awaited.

Suddenly, from the depths of my mental inventory, out of the mental fog of my steaming brain, a blurred image arose, as if something dark and solid were rising out of a swimming pool. Excalibur? No, it was round, in motion. A fan! I sprinted to my bedroom closet to retrieve an old IKEA fan I had brought with me from Seattle. I'd bought it for just a few bucks from a damaged goods section of the South Seattle IKEA, and treasured it for its antique metallic look, quite a contrast from the bland and minimalist Scandinavian look of most IKEA furniture. It lay in a box high in my closet. I jumped and tugged at it, and it nearly split my head in two falling down upon me. I held it high above my head, cackling with glee. Soon, I'd be as cool as Jake Gittes in this summer heat. Bwahahahah! It's alive!

Only it wasn't. I plugged it in and flipped the switch, and...

Nothing.

What? It can't be! Nooooooo!

I took a screwdriver and opened up the bottom of the fan, but in my desperation I couldn't think straight, couldn't decipher the monkey wrench in the gears. I fell to the ground weeping, a defeated man (okay, it was more moaning than weeping, but the latter registers my inner turmoil with greater clarity).

I turned off my stereo amplifiers, computer, A/V receiver, cable box, DVD player, anything that gave off the slightest bit of heat. Then I took a cold shower, as cold as I could bear, and plopped back down on my living room floor to stare at the ceiling to ponder a mystery: how long until exhaustion would overcome my discomfort from the heat and bring sleep? The answer? A few hours. I fell asleep to the first light of dawn, that midnight blue that always heralds the coming daybreak.

But that was a darker time, one I've since resolved by replacing my A/C filter. Today was a happier day as I prepared for the arrival of family for a long visit. Some things that made me happy today:

• Some Stanford alumni organized an alum screening of Saving Face and a Q&A with director Alice Wu afterwards. Her story of getting the movie made was like an existence proof that what I'm trying to do is possible. She left a tech job in Seattle (program management at Microsoft) to move to NY to pursue a filmmaking career, giving herself five years to make a feature film. Without going to film school, she still managed to shepherd a work to the big screen, just meeting her own five year deadline when acquaintances of acquaintances of friends lined up financing and put her in the director's seat.
• Saw the midnight screening of Batman Begins with the usual opening night crazies, and what I enjoyed most about the movie was the score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. It's more atmostpheric and less iconic than Danny Elfman's score for the original Burton Batman movies, but it pulses with dark energy and compliments the movie the way a finely tailored shirt meshes with a suit. Soundtrack.net has a track by track walk-through along with 30 second samples (better than the 30 second samples available at the iTunes Music Store).
• Soundtrack.net also has a walk-through of the War of the Worlds score by John Williams. I have not listened to it, but the review notes that the score is "very' modern...with plenty of dissonance and atonal material." This gives me hope that it will equal the quality of his score to A.I., one of his best.
• Christian Bale makes a good Batman. I've always been a fan, from as far back as his Empire of the Sun days, but with his edgy work in American Psycho and astonishing physical transformation in The Machinist, he revealed a brooding, glowering persona that pointed at the obsessive anger and torturous guilt that lies at the heart of his Batman. Okay, I was going to try to keep this going like Patrick Bateman discussing one of the eighties bands in American Psycho, but it's too late, I'm too tired, and I can't come up with anything more.
• I enjoyed the new Batman movie. It's not without its flaws. It doesn't conjure up any iconic images as with the first Elfman Batman movie, and for a two-and-a-half-hour movie there are several moments that feel truncated or rushed. And some of the action sequences or fights share the same problem as Cinderella Man; they're framed too tight to distinguish what's happening. It's a common flaw of American action movies, the tight framing making acting as shorthand to speed up the action without speeding up the film, but it all just comes out a mess on screen. I much prefer the Asian kung-fu cinematographer's trick of framing with a longer shot but speeding up the film, allowing you to see the fight choreography. All that said, the movie succeeds at explaining the origin of Batman, his personality and mission, in a way that's dramatically exciting and satisfying, with the slow, patient simmer that's required for the best bolognese sauces. That's not an easy task when everyone in the theater knows roughly how it happens. The best parts of the movies are not the action sequences with the villains but the ones when Bale isn't wearing a mask. More later--I hope to see it with my brother-in-law Mike in IMAX on Thursday.
• Cubs win 14-0! They'll be in NYC this weekend playing at Yankees Stadium. Now that they're back in the wild card hunt, I'm looking forward to the games again.
• At the Batman screening they showed the latest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory trailer and all the fanboys went crazy. Some things about seeing a movie opening night with the drooling fanboys are annoying, like having to go early to battle for a seat, but the energy of an opening night screening can't be matched, and all the whooping and hollering turns a night at the movies into an event.

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.

Peace and Conflict

The 2005 version of the Peace and Conflict report, the third in the biennial series, is available as a free downloadable PDF. The report, subtitled "A Global Survey of Armed Conflicts, Self-Determination Movements, and Democracy", is written by Monty Marshall and Ted Robert Gurr based on global trends in armed conflict, self-determination movements, and democracy. The 2005 report adds sections on ethnic discrimination, political instability in Africa, genocide, and terrorism.

The trend in global conflict is a positive one. War is on the decline, at least within the last 15 years. The author's attach a caveat: "These positive trends are no warrant for unqualified optimism about the future of world peace. International cooperations is threatened by growing fractures in the world community." However, the idea that war is on the decline is a hopeful one. Has war become an inefficient means for countries to obtain the assets they seek? It's a theory some have offered as an explanation. Others theorize that the assets that countries once sought in war have evolved from physical assets (like oil) into more intangible assets (like intellectual capital). I don't know enough to offer my own explanation, though it seems entirely possible that conflict might evolve into different forms over time as the stakes of armed conflict become too high to justify the potential reward.

Not all the news is positive. Terrorism has supplanted superpower conflict as the primary security concern of the twenty-first century. High-casualty terorrist acts are up sharply since 9/11. Genocide and political mass murder remain a risk in over a dozen countries, and the inability of the UN to stop ethnic cleansing in recent years doesn't bode well for the world's capacity to halt future occurrences.

Miscellany

The fight to be high school valedictorian is a dirty, cutthroat business

80 Years of the New Yorker to be issued on DVD
Awesome! Pre-order from Amazon.com for $63, or 37% off the $100 list price.

PartyGaming, the largest online poker company, estimates its post-IPO valuation at nearly $8 billion

Free album for download: "The Secrets" by Bullette

Reviews: Crash, Cinderella Man

Crash has little nutritional content, but it tastes really good. It's the cinematic equivalent of a Pop-Tart (which I consider an ingenious breakfast food, for the record).

The movie's take on racism is facile--everyone is both racist and tolerant, and situations can make sinners and saints of us all--and the movie's structure echoes the theme: every character has an episode that reveals a vicious racism and another that displays their humanity or tolerance. It's as if the movie has nothing new to say on the topic of racism so it chooses to focus its energy on how it has to say what is has to say. In that, the movie is hypnotic and absorbing.

The movie is a series of vignettes, linked together with seamless and often clever transitions. At times you think you're following one episode, and then suddenly, with one cut, you're inside another. The textures of each episode are so similar that by the end of the movie the stitching of the fabric is almost invisible. Many of the individual scenes have an undeniable power, and they're staged and acted with an operatic intensity. Each of them winds up the tension so high that their resolutions prove emotionally cathartic. One after the other they pound headlong into the audience; watching is like riding an emotional bronco.

I missed the opening speech by Don Cheadle, but it's in the trailer, the metaphor that people crash into each other just to feel something. It's a concept that only makes sense in L.A., given its vast horizontal expanses and the numbing hours its citizens spend crawling through its arterial highways (in NYC, everyone is piled into each other, crashing into each other in subways and sidewalks. These interlocking multi-threaded movies would seem to make more sense in NY, yet Magnolia, Crash, and Short Cuts are all set in Los Angeles). The metaphor has a certain aesthetic beauty, but it's also a stretch. The movie tosses the characters together using plot coincidences that force them to confront their prejudice and compassion; it's doubtful many of them would have sought out such situations on their own.

Crash may not add much to the country's discourse on racism, but its emotional power is formidable. Million Dollar Baby, another Haggis screenplay, had similar strengths and flaws. At times, Eastwood and Swank were hijacked in the service of some grand ideas that wasn't as engaging as their characters. I left both movies feeling the same way, with my heart thumping and my brain shrugging.

Cinderella Man, unlike Crash, is based on a true and uplifting story that should speak for itself, but it arrives with its own baggage. The movie doesn't shy away from embracing its identity as a Ron Howard/Brian Grazer Oscar-seeking biopic. I struggled mightily to combat the feeling that every scene, every line of dialogue, and every note of the score was carefully crafted in the hopes of snaring a gold statue at the Academy Awards in 2006. Perhaps Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe) and his wife Mae (Renee Zellwegger) really were a perfect, flawless, decent couple. From the very little I've read, Braddock's story is indeed an amazing one. Still, the movie suffers from an odd variant of Michael Moore syndrome; rather than focus all its energy on tearing down its subjects, this movie does cartwheels and handstands in an effort to fit its protagonists for sainthood.

Russell Crowe tries to fight off the deification. I'm with Chris Rock; Crowe's your man for the period piece. He individualizes Braddock, particularly in a scene when he has to go, literally with hat in hand, to beg for money at a club filled with well-to-do boxing promoters who knew him when he was a promising young fighter. It's a moving scene, and Crowe soft plays it so as not to over sentimentalize it. Crowe's face is always a war among a frown, an intense gaze, and a reluctant smile, perfect for the down but defiant Braddock.

A movie needs its villains, though, and this movie has two of them. One is the Great Depression. Braddock is supposed to represent the hopes of nation beaten down by economic oppression, but his connection with the other people of his time is given only passing coverage. He's given a friendship with a union organizer named Mike Wilson that feels like a plot appendage intended to link Braddock to social issues of the times.

The other villain is boxer Max Baer (Craig Bierko). To the detriment of Braddock's cause, Bierko's Baer is more goofy than menacing. Bierko is not all that fierce in physique. We're told he killed two of his previous opponents by detaching their brains from their skulls, but his physique fails to live up to the legend. Bierko is tall and lanky, and in a fist fight my money would be on Crowe, no questions asked. I never once felt Crowe was in any danger in the ring against Bierko, whose signature expression of intimidation is a crazy bug-eyed stare. Anthony Lane refers to Bierko's Baer as a homicidal dandy, not exactly the type of branding any boxer would aspire to. He's not just a dangerous hitter, we're shown, but a crass womanizer. He makes a pass at Mae, she responds by tossing her drink in his face with her mousy scrunchy face (yes, to my dismay, we're given the plucky, mousy Renee Zellwegger in this movie). The fighters Braddock defeats prior to fighting Baer are such clumsy galoots that they rob Braddock's comeback of its improbability.

The boxing itself is more realistic than that in the Rocky movies, in which the two fighters don't block but simply bash each other's heads in with an intensity that would drop any human being in about five seconds and kill any mortal inside of a minute. However, much of the boxing is framed so tightly that it's tough to see what's going on. It's a camera trick intended to amplify the perceived intensity and speed of the punches, but it always bothers me in any scenes of combat. In the best of Asian martial arts movie, the fighting is framed for maximum clarity. You see the moves clearly, and they still astound.

Another misstep, one this movie shares with a similar movie in Seabiscuit, is that the movie cuts back and forth from the final fight to shots of Zellwegger and the Braddock kids and family friends listening to the fight on a radio. During every scene with Zellwegger and her kids, the radio announcer screams and shouts about some critical action in the ring, and we agonize over the action we're missing, as if the television set suddenly changed to the Food Network just before the season ending climax of our favorite television show. In Seabiscuit, the final race is interrupted by dry narration over still photos.

Paul Giamatti's portrayal of Braddock's trainer Joe Gould is a treat, especially with the memory of his depressed alcoholic from Sideways lingering in the air like the stench of liquor. Seeing Giamatti's Gould giving Braddock's pep talks before the fights is precious irony. It's as if Giamatti turned his life around in rehab.

Maybe a movie doesn't need real villains. This is an inspirational story of good people, and its lack of cynicism and its willingness to wear its hear on its sleeve are jolting and even heartwarming, especially in contrast to the predominant voices of our time. Me, I like my soup spicier and my Cinderella stories with a couple evil stepsisters, but as a dessert, Cinderella Man cleanses the palate.

Review: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

[Spoilers embedded]

The challenge for George Lucas in Revenge of the Sith (ROTS) was clear. This was the episode in which Anakin coverted to the dark side and became Darth Vader, shifting the balance of power in the galaxy (universe?) from the Jedi to the Sith Lords. For the tragedy to be as moving as possible, the audience has to like Anakin and feel sympathy for him, to pull for him to overcome his hubris even though they know his fate. The formula for an effective Greek tragedy hasn't changed much since Aristotle defined it in Poetics.

ROTS includes several explanations for Anakin's conversion. Are they convincing? To a degree, but the movie contains few moments that soar or stick in the heart compared to Episodes IV-VI. It's a tragedy in form, but the screenplay and staging submit to the dark side of catering to action and digital effects excess instead of focusing on dialogue and character. Compare that to The Empire Strikes Back, still the best of the six Star Wars movies, which contains at least a dozen moving scenes that I know by heart (e.g. Han Solo cutting open a Tan-Tan and stuffing Luke inside, Yoda lifting the X-wing out of the swamp, Han Solo frozen in carbonite ("I love you." "I know."), Vader confronting Luke, Vader revealing himself as Luke's father, Leia hearing Luke's call and turning around the Millenium Falcon to rescue him...I could go on and on).

The following are all emphasized at one point or another as forces that push Anakin to the Dark Side:

• Poor management and people skills on the part of the Jedi council. Anakin goes home to his wife Padme every day and complains about the Jedi Council. What married couple hasn't had to listen to each other grumble at the dinner table about office politics and inept managers? The frustration of Anakin at not being promoted to Master Jedi and the reluctance of the elder Jedi to promote an ambitious and talented but hotheaded youngster feels true to life. Similar anguish can be found in any corporation in the world, and this very personal political tale is much more interesting and well told, to me, than the larger democracy/dictatorship storyline which runs through Episodes I, II, and III (the details of the operations of the Republic and the Senate are never sketched out in enough detail to really pass judgment on the political plotline). Office politics is alive and well in the twenty...well, whatever century it is that this story takes place.The Jedi Council, in particular Obi-Wan, must sense Anakin's displeasure, but they do a poor job managing his expectations. Anakin has grown into a light saber prodigy and offed a Sith Lord in Count Dooku. If you're the Jedi Council, you should really do a better job grooming him for succession. This storyline works for me.
• Palpatine. Ian McDiarmid's Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is a much better judge of human character, in particular Anakin, than the Jedi, and he's the paternal Iago that manipulates Anakin with a sinister but alluring stream of empathetic rhetoric. McDiarmid is the acting star of ROTS the way Harrison Ford was in Eps IV-VI. During the opera scene, and at other times, McDiarmid chews his lines slowly, as if trying to juice an orange with his lips. Palpatine augments Anakin's insecurity by making Anakin his representative on the Jedi council, knowing that the Council won't promote Anakin to Jedi master. Palpatine is like Drew Rosenhaus encouraging Terrell Owens to hold out for a bigger contract from the Eagles this year, or a headhunter jumping on a disgruntled executive recently passed over for a coveted promotion.
• Fear over Padme's death. This didn't work for me, and I was disappointed that it's framed as the most important reason for Anakin's conversion. Anakin has premonitions of Padme's death. How he sees into the future I have no idea, though both Episode II and III hint that the Dark Side brings with it the ability to see into the future while also shrouding one's true motives. Palpatine senses this and hints that he knows some way to conquer death using The Dark Side, a trick inherited from Darth Plagius. He implies that if he dies, the secret dies with him, dooming Padme to certain death. Palpatine never explains how to do this in much detail, though, and after he and Anakin off Mace Windu, Palpatine changes his story and says, effectively, "Oh, did I saw I knew how to use the Dark Side to cheat death and save Padme? Well, I don't really know how to do it, but I'm sure together we can figure it out." It's like the bait and switch from some used car salesman, and Anakin doesn't flinch. At that point, any normal person would have doubts about Palpatine's ability to cheat old age, let alone death, especially since he'd just been transformed into looking like the love child of Nosferatu and Gollum. This is supposed to be the reason that Anakin becomes Darth Vader, one of the most famous movie villains of all time? "Noooooooooo!" This storyline is also undermined by the unbelievable romance between Padme and Anakin who have no chemistry whatsoever throughout Episodes I through III. The balcony scene in this movie is awful beyond comprehension.
• The inhuman code of the Jedi. The tagline for Episode II: "A Jedi Shall Not Know Anger. Nor Hatred. Nor Love." One of the more interesting aspects of Episode III is the way it undermines our faith in the Jedi Council and their adherence to monk-like denial of all that is human. Their Buddhist philosophy of detachment is so stringent that it's easy to understand why Anakin would listen to the Emperor. When Anakin goes to Yoda with his dreams of Padme's death, Yoda simply councils him to let go and accept the loss of loved ones. This advice fails to sway Anakin, and who can blame him? It sounds like a bunch of inhuman mumbo jumbo. And why can't Jedis have wives or husbands? The movies certainly hint that Jedi powers are passed down genetically, so if Jedis don't marry, how are all those youngling Jedis created? Is there some elite Jedi sperm bank somewhere? There are female Jedis--why can't male and female Jedis marry? In Episode II, when Padme falls out of the spaceship onto the desert, Anakin asks that they turn back to pick her up. Obi-Wan refuses and screams, "You'll be expelled from the Jedi order! Come to your senses!" I half expected Anakin to shout, "Dude, you come to your senses! It will take us ten seconds to swing around and pick her up!" The script stretches the code of the Jedi to unreasonable lengths to explain Anakin's defection.
• Jealousy over Obi-Wan and his relationship with Padme - this thread isn't developed, but it has a lot of potential. Obi-Wan shows up in Anakin's visions of Padme's death, and at one point, just after Padme admits that Obi-Wan came by, Anakin bristles, asking, "What did he want?" There's a hint of jealousy--perhaps Obi-Wan is having an affair (either emotional or physical) with his wife? I could certainly buy that as a powerful enough reason why Anakin would turn against his master, and they play off it a bit when Obi-Wan shows up on Mustafar in Padme's ship. Anakin believes Padme brought Obi-Wan and that his old master turned Padme against him. However, this thread is never developed much beyond these few shadowy hints.

All this wouldn't matter if the key moment of the movie, when Anakin attacks Mace Windu and then submits to the Emperor, worked. The build-up to the confrontation is one of the more suitably ominous sequences of the movie. Anakin is at the Jedi temple looking out the window, knowing Mace Windu and a few other Jedi are on their way over to arrest Palpatine. Meanwhile, Padme looks out the window, and the John Williams score offers an ominous but hushed pulse. "Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?" spits Palpatine with venom, and he flies at the Jedi like an attacking serpent. Fast forward to Anakin lopping off Windu's arm and the Emperor Palpatine launching Windu about a mile out the window like a t-shirt shot out of one of those sporting event t-shirt cannons. The battle has left the Emperor hideous and deformed (one of the most astonishing transformations for the worse of a political leader's complexion since Viktor Yuschenko) and suddenly Anakin seems defeated. A few moments later he's a stone cold killer, on his way to the Jedi Council to slaughter dozens of young children, with no hesitation. It feels too sudden for me after all of his wavering during the movie. I don't buy it.

Before their last confrontation, Obi-Wan and Anakin part as friends. Anakin apologizes for being moody and difficult, Obi-Wan praises him as a brother and a great Jedi. Does enough happen between that and their next fight to turn them into ruthless opponents? I don't buy it, especially when Obi-Wan leaves Anakin burnt and suffering at the edge of the lava. Obi-Wan would have put Anakin out of his misery, either out of mercy or a desire to finish his mission, or both.

What if, instead, Anakin wasn't worried about Padme's death? Instead, the Emperor tells Anakin the Jedi are planning a secret revolt in an attempt to seize power for themselves. The Jedi fuel Anakin's suspicions because they don't include him as a Master, don't include him in their reindeer games. Then Anakin comes upon Mace Windu attacking The Emperor, confirming the Emperor's suspicions. Believing he's defending The Republic, he kills Mace Windu. The Emperor then gives Anakin command of clone armies to arrest the other Jedi, at the same time planting the seed that Obi-Wan has been secretly turning Padme against him. Fueled by jealousy and rage, Anakin and his clones take out all the other Jedi. After Anakin is defeated by Obi-Wan, Palpatine rescues him and reveals himself as the Sith Lord. Anakin is told that in his rage he killed Padme. He is horrified and in both physical and emotional agony but also blames Obi-Wan for having contributed to his murder of Padme. Palpatine promises not only peace for the Empire but to help Padme cheat death somehow. Anakin is appalled by what he's done, believing all along that he'd been fighting on the side of right, and submits to Palpatine in the hope of bringing back Padme. There's a seed of a stronger tragedy mixed in amidst all the storylines in Episode III, but it lies just out of reach.

That's not to say the Anakin of ROTS isn't a huge improvement over the Anakin of Episode I and II. Still, it's difficult to shake the memory of the awful child actor in Episode I and the brat that is Episode II Anakin. There's not enough movie in Episode III to rescue young Anakin as a truly sympathetic tragic figure for the audience.

Some other scenes don't pay off the way they should or could. In perhaps a nod to Lucas's friend Francis Ford Coppola, this episode includes a Godfather-like montage of Jedis being assassinated all across the galaxy according to order #66. It's a sequence that's overwhelmed by the eye candy. This is the fall of the Jedi, a scene that should feel as momentous as the famous Godfather montage that intercuts the baptism of Michael's children with the assassination of competing family heads (okay, maybe not as momentous as one of the most famous sequences in movie history, but proportionately similar). However, the camerawork and overwhelming amount of action and new digital landscapes and scenery in each of the Jedi assassination scenes is distracting. A closeup of some of the Jedi's faces, some quieter framing, and slower pacing of this series of scenes would have allowed the moment to lift.

The movie has a second chance to intercut scenes to emotional effect when with the birth of Luke and Leia and the rebirth of a charred Anakin as Darth Vader. It's another missed opportunity, though, because Padme's death is not as sad as much as it awkward. She never became an endearing character like Leia in the original trilogy, and on her death bed she seems unfazed to discover she has twins, quickly dubbing them "Leia" and "Luke" in a feeble voice before croaking immediately. The awful timing recalls her rolling around in pain in Episode II after tumbling from a spaceship onto the desert floor, only to pop up suddenly and sprint off as if nothing had happened at all. Meanwhile, when the Emperor tells Darth Vader that he killed his wife Padme, the camera pulls back and frames Vader in a medium long shot as he wails, "Noooooooo!" The way it sounds and the way it's framed, the whole bit comes off as hokey. It could have been a wonderful moment, especially since his anger causes him to destroy nearly everything in the room with a surge of The Force, fulfilling the Emperor's hope that his anger would focus and augment his powers.

Another scene that bothered me is Obi-Wan's assault on Grievous. Obi-Wan is up on a beam with that annoying giant lizard, spying on Grievous and his soliders below. Obi-Wan strokes his chin, as if pondering a plan of attack. His brilliant idea? Hey, I'll just jump down there in the midst of all of those soldiers, allowing them to pull their guns on me. But I'll do it with style, "Well, hello there." As anticipated, dozens of soldiers draw guns on him. There's no possible way he can block all their shots. What does Grievous do? He lets Obi-Wan off the hook for his absurd attack with an idiotic move of his own, calling off his troops and saying he'll handle Obi-Wan himself. I have no idea what the two of them are thinking in that scene; it's nonsensical.

Some of the light saber fighting is shot in such dark rooms, with such tight framing, that it's not really clear what's happening. I thought I was sitting too close the first time I saw the movie, but even from further back I felt the same in certain sequences.

Though few individual scenes within Episode III stand out, I do love the way ROTS explains and deepens the relationship between Luke and the former Jedi council members Obi-Wan and Yoda in Eps IV-VI. Yoda's exasperation and impatience with Luke makes a lot of sense in light of the failure that was Anakin, and Obi-Wan's grandfatherly attitude towards Luke, his wistful hopes for his new pupil, can be seen as an attempt to succeed where he once failed. When Yoda discourages Luke from going to his friends aid in Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, it echoes his earlier shaky advice to Anakin to ignore his dreams about Padme and Obi-Wan's refusal to turn the ship around to rescue Padme in Episode II when she falls out into the desert. Duty to the cause over friends; it's a false tradeoff. Luke goes to save his friends, even without having completed his training, and having seen Episode III, Luke's decision makes more sense. He has "too much of his father in him," as his uncle and aunt note in Star Wars: A New Hope. We now see what they're referring to.

When we first meet Luke at the beginning of Return of the Jedi, he looks to have become a monk-like Jedi Master, complete with zen-like, asexual calm, just as Yoda and Obi-Wan and even Mace Windu had hoped. But he comes to Jabba to the aid of his friends, and at movie's end he screams for his father's aide. When they say that Luke brings balance to the Force, I read it as the balance of the Buddhist detachment of the Jedi master and the passion and love that normal humans feel towards friends, family, and lovers. When Luke chops off his father's hand in ROTJ and The Emperor asks him to take his father's place also has more resonance. Now we've seen Palpatine pull the Apprentice trade-in for the younger model before, with Dooku and Anakin.

Every reference to the original trilogy sent a little jolt of pleasure through this Star Wars fan's heart. It's a way for ROTS to steal from the reservoir of good will built up by the original trilogy, but it's capital that Episode III either earns or doesn't depending on how much you loved the original trilogy. The way Ewan McGregor channels Alec Guiness's clipped accent. The appearance of characters like Chewbacca and Captain Antilles. The way a light saber sounds when activated. The appearance of the late model Imperial Star Destroyers, and Captain Tarkin and Darth Vader on the bridge, observing the construction under way on the Death Star. The final shot on Tatooine, Owen and Beru holding Luke and looking off at the two star sunset, an echo of the famous shot from Star Wars with Luke gazing out longingly at the horizon. And of course, the brilliant score by John Williams. It evokes a sense of romance and adventure and epic conflict that even the movies can't live up to. Williams has a theme for almost any event or character in Star Wars, and he weaves them with a deft touch. The sounds and rhythms of the Star Wars movies is so familiar to fans now as to be ritual. The 20th Century Fox title sequence leads to the green Lucasfilm leads to "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." leads to the soaring Wagnerian opening of the Star Wars theme by John Williams leads to the tilted text of the expository introduction leads to a spaceship of some sort flying by with a planet in the background. The ending of the movie, always hopeful in some way, followed by the end credits, always introduced by the same John Williams celebratory fanfare.

It's all almost enough to overcome my disappointment in how we learn how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. It's as if George Lucas were waving his hand in my face. "These scenes you speak of. They are not the scenes you seek. You love the movie. You will hand over $10.50 now, and you shall return and hand over $10.50 next week." Somewhere inside me there's a young boy on which that old trick still works.

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Some other scattered thoughts and questions brought on by Episode III (some Star Wars ultra-geeks must know the answers to some of my questions):

• Some people blame all the shooting in front of green screens for the wooden acting, but that's just a weak excuse. Actors act with great skill on hokey sets and on near blank stages in theater all the time. The real blame should be shared by the actors, some weak dialogue, and the director.
• How much of Episodes I, II, and III did Lucas already write or have in his head when he made Episodes IV through VI?
• Perhaps before I was born, some other story spawned and indulged nerd worship, but in my lifetime, I'll always associate Star Wars with having created the nerd. The term is said to have come from Dr. Seuss's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950), but the Star Wars movies gave the term flesh and nuance by spawning a generation of fans willing to obsess over the trivial. These nerds have been both a blessing and a curse. They show up to his movies and purchase his merchandise like an army of clones, but they also hold his mythology to standards that are difficult, if not impossible, to live up to.
• The cities in the past three Star Wars movies have lacked something. They are beautiful in a digital watercolor fashion, but they are so artificial as to be lifeless, ironic considering the air traffic around the Republic is that of Manhattan rush hour. I miss the organic beauty of the desert plains of Tatooine, the snow and ice formations of Hoth, and the California redwood forests of Endor.
• Like most nerds who grew up with Star Wars, I have a lifetime of emotional investment tied up in the Star Wars movies, and much of that goodwill carried me through Episode III. In particular, I feel awful for Yoda, that little green Cantonese won ton, my favorite character from the original trilogy and my favorite movie puppet of all time, right ahead of E.T. The way he's depicted in these past three Star Wars movies really burns me. First of all, he looked awful in Episode I. Someone needs to go back and correct that. Thankfully he looks more like the puppet from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in ROTS. His dialogue is more incomprehensible than ever in this movie. I wrote off his odd linguistic stylings as the quirky grammar of an impish but world weary old man in The Empire Strikes Back, but in Episode III, but some of his lines in ROTS are so tangled they get stuck in the ear on the way into the brain. And most of all, I'm disappointed that Yoda failed to off Dooku in Episode II and lost to the Emperor here in ROTS. Yoda is left to crawl through an air shaft, his cloak left impaled on some debris in the ruins of the Senate, like a tombstone. Yoda should be Ricky Roma, not Shelly Levene! First place, control of the Empire. Second place, a seat by the side of the Emperor. Third place, a one-way ticket to Dagobah. No way Yoda slinks off that way if I'm the screenwriter for Episode III. It's even more upsetting to me that Yoda, a once great Jedi, ends up fleeing to Dagobah, an inhospitable swamp planet, where he spends the rest of his days licking his war wounds until Luke comes along. Yoda dies in that godforsaken swamp. That's just not right. I hope someday the Lucasfilm releases something like the Yoda Chronicles so the little green guy gets his due. The moment in The Empire Strikes Back when a skeptical Luke fails to lift the X-Wing out of the swamp and Yoda has to show the kid how it's done (to the strains of John William's beautiful Yoda theme) is one of the most magical and iconic movie scenes from my childhood. I'm really upset about this.
• Star Wars fans should pick up the ROTS soundtrack. It comes with a DVD titled "Star Wars: A Musical Journey" that sets some of the most famous pieces of John Williams's Star Wars scores to scenes, sketches, and storyboards from the six movies, a real treat for Star Wars fans.
• There's something liberating about the camerawork in this movie. Knowing it was all shot on green screen, I didn't stop to question how they obtained certain shots, whereas in a movie like, say, Assault on Precinct 13, which I just saw last week at a friend's apartment, every impossible shot had me thinking "digital sleight of hand" instead of focusing on the story. In ROTS as in animated movies, any shot is possible, so one accepts even the most complex tracking shots as matter of fact.
• One mystery remains unsolved: the identity of Anakin's father. Is it Dooku? Palpatine? Darth Plagueis (what baby name book are the Sith Lords drawing from)? He's said to have been born in an immaculate conception, but some of Palpatine's stories about Plagueis seem to hint that perhaps Plagueis used the Dark Side of the Force to unlock secrets of life and death. Perhaps he manipulated midiclorians to generate Anakin.
• Does the Emperor pretend to be losing to Mace Windu so that Anakin will come to his aid? It's not clear, but it seems possible.
• When the Emperor battles Yoda, he literally dismantles the Senate that he has just politically disbanded in favor of a dictatorship.
• I miss Darth Maul. He was one scary Sith Lord. And if the high ground really is such an advantage in a light saber duel, as Obi-Wan claims, how did Obi-Wan jump over Darth Maul from about ten feet below and still manage to land on the other side of Maul, turn on his lightsaber, and cut Maul in half?
• The real consolidation of power in all this was not with the Emperor, but with Lucas himself. Out of these movies, he made himself into perhaps the most powerful and wealthy director in the world. His Lucasfilm headquarters now occupy a chunk of the Presidio. He owns the rights to all his franchises and has the studios handling his distribution for a fraction of what they make on other movies. His special effects and sound subsidiaries handle work for numerous Hollywood pictures. Dolby Digital surround sound wasn't invented specifically for Star Wars, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. At a time when nearly all directors struggle to cobble together the studio money to bring their projects to the big screen, Lucas greenlights his own projects and then lets the most cooperative studio pay to send his works to screens around the world. Even those who view Star Wars as the movie that converted cinema to the dark side of commercial schlock have to admire the creative power Lucas has amassed. If Lucas flew me out to the Lucasfilm ranch and promised to show me how to gain the skills of the Dark Side, the same ones that helped build his Empire, err, empire, I'd listen.
• Episodes VII, VIII, and IX will arrive someday, of that I have little doubt. At that point, perhaps all actors will have been eliminated, and a 150 year old half human, half robot George Lucas, breathing through a dark mask like a scuba diver with a bad cold will create the final three chapters of the saga on a supercomputer interfaced directly to his mind. That's my prophecy.
• Lucas tapped into something primal with his Star Wars mythology. When I was a child, after seeing each of the Star Wars movies (the only first viewing I remember is Return of the Jedi, when I was 10), I always went home that same night and lay in bed looking out the window, wishing like Luke that I'd be called out of my dull and insignificant suburban existence to fight in some intergalactic space battle as a Jedi knight. I owned a pair of glow-in-the-dark plastic swords, one of my favorite toys ever, and my next door neighbor's son and I would pretend they were lightsabers. We'd test our proclivities in the Force by blindfolding each other and throwing balls at each other to see if we could deflect them with our lightsabers. No joke. Numerous welts on my face and body hinted at a low midiclorian count.
• Episode III is guilty, more than any of the other Star Wars movies, of the "because we can" problem. Because they can create anything with their CGI, they do. Hundreds of different variations of spaceships. Dozens of planets with their unique landscapes. We see Obi-Wan riding a huge lizard on one planet. Every Jedi has his or her own weird head shape. Padme wears a different elaborate headdress and silk outfit in every scene. For a princess and Senator, she seems like quite a stay-at-home moper.
• What is the Dark Side? It's never explained, except that it allows you to throw electricity (a trick that, apparently, Vader never masters; what a disappointment). It also seems as if Jedis who go over to the Dark Side are more aware of their enemies. The Jedi Council, for all their powers, are remarkably naive and oblivious. How do they not detect the Sith Lord right in their midst? Does the Dark Side really shroud itself? The movie hints at that explanation, but if that's true, it's a point that should be made more forcefully.
• If Jedi really aren't allowed to have girlfriends, why doesn't Obi-Wan say something when it's obvious in Ep II that Anakin has the hots for Padme? Or does Obi-Wan, in his own monk-like naivete, not understand phrases like, "Just being around her again is intoxicating."
• I've learned to ignore questions of physics and usage of the Force in combat. That's an endless rabbit hole. Still, if Grievous doesn't have use of The Force, why doesn't Obi-Wan just crush his heart with the Force? Obi-Wan tosses Grievous off a wall with The Force; it seems like a lightsaber is overkill there.
• Jedis must be rare commodities because otherwise why does the Emperor bother saving an extra crispy Anakin who's missing half of two legs and an arm at the end? Why not just kidnap a few of the younglings, just in case Darth Vader's rehab goes bad?
• For those who didn't watch the Clone Wars animated series on The Cartoon Network, General Grievous's coughing and wheezing must have seemed arbitrary and puzzling. If I remember correctly, Mace Windu injures Grievous during the Palpatine kidnapping by using The Force to compress Grievous's chest. It's one reason I wondered why Obi-Wan didn't finish Grievous off the same way.
• Why aren't Anakin and Obi-Wan charred to a crisp when they're hovering over the lava on these tiny robotic platforms? Later, Anakin turns into the Human Torch just for sliding down to roughly the same distance from the lava. Actually, shouldn't any human on that planet just be burnt toast?
• Who are those tools that Windu brings with him to arrest Palpatine? All three get taken down in about ten seconds.
• No, I have no idea why Leia claims to remember her mother in Return of the Jedi. Or why Obi-Wan seems to forget about Leia in The Empire Strikes Back, claiming Luke is their last hope (Yoda corrects him: "No, there is another.").
• Did Tom Stoppard really rewrite much of the dialogue? I'm curious which portions he'd claim as his own. We'll probably never know.
• I've read quite a few questions about how Padme failed to realize she had twins. If she was scared to reveal her pregnancy (it would cause Anakin to be thrown off the Jedi Council), she might not have a sonogram done, worried that the news might leak. It seems like a minor point to me, anyhow.
• I assume, though it's not stated explicity, that Darth Vader believes that he killed not only Padme but his unborn child/children. But how does the Emperor know what happened to Padme? When he says that Vader killed Padme in her anger, Anakin accepts the story b/c the last time he saw her he was doing the Force death grip on her throat. But how did the Emperor know that had happened?
• Yoda and Obi-Wan make a big deal of hiding Leia and Luke, the last hope for The Jedi. Yet in Star Wars, Episode IV, Yoda is hanging out on Dagobah, and Obi-Wan is hiding in the hills, not having even put a lightsaber in Luke's hands. All the younglings in the Jedi temple seem to imply that Jedis can be trained from an early age. What were Yoda and Obi-Wan waiting for? Why didn't Yoda train Leia? Did he, in his despair, just give up hope?
• What is the Prophecy? Anakin's visions hint at Jedi's abilities to foresee the future, so was the Prophecy written by an older Jedi who saw the future? Whoever wrote the Prophecy, perhaps he was Anakin's father? Anakin seems to be the only Jedi who can see into the future. It's unclear why he has that ability.
• Why does Obi-Wan allow Vader to cut him down in Star Wars? So he can become a ghost that can hover around Luke at all times? Or does he give himself up so that Luke and Han and Leia don't try and save him but instead escape in the Millenium Falcon? Doesn't Darth Vader wonder where Obi-Wan has disappeared off to? Is that immortality trick that Qui-Gon discovers the same method to cheat death that the Emperor mentions to Anakin?
• In ROTJ, when The Emperor urges Luke, "Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete,” what if Luke had done it, not with hate, but just because the Emperor was an evil mofo? Jedis seem to have no problem hacking up antagonists at some times, and at others they seem absolutely committed to letting really evil people live. The Emperor is never really unarmed, is he? The guy can toss purple lightning bolts.
• In all the years between Episode III and Episode IV, Darth Vader never really applied himself, did he? He never learns how to throw the lightning.
• Someday in the future, someone will use widely available tools to go back and revise Star Wars until all of these flaws are fixed, finally restoring balance to the Star Wars mythology.
• Episode III Easter Eggs

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?