He's not heavy, he's my brother.....

John William and Liam

Congratulations to John William (son of Jane and Dan) on his graduation from DeSales High School on Saturday, June 21, 2008. John was the Valedictorian and won almost all the academic awards. Erin, Paul and Sean came from Boston Saturday morning, leaving at 5:30 am and joined Grandmary, Uncle John, Danny's mother Joyce, me, Jne, Dan, Liam and Eliza at the event. In other words, we used all the tickets! Then we had a terrific time at Janie's, with dinner and Wii to celebrate.

She's not heavy, she's my mother...

Jane (aka "Crunch") and John William

Erin, Grandmary and John William

Pictures are compliments of cousin Sean. See here for more.

The Incredible Hulk and Takashi Murakami

These weekend Calvin and I went to see the Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum. Murakami is a Japanese artist who has played around with the "high" and "low" culture divide as successfully as any artist. Of course it helps that he is Japanese. He has created lines of toys, robots, and most famously, Louis Vuitton bags as well as lots of large expensive paintings and sculptures.

Murakami curated a fascinating show of Japanese contemporary art - "Little Boy" - that was exhibited at Japan Society a few years ago. Its thesis was that Japanese culture had been infantilized by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many transformers and godzillas were exhibited along with the usual array of paintings sculptures and video.

The Incredible Hulk is ok, but Marvel had a lot to live up to after starting their life as movie producers with Iron Man. As it has been said in many reviews, there seems to be little connection between Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and the CG Hulk creature. It is really fun to watch him smash stuff up, though.

Sheepshead Bay wedding

Yesterday I went to a wedding luncheon for Michael and Desiree, whom some of you have met. (They got married in a very small ceremony on Cape Cod last weekend.) It was in an Italian restaurant, in Sheepshead Bay. I had never had been there, but I want to go again and do some food exploring. The restaurant looked out at the bay, which was filled with boats, swans, horseshoe crabs, and a blue heron. The five course meal included two of my all time favorites: pasta with broccoli rabe and filet mignon. I loved the fact that the groom's son from his first marriage spent the entire time reading the final Harry Potter book. He told me, "I want to stop reading but I can't."

It wasn't sold out.....

I went to Elizabeth's wedding shower in Cambridge Sunday (it was really terrific -- Erin and Liz's friends did an amazing job of putting everything together). Erin and her mother Kathy even stayed up until 2 am frosting some very wonderful cookies.

Barb, Grandmary and I decided to go see a movie after the shower since it was only 3 o'clock. "Sex and The City" was playing at the Cambridge Theater pretty close by so we decided on that -- not for the wedding theme, which we didn't even realize was so dominant, but just because we all wanted to see it.

Mom and Barb were all dressed up in peach and yellow outfits (for the shower) and when the ticket taker saw them coming, she said (with a big indulgent smile), "Sex and the City, right?". We think she thought they had dressed for the movie! HA!

As for the movie..... it was GREAT! -- we all liked it. I've seen most of the series, but neither Barb or Mom had seen any of it, and it didn't matter at all. A really good time was had by all.

A Store Cat I Know

Bonnie lives at Pet Central, the pet store near me formally known by the much better name Beasty Feast. Two other cats used to live there as well, Clyde and Bleeker, Bonnie and Clyde's son. I hadn't seen Clyde or Bleeker recently and asked the manager what had happened to them. Apparently Bonnie, after years of peaceful coexistance, had taken to terrorizing them both, and they had to go live at other Pet Central store. She has always been nice to me, however, or at least tolerated me petting her. (The manager at this store is great, by the way. He has excellent advice on all things pet related.) (Neilson took the picture).

More about Wii Fit

I have really been enjoying Wii Fit. Combining video games with working out is brilliant. Here is an article about the designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. I have used it every day since I got it.

A couple of things- I seem to be much better at learning the stuff I already know a little bit about in the non Wii world. I guess this could fall under the category of stunningly obvious observations- but it is a little weird when I get really low scores at some of the easiest activities and high scores at stuff that is actually kind of hard to do. Also, I have found it difficult up to this point to get a really hard workout. I think this may change as I unlock more reps and also figure out which activities I want to combine. As it is, I am still spending a lot of time watching demos on activities before trying them.

I am spending more time every day, and more on yoga, strength training and aerobics. There are a lot of charming balance games, which seem designed to make you better at Wii balance games- I am not sure they actually help your balance all that much.

Calvin has not spent as much time as I have on Wii Fit, but he uses Wii baseball for batting practice before his softball game. He and I continue to play Wii golf, bowling and baseball after dinner. His golf and bowling have improved, I cannot say the same for my hitting.

Anyway, thank you Eric! More pictures to come.

Woman Wins Top Chef

Finally a woman won Top Chef. Go Stephanie! Read an interview.

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian . . .

. . . is much more upsetting that I would have thought. I wish, though, that it had been in theaters when I was teaching the Men and Masculinities class at Pace.

An Unreasonable Man makes a pretty good case that the "It's Nader's fault" refrain just excuses the Democrats for running a horrible campaign, then blowing the recount.

Penultimater

One of Neilson's collaborative projects for his final semester was Penultimater, "the greatest mobile novel ever attempted." It is basically an online/text message version of the game Exquisite Corpse. You get a text message of the last line of the novel and have ten minutes to text the next line. The entire thing is collected online at www.penulimater.com, where you can also here each chapter read aloud (usually be Neilson, but sometimes by one of his collaborators.) You can also get instructions on how to play at the website.

Tribeca Film Institute Partners with Amazon

Good news for small films and small film makers.

It's called "Reframe" and it goes live today

(I hope the film about the Gramercy Park Hotel family makes it)

Wii Fit!! MOCCA!!

This weekend for the first time I waited outside an electronics store for hours before they opened to buy stuff- a Wii Fit. It was a bonding experience and typically New York- a mixture of very different people lining up on Sunday morning in 90 degree weather to get a game for some one or other in their family. All the other fanatics seemed a little puzzled by me, since I think I had 20 years on the oldest one of them, and I was not buying it for my grandchildren.

And the instant review is... it is fun! More to come later.

Also this weekend, MOCCA- the indy comics New York festival. As always, it was fun and I bought a whole lot of mini-comics. This year was marked by extremely hot and humid temperatures, medical emergencies and a visit by the fire department. Despite the crises, a good time was had by many. Kate and I got to hang out a little bit.

Norwegian comics creator JP Ahonen

It was sold out

at 8:15 on a Monday. But my friend had insisted we buy our tickets in advance, so all was well. As many people have said, if you liked the series, you will like the movie. And I did like the series. I really liked the first part of the movie and loved the ending; the middle kind of sagged.

Lincoln again, via a surpising source

I'm not sure why two items with Abraham Lincoln ties emerged in the same day, but Lincoln's Rule: Organization Matters by Karl Rove (yes, that Karl Rove) in today's Wall Street Journal is balanced, relevant, pragmatic and insightful. Who knew? Neither Obama nor McCain would lose by paying heed.

Team of Rivals

I suppose it''s a cliche, but I'm not hearing it ballyhooed much in pundit-land. "Team of Rivals" (Doris Kearns Goodwin) is pretty apt here. It's about Lincoln's cabinet, comprised of his rivals for the Republican nomination in 1860, and especially his deep and respectful relationship with William Seward (from Auburn, NY!) as it developed over time. Seward was considered a lock for the nomination, and Lincoln came out of nowhere and won it. Lincoln then reached out to Seward and two other rivals and leveraged their different skills into a powerful administration that endured and prevailed. See NY Times review here.

Hillary could improve on this model for intellectual and political teamwork, which ultimately became a great friendship, as both a partner and adviser to Obama, either as VP or in some key cabinet role.

As a woman, she could make is less about power, and more about doing the right thing within and beyond current constructs. He has the rhetoric, she has the skills and the smarts, and probably most important, both empathy and thick skin.

Taking the long view, this is the avenue for Hillary to make the real difference.

Padma Lakshmi sighting!

While buying OJ and cough drops for my sore throat at the local Duane Reade on Avenue B, I saw Padma Lakshmi of Top Chef! Top Chef is my second favorite reality tv show. (Actually, it is the only one I watch besides Project Runway and Iron Chef.)

She graciously smiled back as I gawked.

Pies

The last time I was in Geneva, I learned how to make pie crust. Now I know some of you have been whipping out pie crusts for years, but this was a major development for me. I recently made my first solo pie--an apple one, which turned out very well. I was especially happy as I got to eat peppermint ice cream with it.

Graduation 2008

BMCC Graduation was today, at Madison Square Garden. There was a surprise visitor, Chuck Schumer. Otherwise the usual combination of speeches and happy graduates.

One of my multimedia students.

The Senator

Sarah Salm is a biologist now at BMCC who also used to work at the Department of Cell Biology at NYU. I printed her pictures then, now we are on committees together.

Did anyone else watch . . .

the Lost season finale last night. Ahhhhh! I won't say much, because I don't want to ruin it. But I was very upset by one development, even though I knew it was coming. I can't imagine what the structure of next season is going to be like.

Anders and the watering can

Beach Time on South Padre Island

and see Flickr for more pictures.

(These are just from my little camera - I have a lot of video clips on the Camcorder which need some editing -- stay tuned)

Wedding Dancing

Molly and Anders Twirl Up a Storm

surfin' usa

The Culkins dance up a storm!

Wii!!!!!!

For the few people out there who don't already know this, Eric gave Calvin and me a Wii.

I set it up yesterday after getting all my grades in. Last night we played Wii baseball and Wii bowling (actually, I had obsessively gone through all the games earlier in the day and created many Miis). Calvin was better at baseball, I wasn't a bad bowler.

It was incredibly fun.

Unpacking the Wii.

Here is Calvin (and his Mii) taking a few swings.

Molly's Wedding

Molly and Jerry's wedding was wonderful. Great food, beautiful place, mariachis- what more could you ask for? The whole weekend was fun, marred only by massive sunburns, we all got hit to some degree.

My pictures are a little spotty, I kept forgetting to bring my camera, and I was not exactly thorough when I had it. Here are a few, more on flickr.

The happy couple at the rehearsal dinner.

Anders and Aidan in their outfits.

Matt and Bets walking down the aisle.

Pat in the "lounge". I loved sitting there with my fabulous sisters-in-law.

Molly and Jerry dance.

John at the grill.

Graduation. As If.

Neilson graduated from ITP yesterday. The speaker was Amy Heckerling, of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless fame. Which meant this was the first time I have ever been excited to hear the speaker at a graduation I attended. Her speech was a little long, but funny. (She has a thick Bronx accent, which surprised me given her two great movies were about Southern California.) She gave some good advice, from don't smoke and don't wear high heels to you don't have to make bad movies just because someone is willing to pay you to do it. (ITP is part of Tisch, which houses NYU's film and drama schools.) After the ceremony, we had a picnic in Central Park. More pictures on Flickr.

NUNSENSE

John William as Reverend Mother Sister Mary Regina




A "Superior" job, John! Nice Going!

What do May Flowers Bring?

Frank's Mother's Day flowers to Trish

Neilson's birthday flowers to Kate

Frank's Mothers Day flowers to GrandMary

One of Geneva's many lilac bushes

Sarah's Mother's Day Flowers to Trish and GrandMary

Go Speed Racer??

Calvin and I went to see Speed Racer on Friday night. It was one of the silliest movies I have ever seen. Silliness doesn't necessarily put me off, particularly when joined with amazing visual effects and super saturated color. I have never seen anything that looks quite like this, but the really bad dialog (kind of a specialty of the Wachowski brothers) and the bad acting were a little annoying.

It did feature Rain- here is his dance-off with Stephen Colbert.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Rain Dance-Off
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

No more teachers no more books!

I took my last final yesterday morning! I will know on Wednesday whether I am graduating, so keep your fingers crossed. Although there is no reason why I wouldn't graduate there is just something about seeing my name on the official list.

Happy Birthday, Kate!!!!

A woman of many accomplishments, of whom we are very proud. Click here to see just a few reasons why!

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

How are Molly's last weeks in law school going? How are Kym's last weeks in her beloved Spokane going? How are the spider plants doing?

A Room With A View

As some of you know, I made a quick trip to Florence last week. It was a little insane, but I have a friend living there for a year, and I have failed to visit other friends living in fabulous places in the past and always regretted it. I told Hosmer I was thinking of going the last weekend I spent with him, and it was one of the few times he seem really engaged and excited. (Also I remember him talking about visiting Florence with Florence once, and he put his arm around her shoulders and said "It is your city dear." At which she gave her signature eye roll.). The living room in the apartment where I stayed had a view of Duomo. I saw many martyred saints and ate many plates of pasta and cups of gelato. What more can you ask of a trip? Here are some photos; you can see more on flickr.

Yankee Stadium, May 3, 2008

Yesterday, several of my friends from college, their husbands and wives, and their children, and my mom, made a pilgrimage to the "old" Yankee stadium, to say goodbye and watch the Yankees beat the Mariners. Many hot dogs were consumed, and the children (all boys, for some reason) were great--only one two year old left before the end of the game. Later, in one friend's hotel room, things went south when one child bit another one, but by the end of the night everything was smoothed over.

Iron Man!

Calvin and I went to see Iron Man before going out to dinner on our anniversary. Robert Downey Jr. was born to play this role, he is fabulous. How often do you see a Hollywood blockbuster where the hero solders integrated circuits? There are a few unfortunate stereotypical bad Muslim villains, but I guess that's what you get these days.

Here is an article on Wired about the soundtrack.

Happy Anniversary Jody and Calvin

I've been uploading some of my old pictures to Flickr, including some of Jody and Calvin's wedding. You can also re-live Molly's graduation and Christmas in Oswego, 2002.