The Best Movie I Ever Saw That Didn't Make Any Sense

I just watched what had to be one of the most perplexing movies I have ever seen, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The movie was Shaolin Soccer. I watched the American cut of the film undubbed with subtitles, but quite honestly, I think the plot may have been a bit more cohernant had the subtitles been off. It's a fun flick though, and I'd recommend that you give it a try.

Camel

I bought new shoes today. We stopped in at my local Birkenstock store, and I picked up size 44 "Torrance" in a camel-coloured suede. I do like suede.

Home

I'm back in Minnesota after two safe and pleasant flights. I'll probably be pretty quiet for the rest of the month.

A romp in the park

Sameer and I partook of an exciting theatrical experience this evening (my last in this wonderful city for quite some time). We literally chased a production of Aphra Behn's The Feigned Cortesans through Central Park, stopping for each scene, and taking flight to arrive at the next one. The company's mission statement can explain it better than I can.

QNS

I ventured over to Queens for the first time since I flew in to LaGuardia in order to visit the Museum of Modern Art. The MoMA is normally in Manhattan, but they are rebuilding their site, and so a select number of pieces and a couple exhibitions are available for viewing at a special site called MoMA QNS. I didn't need much time to see everything, but the Tall Buildings exhibit was very interesting. My Columbia ID got me in for free, so the four dollars for subway fare was my only expense, a very fair price for such an interesting adventure.

Aria

Three doors down from my room here in Broadway resides a girl who, it seems, has both a considerable sexual appetite and a sizable pair of lungs. I think I've heard her in the throes of ecstasy at least a dozen times in the weeks that I've lived here, and her cries are none too subtle. I can hear her if I'm in the hall; I can here her in my room with the door open; I can even hear her in my room even with the door shut. To give her the privacy that seems appropriate, I've got to be in my room with the door closed and put on some serious tunes ("Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 2" works best, but I view it as a compromise).

Her privacy has been kept somewhat intact, however, by her anonymity. I hadn't seen her once the entire month I've live here. Until today. She was coming out of her room, as I was heading out for breakfast, and we exchanged pleasant hellos and the usual. She was tall and athletically-built—generally what I might expect for someone with such volume and endurance—but I must say that her speaking voice sounded very little like I had expected based upon my familiarity with her, shall we say, not-speaking voice.

Zen Palate

I just returned from an exquist dinner at Zen Palate. The restaurant has a diner component in the front, and a formal dinning room in the back; the menus are quite different, but all dishes are vegitarian. I had the Tapestry Embrance, which is described as "succulent mushroom steak, bran oats, cabbage, tomatoes, mushrooms, soy gluten, vermicelli, and sweet rice on the side in a special teriyaki sauce." This is a rather confusing description, but the dish is easily summed up as being rice, mushroom, and a meat-like mass of vegetable matter with teriyaki sauce and fresh grean beans and asparagus on the side. It was very good. I had a slice of Key Lime pie for desert.

The French Connection

I visited the Statue of Liberty this morning. The statue is very impressive and the museum is informative. There were numerous posters illustrating the continued goodwill between the U.S. and our oldest ally, France. I wish any Americans who still have misgivings toward that country could visit this museum. I booked our tour way ahead, so Rachel and I were able to go up to the observation deck and peer up into the statue itself. It was quite a morning. After that adventure, we traveled to Michelle's Kitchen, where Rachel's older sister Alison was working her final day. I had an amazingly good turkey sandwich and a delicious Boylan Bottleworks brand cream soda. Rachel walked me to my bus stop, where I caught the 96 back to the west side.

Since 1876

We had a final party to celebrate the end of this class. We all pinned up select pieces of our work in the basement and milled around eating hors d'oeuvres and drinking beer. I has heard there was to be wine, but beer was the drink. They had some seltzer water, but I figured that it might be time to see if I can't appreciate a beer. Since this was to be my first beer, I decided that I had to choose wisely. They had Corona, Bass, Sapporo, and two light beers that I didn't even consider. I ruled out Bass, since it was only somewhat familiar to me. Corona seems like a preppy beer; the choice for sorority girls everywhere; a product shadowed by its own advertising, like Tobasco but with less actual substance. So Sapporo it was. I drank the whole bottle over the course of about forty-five minutes, which I guess was a little too slow since it let the beer warm in my hand, but is was reasonably paletable, and pleasantly refreshing. I can see what Friar Tuck saw in beer. I can't really compare Sapporo to other beers (as it was my first), but I thought it was fine and that the lable described it quite accurately: "Crisp, clear, and refreshing, Sapporo Premium Beer has been made to the highest stadards of Japan's oldest brewery."

High Techin'

I just placed an order at Gradware.com. I'm finally upgrading to Windows XP Professional. I've never felt too strongly about ME, but XP is required for my other piece of software, Adobe Creative Suite. Hopefully it will allow me to create an awesome portfolio for my grad school applications. Perhaps I'll be able to share some of the resulting images this fall.

End

Today marked the end of my studio for this summer Intro to Architecture program. We had a final critique with a nice jury of four architects. One was German, one was Mexican, one was African-American, and one appeared to be your straight-up Caucasian American; all were quite helpful. The session ran over, stretching to a whopping five and a half hours and leaving me quite exhausted. I've still got a little bit of stuff tomorrow, but the class is over for the most part.

A celebrated the end with a shot of vodka and a relaxing shower. I ended up taking a shot because I popped into the room of a classmate to borrow some Tide when she, her roommate, and a friend were about to have some Absolut Citron. Not to leave me out of the festivities, they offered me a glass, and I accepted, having never consumed vodka before. I thought the drink was quite palatable. I don't really know how the Citron differs from regular Absolut, but as I've heard that Vodka is famous for being oderless and tasteless I'm assuming that the Citron can be no less "respectable" than the regular stuff in the way that drinking Bacardi Breezer isn't really the same as drinking rum. Any comments?

On my way back from the shower I heard very brief snippets of three phone conversations behind the doors I passed. Each voice was female.
Girl #1: "...and I was like..."
Girl #2: "...like, no, that's..."
Girl #3: "...like..."
We need to, like, break our country of this habit.

5

Things seem to be running it sets of five right now:

Last night Sameer and I went to see this year's Shakespeare In Central Park, Much Ado About Nothing, which is a play in five acts. The Public Theater puts on such a show each summer. Tickets are free of charge, but the line is unbelievable. Sameer waited for over 4 hours (perhaps about five?) to get our Row V seats. The theater is fairly small (about 2,000 we estimated), so that was just fine, but there must have been many people who waited without getting in. The show was terrific. It was the funniest play I've seen since the Guithrie's 2001 touring production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

After the play we returned to Broadway, and I slept for five hours, then went to work in the studio for five hours. I came home to shower and eat lunch. After that I'll go back because I have five drawings to complete for tomorrow.

Nwes To Me

My dad sent me this today:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed rvey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Life is so strange.

M. Night Shyamalan Presents

Sameer and I just got back from The Village. We both liked it, although I had some problems apparent holes in the plot that Shyamalan has managed to avoid in his previous and equally complex works. I think Roger Ebert was way off the mark on this one, but my hometown newspaper was a bit too generous.