03/03/03

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Today is 03/03/03. Expect similar announcements on 4 Apr 2004, clear through till 12 Dec 2012.

Update: It’s also Dean’s birthday! Happy birthday!

Italian Pictures

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Yesterday, Amy and I walked over to the Italian Cultural Center in Mount Vernon to look at James Hennessey’s Italian Pictures, a series of drawings and paintings of Italy, by one of her old professors at MICA. There were several pieces hung on walls in three large rooms, all of them expressive and beautiful, some hauntingly so.

Afterward, we window-shopped around Inner Harbor, strolled to Little Italy, took a quick look at my place, settled down at Cafe Di Roma on Eastern Ave for cappuccino and cookies, then headed back to her apartment to watch MBFGW and three episodes of Invader Zim with her roommates.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t find MBFGW as funny, not because it wasn’t a well-made comedy, but because many aspects of Greek ethnic life (e.g. huge extended families, roasting large animals on open spits, Windex, etc.) had strong parallels with my experiences growing up Filipino, so the cultural anachronisms weren’t quite so shockingly alien to me. Still, a cute and fun movie. Oh, and now I’m a major Invader Zim fan. What a cool cartoon. I need to see if Nickelodeon still shows reruns.

All in all, a very fun day.

Crisis Links 2/23

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Lots of modern media and art links from Crisis Century class last Thursday; so many that I almost suffered from Information Overload. Here’s a few:

ACCEPT. Artist Perry Hoberman’s collection of satirical user interface alerts. OK/Cancel is extra-funny, and the copyright infringement windows are like nothing else.

Craig Baldwin: Spectres of the Spectrum. Amazing piece of docu-drama on media history, packaged as campy post-apocalyptic cut-and-paste science fiction movie. As psychic rebels Yogi and Boo Boo fight the dastardly plans of the New Electromagnetic Order, the viewer is taken on a strange romp through the history of modern media’s movers and shakers. Lots of interesting trivia and insight. Deserves a blog entry of its own in the near future.

Russian Ark. A movie about the Hermitage, a palace in Russia, all taken in a single 90-minute shot. I’ll most definitely need to catch that when it comes out at The Charles.

The Wartime Project. Anti-war reflections and reactions by various net artists. (Note that I remain undecided on the Iraq War issue, and choose not to formulate any opinion on it as a political issue until I am more informed.)

Plus, a couple of exhibitions in Europe:

Foto Biennale Rotterdam.

DEAF.

A Neighbor Leaves: The Death of Mr. Rogers

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Headline News has been a disheartening read lately, what with war looming on the horizon, parts falling off the Concorde, a vintage space probe losing contact with Earth, and the ISS crew being trimmed down to two. And now, to cap it off, we mourn the passing of a dear neighbor.

Ironically, I first learned about Mr. Rogers while playing Sierra’s Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, way back in 5th Grade, during the part in the bar where you need to switch channels on the TV to distract the pimp, and the “Neighbor” song comes on, to which Larry reacts, “No no, anything but that!” I saw the actual Mr. Rogers show years later, and though I thought myself too old for it, I rather liked that it was so happy and innocent in a world where cynicism had permeated even into kids’ TV.

Though he may be parodied as babyish and syrupy by many, Mr. Rogers was one of those rare TV experiences that could be categorized as universally loveable. I will miss him, but I’m happy to see him going Home.

“For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”‘

More at Blogs4God, and of course, God’s definitive Word on being a true neighbor.