Todd and Bijan at Abe and Louis
My wife and I were at the MFA in Boston last night. The MFA School had its annual award gala and presented Julian Schnabel a Lifetime Achievement Award Medal followed by a painful 45 minute interview with the award recipient conducted by a museum person who was just too overwhelmed to know when to stop talking, a lovely dinner and the Boston premiere of his new documentary movie (Lou Reed’s) Berlin.
The surprise of the night was Berlin. I am a Schnabel fan. I know less about his art but I really liked his first movie Basquiat and his most recent movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly which I consider one of the best movies I have ever seen.
Lou Reed’s Berlin is a different animal all together. It is great concert movie shot in a warehouse in Brooklyn over a period of 4 days on a makeshift stage designed by Schnabel in front of a live audiance.
An emotionless Lou Reed center stage with movie clips that mimic the mood of the song projected in the background on top of the painted Schnabel canvases and the powerful music of the album - overall it was a delightful sensory overload well worth watching.
My wife and I sneaked in a movie tonight, Forbidden Kingdom - the martial arts flick where Jackie Chen wears a ridiculous wig. The fight scenes were excellent but the dialogue was absolutely terrible. Halfway the movie my made an amusing and wise observation:
“Martial art movies are like porn. You are not there to listen to the dialogue!”
The Proof: comScore's Google Paid Click Data Validated (comScore Voices) - Magid Abraham’s post on the Google Paid Click Data. Interesting read.
I have been feeding my twitter feed into tumblr and I realized it was too much noise and for me it defeated the purpose of keeping a tumblog.
All these means of self expression like blogging, tumbling and twittering seem so close to each other until you start to use them. They each fulfil a seperate and unqiue purpose and they are definitely not a substitute for one another.
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This is what I was talking about a couple of months ago. If the banks loose in court it would spell big problem for most investment banks. They all signed up for the debt assuming they’d be able to syndicate it after the transaction closed at a premium. Now they have all these liabilities, $400B worth, which they are contractually obliged to fund.
Oh, oh…
From Market Watch:
By Riley McDermid, MarketWatch Last update: 3:45 p.m. EDT March 27, 2008
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — A Texas district court judge sided with Clear Channel Communications Inc. and ruled Thursday that a group of six investment banks cannot walk away from funding the $19 billion private-equity buyout of the nation’s largest radio-station owner.
bijan just got his black belt in dorkiness
Todd and Bijan at Abe and Louis
I used to be a Celtics fan when I was growing up in Turkey. They used to broadcast select NBA games every Sunday, especially the finals in the goverment controlled TV station - TRT with all the US commercials in tact. I watched religiously, especially all the Celtics - Lakers games. Post game, I would go out to the playground and try my best to imitate “America’s green footed bird” Larry Bird - does anyone remember the Comverse commercials?
When I moved to NYC in 1987, I switched and became a Knicks fan. It was hard not to like Rick Pitino, Ewing and the untalented but scrappy New York team which against all odds made it to the playoffs with solid team work and excellent motivation and coaching from Pitino. I have been a tortured Knick fan ever since so much so that I stopped watching the NBA a few years ago just not to suffer.
The Celtics are exciting again, they are a great team with excellent coaching (remember, Doc Rivers was a Knick) without all the drama. I am watching basketball again and I love it. If I only I get to play again!
I am also finally coming to terms with living in Boston now and loving the local team. I always hated the Giants so the Patriots was easy. I am not sure if I’d ever be a Red Sox fan (I am Mets fan for sentimental reasons), and I see no shame in rooting for the Celtics again.
Excellent idea! My 2 other favorite camera review sites Steve’s Digicams and dpreview have similar roots. They also make boat loads of money!
My brother Amin is a doctor and fellow at Johns Hopkins in MD. He has also been blogging about photography for some time. He recently recruited a few other enthusiasts and launched a new blog called SeriousCompacts.Here’s his description of the site:
“Welcome to Serious Compacts. We are a photography site with a focus on advanced compact cameras. These days it seems that many people associate “serious” photography with the use of large, heavy gear. Our site will feature testing and discussion of the remarkable compact tools available to photographers. We will also highlight some of the outstanding work being done with this gear”
Check it out if you are getting the shutterbug and are looking for something more than what your cameraphone or point&shoot can offer but aren’t ready to step up to a pro camera or don’t want the bulk. Or if you are just a gear head :)
5min BOD meeting
It’s almost the end of my marathon day which started with a 7AM breakfast followed by 3 BOD meetings: KickApps, AdMeld and 5min.
KickApps BOD
7AM in NYC
Gramercy Park Hotel in NYC
The newly renovated rooms are great but it is extremely noisy due to the popular bar downstair. My room was shaking with the beat of the music until 4AM in the morning.
Stuck in Washington Reagan