Memorial Day Weekend

Was relaxing and fun overall. Saturday featured a PATH train ride into the WTC, followed by dinner with E, S, J, & L at Patsy's Pizza. Port Authority went to town with these cool neon lights over the escalator:



Here's a short clip of the ride alongside the WTC construction site:


Sunday, I went for a picnic in Central Park, skated from Bowling Green to 42nd Street around sunset, and still managed to catch an evening service at Redeemer that helped make up for the dirges and fluff earlier in the day.

Monday, I took an early yoga class, went for brunch, and skated from 14th to 81st and back - unfortunately this involved slogging through the Fleet Week crowds at the former site of the Intrepid. Ordinarily I take lots of pictures while rollerblading, but I didn't notice any remarkable new sculptures this time, and it seemed somehow discourteous to take a picture of a cute guy on rollerblades who wiped out as he was skating near me. So instead here are pictures of people taking advantage of FREE KAYAKING ON THE HUDSON:


And a modern day pirate ship (arrrrrr):


I was tempted to buy another pair of skates (because of course I need one at the office as well as one at home and one in Florida), but I resisted ... for now. The sales personnel made it easier by not asking me if I wanted to try on the skates I was looking at.

It was even easier not to buy an AirBook that was 10x more expensive than the skates and which I would primarily use for work. (The purchase would kind of make sense, because it is a lot cheaper than back surgery if I have to constantly lug around the clunky laptop provided by my employer. But I don't have to use a laptop at all during the summer, so I'll just wait 3 months and see what happens to the price.)

Of course now, looking back on it I feel a little unpatriotic because I really didn't do much to boost the U.S. economy, even with the extra day off. And I didn't stand around in the hot sun for Fleet Week either. But then again, I skated by dozens of military folk without knocking their hats off or whatever - surely that counts for something.

Narnia: Prince Caspian

I saw the new Narnia movie, Prince Caspian, at the "World Premiere" at the Ziegfield Theater -- a friend won four tickets to this event. Among the highlights for those who (like me) skipped the after-party was a close near-encounter with Tilda Swanson. She walked by us, about two feet away from me, as our group snagged some popcorn. I can report one thing: she's tall.

I liked The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, and I really wanted to like Prince Caspian as well. There were indeed some great moments, and fabulous scenery. Some of the characters (especially Reepicheep and Susan) were very appealing in their way, although Susan in particular was a little too modern in sensibility.

But I felt that the filmmakers were drawing too heavily on images from The Lord of the Rings and even to some extent Harry Potter. Even worse, I walked away from the film feeling like it was really pointless overall. I couldn't quite my finger on what was so unsatisfying about the movie, and it's been bugging me since then -- was the the source material? or the filmmakers' choices??

The Narnia books were part of my childhood, but only a few really moved me. (As a kid, I totally missed the unmistakable Christian allegory in The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe.) The Silver Chair is the one that I liked best; in fact, I bought a copy of it many years ago and I've re-read it numerous times. By contrast, my friend Tina loved The Horse and His Boy, whereas I seem to recall that I disliked it -- even if I opened the book, I'm quite sure I didn't get more than a few pages into it. (I tended to take Tina's book recommendations with a huge grain of salt; I'm not sure why, since the recommendations I did follow were good - e.g., The Westinghouse Game. Maybe I perceived that she had a real weakness for stories with animal protagonists, which I did not share.)

In any event, Prince Caspian was never a favorite of mine, and I really don't recall the story. So I had no idea what the filmmakers had changed, or whether the changes were for the better or for the worse.

I couldn't find a copy of the book at the local library, but they had "The Official Illustrated Movie Companion" by Ernie Malik. Now I think I've found the answer:

"There's very little interaction in the book between [the children] and Prince Caspian. ... They don't really meet the Telmarines, the bad guys, until the end. ... What we wanted to do was stretch the two halves so that they overlapped, which results in getting the kids to Prince Caspian earlier, thus generating some sparks."

TOIMC at 20 (quoting Chris Markus, one of the script writers). I do not in any way disagree with the writers' instinct that the original story needed some punching up. But I fear that the stretching process resulted in overlap that was justified only by the need for overlap -- it wasn't driven by the plot or even the theological message or themes, and didn't really assist with character development either. Particularly the character of Prince Caspian, who remains a cipher throughout. Because he is never really on his own, we don't necessarily see why he is the rightful leader, or even whether he is much of a leader at all. Yes, his uncle is a bad guy, but that doesn't necessarily make Prince Caspian the proper choice to govern the Telmarines and/or Narnia. So the entire effort on behalf of Prince Caspian seems a bit pointless.

Then there was also a scene that bugged me - the doomed assault on Miraz's castle. Don't get me wrong, I loved the castle itself. It was absolutely stunning, and incredibly cool. But I didn't really understand why this raid took place. There was some sort of reason given during the movie, it just didn't convince me. And, as it happens, director Andrew Adamson states in TOIMC:

There's a scene we've added that's not in the book - a great raid on Miraz's castle where we've taken griffins and Minotaurs and centaurs and had them fight against human soldiers within the confines of a castle. These are the kinds of images we haven't seen before, so it was fun to get a chance to play with those.

TOIMC at 21.

I have passed up two additional opportunities to watch the movie again - once for free at a "regular" sneak preview, and once on a pay-your-own-way basis with some friends from my fellowship group. The centaurs were amazing eye candy, the initial transition into Narnia is very cool and the beach is spectacular, and I loved the way the kids gradually realize that the gorgeous ruin they've discovered is really Cair Paravel. But so much of the rest of the movie feels forced, I couldn't quite bring myself to see it again.

Urban Hiking - Part 2 (Views from NJ)

A junk passes by:

Posts echo the buildings on the other side of the Hudson:

Townhouses angled in greedily for views:

I think this was the view from Weehawken, near the dueling grounds where Aaron Burr mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton. (I told my fellow hikers about the "Got Milk?" commercial that cleverly drew on this incident.)

Stretching in Hoboken, as we enter the final stretch:


The hike ended in Jersey City, near the PATH train, with more good views, including a clear shot of our starting point (the GW Bridge) way in the distance upstream. Pretty cool, though I still prefer walking on soil and rocks out in nature. Barring the promised t-storms, I should get to try the Gunks next weekend. So stay tuned.

Urban Hiking - Part 1

My first-ever urban hike, billed as a "14+ mile saunter," was organized by a group called Shorewalkers. (I'm calling it an urban hike because we spent a lot of time on or near streets and highways, and NYC was -- by design -- in view most of the way.) I got up rather early to get to the bus terminal on the NYC side of the George Washington Bridge. I'd been told to be there at 9 a.m. SHARP, and I got to the area about 15 minutes early. It turns out that the "official" meeting time was 9:15 a.m. (Shorewalker members knew this, but the co-sponsoring organization gave me a false earlier start time. Grrr.) The hike leader said he "hoped" to get started around 9:30 a.m., but people were still showing up and signing in at that time, so we actually started moseying at 9:45. Not that I'm bitter or anything. But I could have slept another hour!!!

Thirty-eight of us started off across the George Washington Bridge. The bicyclists we encountered on the bridge were very territorial, and not at all understanding of our desire to walk side by side, stop and take pictures, or pass slower pedestrians. No, they somehow felt entitled to the half of the lane that was designated as theirs. (Compare this with the Hudson River Bike Path, where pedestrians and runners walk on the bike/rollerblade path and nobody complains. Of course, it's a little wider there, so easier to manoeuver. But still, there's a tremendous difference in attitude.)

Here's one of our first wistful glances back to civilization as we headed off to the Palisades:


I really love the architecture of the GW. It has a beauty of its own, an almost crystalline structure:

Maritime traffic went to and fro:


On the NJ side, we stopped first at a riverside park just north of the GW. This was, among other things, an opportunity to purchase bottles of water or take one's chances in refilling one's water bottle from the sink in the restroom -- they no longer give you the false sense of filtration by providing water fountains. While the rest of us snacked and chatted, one of the 38 took a cigarette break. (Only 37 of us completed the hike.)

From the park, I really liked the way it looked like the GW ran right into a primeval forest:

If you look carefully, you can see a hawk circling over the cliff. I tried to get a picture where the hawk's shadow showed up on the cliff face, but alas I wasn't quick enough.

Raptors were not the only airborne creatures that morning. Presumably in honor of Fleet Week, we were treated to a mini air show:

No, they weren't mosquitos! Here's a closeup of one of the helicopters:

A more mysterious closeup:

At our next rest stop, the guide let slip that the 14+ mile hike was actually going to be 17 miles. Destination: Jersey City.

Sense and Sensibility

Needless to say, the elder one picked out the lollipops for both.

More Highlights

Why bother with furniture?
Climbing up:
And climbing down:
Mountain laurel:

The Long and Short of It

Playing tough (but you're not fooling anyone, you love the attention):
Safe and secure:
Showing off:
When you really master meditation, you set your inner child free:
A long way to go on the monkey bars:

New Horizons in Lilac Appreciation

First lilac of the day:

A flower in the hand is worth 10,000 in the bush:

Dance of the clouds:
My favorite variety was called "sensation" - I love the crisp white border on each petal:

New Horizons in Scientific Understanding

Independent experts agree that breakfast is one of the three best meals of the day:

Umbrellas - the new full-body exercise toy (dry weather only):

Finally, a solution to America's dependence on oil:

Entire State Building (Kroy Wen)

Historians have never satisfactorily explained why this building is known as the "Entire State Building." In fact, to my knowledge they have never even considered the issue. To fill this much-needed gap in our state's proud history, pseudo-historians have speculated that to alleviate the great sense of depression that he felt coming on, former governor Alfred Smith may have joined forces with the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon to create a building that would house and employ the entire state in the 1930's.

Alas, this noble dream was doomed to failure. The Entire State Building employed only 3,400 workers during its construction (out of a population of approx. 13,000,000 at the time).

Even now, the space appears to be underutilized, with a mere 21,000 transients occupying approximately 2,768,591 square feet on a part-time basis.

Rumor has it that these 21,000 transients host a truly staggering number of paying guests every day - apparently entertaining dozens at a time on an hourly basis, many of them getting quite high in the process - but it would be more proper and respectful, I believe, not to dwell on such regrettable activities.