China and Taiwan -- talk about a long term view of the world!

In an article in the economist- Economist.com | China and Taiwan: - it was written:
"He supports the idea of an interim agreement lasting 30-50 years whereby Taiwan would agree not to declare formal independence in exchange for a pledge by China not to attack. Neither China nor Mr Chen has explicitly rejected this, so far at least."

WOW! Deals in the USA often do not survive the next Evening News!

Kupishok: For Eternal Memory

A video of the day that we spent in the home town of Hilda's grandparents has been placed in the National Center for Jewish film. For details, see
Kupishok: For Eternal Memory
Some of the stills in the movie were taken from my pictures. A subset of the pictures from my trip is on my website.

Many more of the pictures are here

Blah and Goodness

Last Thursday we saw a blah performance at the Chicago Symphony. What could have been an exciting evening turned out to be lackluster performances of Stravinsky's Petrushka and the Rachmaninov 2nd Symphony. Maybe it was the Conductor (Valery Gergiev from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg) -- maybe we were not in a receptive mood -- but we came out feeling blah. We had high hopes based on a thrilling performance of Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet that we managed to see in St. Petersburg last July. In retrospect, that was silly. Just because Gergiev uses the same hall does not imply anything. Duh!

OTOH, on Sunday we saw Silk at the Goodman Theatre, by Alessandro Baricco, directed by Mary Zimmerman. Magical goodness.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Click it to find the answer!

OK - so I am four years late - I was busy filing my taxes

I was searching for something when I tripped across this news item.
ABCNEWS.com : PKZip Creator Dies -- April 22, 2000

Katz was they guy that created the Zip format in a flurry of controversy, remembered by old farts like myself, but few others.
The full story is explained in more detail here , here and here.

So, why should I not advertise?

My latest pictures are posted here.
If you like the site structure, sign up by using this link

http://www.smugmug.com/?referrer=P9ZOPaIS5snuQ

and we will both get a credit on our subscriptions.

I survived the Ring

After a week immersed in Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs (about 20 hours in the Opera hall, including intermissions), I can now rejoin human society. Despite its ridiculous story involving the intrigues of gods and demigods, it was a wonderful experience. The music, plot and staging combine to stimulate the mind in many dimensions.
This picture is from the curtain call after Walkure.

The Ring at Lyric Opera of Chicago - all week

This week we are focused on The Ring at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Last night we saw Rheingold. Very impressive production (at least, I was impressed).

The most unusual event of the evening was that the line at the men's room before the show were way longer than the line at the ladies' room.

The Surprising New Science of Splashes - who would'a thunk it?

Ever wondered why water splashes? Read on...
The Surprising New Science of Splashes

I am doing my part

Interesting article

The future of blogging | CNET News.com

Lookingglass Alice

Tonight we saw "Lookingglass Alice" at the appropriately named Lookingglass Theatre in the Watertower (the real old one, not the modern ersatz one) on Michigan Ave. Breathtaking acrobatics - a fun time for all. Do not miss it if you are in Chicago -- and take a kid with you if you can. On until April 14, 2005, I believe.

The future

This clip is an interesting view the world of news in 2014. Click it and relax.

EPIC 2014

Kabuki Macbeth

Tonight we went to see a performance of "Kabuki Macbeth" at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater Upstairs on navy Pier. The review in the Chicago Sun-Times was enthusiastic and accurate -- but I felt that the performances trod dangerously close to parody of the kabuki style, and at times crossed the line and became almost campy.

The evening stood in marked contrast to the rest of my day, which was spent on such mundane activities as paying bills, renewing car licenses, tidying my desk, etc, etc, etc.

Theatre of late

In the past few weeks we have seen three good/excellent plays.

"To The Green Fields Beyond" by Nick Whitby was far and away the best of the bunch. It is an eloquent and moving anti-war attack set in the context of the tank warfare of World War I.

"The Story" by Tracey Scott Wilson is well produced acted, but the story did not capture my attention in the same way as the other two plays. It was a tad slick and glib. It raised issues, but skirted around them.

"The Subject Was Roses" by Frank Gilroy is a powerful family drama that brought to my mind the English "kitchen sink drama" movement that emerged when I was in my teens (see -- I have not yet lost my memory). Strong stuff. The venue - the Writer's Theatre at the back of the bookstore "Books on Vernon" in Glencoe - is tiny. Only three rows of seats. Made us feel we were actually in the kitchen.

The quality of theatre in Chicago continues to surprise me. On Tuesday night we are off the see "Kabuki Lady Macbeth". Report to follow.

The Tagine was great and other thoughts

OK, so now I can post again.

I had a call yesterday from an old college friend who now lives in Israel. He was trying out a form of Telephony over the Internet known as Voice over IP (VoIP). The sound quality was terrible!

But at least the chicken was good. The recipe I used was from Cooks's Illustrated. It is not on the net, but here is a close approximation:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_16461,00.html

My recipe was similar, but involved browning the chicken in the spice rub. Do not believe the 15min prep time. It took me ages to prepare and saute the chicken -- which is probably why they skipped that step!

I have been remiss

I stopped posting for a while -- but I am back now.I wish I could say it was by popular demand, but the demand is not great :-)
At least, I am trying to be back! Google's system is not posting. I cannot update this Blog. Of course, if you read this, the problem is fixed :-)

The news for today (friday March 25) is that I cooked a Moroccan chicken dish called a Chicken Tagine.

I will keep posting - if I can :-(

Getting closer to the lost universe

In a previous post, I noted the little problem of modern physics -- we have lost about 95% of the universe. Can't be found anywhere.

Now, we may have found a "dark galaxy" that may contain the missing bits.

Radio astronomers may have found the first ever galaxy that is made almost entirely of dark matter. The "dark galaxy", which lies in the Virgo cluster about 50 million light years away, rotates in the same way as an ordinary galaxy but does not contain any stars (R Minchin et al. Astrophysical Journal at press).

The physicsweb article "Have we seen the first dark galaxy" describes it. The galaxy cannot be seen in the image below. That's why it is called "dark"

I'm baaack...

... from a bad cold. I missed several days. I don't think there is much point trying to backfill.

Today I cooked a super chicken stew from a Syrian recipe. Onions, garlic, wine, coriander, cumin, olives, chicken stock. Yummy. Cures colds.

The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record

This link was posted on one of the mailing lists.
The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated (A Library of Congress Exhibition)

This Library of Congress exhibit contains incredible color pictures from turn-of-the-center Russia. For example:

Amtrak subsidies cut. Why?

OK - so I am few days late in reacting to this:

CNN.com - Bush plan to eliminate Amtrak subsidy faces fight - Feb 9, 2005

The challenge (for me) when assessing proposals made by politicians is to decide among five alternatives:

1. They are right -- the proposal is good public policy (meaning -- I agree with it)
   
If they are wrong, we disagree because:

2. They are stupid, and do not understand the issues
   
3. They are evil, and have a personal profit motive (e.g. meeting their campaign contributors needs)
   
4. They have a different view of "right" and "wrong" than I. This could be based on religion, or some other moral basis. Reasonable people can differ regarding such issues.
   
5. I am stupid, and do not understand the issue.
   

I will always discard 5. as an option that I discuss -- it is for other people to make that case.

In the case of Amtrak, the proposal is clearly wrong. The federal government subsidizes Amtrak's competition (personal automobiles) by maintaining the US Interstate system. Without the Interstate road system, trains would be packed.

It is bad public policy to subsidize the less efficient of competing alternatives. It may even be bad policy to subsidize any private endeavor, but that is another question.

So, the administration is either paying back political contributions, does not understand the issue, or believes it is morally wrong to ride trains. You decide -- I don't know.