California Academy of Sciences, GG Park

It's a natural history museum, but there are no dinosaur bones. Instead the highlights are the aquarium with unusual fish and plants, the exuberant penguins, the fancy and amazing six-projector planetarium, and the green roof.

Splash, NYC

The truly awful DJs refuse to play a danceable set in this NYC gay danceclub. Perhaps they just want you to head to the bar for more drinks, where, as expected, the drinks are outrageously priced. I guess rent must be steep for such a huge place, including the sprawling basement of about equal size to the main level. A couple cool things about this place: (1) the bartenders are incredibly well built, attractive and wear very little, and (2) the downstairs mens' urinal stalls are, um, unique. On the dance floor, getting rubbed up against in private areas without prior consent was astonishing -- those NY guys are fearless.

It's sad that I couldn't find a good gay bar in the few days I was in NYC. It could be that I couldn't stay up late enough. I'm not so young anymore. Recommendations for next time? Anyone?

PS1 Contemporary Art Museum, Queens

One subway stop from Manhattan, the PS1 museum is easily accessible, inexpensive (get a free admission on the back of your MoMA admission), and stimulating. The recent Scandinavian modern art exhibition is unique and diverting, especially the white rabbits and the video of the lasso guy. The huge mirror by Eliasson is amazing in its ability to change your perspective. And check out in almost "The Matrix" bullet time fashion the 360 degrees of weapons from the perspective of the attacker (what a power trip!) and the victim.

I regret having missed the other Eliasson exhibits -- notably those with water. I was only able to see photos of them in a book at the store.

X Saves the World by Jeff Gordinier

The book takes the argument and draws distinctions quite a bit further between Gen-X and both Boomers and Millennials. Dividing lines: those born before 1960 are boomers, and those born after 1977 are Millennials. Gordinier sees Nirvana as the height of X culture; I'm not sure I agree, but Nirvana's emergence coincides with the point where the alternative rock genre went mainstream. The author disses mostly appropriately in my opinion on both the Beatles and Britney Spears.

Then he talks about the greatness of 90s films, among them none of my particular favorites: Being John Malkovich, Fight Club, Lost in Translation, Office Space and The Matrix. Okay, I did like the Matrix, but the rest is mostly forgettable dross.

He does have a great point about it taking a Gen-Xer to finally put a boomer President, Dubya, in his place: Stephen Colbert and his brain warping, earth shattering performance at the White House Correspondents association dinner. You have to reread the transcript or see the video again to feel its unbelievable righteousness.

And another good point, the current Presidential election is a first between a boomer Silent Gen-er and a Gen-Xer. Interesting that in the end there may only be two boomer Presidents: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, although the window is 18 years. Still I sort of doubt it will only be two. After 2008/2012, perhaps Hillary or Biden or one of the 2008 Republican primary roster? With X being a window of 17 years, we'll be lucky to have two as President.

Overall, it's an interesting perspective which I do agree with on some points. Like how the sarcastic, cynical, slacker X generation, was the last to have real TV, not the cheap reality knock-off stuff copied from Europe. How Gen X knew to set the bar low for themselves and others, because they'd seen how bad marriages and bad economies can happen.

Note: okay, okay, I changed the dates to make Barack Obama an Xer (post-boomer), but others have done the same.

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night, MoMA

A number of famous and stunning Van Gogh pieces, many from European museums anchor this presentation. After staring at the paintings for awhile, I realized Van Gogh is pretty big on nature. His most beautiful pieces are dominated by stars, sky, and land. If there are humans in this pictures, excepting portraits, they are often small, dwarfed by their surroundings.

It makes sense then perhaps that his life story seems a bit lonely. Though he developed an attachment to fellow artist, Paul Gauguin, it seems Gauguin didn't really return the favor.

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam

This longish and data intensive book was quoted in some NYT article, and it sounded interesting and somehow vaguely related to something I've encountered. It's about how Americans have become more disengaged and less social over the generations. Americans now by large measure prefer to spend a quiet evening at home rather than go out and talk or meet with friends or other people. This seems like a bad thing the author points out because we have much less 'social capital' and as well much less desire to interact with points of view differing from our own. There is also less generalized trust.

According to the author there are several main causes: women moving into the workplace (by desire or by necessity) [since women are much more social than men in general, this has a big impact on connectedness], television addiction soaking up everyone's free time, those who are well off working longer, and other reasons.

I haven't finished the book, but I think the observations are generally very relevant even though the book was written in 2000. This is somewhat before online social networking really took off, but online interactions don't seem to have quite the quality of face-to-face friendships. I think it's still a bit unclear whether online social networks will get us all more truly connected in a way that mimics the more social past century where large percentages of people belonged to social clubs or visited weekly or daily with neighbors and friends. One brief observation is that sites like facebook seem to help cultivate so called 'weak' ties, but how many of these put together could ever equal the benefit of even a single more intimate friend?

Stop-Loss (2008)

Seems to be a reasonably even handed treatment of the fictional story of American soldiers coming back from Iraq, despite the unfortunate circumstance of being stop-lossed.

This is small government by the Republicans. Let's not do a draft. Let's not provide appropriate danger pay to encourage people to re-enlist. Let's screw them in the back end of the process when they think they'll be let out. Let the poor bastards mop up our stupid decisions.

My own illiberal thoughts here: it does suck, but it's in the contract, and everyone who signs such a contract should be aware of it's contents, no? They should consult a lawyer if there was a question? Of course, these guys are young and imprudent to sign up, or just wanting to be patriotic. There was never a declaration of war by Congress, but US judges seem to be saying such a declaration is not necessary for the President to invoke the stop-loss clause. Soldier beware.

Overall, I liked this film, not least because of pretty boy Ryan Phillippe.

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

Johanssen plays the ingenue and younger sister Mary, and Portman the manipulative and aggressive older sister Anne. (Somehow, I never fail to become alarmed when seeing Portman's eyebrows. Is this why she gets the edgier roles?) I like period pieces, so probably that's why I liked this film. It probably should be obvious, but there are a lot of advantages to being king. You certainly could get a lot of people beheaded.