Bklyn Blggng

[WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS FILM.]

Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies. I was barely a teen (but already a huge sci-fi nerd) when I read a Starlog article about an awesome-sounding sci-fi movie coming out in 1982. Though it was rated R, I knew I'd manage to see it somehow -- after all, I got into Alien (also rated R) when I was just ten thanks to a sympathetic (but probably not very responsible*) adult. By the time Blade Runner came out, I think I'd already read the comic adaptation and gotten my hands on some of the ERTL die-cast miniatures. (I remember reading in Starlog that it was unprecedented for an R-rated movie to have a toy campaign associated with it, something that still seems remarkable in 2007.)

So I walked into my first screening of Blade Runner already a fanboy at age 13. I wasn't disappointed. In fact, the movie left a huge impression on me. For years after, a well-worn VHS copy kept me company as I matured from bowl-cuts to mullets. Before I had a clue what noir was, Deckard's lonely existence in an indifferent, brutal world gave me comfort in my own journey through the darkness, even though my demons were mostly confined to boring classes, pimples, and the inability to land a girlfriend. As corny as it sounds now, the happy ending of the film gave me hope that like Deckard, I too would find my own Rachel and we'd escape the evil world by driving off into the countryside together.

Ten years later, Blade Runner: The Director's Cut was released. This version was far darker than the original -- and to my surprise, far better, too. The unambiguously happy ending of the original cut was gone, replaced by a new finale and an added scene that left our heroes with a murky, dangerous future. I loved it even more than the original, something I didn't think was possible. The film had grown up, and so had I.

Another fifteen years pass and it's 2007, time for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the film and a long rumored "final cut" of the film. I'm still a huge Blade Runner fan, but not so huge that I've been following all the rumors about what's included in this version. All I really know is that it's got to be a new print and that it's going to be opening at the Ziegfeld on Friday, October 5. But that's reason enough for me to go, and at 7pm Friday I'm there with 800 other fans as the lights go down.

Two hours later...I'm underwhelmed. Yes, the film is still beautiful and dark and powerful. But Final Cut is also 99.5% of the 1992 Director's Cut. I guess I was expecting Blade Runner v3, but this is more like v2.1.

So what's new in this version? Some scenes were slightly extended, there's been some visual and sound sweetening, and they've finally fixed the most glaring continuity/effects blunders of the previous two versions...but that's IT.

That said, I still love Blade Runner. It's still a bleak, gorgeous masterpiece of the future. I can't complain about seeing the pristine new print on a big screen. But don't go expecting to see anything radically new. And, if you grew up with the film as I did, be prepared to find that the film has stopped growing, even if you haven't.

(Ziegfeld Theatre, Manhattan)

*Irresponsible because impressionable ten year olds are not likely to ever forget images of 1) what the alien does to John Hurt and 2) what Sigourney Weaver looks like in her underwear. [Warning: blood and panties.]

It's a great day for fanboys of Asian-American/Canadian indie films:
-In New York, you can catch the awesome Colma: The Musical, which opens today at the Quad. Manohla Dargis, my favorite film critic, loves this movie too.
-If you're in San Francisco, you can check out the exquisite Eve and The Firehorse, which runs for two weeks starting today at the newly renovated Sundance Kabuki in Japantown.

I'd rave more about both films, but I'm too busy flying my decommissioned black market F-14 across the country right now in a quest to be the only person on the planet to see both movies in these venues on the same day. (Hope it's not congested at SFO.)

So for now, you'll have to settle for my previous writeups on the films of Wong/Mendoza and Kwan.

You've heard this story before: a budding auteur makes a movie for no money, wins audience raves and awards on the festival circuit, builds awesome word-of-mouth, and gets the holy grail of the indie filmmaker -- theatrical distribution. Finally, you say to yourself, here's proof that the little guy can win in this crazy world. I'm gonna support him, you tell yourself, because I'm a little guy myself and I wanna help him stick it to the Man.

You go to your local art house cinema on the weekend it opens, ready to show the movie-powers-that-be that films like this deserve to be seen. You want to help this little movie you've heard so much about get its all important opening weekend per screen average because if it does well maybe, just maybe, other little films will get seen too. Because if a little movie like this can open, then maybe the money people will back more little films and the world will be a better place.

So that weekend, you get in line with the other true believers, the lights go down and the movie starts. And two hours later, you're in a cafe with the friends you dragged to this movie trying to explain why, uh, you know, this is a film that grows on you, or will, once you've given it some time to sink in.

It's not until later -- maybe much later -- that the only things that have sunk in are how much that movie you wanted so dearly to like flat-out sucked and how blinded you were by Indie Spirit that you didn't realize it right away.

Colma: The Musical opens today in San Francisco and in NYC on July 6. It was created by two auteurs for no money, won awards and fans on the festival circuit, and got picked up for theatrical distribution. Two hours after you watch it, you and the friends you dragged along will be singing the songs and ordering the soundtrack online.

So go see it in SF, NYC, and/or LA and tell your friends to see it too. Because we need to help movies like this open.

And if you don't like musicals...don't you at least want to stick it to the Man?

More Colma:
Fixing A Mole
SF/SJ: Colma Stays!

Yikes, I've been bad about posting here. Can I blame the AAIFF? It was a busy week...

(Quad Cinema, 13 St, Manhattan)

It's been ten days since I've posted here and my excuse is...the Ma-Yi LabFest! Every night I haven't been attending a reading I've been re-writing or rehearsing my own play, which I'm happy to say went up on Saturday to a full house. I'm tired as heck but it's been a lot of fun.

Big props to my director Victor and my actors Jo, Jackson, Jose, Kent, Aladdin, and Claro for bringing a complicated little play to life with so little rehearsal time. I still have a lot more tweaking to do, but I'm already looking forward to the next opportunity to show No Time for Champions to an audience.

(Jo Mei does her best 2046 -esque Faye Wong android at the Phil Bosakowski Theatre, 354 West 45 St, Manhattan)

Among the many excellent programs at the VC Filmfest was the free cinematography workshop with veteran DPs Bob Primes and Stephen Burum. They spent an entire day at Mole Richardson teaching us poor and hungry filmmakers the basics of film lighting and, equally important, how to do it on the cheap.

This kind of “master class” could cost you a small bundle elsewhere, but VC gave it to us for nothing – and even served us a tasty lunch from Buddha's Belly. Kudos, you guys all ROCK.

(Mole Richardson, Hollywood, CA)

More VC Filmfest 2006:
Star Power (Part 2)
Star Power (Part 1)
Many Movies, Many Parties
Off to VC

Take It Or Leave It? and Dry Clean Only screened yesterday and I think people liked them. TIOLI is a crowd pleaser and it’s always fun to hear the audience laugh. The post-screening Q&As were fun. I like answering questions and talking about my stuff; I can only hope that people enjoy listening.

The best part of the DCO screening was getting to see my wonderful actors Aaron and Kavi again. I miss working with them in New York, but I’m glad they’re rising fast out here in LA. It was also great seeing the other friends that came by for the screenings. Their presence meant a lot to me.

This screening was my first time seeing DCO on a big screen and, perhaps inevitably, I came away with a list of things I wanted to tweak. It’s funny, every time I think I’ve finished this film, I always find more stuff I wanna change. After this next edit, I think I have to stop watching; otherwise, I’ll probably just want to work on it some more.

One film I’ll never stop watching, however, is Julia Kwan’s exquisite Eve and the Fire Horse. I know I gushed about Eve after seeing it at SFIAAFF in March, but after watching it again last night, I just gotta gush some more. I can only hope that one day I’ll make a movie as beautiful and as elegant as this one. Rush out and see it as soon as it comes to your city.

The Eve screening also marked my favorite single moment of the festival: the widespread snickering after a really loud trailer for Fast & Furious 3: Tokyo Drift that preceded the film. READY...SET-O...GO!!!!

(Julia and her fans at the Director’s Guild of America, Los Angeles, CA)

More VC Filmfest 2006:
Star Power (Part 1)
Many Movies, Many Parties
Off to VC

For me, writing is very difficult and not enjoyable, shooting is pretty difficult and mostly enjoyable, and attending film festivals (as a filmmaker) is not difficult and extremely enjoyable. Problem is, you gotta go through the first two to get to the third. But it's worth it. As Oscar winning actor/director winner Chris Tashima pointed out at our directors luncheon today, the hard part is done, and now it's just a series of parties.

(Chris is also really good in Eric Byler's Americanese, and I suggest you all check it out when it's released. I can only hope my Asian-American mid-life crisis involves a dalliance like the one he has with Joan Chen in that movie.)

Last night I watched Ham Tran's Journey From the Fall, a surprisingly epic first feature from this LA-based filmmaker. It's a sprawling story about a Vietnamese family in the wake of the Vietnam War, with lovely cinematography and great performances from the mostly first-time actors. If he ever makes a sequel to this movie, I can see Journey broken into two smaller films to make a trilogy because the two halves of the film are so different. Worth checking out.

Most of the festival films are screening at the Directors Guild of America, which is a great place to watch a film because of the excellent projection and sound systems. It's also a bit intimidating and inspiring to be in the same place that is a home to so many legendary filmmakers.

(Director's Guild of America, Los Angeles, CA)

Related posts:
Off to VC
SF/SJ: Slanted Screens

Working on a musical has been a lot of fun, especially when you have super-talented collaborators like these. Here, Andrew Fitch and Lisa Wilkerson work on a hot tango in Raw Impressions Music Marathon #21.

(Players Theatre, Manhattan)

It's been a busy week, with two short pieces going up the same weekend. Lots of rehearsals, last-minute tweaks, and excitement/anxiety as opening night approaches.

First up: Alicia Ying gives Andrew Guilarte a taste of the future in Seven.11.2006.

(Kraine Theatre, Manhattan)

We’ve seen a lot of terrific films at SFIAAFF, but the one that won my heart was Colma: The Musical. Colma is a coming-of-age story set in the eponymous town just south of San Francisco that’s home to 17 cemeteries but just 1,300 residents. This film is jam-packed with humor, smarts, and great songs. It’s amazingly well-shot and looks much more expensive than it probably was, proving once again that budget and creativity are not correlated. (In particular, the eight-minute long tracking shot in the party scene is exhilarating.)

First-time feature director Richard Wong and writer/composer H.P. Mendoza have created something amazing here. I hope lots of people get to see this. I can’t stop humming the songs.

(BART to SFO, San Francisco, CA)

More SF/SJ:
SF/SJ: Sloganeering
SF/SJ: Slanted Screens
SF/SJ: Tourists Shot For Shot
The SFIAAFF
Chapeau Shopping
Bay Area Transit Is Rapid
The Guest Cottage Life
I Visited The Mothership
Special West Coast MICW
You Heard?
Babe's Mufflers
Flight To

An interesting panel discussion about Asian men in American cinema following the very good documentary The Slanted Screen. Though I think it would have been cool to hear a female perspective on the subject, I think the audience was more than happy to see some of their favorite AA leading men in person – we were almost elbowed out of line by one aggressive fan!

From left to right: Darrell Hamamoto of UC Davis, Chris Tashima, Daniel Dae Kim, Jason Scott Lee, and Jeff Adachi, director of The Slanted Screen.

(AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, 1881 Post St, San Francisco, CA)

More SF/SJ:
SF/SJ: Tourists Shot For Shot
The SFIAAFF
Chapeau Shopping
Bay Area Transit Is Rapid
The Guest Cottage Life
I Visited The Mothership
Special West Coast MICW
You Heard?
Babe's Mufflers
Flight To

I knew SFIAAFF was the biggest Asian film fest in the US, but I didn’t know just how big – every day, films are showing in at least four venues simultaneously, and it seems like every show sells out. We want to see everything and hit all the social events, but we can’t. So we’ve resigned ourselves to the reality that we will be missing lots of good films.

Some of our favorites so far:
Eve and the Fire Horse – a story about two young Chinese girls in 1970s Vancouver trying to reconcile two (or three) cultures simultaneously. Full of heart and great acting. This is director Julia Kwan’s first feature, but it feels so confident and mature you’d think it was her tenth. I hope this gets released far and wide.

Conventioneers – a scrappy and modern guerilla-style Romeo and Juliet story shot in NYC during the 2004 Republican National Convention, with props to Medium Cool. Great acting and style. Can’t wait to see Mora Stephens’ next film Georgia Heat.

Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story – a documentary about a Japanese family’s attempt to deal with the kidnapping of their daughter by North Korean spies. I didn’t get a chance to make this screening, but Jo saw it and thought it was touching and very well done. Hope lots of people get to see this.

Dear Pyongyang – we only got to see the first sixty minutes of this documentary about a Korean family split between Japan and North Korea, but we really liked the director’s personal approach to the story. And also how she told the audience, half-jokingly, to turn off their cell phones and not to sleep during the film.

(AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, 1881 Post St, San Francisco, CA)

More SF/SJ:
Chapeau Shopping
Bay Area Transit Is Rapid
The Guest Cottage Life
I Visited The Mothership
Special West Coast MICW
You Heard?
Babe's Mufflers
Flight To

Vroooom!

(Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan)

Related posts:
Viewer
Family Romance
Atrium

Another cool one from in the Contemporary Galleries.

(Viewer [1996] by Gary Hill, Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan)

Related posts:
Family Romance
Atrium

Creepy, very cool, and..creepy. This is just awesome.

(Family Romance [1993] by Charles Ray, Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan)

Related post:
Atrium

(GRNY Store, Manhattan)

Last night was the world premiere of Take It Or Leave It? at the DC Asian Pacific Film Festival and I'm very glad to say the audience seemed to really enjoy it. They laughed big -- and in all the right places. After the screening, I got up on stage with Jackie (my actor) and the two other filmmakers in attendance for a Q&A, which went very well.

Everything else about the festival has been great, too. The staff of the festival are super-nice and friendly. I've met some very cool fellow filmmakers. The theater where my short screened was the AFI Silver, a new theater with a excellent projection and a great sound system.

Not least, I've seen some terrific films, most notably the wonderful The Grace Lee Project by Grace Lee and the devastating And Thereafter by Hosup Lee, both of which are documentaries. I wish I had time to stay for the entire festival, because there are a lot of good films showing.

I'm happy now, but to be perfectly honest, I was anxious all week long leading up to the premiere. I'd never seen the film on a real cinema screen before and never before an audience of strangers. I wasn't sure what to expect. How would my hand-held DV camerawork look on the big screen? Would the audience laugh at the jokes? Would the tape jam during the screening? What kind of questions would they ask at the Q&A if they hated the film? Should I bother ironing my shirt before going?

Fortunately, it all went well. I wish I could be in Vancouver for the Canadian premiere next month, but I need to work on my next project. If you're in Vancouver, please go see it -- and please laugh in all the right places.

(AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, Silver Spring, MD)

(CNN Connects, Equitable Building, 7 Av & 53 St, Manhattan)

My favorite museum in New York is the Museum of Natural History. And one of my favorite things about the museum is that it's kind of a museum of museum history, too. For me, the meta-exhibit of presentation styles is almost as great as the exhibits themselves.

I love that the Hall of Gems and Minerals feels like a mod 1960s living room with its wall-to-wall carpeting, multiple levels, and funky angles. And that our early ancestors of Human Biology and Evolution actually live in a 1980s Trump-esque glass and black tile condo. And that the miniature hard-working farmers of the Hall of New York State Environment toil stoically amongst walls of 1950s wood paneling. And, finally, that the grand old dinosaurs were finally able to find some plasma TVs that didn’t clash with their palatial Beaux-Arts digs.

(American Museum of Natural History, 81 St & Central Park West, Manhattan)

Bummer! Dry Clean Only, our entry in the Second Annual 72 Hour Film Shootout, came away empty-handed at the awards ceremony last night at MTV Studios.

Despite this disappointment, however, I still feel really proud of the film and our team. (Not to mention the cool shots of Times Square I got from the building.)

With a little luck, the film will screen at various film festivals (and possibly online) over the next year or so. I’ll post details in News when I have them.

The Team Beckoning Kitty Kats Story:
72 HFS: Submission!
72 HFS: Shooting & Editing
72 HFS: Pre-Production
72 HFS: Getting Ready

(MTV Studios, Viacom Building, 1515 Broadway, Manhattan))

We dropped off the film at ACV at 6:35pm, an hour and twenty-five minutes before the deadline. I hope I get some points for the nifty mailing label.

There are a few technical issues I wish we could have fixed before submission, but overall I think it's a very good little film and definitely something I'd enjoy watching even if I hadn't made it. Let's hope the judges like it too.

Whatever happens in the competition, though, I've had a great time and feel really lucky to have had such an amazing cast and crew. Thank you, Aaron, Debargo, Kavi, Daniel, Catherine, Christopher, Rich, and Cooper. And special thanks to TJ at Ace French Dry Cleaners. Bravo, kitty kats!

Now for some sleep…

Our shoot went well -- and went over. I was hoping to be done by midnight, but we didn't wrap until 2:30am. Rich the editor stopped by at the end of the shoot to get the tapes. I got to bed around 3:30am.

Rich started editing Sunday afternoon and I joined him after biking about 16 miles from my apartment to his place in eastern Queens. It was a good ride and I needed some fresh air, but probably not the best thing for me to do after a 22 hour day and barely five hours of sleep, especially with a PowerBook in my backpack. My neck and shoulders still hurt.

When I got to Rich’s, I was excited to see that the footage looked great and the performances were as strong as I remembered them. I knew that Kavi, Debargo, and Aaron would have great chemistry together and was thrilled to see proof of it on the screen.

Rich plowed through the shots, meticulously putting together a rough cut on his G5 while I created the end titles on my PowerBook, offered comments every now and then, and ate really good chicken and broccoli with fried rice. We argued about some editing choices and agreed on the other 99 percent.

I was in awe at the collection of DVDs and film-related books in Rich’s collection and started reading the shooting script to Magnolia while I ate. P.T. Anderson is one of my favorite writer/directors and I was hoping that I could cop some of his greatness for my project.

During the evening, Cooper and I spoke on the phone several times about music and sound effects, and around midnight Rich and I started to match the audio files he sent us to the footage. It was really coming together.

We locked picture around 3am and I got a QuickTime version of the short to take home with me. Rich and Cooper would work together on Monday trying to sweeten the audio track as much as possible before the submission deadline.

As I munched on a Korean marshmallow puff (in post-production, apparently, directors can mostly eat and sit around while other people do the real work), I felt lucky to be working with such talented people. If the film didn’t work, it would be entirely my fault as a writer/director, because the cast and crew did a great job.

I got a ride back to Brooklyn and was asleep by 4:30am.

(Rich's secret underground editing suite)

The theme of the Shootout is "AKA." After brainstorming with the cast and crew at last night's Launch Party, I went home and started writing, but fell asleep pretty early without having written anything.

I woke up at 5:30am and started writing and emailed the finished script to everyone at 11.

As of now, I'm a little bit behind on the shot list, but I've got the storyboards done. We start shooting at 7pm.

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled blog for the Second Annual 72 Hour Film Shootout.

Over the next three days, I'll be leading a team that will be competing against 50 or so others to write, shoot, and edit a six-minute film, based on a theme to be given tonight by the contest organizers. The final film is due Monday at 8pm.

I’m very happy to have assembled a great cast and crew. Team Beckoning Kitty Kats is:

JP Chan, writer/director/producer
Kavi Ladnier, actor
Debargo Sanyal, actor
Aaron Yoo, actor
Christopher Low, director of photography
Daniel Valdez, sound recordist
Rich Song, editor
Catherine Lee, assistant director
Cooper Madison, composer

Time permitting, I’ll blog with updates throughout the weekend so that Bklyn Blggng readers can join us in this fun but nerve-wracking adventure. Wish us luck!

(Den of the Beckoning Kitty Kats)

As an NYU student in the early 90s, I spent plenty of time waiting for trains at West 4 St station. It was even less of a pretty sight then -- panhandlers and the stench of piss were everywhere.

Younger readers and newcomers to NYC probably don't remember these bad old days -- economic recession, murder (2,200 annually versus around 600 now), crack, drive-by shootings, aggressive beggars, race riots, trash everywhere, and a general sense that anything could happen to you walking down the street and nobody would care if it did.

On the other hand, we didn't have a single Starbucks back then, so I guess it wasn't all bad.

One night around 10:30, I was waiting for an A train to Washington Heights, which at the time was one of the city's largest open-air drug markets -- heroin al fresco served daily. I was heading up there to drop off a paper at a professor's home before the deadline of 11pm. (Yeah, I was a pretty hardcore procrastinator even then.)

I was more than a bit worried about heading up to this neighborhood that I knew only by reputation, especially at night, but I had to get the paper in.

A guy my age dressed entirely in camouflage approached and demanded money -- all of it.

"I don't have anything," I said.

"Don't make me search you," he replied.

Of course, I was terrified but I also didn't want to give him the few bucks and credit cards I had in my wallet. What could I do?

"Here," I said as offered him a bottle of Snapple juice I'd brought along for the long subway ride uptown. "That's all I've got."

He took the drink and walked away. I was still in a state of shock and it wasn't until the train had arrived and I was on it that I'd realized I probably should have gone up to the token booth and tried to get a cop. How hard would it have been for them to find a kid dressed in military fatigues chugging a Snapple?

And it wasn't until much later that I reflected on the irony of nearly being mugged in relatively safe Greenwich Village -- just a block away from my dorm -- while worrying about the dangers awaiting me uptown in dangerous Washington Heights.

I slipped the paper under my professor's door and hurried back on the train. His neighborhood was tree-lined and quiet, not at all like West 4th St and Sixth Avenue. I don’t remember what I got on the paper, but I think I got a B+ in the class.

(West 4 St-Washington Sq Station, Manhattan)

With Lord Ganesh on the dashboard, all obstacles were cleared as we made our way across the Bowery, over the Manhattan Bridge, and up Flatbush. The traffic and the lights and the energy of New York City on a beautiful spring night made its own music and inspired others.

How beautiful the joyous urge to sing with friends in a car -- and how strange the compulsion to want to record it and post it on a blog.

Apologies to Rachael Yamagata, who wrote and performed the original.

[iTunes recommended for these and all audio features on this site.]

(Aparna's car)

I recently finished a really good book about memory improvement, but I've been too lazy to actually perform any of the brain exercises recommended by the author. So while I now know more about the brain than I did before, my memory hasn't increased a bit (to say nothing of a byte).

One thing I do recall (ha, ha) from the book is that the brain is all about association. Each piece of information in our heads is useful only in as much as it refers to another piece of information. The key to improving memory and brainpower, apparently, is increasing the number of these connections within your neural network.

The meta-story here, of course, is that hypertext and the web, including blogs like this one, also derive their power and usefulness from the linking of information. For me, much of the fun of doing this blog -- and hopefully for you reading it -- is in making connections between the photos and the text. I rarely plan any of my shots; I just shoot whatever seems interesting at the moment. Sometimes the accompanying text (even if only a caption) comes to me right away, sometimes weeks later.

(I also like hearing what connections others make to the photos and words [subtitle/hint, hint: please leave comments].)

So what's all this got to do with a snapshot of a shadow of a tree? This photo sat on my hard drive for about a week after I shot it. For whatever reason, I was having a difficult time even thinking of a title for it, even though I liked the picture.

Suddenly this morning, I looked at the picture again and it reminded me of John, a kid I went to elementary school with. John had freckles and was a stutterer. He was a bit excitable but generally well-liked. He wasn't the smartest kid in our grade, but he did have good morals -- he yelled at me once after I meanly ridiculed a classmate of ours, which he was 100% correct in doing.

But the memory I most associate with John is one that he had nothing to do with. Sometime in the third or fourth grade we had a poetry display in the hallways. Our teacher had made simple posters with poems that I'd assumed were from students, because under each poem was the name of a classmate. This one was John's:

I think I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.

I remember being really impressed that John knew how to write poetry -- and good poetry at that. It wasn't until about twenty years later that I discovered that not only was John not the author, but that there was also more to the poem than our teacher had shared.

I hadn't thought about this story in years, but all of a sudden so many memories about this old classmate, who by the way was someone I wasn't even particularly close to, came flooding in. It made me think about what other memories I had in my head and how, in my own lazy roundabout way, I might actually be doing my own form of brain exercise by blogging.

And now two more free associations: Happy belated Arbor Day. And enjoy some Talking Heads if you have iTunes.

(South St & Vietnam Veterans Plaza, Manhattan)

I've always prided myself on having a pretty good eye for spotting new things that are pretending to be old -- Bennigan's is an easy one, Balthazar is way harder, the East Staircase at Grand Central is impossible -- but these days my Fake Filter is starting to register false positives. Blame it on the Culture of Deception.

I shot this collage because I really liked the way the letters of the old sign were still "visible" even though most of them had fallen off. As I was walking away, however, I began to wonder how such an old and esoteric (read: non yuppie-serving) business could survive in the white-hot real estate frenzy of Tribeca. Then I began to think that perhaps what I'd seen was not an actual old rubber supply company storefront, but part of a movie or TV set. (Isn't there a now Law & Order series that's entirely about malfeasance in the plumbing industry?)

Thanks to Google, I discovered that this so-real-it's-almost-fake store was, in fact, a genuinely old business that had relocated to Long Island some time ago. (No doubt this move was a result of the white-hot real estate frenzy of Tribeca, but I repeat myself.)

Though I've never set foot in a rubber supply store in my life, it saddens me to know that United Rubber undoubtedly be replaced with something a lot less interesting, a lot more fancy, a lot less real. My hope is that the new tenant will be a Design Within Reach store, so I can pick up some of those cool new old Eames rockers.

(United Rubber Supply, 54 Warren St, Manhattan)

By Lethia and Andrew of Seven.11 2005.

(Lolita Bar, 266 Broome St, Manhattan)

(Dunkin Donuts, Hudson Pl, Hoboken)

Writing a play -- even a short one -- is a difficult and lonely process for me. Maybe one day it'll get easier, but for now there's no fun to it until rehearsals start. I love watching the director and actors find their way (and themselves) through the text, trying some great things, trying some not-so-great things, but trying always to get at the truth.

Sitting quietly, watching them work, I'm glad they're too busy to notice the big embarassing grin on my face. They're my heroes and I'm their biggest fan.

(Lower East Side Tenement Museum Theater, Orchard St)