David Rockwell, Collaborative Designer & Festival Designer, told us not to worry about lines: “Festivals are what we do…The people running some of the other festivals that have line troubles dont have as much experience as we do.”

The lines were indeed the problem. Not only did we wait for an hour and a half for a Lobster roll that we could have bought at East Seventh Street in Manhattan, we also found every other line so prohibitively long that we basically left after only two and a half hours. I had budgeted $80 for all the food and beer that was available. However the lines were so long that we gave up and stopped spending after a bland chicken sandwich and a lobster roll. Total damage $25.

What do Nashvillians know that we don’t?

via Newsletters : Food! Music! Brooklyn! Buy Your Tickets To The Great GoogaMooga Today!.

As part of this year’s LIC Arts Open, a week devoted to showcasing the numerous art institutions in Long Island City, the Jeffrey Leder Gallery staged an opening of recent paintings and drawings converging on the theme of minimalist techniques. Dina Muenzfeld curated this show, titled Reductive.

Dina saw me shoot photos of Ellen Schneiderman’s opening in February at the same gallery. She must have liked my snapshots because she asked me to shoot the opening. Either that, or she liked that I worked for free.

I was pretty happy with the photographic quality of the shots. There were for the most part very sharp and crisp. Shooting in a gallery is a little tricky because of the competing light sources and their various temperatures But since I bought a WhiBal card last summer, I have been able to mitigate the light noise. Also I can get pretty true colors, which I did in the photos from the Reductive opening and last July’s Staff Show at Philips DuPury.

One of the main topics we covered was the new exhibition technologies of 3D and Digital Projection. While these have been around for decades, and for over a century in the case of 3D photography, the new push for faster frame rates seem as a new way for Hollywood to separate itself from other cinemas from around the world.

David Bordwell has recently covered the campaign for 48 frames per second—double that of the traditional sound film frame rate of 24 frames—led by Peter Jackson and James Cameron as a way to eliminate the artifacts visible in their digital-effects-heavy films. I won’t repeat everything he has to say in that illuminating article but I found a few points relevant for our discussion.

• In order for theater owners to adopt new hardware, there needs to be a viable path to recovering those costs with profitable software. It’s hard to imagine filmmakers with a better profit potential than Jackson and Cameron.
• By pioneering new projection technology, it will be hard for other filmmakers—both within and outside of Hollywood—to match them in terms of spectacle.
• Bordwell is right when he points out the 48 fps debate overlooks the entire issue of story. It’s not that the two are mutually exclusive. It’s just that they are almost working with an entirely different medium than other filmmakers.

We have seen in various other nations numerous attempts to foster a strong national cinema. International co-productions and complex financing arrangements were such methods, but while they might have matched (or approached) the scale of a Hollywood film, they rarely accomplished any sustained success. What had worked was making films with a strong personal vision, complex characters, and drawing on rich sources such as history, politics, or philosophy. These films might not have yielded immediate financial successes, but films like these kinds fostered a strong sense of national identity and also became the hallmarks of international cinema. I tried to screen films of these type throughout the semester.

As filmmakers chase the apex of digital realism, we should not let the digital revolution foreclose what made the cinema, not just entertaining and spectacular, but an international art form.

After struggling to print t-shirts yesterday afternoon, Sarah and I headed to National Train Day at Grand Central Terminal. This celebration takes place in only four cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City. Since we live only one subway stop from Grand Central, it seemed like we had to go.

While there were a lot of events for the occasion, we skipped most of them in favor of touring the train cars. There was an Acela train consist, a 40th Anniversary train (complete with gift shop), and a current Viewliner. But the highlight was the Twentieth Century Limited. This train consisted of vintage private cars, including the Hickory Creek, Tavern Lounge 43, the Cannon Ball, the Epicurus, the Birkin, and the Kitchi Gammi Club. We took our time touring these cars and were incredibly excited to learn about the Wine ‘n Dine Train that travels through the Hudson River Valley to Albany for a five-course meal and cocktails.

Weekend jaunt, anyone?

Tomorrow is National Train Day. Why tomorrow? Because that’s the 143rd anniversary of the first transcontinental railroad. I had forgotten about this year’s train day except that last week, while in Los Angeles, Sarah and I took a tour of Union Station since Sarah and her dad were staying nearby. Also, I had to pickup a bunch of t-shirts to print at the American Apparel factory near downtown LA.

One of the best parts of the visit actually had nothing to do with the tour. We took my two-year-old nephew Alex to the station to see the trains. It’s simply amazing to see how kids are drawn to trains. We took him to the passenger platform, and he was absolutely hypnotized by the locomotives. I took him inside of a Metrolink train scheduled to depart in five minutes, and he was just absorbing all the activity. As other trains arrived and departed, a few of the engineers waved at him as their trains passed by. He loved it!

At the end of evening, my mom and I took him aboard the Metro Gold Line to ride to the next station in Little Tokyo, where I was meeting Sarah, her dad, and my dad. He was a trooper. He waved the TAP card my mom gave him and waited patiently as two northbound trains passed by our station. (In due time, I’ll teach him to read a route map. We rode the train for one station, and he loved it.) I had feared that he didn’t want to get off, but he was very well-behaved as we disembarked.

I doubt I’ll make it to Train Day events tomorrow because I’ll be doing something else that makes me feel like a kid: playing softball.

Disney-owned ABC airs an episode set in Disneyland.

When the family travels to Disneyland, Phil struggles to keep up with Luke.

Really, Modern Family? Again!?!

Sarah read about Fisherman’s Outlet a few months ago, and we stopped by for breakfast on Saturday with her dad and my parents. It was absolutely delicious.

We went on Saturday, and there was about a twenty-minute wait for our food. (I can imagine how much worse it is on a weekday around lunch time.) But the wait was worth it. My grilled swordfish belied the industrial setting: it was like eating at a fish shack at the beach/shore. Although I thoroughly enjoyed my swordfish, I wished I had opted for the halibut steak. No matter what I ordered, I would have been disappointed because there were so many delicious alternatives that I would have missed: fried or grilled, fish steak or shellfish, fries or rice, bisque or chowder.

Fisherman’s Outlet is at 529 S. Central Ave.

I wonder if Gogo, the inflight WiFi provider, has blocked certain ports that Messages uses. If I remember correctly, most inflight WiFi services block VOIP apps to keep people from yapping away on their computers. (Actually, I don’t know why they do that, but if I were an inflight sysadmin, that’s the main reason I’d block any VOIP ports.)

As a workaround, I sent an email.

Update

Back on the ground. Messages still doesn’t work. Neither does FaceTime for Mac. When I try to add the Chat function to any of my accounts in Lion’s Mail, Contacts, Calendar preference panel, I get the ominous “An Unknown Error Occurred” message.

Knowledge in the Digital Age: Teaching, Learning, and the Googlization of Everything with Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan

All are invited: LaGuardia’s Library Media Resources Center is once again pleased to offer its annual Knowledge in the Digital Age speaker’s event. This year, Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan has accepted an invitation to speak on the issues revolving around technology in the lives of faculty and students.

When: Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 2 p.m. Where: LaGuardia Community College, E Building, Poolside Cafe Cost: Free Refreshments: Definitely

LIMITED SEATING AVAILABLE, register ASAP. To do this and to get more information on the event go to: http://knowledgeinthedigitalage.eventbrite.com/

The Library Media Resources Center and the organizing committee would like to thank LaGuardia’s College Association and the CUNY’s LILAC council for co-sponsoring this event.

Should you need ADA accommodation, please contact Charles Keyes by phone at 718-482-6018 or by email: ckeyes@lagcc.cuny.edu

(Via CUNY Academic Commons.)

I spent about $50 at a different place, let’s call it “Comedy Club Y,” putting me well over the $50 milestone. But instead of a $5 credit, it was only a $2 credit for using LevelUp at a place for the first time (“Comedy Club Y”). However, I received a new enticement:

…and after going back to “Comedy Club A,” this…

How much do I have to spend to get a credit?

Thanks so much for reaching out! While you are definitely correct that are certain businesses you will earn $5 after spending $50, this set of constructs is not the same for every business you will visit on LevelUp. At some you will earn $20 after spending $200, earn $3 after spending $25, etc. It all depends! The onboarding incentive also changes, so while you may have $1 waiting for you at one business the first time you pay there, you could have $7 waiting for you elsewhere. Does that help?

Tiers are confusing! It’s why consumers can’t understand airfares and cable/satellite bills. Nuance is fine for the law and academic scholarship, but it’s not for a consumer product.