The Wandering Mind

I finally made it out to Central Park to see Christo’s Gates.

Quite simply, I liked them. Their simple saffron/orange color conjured up two dissimilar images. The first reminded me of my childhood in Japan when we would visit Buddhist temples. We would pass through red and orange gates on our way to visit the shrines. Walking under the billowing “curtains”, I felt that if I crossed through all of the gates I might arrive at a sacred monastery at the end of the journey.

Seeing the color orange also made me ponder the Orange Revolution that recently took place in the Ukraine. The sturdy gates unwavering as the wind grew stronger were like the millions of Ukranians who braved the November cold to demand that their votes be counted. A powerful symbol indeed.

I know thousands of reviews, professional or otherwise have been written about the Gates but I think the shopkeepers in Midtown owe Christo and Jean-Claude a round of thanks for drawing thousands of tourists to their stores at the height of winter.

On behalf of the rest of us New Yorkers, I’d like to say thanks to them for bringing a little color to our backyard!

Note: I am writing this review having not read any of the high brow reviews which I’ve heard are terrible. I want this to be my own impressions not some rehashed mumbo jumbo analysis from movie pundits.

Just came back from watching Meet the Fockers. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in such a long time. Sure there was a lot more toilet humor thanks to the sexual innenuendo of Barbara Streisand’s sexual therapist cum mother character but it was one of those rare opportunities to see young (Ben Stiller) comic actors dish with middle aged ones (everyone else). The writers did an excellent job of creating a series of mishaps even though the beginning of the movie started out eerily well.

I admit I was a little sceptical of Streisand coming into the movie because she’s such a prima donna in real life and came across that way in interviews about the movie. But I think the part was tailor made for her and her pairing with Dustin Hoffman was brillant. She was a great foil for the “uptight” De Niro character.

In comparison to what I remember of Meet the Parents, there was a singular conflict between Stiller and De Niro that kept us on our toes and our bellies excercised. This time we had four comic characters mixing it up and playing off each other with great chemistry.

The only disappontments were Stiller’s fiance played by Teri Polo and Blythe Danner. They were more like wall paintings than actors in this movie. Danner’s “sexual education” from Streisand was weak and anti-climatic given clues earlier in the movie. Polo’s character was so flimsy that Stiller couldn’t even bounce jokes off of her. Overall though, these characters haven’t morphed from the first movie so I guess I am expecting to much.

I am not one to watch movies over again but this had just enough funny lines that I think I might just pick it up when it comes to video in the cold of winter.

I just cooked my first chicken dish using a recipe off the Internet. I am a big fan of allrecipes.com which has hundreds of recipes for almost any ingredient and has a great search engine. Best of all it has a quick way to scale down/up recipes depending on how many you have over for dinner.

I suppose the first post on my new blog requires some defining manifesto, grand statement, etc. etc. declaring its raison d’etre. Well I find such language constricting because as my title suggests, my mind tends to wander. This blog therefore is about everything, nothing and anything all at the same time.

With that confusion, let’s begin…

Rasheq
The Wandering Mind