New Play about Hedy Lamarr

Frequency Hopping, a new play about Hedy Lamarr, who was in my Nanowrimo Novel after Peri told me about her...

It is playing in New York.

The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón

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A summary from the Amazon site below. This book has the clearest timeline I've ever seen of the events on 9/11, and an easy to understand view of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission's report.
It's interesting in light of Rumsfeld's quote that so few understand the war in Iraq. Perhaps Jacobson and Colón should bring out a second book directly about Iraq, too.

"On December 5, 2005, the 9/11 Commission issued its final report card on the government’s fulfillment of the recommendations issued in July 2004: one A, twelve Bs, nine Cs, twelve Ds, three Fs, and four incompletes. Here is stunning evidence that Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón, with more than sixty years of experience in the comic-book industry between them, were right: far, far too few Americans have read, grasped, and demanded action on the Commission's investigation into the events of that tragic day and the lessons America must learn." - Amazon review excerpt

Clinton: Don't Let the Perfect become the Enemy of the Good

I went to a rally for Prop 87, which establishes a $4 billion program to reduce oil and gasoline usage by 25 percent, with research and production incentives for alternative energy, education and training, funded by a tax of 1.5-6 percent on producers of oil extracted in California. (And here's a link to the Forum show about the prop, and thanks to Forum for the concise summary of prop87, cut and pasted above).
Bill Clinton was the star attraction - so much so that when the rally was asked, "What are we here for?" many yelled back "Bill!".
He was very smart, the speech just went from point to point flawlessly and of course he is a master of the art of making everyone feel like he is speaking to each of them.
It was just amazing to actually see him in person - I was relatively close to the stage, and he was the first President I ever voted for (in 1992 when I was 18).

Don't Let the Perfect become the enemy of the good - that the opponents say the proposition is bad because it's not perfect. No, it's not perfect but it certainly seems like it will be better than what we have now. He pointed out that people have been using this argument to impede change for 600 years and that Californians shouldn't fall for it now.

Mikebaudio, who I found on Flickr, was there also and took much better pictures than I did. He took the above picture of Clinton and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom, and here is Bonnie Raitt, who sang "Something's Happening Here" - the acoustics were great for those there live but the little movie I made of her sounds very muddy.
Below is a view of City Hall that I took. Note the blurriness of the Treo, I had forgotten the real digital camera, The view is looking up from where I was standing. It was very beautiful. Apparently this was a big day for Clinton, he went to another rally in SF after this one, and then went to Stockton!

Best American Non-Required Reading 2005

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Foreword by Mr. Eggers, with much stuff about 826 Valencia and the people who were on the editorial board for the book (more interesting to me now that I am trying to be on the editorial board for the 826 Quarterly) and Intro by Beck.
A lot of great stuff here - I recommend it - I liked "The Death of Mustango Salvajie" by Jessica Anthony, about a female bullfighter. And Al Franken has a piece here about his USO Tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, called "Tearaway Burkas and Tinplate Menorahs".

It was also fun to read in combo with "Firebirds" and "The Green Glass Sea" and thinking about writing for teens/young adults in general.

Hot Ticket!?!

Kari and I were talking about the Khaled Hosseini reading and I told her about the gaggles of high school girls taking pictures of him after the reading with their cell phones. She asked if he was Hot. I said, yes, I think he is.
She had to unexpectedly have a day off this week due to testing snafus, and the bonus was that Barack Obama was on Oprah that day.
I mentioned that Obama and Hosseini could run for office, and Kari put in that they could run as the "Hot Ticket!" Kari is volunteering to be their campaign manager.

The Birth of the Chess Queen, by Marilyn Yalom

I saw this book over the holidays when shopping for gifts for other people and had to pick it up for myself (and for my boyfriend if he wants to read it).

It is a really fascinating history of how and why we have such a powerful female piece on the chess board (the queen) who was not even present for several centuries of the game's history... (originally in the Middle East this piece was a male vizier who was much weaker, only moving one space diagonally).

She's a senior scholar at Stanford's Institute for Women and Gender who has written extensively on women's history, and she did a great job of telling her own story of first becoming intrigued by this question and then going through her own research to get closer to the answer.
The book also talks a lot about how chess was played over the years -- it was a metaphor for courtship and love at some points - so that a couple shown playing chess in a medieval tapestry were not seen to "just" be playing chess...