January 14th 2006 horoscope

AdZe's Fortune Cookie

Be personally effective.

Current Influence of the Inner Planets
Each influence lasts from a day to several weeks.

Your feelings are strongly associated with your community status. Get out of a public emotional cross-fire and into a long hot shower or soak.... You are challenged to act in your own best interests.... You're challenged to stay lively and alert. Double-check all details. Buy some recycled paper.... Your genuine respect can have miraculous effects.... Be courageous, daring and sexy.

Current Influence of the Outer Planets
Each influence lasts from several weeks to a month or more.

Possibly, you will learn how much is too much by taking on more than you can handle.... Get more power by vowing to become a "master."... Develop your ability to process technical data. Make an effort to think. Dare to become more intense, novel, complex, original and brilliant.... You are challenged to be charismatic. Express your fantasies. Steer clear of hypersensitive folks.... Control of others does not bring you safety, success or satisfaction. Self-control and self-transformation is helpful.

January 14th

for those of you who know my history with my birthday, it isnt a great thing. There have been many years where people have died or plans fall through or snow or cold has interrupted plans. Then there was that fateful college dinner party that didnt wait for me so i really have not had expectations or really plan for the day. Many of the nights have been spent either alone or at the theater while i have lived here in NY. My family doesnt make a big deal about birthdays..
until this year, i tried to make it a special day and learned something this year..

i went to dinner with my friend Fay and we ate lobster at cafe espanol on Bleeker and i came home. I slept in and got a call from my sister and neices. I rarely talk to her for over an hour and we caught up. I started my saturday cooking errands and make baked oatmeal and baked tofu and roasted chickpeas. I then cleaned the bathroom and around 1230 decided to do some errands in Manhattan..

i passed up chita rivera tickets and sarah jones bridge and tunnel tickets and figured i would go to the World Financial center to see the Nebraska Springsteen tribute as part of the guitar festival but didnt do that

it started raining and i didnt have an umbrella but i really didnt care while it was warm. I went shopping and went to the green market at Union Square...i saw jeffrey steingarten, food writer and judge of Iron Chef america eating his way through the green market at union square...

i do this most saturdays and went to return my ticket at joes pub for that Patty Griffin thing that isnt going forward so i wanted my money back and went to joes pub. I also wanted to eat from Angelica's kitchen and get some picture frames at Surprise Surprise so i went to 2-3 ave and decided to see what the Loews there was playing. It was cold and pouring so i got a 6pm ticket to Matchpoint. Yes COnnorgal i ended up at the movies like i usually do... i went to get some soy cheese at the store on 3rd ave and did all my errands. Time was working great and i fit it all in...

i went to see matchpoint and then decided to get my butt home. I stopped at whole foods for some cooked shrimp that was on sale and some soup. I came home and decided i didnt want any of the food i bought- i ate salad and left over baked ziti i made with tofu...

so even though i told people it as my birthday, appreciate the well wishes and celebratory message and presents, i had the day i usually have. I skipped the springsteen tribute .. it was too wet to walk to world financial center, so i missed springsteen showing up and i kept to my plan not to spend my money on something unnecessary. i am totally satisfied with the day. It also made me realize that my usual day is not bad or that birthdays are just regular days..i had a good day and just a regular day...and was satisfied with the way the day unfolded..so i guess i am pretty happy with my regular days

simple life

Simple Life
(Mary Chapin Carpenter)

You're making lists today of all the things you haven't done yet
You're driving everyone crazy, are you having any fun yet
Mother says you oughta get married
Shrink says here's a little blue pill
Too young for your mid-life crisis
Mirror says you're over the hill

There's nothing wrong with you
The simple life gets complicated
There's nothing you can do, just enjoy the view be glad you made it

You're making resolutions and it isn't even New Year's
You could try a new religion, you could wait until the dust clears
Friends say you're way too choosy
Shrink says see you next week
Guru says control your breathing
You're afraid you might have peaked

There's nothing wrong with you
The simple life gets complicated
There's nothing you can do, just enjoy the view be glad you made it

Cuz things could be better, cuz things could be worse
Cuz life can be charmed and cursed
There's fast, slow and stall, no reverse

There's nothing wrong with you
The simple life gets complicated
There's nothing you can do, just enjoy the view be glad you made it

There's nothing wrong with you
The simple life gets complicated
There's nothing you can do, just enjoy the view be glad you made it

the worst of what i do for a living

Long Chain of Alarms Preceded Death of Girl, 7

*
E-Mail This
* Printer-Friendly
* Single-Page
* Reprints
* Save Article

Article Tools Sponsored By
By ALAN FEUER and THOMAS J. LUECK
Published: January 13, 2006

A day after the bruised body of a 7-year-old girl was discovered in a blood-stained Brooklyn apartment, city officials revealed new and harrowing details of her short life yesterday, as well as repeated missed opportunities to save it. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg declared, "We, as a city, have failed this child."

The body of the girl, Nixzmary Brown, was found Wednesday at her mother's home in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Investigators said that the girl's stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, had banged her head against a faucet in the bathtub and that they were trying to determine whether that was what killed her.

Nixzmary was the fourth child in two months to die while in the custody of parents who had had contact with the city's Administration for Children's Services. "It is obvious they did not pursue this case with the intensity that they should have," Mr. Bloomberg said of the agency.

Agency officials said it would immediately begin a review of every open case involving a child who is the subject of an abuse or neglect complaint, roughly 8,000 to 10,000 cases.

Interviews with school and child welfare officials revealed just how close Nixzmary had been to getting help.

Education and teachers' union officials said that school staff members had noticed that the girl was missing classes, appeared malnourished and suffered an eye injury, and that the staff members had notified state and city child welfare officials repeatedly. In response, the city agency workers talked with Nixzmary and her parents, visited her home and took her to a doctor, who said her injuries were consistent with falling down.

Finally, in the crucial weeks before her death, child welfare workers were unable to get into her home and did not take the necessary steps to get a warrant.

"We considered asking the family court for a warrant to have the police come with us to make sure we gained entry, but at no time did we get the warrant," said John B. Mattingly, the commissioner of children's services. "People made judgments about whether this was an emergency, and those judgments turn out to be wrong."

Mr. Rodriguez was arraigned yesterday with the girl's mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, in Criminal Court in Brooklyn. Mr. Rodriguez was charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. The mother was charged with manslaughter, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child. Neither entered a plea.

In the hearing, a prosecutor described a frightful sequence of abuse, saying that the girl had been "systematically tortured" for several weeks.

The girl was not quite four feet tall and weighed 36 pounds when she died, the officials said.

The girl had been tied up by her stepfather, she was denied food and her head was submerged under water, the prosecutor said. The final, fatal beating apparently came after she took yogurt from the refrigerator, the prosecutor said.

"There was barely a spot on this child that was not marked by her parents," said the prosecutor, Cathy Dagonese, of the Brooklyn district attorney's office. Describing the moments before Nixzmary died, Ms. Dagonese said Nixzmary had been lying on the floor, naked and unconscious, as Ms. Santiago stood by.

Officials of the Administration for Children's Services said they had visited Ms. Santiago at home in May and in December after officials at the girl's school, Public School 256, had complained. In May, they reported that she was missing classes, and in December that she had bruises around her eye.

After their first visit, caseworkers decided that Ms. Santiago was overwhelmed by her six children. They believed they had persuaded her to return Nixzmary to school and closed the case, Mr. Mattingly said.

An official of the United Federation of Teachers said a union staff member at the school faxed a report to the child welfare agency saying that Nixzmary was malnourished. Child welfare officials said they were aware of concerns about the girl's health and had discussed them with her mother.

On Dec. 1, the child welfare agency received the report of bruises around the girl's eye. At that point, Mr. Mattingly said, a team including two police detectives was sent to the home. A doctor was also called to examine Nixzmary's black eye. Mr. Mattingly said that the family told the team Nixzmary had hurt herself in a fall and that the doctor "confirmed for us that the injuries appeared to have occurred the way the child and her parents had said it had happened."
(Page 2 of 2)

It was then that the child welfare agency officials began "encountering difficulties" with the family, Mr. Mattingly said. Agency workers made repeated attempts to call and to visit the home in person, but were constantly rebuffed, he said. The agency considered asking a Family Court judge to issue a warrant that would let officials enter the house, but did not.

Nixzmary returned to school on Dec. 6, 8 and 12, education officials said. Dec. 12 was the last day she or any of her siblings were at school.

Nonetheless, school officials continued to try reaching out to the family, officials said. Michele Cahill, a top adviser to the chancellor, said that school attendance teachers visited the family's home on Dec. 15 and Dec. 21, but that nobody answered. School staff members also tried to contact the family by letter and telephone, education officials said, and were in touch with child welfare workers throughout December and January.

Nixzmary and her siblings enrolled at P.S. 256 in January 2004. Since January 2005, three long-term absentee reports were generated for Nixzmary: two during the last school year and one this year. While school officials are obligated to report evidence of "educational neglect" to the state, persistent absenteeism does not necessarily constitute neglect.

At the arraignment, Ms. Santiago's lawyer, Laura Saft, said her client was an overwhelmed mother who had suffered a miscarriage in November and was in no shape to stave off what she said was Mr. Rodriguez's abuse. Judge Robert Allman ordered the two held without bail and issued a restraining order barring them from having contact with Nixzmary's five siblings, who are now in city custody.

One law-enforcement official said investigators searching the apartment found what appeared to be human tissue in a jar, which the mother said had been given to her by hospital staff members after she had a miscarriage, possibly last year.

"There was something there, whether it was a fetus or not, there was something in a jar that came out of her from a miscarriage," the official said. "They kept it."

Mayor Bloomberg, at a news conference, defended the city's policy of trying to keep troubled families together but criticized the child welfare agency for having not moved with "sufficient urgency."

"In retrospect, had they pushed harder, perhaps they could have - although we'll never know - prevented this from happening," Mr. Bloomberg said.

Asked if the city's policy of keeping families together when possible needed to be rethought, the mayor said, "It is best if families stay together," adding that "when you have a dysfunctional family, there are myriad problems." and that if they are kept together, the city can "marshal resources" to help.

At the same time, a grim picture of Nixzmary's life arose in interviews with law-enforcement officials and several of her relatives. Investigators said the girl had become the target of her stepfather's anger and was sometimes bound to a chair in her room and forced to eat cat food. Because she was often held in isolation, she was sometimes made to use a litter box, they said.

They also said that Mr. Rodriguez would sometimes punish Nixzmary and her siblings by dunking their heads in a water-filled sink.

Nixzmary's grandmother, Maria Gonzalez, said Mr. Rodriguez was at times abusive. "I didn't like the way he scolded them," she said. "All children act up, it's no excuse."

Mr. Rodriguez's younger brother, Miguel, said that he had served in the Army, mainly at Ford Hood, Tex., but was discharged four or five years ago. At one point, Miguel Rodriguez said, his brother had taken the city police exam, but had never tried to join the force.

"There was no arguing," Miguel Rodriguez said of his brother's apartment at 571 Greene Avenue. Nonetheless, asked if his brother had a temper, he went on to say: "I'm not going to say no, but it was not into extremes."

The police said Cesar Rodriguez had been arrested before, on March 10, 2003, after getting into a fight with a man in Manhattan. Mr. Rodriguez was arraigned on March 11, 2003. Then, three days later, on March 14, Mr. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to harassment as a violation, the case was conditionally discharged, and he received a sentence of two days of community service.

Mr. Rodriguez met Ms. Santiago about two years ago when he was working as a security guard at her Brooklyn apartment building, said Caridad Ramos, Ms. Santiago's aunt. She had come to the United States from Puerto Rico in 1995, Ms. Ramos said.

acknowledgement/grateful

acknowledgements

i got a walk in today
i stayed on my food plan
i accomplished more than i wanted to at work
i would not let a coworker trigger me
i was on time to meet my friend Fay


i am grateful today for:

for my friend fay to meet me for dinner and to treat me
for the fog, because it slowed down a work day
early release at 3pm
for my parents who sent me money
for the temperature not to be below freezing

do you need lyrics

Lyrics Download.com

A long December, and there's reason to beleive
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin'
Now the days go by so fast

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I can be forgiven....I wish you would

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that its all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California...I think you should

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And its been a long December, and there's reason to beleive
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
It's been so long since I've seen the ocean..I guess I should

5 weird habits

1. i wash the pots that i cooked with before i eat
2. i cant run out of coffee or toiletpaper so i stock up
3. i have separate closets for winter/summer/casual and coats
4. i used to catagorize by cds by relationships til i had to alphabetize them because
the relationships change and i was always moving people around
5. i always locate the cat, pee and brush my teeth one more time before i leave the house
6.i place a hot iron in the middle of the stove and unplug the coffee maker so nothing can catch on fire

NEXT UP.... anyone

weird dreams

i have had a series of dreams that melt into one

two night ago, i dreamed that i was late for the joni mitchell tribute. I was explaining that i was volunteering at this place and i entered the theater just in the nick of time to find my seat and to sit down next to susan moss

last night i dreamed that i was with claudia marshall from FUV and she was picking out clothes for an event. I was in an old victorian house and there were lots of clothes in red. she was putting together an outfit and her red clothes clashed. Next i was with dar who was also there for the same event and picking out her clothes. Claudia marshall talked about richard julien.

i was also outdoors watching but participating with a woman who resembled elaine goldman but wasnt elaine goldman...we were sent to look for this spa that was written in the magazines. the spa was for the very rich and it was in a secret location. the next thing i remember it looked more a like a casino and the elaine character hit the jackpot of dimes a few times so she had a large clear trashbag of dimes. she invited me to count them and roll them with her. I asked her if she had enough wrappers to roll all these coins.

the weather in chicago

45º
"TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIC"

Democrat says no decision has been made regarding filibuster

Democrat says no decision has been made regarding filibuster

Wednesday, January 11, 2006; Posted: 1:48 p.m. EST (18:48 GMT)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- During a break in the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Judge Samuel Alito, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asks Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, whether Democrats intend to block Alito's nomination.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We're joined by one of the more outspoken Democrats on the committee, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. He's joining us. Jeff Toobin and Jeff Greenfield are here with me as well.

Senator, it looks, based on everything we've seen and heard so far, given the 55 Republicans who are the majority in the U.S. Senate, barring some major gaffe over the next few hours or days, it looks like this is pretty much a done deal. Would you agree?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Well, I wouldn't say that. I would say this, the Republicans march in lock step. And that was true before the hearings. Do you know of the votes we have had on over 40 Court of Appeals judges -- and there are 50 Republican or so, so it was over 2,000 votes -- only three have ever voted no on any of them? So they march in lockstep.

And that means that it's impossible to block a nominee, whether it's Supreme Court or Court of Appeals, no matter how right wing. The real question remains with the Democrats, and that is, do we try to block a nominee by filibuster? We've done it in a rare number, a small number, of people who are extreme, and that's a question we'll have to ask after Judge Alito's hearings.

Now, as for Judge Alito himself, it's amazing how everyone in the media just sort of goes along with all this. He says, I will keep an open mind on Roe. Well, has anyone ever said they won't?

He said, no president is above the law. Those were the two headlines in all the papers this morning.

Has anyone said, oh, yes, the president's above the law? So I think the -- it's -- we each have to make a determination, particularly on the Democratic side, about how extreme he was. As you know I questioned him pretty hard on Roe v. Wade. I came to a conclusion that in all likelihood he would vote to overturn. That was increased this morning by Senator Durbin's questioning, made it -- you know, it seemed even more so. And that's something that'll have to be weighed along with other issues.

BLITZER: Jeff Greenfield wants to ask a question. Go ahead, Jeff.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi, senator. Let me offer you a hypothesis you probably won't like, that you and some of your colleagues simply miscalculated where the mainstream now is, as opposed to 15 and 20 years ago. You mentioned, 55 Republican senators, a conservative president who said he want to overturn Roe. Isn't it possible that it's your side that is now outside the mainstream, not Judge Alito?

SCHUMER: Well, let's say, you know, 70 percent of all Americans for instance, Jeff, say they do not want a Supreme Court justice who will vote to overturn Roe. I think the mainstream has moved a little bit to the right, but the president's nominees are quite far to the right.

And the bottom-line question is we at least certainly understand that Judge Alito will be conservative, and we certainly understand that he is not going to have the same views as the average Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. The question is, how far over is he? Most Americans do not believe in some of the things that, say -- Justice Thomas, I would say, would be out of the mainstream. And is Judge Alito going to be like a Justice Thomas? And that's the question we have to try to get to the bottom of.

And at these hearings where it's, you know -- the nominee is under no compulsion to answer, but still the hearings are important for you to get a view of that. You have to get a feel for it. With Judge Roberts, when he came before us, most people's view, just about everyone's view, is that he wasn't out of the mainstream. Some of us voted for him, some of us voted against him, depending on how well we thought he answered questions, depending on the fact that some people say, look, I'm going to vote against someone who is going to move the court to the right. But no one talked about blocking him. The fundamental question is, do you block somebody? And the answer to that is, is he out of the mainstream? So it's not is he conservative, does he think like I do; it's rather, is he so far over that he'll take his own views and impose them on the American people, and those views are far over.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Senator, Jeff Toobin here.

You and other Democrats were talking a lot about the issue of national security, executive power, warrant-less wiretaps, and there's been some questioning about that during these hearings. What has Judge Alito said or not said on that subject that you think might get people to vote against him?

SCHUMER: Yes. Well, I think he hasn't said enough. On most issues he stated some broad platitudes that don't really tell you anything, that just about every nominee from Justice Ginsburg to Justice Thomas would say. And so you have to probe further. I tried to do that on the issue of choice yesterday, and I think I made some progress. And you also have to make a judgment, and that's often a judgment that is not a science, but really an art.

BLITZER: Senator, on this whole notion of a filibuster, you know that you're very familiar with your colleagues, so-called "Gang of 14," seven Democrats, seven Republicans, the threat that the Senate Republican leader, the majority leader, Bill Frist, has made of triggering a so-called nuclear option. At this point, would you be inclined to push for the filibuster which would basically need 60 votes to overturn that filibuster?

SCHUMER: It's a good question, Wolf, but it's premature to answer it. I think I have to wait until the end of the hearings and then go back, read the transcripts, look at Judge Alito's history, talk to my colleagues and come to a conclusion. I would say it is certainly not off the table at this point. But I would also say that I don't think anyone on the committee, certainly myself and anyone I've talked to, has said we definitely should. It's a question of, first, hearing completely from Judge Alito and coming to a determination, and that is, he so far out of the mainstream that he doesn't belong on the court?

BLITZER: All right, we'll leave it right there. Senator Schumer, thanks very much for joining us. We'll look forward to your questioning. That's coming up later today.

the weather in chicago

38º
"PERT"

Capricorn Horoscope for week of January 12, 2006

Capricorn Horoscope for week of January 12, 2006

The San Francisco 49ers football team recently endured one of its worst seasons ever. But as the losses piled up, head coach Mike Nolan continued to profess an optimism that seemed deluded to most observers. After an especially galling defeat in the team's 13th game, however, he finally confessed he was a little down. In response, San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter Ray Ratto exulted, "At least Mike Nolan isn't calling a chemical fire the Aurora Borealis anymore." I bring this up, Capricorn, because in recent months you have now and then suffered from the reverse problem: It's like you've been gazing at the Aurora Borealis and theorizing it's a chemical fire. But this glitch in your attitude is now becoming untenable. Your pretty good luck is evolving into damn fine blessings. It's time to acknowledge the beautiful truths in all of their glory.

the weather in chicago

26º
"CHARITABLE"

the issues before us

Record holds hints on nominee's views
By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's precise legal views are not clear on many issues, but his work as a government lawyer and as a judge offers some clues:

• Abortion rights.

As an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general in the 1980s, Alito helped devise a strategy for restricting Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Then, in a 1985 job application for another government post, Alito said he was "particularly proud" of crafting arguments that said "the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion." As an appellate judge in 1991, he wrote an opinion endorsing a Pennsylvania law that required women to tell their husbands before obtaining an abortion. When the case arrived at the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor — whom Alito would replace — was instrumental in writing the decision that struck down the spousal-notification law as an "undue burden" on a woman's right to end a pregnancy.

• Federal power.

In a 1996 case decided by his appeals court, Alito wrote a dissenting opinion in which he said Congress exceeded its power to regulate interstate commerce when it banned possession of machine guns. His reasoning broadly interpreted a Supreme Court ruling from a year earlier, United States v. Lopez, that curbed federal power. In unusually bold rhetoric, Alito wrote, "Was United States v. Lopez a constitutional freak? Or did it signify that the (Constitution's) Commerce Clause still imposes some meaningful limits on congressional power?" His view — which often has been rejected by lower courts — would limit Congress' ability to pass regulations in areas ranging from public safety to the environment.

• Presidential authority.

Alito has endorsed broad powers for the executive branch. This is a relatively new area of concern for some senators because of recent disclosures about the Bush administration's domestic wiretapping as part of its anti-terrorism strategy. In a 1984 memo, Alito said the attorney general should be immune from lawsuits alleging illegal wiretapping.

"This position (from 1984) suggests that Judge Alito would not question the president's assertion of the right to spy on Americans without obtaining a court order," says Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

• Job discrimination and civil rights.

In 1997, Alito dissented from a majority opinion that said an African-American hotel employee who alleged she had been denied a promotion because of her race could bring a case. The appeals court's majority said that if Alito's view had been adopted, the federal anti-bias law known as Title VII "would be eviscerated."

Kennedy and other senators have expressed concerns about Alito's criticism of voting rights decisions intended to equalize power across the country, including between whites and blacks. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has said he would ask Alito how much consideration state legislatures can give to the race of voters as voting districts are drawn.

• Police power.

Federal judges routinely must determine the remedies for people who have been victims of police wrongdoing.

In 2004, Alito dissented as his fellow appeals court judges faulted police for a search of a mother and 10-year old daughter who were at the scene of a drug investigation but who were not named in the search warrant. A female police officer had taken the mother and child to a bathroom and asked them to lift their shirts, drop their pants and turn around.

The majority opinion in the case was written by Judge Michael Chertoff, now director of Homeland Security. Chertoff wrote, "It is difficult to conceive how the search of a 10-year-old child in these circumstances could be justified."

• Defendants' rights.

Alito has said he developed an interest in constitutional law in college, "motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions."

A hallmark of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953-69) was boosting protections for defendants, including those interrogated by police or facing the death penalty. In a 2004 case, Alito's opinion upheld the death penalty for Ronald Rompilla, a convicted killer who claimed his trial lawyers had been ineffective.

Last year, the Supreme Court reversed Alito's opinion. The court, with O'Connor in the majority, said Rompilla's attorneys failed to present evidence concerning his troubled childhood and mental illness.

schumer at the alito hearing

We will ask you: 'Do you still "personally believe very strongly that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion?'" Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York planned to tell Alito in his opening statement. "We will ask: 'Do you view elevation to the Supreme Court, where you will no longer be bound by high court precedent, as the long-sought opportunity to advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v. Wade, as you stated in 1985?'"

the weather in chicago

37º
"PASSABLE

the weather in Chicago ...

42º
"LORDY, IT'S 40"

tagged myself from my friend jillypeppercorn

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
social worker, shoe factory worker, bathhouse attendant at a pool, janitor at polarod


Four movies you could watch over and over:
the way we were, the jerk, harold and maude, wizard of oz

Four places you’ve lived:
milford,ma; salem massachusetts, soho NYC, brooklyn NY

Four TV shows you love to watch:
iron chef america, nanny 911, Cbs sunday morning, today show

Four places you’ve been on vacation:
cancun, mexico city, florida, iowa

Four websites you visit daily:
woot, rblog, tdf.org, moneywatch

Four of your favorite foods:
boca burgers, apples, overbaked potatos, salmon

Four places you’d rather be:
any place with an ocean view, anyplace where it doesnt get colder than 40 degrees, in front of a fireplace, in a penthouse with a view of the hudson river


Four albums you can’t live without:
time, sex, love -mary chapin carpenter, mortal city -dar williams, folsom prison blues- johnny cash - no direction home, bob dylan vol 7

the weather in chicago

29º
"SEPULCHRAL

these days lyrics

Well I’ve been out walking
I don’t do that much talking these days
These days--
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you
And all the times I had the chance to

And I had a lover
It’s so hard to risk another these days
These days--
Now if I seem to be afraid
To live the life I have made in song
Well it’s just that I’ve been losing so long

I’ll keep on moving
Things are bound to be improving these days
These days--
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don’t confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them

the weather in chicago

30º
"LUGUBRIOUS"

is this guy for real

its always JEWS AND GAYS...
_____________________
who is smoting who????


CNN) -- Television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.

"He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America,'" Robertson told viewers of his long-running television show, "The 700 Club."

"God says, 'This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it alone,'" he said.

Robertson's show airs on the ABC Family cable network and claims about 1 million viewers daily.

Sharon, 77, clung to life in a Jerusalem hospital Thursday after surgery to treat a severe stroke, his doctors said.

The prime minister, who withdrew Israeli settlers and troops from Gaza and parts of the West Bank last summer over heated objections from his own Likud Party, was breathing with the aid of a ventilator after doctors operated to stop the bleeding in his brain.

In Washington, President Bush offered praise for Sharon in a speech on Thursday.

"We pray for his recovery," Bush said. "He's a good man, a strong man. A man who cared deeply about the security of the Israeli people, and a man who had a vision for peace. May God bless him."

Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the United States, compared Robertson's remarks to the overheated rhetoric of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Full story)

He called the comments "outrageous" and said they were not something to expect "from any of our friends."

"He is a great friend of Israel and a great friend of Prime Minister Sharon himself, so I am very surprised," Ayalon told CNN.

Robertson, 75, founded the Christian Coalition and in 1988 failed in a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He last stirred controversy in August, when he called for the assassination of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. (Full story)

Robertson later apologized, but still compared Chavez to Hitler and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the process.

The same month, the Anti-Defamation League criticized Robertson for warning that God would "bring judgment" against Israel for its withdrawal from Gaza, which it had occupied since the 1967 Mideast war.

Robertson said Thursday that Sharon was "a very likable person, and I am sad to see him in this condition."

He linked Sharon's health problems to the 1995 assassination of Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo peace accords that granted limited self-rule to Palestinians.

"It was a terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless, now he's dead," Robertson said.

Rabin was gunned down by a religious student opposed to the Oslo accords. The killer, Yigal Amir, admitted to the crime and was sentenced to life in prison.

Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized Robertson's comments Thursday, saying the televangelist "has a political agenda for the entire world."

"He seems to think God is ready to take out any world leader who stands in the way of that agenda," Lynn said in a written statement.

"A religious leader should not be making callous political points while a man is struggling for his life," he said. "I'm appalled."

Ralph Neas, president of liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, said "it is astonishing that Pat Robertson still wields substantial influence" in the Republican Party.

"Once again, Pat Robertson leaves us speechless with his insensitivity and arrogance," Neas said in a written statement.

According to The Associated Press, Robertson spokeswoman Angell Watts said of people who criticized the comments: "What they're basically saying is, 'How dare Pat Robertson quote the Bible?'"

"This is what the word of God says," Watts told the AP. "This is nothing new to the Christian community."

richard thompson lyrics

Let It Blow, let it snow,
Let the mercury bubble and dive
Life’s little traumas and courtroom dramas
Remind me I’m glad I’m alive

the weather in chicago

36º
"DANK"

A Tutor, a Triangle and Hearts That Sing


By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: November 18, 2005

Bravely flouting centuries of accepted scientific theory, the creators of "The Woman in White" have set out to prove that the world is flat after all. Inspired by the spine-tingling Wilkie Collins novel of 1860, this latest work from the poperetta king Andrew Lloyd Webber, which opened last night at the Marquis Theater, seems to exist willfully and unconditionally in two dimensions.

It's not just that this import from London, directed by Trevor Nunn and designed by William Dudley, has rejected a conventional set in favor of computer-animated projections that make you feel as if you're trapped inside a floating upscale travel magazine. It's that everything concerned with this reshaping of a landmark English mystery novel (adapted by the playwright Charlotte Jones, with lyrics by David Zippel) gives the sense of having been subjected to a similar process of flattening and compression.

Plot, characters, words and most of the performances in this tale of love, deception and unspeakable secrets in Victorian England emanate the aura of autumn leaves ironed into crisp immobility between sheets of waxed paper. There is, of course, Lord Lloyd Webber's music, which swirls and slides and glides its way into your inner ear, where it will rest for many a day, whether you want it to or not.

But even the music has the feeling of freeze-dried Lloyd Webber motifs to which water has been added for the occasion. Like the show's visuals, its sounds - with British folk and liturgical accents, along with occasional atonal ominousness, spicing the usual melodic stew - tantalize with a promise of substance that is seldom delivered.

Before we go further, let's cut to the real drama of "The Woman in White," which has nothing to do with ghostly apparitions in churchyards and virgins in jeopardy. As was reported in this newspaper, the show's star, Maria Friedman, received a diagnosis of Stage 1 breast cancer on Oct. 31, and after performing in only five of the show's previews, underwent surgery. A week later she was back onstage, in a physically and vocally taxing role.

In the best tradition of backstage stories of determination and triumph, Ms. Friedman, a longtime favorite of London musical audiences, makes an impeccably professional Broadway debut. Portraying Marian Halcombe, the plainer and cleverer of two sisters exploited for evil ends by a sinister nobleman, Ms. Friedman is required to be incorrigibly perky and to scamper a lot in heavy period dresses, a form of movement that should be forced upon no one over 12.

But when she sings of hope and heartbreak and honorable vengeance for dirty deeds, her deeply expressive voice has the sheen of emotional truth. Ms. Friedman's Marian clearly believes every word she sings. Would that the audience could share her conviction.

Lord Lloyd Webber has described his latest score as his most operatic and complex. And when the show begins, amid clouds of stage smoke, Lloyd Webber fans may be slightly disappointed by the fragmented, dissonant quality of the music, more reminiscent of Benjamin Britten's "Peter Grimes" than of "The Phantom of the Opera."

But within 10 minutes, that familiar glucose sweep of melody has begun. And while the score periodically wanders into less sweetly harmonic territory, as in a wedding sequence that turns the carol "The Holly and the Ivy" into a dirge out of a Hammer horror movie, you can always feel the music ready to return to its natural valentine frilliness.

If in Lloyd Webber productions like "Cats" (the longest-running musical on Broadway) and "Phantom" (poised to surpass "Cats" for that same distinction) the music seems on the verge of segueing into an aria by Puccini, in "The Woman in White" you often expect the songs to mutate into older Lloyd Webber beauties like "Memory" and "All I Ask of You."

Such numbers are here mostly sung by the love triangle made up of Ms. Friedman's Marian, her beauteous half sister, Laura Fairlie (Jill Paice), and Walter Hartright (Adam Brazier), the handsome young man who comes to tutor the girls (orphans, of course) in art on the grand country estate of their hypochondriacal uncle (Walter Charles). (A shriller counterpoint is provided by a pre-Raphaelite madwoman, screeched by Angela Christian as the title character.) Though much of the novel's tension stems from feelings repressed or unacknowledged, the characters here find their hearts right away. Belonging to Lloyd Webber land, those hearts refuse to stay quiet.



Write Review Rate This
MOST HELPFUL READER REVIEW
The Lady in White Masterpiece, December 22, 2005

Reviewer: mariojuarez
“The Woman in White” was well worth the trip from California to New York. The incorporation of the visual projections with the theatrical sets was magnificent and spellbinding. From the moment that the set started to breath and became alive I was taken back to another time and another place for a fine evening of theatre. Not knowing anything about the plot or having read the novel I was taken by the mystery of the Woman in White and the unfolding of the truths that would be revealed by the end of this musical experience. The great ensemble cast on the evening of December 15, 2005 was flawless with the wonderful music and a magnificent orchestra. There were technical problems with the set this evening and thus a break in the play. This break provided a few moments to contemplate the reality of the moment and the special theatrical evening that can only be found on Broadway, the show went on. Bravo to everyone associated with the realization of this grand musical. I am looking forward to revisiting this play many more times. Sincerely Mario-Valdez Juarez / Hollywood,
California.

iew from London, December 26, 2005
Reviewer: 2cineaste
With other visiting Americans, this viewer enjoyed "The Woman in White" on the West End in September chiefly because of its scenic innovation resulting in cinematic fluidity.

A hearing of the free compact disc distributed to those leaving the Palace Theater reveals that the musical score that traveled to Broadway might be better than originally perceived. First impressions found the music very reminiscent of "Phantom of the Opera," but a second hearing disproves that.

Performances (sans Michael Crawford) were substantial in all departments and the evening offered a thought-provoking and entertaining theater piece.



1 of 1 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
See it! (But not for the music...), October 31, 2005
Reviewer: tljcarr
Andrew Lloyd Weber's latest production qualifies as a show that fans of his--and of quality theater--should definitely see, but typical of Sir Andrew's offerings, the staging and performances overwhelm the story and the music:

A well-done use of computer graphics creates fascinating visual effects that everyone should find impressive--even those who liken it to a video game projected on a very large screen. It allowed the actors to be quickly transported to many different locations that traditional staging could not have done.

The performers--from the leads to the ensemble--were uniformly excellent. Both the cast from London and the new players all ooze talent and offer powerful performances.

Even the Victorian story was captivating. Characters were well developed and the twists and turns of the plot line held everyone's interest.

Only the music fell short. While the score was certainly original, it was far from compelling. I had two particular disappointments. The intermingling of complex symphonic tone poem passages with cutesy jingles more like those you'd expect from Beauty and the Beast was off-putting. And several numbers, which clearly had little to do with advancing the story, were inserted to showcase lead characters. While entertaining shtick, they were pointless.

Bottom line: The things that impressed you in past ALW offerings will impress you here. The things that let you down, unfortunately, still do!


63 of 73 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
Brantley's Folly, November 18, 2005
Reviewer: anovich22
Ben, what has happened to you? Are you taking curmudgeon pills? It's not that you trash Woman in White, which, while not ALW's best effort, is still at least a decent one. It's that you neglect to heap praise on the formidible work done in the area of set design. These computer generated graphics which become THE show are so stunning that they left me totally in awe, and I am not a young girl! It is the principal reason for anyone to see the show, and in my humble opinion, well worth the price of admission. This show is stunning to look at, not at all bad to hear, and much better than most of the stuff we see each year. The average theatergoer will be seeing this long after Sweeney has closed due to lack of interest, good reviews or not. Ben, one must give high praise to work which supercedes anything that has ever been done before, and Woman in White is unique in this regard.

15 of 19 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
Extraordinary! See It!, November 9, 2005
Reviewer: gioia1
I was fortunate enough to see the show on the first night of previews, and I was blown away. All the leads give fantastic performances, especially Maria Friedman, Angela Christian and Jill Paice. The show has an exciting mystery at the fore, but the show really belongs to Friedman’s character, Marian. You really feel for her and Friedman brings a great sense of humanity and realism to the role. The projection sets take a few minutes to adjust your eyes to, but are used to great effect. Go see this show if you want to see something serious and romantic on Broadway. The score is ambitious, lush, and filled with some great melodies that will fill your head after you’ve left the theater, in a GOOD way. If you liked Phantom, you will love this show.

27 of 35 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
The future is here, set in the past, November 12, 2005
Reviewer: sprecherl
Saw TLIW two weeks ago in London. A great piece of threater. ALWs music is wonderful, as always. His tendency to give you more music than needed is still there, too. The adaptaion of a Victorian pot-boiler works better than seems possible. But the real star of the show is the virtual sets. For the first few minutes the projected scenery is distracting. After that you don't even notice them. The scenery literally flows. This is the future for many large productions. Go see this show!

15 of 23 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
Best Musical of 2005, November 22, 2005
Reviewer: cats1939
I loved the musical "The Woman In White". The music was beautiful, the stage setings were spectacular, the performers were superb, especially Maria Friedman. This show is a definite must see. Ignore Brantley's scorching review. He is off the wall.

HB

5 of 8 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
almost left!, October 29, 2005
Reviewer: muggydoo
Interesting to say the least. Opening night was very exciting. Lot's of hub-bub, glitz and glitter. Just a shame the 1st half of the show was as boring as a Knicks' game. Many folks left the theater at intermission and I was almost amongst them. Glad we stayed for the 2nd half. Rated the show a 4 or 5 before intermission and finally gave it a 7+. (Generous). Not one of ALW's best. Could be one of his worst My prediction- won't last 12 months if that. Shame because the cast is outstanding.

30 of 55 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
ALW tight and scaled down, November 24, 2005
Reviewer: ellen1515
ALW doesn't always impress me -- the more grandiose the staging, the less I seem to like it. Evita was the last one I truly enjoyed-- Cats was so mainstream and Phantom so flamboyant. But Woman in White is more like seeing a well-staged play with a decent plot, executed by good performers, and oh yes, the music is better than tolerable! I found the lyrics worth listening to, clever at times--and to disagree mildly with one other reviewer, they were going for comedy a good deal of the time and it works. This show will never be bogged down with the peer pressure I felt when I didn't like Phantom (didn't you just love it??? asked my friends) You are free to enjoy its light comedy and unimportant but enjoyable music. I found the computerized set interesting but also suspect -- once designers get the hang of it, will it become the new alternative to hammers and nails? See the show, it's fun.

2 of 4 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .

The Woman in White
Average Reader Rating: (3.39 stars, 112 votes)
Number of Reviews: 13


Show Reviews By:
Newest | Most Helpful | Highest Rating

andrew lloyd webber, November 10, 2005
Reviewer: gtclooney
So you go in to this play expecting an andrew lloyd webber. Something with a fantastic musical score and a play that grabs your attention and one that you can't wait to see again when you drag all your friends to it. What you get is a play. A play that isn't awful or boring, but it feels like just another play. You don't walk out humming your favorite song or wondering about a character's intentions, you just leave and say "that was nice." Maybe I expected too much, but I would choose to see something else.

13 of 30 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
Worst musical ever!, November 20, 2005
Reviewer: hogghigh
I'm not the usual Andrew Lloyd Webber basher but this musical is just plain awful. The music is re-hashed Phantom of the Opera. The lyrics are insipid. I can't believe some of the reviews have actually been favorable. I left at intermission as did 50 other people. It's a good thing for them that this is at the Marriott because it's the only crowd they can count on to come consistently. I don't mean to sound harse but this was the worst musical I have ever seen.

6 of 14 found this review helpful
Was this review helpful to you?


. . . .
I can't recommend this show to anyone, December 5, 2005
Reviewer: rainrainy
I saw Woman in White on Saturday night and disliked it immensely. The music was not at all memorable, the recitative was ridiculous, and the actors had no time (or direction) to develop their characters. The plot was too convoluted for a musical and the staging was too harried to allow for any emotional attachment.

I felt that ALW was repeating himself with several of the songs (although not very successfully), and even Trevor Nunn was repeating much of the staging he used in Oklahoma!

Although people have commented on the staging, I feel it was more of a distraction than an assistant to the plot. Once again, feeling that TN was repeating his staging from Oklahoma, the few set pieces in the virtual world always felt small and insignificant against the bigger sky. That worked on the Plains of America, but not in the dark, often clouded land of England. A friend who saw it in previews also said that the large screens moving back and forth were really distracting from the balcony.

I wouldn't recommend this play to anyone.

Capricorn Horoscope for week ofJanuary 5, 2006

Stage magician David Copperfield made an intriguing announcement recently. He told the German magazine Galore that in his next show, he will use magic to make a woman pregnant--without touching her. That's similar to the kind of mojo you will possess in 2006, Capricorn. It's true that your success in the past has usually come from your pragmatic intelligence, organizational ability, and thoroughness. But in the coming months you will also have a talent for conjuring beautiful illusions that ultimately become very real.

are they going to hell?

4 Arrested in Theft of Baby Jesus Figurines

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: January 3, 2006

Four New Jersey teenagers were arrested yesterday and charged with stealing more than 25 plastic baby Jesus figurines, which they planned to burn in a bonfire, the police said.

The police in Sayreville, N.J., arrested Michael Payne, 19, and Christopher M. Olson, 18, both of Old Bridge; Nicholas M. Hess, 18, of Matawan; and a 15-year-old boy whose identity was not disclosed because of his age.

The investigation began on Sunday afternoon, when vandals destroyed a cross and large statue of Jesus at a cemetery at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Sayreville, the police said.

The night before, a neighbor had seen flashlights in the cemetery and jotted down the license plates of a car in the vicinity. Investigators traced the plate to the address of one of the teenagers, and the baby Jesus figures were found in a car there, the police said.

The boys were charged with theft, conspiracy, criminal mischief and desecration of a place of burial.

The baby Jesus figures, now at the police station, were probably stolen from homes and churches around the Sayreville area within the past few weeks, the police said.

"It looked like a maternity ward," Lt. Glenn Skarzynski said of the array of figurines.

He added, "Anyone able to identify their particular baby Jesus will be able to be reunited."

the weather in chicago

39º
"ACCEPTABLE"

the weather in Chicago ...

36º
"CHEERS"

last years troubles- Suzanne Vega

happy new year

"Last Year's Troubles" suzanne vega

Last year's troubles are so old fashioned
the robber on the highway the pirate on the seas
maybe it's the clothing that's so entertaining
the earrings and swashbuckling blouses that please

here we have heroes of times that have passed now
but nobody these days has that kind of chin
over there the petticoats of ladies of virtue
you can hardly tell them from the petticoats of sin

last year's troubles

look at all the waifs of Dickensian England
why is it their suffering is more picturesque?
must be cause their rags are so very Victorian
the ones here at home just don't give it their best

last years troubles they shine up so pretty
they gleam with a luster they don't have today
here it's just dirty and violent and troubling

last year's troubles

but trouble is still trouble and evil still evil
sometimes we wonder; is there more now, or less?
if we had a tool or could tally the handfuls
measure for measure it's the same would be my guess

IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING IN PEACE

i was disappointed that there was not an ad in the village voice this year around the birthday of John Lennon in Oct, then again i was disappointed not to see a message on december 8th -the anniversary of John's death (though yoko ono made an appearance at strawberry fields to leave roses at the imagine mosaic.)

i opened todays Week in review section of the times to find a full page ad -
on a white background...the words in the middle of the page are..

IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING IN PEACE

in small print at the bottom the page is

yoko ono lennon new york city

nothing else is needed

The matador

Joe Leydon
Variety
A quirky yet commercial commingling of black comedy, seriocomic psychodrama, heart-tugging sudser and buddy-movie farce.


"For a much better attempt at this kind of storytelling, make a mental note to some day check out Israeli writer-director Eytan Fox’s Walk on Water."
-- Kevin Biggers, FILMSTEW.COM

2/5 "Explores the friendship between a hit man and a suburban businessman that strains belief and leads to a totally improbable finale."
-- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH

3/4 "Like the down-and-out version of his Tailor of Panama character, Brosnan’s performance here is a sincere treasure; possibly the most entertaining of his career."
-- Erik Childress, EFILMCRITIC.COM

3/5 "Slightly more engaging than most, even when the plot starts to stretch rather thin in the final act"
-- Rich Cline, SHADOWS ON THE WALL

8.5/10 "Shepard and his terrific cast turns a fairly simple premise into one of those rare buddy comedies that has both brains and heart!"
-- Edward Douglas, COMINGSOON.NET

B- "A deft psychological thriller."
-- Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE

3.5/5 "Mixing comedy and the hit man thriller, Matador is a dialogue-driven buddy film about two disparate men (Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear) who meet in a hotel bar--and help each other go through mid-life crisis. "
-- Emanuel Levy, EMANUELLEVY.COM

8/10 "...a captivating comedy. Brosnan gives the best performance of his career. Kinnear is a true comic genius."
-- Tony Medley, TONYMEDLEY.COM

3/4 "...moves at a brisk pace and features a pair of exceedingly enjoyable performances..."
-- David Nusair, REEL FILM REVIEWS

"This occasionally stylish effort from writer/director Richard Shepard just can't make up for its lightweight script."
-- Jon Popick, PLANET SICK-BOY

1/4 "A painful morass of Odd Couple bickering and Elmore Leonard-style criminal kookiness."
-- Nicholas Schager, SLANT MAGAZINE

4/5 "Brosnan and Kinnear deliver one of the most satisfying "guy movie" duos since De Niro and Grodin paired up for Midnight Run."
-- Scott Weinberg, EFILMCRITIC.COM

3.5/4 "A testament to the relatively unknown Shepard’s imagination and smarts."
-- PREMIERE MAGAZINE

-- Click to read the article.
-- Hanh Nguyen, ZAP2IT.COM


4/5 "Rarely does an ensemble cast of such limited numbers create such charm and entertainment derived from plot and character."
-- Jules Brenner (FC), CINEMA SIGNALS

2.5/4 "Neither challenging nor incompetent, the picture isn't courageous enough to fail and thus not courageous enough to be a masterpiece."
-- Walter Chaw, FILM FREAK CENTRAL

B- "...plays a little classier, a little more hip than it otherwise might have due to Pierce Brosnan's rascally embracement of poking holes in his own image..."
-- Laura Clifford, REELING REVIEWS

3/5 "Manages to transcend the cliches of its basic plotline on the strength of the character-acting so richly developed by the film's two stars."
-- Francesca Dinglasan, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE

6/10 "Sneaky, off-beat, satirically seedy psychodrama/thriller with Pierce Brosnan as a droll, comically demented hit-man"
-- Susan Granger, MODAMAG.COM

"...thoroughly enjoyable and equally shallow."
-- Andy Klein, LOS ANGELES CITYBEAT

5/10 "Its Like 'after The Sunset' Without Salma Hayak."
-- Fiore Mastracci, OUTTAKES WITH FIORE

4/4 "Dark comedies like this one are far too rare these days."
-- Scott Nash, THREE MOVIE BUFFS

4/5 "Told with kinetic flair and a go-for-broke style that's more amusing than engrossing."
-- Sean O'Connell, ECLIPSE MAGAZINE

3/4 "An effective, wise, and frequently amusing entertainment that fondly sticks in the viewer's memory after the end credits have finished rolling."
-- Dustin Putman, THEMOVIEBOY.COM

C+ "Where an actor's comfort zone and preconception of audience expectation intersect, Richard Shepard's The Matador exists."
-- Brent Simon, NOW PLAYING MAGAZINE

3/5 "The Matador has that shiny sheen that quickly fades, yet is still fun while it lasts."
-- Daniel Wible, FILM THREAT

B+ Click to read the article.
-- Eric D. Snider, ERICDSNIDER.COM

Pierce Bronson is slimy and greasy and wears shiny suits and is stunning in this role..
its a good movie to pass a winter afternoon, quirky and...may drag a bit but its worth the 10.00

mr torres

i interviewed a man for a job who told me his tale. he was one of triplets, born in egypt. his mother egyptian and father from PRico.his mother was ostracized in her village for marrying a catholic. She was humiliated and when she had her child, she showed hte village a still born child . She then went on to have two more sons, even she didnt know she was having triplets. She hid the babies in a chest of drawers until her husband came from the states to rescue them..the youngest child died of malaria and that left the man i was interviewing.
he told me that his son and father were killed outside of his last job in NY. Going to NY became difficult and he ended up being laid off from that job.
he had no ties to NYC so he flipped a coin and moved to Dallas.
He had a friend in dallas and called and offered to open a novelty store with his friend. He had 18,000 dollars and his friend had 13,000. THe man did not suspect that his partners girlfriend had a coke habit and cleaned out their joint bank account. he then found himself evicted from the apartment he was living in with this friend in Dallas. so he had to enter the shelter system for a place to live.
as he was a job developer and career counsellor, he started working at the shelter for his stay..
when it came to hiring him and paying him at a salary he thought he deserved, they delayed and delayed, having him work and develop the program. when push came to shove, they explained they were a baptist organization in waco texas and wanted to hire only baptists
faith based organziations can do that even if they accept federal monies

so he came back to NY and is looking for work

the weather in chicago

33º
"SULLEN"

Capricorn Horoscope for week of December 29, 2005

Capricorn Horoscope for week of December 29, 2005

Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Germany and the Soviet Union failed to sign a peace treaty after the global hostilities of the mid-20th century. Technically, then, World War II never officially ended. This lack of closure doesn't seem to have had any lingering repercussions, though, so I won't worry about it. On the other hand, there are unresolved situations from your past that are still causing you problems. In my astrological opinion, 2006 is an ideal time to finally wrap up all the unfinished business that has been subtly draining you. It's a perfect opportunity for the ultimate karmic cleansing, preferably carried out with grace, gratitude, and generosity.

the rebel jesus by jackson browne

i woke up singing Jackson browne's rebel jesus


Original recording from the chieftain’s album the bells of dublin


All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants’ windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
They’ll be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for all god’s graces
And the birth of the rebel jesus

Well they call him by the prince of peace
And they call him by the savior
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they’ve turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robber’s den
In the words of the rebel jesus

We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel jesus

But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgement
For I’ve no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel jesus.

the weather in Chicago ...

38º
"SLOPPY"

the weather in chicago

34º
"REPEAT"

the weather in Chicago ...

34º
"SMILE"

memoir of a geisha

Underneath the Mask of a Heroine

By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: December 9, 2005

Swathed in silk and longing (mostly for a bald guy called Oscar), the big-screen version of "Memoirs of a Geisha" arrives with good intentions firmly in place. Based on the best seller by Arthur Golden, this lavishly appointed melodrama was directed by Rob Marshall, lately of "Chicago," and features the Chinese superstars Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li, and the Malaysian transplant Michelle Yeoh, as Japanese geishas swept up in jealous rivalries during the 1930's and 40's. In this cloistered world, men come and go as do history and warplanes, amid spectacularly unfortunate metaphors about male eels and female caves and one regrettably brief catfight in a kimono.

That catfight happens late in the story, long after Ms. Zhang's character, a geisha named Sayuri, has realized that the greatest obstacle to her happiness is an older star geisha, Hatsumomo (Ms. Gong). Sold to a geisha household, or okiya, as a child, Sayuri has long lived under the same roof as Hatsumomo, first as a prepubescent slave and then as a fully ripe rival. With her eye for beauty, Hatsumomo plots her challenger's demise with a ferocity that brings to mind both Joan Crawford and the Crawford impressionist Faye Dunaway in all their nostril-flaring, no-wire-hangers intensity. Clare Boothe Luce, who wrote "The Women," a poison-pen letter to her sex that became one of Crawford's more famous and least agreeable vehicles, would have approved.

Originally published in 1997, Mr. Golden's celebrated venture into higher-end chick lit centers on Sayuri, who survives a childhood of suffering to become a famous entertainer. Narrated in the first person, the book is embroidered with vaguely ethnographic exotica, Japanese words and phrases and a great deal of hothouse intrigue about who did what to whom and where. To the non-Japanese eye, the life of the geisha may appear intoxicatingly exotic, perfumed with face powder and the mildest suggestion of sex, but at least in the film, which is credited to the screenwriter Robin Swicord, the whole thing plays out like "As the Okiya Turns," complete with devious rivals, swoonworthy swains, fabulous accouterments, a jaw-dropping dance number recycled from Madonna's Drowned World tour and much clinching, panting and scheming.

Then again, there isn't all that much for a geisha to do other than serve and conspire. Rigorously trained from childhood, geishas dedicate themselves wholly to the paid amusement of male customers. Once upon a time in Japan, some women were in the service of procreation, others were employed for recreational sex, while the geisha operated in that gray area in between. (Curiously, the first geishas were men.) Geishas aren't typical sex workers; they're superclassy sex workers who sell their virginity to the highest bidder (the pretext in both the book and film for that unhappy bit about eels and caves) and rely on steady male patronage. But while serving a new customer every six months certainly sounds less untoward than, say, turning six tricks a night in a day-rate motel, who's kidding whom?

The book and the film attempt to attenuate the more distasteful aspects of geisha life, mostly by avoiding the contradiction between its degradations and its glamorous trappings. The story, after all, opens in the 1920's with Sayuri, then age 9 and called Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo), and her older sister being sold by their impoverished fisherman father and spirited away into the dark, rainy night. The girls are soon separated, with the older sister sold to a low-end brothel and the future geisha sold to her okiya, a beehive of female activity run by a pair of crones cum pimps and supported by the labor of its clipped-wing queen, Hatsumomo. Legally bound to the crones, to whom she must hand over most of her wages, Hatsumomo hopes to secure her future by one day running the okiya.

The exquisite Ms. Gong looks like a gift that keeps on giving when trussed up in silk, but she and the film come most alive when her hair tumbles down and she sashays about the okiya, stirring the air with her tremulous rage. Having seen a very different future for herself in the gray eyes of the new girl, Hatsumomo directs all that fury toward her eradication. In time, this enmity will assume soap-operatic proportions and involve the rival geisha Mameha (Ms. Yeoh), who takes Sayuri on as a trainee, and the two businessmen whose attentions consume so much of the women's and the story's time: the Chairman (Ken Watanabe, the majestic hunk from "The Last Samurai") and his partner and friend, Nobu (the great Japanese actor Koji Yakusho).

Mr. Marshall can't rescue the film from its embarrassing screenplay or its awkward Chinese-Japanese-Hollywood culture klatch, but "Memoirs of a Geisha" is one of those bad Hollywood films that by virtue of their production values nonetheless afford a few dividends, in this case, fabulous clothes and three eminently watchable female leads. Although it's always a pleasure to see these three in action, and there's something undeniably exciting about the prospect of them storming the big studio gate, the casting of Ms. Gong and Ms. Zhang ends up more bittersweet than triumphant. Ms. Zhang, for one, shows none of the heartache and steel of her astonishing performance in Wong Kar-wai's "2046." When her character crumbles with desire in that film, Ms. Zhang's face seems to break into pieces - you can scarcely believe she could put it whole again. Here, you can hardly believe it's the same actress.

Ms. Gong's hauteur and soaring cheekbones work better for her character, a woman of acid resolve. Although there are moments when Hatsumomo comes perilously close to Dragon Lady caricature ("I will destroy you!"), the actress's talent and dignity keep the performance from sliding into full-blown camp. But even the formidable Ms. Gong cannot surmount the ruinous decision to have her and Ms. Zhang, along with the poorly used Mr. Yakusho, deliver their lines in vaguely British-sounding English that imparts an unnatural halting quality to much of their dialogue. The. Result. Is. That. Each. Word. Of. Dialogue. Sounds. As. If. It. Were. Punctuated. By. A. Full. Stop. Which. Robs. The. Language. Of. Its. Watery. Flow. And. Breath. Of. Real. Life. Even. As. It. Also. Gives. New. Meaning. To. The. Definition. Of. The. Period. Movie.

"Memoirs of a Geisha" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). The film is as discreet as an unopened waterlily.

Directed by Rob Marshall; written by Robin Swicord, based on the novel by Arthur Golden; director of photography, Dione Beebe; edited by Pietro Scalia; music by John Williams, with cello solos by Yo-Yo Ma and violin solos by Itzhak Perlman; production designer, John Myhre; produced by Lucy Fisher, Douglas Wick and Steven Spielberg; released by Columbia Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment. Running time: 144 minutes.

WITH: Ziyi Zhang (Sayuri), Ken Watanabe (Chairman), Michelle Yeoh (Mameha), Koji Yakusho (Nobu), Youki Kudoh (Pumpkin), Kaori Momoi (Mother), Tsai Chin (Auntie), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (The Baron), Suzuka Ohgo (Chiyo) and Gong Li (Hatsumomo).

munich review

Spielberg film brilliantly acted, directed, written

By Paul Clinton
For CNN.com
Friday, December 23, 2005; Posted: 2:02 p.m. EST (19:02 GMT)

Starring: Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler, Daniel Craig

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Written by: Tony Kushner and Eric Roth

(CNN) -- "Munich" is a masterpiece.

The film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is a visceral, emotionally exhausting work that dares to ask questions -- and gives no easy answers -- regarding the horrifying events that occurred at the 1972 Munich Olympics and their aftermath.

That fall, the entire world watched as an extremist Palestinian group, Black September, kidnapped and massacred Israel's 1972 Olympic team. This was at an Olympics labeled "The Olympics of Peace and Joy."

The deaths were played out in real time on television, with the hostage drama culminating in a botched rescue mission at a nearby airport. Many historians point to Olympic tragedy as the beginning of the kind of worldwide terrorism we know today.

First-time screenwriter (and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright) Tony Kushner -- along with Eric Roth ("The Insider") -- helped Spielberg fashion journalist George Jonas' book, "Vengeance," into a thriller that examines the power and psychological toll of violence and retribution.

Publicly, Israel responded to the Munich massacre by bombing Palestine Liberation Organization bases in Syria and Lebanon, but privately the government, under Prime Minister Golda Meir, launched a highly top-secret group of special force teams to spread out across the world and assassinate all the Palestinians involved in the attack. The mission was called "Operation Wrath of God."

"Munich" is about one of those covert groups. Israel, to this day, has never confirmed the existence of these hit squads.
Building tension

Much of the action is seen through the eyes of one group leader, Avner, played by Eric Bana ("The Hulk," "Troy"). Geoffrey Rush plays Ephraim, Avner's contact, who intercedes when the shell-shocked Avner begins to have questions -- questions that become more philosophical and demanding about the ethics of the mission.

British actor Daniel Craig, who has just been named the new James Bond, plays Steve, a South African who is the most unwavering of the group.

Other members of the small group include Hans (Hanns Zischler), a German Jew who has a gift for forging documents; Carl (Ciaran Hinds), who is in charge of cleaning up the actions of his team; and Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), a toymaker turned explosives expert.

(One interesting bit of casting is Guri Weinberg, now 33, who has a deep connection to the story -- he plays his own father. He is the son of Moshe Weinberg, the Israeli wrestling referrer and former champion who died in the massacre when Guri was just 1 month old.)

The hit team finds that the more they stay on the hunt, the more likely they too will become the hunted. Indeed, Avner's main contact, Louis (Mathieu Amalric), has no loyalties at all -- except to the money Avner pays him for his information. The idea can only make the men paranoid, Avner -- with a wife and child and another life waiting for him -- most of all.

"Munich" veers between scenes of incredible tension -- one sequence, in which the group accidentally finds the daughter of a target in their cross hairs, is almost unbearably hard to watch -- and relaxed, if meaningful, conversation. At one point, Avner, blindfolded, is taken to see Louis' father, a man who understands everybody's quandary -- but remains outside the fray, the better to exploit it.

Spielberg does not demonize the Palestinians, nor make the Israelis into saints. He's already taking heat from numerous groups on both sides of this fiery issue. (Watch how "Munich" is angering many -- and also receiving support -- 3:00)

Indeed, "Munich" deliberately walks a tightrope. It's full of clashes of tone and reason and offers no pat answers. All it does is humanize the story of some decent men who -- in the end -- must come face to face with their own souls. That's plenty.

Spielberg's directing is brilliant, from Hitchcockian set pieces to jittery '70s-style movement. Kushner and Roth's script is thoughtful and provocative. The acting is uniformly excellent.

Near the end of the film, Ephraim asks a weary Avner, "What have you learned?" Ephraim wants to know about the mission, but the same unwittingly loaded question could be asked of everybody.

"Munich" is a great film -- and an important one. It's a brave work from a top-notch filmmaker, and one of the best films of the year.

i aint getting it

i am sitting listening to CBS sunday morning show and it is xmas morning, I understand their attempts to recognize Hanukah starting tonight but it seems like Lynda Lopez and her chairmate are tacking hanukah on as a tag on. i hate that Hanukah gets associated with that stupid Adam Sandler song. the holidays coinciding this year only remind that Hanukah is not Xmas. I never wanted it to be a Christmas copycat holiday. I read an editorial by Jonathan Safan Foer in the TImes and i thought that he would do Hanukah more justice. ITs called a Beginners Guide to Hanukah and references things like Harry Hanukah as a counter to Santa Clause. Personally, i am insulted that there are such things as well as jews who decided that they needed a Hanukah bush to try to have a version of Christmas. i dont get it

Hanukah is not christmas. it doesnt resemble it nor should it mock it. I dont get that Jews suffer from "christmas envy" as Safan Foer puts it that they would need to replicate the holiday. Sure, it could be additional assimilation or acculturation as changing names from Rabinowitz to Rabb to try to pass. Adding XMAS traditions to Hanukah may mean tyring to mainstream but i dont get it

Hanukah is not xmas and i dont wish to be wished a Merry Xmas. i dont celebrate xmas. i dont get it...

being raised in a small new england town, where being a jew was a minority and then complicated by spending most of the xmas season with a babysitter while my parents worked in my dad's store marked the xmas season. Dad put alot of weight and desire and need on this time of year for the financial survival of my family. spending xmas eve with the family next door, while they celebrated xmas eve was part of the ritual of the season. It took an ugly twist as they celebrated with gifts and decorating the tree and santa claus while my sister and brother and i sat on the couch and watched. we are not christian and didnt participate.

hanukah's 8 gifts even equaled the gifts that my friends got under the tree. My sister talks about having to go back to school and not having the ability to the share in the conversation of "what did you get for xmas?" we didnt. our hanukah gifts paled compared to abundance. i dont get it....

what did we do on xmas? we went to the movies or we went bowling. There were chinese restaurants open, so we ate chinese food. or we ate at home...MOstly i remember bowling. My parents have tried volunteering but i dont really do that. I say i am but i dont feel that generous in getting people home for xmas. I dont take off this time of year at work. I let those christians take the time. Its not my holiday to prepare and pack up and deliver presents. I am offended that people wish me a merry xmas when they know i dont celebrate xmas. with the last name Goldberg, i dont get that they wish me merry xmas..

i am not a grinch at xmas, i just dont get it... i have tried to participate with friends... share their xmas but it just aint right so this year i get it...

i dont have to celebrate xmas or even fake it. I prefer not to even get in the spirit. it is not my holiday and never will be ....

being a jew part 1

when i was a kid i would stay up late and sit in the sunparlor watching TV. i remember the nights being silent except for the glow of the TV set. I remember watching the Music specials, Midnight special and bette midler's revues on TV but there were TWO events that stick in my mind.

Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. I went and woke up my parents to tell them. I understood the scope of the event and i watched the grainy screen. I knew that the world would not be the same. The US was the greatest country and we accomplished the impossible, we sent a man into space and conquered the moon.

the second event i remember is when Jim McKAy announced that the Israeli wrestling team was executed in Munich. I grew up in a small new england town of 35 jewish families. In MIlford Massachusetts it was dangerous to be a public Jew. Schools did not close for the new year holidays of Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, we made up the work. Hanukah was no a public display holiday. Being a jew also meant that you belonged to a larger community. Israel was a new country, much support came from american jewry through israeli bonds and direct donation. The wars of 1967, 1972 and then the munich disaster leading to the Yom Kippur war

so when Jim McKay announced the death of the Israeli wrestling team, it was an attack on israel and on all jews everywhere, reminding us that Jews cannot participate as the rest of the world can in the olympics and jews are not safe. The fact that the murders occured in Germany didnt help Germanys relationship to the Jews. the death and then proceeding action is captured by Stephen Speilberg in MUNICH..

i saw the movie on xmas eve. connecting to my jewishness while the rest of the world connects to their christianity was healing. the movie is violent and will cause some backlash by reviewers but its a good movie, right up there with Schindlers List and Private Ryan.
its yet another Jewish theme movie or Jewish related movie released in NYC for xmas and oscar consideration. WHY do you think Barbra Streisand released on XMAS...something for jews to do ..


REVIEWS FOR MUNICH


NEW YORK TIMES
WITH his latest film, "Munich," Steven Spielberg forgoes the emotional bullying and pop thrills that come so easily to him to tell the story of a campaign of vengeance that Israel purportedly brought against Palestinian terrorists in the wake of the 1972 Olympics. An unsparingly brutal look at two peoples all but drowning in a sea of their own blood, "Munich" is by far the toughest film of the director's career and the most anguished. Mr. Spielberg has been pummeling audiences with his virtuosity for nearly as long as he has been making movies; now, he tenders an invitation to a discussion.

The film's title suggests that this is the story of what happened at Munich in September 1972, and it is, though only in part. Most of the action - and if nothing else, this nail-biter is a full-on action movie - takes place in the immediate aftermath of Munich, after 11 Israeli hostages were murdered by members of a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. Based on George Jonas's disputed book "Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team," and adapted to the screen by the oddball couple of Eric Roth and Tony Kushner ("Forrest Gump" meets "Angels in America"), the film pivots on five Israeli agents, who, recruited to exact revenge by a country that will officially deny their existence, zigzag Europe as they hunt suspects over months and then years.

With its art-directed verisimilitude and promiscuous use of archival material (Jim McKay makes a cameo appearance in the film, as does the voice of Peter Jennings) "Munich" is one of those Hollywood fictions that seem to befuddle those who miss the nuance in the words "inspired by real events." Here, those events begin with members of Black September scaling the Olympic village fence and taking both Israeli athletes and coaches hostage. Most of what happens next, including the agonizing wait at the Olympic village and the catastrophic showdown, emerges piecemeal, in bursts of violence that periodically interrupt the narrative and increasingly trouble the sleep of the story's quavering moral center, a former Mossad agent named Avner (the Australian actor Eric Bana).

For Black September, Munich is both a theater of cruelty and a means to international visibility. For the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen), who personally presses Avner into vengeance, Munich is more than the scene of a crime: it is a reminder, a warning, a defensive call to arms. It is also why, with Meir's blessing, instructions from a Mossad case officer (Geoffrey Rush) and hundreds of thousands of American dollars tucked in a Swiss bank, Avner leaves Jerusalem and his wife and travels to Europe. There, he meets with his team members, any one of whom could star in his own espionage potboiler: the sexy South African in tight pants, Steve (Daniel Craig); the tweedy, pipe-smoking Israeli, Carl (Ciaran Hinds); the smoothly urbane German antiques dealer, Hans (Hanns Zischler); and the nebbishy Belgian toy and bomb maker, Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz).

Despite the brief pop-cultural dissonance brought on by the sight of the Incredible Hulk, whom Mr. Bana played in the 2003 blockbuster, sharing the screen with the new James Bond (Mr. Craig) and HBO's Julius Caesar (Mr. Hinds), the actors quickly make these character types their own. The missions happen just as quickly, if not without incident. In Rome, the team tracks a Palestinian intellectual who has just translated "Scheherazade" (which, in a Kushner-sounding touch, the translator describes as a "narrative of survival") and may have terrorist connections. When the moment comes for Avner to face his prey, an older man with trembling hands, the agent fumbles his gun. Later in Paris, in a sequence that finds Mr. Spielberg outdoing Hitchcock with bravura crosscutting, Avner again nearly botches the job, putting his team and an innocent bystander in danger.

If Mr. Bana sometimes seems overly sensitive for an undercover agent it's largely because without his anxious eyes and jittery hands Avner would not be half as sympathetic or rhetorically effective. What makes Avner memorable, more than just an unusually animated action figure, is that he is never more human than when faced with killing another person. More than the story's slow-to-dawn ambivalence about Avner's mission, more than the obvious effort made to ensure that the Palestinian terrorists are more than faceless thugs (they are thugs with faces and speeches), it is Avner's humanity, however compromised, that gives "Munich" the weight of a moral argument. It's an argument, though, that has little to do with whether Israel has a right to exist or whether the Palestinians have the right of return. Only this matters: blood has its costs, even blood shed in righteous defense.

"Munich" is as much a meditation on ethics as a political thriller, but it takes nothing away from the film to say that the most adrenaline-spiked part of this genre hybrid involves getaway cars, false papers and the sight of the future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who pops up during a mission in Lebanon, mowing down terrorists while dressed in a woman's wig and high heels. In between the cloak, dagger and drag, the telephone bombs and a veritable alphabet soup of intrigue (C.I.A., P.L.O., K.G.B.), the years pass with increasing desperation and the team's numbers dwindle. Forced into a new kind of exodus, far from the homeland meant to provide justification for their every action, Avner and his men wander the continent that three decades earlier had been the staging ground for the extermination of European Jewry.

For these wandering, bickering, argumentative Jews, every safe house and port of call becomes an occasion for yet another discussion about Israel and identity. Nothing if not conversational, "Munich" is organized around three crucial dialogues: Meir's discussion of vengeance with her advisers, which ends with her declaration that every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values; a brief discussion between Avner and a Palestinian who predicts Israel's defeat; and, finally, a bitter encounter between two Israelis who fail to find common ground even in that multicultural utopia known as Brooklyn. With its dead-eye view of Lower Manhattan and the twin towers, this scene makes clear (as if there was any doubt) that Mr. Spielberg is as worried about this country as he is about Israel.

As his tours of duty with the historian Stephen Ambrose suggested ("Saving Private Ryan," "Band of Brothers"), Mr. Spielberg can give the appearance of wanting to be seen as more than just a Hollywood director, particularly since he added "adult contemporary" to his playlist, mixing history in with his dinosaurs. That makes him a soft target, and "Munich" has already been strafed by op-ed attacks. The accusations might make sense if the filmmaker took us into the terrorists' homes for some moral relativism. But Mr. Spielberg is doing nothing more radical here than advancing the idea that dialogue ends when two enemies, held hostage by dusty history and hot blood, have their hands locked around each other's throats. You can't hold your children with your hands so occupied, though evidently you can send them off to war. t would do a disservice to Mr. Spielberg to linger too long on the pre-emptive attacks on the film: more than anything, "Munich" is a slammin' entertainment filled with dazzling set pieces and geometric camerawork. Different palettes help keep the narrative flowing (there's no danger of becoming lost on the way from Frankfurt to Cyprus), imparting a contrasting vibe to each landscape: the bleached-out Israeli exteriors are as faded as old family photographs, while the verdant French countryside where Avner meets a mysterious intelligence broker called Papa (Michael Lonsdale) has the seductive tug of an idyll. This pocket of green and Old World civility, embellished from Mr. Jonas's book, is the film's shrewdest and most entertaining conceit: a movie within a movie, it is a vision of evil as both seductive romance and bureaucratic banality.

Avner meets Papa through his son, Louis, a dandy with a German shepherd and a sneer played by the French actor Mathieu Amalric. Their organization supplies information for fantastic sums but insists on never doing business with governments, a philosophy that Papa explains during one al fresco meal at his compound. Nestled in haute-bourgeois luxury, surrounded by children and barking dogs, this self-described hero of the Maquis proclaims himself an equal-opportunity hater of all governments. Next to this weary sophisticate, with his blood sausages and free-market nihilism, Avner comes off as a punk, an amateur. But Avner is also an idealist and, unlike Papa, who believes in only his family and money, the Israeli clings to a dream of home. And if that dream remains out of reach, well, Mr. Spielberg asks, what other choice does he have?

"Munich" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). The film features extremely graphic gun violence.



Directed by Steven Spielberg; written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, based on the book "Vengeance" by George Jonas; director of photography, Janusz Kaminski; edited by Michael Kahn; music by John Williams; production designer, Rick Carter; produced by Mr. Spielberg , Kathleen Kennedy, Barry Mendel and Colin Wilson; released by Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures. Running time: 164 minutes.

WITH: Eric Bana (Avner), Daniel Craig (Steve), Ciaran Hinds (Carl), Mathieu Kassovitz (Robert), Hanns Zischler (Hans), Geoffrey Rush (Ephraim), Ayelet Zurer (Daphna), Michael Lonsdale (Papa), Mathieu Amalric (Louis), Gila Almagor (Avner's Mother) and Lynn Cohen (Golda Meir)

walked too much

sleeping kitty

this is my kitty o love when its hot and she sleeps all curled up

the weather in chicago

36º
"CHEERY"

the weather in chicago

38º
"MUSHY

spotlight on christmas by Rufus wainwright

People love the working man
Who does the best that he can
But don't forget all the horses and toys
Never could fix the poor little rich boys
People say they love the maid
Who sweats and toils just like a slave
But don't forget all the diamonds and pearls
Never could fix the poor little rich girls

You can measure it in blood
You can measure it in mud
Let us say for these twelve days
Put the measuring away

Cause it's Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on us

People love and people hate
People go and people wait
But, don't forget Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Once were a family poor but rich in hope, yeah
Don't forget Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Running from the law, King Herod had imposeth
And they were each one quite odd
And mensch, a virgin, and a God
But don't forget that what kept them aflow
Floating through the desert doesnt take a boat no
Don't forget that what kept them above
Is unconditional love

And, you can measure it in blood
You can measure it in mud
Let us say for these twelve days
Put the measuring away

Cause it's Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on us
And the spotlight's shining on Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on

People love the working man
Who does the best that he can
But, don't forget all the horses and toys
Never could fix the poor little rich boys

An Extended Family Holiday Outing, Onstage

By LAURA SINAGRA
Published: December 23, 2005

For the Canadian folkie sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Christmas could never be simply "the holidays." The intuitive and cerebral siblings require that specificity as they mine its place in their own past, familial intimacies, disappointment and heartbreak, and joys metaphysical and quotidian. On Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall, they alluded to the sacred nature of their musical inquiry. "We wanted to get pews up here," said Anna, "but it was too expensive."

Joined by an extended troupe of children and other kin, the sisters performed songs from "The McGarrigle Christmas Hour," an omnibus project involving lots of the same pals who sat in on "The McGarrigle Hour" in 1998. While their show's selection drew from memories of a Quebec childhood in a musical English-French household, the McGarrigles also used the concept of Christmas as a prism through which to view the history of popular song.

After opening with everyone singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," the show was a swirl of instrumental and choral configurations. The repertory ranged from the English "Old Waits Carol" to crooner classics to French traditionals and members' Christmas ruminations.

The onstage crowd of roughly a score included an elder McGarrigle sister, Jane; Kate's children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright; Anna's husband, Dane Lanken, and daughter Lily; and good friends Emmylou Harris and Sloan Wainwright, whom Kate introduced as her "ex-sister-in-law."

The music was anchored by a band of longtime collaborators including the violinist Joel Zifkin and the singer-guitarist Chaim Tannenbaum. Still, the night belonged to the headliners and their daughters, who often formed a chorus and sang at times in pairs, contrasting Kate and Martha's piquant style with Anna and Lily's ethereal tones.

Conjuring the kookiness of a parlor gathering, Kate played piano and sometimes banjo, and Anna the accordion and guitar. Martha Wainwright and her cousin Ms. Lanken made a jaunty duet of Jackson Browne's "Rebel Jesus." But the room's acoustics were kindest to Rufus Wainwright, whose voice cut through group numbers like a solo instrument. On the first verse of the odd 1951 carol of cultural understanding, "Some Children See Him," his voice powered lines like "Some children see Him bronzed and brown/ The Lord of heav'n to earth come down," with the chill-inducing reverberation that the hall exists to complement.

Teddy Thompson, son of the English folk stars Richard and Linda Thompson, and Ms. Harris lent their solo voices, respectively, to "The Holly and the Ivy" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem." But Sloan Wainwright garnered the most applause with the folk-gospel "Thank God, It's Christmas."

The mood was festive, yet certain moments verged on the artistically holy, as when the charming "Il Est Ne" gave way to the haunting, mandolin-backed "Ça Bergers," or when Martha's Wainwright's voice achieved an exquisite alto dissolve on the French "Three Angels." When Mr. Tannenbaum joked before singing "Blue Christmas" with aplomb that "In my house, we thought Elvis's Christmas album was a piece of liturgical music," one McGarrigle beat the other to the quip: "Well, it was!"

see you in spring