Penoptic

I couldn't believe they'd pulled it off. After knocking on wood every time someone in the room said something that could tempt fate, after drowning my sorrows in beer and chicken wings, after holding my breath from the first seconds of the second quarter until three minutes from the end of the game, the Giants pulled it off and upset the favored Pats to win Super Bowl XLII, 17-14. It was unbelievable. Especially after Eli Manning's throws kept going unreceived by any of his team mates. "Dude," I shouted at the other Giants, who were constantly about five feet away from where they needed to be, "Why can't you get there?!" Okay, so I deleted some expletives. And then, when it came time for that touchdown, oh man, they were close. They were so close. And yet it took them about three tries before they finally managed to score. And then that extra point, which, to the TV viewer, looked l ike it was only inches from not getting counted at all. Eh, I could ...

I've discovered that the old adage of 'You never forget your first time' is true for many things. Most recently for me, it's true for Wagner. I wasn't raised in a Wagner household. I'm not even sure my parents were overly enthusiastic opera lovers; they usually preferred theater and the symphony. But when I was eight, old enough for my first grown-up night out on the town, they made the mistake of taking me to see an English translation of Carmen . And I've been hooked on opera ever since. Mostly French and Italian operas, but occasionally there's the odd English opera or German Mozart opera mixed in the bunch. But I've managed to avoid, in sixteen years of attending the opera, going to any German operas. The fat ladies with fake armor and horned hats just couldn't compare with the sweet, slight women who, as Mimi, gave a voice to the meaning of melancholy, or to the Carmens who flirted and smiled their way in ecstasy to their eventual deaths, wi...

On a dark and stormy night, in a far away land called New York, a young graduate student crashing on the couch of a friend desired some dinner. Her hostess had plans for the evening, and so the young student was left to fare for herself. Since the land of New York was fabled for having absolutely everything available for delivery, the student did what anybody else at that time would have done. She did a Google search. In her search she came across a Mexican restaurant called La Hacienda on East 116th Street, a mere twenty-five blocks from the apartment where she was resting her head. The single-paragraph blurbs by critics at nymag.com and timeout.com raved about La Hacienda's pumpkin seed quesadillas and authentic Mexican salsa. And, best of all, the minimum price for delivery was only $10. For our poor, struggling student, this sounded just right. Hungry as she was, she obediently handed over her address, cross-streets and directions, her phone number, and placed an order for th...

There’s nothing quite like a Williams-Sonoma store to make a poor graduate student feel about as big as a cockroach, and just as welcome. A mere tour around the store can cause spontaneous gasps of incredulity and amazement, usually caused by the store’s admirable attempt to aid inflation (they want $77 for a knife?) while simultaneously drawing the wistful sighs of, “Oh, I wish I could afford that $80 mortar and pestle. I’d use it every day.” The nature of the chain store is that, no matter where you go in the country, the stores not only look exactly the same, but also feature the same clientele. For Williams-Sonoma, these are elderly grandmothers in Lord & Taylor suits, domestic matrons sporting the cleanest two-year-olds in town, brides-to-be registering everything in sight. But I enjoy the occasional perusal. The place reminds me of my mother’s dream kitchen. She could spend hours looking at all the different varieties of olive oil alone. When she got a gift cert...

Every now and then, you see something that just makes you stop and go, Huh? The History Channel's show 'History's Mysteries' is all about decoding myths and, well, mysteries from, well, history. They explore things like Stonehenge and the Knights Templar (very popular in the wake of 'The Da Vinci Code' - this is, after all, Dan Brown's world, and we're all just living in it), but every now and then they do something with a little more, pardon the pun, life in it. Like the mystery of Dracula. The character of Dracula was based for the most part on Vlad Dracul III, prince of Wallachia (now a part of Romania). Modernly thought of as a patriot who fought against the invading Turks, Vlad earned his epithet "The Impaler" for his cruelty towards those who offended him. (Evidence states that when there was an ambassador at his court whom he disliked, he had their hats nailed to their heads.) The blood-sucking habit was the invention of Bram Stoker, or ...

At 9 p.m. tonight, TVGN (which seems to have no website that this blogger could easily find) is airing a program called 'Heath Ledger: A Hollywood Tragedy.' Less than five days after his death, he's already the subject of a hastily-made documentary-wanna be fit to air during the SAG awards. The man has only just been laid in the ground. The cause of his death is still undetermined since the autopsy was "inconclusive," according to the AP. And they couldn't even wait a week before airing this program. How incredibly ridiculous that the culture of celebrity is prompts the executives of this TV station to try to attract viewers and advertisers when the family has barely had a chance to grieve. Programs like this are hardly an example of well-rounded journalism or story-telling. Nor is it remotely sympathetic.

Sometimes I wonder exactly how some of these movies get made. It's not only that the modern day romantic comedy has more over-used formulas than a high school science lab. It's that they're so utterly lacking in charm even at the most basic elements. You'd think that any writers or story-tellers, such as screen-writer Aline Brosh McKenna and director Anne Fletcher, would have had to sit through enough romantic comedy movies to recognize a formula when they see one. But they don't credit their audiences with the same knowledge and skills of recognition. So they set about making '27 Dresses,' most egregious misuse of formulas I've had to endure since tenth grade chemistry. The cringe-worthy cliches start with the first scene and endure to the very last. From the sad, single, always-a-bridesmaid Jane Nichols (Katharine Heigl) to cynical, secretly-wounded Kevin (James Marsden). All the other elements are there: the storm-wrecked car, the "this is a grea...