Mmm, camel cheese. I'd be willing to try it, how about you?
Buddha's birthday, like Chinese New Year, is based on a Lunar calendar, and so varies from year-to-year for us here in America. This year it falls on Cinco de Mayo (see picture #2 after clicking the link). Now that's gonna be a party!
Today is Queen Elizabeth's 80th birthday. Happy B-day, Liz! But I must say that it was mildly disturbing to find among the recaps of her life the information that she had been home schooled...
I'll wait until I've seen M:I3 to decide how happy I want to be about this news, but Paramount announced today that J.J. Abrams will write and direct the next Star Trek movie. Due out in 2008, this prequel will "center on the early days of Star Trek characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer-space mission."
And speaking of prequels, check out this post on Newsvine about the insane number of sequels and prequels coming out this year! (Note my little comment toward the bottom.)
I was excited when I heard about Roundabout Theater's revival of "Threepenny Opera" in New York (who doesn't want to see Alan Cumming play Mack the Knife?), but judging from the review in today's NYT, and from the pictures accompanying it, it seems to have been a bad execution of a good idea. My favorite quote: "With [director Scott] Elliott overseeing a cast jam-packed with misused talent, this 'Threepenny' takes Brecht's notion of the theater of alienation to new self-defeating extremes."
Lastly, having just been to Graceland recently, I was heartened by the news that Elvis' estate had been bought by a businessman who was going to try and build up the brand and bring the King into the new century. Robert Sillerman (the aforementioned businessman and owner of "American Idol") has already gotten Graceland declared a national historic site by the feds. He also has announced plans to clean up the area of Memphis around Graceland, adding hotels, restaurants and shopping centers; which is good because that area is fairly sketchy at the moment. However, this week he announced that he wants to have an Elvis exhibit and show on the Vegas strip. That seems harmless, until you read the quote, "If we were going to do a show that was based on Elvis impersonators, then obviously it wouldn’t make sense to have unauthorised Elvis impersonators." This has, as you might imagine, thrown the world of Elvis impersonators into a tizzy. I personally feel that the Elvis impersonator is as much a part of Elvis' legacy as Graceland itself, and that what Sillerman should do is embrace that culture and incorporate it into his new empire, rather than try to stamp it out. They only enhance his brand recognizability, after all.
Oh, hey, if you're not doing anything tomorrow morning at 11am, I'll be at the Field Museum of Natural History running lights, sound and video projections for "What Killed the Dinosaurs? You Decide!" It should be a lot of fun.
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