It's going to be the Year of the Dog (4703 or 4704) on Sunday, Jan. 29.
For more info. on the calendar and customs, to to:
www.chinapage.com/newyear.html
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year
As for celebrations...
There was supposed to have been a big party last Sat. at JHU sponsored by the region's CSSAs (Chnz Student and Scholar Associations on various campuses).
Next Sunday, DC Chinatown will hold it's annual parade (2pm-5).
If you want to see something sooner, you could go to Philly chinatown. They're having parades this weekend (jan 28 & 29) and the following 2 Sundays (Feb 5 & 12). They must like marching, a lot!
Last Saturday, I finally went to see the Adolf Cluss exhibit at the Sumner School in DC. I’d been meaning to do so for a month or two. This German immigrant designed a number of buildings in DC in the late 19th century including the Arts & Industries building next to the Smithsonian castle, Calvary Baptist Church in Chinatown, and the Sumner School (across the street from National Geographic hq.).
He also had some connections to Baltimore:
- he was married in Zion church in 1858
- he designed the Concordia Opera House (Eutaw & Redwood), which burned down in 1891
What I found as interesting was his politics: he was a Communist. We’re talking O.G., here, ‘cause Communism emerged in the 1840s. Before emigrating to America, he was a secretary of the Mainz branch of the Communist League. In 1847, he went to Brussels and met Karl Marx and other Communists and sympathizers who were living there.
Can’t remember the exact reasons given for his moving to America, but it was probably for his political activity. I think he was trying to evade arrest by the police.
When he lived in DC, he corresponded with Marx. One of the latter’s letters to him (Oct., 1853) was displayed.
In addition to artifacts, pictures, and text, there were interactive parts of the exhibit.
There were various audio stations where you could listen to collages of sounds taken from contemporary activities in buildings associated with Cluss’s youth in Heilbron,
(Germany). There also was an audio station for Eastern Market (another of his DC buildings).
Various desktop computers were also put to use. One station had two monitors or screens, side by side. One showed a map of Heilbron. You could click on it and start a journey along a street. As a spot moved on the map, the other screen showed a view of a camera moving through a tiny scale model of the town. The view was synchronized to the point on the map.
Another computer show stereoviews of old and new pictures of Cluss’s buildings and travels. These versions of photos used the pseudo-3d method of parallel offset red and green images and required you to wear one of the red/green plastic/paper goggles provided.
For more info., check the commemorative website: www.adolf-cluss.org
Seems all the fun stuff is happenning in the City of Angels... Have y'all checked out the UCLA controversy over the identification of leftist profs by a conservative website of a little known group (i.e., Bruin Alumni Association):
http://www.uclaprofs.com/profs/profsindex.html
The BAA has no affiliation with the school and is headed by a 24 or 25 year-old alum.
I started reading some of the profiles of the profs, and I have to admire the time and effort spent in writing them. They're not too shabby. A little wordy, but you can pick up some interesting background info. on the academicians.
Of course, I prefer to stay above the fray as an independent. Better to let the activists and the radicals on both sides of the aisle duke it out.
(Oh well, at least you could make the case that such a controversy would be quite unlikely at that bastion of spoiled brats, the University of Southern California.
Notice that I spelled out the name of that school rather than use its initials, USC. I've learned that, here on the East Coast, USC tends to mean the University of South Carolina. Don't want to mix up Trojans with Fighting Gamecocks.)
Last Sunday lots of raw sewage were flushed into my old stomping grounds, the South Bay of Southern California. Apparently, a pumping station failed in Manhattan Beach and the stinky mess spilled out around there (outta manhole covers, onto the beach, and into a few homes). It must've been a slow newsday for the incident to make the NPR newscast on Monday, which is how I first heard about it.
Well, 1.7 million gallons of backed-up sewage is nothing to sneeze at. Fortunately, only a fraction of that (about 100 thousand gallons) flowed into the ocean and polluted the southern part of Santa Monica Bay, from Manhattan Beach to the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
This reminds me of another famous effluent spill in the vicinity. If you follow the coastline along the PV peninsula, around the corner of Point Vicente, there's a 17 mile square area of ocean real estate, nearby, that contains the world's largest known deposit of DDT (about 100 tons).
For almost 20 years (late '50s to early '70s) effluent from a South Bay DDT plant flowed through the local sewer into the ocean just north of the LA/Long Beach harbor. 1700 tons of DDT, were the estimates. From other plants, tons of PCBs joined in the pollution.
(Makes the Chesapeake Bay's pollution seem like an mild headache.)
over the holidays I tried 2 different solid chocolate bars:
Trader Joe's Swiss Dark Chocolate
(from Trader Joe's)
and
Swiss Prestige Dark
(from Marukai 98cents store)
=- =- =- =-
My conclusion is that the former is better. Why?
TJSDC: smooth, uses vanilla extract
SPD: somewhat grainy in texture, uses vanillin flavor, has an almost savory or "artificial" taste
(BTW: these were bought in the LA area.)
It was a little hard to leave 70-degree weather, but it was time to return to the Baltimore area.
I flew back the morning after the Rose Bowl. The airport terminal was flooded with Longhorn fans, many with orangish-colored clothing.
On board my initial flight, I overheard the conversation between the 2 men in my row. 1 guy was a devoted Longhorns fan who was flying back home to Houston. He'd gone to UT-Austin, and had played on the school's lacrosse team.
He said that watching East Coast lacrosse after having played some in Texas was quite a contrast. He hadn't realized how graceful the game could be. In Texas it was a primitive affair; the players would just scratch at and hammer each other.
Hook 'em, Horns!
(I'm not, really, into the Longhorns, but I can appreciate them for beating 'SC.)