The glass artist Dale Chihuly had an extensive exhibit up at Pepperdine University while I was working in Malibu last year. Linda had to deal with the same artist at the Berkeley Art Museum. (Thank heavens I didn't have to assemble it. What a tedious and terrifying experience - "Oh no! I just dropped piece seven hundred and fifty A point two! Now the whole sculpture will fall over!") Starting this month Chihuly's beautifully wrought blown glass is coming to the New York Botanical Garden. I can't think of a better place to show off his organically inspired art. Lush garden setting + colorful textural glass = totally sweet.

Tim took me to New Haven to tour the crazy Gothic Yale architecture, drink at the Yale-memorabilia adorned bars, and get absolutely drenched by the horrible weather on the way home. We had an excellent time. In true New Haven style, we ate at Sally's Apizza (because in New Haven "pizza" doesn't use enough letters), site of an infamous pizza turf war. Pepe's is right next door and BOY, do pizza freaks ever get into it about who makes a better slice. And on a nighttime tour of the campus we wandered into the enormous Yale library to marvel at the card catalogue that takes up the entire first floor. Yup, everyone one of those shelves in that picture is an apothecarian rat's nest of old skool Dewey Decimal. Awesome.

I bought a bike to enjoy the good weather that finally graced New York and three days ago, I crashed it. I was riding down a hill coming off the Brooklyn Bridge and went over some bumps and hit the front brake and went flying head first into the asphalt. I've got some awesome road rash and my bike seat got all bent from doing a lovely arcing 180 over my head and landing, seat first, on the ground at like 20 miles an hour. Oh yeah, I'm totally rocking the "I just got beat up by machinery" look right now.

Many celebrations are in order: Mike P made it through law school, Bonnie made it through med school, my sister made it through college, and Trisha is officially engaged to be married to Spencer! It's almost like we're growing up or something. :) Congratulations all around!

I just got back from a play that Doug from Colorado is workshopping in Tribeca right now called Game Boys. It's an excellent script, full of wit and charm and frighteningly sick, dark humor about a pair of boys who accidentally tick off the Russian mafia and end up betting on the Iraq War bodycount. Totally twisted and just may be coming to a Los Angeles theater near you.

The BAM Rose Cinema is brimming with obscure festivals and I couldn't be happier that I stumbled across Japanese stop-motion animation by Kihachiro Kawamoto. They showed two days of shorts and I saw yesterday’s smorgasbord: An Anthropo-Cynical Farce, House of Flames, To Shoot Without Shooting, and Briar Rose or The Sleeping Beauty. With beautifully costumed puppets and charming little sets, he creates worlds in China, Japan, and whatever European utopia Fairytale Land comes from.

The one common factor? Every seemingly simple fable was extraordinarily dark and weird. In House of Flames, a woman trying to choose between two suitors solves the dilemma by killing herself. Unfortunately, the two men also kill themselves and she is damned to a House of Flames where an iron duck picks at her brain for five centuries. Even Sleeping Beauty got a twisted makeover. The viewers are told that the fairytale is false and no evil witch ever cast a spell. Instead, the Queen’s first love (who she thought was dead) shows up at little Rose’s christening. On her fifteenth birthday, the actually-not-doomed princess discovers her mother’s old beau in the forest. And proceeds to sleep with him. Fifteen. Mother’s ex-lover. WTF?!? (That love scene may have inspired Matt Stone and Trey Parker in Team America: World Police… oh, who am I kidding?) Yup, I will be running (not walking) to see his full-length The Book of the Dead this afternoon. Midnight Eye has a fascinating interview on Book of the Dead and a nice overview of Japanese experimental animation.