Another lunch treat today at Union Square. Hundres of dog owners gathered there today to submit their pet as the next mascot of Old Navy store. Allthough you can submit a picture of your dog on line, this was a promotional event where people could physically bring their dogs to show them off and to see others. All kinds of dogs big and small, slim and fat, furry and smooth were present.
The cool thing about working next to Union Square is that on a nice sunny day like today you can often see street performers entertainign the crowd. Today during lunch I saw a guy attempting to juggle three very dangerous things: a hand granade, a machete, and... a roaring chain saw! Check out the video.
The Ukrainian block on 7th street was closed to traffic today due to the yearly Ukrainian festival. There was pleny of authentic Ukrainian food and crafts. The main event of the festival was a performance of Ukrainian folk dancing and other musical acts. The feature performers were the members of the Ukranian Folk Dance Ensemble Syzokryli. Besides them there were several Ukrainian pop artists including one that came specifically for the festival from Ukraine. The music was very nice up beat eurodance style. There was also an amazing violin player who was just incredible! You can hear him by watching the video below. Clayton has interpreted the music beautifully:
My friend Meg invited me to a performance at Tower Records at Lincoln Center. The concert was part of the series called "Saturday Jazz Brunch" which happens every Saturdayn afternoon at 1 PM featuring New York's finest Indie Jazz musicians. Today the concert featured Patrizia Scascitelli who is a renouned Jazz pianist in New York and in Italy. Patrizia has accompanied Meg in several of her own shows. This time Patrizia was playing together with 3 musicians - Jim Seeley on trumpet, Ada Rovatti on tenor saxophone, Bob Bowen on bass, and Carlos Cervantes on drums. All musicians showed a remarkable skill at playing their instruments and creativity in jazz improvisation. The music featured selected original compsitions from Patrizia's CD "Close Up" which she autographed for me.
After the festival we went along the Indian Restaurant row on 6th street and then turned the corner to the famous for its dangling lights restaurant Panna II
After dinner we went to see Julia perform at a Turkish restaurant/bar Maia. Julia was performing a very nice Gypsy dance routine with a wonderful costume. James and Clayton helped with the finish. Before and after the dancefloor was packed by people dancing to cool arabian/turkish music played by a DJ. I really liked that place.
The second VOB Cast Party took place on May 6th. The final version of the Viennese Opera Ball DVD has been finished and we gathered again to watch it and this time got to see plenty of candid footage of us during rehearsals. I hosted the first cast party back in March and my studio was jammed to the max with people. So this time Diane was nice enough to offer her splendid apartment for the second installment of the party and we had plenty of space. Thanks a lot Di!
After watching the DVD we spent the rest of the party doing karaoke. The stars of the night were the two West Point cadets. They were very funny and were great performers. They seemed to know many song lyrics by heart.
I use Skype on daily basis at work to make PC to PC calls to my co-workers around the world. But whenever we have those long conference calls using regular phone, I have to just hold the receiver next to my ear for 30 minutes which is very uncomfortable. I always wished that we were on Skype instead. Now we can call in with Skype and have our hands free!
Who would ever know that it would be possible to run both Mac OS and Windows on the same computer natively! Well now that recent Mac computers use Intel processors, it is possible.
My co-worker bought an Intel based Mac laptop and we attempted to install Windows on it. Apple provides a boot option to install Windows XP, but you need to have Windows XP Service Pack 2, which we did not have. We tried to install SP1, but that did not work. Tomorrow we'll try again once we get the SP2 installation CD.
My Brazilian co-worker brought some authentic Guarana soda to the office today. This soda was the one I fell in love with when I visited Brazil last year. I've also had it here in the US in a Brazilian restaurant near the old office, but that one was made in New Jersey.
On Monday David Blaine performed a stunt, but he is also a magician.
Magic fascinates me because I see something done right in front of my eyes and yet I have no idea how it is done. The tricks appear to be supernatural, but in reality magic is nothing more than a trick. Below are the clips from the ABC Special on Monday showing street magic tricks performed by David. Some of these tricks are so unbelievable that I think they were just staged in front of the camera. I believe them when I see them with my own eyes. I created a DVD of the show and watched frame by frame how he did some of these tricks and I could not see anything that would reveal the secret!
David must have signed special agreement with a phone company! I think this thing has been staged. As far as shattering the card, damn that's impressive. I don't see how that could be staged. Must be some very fancy cards in that deck!
The prisoner never told us the card he thought of apriori. This also could have been staged.
They could have put a special door for the show
I wonder how many takes it took to shoot this video until all bets were all winning.
Ok, I can see him biting off a piece of the martini glass, but he definately was not chewing the glass. He had something in his mouth beforehand which made crunch sound when he chewed and then either disolved or it was made of eatable substance.
Of course the teeth were always there. What he had in his hands did not even look like a tooth. He held two very thin objects. He must have put something black to cover up the teeth and make them look like they are missing. I don't think her tounge actually went through the holes contradictory to what the people were saying. Then he blew that black cover up away and the teeth reappeard.
Very masterful trick. I bet he had another set of laces which were already tied up. As he was flicking his foot that set of laces came down from underneath the cuffs of his pants.
No matter how unbelievable the magic tricks are, again, they are just tricks. A lot of the tricks requrie sliegh of hand and appropriate props. There is a website The Trickery where you can buy these props and see many demos of the tricks using those props. I downloaded every single one of them and will watch them on my Treo to see if I can have an idea on how the tricks are done. The total time of all clips is more than 4 hours!
I also bought my first item from them - Bottle Up Inside - a DVD explaining how to get a ring inside a glass bottle. I've seen a similar trick myself performed by a street magician. He was able to get a quater inside a glas beer bottle, and then take it out. I can't wait to find out how it's done!
Today is the day when David Balaine's 7-day stay in the water bubble came to an end. During the live TV broadcast "David Blaine: Drowned Alive" he attempted to break the world's record in holding breath underwater which is currently 8 minutes and 58 seconds. Here is the video of his attempt:
He did not quite make it. He only lasted for 7 minutes and 8 seconds, which is still impressive considering he was trying to unlock himself from the chains and hand cuffs attached to him and after spending 7 days underwater. He clearly was disappointed though. The poor guy cried at the end!
I have several questions though:
His head coach was talking to David while he was underwater, but how could David hear him? Did they have waterproof speakers in the sphere?
They kept saying that the chains were attached to 8 parts of his body. Which 8 parts are they? It looked like he only had his hands and feet cuffed.
Click here for the video of David's interview after he was released from the hospital where he had been brought after his stunt.
The video clips of David's magic tricks that were included in the show can be found here.
I visited Lincoln Center several times today to see how the human fish was doing. Since Monday David Blaine has been inside a glass sphere filled with water. Well, to be precise, according to one of the security guards, it is not pure water. It is a saline solution similar to what babies are submerged inside a pregnant woman.
There was a huge crowd of people at the Lincoln Center plaza. There was a separate long line of people to get admitted to the two ramps next to the sphere to take close-up photos of/with Blaine. He was waving to people in the crowed and gave hi-fives to the ones passing by the sphere. Several times he took off his air supply tube and seemed to hold his breath for quite a long time. I guess he was practicing for the grand finale. He communicated with people by writing stuff on some water-proof notepad. After spending 6 days under water, the skin on his hands started to peel off and the crew had to put some lotion on them.
At the end of the show, Blaine will attempt to break the worlds record of holding breath under water which currently is 8 minutes and 58 seconds and then try to escape chains and cuffs that will be put on him. However there is a theory that he will pull this off because he might be breathing pure oxygen through the mask he is wearing while he is under water. People have been able to hold their breath for as long as 15 minutes after breathing pure oxygen. In any case, I would not try this myself.
The cool thing about having a personal website is that other people with the same name are googling for themselves and find it. Today I received an IM from Sandra Pungin who lives in Spain.
Today I attended a private white-tie dinner-dance called "The Waltz Series". This event was founded more than 50 years ago in New York City by a group of friends who liked three things:
Dress up
Have a conversation over dinner
Viennese waltzing
The event now takes place 4 times a year starting in the Fall and ending in the Spring, which is the same time period as the Society Ball season in New York. Today's venue was the Manhattan Penthouse which amazingly is located just one block away from my new office. (Funny how my new office is mentioned in 3 most recent posts so far!) The evening started with cocktail hour in the foyer of the ballroom. Then everyone proceeded to dinner tables to the sounds of the live string orchestra. The dinner consisted of a seafood soup, followed by stake and vegetables for the main course and followed by dessert. In the middle of dinner the orchestra kept playing Viennese Waltzes and people were dancing half way through finishing their meals. The music consisted solely from Viennese Waltz with exception of one Tango and one Polka. At one point there was also a mixer dance where the women got into an inner circle and the men got into an outer circle and both proceeded holding hands going in opposite directions until the music stopped at which point people were supposed to waltz with whoever is in front of them. In under a minute everyone got into the circles again. This repeated 3 times and gave a chance for people to introduce themselves and have a quick chat during the brief waltz.
To attend this event you must be referred by a member of the group. I was referred by a Quadrille Ball alumni Hannah pictured here. I also met several other Quadrille alumni there. Several familiar faces from the Society Ball crowd were there too.
Photos
Videos
On Monday David Blaine performed a stunt, but he is also a magician.
Magic fascinates me because I see something done right in front of my eyes and yet I have no idea how it is done. The tricks appear to be supernatural, but in reality magic is nothing more than a trick. Below are the clips from the ABC Special on Monday showing street magic tricks performed by David. Some of these tricks are so unbelievable that I think they were just staged in front of the camera. I believe them when I see them with my own eyes. I created a DVD of the show and watched frame by frame how he did some of these tricks and I could not see anything that would reveal the secret!
