年夜饭

先声明，昨个儿没拍大餐的照片。十几二十人等着吃呢，我都手忙脚乱，赶紧满足大家的口腹之欲是正事儿。况且你看着我们吃的好的了，口水不停地流，我可负不了责。

我可要好好谢谢我的客人们，给我赏了这么大的光：95％的出席率，不是吹出来的，本大厨手艺名声在外。我还要好好谢谢我的客人们，在我最手忙脚乱的时候帮我完成了好几道菜，你们知道自己是谁，我就不点名了。

好，下面是我们的成功的年夜饭的不完全菜单：

卤牛肉
卤鸭胗
卤鸭掌
拌黄瓜海蜇皮
川味凉粉拌牛百叶
鸡丝凉面
烤鸡翅
翠花烤排骨－－－非常非常地受欢迎
春卷－－－保留节目，可惜不是我的
香芹炒鱿鱼
蒜苗炒鸡蛋
美式烤绿豆
红烧猪蹄－－－最后被我热糊了，郁闷

本来还要做麻婆豆腐，一个什么汤，还要试验水煮鱼的，大家都饿坏了，就赶紧吃了。

再加上水果，甜点之类。我经验不足，客人们也太客气，结果带来的水果甜点消耗还不过半，大大便宜了我这个东道主。我头一天还烤了个French Chocolate Cake，成功消耗了九盎司巧克力，而且很受欢迎。

好了，年夜饭总结到此。

过年

小时候最盼望过年了。过年有好吃的年夜饭，有压岁钱，还有新衣服穿。我盼望的这三件事都是妈妈的贡献。

每年还不到过阳历年的时候，妈妈就 买来布料，裁好，给我和弟弟缝好新装，然后叠得整整 齐齐， 在除夕那天晚上放在我们的床边，让我们好在大年初一一起床就穿上崭新的衣服。我可喜欢我的那些新衣服了，因为平常很少有新衣服穿的。过年穿上新衣服去各家 各户拜年也 总会因为衣服而受一些表扬。

妈妈总是提前好几天就开始准备年夜饭。她总是想尽办法买来最好的肉啊菜啊什么的，和爸爸一起做出 八九道菜来。 我最爱吃的是卤菜，卤猪肚什么的。那时候没有 冰箱，其它三季很少做这样的菜。妈妈做好后我和弟弟总是忍不住偷偷跑到碗橱里拿了吃。有的人家年夜饭吃得很早，从中午一直吃到晚上。我们家一般是四五点左 右，先放一串炮和一些小烟花，然后开始吃。我们一般要喝一点香槟或者葡萄酒或者石榴酒什么的。对，我很小就喝酒了。我们一家人吃过年夜饭以后还要到街上走 一走，虽然只是 小城的两条街，可也到处张灯结彩，红红绿绿的煞是好看。回到家我们一家人就打扑克。爸爸最会耍赖皮了，常被我们揪出来。我们打扑克打到12点钟，各家各户 就劈劈啪啪的放起鞭炮，就算守了岁了。再到后来打扑克就改成了看春节晚会了，只是这晚会一年办得不如一年。

妈妈给的压岁钱总是最新的票子：我最早的压岁钱是十张一毛的，每张票子都崭新崭新的，编号也是连一块儿的。钱是压在枕头下的，是留到大年初一才让我们找到的。我总是把钱再交还给妈妈，让她帮我存起来，留到以后买书用。

春节里也有我讨厌的事。走在街上被冷不防扔了一只鞭炮是我最最恐惧的事情了。我总是在想，这些小痞子们何时才能提高素质呢？于是非常欢迎政府的禁炮令。不过，过了这么多年，又开始怀念放烟花的自由，所以也很欢迎开禁令了。

在这个传统的节日里，忽然念起了旧，胡乱写下这些。

近期两部国产大片

这个周末一口气看了《如果 爱》和《无极》。前一阵子关于这两部片子的口水战很多，我就两部都看，以示公允。你可还真别说，我还真同意吴君如的说法：《无极》不好看。也不是说《如果 爱》有多好，比较而已，我更喜欢一些。

《如果 爱》作为第一部中国的歌舞片，唱的倒是不算多。有几首歌旋律简单，朗朗上口。三个主角里，当然是张学友唱的最有实力。可三个主角没一个好的，也许这反映了 人性的复杂。故事 的发展还有些 地方出乎意料，但是剧本就逃不出老套的三角恋。请一个韩国演员来演一个讲故事的旁观者的配角，我觉得实在没这个必要。

《如果 爱》好在还有娱乐的效用。 《无极》呢，就让我看不太下去了。起了一个顾弄玄虚的名字，讲一些莫名其妙的话。我就看不出“无极生太极，太极生两仪，两仪生四象，四象生八卦，八卦生六 十四卦，六十四卦生宇宙万象”和这片子有什么关系。这阳春白雪的东西搁我这下里巴人这儿就体会不出它的妙处。这片子起了个英文名叫《The Promise》（估计《无极》不太好翻译），好歹让我知道这是此片亦可理解为“承诺”（哪里有什么“无极生宇宙”的意思？）。其实呢就是一小女孩许了一 个自己都不太明白的承诺，长大后必须为此而受苦的故事。说白了，陈大导花了两亿人民币拍了一个女人是祸水的电影。演员的表演夸张造作，尤其不喜欢大将军， 看见个漂亮女人就变得象个色狼，丝毫没有英雄气概。不明白为什么要请日本和韩国的演员来演，中文都说不顺溜，难道就是为了海外市场多卖两个国家？女演员拍 出来都显得挺老挺丑。动画效果巨差。故事情节节奏太慢，两小时的时间，后来我都是边做SuDoKu边看。我真佩服了制片人，就凭这剧本恁是筹到了这么多 钱！陈导的水平让我担忧啊！

还是让我期待《千里走单骑》吧。我以前可能是错怪了张艺谋。

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, My Photos

Olivia (Marya Lowry) and Feste (Kenny Raskin)

Feste (Kenny Raskin) and Viola (Sarah Newhouse)

Last November I was asked by Jennie from Actors' Shakespeare Project to take photos for their production of Twelfth Night. I went one afternoon for about 30 minutes to work with three actors while they rehearsed in front of me. These were good actors. Even though they had not started rehearsing until late that day, they fit into their roles right away. They started from reading their lines from different prints of Twelfth Night, and then loosened up. I walked around taking pictures from far and close (using a prime lens), and found that shooting in RAW mode slowed down my camera a lot.

The company used one of the photos online for their ticket sales, and they printed three photos in their program with my name listed on the side. It made me feel so accomplished. I was also invited to see the play for free. Thursday night (eleventh day after Christmas!) I went with some friends for an evening of merry-making.

The performance was at Cambridge Multicultural Center, a small and intimate place. There were about 120 seats and it was a sold-out show. There were two musicians playing live music before and during the show. I really liked the duet between the piano and the cello.

The story of Twelfth Night is about a love triangle. A young lady, Viola, was shipwrecked and washed ashore to a foreign kingdom. In order to survive, she disguised herself as a boy named Cesario and joined Duke Orsino’s court. The Duke was in love with the Countess Lady Olivia, who refused all her suitors insisting that she was in mourning of her dead brother and would not marry for seven years. Viola/Cesario, who soon became the Duke’s favorite, was sent to the Countess by the Duke to deliver his love letter and to woo her. In stead, the Countess fell in love with the beautiful young Viola/Cesario, but the latter found herself in love with the Duke. Everybody was miserable.

Shakespeare was Shakespeare. The love triangle was resolved because Viola had a twin brother, Sebastian, who also survived the shipwreck, though neither of the twins knew the other one had survived. After a lot of mistaken identities and unrequited love, everybody settled down in the end: the Countess married Viola’s brother, and Viola revealed her true identity and married the Duke. It is a happy ending after all.

It is a funny comedy. But then you think about the story again and it feels kind of weird. Do you love someone just for one’s looks? If not, how could the Countess readily marry Viola’s twin brother? If you are straight, can you find someone of your own sex so attractive that if he/she were the other sex that you’d marry her/him? Is romantic love really so shallow?

By the way, my friend S, the newly appointed assistant professor of Renaissances at Wellesley College, really liked this production. S graduated from Harvard and she herself is an expert on Shakespeare. She speaks highly of Actors’ Shakespeare Project.

My Obsession with SuDoku

I upgraded my Mac to OS X Tiger after the New Year. It is a nicer operating system than the previous OS X. I really like the dashboard where I can have a lot of small programs open (such as weather forecast, a calculator, a calendar, etc.), while click them away in one second to go back to what I was doing. With the dashboard I discovered other widgets from Apple. I downloaded nucleic acid widget, entrez widget, and amino acid codon widget, to name a few. But the disaster began with the SuDoku widget.

SuDoku is a puzzle where you have a grid of 9x9, subdivided into nine 3x3 boxes. You need to fill in the blank spaces in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. It sounds simple, but it is actually quite hard, if you don’t know any tricks. And, worst of all, it is addictive! I have been playing SuDoku a lot in the past few days, and I am quite disappointed at seeing how slow I am solving this kind of puzzle. So then I play more, and more, and more. Unfortunately I am still quite slow. It is really frustrating.

There should always be a limit to everything. I have decided that I cannot play SuDoku like this anymore. I shall ban it, or at least limit it to one puzzle a day.

Don’t fall into it like I did.

Colorado in Black-And-White, Summer 2004

Time to post my own B&W prints. Pictures taken in August 2004 on Kodak 125PX, processed and printed on AGFA multigrade paper in January and February 2005.

Hairpin in Mountain Highway, Rocky Mountains National Park

Pike's Peak

Ansel Adams Exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) is one of my favorite photographers. His black-and-white photographs of National Parks, especially of Yosemite, and other subjects are so strikingly beautiful that makes them simply unforgettable. His photography book, The Print, was a great help while I was learning black-and-white printing. In that book, he shared with us his secrets of how to make a great print. I am forever thankful for that.

Ten days ago I went to the Museum of Fine Arts for the exhibition of his photographs from the Lane Collection. I have seen some of his prints at MFA before, and I have seen his portfolios in books. Still at this exhibition there were photos after photos that continued to surprise me. I was amazed at the quality of the prints (some of them are 70 to 80 years old). They still look like they were only processed yesterday, and they are extremely sharp and flawless. I had to get so close to some of the prints to see exactly how sharp he had made them. The prints seemed to have indefinite resolution. I have to say that reproductions in books or posters are not even close to the quality of his original prints. Looking at the originals truly gave me an idea of how good prints should look like.

Here are some of his iconic photographs:

Monolith, Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park

Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park

Moonrise, Hernandez, NM

Rose and Driftwood

Tetons and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, WY

I really like this one. It’s an old print, but how amazing that you could even feel the metallic texture of the cheese grater!

Still Life

He was a true master of photography.