Instant Gratification

It’s already December! Time flies indeed. Although I am in the holiday mood, all my travel ambition evaporates due to the turbulent world and the H1N1 virus. Actually, I am quite content about not going anywhere for the holidays. The dollar is still so weak to Euro anyway. It has been super cold the last couple days! For the first time I need to turn the heat on in the apartment. It makes me want to stay in and not to go anywhere. It’s a dramatic change since last weekend. Only a few days ago, it was a beautiful warm weekend like any summer day! Yup! That was a picture I took on Saturday when I woke up. I spent almost all day in Marin Headlands the next day. Lying on the beach and feeling the soothing sun from above and the warm sand from below, I didn’t want to touch my computer or doing anything else. The best part about it is that I didn’t have to travel anywhere, just a short bus ride. After a day in the nature, I cooked something I always enjoy: scallion pancake (葱油饼). I have been thinking this question recently: how long will blog survive? My RSS feed gets less and less updates, and I have not been blogging more than once a week, compared to almost everyday in the past. I think it’s many people’s instinct to seek instant gratification. When Facebook or Twitter are around, people prefer to write one or two sentences, rather than a lengthy (or even a short) blog entry. It’s quick and dirty, and it reaches to everybody instantly. But writing a blog, as well as reading it, requires some attention spins longer than the period of an orgasm. Time has changed. Things have changed. Maybe my luck is changing too. Over the last three weeks, I have won three times in lottery tickets, in the amounts of $12, $1, and $3. Considering that I only buy $2 each week for two drawings, that’s over a 50% successful rate. Let the big win hit me soon. That hope is the only fun in playing lottery, until winning the jackpot. I have been trying to cook more when I am not going to film screenings in the evenings. Especially I have been cooking a lot rape (油菜). Some people ask me, why suddenly I am so crazy about rape. Well, there is no special reason really. Besides I like the texture, the color, the taste, and the nutrition value, the most compelling reason is that it’s in season! I like to cook vegetables that are in season. Not only they are fresh and prime, they are also very cheap. The latest rape is cooked in shiitake mushroom sauce. However, I am thinking to get some fish tomorrow to cook some sushi. I need my instant gratification. Time for bed. Everybody’s Fine One tradition during this holiday season is family reunion. Most people make extra effort to gather with their families, even sometimes it sets the stage for some drama. Many parents are delighted for their children to return home and they can enjoy their companies and relive relive the old memories. But, what if none of the children show up? Robert De Niro superbly plays such a heartbroken parent in director Kirk Jones‘s touching drama "Everybody’s Fine" (USA 2009 | 100 min.), a remake of Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore‘s 1990 film "Stanno tutti bene." Frank Robert De Niro losts his wife recently and gets lonely around the house by himself. He is looking forward to his four grown children’s visit for the holiday. Well, one call after another one, he is told that none of them can make it. He decides to take a trip and to give each of them a surprise visit. During the long journey, not only he surprises his children, he is surprised by his children’s secrets. Robert De Niro pitches the perfect note in almost every scene of the film. His character, Frank, is at the center of this sentimental, even poignant at times, story about reconnecting, reconciling, and rediscovering with family members. De Niro brilliantly expresses Frank’s frustration—Frank loves his children, but fails to realize the distance between himself and his children, both emotionally and physically. The film is entertaining and captivating, despite that the second half lacks both energy and humor. It reminds us to tell our own families: "Tell me the bad news as well as the good news from now on," even what we really want to hear is "Everybody’s fine." "Everybody’s Fine" opens on Friday, December 4, 2009 at Bay Area theaters.