Meet KU's new chancellor, Bernadette Gray-Little.

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The most worthless article ever?

Parents, who grew up in a generation more likely to use the handshake, the low-five or the high-five, are often baffled by the close physical contact.

I don't know how to process the point of this article in light of this NYT article from January.

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Nation's Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan: 'Let's Move In Together'

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My 10th production as a follow spot operator for the Gallery Players has come to a close to mixed reviews (the good and the bad and the Brooklyn).

The big news, though, is that Yank! has been picked up by the York Theatre for its 2009-10 season. Even though I won't have anything to do with this production, it'll be very cool going to the York to see it with the knowledge that I was involved in its very first full production.

Now I'm feeling all sentimental. Here's a list of all the shows that I've worked on at the Gallery Players:

Side Show

Once on this Island

Urinetown

Victor/Victoria

Yank!

The Wild Party

Man of La Mancha

Like You Like It

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Tommy

(Here's a nice little aside: after one of the Saturday performances of Tommy, we celebrated the 50th birthday of one of the Gallery Players' board members. There was plenty of food and fun, but his very last request was that Jan, who played Cervantes and was also in the cast of Tommy, sing the "The Impossible Dream." Jan started out by himself, but by the second verse everybody in the theater was singing along with him. It was one of those very nice moments in life.)

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A Memorial Day tradition is the men's NCAA Division I Lacrosse Championship game. Yesterday, SU overcame a three goal deficit in under four minutes to beat Cornell in overtime.

Tenacious pressure on the ball led to two quick SU goals, but, with 20 seconds to go, SU was still down one goal and Cornell had the ball. In an amazing sequence involving a Cornell turnover, two amazing backward over the shoulder passes and a Cornell deflection, SU managed to score the tying goal with just four seconds left. I've never seen anything like it.

In March, the New Yorker had an article arguing that Lacrosse is the best sport ever.

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Everybody in my business has a layoff plan, and I'm no exception. I know a number of people who have lost their jobs, and still more who have seen their hours and pay cut. It's inevitable -- no matter how busy I am, if my business gets worse somebody with a clipboard and a mind for making targets is going to pay my cubicle a visit.

One possibility is a move to Kansas. It's cheap. We have relatives with basements. We have some savings. I could go back to school and go for an MBA. Or maybe law school? Is my brain still adept enough for all that arcana? And does the world really need another lawyer?

Another possibility is China. The economy is still growing. We're still fascinated by the place. And if China needs anything, it's 1) food safety standards and 2) English teachers.

I'm wondering about a third route after reading this NY Times essay about physical labor. Economically, the premise is sound: The best jobs in the New New Economy are the ones people in other countries can't do. Even local reporters can be replaced. The product is crap, but who cares? The guy who fixes your car can't be replaced. Neither can the people who fly your airline, or build your house, or cook your meals. Suddenly, the phrase "service economy" takes on a whole new layer of meaning.

I realize my thinking has been too limited. From the earliest days in school I've been trained to be a knowledge worker. Nobody really cared whether I knew how to rake blueberries (I do) or operate a circular saw (I don't). Need to me to restore your house? Sorry, I was too chicken as a homeowner to even peek under my house's aluminum siding. Need someone to write a five-paragraph essay? Apply the quadratic formula? Name the capital of Pakistan? I'm your man -- as are all those millions of people in other parts of the world ready to work for far less.

So clearly, I should add a third backup plan -- something that involves my hands. It can't require too much body strength, as I'm a wimp. I'd rather not work in the sun. Also, heights = bad, which rules out pilot school and hoisting flags atop skyscrapers. At the same time, it should require a substantial amount of training so that barriers of entry remain comfortably high.

What about you folks? What's your hands-on work? Motorcycle mechanic? Hot-air balloonist? Dolphin-wrangler? Longsnapper? Let's get an honest day's work out of those hands, comrade.

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Yesterday was a gorgeous spring day in New York. High 70s, sunny...so after work I took a little ride through the park and down the west side bike path. By the time I got back to Brooklyn, I was pretty parched so I headed up to Commonwealth (which I've learned is named for the Commonwealth of Kentucky) for a beer and chained my bicycle to a signpost.

When I came out, somebody had cable-locked (!) his or her bicycle to the same sign post as well as to my bicycle. Rather miffed, I went back inside and the bartender loudly informed the bar of what had happened. Nodoby came forward. Then I attempted to locate an owner on the patio. A couple people asked me specifically where the bikes were chained, but their bicycles were chained to parking meters.

Having made an attempt in good faith to find the owner, I simply decided the lock was coming off. Here are the two questions that passers-by ask when you're cutting through a bike lock with a three foot pair of bolt cutters, and it was always in this order:

• What are you doing?

• Where did you get the bolt cutters?

This wasn't the first time I've had use bolt cutters to free my bicycle from outside a bar.

Update: I was really hoping the bicycle wouldn't be stolen only to aggravate him or her. I saw it chained up on 5th Avenue yesterday with a different cablelock.

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Will the New York Norlosers be around June 6-9?

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It was a little rainy this evening. We got 2.25 inches over three hours, and my neck of the woods was pretty wet. That's me in the blue raincoat checking out the aptly-named Brook Street.

I got to ride home from work on my bike in the early stages of the storm which was only fun because I got to the house before the hail did.

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Slate has a photo essay about former bank buildings being repurposed for other uses. I clicked on it avidly, hoping to see some of buildings that I'm familiar with. Alas, there was no mention of Park Slope's Body Reserve, the Brooklyn Trader Joe's, or the Balducci's/Spa double whammy at 14th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan.

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A while ago, I saw a bus while riding into work and had to do a doubletake. I was like, "whoa...new buses!" I'd seen the cool silver Mercedes bus last year, but seeing the new ones in service was a surprise. A couple of notes about them...first, they're hybrid-electric buses, and second, they have bell cords.

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Lincoln Center turns 50 this year and there's a lot going on. I attended the commemorative ceremony this morning and it was pretty cool.

My imrpessions: it was my first time in the redesigned Alice Tully Hall. For an 1,100 seat auditorium, it's surprisingly intimate an warm. It's been a long time since I've seen Yitzhak Perlman and my mental image of him is kind of frozen in time. He looks really good.

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We opened The Who's Tommy last Saturday. The guys from Retrovision Media showed up and interviewed audience members and the cast (click on photo at Retrovision's site to play). If you watch the video to the end, you'll see the fireworks display at the Statue of Liberty happening over the shoulders of Brett and Lee.

Retrovision Media dedicates itself to covering black box theater across New York City. Another show they've covered at Gallery was The Wild Party.

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The rebranding of "The Rock" came at a horrible cost with 12 publicists dead and 43 injured.

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Plantnerd has been to the Y Bridge in Zanesville, OH, but, since she's still with us, apparently not the Y Bridge in Akron, OH, aka "The Suicide Bridge."

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Jack Kemp died on Saturday and Newsweek now has an essay titled, "Loyal Maverick: Republicans need more like the late Jack Kemp". I always find effusive obituaries of Republicans like this rather hilarious.

I always read the subtext as, "we really need more Republicans like this. Dead ones."

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Or so says the local paper. We went to the beach instead:

Business was better than ever for Cheung Chau's bun sellers yesterday as 60,000 people crammed the streets to see the annual bun festival parade.

Businesses put the bumper attendance down to the island's big day coinciding with a public holiday.

Early today Ho Sin-fai, the youngest of 12 finalists, beat the odds to win the bun scrambling competition, which is the highlight of the festival. Ho, 20, won with a score of 1,038, having snatched the most and the highest-scoring buns from a 14-metre tower set up outside the island's Pak Tai temple. The first runner-up was Choi Kwok-tung, on 822 points, and the second runner-up was Heung Yiu, with 726 points.

Last year's winner, Lai Chi-wai, and three-time champion Jason Kwok Ka-ming were well beaten.

Although the festival has been held for more than 200 years, the bun-snatching race was suspended in 1978 after a bun tower collapsed, injuring 100 people. It resumed in 2005 using steel-reinforced towers.

Earlier, the highlight of the festival parade was, for many in the crowd, a float featuring a "victim" of the Lehman Brothers minibonds fiasco and a girl in a shirt bearing the logo of crippled insurance giant American International Group - representing the global financial crisis.

But the pair were not the first choice of designer Wong Wai-kwan, whose association - one of 23 that contributed floats - always sets out to send up the year's hot political issue.

They had intended to dress up two children to represent financial services minister Chan Ka-keung and Joseph Yam Chi-kwong, head of the Monetary Authority.

"They are key people who caused the Lehman minibonds saga. However, we could not find two boys to float, so we had to change," said Law Kwok-fan, of the Cheung Chau Chung Hing Street Kaifong Association, whose son played the Lehman Brothers victim. Children perched on concealed poles so that they would appear to float through the streets were the stars of the parade.

The festival honours Pak Tai, the Taoist god of the sea. He is reputed to have repaid islanders for building a temple dedicated to him by driving away pirates.

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Riding into work today I met Stone Tone, who was featured on the front page of the NYT's Sunday city section last month. His photograph for this article took up the entire section above the fold. It was very striking.

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