March 2002

    Film: To Live and Die in L.A. | Portland Schools: Cutting Culture | Moshi Moshi Rally | Ethical Health Informatics | A Misunderstanding of Olympian Proportions | Workplace Diversity Training | Belief-O-Matic: Assess Your Faith | On The (Job) Hunt | Hawks Night Off | Dr. Eleanor Jorden: Language In Culture | Film: Bridget Jones's Diary | California Crematory: You Wanna Piece of Me? | Sayonara Moshi Moshi | Film: Silence of the Lambs | Film: Metropolis | Man, I Feel Like 10,000 | Film: Waga jinsei saiaku no toki (The Most Terrible Time In My Life) / Laurelwood Public House & Brewery | Oscar Night 2002 | TIGF (This Isn't Good Friday) | Spring Sanpo

  • Spring Sanpo
    The second consecutive day of fine weather was enough to convince Dorami-chan and me to get out and stretch our legs:

    • Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park
      This former downtown freeway is now a stretch of green alongside the Willamette River. We actually ran into people we knew -- a player on my hockey team, and a classmate from one of our past taiko courses. Like Madonna said in Body of Evidence, "Portland is a small city."
    • Portland Saturday Market
      It is called the Saturday Market, but it runs on Sunday as well. I don't have much use for most of the knickknacks sold here. The best part is the International Food Court, where you can sample foods from all over the world, for $5 or less per dish. We enjoyed some spicy chicken and rice while listening to the Latin-inspired guitar of Ronnie Robins from the live stage.
    • Japanese American Historical Plaza
      The cherry blossoms were in full bloom around this memorial to the Nikkei World War II internment experience. People were admiring the flowers, but few took the time to read the messages on the stones.
    • Paddy's Bar and Grill
      Yes, apple cobbler does go with a creamy Guinness (or coffee). Friendly service and an interesting ceiling-to-floor bar with every scotch imaginable, accessed with a sliding ladder.
      Paddy's Bar and Grill 65 S. W. Yamhill, Portland, Oregon, Tel: (503) 224-5626

    (31 Mar 2002)
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  • TIGF (This Isn't Good Friday)
    If I were still living in Canada, I would have had the day off from work today. Good Friday, the first day of Christian Easter celebrations, is a statutory holiday there. But in the United States, it is a regular workday -- ironic, in that Americans invoke God and religion in everyday life far more frequently than Canadians. Since I had to work, I couldn't join the 19,778 Portlanders who watched Ichiro and the Seattle Mariners play the San Diego Padres in an MLB spring training game at PGE Park this afternoon.

    The Ms lost 3-1, but it took two hours and forty-five minutes to find out, probably a lot of which was spent just waiting for something to happen. This year, those who prefer more action per unit of time can subscribe to Condensed Games -- online highlights of MLB games. But when the weather is fine and you have the time, a ballpark is a nice place to be, even for non-fans like me. Today was overcast and cool. Once summer comes and the weather improves, we may go up to Seattle to take in a game.

    (29 Mar 2002)
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  • Oscar Night 2002
    Dorami-chan loves to watch the Academy Awards! I don't! Last year I didn't own a television and on Oscar Night I had a hockey game, so I dropped her off at a restaurant bar that was showing the event before heading to the rink. This year she got to watch the 2002 Academy Awards from the comfort of home. I professed disinterest and retreated to my benkyou goya (study), but managed to poke my head out for the historic awarding of the Leading Actor and Actress trophies to Denzel Washington and Halle Berry, the first time both honours had gone to African Americans. The result was applauded, but it generated questions such as "What took so long?" and "What about other minorities?"

    • Nikkei View: Asians and Oscars
      Hollywood has finally accepted African Americans for their acting, not just the color of their skin. The same can hardly be said for Asian Americans.
    • Minorities weigh impact of historic Oscar night
      History was made at the 2002 Academy Awards, but minority groups say diversity must extend beyond Hollywood's glamour night -- and also include other groups such as AAsians, Hispanics and American Indians.
    • Bigger than Hollywood
      Sunday was a worthy start. But when Halle Berry said that a "door tonight has been opened," the language seemed frustratingly dated. In real life, the lines between black, brown and white have already melded quietly, without as much fanfare as the Oscars. Now it's time for Hollywood to grow.

    I long ago stopped relying on award shows like the Oscars, the Emmys and the Grammys as a gauge of worth. Hollywood's record on diversity is abysmal, a symptom of the closed world and limited perspectives of its decision makers.

    Rather than waiting for Hollywood to realize that interesting stories are happening outside their hermetically sealed boardrooms, Asian American filmmakers are moving ahead with the job of bringing such stories to the screen.

    The products of these efforts can be seen at what is now a veritable circuit of Asian film festivals across North America. I went to the inaugural Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival in 1997, but have not lived anywhere since then that has such a festival. Maybe I should be like the diehard out-of-town fans of the Toronto International Film Festival, and arrange a holiday around attending some of these:

    (25 Mar 2002)
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  • Waga jinsei saiaku no toki (The Most Terrible Time In My Life) (Japan 1993; Dir: HAYASHI Kaizo)
    A retro ode to the Japanese gangster films of the 1950s and 60s. At first, I thought NAGASE Masatoshi (Mystery Train) looked too young to play private investigator HAMA* Maiku. But as the story develops, it becomes apparent that all his character shares with American author Mickey Spillane's hardboiled veteran PI Mike Hammer is a soundalike name. Hama gets in way over his head and in between two rival Taiwanese and Hong Kong gangs beginning a turf war. I wonder how many in the almost entirely white audience at this matinee realized that not every character was Japanese, and that as much Chinese as Japanese was being spoken on screen? (The subtitles for both were in English, but Chinese was indicated by putting brackets "< >" around the line.)
    * Hama is the Japanese word for "beach"

    (24 Mar 2002)
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    Laurelwood Public House & Brewery
    The film was playing at the historic Hollywood Theatre in northeast Portland's Hollywood District, so we had a late lunch beforehand across the street at the Laurelwood Public House & Brewery. I had their house specialty Parmesan Garlic Fries (French fries tossed in malt vinegar, parmesan cheese, parsley & chopped garlic -- potent!) and The Shloopnhagen - a 1/3-pound hamburger (roasted red pepper, grilled eggplant, hummus and smoked mozzarella -- very good!). I also sampled some of their beers: Piston Pale Ale, Free Range Red, Boss India Pale Ale. All were drinkable, inoffensive but a little thin on flavour and not that memorable. The best was the Red. I will have to try their award-winning porter when we go back there, which is probable, given that it is a pleasant, smoke-free place with good service.

    Laurelwood Public House & Brewery, 1728 N.E. 40th Avenue, Portland, OR 97212, 503.282.0622

    (24 Mar 2002)
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  • Man, I Feel Like 10,000*
    Today Runker Room registered its 10,000th visitor since 12 May 1998! Thank you for your support and interest.
    * In Japanese, the word for 10,000 is man.

    (22 Mar 2002)
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  • Metropolis (Japan 2001; Dir: Rintaro a.k.a. HAYASHI Shigeyuki) ***
    An animated feature film based on the 1949 manga ("graphic novel" or comic book) by TEZUKA Osamu, which in turn was based on the classic 1927 science fiction film Metropolis by Fritz Lang.

    (21 Mar 2002)
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  • Sayonara Moshi Moshi
    We learned today that the board of Portland Public Schools has voted to pass a budget for 2002-2003 that eliminates, among many other cuts, Moshi Moshi, the Japanese language distance learning program for elementary school-age children that Dorami-chan volunteers for. There are some rumours that a private donor may come forward to fund the program, but for now it is "Sayonara Moshi Moshi".

    (21 Mar 2002)
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  • The Silence of the Lambs (USA 1991; Dir: Jonathan Demme) ***
    After seeing Manhunter a couple of months ago, Dorami-chan wanted to see the film based on the next novel by Thomas Harris -- but only during the daytime, and only when I was present! I last saw this film when it was originally released in 1991. At that time I was just finishing my pathology training, and the forensic pathology aspects of the plot interested me the most. With this viewing, I was struck more by the difficulty FBI agent Clarisse (Jodie Foster) encounters as a woman in a mostly male world.

    Manhunter, directed by Michael Mann, was a flop, while Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs was a huge box office success, winning numerous Academy Awards. The directors certainly differ in their visual and storytelling styles. Mann's modern, sanitary, all-white psychiatric prison is probably closer to reality than Demme's more gothic dungeon vision, but Demme's use of flashbacks allows us to get inside Clarisse's head better than we could that of Manhunter's Will Graham. Demme was a bit lucky, too -- he originally wanted Brian Cox to reprise his role as Dr. Hannibal ("The Cannibal") Lecter, and for Meg Ryan to play Clarisse, which would not have been nearly as effective as Anthony Hopkins and Foster are.

    The serial kidnappings in The Silence of the Lambs resonate in the local news story of two missing Oregon City girls. Is another Buffalo Bill at work?

    (20 Mar 2002)
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  • California Crematory: You Wanna Piece of Me?
    The Los Angeles Times today reports a story that rivals last month's Georgia crematory revelation. Officials have discovered that between March 2000 to February 2001 a crematory in Lake Elsinore CA dismembered at least 81 bodies that were to be cremated, and sold off the parts to medical schools across the United States. Unlike the Georgia case, where the cremation urns contained potting soil or concrete dust, the grieving families received ashes of their deceased relatives, but not of the whole body. Now they are being asked to identify the recovered body parts -- the most gruesome case is a severed head. This could never have happened in Japan, where the funeral custom is for the coffin to be open until the lid is nailed shut in the presence of the surviving family members, who would notice if something were missing.

    (18 Mar 2002)
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  • Bridget Jones's Diary (France/UK 2001; Dir: Sharon Maguire) ***
    A charming blend of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole.

    (16 Mar 2002)
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  • Dr. Eleanor Jorden: Language In Culture
    Tonight I attended a talk "When a Foreign Language is Truly Foreign: A Look At Japanese" by Dr. Eleanor Jorden, a reknowned Japanese linguist from Cornell University and author of Japanese, The Spoken Language, a textbook used in many university-level Japanese language courses. At 80+ years of age, she gets around in a motorized cart these days, but her voice is still strong, her mind nimble, and her wit sharp.

    Dr. Jorden's central thesis is that a person learning a second language still views the world through the cultural filter of his/her native language, and that part of language instruction should be to eliminate or minimize that filter, or at least instill awareness that such a filter exists. This is the difference between performing culturally appropriate Japanese versus, as she put it, "speaking English in Japanese." She warned against the simplicity of tables that show apparent equivalence between words from different languages -- two terms can have a conceptual overlap, but the meanings are never completely the same. Sometimes even if the literal meaning is the same, the practical meaning is different. Culture is inextricably linked to language, both spoken and unspoken, so she recommends that language teaching be done by a team of instructors, one from the target language to provide the cultural context, and one from the native language who can put things into perspective for the learners. Videos and CD-ROMs are also effective for demonstrating the target culture.

    This event was sponsored by Portland State University's Center For Japanese Studies, the Japan-America Society of Oregon and the Japanese Consulate in Portland. The Multicultural Room at PSU was packed with about 150 people from all three organizations, who wolfed down all the sushi and refreshments at the reception that followed the talk.

    (14 Mar 2002)
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  • Hawks Night Off
    Every year I try to take in at least one of the games of Portland's Tier 1 junior hockey team, the Winter Hawks. They advertise themselves as "The Hardest Working Team In Portland", but tonight the label wasn't earned, as they were outhustled and outskilled 3-1 by the visiting Cougars from Prince George BC. Perhaps they were resting on the laurels of their 9-2 victory in their previous game against the Tri-City Americans. The Rose Garden, home court of the NBA Trail Blazers and an NHL-ready arena, looked almost empty, even though 5,446 fans were in attendance (about as many as are showing up for Anaheim Mighty Duck home dates these days). The crowd enjoyed the fact that there were more fights than goals -- the players seemed to drop their gloves at the slightest provocation. Perhaps it is unavoidable when you put a bunch of 18- to 20-year-old guys together, but I didn't see the need for it. After the Cougars went up by three, some Hawk fans were yelling at referee Rob Matsuoka, but he gave the home side ample opportunity to get back into the game by calling penalty after penalty on Prince George. The jeers were personal -- the regulars were calling him by his first name -- but nothing racial, thankfully.

    (13 Mar 2002)
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  • On The (Job) Hunt
    My favourite television commercial from the past Olympics was the one for the online job board Monster.com, which goes something like: "Take away the crowds, the judges, the flags, the medals, and what's left? A really fit guy ... who needs a job." With the summer now on the horizon, I am ramping up my own search for work, although I don't think I will find myself competing against many former Olympians in the field of medical informatics.

    (12 Mar 2002)
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  • Belief-O-Matic: Assess Your Faith
    I followed a career website link to Beliefnet and found some interesting online personal assessment tools there:

    • Belief-O-Matic asks 20 questions about one's concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and determines what religion (if any) one practices...or ought to consider practicing.
      I am ideal for Secular Humanism (100% match), and defiinitely not one for Eastern Orthodox, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, or Roman Catholicism (each a 14% match).
    • What is your spiritual path?
      With a score of 138 on a scale of 10 to 200, I am a Serene Sightseer, one who likes to check out a lot of different faiths, isn't scared to ask questions, and is most likely to enjoy religions and spiritualities that stress individual practice.
    • What is your spiritual type?
      A score of 22 on a scale of 0 to 100 puts me off the low end of the spritual scale. My closest category is Hardcore Skeptic (25 - 29). Quite accurate!
    • How cynical are you?
      A score of 14 on a scale of 0 to 30 puts me in the Somewhat Cynical (11 - 20) category. "Your cynicism level is probably high enough to be of some concern." Only somewhat cynical? I must be mellowing as I get older ...

    (10 Mar 2002)
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  • Workplace Diversity Training
    One of the reasons why Portland Public Schools initiated the Moshi Moshi program six years ago was the new (at the time) state legislation mandating that every Oregon high school graduate be proficient in a second language. Apart from providing students with skills that may translate into jobs, foreign language instruction is a way to introduce them to other cultures. This is particularly important in Oregon, which is not the most diverse of places. Without this exposure, kids may grow into adults who need diversity training.

    I recently got a request to release one of my Obon images for use in a workplace diversity traning program offered by The Diversity Channel, an organization geared toward promoting cultural diversity in the workplace. This I gladly did -- I have been fortunate to have never worked in a place with diversity issues, but I can imagine how unpleasant it might be. According to a December 2001 report by The Gallup Organization, over a fourth of all Americans say they have been discriminated against or harassed in the workplace based on race, culture or ethnicity. A significant percentage of consumers have also boycotted companies or products due to race-based or cultural discrimination.

    I don't know how much The Diversity Channel charges for its diversity training, but a bit of preventive childhood education such as Moshi Moshi could eventually help spare companies such costs.

    • Moshi Moshi
      Portland Public Schools' Japanese language distance learning program costs the district $24 per student per year -- an absolute bargain. By eliminating it, what message is the district trying to send? The Asian Reporter's Taro O'Sullivan asks.

    (09 Mar 2002)
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  • A Misunderstanding of Olympian Proportions
    I wasn't reading the The Seattle Times website during the recent Winter Olympics, so I completely missed out on a controversy that raged over that newspaper's coverage of the women's figure skating competition. After Sarah Hughes' unexpected vault from fourth place to a gold medal finish, it ran the primary headline "Hughes as good as gold," with a secondary headline that said, "American outshines Kwan, Slutskaya in skating surprise." Readers, to their credit, were quick to remind the Times that Michelle Kwan, born in Torrance CA, is just as American as her fellow U.S. citizen Sarah Hughes. The Times called it a "misunderstanding" and, to their credit, apologized not once but twice.

    (08 Mar 2002)
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  • Ethical Health Informatics
    Every quarter or so, the OHSU Division of Medical Informatics invites a visiting speaker to Portland to speak at a dinner meeting to the faculty, students, and people from local health informatics companies. For us students, it is a chance to hear more about certain topics and mingle with potential employers.

    Tonight, we enjoyed an entertaining talk "Virtual Medicine: Widgets, Standards and Secrets" by Kenneth Goodman, an ethicist from the University of Miami Ethics Program who specializes in health informatics ethics. Talk about ethics in informatics usually focuses on the privacy rights of patients WRT their health data, but he put forward the interesting idea that if health information systems, electronic medical records, and physician order entry interfaces improve the quality of healthcare, it would be unethical NOT to use them. He also touched on how the events of 11 September 2001 have crystallized the previously nebulous need for a technologically improved public health reporting system to detect bioterrorist action.

    (07 Mar 2002)
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  • Moshi Moshi Rally
    This evening we attended the rally to support the Moshi Moshi Project, the Japanese language distance learning program for elementary school-age children that Dorami-chan volunteers for. Portland Public Schools faces a $40 million deficit in 2002-2003, and Moshi Moshi is slated for elimination in a proposed budget that is currently under consideration. About thirty adults attended, including Taro O'Sullivan, one of the columnists for The Asian Reporter, a Portland Asian community newspaper.

    Things started off with some children and their sensei singing a couple of the Moshi Moshi songs, including my favourite, Yasai Rokku (Vegetable Rock). The kids' squeals of delight were evidence enough that the program has a positive effect! Then Moshi Moshi program director Mary Bastiani told us about the value of beginning second language learning at an early age and how Moshi Moshi, because it is a distance learning program, is cost-effective language instruction. To provide all the children with the same teaching using in-person instructors would be much more expensive.

    Parents asked some pointed questions -- "How did we get here?" Oregon doesn't have a sustainable budget, and no funding guarantees are in place for education. As goes the state General Fund, so goes the school budget. With the job losses in this recession, income tax revenue is down, so there is less public money to go around. "Has Portland Public Schools exhausted all other alternatives?" PPS has some underused property and surplus land that could be sold, rented or otherwise used creatively. There were some interesting suggestions -- a "Dine Out For Moshi Moshi" night, whereby supporters would eat at participating restaurants and part of the proceeds would go to the program (Yes, we would certainly be up for that!).

    But even as Ms. Bastiani encouraged us to voice our support for Moshi Moshi, she seemed to understand that the program's days as a publicly funded entity are numbered. She spoke of exploring ways to make Moshi Moshi self-sufficient though development grants, sales of T-shirts and videos, and distribution beyond Oregon's borders.

    If these measures prove ineffective and Moshi Moshi ends, the program will leave an admirable legacy. The infrastructure necessary for distance learning -- production facilities, wires, and classroom television monitors -- will remain, and the Spanish language sister program Hola Hola -- which was started after Moshi Moshi proved distance learning could work, and is now a many times larger (7,000 students vs. 1,000) -- will continue.

    (06 Mar 2002)
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  • Portland Schools: Cutting Culture
    Word came today that under a proposed budget for 2002-2003, Portland Public Schools plans to eliminate the Moshi Moshi Project, the Japanese language instruction program for elementary school-age children that Dorami-chan volunteers for. Here is a flyer the Moshi Moshi Team is circulating:

    ATTENTION: Parents, teachers friends, and all those who support the Moshi Moshi project. WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT. The proposed budget cuts to the Portland School district for the 2002-2003 school year will ELIMINATE the Moshi Moshi program.

    Please join us this week for an informational meeting concerning this issue. Parents, teachers, friends, and those who believe in the value of learning a foreign language are encouraged to attend and show their support:

    Sabin Elementary School Auditorium
    4013 NE 18th
    Portland, OR
    Wednesday, March 6th, 2002, 6:30 p.m.

    The Moshi Moshi program will also be making presentations at upcoming school board budget hearings, and encourages parents of children who have learned from this program to speak to the board about the merits of the Moshi Moshi program:

    BESC
    501 N. Dixon
    Portland, OR
    Monday, March 11th, 6:30 p.m.
    Madison High School
    2735 NE 82nd
    Portland OR
    Wednesday, March 13th, 6:30 p.m.

    Supporters wishing to speak at one of these meetings are asked to call the Moshi Moshi program at 503-916-5191.

    Supporters who cannot attend any of these meetings can show their support by communicating with the school board chair and/or the interim superintendent by letter, e-mail or telephone before March 13th:

    Debbie Menashe
    Chair of PPS Board
    6845 SE 28th
    Portland, OR 97202
    Tel: 503-771-2944
    Fax: 503-771-4425
    E-mail: dgmenashe@aol.com
    Jim Scherzinger
    Interim Superintendent
    501 N. Dixon
    Portland, OR, 97208-3107
    Tel: 503-916-3200
    Fax: 503-916-3110
    E-mail: jscherzinger@pps.k12.or.us

    Thank you,

    The Moshi Moshi Team
    Portland Public Schools
    5210 N. Kerby Avenue
    Portland, OR, USA 97217
    Tel: 503-916-5191
    Fax: 503-916-2699

    The recession has hit the Pacific Northwest hard, and because the Oregon state government is reluctant to raise taxes, all public services are affected by the income tax revenue shortfall, not just schools. It will be unfortunate if Moshi Moshi falls victim to the cuts, but I think it has been a bonus that it has even existed for six years, given the limited uses for Japanese domestically and abroad, especially with the moribund state of Japan's economy over the past decade (and future?). If funding for an Asian language program is restored once the local economy rebounds, a Chinese program (Wei Wei?) might have more applications and be a more responsible use of public money. The six official languages of the United Nations are English, Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese and Arabic.

    • The unkindest cuts of all
      Even as Portland Public Schools cuts $40 million, an extra $11 million cut may be coming
    • Schools Consider Cutting Days
      Oregon students attend class less than students in any other state -- and the school year may soon be even shorter, under a plan to save money being considered by Portland-area schools
    • Oregon Lawmakers Balance Budget, Adjourn for Now
      Republican plan borrows from trust funds and other reserves. Governor Kitzhaber: "Enron-like financing scheme ... pushes the state of Oregon onto a very dangerous financial ledge."
    • Seattle Area Layoff Tracker
    • Japan: Rising No Longer
      A dying stock market, a crippled financial sector, bankrupt corporations, a faltering Prime Minister, and nothing but darkness at the end of the tunnel -- across once-proud Japan, ordinary citizens are coming to grips with life at the bottom. Shadows have been gathering over Japan for more than a decade. Only now is the country facing up to the devastating truth: the future is probably not going to be any brighter.
    • NPR Morning Edition: China Eclipses Japan
      After years of enjoying its status as the economic leader of Asia, Japan is now facing serious competition from China. NPR's Eric Weiner reports on the factors that have contributed to this development and the challenges facing Japanese employees, accustomed to lifelong job security.
      (RealAudio 7:11)
    • Endangered Languages
      Some linguists predict that by the end of this century half of the languages now spoken in the world will be extinct. In this hour, we'll look at the world's endangered and dying languages. How is a culture shaped by its language? Does it really matter if we all speak the same language one day?
      (RealAudio 1 hour)

    (04 Mar 2002)
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  • To Live and Die in L.A. (USA 1985; Dir: William Friedkin) **1/21/2
    We continued our video retrospective of the work of William Petersen, currently star of Dorami-chan's favourite television show, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. (Last month we rented his 1986 film Manhunter.) He was a lot thinner back then. Soundtrack by Wang Chung!

    (02 Mar 2002)
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