Chel’s Club on San Francisco’s Sixth Street at Stevenson, was the City’s bottom rung punk venue.  When ‘The Mentors’ were banned from...

The new Asian martial arts action movie is not what you might expect, but that’s a good thing. Those other movies have...

In the 1960s there were a great bunch of movies that were big stories, and big deals with the public. They weren’t...

Shu Yi spoke about his youthful experiences with Qi Bai Shi at the National Art Museum of China. He gave lively reminiscences...

Club review: S:PIC Venue: S:PIC, 10 Calle de la Ribera, El Borne, Barcelona, Espana Performers: unknown Date: 19 Jan 2002 The Borne...

Olives are one of the central food products of Western culture.  Why not all around the world?   The Olive tree is possibly the oldest cultivated tree in the world, going back almost to the end of the last Ice Age, traced back at least 6,000 years in the Eastern Mediterranean region, spreading throughout that area around four thousand years ago. Hence, it was taken to Mexico and California, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and all manner of other locations.   The oil is used hot, for cooking and cold, for salad (vegetable dish) dressing. It has a very high smoke point, which lets us use it in frying without having it carbonize or smoke away.  It can be used for deep frying, though you very rarely see this, due to its high cost compared to most other oils. And of course, it can be used alone, or mixed with other fluids, as a dressing.  We commonly use olive oil and vinegar in the classic vinaigrette dressing.  Any of these uses will give us a heart-healthy result, as the HDLs in olive oil actually strip the bad cholesterol LDLs out of our arteries.   The olive branch is a symbol of purity, victory and peace, three...

La Forza del Destino, a ballet, portions by Giusuieppi Verdi, main story and choreography by Radu Poklitaru 15 Sept., ‘09 Thailand Cultural Center This ballet was written by Poklitaru...

A little while ago I tried to find an old friend.  Being away from our common home, it was not possible for...

The Battle of the Five Armies is as heroic and magnificent as any of the rest of the LOTR/Hobbit series has been....

Coffee is a passion for me, as it is for many people.  It helps me wake up in the morning, and keeps me from having to use toothpicks to keep my eyelids up in the afternoon!  Actually, my love of coffee came from two places, right at home. My Mom loved coffee, and trained me in good coffee making and appreciation from a tender age.  In addition to that we had the good luck to live next door to the marketing chief for one of the biggest coffee companies in San Francisco, who was very friendly towards just about every thing, but not about a bad cup of coffee! Our neighbor would check up on us from time to time to make sure we were using his good coffee.  It would have been hard not to, as it was just what we smelled directly, every time we got to the West end of the Bay Bridge and entered the City by car!  How that smell would delight us, and remind us how important it is to have a really good “cuppa joe”! As I went about my life, I realized how important a really good cup of coffee was to me.  I stored away memories about which places had the really good cup, and where the environment was better for enjoying it. When I got a smartphone in my hands, along with all the basic stuff, I made heavy use of the document processing capabilities, to write articles and papers.  It wasn’t...