oscar doc predictions

It's been three or four years since I started getting obsessive about seeing Oscar-nominated documentaries prior to the big red carpet event. But let's face it: Most Americans don't do docs. It's a damn shame, if you ask me. Documentaries are like college classes, without the tuition and without the prerequisites. True, you have to be prepared to get angry or upset, but docs teach you what the world is really like, without the sugarcoating of shows you might see on cable networks, even the ones that purport to offer "in depth" coverage of real-world events. And before you complain that documentaries do nothing but make people feel helpless, I'd counter that the best docs often reveal how one person, or a small group, can make a big difference, even in the face of powerful, monstrous forces.

Fortunately, it's been getting easier to find the Oscar docs in theaters here in New York over the past few years. The Paley Center in midtown Manhattan now shows all nominated docs, both feature-length and short, every year on the weekend of the Academy Award ceremony, and at least this year, the IFC Center screened all short subject nominees each day for more than a week. But you'd expect docs to show in New York and LA; it's time to get more of them out to places like Wichita and Montgomery and Albuquerque so everyone can watch and learn!

This year's crop of Oscar-nominated docs features a few recurring themes: big business's devastating impact on the environment; the plight of American soldiers during and after war combat; and funky-ass art. But there are some powerful and moving wild card topics, too. So on the eve of the Oscars, here are my picks for who should win and who will win in both of the documentary categories! You can find synopses and trailers for all 10 nominated docs on this page; some are also available for purchase from iTunes. ∞

Documentary Short Subject

Will Win: Strangers No More The most upbeat and heartwarming of the five nominees in this category, Strangers No More tells the story of a unique school in Tel Aviv, Israel in which refugee children from around the world come together to form the ultimate melting pot. There are really no losers in this year's batch of doc shorts, but considering the Academy's choice in the past two years of the similarly hopeful Smile Pinki and Music By Prudence, this seems like a pretty good bet to take home the statuette.

Should Win: The Warriors of Quigang Whether we like it or not, China is going to have to lead the environmental movement of tomorrow. This doc gracefully captures how one small city in Anhui Province is attempting to battle both an unruly local polluter an unrepresentative and unresponsive government. Here's one great example of a film that not only explains where the big problems lie but also makes heroes out of ordinary citizens trying to better the ugly hands they've been dealt.

Documentary Feature

Will Win: Gasland I had never heard of hydraulic fracturing, or "hydrofracking," before I saw this film, and what I learned scared the bejesus out of me. There's been quite a bit of press coverage about this doc since the nominees were announced, mostly due to the unsurprising loud reaction from the natural gas lobby over the film's depiction of their use of what can only be described as a poorly regulated and highly toxic method of extracting gas from the ground. While some have criticized certain methods of director Josh Fox, I think that in seeing this film, Academy voters will have come away with a pretty powerful overall message. What's more, the time seems ripe for a major environmental movie to take home the big doc prize.

Should Win: Inside Job Okay, boys and girls, here's the one movie that everyone in the country needs to see, and pronto. Director Charles Ferguson does an epic job of weaving one-on-one interviews together with easy-to-follow narration and infographics to explain how the recent financial crisis of the late '00s came about. At the end of the day, the lesson is obvious: Our economic policies have been set by the very cronies who masterminded what one interviewee describes as the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. What's more, the film makes it crystal clear that our government is deeply embedded in the pockets of a few powerful corporations, who literally gamble away our security in order to make billions for themselves—with no reprecussions whatsoever when everything collapses. I happened to catch this film in a theater, and the rage of the audience was palpable; people shaking their heads over and over, guffawing and sighing out of frustration at just how blatant the deception was and continues to be. Aside from the surprising production value, which I thought was super considering how dry a subject finance might seem to the average American, this doc needs to win for the sheer power it has in making people see why increased financial regulations—not to mention campaign finance reform—are absolutely essential to the future of our country, and indeed the entire global economy.

making her pitch

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=50a79c78-3053-4493-bf8b-7291f43b62fe&amp;from=IV2_en-us_foxsports_articles" target="_new" title="Ladies first">Video: Ladies first</a>
The last throes of February are upon us, which can only mean one thing: Major League Baseball's spring training is officially in full swing. It's a time when fans of our national pastime can get up close and personal with the sport's biggest stars, hottest prospects, and the support staff who whip them into shape. It's a time when anything is possible; there are no winners or losers, only players and coaches with an eye toward Opening Day. But yesterday, at a training facility in Goodyear, Arizona, one individual shone above all the rest when she became the first woman to throw batting practice to an MLB team.

For most of her adult life, Justine Siegal has been an outspoken supporter of girls and women who want to be involved in the world of baseball. She is the founder of Baseball For All, which seeks to empower girls to play hardball. In case you're unaware, some of the earliest baseball players were women, but by the middle of the 20th century, the sport was mostly considered off-limits for girls. In 1973, a judge opened the way for girls to play Little League ball, but Little League organizers decided that while it could no longer deny them from participating, it would encourage them to play softball, a very different sport. Today, relatively few girls get into baseball, primarily because they think they can't. Justine Siegal is trying to change that.

Siegal grew up playing baseball in Cleveland, Ohio, and dreaming of one day donning the uniform of her hometown Indians. At 13, her coach told her he didn't think girls should play baseball and suggested she quit. He clearly didn't know who he was dealing with! Siegal ignored him and continued playing for another two decades. In the late 1990s, she started Baseball For All as a way to encourage others like her who wanted to enjoy the experience of participating in our national pastime. She eventually became a coach for the men's team at Springfield College in Massachusetts. And in 2008, filmmaker Max Tash released a documentary film about her attempts to bring an all-girls' team to the Cooperstown Dreams Park Tournament, a prestigious tournament for youngsters near the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A year later, Siegal became the first woman to coach in the pros when she spent part of her summer with the Brockton Rox (pictured) of the Can-Am League. Since then, she's been seeking out and gaining an increasing amount of national support for her girls-in-baseball projects.

A few weeks ago, I found out that Siegal had been invited to throw batting practice for both the Oakland A's and her hometown team, the Cleveland Indians, at their spring training facilities in Arizona. Justine has been a great inspiration to me, a former ballplayer who's long been frustrated with the marginalization of girls and women in the baseball world, from the majors all the way down to tee ball. When I attempted to start up a girls' baseball program in New York City last year, Justine served as a valuable mentor, and she even came down to host a clinic for a number of young girls who were eager for more than they were getting with their local teams. (My project eventually stalled, but I'm hopeful that girls in the NY area will soon have a new baseball outlet thanks to a new initiative, led by Justine, that partners players with various RBI Baseball teams in cities around the country.) So I was thrilled to hear the news about her Major League assignment, and I enjoyed reading about her preparation for the big event. I was also not surprised to learn that Justine would be dedicating her outing to the late Christina-Taylor Green, the youngest victim in last month's tragic Tucson shooting spree. Green had been a second-baseman on her Little League team, and, like Justine before her, had hoped to break the so-called "grass ceiling" by becoming the first woman to play in the majors.

If you'd like to know how it went, Glenn Swain in The New York Times and Tim Brown at Yahoo! Sports have good recaps of yesterday's historic session. And I highly recommend Justine's own stirring posts relating to the event on her new blog, Justine's Baseball Journey. Her writings are the kind of thing I wish I'd had available to me growing up, when coaches, players, and parents were telling me in ways both subtle and explicit that baseball is for boys. So if you know of a girl or woman who could use some baseball inspiration, please pass it on! You can also follow Justine on Twitter.

Anyway, congrats on your awesome accomplishment, Justine! Can't wait to see what's next. ∞

the art of science

One of my favorite things in the whole wide universe is when art and science get a little wild and make some sweet music together. With Valentine's Day fast approaching, it was inevitable that I'd spy some new pairings that clearly just need to get a room. To wit, first there were the cute scientist valentines, featuring the likes of Ada Lovelace, Nikola Tesla, and Carl Sagan. But my heart truly went aflutter for the Periodic Table Printmaking Project, an outstanding work by 97 graphic artists from around the globe who obviously adore science as much as I do. As you can see from the samples above, the idea was to identify each element in a way that's some combination of historical, whimsical, and (of course) scientific. What can I say? I'm in love. The full complement of 118 elements can be seen as a group in periodic table form or individually on the project's Flickr set. ∞

remembering challenger

I was only eight when the Challenger disaster occurred on that icy January morning in 1986. I distinctly remember perching on my chair in Mrs. M's third grade class, eager to watch the launch on the bulky brown television that had been wheeled in so that my fellow classmates and I could feel like we were a part of the action. At the time, it seemed a matter of course—at least to us kids—that people could routinely travel to space and to the moon. Even girls could be shuttle explorers after Sally Ride had flown on the Challenger three years earlier! We were encouraged to include 'astronaut' among our future career choices anytime a grown-up asked. And we did.

Third grade happened to coincide with my first real exposure to astronomy, too. It was the first time, for instance, that I learned about my very eager mother . . . not to mention the pizzas she'd just served us—though there are plenty of folks today who'd urge us to skip the pizza. As a child of the 80s, imagining that someday I, too, might fly through the asteroid belt or make a quick trip to the canyons of Mars seemed a perfectly reasonable ambition. I was ready to sign up.

To add to the excitement of the day, we'd been told that Christa McAuliffe was going to become the first schoolteacher ever, in the history of the world, to travel into space. We knew about this not just because it was all over the news, but because our school's phys ed teacher had also applied for the Teacher in Space program. And boy, did he get us excited about it! I don't recall whether Mr. W ever disclosed how far along in the process he'd reached before being cut, but he'd clearly felt that doing experiments to gauge how microgravity affected physical fitness would have been one of the greatest gifts he could give to students at our elementary school and around the country.

And then . . . the forked puffy cloud. The confusion. The silence.

It's clear to me now that I was too young to truly understand death. I had actually lost a grandmother just a month before, but my still-developing brain prevented me from grasping the enormity of her passing until much later. Obviously it was the same for these seven people I'd never even met. Yet my classmates and I knew right away that something terrible had just happened. And we were all a little scared.

The Challenger incident has stayed with me over the past quarter-century, well into my adult life. My love of all things space grew as time marched on, and when the shuttle program resumed, I once again looked forward to watching launches on the news, and later, on NASA TV. But to this day, there's a palpable anxiousness in the last hour or so before liftoff. And until I hear the "main engine cutoff" call from mission control, my heart remains firmly embedded in my throat. Sadly, ever since the Columbia breakup in 2003, shuttle landings have become equally nerve-wracking for the same grim reasons.

To be sure, I recognize that many of us put our lives on the line every single day. I think of miners and factory workers who endure precarious and downright dangerous conditions on a daily basis. And there are the firefighters, police officers, and other civil servants who purposely risk bodily harm for the sake of the common good. Heck, every time we get behind the wheel we put ourselves at the mercy of road conditions and other drivers. And yet I can't help but get verklempt when I think of the men and women who voluntarily strap themselves to the back of a rocket and hope that a million things go right on their way out to the stars and back. One of my longtime dreams of attending a shuttle launch finally came true last May, and I can assure you that there were tears streaming down my cheeks as I watched that plume reach deep into the brilliant Florida sky. As with every mission since STS-51-L, I was thinking of Challenger that afternoon—and yes, Columbia, too.

So today marks 25 years since that fateful morning back in 1986. I'm now 33, and sad to say I haven't yet booked my flight to the asteroid belt. In 2007, though, Christa McAuliffe's alternate, fellow teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, did eventually carry the torch for educators when she flew aboard the shuttle Endeavor and visited the International Space Station.

The legacies of those lost with the Challenger—Jarvis, McAuliffe, McNair, Onizuka, Resnik, Smith, and Scobee—live on in all of us who were watching that day. I, for one, will never forget. ∞

Lego photo courtesy of BriXwerX on Flickr

the giants take manhattan

Followers of this blog know that I'm a die-hard Mets fan who bleeds orange and blue through thick and thin. I grew up in the heart of Yankee country, in the New York City suburbs, always having to explain why I followed that other team. Well, readers, it was quite simple; it was because my father grew up following the New York Giants, who called Manhattan home for three-quarters of a century before skipping off to San Francisco in 1957. Dad eventually became a Mets fan when the National League re-established itself here in New York in the early 60s (rooting for the hated Yankees, of course, was never an option). And so, we were a Mets family. But my father always kept the Giants in his heart, and he'd occasionally share stories from his childhood, of catching the bus from our little town down to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, and then walking across a bridge into Manhattan to watch the Giants play in their cavernous Polo Grounds, also long gone but not forgotten.

Three years ago I happened upon a newspaper article about a group of old-time New York Giants fans, the kind who still argued about whether Thomson had stolen a sign before his epic shot heard 'round the world, and who sounded a lot like my dad reminiscing about his old team. Not finding much online about the New York Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society, I got in touch with the reporter, who gave me the name of the group's leader, one Bill Kent, of Riverdale, NY. Well, one thing led to another, and I eventually found myself setting Bill up with a listserv so that he could more easily send out notices and share photos and stories with the crew. Since then I've attended a bunch of meetings, sometimes with my father in tow, other times on my own, and I have to say it's always a hoot to hear how passionate these guys are (and it is mostly guys) about the team that abandoned them for sunnier California skies.

And then 2010 happened.

When the San Francisco Giants started getting really good, started looking like playoff contenders, started convincing everyone they might make it to the World Series, a small but devoted group of folks 3,000 miles away from the City by the Bay started feeling the thrill of baseball again. Many of the old timers had remained faithful to the orange and black for all these years. But even those like my father, whose primary allegiance had strayed after the Jints left town, felt a pang of longing for the glory days when, on November 1st, the "fear the beard" crew made it official: the Giants were champions of the world once more.

This weekend, those folks got to be kids all over again. We received word a few weeks ago that the Giants organization had decided to pay tribute to its New York roots by bringing the World Series trophy to the East Coast. Hall of Famer Willie Mays, the Giants' most celebrated ambassador and one of the greatest players to ever don a Major League uniform, thrilled all of Harlem on Friday when he visited a school in his former neighborhood. And the trophy would be on display in midtown the next day for the benefit of Giants fans old and new. In a move of true sportsmanship, the team also invited the Nostalgia Society to a private meeting with not only the trophy, but Giants top brass Bill Neukom (owner) and Brian Sabean (general manager); catcher Buster Posey, the National League's Rookie of the Year; and the "Say Hey Kid" himself, Willie Mays. For guys like my dad, it was like Halloween, Christmas, and your birthday all wrapped into one!

It sure did turn out to be a day to remember. Many of the guys brought their wives and kids, all of whom took turns taking mugshots with the trophy. Everyone was in total awe when Mays came out to greet us, beaming and full of joy. He interviewed Posey for a while and answered questions before signing copies of his biography—which, by the way, the team provided to all of us free of charge. And we heard plenty of stories of old NY Giants memories. It was a moving demonstration of the power that baseball has in bringing people together. While my father and I will continue to hope that the Mets might someday make it back to playoff contention (a girl can dream!), it was truly awesome to have this moment to share with all the other fans in Giants Nation. &infin

carolyn in wonderland: a little video about big things

It's early March, 2007, and planetary scientist Carolyn Porco has just opened the TED conference—a high-profile gathering of the world's brightest thinkers, movers, and shakers—with a bang. Her stirring presentation on the exploits of Cassini-Huygens, a space mission that's been investigating Saturn and its cornucopia of moons since July of 2004, is so inspiring that it goes on to become one of the top-voted talks on all of TED.com. It is, as they say, fantabulous.

Zoom ahead two and a half years to the waning days of 2009. I'm sitting at my desk, furiously scanning Google for a decent photograph of computer pioneer Ada Lovelace for a short piece I'm writing about her life. Before long, I stumble upon an image that makes me smile from ear-to-ear; it's a portrait of a small LEGO person with garments and hair just as Lady Lovelace would have worn them back in 1850. Almost immediately, my synapses start firing. How cool would it be to make minifigs (as these characters are known in the Legophile vernacular) of current well-known scientists and science popularizers? My first thought is to do one of Carolyn, whom I've been getting to know over the previous months. But I envision mini plastic versions of a number of other scientists and personalities as well . . . and thus, an idea is hatched.

Carolyn's minifig, the prototype for what will become an ever-growing collection of "LEGO scitweeps," is finished a few weeks later. But my creative juices are just getting started, and I find myself longing for a greater challenge: a stop-motion movie. I've never done one of these before and wouldn't even know where to begin. Yet it soon becomes my mission to recreate, in as much detail as possible, Carolyn's 2007 TED talk.

Many hours, quite a few moons (including one total eclipse!), and somewhere around 2,500 photographs later, my project is finally complete. The more vigilant among you might notice a few minor goofs (ahemupsidedownshorelineahem). But otherwise, I’m proud to say that this stop-action replica holds pretty true to the original, even down to the faces in the audience! So if you're as excited as I am about planetary exploration, I hope you'll set aside 18 minutes of your day and allow Carolyn's yellow Doppelgänger to, as she so eloquently enchants, take you on a journey . . . And why not check out these behind-the-scenes pics, while you're at it? ∞

the year that was - 2010 in photos

2010 has been a whirlwind year. Here are some of my best shots from the last 12 months! (Click on images for larger versions.) ∞

Brandi Carlile rocking out. Ridgefield. January.

Snowpocalypse I. Brooklyn. February.

Architecture. Barcelona. March.

Avia's street. Masnou. March.

White House bowling alley. Washington. May.

Shuttle engines. Kennedy Space Center. May.

Liftoff. Kennedy Space Center. May. (w/thx to George)

The library. Brooklyn. June.

The eminent cosmologist. Manhattan. June.

Obligatory feline snapshot. Brooklyn. June.

Ice. Rocky Mountain National Park. June.

Walt Disney Concert Hall. Los Angeles. July.

Caltech. Pasadena. July.

Hairpin walkway at the Getty. Los Angeles. July.

Michael Jackson party. Brooklyn. August.

A new mark. Mount Monadnock. September.

The Huntington Library gardens. Pasadena. October.

Ceiling of the Civic. Pasadena. October.

Palm trees and condos. Cali coast. October.

Rolling hills. Cali coast. October.

Sea stuff. Monterey. October.

Cal Academy of Sciences. San Francisco. October.

Cargo. Oakland. October.

Snowpocalypse II. Brooklyn. December.

gone in 2010

This is the time of year when we remember those who have left us. The following is a short list of those departed in 2010 with whom I am particularly proud to have shared some time on this planet. Some you may have heard of, some undoubtedly not. All will be missed. ∞

Jean S. Cione: All-Star pitcher with the All American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and 50s

Geraldine Doyle: Factory worker whose photograph became the basis of the iconic World War II "We Can Do It" Rosie the Riveter poster

Jaime Escalante: East Los Angeles high school math educator whose motivational teaching style inspired the film Stand and Deliver.

Miep Gies: One of the protectors of Anne Frank's family during the Holocaust, and the person responsible for saving Frank's famous diary

William E. Gordon: Electrical engineer who designed, built, and operated the Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest radio telescope

Dorothy Height: A leader and unsung champion of both the American civil rights and women's rights movements

Naomi Prawer Kadar: Inspiration behind BrainPOP, the children's educational website, and founder of BrainPOP ESL, for English-language learners

Dorothy Kamenshek: Former All-Star with the All American Girls Professional Baseball League who provided a basis for the lead character in the 1992 film, A League of Their Own

Juanita Kreps: Pioneering economist and businesswoman who became the first female Secretary of Commerce under President Carter

Benoît Mandelbrot: Innovative mathematician who developed the field of fractal geometry

Brian Marsden: Astronomer who directed the Minor Planet Center and coordinated celestial discoveries made around the world

Robert Macauley: Connecticut businessman who founded AmeriCares, one of the largest private health-care charities in the world

Paul the Octopus: Famed cephalopod who became renowned for his ability to correctly predict the winners at this year's FIFA World Cup

Sylvia Pressler: New Jersey judge whose most famous ruling gave girls the right to play Little League baseball

Allan Sandage: Prolific cosmologist whose observations helped establish the currently-accepted age and fate of the universe

Bobby Thomson: Major League outfielder whose "shot heard round the world" propelled the New York Giants to the 1951 World Series

Theresa Weinstock: Someone without whom I literally would not be here: my grandmother!

George C. Williams: Evolutionary biologist who contributed major insights into the workings of natural selection

Howard Zinn: Historian, writer, and progressive thinker whose A People's History of the United States offered an alternate view of American democracy