An Evening with Artists

The Asian Business League of Southern California is hosting an evening with well-known animation artists and TV/Film personalities at the venerable Millenium Biltmore Hotel, in the Tiffany Room, in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday May 19 from 6-8 p.m.

What was it like to design characters for Shrek and the Simpsons? Hear from an Emmy-award winning character artist and designer at Dreamworks. The evening explores new challenges facing professionals including animators, artists, and actors in the entertainment business today. It will also offer a behind-the-scenes look with these prominent artists on the creative process, lifestyle in the business, and what it takes to succeed in the animation/tv/film business. Speakers hail from Dreamworks, Disney and content and media industries.

Registration is $10 members, $15 nonmembers, $5 students.

Bengoshi ni Naritai?

Well college acceptance season is in full swing, the graduate school rankings are out and the deans are sweating and eager to really earn their salary.

It should fail to surprise anyone in Westwood that UCLA Law School has managed to dribble its way to a two-way tie for the fifteenth best law school in the country in the 2006 U.S. News & World Report rankings. When I enrolled it was ranked number 16.

A few statistics do strike me as significant..

1. It now is only a notch or three (depending on how you read the rankings -- there is a three-way tie for 11th and a two-way tie for 15th) below the venerable Boalt Hall and remains, as it does perennially, high above #18 "University of Second Choice."

2. The acceptance rate remains low, with a meager 13.6% compared to Boalt's 10%. Because of the attraction of sunny L.A., UCLA can afford to be selective. Compared to the acceptance rates at the other top 20 schools, UCLA squarely scores in the top 5-6 of the most selective schools in the country.

3. The full-time in-state tuition has rocketed to $22,123 per year. This represents no less than a ten-fold increase since the days I attended ten years ago. Has inflation worked its magic, or is it the empty state coffers at work? By contrast, it is now just as expensive (or cheap) to attend UCLA as an out-of-state student ($33,168) than #2 Harvard ($33,120) and #14 Georgetown ($33,055), my "backup" school at the time. Columbia U. in the Big Apple takes the grand prize as the most expensive institution of higher legal learning at $37,256. Guess it takes lots of money to maintain even a modicum of a sense of security in a place like Morningside Heights.

Tian mi mi (1996)

Tian mi mi (1996) (English title "Comrades: Almost a Love Story"), a romantic comedy that at times flirts with tragedy, is an excellent tribute to, of all people, Teresa Teng and William Holden. That is to say, it is about nostalgia for things long past. The setting is Hong Kong and New York, over a span of a decade. Which serves as a sharp reminder of its theme of timelessness. The reference to destiny is something all Chinese, and Asians in general, can relate to. Watch it on a rainy afternoon.

Multilingual Headache

Believe it or not, in high school my greatest career aspiration was to travel the world as an attorney working for a fancy airline, doing deals in exotic lands, juggling multiple languages and cultures, making lots of money for my client. The afterhours would, as a matter of routine, be spent wining and dining important clients in the presence of gorgeous flight attendants. That dream has at least partially been fulfilled.

Fact is, speaking, and understanding, multiple languages may be fun and games to some, while to others it may offer a career boost, with the right combination of functional or industry skills. For me, however, even a trip to the lunch room can cause quite a headache as Japanese, English, Hindu and Chinese of three different dialects are thrown around like pieces of rotten fruit in a high school cafeteria food fight. Banter is tolerable provided that it takes place in a "controlled" environment where the pace and the topics of conversation are predictable, such as a smoke-filled room of high-level Japanese executives working out a budget. At least you know what to expect and you have the luxury of tuning out those subjects that you are not expected to pay attention to.

With casual conversation, however, I often recall the trials and tribulations of Bruce Almighty who simply becomes overwhelmed by the sudden sensory overload arising from his new-found ability to hear to people's prayers -- all around the globe. Trying not to be distracted is a serious challenge for those of us who have the ability -- for better or for worse -- to hear people's thoughts. Indeed, with great power comes responsibility!