Movies and More

THERE IS ANOTHER: Our house was alive with excited buzz at 4:45 this morning. By 5:05, we were out the door, headed to Pacific Science Center, where the region's biggest and best IMAX - 3D screen resides. There, we saw the new "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."

We got there nice and early for the 7 a,m. show, so we could get the perfect center seats. Breakfast was popcorn and a Star Wars book. 

For fear of spilling spoilers, I'm not going to say anything about the movie right now. ...But boy do I want to! 

SPEAKING OF MOVIES: Wednesday morning, CJ and I attended a members-only screening in Pacific Science Center's other (smaller) theater. It was a 'rough' director's cut, and the movie company was apparently hoping to get some feedback. 

I'll let CJ tell you a bit about the film.

Sometimes, I will watch a documentary film at the Pacific Science Center, usually in the Paccar Theater, one of two theaters at PacSci. While the last "documentary" we saw at PacSci was horrible (Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience), we decided to go to PacSci again to see a film they were showing a rough cut of, known as Amazon Adventure.

Amazon Adventure (It had a subtitle, but I can't remember it and the subtitle was really stupid) in an in-development documentary made by SK Films, a Toronto-based film company founded in 1998. Amazon Adventure primarily tells the story of Henry Bates, a man from England who traveled from London to the Amazon Rainforest in 1848 in an attempt to prove that species could change from one form to another, an idea that contradicted what was taught in England at the time. At the time, if you lived in England, you were almost certainly told that every species on the planet had been created in their current form long ago, and would never change.

Henry Bates went with Alfred Wallace, a friend of his, to look at life in the exotic-to-Englishmen Amazon Rainforest and see if there was any evidence for the idea of species changing there. For years, Henry worked very hard in his shed and boat trying to find evidence for his theory. An important subject that would come up in search for evidence of species changing is mimicry. To my knowledge, mimicry is a specimen or species changing shape or form in order to avoid getting killed by predators. For example, a butterfly might change its colors to resemble the colors of a different, poisonous butterfly in order to deter predators.

During his voyage in the Amazon, Henry collected thousands of different specimens to catalogue for his collection. Over the years, Henry would collect specimens of the same species, and noticed how their appearances would change over time. He speculated that the species' appearances would change because of mutations, and specimens with beneficial mutations would survive to breed. Eventually, Henry had collected enough butterfly specimens of one species, and he was able to create a sequence of the corpses that showed a logical progression from one pattern on the wings to a different, presumably beneficial one.

Back in England, Henry was apparently ridiculed for believing that species could change forms or emerge from other species over time. This was demonstrated in a scene where he reads scathing remarks about him in a newspaper on a train. Back in England, Henry was able to get in touch with Charles Darwin, a much more well-known proponent of the theory of evolution and Henry's "childhood hero".

Apparently, Henry's research was a major contributor to research about evolution.
I found Amazon Adventure very interesting, and I would like to learn about more people like Henry Bates.

Like CJ, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. What a pioneer Bates was, leaving London for parts unknown. We are definitely going to read more about Bates - for instance, I'd love to review some of his field notes!  In all, Bates was in the Amazon for 11 years. His enormous body of work included crucial contributions to evolutionary biology, discovering the phenomenon "Batesian" mimicry.

While watching it, I wondered who funded the project. On the film's Web page, I found a press release from 2014 noting, in part: "Pacific Science Center is proud to announce that it has been awarded a significant grant from the National Science Foundation for Amazon Adventure to conduct research that will study the effect of the giant screen on learning outcomes, support SK Films’ production of the giant screen Amazon Adventure film, and create an accompanying educational outreach program and materials. The research will be conducted with the participation of key personnel from Rutgers University and Arizona State University and will involve GSCA members from the Marbles Kids Museum, California Science Center, Maryland Science Center, Ruben H. Fleet Science Center and, of course, Pacific Science Center."

Interesting! No wonder we got to see a sneak preview there!

By the way, the guy on the movie poster is not Bates. He's an actor. Here's what Bates looked like.

FUN ZONE: A couple of days ago, we made a fun pit stop at one of our favorite stores, Archie McPhee. It's full of fun stuff like bacon toothpaste, yodeling pickles, a Bigfoot air freshener, and so much more. 

The have fun graphics on the sides of their store. CJ and Annabelle darn near got sucked back up to the mothership near this one. 

WATERY GRAVE: We have some unhappy news to report. Annabelle Fish, our pet of 12 plus years, has left us. Her tumor had grown steadily for the past few months (perhaps even years), and a couple of days ago, the poor thing couldn't even really swim or feed any more. :(

After a couple of days of mourning, we hit a couple of pet stores, looking for another fish to keep our sole survivor company.

Annabelle picked out a 35 cent beauty at Petco by our home. Let's hope the new fish gets a good 12-plus year run. And we know not to name it after a family member this go round. ...

Pledging Allegiance

HEART MOUNTAIN HEARTBREAK:  Last night we had the opportunity to attend a special screening of the Broadway musical "Allegiance" at a local movie theater. I posted a bit about it yesterday, but I'll let the kids share some more.

Here are Annabelle's impressions ...

Allegiance is a Broadway musical about a young man namedSammy and his time in a Japanese-American prison camp during World War II. He and his family are forced to move out of their house and abandon their farm because they were of Japanese heritage. They were sent to Heart Mountain Internment Camp in Wyoming, and they were only allowed to bring what they could carry. In the internment camp, they were kept in a horse stall and were treated likeprisoners. They couldn’t  even get aspirin or cough syrup from the nurse- those were for military use only.

Life in the camp was hard, and  many people became sick and died because of
the conditions. Eventually, they started a campaign to allow Japanese-Americans
to join the army. The request is done and Sammy applies to the army, while others
in the camp revolt and protest about being forced to fight, including his own
sister, and start a rebellion. While he is away, many of his friends, family and
loved ones die or become ill. He comes back as a war hero, but is torn apart by
how his family has died and his sister is now married to his greatest enemy.
Flash forward to the present, his niece gives him another chance to reconnect
with his family.

The musical was a story from George Takei, who went to an internment camp when he was only 5. The characters are fictitious, but the hardships of living in an internment camp were real. For a musical, the songs were less than stellar, but still good. I wish there was a little less singing, actually. And the choreography was not the best either. All in all, it was good, but not the most amazing Broadway play either.

CJ's review  ... 

George Takei is a world-famous actor known for playing Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of the Enterprise, on most of the Star Trek television shows and movies (except for the J.J. Abrams film series). In 1941, when Takei was four years old, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Air Force unexpectedly attacked Pearl Harbor, an American naval base in Hawaii. In what I presume to be a result of not differentiating "normal citizen of Japanese descent" and "foreign spy that needs to be put in check", the then-president, Franklin Roosevelt, issued an order that forced nearly all American citizens of Japanese descent on the west coast to relocate to an internment camp. Takei's family was one of many Japanese-American families that were forced into an internment camp (in their case, the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming).

Takei's family survived the 4 grueling years, and, more than seventy years later, George Takei would help create Allegiance, a Broadway musical based loosely on his experiences in Heart Mountain (what I will call the internment camp from this point on). Allegiance is a two-act play primarily (though not entirely) set around the Kimura family, a fictional Asian-American family that must get by in the poor conditions of Heart Mountain.

Here be spoilers. ...

Throughout the play, there are twenty-five songs, from "Gaman", named for a Japanese word that means "endure", obviously referring to surviving the difficult conditions of the internment camp, to "Still a Chance", a ballad about how an aged Sam Kimura (the main character of Allegiance) still has a chance to be forgiven (or forgive, I honestly couldn't tell). However, none of the songs are real showstoppers, so that's a disappointment. While most of the cast was good (including George Takei himself as an elderly Sam Kimura and "Ojii-san"), the choreography was odd at best and abysmal at worst. For example, in several parts of the play, the actors repeat strange arm motions that aren't quite dabs for whatever reason, and there's a cringe-inducing sequence during a song where some of the actors pretend to swing baseball bats in an awkward manner. The death scenes are often disjointed and confusing, such as the main character's brother dying after being shot on the battlefield, and then having the dog tags get taken off his corpse by Mike Masaoka, who appears out of thin air.

While Allegiance is an enjoyable musical (and might be worth a watch), it still came off as kinda lackluster with poor songwriting and abysmal choreography, among other flaws.

Interesting note: On the way out of the theater, I heard chitchat about two Heart Mountain survivors being present at that showing. While entering the men's room after the showing, I saw a very elderly Asian man who may or may not be one of the survivors I heard about.

So yeah, the kids aren't easily impressed. But that's OK and they are entitled to their opinions and there's probably a reason the show, despite all its publicity and funding, only had a four month run on Broadway. ... 



Still, it was a story worth telling. For instance, a central part of the musical involved a questionnaire internees had to fill out, the  "Leave Clearance Form," and two questions in particular: The questionnaire was given to all adults in camp, and most of the 28 questions contained wherein were designed to assess the "Americanness" of the respondent. It asked about education (was it n Japan or the U.S.), religion (Buddhist or Christian?), and even whether or not people practiced judo or played baseball. 


The most contentious part of the form were questions 27 and 28, also known as the "loyalty questionnaire." They were ... Question 27: Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered? And Question 28: Will you swear unqualified allegiances to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or other foreign government, power or organization?




Those questions became a major point of contention. Many viewed the questions as confusing and offending and wondered about the implications and objected. When drafted, some opposed and were imprisoned. 

Meanwhile, other Japanese Americans were eager to sign up for the war effort. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a fighting unit composed almost entirely of American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who fought in World War II. According to Wikipedia, the 442nd Regiment was the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of American warfare. Its motto was "Go for Broke".




I thought "Allegiance" did a terrific job portraying the divide between those eager to enlist, and those who resisted the draft. Both were shown to be heroic in their own ways.


There is a present day nonprofit that has a Heart Mountain has a Web site, complete with a . virtual tour, which they invite you to 'enjoy.' http://heartmountain.org/virtualtour.html  






Honestly, I was surprised by how surprisingly 'light hearted' so many of the elements on the site are given the gravity of what happened.



Following links on their site, The Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation (HMWF) was formed in 1996 as a public nonprofit corporation and obtained its federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in 1997.  Its board is 15 members, led by Shirley Ann Higuchi, a descendant of Heart Mountain incarcerees. The Board includes former internees, descendants, scholars and other local and national professionals from across the country. So, obviously, they all know a lot more about what happened at Heart Mountain than I do.

Sale and Show

TO MARKET, TO MARKET: Today, the kids took place in a lunchtime bazaar at their learning center. It was fun seeing all the kids' various creations they brought to sell - everything from grilled cheese sandwiches made to order to a cardboard box arcade to catnip and cookies. 

Annabelle decided to go with Perler bead ornaments. They're small, plastic beads you make patterns out of and then melt. She displayed them using an easel we have and some of our over racks. Unorthodox, but it worked great!

Her ornaments were cute, colorful and priced to sell. She was all but sold out by 1 p.m., two hours before the market ended. The photo above is about 10 minutes into the event, so she'd already sold a fair amount at that point.

NIGHT LIFE: We headed out after dinner tonight to a mall. If you know me, you know I am mall averse, shall we say. But we did what we had to do to go to the theater nearest us where George Takei's "Allegiance" was playing.

It was fun getting out after dark. We got to see the Space Needle looking lovely in green, to celebrate the Seattle Sounders' win in the Major League Soccer Cup last weekend. 

The movie theater we went to was in Pacific Place mall downtown. When we walked in "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" was absolutely BLARING over the sound system. We couldn't believe how loud it was! 

As we made our way to the main floor of the mall, we saw why. Apparently during the holiday season, they have a nightly indoor snowing session or two.

So that was kind of fun!

We made our way to the theater, and enjoyed a filmed version of the Broadway musical "Allegiance." It was inspired by George Takei's time spent in a Japanese internment camp when he was a child during World War II. 

I'll have the kids write a full review for tomorrow. For now, here's one number from the production.

https://youtu.be/5GWGhPp5eeU

Loving Lovelace

BIRTHDAY GIRL:  Saturday morning we headed to the Sodo district for a birthday party. The guest of honor: Ada Lovelace, heralded by many as the first computer programmer. She turned 201 years old this year. :)

Living Computers: Museum + Labs put out quite the spread for Ada! I'll let CJ tell you more about it. 

As I just wrote about in a blog post not too long ago, my family frequently, *frequently* visits the Living Computers Museum + Labs. We usually visit to attend new and interesting events, such as our last visit, where we went to see a documentary about a baby elephant's tale of survival (that had little to do with computers). At our most recent visit (on December 10), my family attended The Ada Party event, which celebrated the 201st birthday of Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter who is widely considered to be the first computer programmer. Ada Lovelace apparently wrote programs for Charles Babbage's Analytical Machine, which was an unfinished machine built in the 1840s as a general-purpose computer.

Upon entering the museum, one of the first things I noticed was that a large part of the northeastern corner of the building was taken up by a place where you could get a sugary drink and a bag with candy such as M&Ms and Skittles. Apparently, aside from being the daughter of Lord Byron and being the possible first computer programmer (as I mentioned previously), Ada Lovelace was also known for having a sweet tooth. At the sugar area (what I will call it from this point on), there was a cake featuring Ada Lovelace's likeness (with shutter shades). A lady dressed as Ada Lovelace from the event company running The Ada Party was present at the event, often interacting with the attendees (for example: While I was playing the classic Oregon Trail on an Apple ][, Ada asked my why I didn't put her in my party. I promised her I would name one of my party members "Ada" next time I played Oregon Trail.

Eventually, we went to the lounge area in the center of the museum to listen to a speech from Kate Edwards, the Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association. The IGDA is apparently the world's only major professional association for video game developers. One of the first things that Kate Edwards told us was that she was very geeky. To demonstrate her geekiness, she showed pictures of her in Norway and Tunisia, both prominent filming locations for the Star Wars original trilogy. Kate Edwards worked at Microsoft from 1994 to 2005, and she was involved to some extent in nearly every Microsoft game released in that period. According to the IGDA website, Kate Edwards was a "Geopolitical Strategist" at Microsoft, which, if I interpreted it right, meant that she made sure there wasn't any stuff in games that might be problematic or considered offensive outside of the U.S. During her presentation, Kate gave several pieces of advice that I consider not only helpful to game designers like her, but to creators as a whole. For example, Kate told us that we should ignore haters and "embrace your superpowers", which I interpret as meaning that we should take advantage of our abilities to help us succeed (I feel like there's a better way to phrase that).

 There was a lovely actress playing Ada.

 She never broke character, even when encountering a stand in assistant.

Ada's birthday featured keynote speakers, including Kate Edwards of the International Game Developers Association.

Edwards has had a unique and remarkable career path, and had a ton of insight and wisdom to share with the audience.

One of the most powerful moments came when Edwards told people to listen to others and what they're telling you you're great at, and believe it! For instance, if people are forever telling you you're a great artist, acknowledge and embrace and celebrate and own that. Don't second guess it and just think it, *KNOW* it and run with it!

In a quiet corner of the museum, Annabelle explored Encarta for the first time ever. I told the kids that these CD-based encyclopedias were the BOMB for research before the Internet was widespread. 

Below, Annabelle using conductive thread to make a custom superhero mask, complete with LEDs,

Volunteers from ChickTech Seattle hosted the workshop. https://chicktech.org/

Fun bling for the masks and sweet swag from ChickTech.