We’re familiar with pho, Vietnam’s best-known culinary export. Some of us are even familiar with bun bo hue, a spicier version of beef noodle soup from central Vietnam. Now, I would like to introduce banh xeo, a crepe filled with sizzling pork and shrimp that everyone ought to get to know better. Pronounced “boon say-o,” banh xeo consists of a rice-flour crepe seasoned with turmeric and filled with bits of pork, shrimp and bean sprouts. It’s a popular South Vietnam street food that’s served with piles of lettuce leaves and fresh herbs.
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Set during the Great Depression in the early 1930s, Susannah (Jessica Wortham) is a stiff, staunch and white ethnomusicologist for the Library of Congress. She’s ambitious about getting a teaching job at Harvard, so she travels from prison to prison to find black singers to record songs that date back “before slavery times.”
If you see a SWAT team in full gear surrounding a building in San Jose this week, it’s probably no cause for alarm. For the sixteenth year, the city is playing host to some two dozen SWAT teams from along the West Coast for a series of competitions and matches to find out who is the “Best in the West.” They’ll be running the obstacle course, sniping, and even assaulting a building with live ammo to simulate a rescue mission.
The 2010 01SJ Biennial rightly cements San Jose and Silicon Valley among the destinations for global contemporary art gatherings. For more than 20 years now, new-media art fests have emerged on several continents, addressing key issues in the overlapping fields of art, science, critical theory, digital media and cultural studies. But there has never been a definitive equivalent in the United States, which is why everyone involved with 01SJ says it will become the North American model.
SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!!!!!” Allen Ginsberg told Jack Kerouac in a letter from 1957. Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” was a hit after a high-profile trial over its presumed obscenity, and Kerouac’s second book, On the Road, had transformed the author nearly overnight into the most popular novelist in America. “God knows what oblivion we’ll wind up in.”
EITHER I’M dreaming, or Sunday’s performance of David Carlson’s Anna Karenina was the best thing that ever happened at Opera San José. The West Coast premiere revealed an extraordinary symphonic score that its composer succeeded in subordinating to the great Tolstoy narrative and the richly complex characters destined for both doom and redemption. Moreover, this new production raised company standards across the board.
At its meeting on Tuesday, San Jose City Council voted to run the proposed high speed rail line on an aerial track, at least 60 feet above the city, as it makes its way to Diridon Station. The 8-2 vote rejected the alternative proposal of building an underground tunnel for the train, as is planned for Los Angeles and San Francisco.
With no news yet from Sacramento about when the state plans to pass its budget, Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith is already preparing a contingency plan. Supervisor Ken Yeager warns that if the state continues to withhold funding until the budget is resolved, the county will be left dry by December, or perhaps even as early as November.
The San Jose Redevelopment Agency already spent $600,000 to revamp San Jose Municipal Stadium where the minor league San Jose Giants play. Now the cash-strapped organization wants to spend another $300,000 to replace an electrical transformer there. “Not so fast,” says Councilmember Sam Liccardo.
One of the largest dog festivals in the country takes place this Saturday at William Street Park in downtown San Jose. Grab the leash and lead the pack to the dog lover’s paradise.
