Happy Birthday....Josef Frank!

Today is a really special day. Of course all days are special but this is a particular extraordinary day for everyone that I know, especially me. Why is today a particularly singular day? Well that is because today, July 15, 2010, is the birthday of Josef Frank. (Like you didn’t already know that.)

Frank is a major celebrity in my home as he is in the homes of millions of families across America and the world. I remember when I was growing up my parents would sit us all down to dinner on July 15 of every year and we would eat and talk about Josef Frank, look at his designs and discuss ways that we might improve them and expound on his genius, as if there are any. Ha! Right!?!

In case you were born in a cave and left there for your entire life only to be shown shadows and have them become your idea of reality, Frank was born on July 15, 1885 in another country that is not America (Austria). That means that if Frank were alive in the U.S. today he would be very old and foreign.

Unfortunately, however, for the world of design and architecture he sloughed off his mortal coil on January 8, 1967. Google even has one of their famous doodles up for this momentous day making its home page a repository for all things Josef Frank. Of course, after reading this extensive blog entry about the man you probably will find that you do not require any more information regarding this world class designer, architect, and human being.

In other news last night we, and by we I mean myself and my partner, Detective Sergeant Joe Friday as portrayed by Ed O'Neill in the 2003 remake of the Jake Webb classic Dragnet, watched the movie Everything is Illuminated . This is an adaptation of the book with the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer.   Everything is Illuminated  really lit up the screen. (You're welcome.) It was a real treat from the credits to the other set of credits at the end. 

The writing was wonderful and I really enjoyed the performances of Eugene Hutz and Boris Leskin. They did a wonderful job of portraying Ukrainians from the Ukraine who are taking around a rich American Jewish boy.  The rich American Jewish boy collects useless family artifacts and is looking for the Ukrainian woman who saved his grandfather from Hitler's SS during World War II. Believe it or not is a touching comedy with the perfect mix of drama and sentimentalism. Just check out the trailer below if you think me a liar.

In terms of the writing I loved how they incorporated the authenticity of translation mistakes into the script. Trying to turn Ukrainian idioms into English and visa versa made for some funny lines throughout the movie. No complaints from me regarding this film. I recommend it for everyone, unless you hate Elijah Wood because he is everywhere in this film. I also wouldn't recommend it if you only like movies with explosions, bad dialogue, and naked people. This movie contains none of those things; so steer clear.

Of course, I would be remiss and in a lot of trouble if I made the mistake of not mentioning that it is the birthday of the wonderfully talented brain behind http://focusedlinz.blogspot.com/. Lindsey is a peach and a national treasure and I want everyone who sees this today to wish her a happy birthday either on her blog or on her Twitter account: @focusedLINZ or in person, if you can. 

Let's hope today is a wonderfully beautiful day for a wonderfully beautiful person. I am not sure if I am at liberty to mention her age, but I feel that her 27th birthday is probably going to be one of the best ones she has ever had. It is amazing to me that it has officially been five years since we met. If everyone had the opportunity to meet and spend time with someone this amazing then the world would be a much happier place. 

Happy Birthday Lindsey!!! (<------ This is the real reason today is so special for me, the Josef Frank bit was just a ruse.)