Foods during the holiday hold symbolism as well. Typically red meat is not served and one is careful not to serve or eat from a chipped or cracked plate. Fish is eaten to ensure long life and good fortune. Red dates bring the hope for prosperity, melon seeds for proliferation and lotus seeds means the family will prosper through time. Oranges and tangerines symbolize wealth and good fortune. Nian gao, the New Year's Cake, is always served. It is believed that the higher the cake rises the better the year will be. When company stops by a "prosperity tray" is served. The tray has eight sides (another symbol of prosperity) and is filled with goodies like red dates, melon seeds, cookies and New Year Cakes.

But we use one of them all-natch'ral peener butters. No, I do not have to go to the co-op, scoop it from a flyblown communal vat with a wooden spoon, put it in my reusable crock and carry it to the barter-counter with the handy hemp handle. This brand of all natural PB is made by Smuckers. (Always wondered if they really knew how odd their ad campaign sounds: With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good. By this logic, Dodgammed Sassmole Skithead Futtersmuckers would taste even better.) Because it doesn't have the usual chemicals that permit normal peanut butters to sit in the cupboard for three presidential terms, we have to keep it in the fridge. And as we all know, cold peanut butter has the same effect on fresh bread as a belt sander has on a titmouse. There's just nothing left.

"Note to future Dr. Weirds: if you do indeed have a Disappearing Spell, use it right away. Just cut to the chase. Do not lure your prey into a hall of mirrors, and do not announce that you are about to hurl the Disappearing Spell at them. Any fool can see what happens: they duck, the spell hits a mirror, bounces back and disappears you. Take my word - you get the FF together in one room, just flood it with sarin. You'll miss that all-important taunting interplay, but you won't end up a one-shot villain. Study the classics: it's taunting that does 'em in, every time."

Soon after, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo saunter in, shivering. Luke, an MIT grad student named Todd Radford, has floppy light hair and a flannel shirt; he looks as if he'd just come from the line for Phish tickets. Jamez Kirtley, a tall, dark-haired, wisecracking MIT alum, needs no introduction: a natural Han. A slight, pretty MIT sophomore named Eleanor Pritchard is easily identifiable as C-3PO, if only because she's the one sentenced to carry around R2-D2 – in this case, a two-foot-high limited-edition R2-D2 beverage cooler – by its handle. They run through the scene in which the rebels infiltrate the Death Star and R2-D2 discovers that Leia is being held in a detention cell. The dialogue is familiar – "What princess?", Han bellows – right up until the moment they burst into song. The tune? A number called "Pretty Little Princess," to the tune of "Pretty Little Picture," from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Combining the cruel humour of Grimm's fairy stories, with the spirit of Terry Gilliam and that peculiarly French knack of putting magic into film, this feverish tale of star-crossed lovers and small town cannibalism has endured as a true masterpiece of the fantastique. With "Delicatessen", Jeunet and Caro gave the world a canny and confident calling card for that most coveted of talents - commercial arthouse cinema. Brilliant.

[Rodgers & Hammerstein's] rejection of the longstanding tradition of yellow face (whites in Fu Manchu/Charlie Chan-type prosthetics and make up) has to be appreciated as a major civil rights breakthough for U.S. culture. At the same time, this celebration of FDS's pluralism has to be understood against U.S. economic and military interests in the Pacific. The U.S. entry into the French colonies of Southeast Asia was already underway. With the cold war and the specter of Red China, Chinese in the U.S. had to be represented as squeaky clean and harmless to be acceptable as part of U.S. culture.

As a child of the sixties and seventies, David Henry Hwang critiqued racial segregation and the U.S. war in Southeast Asia. Casting Asians and Asian Americans remains a big issue and Hwang has consistently stated to interviewers: "Many things about [the R&H version] remain revolutionary today. You don't see on TV or movie screens in American pop culture a romance between an Asian man and an Asian women. I'm still amazed by the fact that there was a Flower Drum Song." (Time, 10.28.02)

Here Hwang is simply recognizing a reality that has yet to be understood by the entertainment industry. Savvy urbanites want cultural productions more resonant with contemporary sensibilities. […]