it's TATA

(img)Schedule's been packed like never, haven't had the time to even walk about to say hi to people; some things have changed for good. Expressions and sights have resolved. The virtual hopping with rabbits is definitely off as well. Who would have ever said?
As for the feedback, it's all fair - they were too like research papers - already taken that on board for Oct. issue, tommorow's sub going to make the cut though. It's strange - this grilling has taught me lessons like no other patch, the most insightful exercise in self-truth even in the most far-fetched subjects.
Finally, I've ended and started blogs 2 times before and I should know a thing or 2 about the absurdity of signing off, but this has been a blog to myself more than the earlier ones. And yes, I've finally arrived where I wanted to get. So it's, bye to this blogg, bye to this avatar. Website next year: guess the subject.
As for Shambollique, it's 2 lips together aaaand shut.

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Hours after seeing photos of Infosys' appallingly bizarre aesthetics for its Mysore campus, I couldn't help afterimages of mangled wireframe domes, glass long-since shattered, cracked plaster, destitution, giant pan stains and general decrepitude. Why does Infosys just get it wrong in every way, especially in visible structure design. It seems they will it. There is that unforgivable imitation of the Louvre pyramid on Hosur Main. Wipro on the other hand, has built its equity and buildings and image with unmistakable class. Who cares if Premji's keeping most of the shares to himself? He's spread the wealth around handsomely. It's striking that every third person (xagg) you meet has done something for Wipro in some capacity, as for the dreaded agencies, I haven't come across a single one in town that hasn't done something for it once upon a time; what is entirely likely is the company is a serial agency-dumper which is perfect because ad agencies deserve to treated that way.

4/4!!! and 1 pending. Now for the labour.

We mated with Neanderthals. Can we breed with other animals, too?

pic Via

Pathetic

1. People who flirt with news issues expecting to be taken seriously while trying to fit into every airy social grouping imaginable, mostly the kind of group that thinks it seriously profound to follow the trail of Israeli tourists in India in fashion and tour operator, down to their tour guidebook in Hebrew. Surprisingly apart from vocab like 'dude' which such a bpo-set must use, 'wannabe' is another favorite.
2.People who register companies because they had a few spare lakhs, ambition, money to launder from another company, something to gain from bidding for contracts/funding under another name. All that, but no idea.

'If I can drive a car, I can do anything' is just one of the thoughts that dance in juvenile drivers' heads unexpressed but felt. You would think only vulgar residents of off-color cities like Delhi had that complex. But calm down - in that wholly underplayed but doubly-vexing way, possession of a car and the driving of it plays the same tiring power game here. 'I got the car' - what does it do for the driver? If they are already disposed to a mania for control - it gives them their kick while the hapless companion crouches supine on the side seat, powerless and subject, a spectator. If the supine has little choice in the company he keeps, in no time he/she will be overtaken by the need for ownership and actual use of a similar 4-wheel gadget, hoping to gain the latitude he was previously only witness to ... After a party, the animals disgorged on the pavement, 'who has a car?' is like 'who has the penis?' If you are in certain professions, the employment of such a vehicle and all its prestige significations (over the ubiquitous and less capable two-wheeler) feeds the the need to feel you are physically getting somewhere, doing things - indeed, covering ground. Some dafts deserve to be in petit bourgeioise professions where their attentions are cr(/l)owded out by gadgets, conversation, frequencies that prevent them from even considering the significant ratio of signal:noise.

Epiphany 1: All that talk about how the exigencies of the Great Wars birthed a contingent mood that birthed an edgy passionate overdrive (creativity?) in bold movies, street fashion, music, art in Europe. Just made me think: that all the loadshedding, whether scheduled or not, is doing something of the same for our sweet little self-conscious Banglo. At least that works on the level of private work: like freelancers (with lances) who manage their own deadlines or if u can only fuck to radio, you hurry with it anxiously before loadshed.

wauuuh! occasionally i love it when people get so worked up about something most others think was a tiny wada. Here is The Times food reviewer getting nicely worked up

"...It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck...I am sorry if this looks petty (last time i mailed a Times sub about the change of a single word i got in all sorts of trouble) but i care deeply about my work and i hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing. I have been away, you've been subbing joe and hugo and maybe they just file and fuck off and think "hey ho, it's tomorrow's fish and chips" - well, not me. I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that's how it is..."

Sea of Poppies

World's largest opium factory, Ghazipur, did you know. An indisputable review I read months and a respect for Ghosh I developed after a performance, has compelled me to decide to spend on Sea of Poppies. I would of course rather have access to the documents he plumbed, but this should do. Meanwhile, remembering to paddle for appointment in bosky BSK tomorrow aft.

I want all featured. what is inside them

1. I thought I appreciated this tomb place in lyon, but no. Cannot take anything so deliberate and pretentious. What should we think? The thinking that went behind it? A basic mistake. sorry
2. Does anyone have a Baedeker - vintage types?
3. Prefabricated Houses, at the Modern http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/18/arts/0718-DWELL_12.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/18/arts/0718-DWELL_12.html
4. Wouldn't mind this: Perfumes: The Guide (Hardcover)
5. Reality shows are better suited to this kind of challenge: http://momahomedelivery.org/
6. Another article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/arts/design/18dwel.html

NEWSFLASH:Brangelina expecting twins - get sextets! and EVEN MORE good news

Less than a week after receiving a surprise set of six babies from the lady's womb, Brangelina were in for another surprise when the French gynaecologist who had assisted in the exceptional delivery, revealed in a statement this morning that a regular checkup 4 days after the delivery, showed that angelina was indeed pregnant again - only this time round she would be in for triplets only.
Ecstatic as this news should be for the couple that delight in such expansion, sources close to the pair informed us that this time, the celebrity couple were distinctly unamused. Already overlooked for his acting abilities, Brad has also failed as producer, all his last 23 movies having registered unprecedented negative box office returns. By most estimates, Angelina too appears to have careened to the end of her acting career as we know it, her increasingly exoskeletal structure leaving hapless scriptwriters to protest at the unnatural retrofitting of story to suit the actress. Not to mention the third world refugees who have taken affront at having an unatural ambassador foisted on them.
It is opined they may shortly have to surrender all their children to adoption with the option of redeeming them later when at least either one of their careers picks up, at which time, if they are still together they may even lauch their charges into the world of celebrity.

To Dennis, thnx for some unspeakable help

Doesn't take a brilliant to figure out, Gangaram's should be folding soon. Apart from the physical detoriation and scaling down of premises, stock and staff, the despondence in staff and management is almost painful to observe, and infectious. Now if only spreading the pain meant reduced misery for the individual; i don't know.

The Marriage of Maria Braun

Fascinating - economic locked-in script, thrilling turns, unreal dialog. Both Fassbinder. A possessed Hanna Schygulla. Fela (a viewer) watched this cynically but managed to be gripped; how did this happen? I suspect Fassbinder intended this: something like a radio show is playing throughout in the background - this would irritate anyone at the start. You are not encouraged to judge/evaluate, just receive, the pace helps. And of course the dependence on subtitles that robbed more time off the possibility. He is not compelled to make sense; he wishes to throw off the bumviewer within bounds.

• First Monday
• (Fire in the belly, run run run)
• Content is not king (for his deftn of contentum)
• Defeasible Reasoning
• Event: 28th July
  

On my visit to bfs today, Gkutty let on about a talk that's going to happen: About an hour before this month's bfs screening on the 25th, lawrence liang will speak on 'A touch of evil'. The paper was published in the Jan issue of Deep Focus. If any of you can make it, please do come prepared for what you can always expect from liang and secondly for crying out, an informed debate, for which it makes sense to have done ur own research on the history of censorship in cinema and if you can, his article. The article is not online but I can lend the copy to whoever wants it and will extract major points up here next week.
***Must learn my lesson: a burst of greed and hyperactivity made me break my no more ad agencies promise. zombie vibes were picked up. will say it again: no more. i will hereafter be happy with my modest gear -> power transmission assignments and look at educating myself in the plentiful spare time. blugh
***Alan Jonston, hostage for a year in Palestine some time back, returned to the bbc after the experience to host 'From Our Own Correspondent'. However his new-founded voice tone of irritating long-drawn resignation and abdication from interest, struck me straight off as tiresome and stultifying. As if to say he's been, everbody knows, through so much, he's earned the right to sound like this. The BBC is beholden but I think he should be asked to pick up or pack out. In a people's job you should be thinking of the stories you're presenting, no matter how mentally ravaged you were this time 2 years back.
***Wrk blogs bookmarkd: Frederick Noronha
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/user/55
http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com/
http://www.i4donline.net/june04/creatincontent_full.asp
http://www.tacticaltech.org/africasource2/blog
http://www.bytesforall.net/

falling back on most deadlines- not at all happy about it.

“Where else would I get away with such mediocrity?” - Navdeep Singh (Director: Manorama Six Feet Under)

Tehelka correspondent and profiler in current issue, Nisha Susan dishes out consistently good output - impressive. watch her.

When all's bled and done

my title piece for bwg theme night: July 3.
(all amassing, causing lungs to limp)

notes to my bricoleur:
Man as his own maker (Prolog)
The Craftsman (Review)
Inner-city Scholar
The Civitas of Seeing
Good work takes time

extract: "What I think of as urbanity is precisely making use of the density and differences in the city so that people find a more balanced sense of identification on the one hand with others who are like themselves but also a willingness to take risks with what is unlike, unknown.... It is the kinds of experiences that make people find out something about themselves that they didn’t know before. That’s what urbanity is at its best....To me, how to privilege the notion of difference that is what urbanity is all about."

and did you ever really know the meaning ofSUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

No you didn't; because guess what isn't. Not even is shitting not a universal SOD moment. Because there are the chintoos crapping widely in my exposed link road before flying motorists; the drama-artifice thing is there: 'o look at my genitalia i am' mischief license (they know it is playacting). and motorists seeing it fullfront pretending unmoved by a display they can't get from any known relative, friend or sprouting spouse. So to qualify it: whatever you are cagey about admitting to, is a measure of what is not an SOD event/moment. Like you suppose, fugitive jerking off, (remember: teacher's school sanctimony after night of manic sx), or more seriously: murder, subterfuge, bad faith. Then again, only in places/among people where you suppose such things are defendu (or criminal), and then only if that matters at that moment. what moment were you thinking?
Reading/watching fiction is bad enough, cannot take prolonged SOD in real life which urban Bangaloreans are splendid at practicing. > Exeunt from right

on the subject of ah, meet dean young in vacationland

i've stopped even mildly tracking the mainstream or anything music scene - but the last really inventive work i remember was this guy's. still doing good; let me check out. the album of the track i recall went platinum or something. Came across some interviews in that phase and what a measure. he has it. wont explain

Over the last 2 weeks, I've been spending a lot of time reading almost every one of the tedious posts of this alok's blog i've pasted before; I wouldn't have bothered if it was just opinion. There's hardly any of that, in fact it's vigorously derivative and is steeped in references to sometimes obscure european art house films and a series of books starting with 'Melancholy', Sebald comes in a couple of times. Can't help noting the restraint and even academic temper of his posts which are a devoted record of critical impressions, sample this post.
The few times he does dot his opinion, I can't always agree (like when he can't understand what's so great about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). Considering my infantile but steadiy-eroding prejudice against north indian people (will remain anti-Hindi though) even if they happen to be on the social sidelines of New York, my reverence for alok's posts is a development. Admittedly he lacks some essential slant and original convictions, but he is somehow reassuringly comfortable with his relegated position of temerity. He is up the right street.
***
'sikkapatte kannada, swalpa hindi, totall bengaluru' hoarding/ print ads
wtf BigFM or the other ones? I'm sorry but the debrained visualizer-copywriter (actually glutonnous CD - since they usually hog the fancy accounts) of the hot shop 4-letter agency that came up with this revelation is wrong. He forgot the 3 other south indian languages + inglish-of-a-sense which have precedence over hindi in the south. I think the ideal here is: if a south indian radio station (it isn't i know) isn't going to register south indian languages - who is? jabalpur fm?
all that said - the radiocity website design by bcwebwise is a super job.

Funereal

Watch this interview. Icelandic band Sigur Ros.
Their painful selfconsciousness, resounding discomfiture is impressive. you could trust them. But the interviewer has a lot to be pulled up over. I do not appreciate the interviewer's insensitivity to the complexes his subjects have to deal with. These include:

• The language English (not a language the band is comfortable with)
• Their place as visitors (shakey for anyone but the most arrogant, culturally/personally)

Facts such as these you can fairly factor even before you begin an interview. These are 'benefit' facts, that gives your guests the benefit of consideration. The most composed (relative) and eloquent of the group is the one who has not surprisingly spoken from the start. He could be a father, the oldest in the group. He is not half as interesting a study as the rest. I don't refer to him after this; he fields the first question and remains in unassuming charge ...
Note how 2 members reach out for their papercups at the same time on the second question. The meek-postured boy in stripes closest to the camera only wants to leave and has taken to contorting his tongue in his mouth. He is the last to put on the headphones; wisely he puts it on only when the interview has begun. Half way into this interview, the mood of dire unease has not lifted. The member furthest from the camera has now placed his hand to to the side of his head - the thinking stress pose. Inspite of the thinking, he has spoken little yet his eye movements indicate he may be turning manic and distressed. When the interviewer uses the word 'life' ('Are you enjoying life?') it seems to offer hope, and most of them look up but not much is said. The interviewer hapless in his own desperation at what may go down as a failed interview asks a rude 'Are you having fun...'. This helps no one and the answer is a deadpan 'we're having fun'. clearly this Icelandic team is not going to open up like the savvy American. The interviewer seems to raise his voice a bit and asks 'Are you a bit of a phenomenon in Iceland?'. The word 'phenomenon' cracks them up and they chuckle privately but audibly suggesting they have private opinions about the interview, the interviewer, the choice of words, what it tells about the culture.

The cruellest move is when the interviewer turns on the one who has not spoken a word till then. The boyish one in stripes. His anxiety is clear, an expression of dread, he clears his throat holds his breath and taps his fingers in the runup to the specific question 'hopelandic'. Then it should surprise no one that this tense boy's first answer is an expletive. He nervously-defiantly says 'fucking bullshit' which is beeped. After initial laughs, the expressions of the bandmates indicate they do not approve of what their bandmate just said, the impression he is creating. The interviewer turns indulgent and school marmish. The interviewer persists and tries to put in words for him which makes the boy more difficult and contrary.

The interviewer becomes confrontational and strident when he could be considerate. Embarassed, his bandmates try to answer on behalf of their boy to cover up his social deficiencies. There is an expression of part-sympathy, -concern, -anger in his fellow member's . One of his mates, on the extreme right turns red-faced after putting in a quick word on his mate's lyrics.

The interview ends with an obvious 'edit' and the withdrawn face of the fractious band member in stripes and his bandmates; we could imagine there was an ugly face-off ('Drop it will you; picking on Jaan')?

Looking back, I see the interviewer has spoken more than the rest - we know nothing more about the band. Quite remarkably, they have succeeded in showing up the inefficiencies of the interviewer, who is likely an over-acheiving media student with 3 children of his own.

We could consider the challenge in interviewing groups, where the one interviewer decides to question each and every person in that group before all. What happens inevitably is that the first to be interviwed has the pleasure of speaking primally, instinctively, less selfconsciously. While the others among the last to be called up have to deal with their own built-up opinions and reactions to everything so far. And unless the room was noisy and distracted, there would be every reason for the final few who are called up to be nervous, self-conscious and unable to express the complex range they have built up by then. It would be the responsibility of the interviewer to pick out then who he would not naturally pick out for a comment and give that person the lead in expressing and in a sense dominating proceedings (subsequent to this initiation, the turned-in member would not even be occupied by his primacy or deficiency in participation)

corpus

Cities and Ambition

Blogs: Alok's Dispatches from Zembia and The Laws of Light and Honey
Essay: College a toll booth on the road to employment?
Essay: The Craft of Musical Communication
Random: Polyhedral Maps
Mag: Jumpcut

Dr Binayak Sen

It's not officially a crime to put in a word for Naxalites, but it appears all you need is a bit of prominence in which case a sympathetic word/act will find you ambushed into jail. Ignorance of law is not a valid claim for defense in court; so even if we can forgive the untenable expectation of awareness of all daft legal developments, CAN THE PUBLIC KNOW WHAT THE STAND ON treating Ns as humans IS? If there isn't one, who should be held for pre-emptive imprisonments? The government and Left is so spectacularly self-absorbed, dishing out Padma Bushbags to metal-chewing Mittals and dyspepsic Noyis, they should really look up from their orgy and see what their wilful oversight is telling the world. Tell me that the A-team NDA boys of Wharon, Harvard, MIT don't read the Economist. Or maybe Mukti Morcha's Shaheed Hospital doesn't rock their radar like Mount Sinai. They say, justice delayed is justice denied - i'd say: injustice prolonged = bloody crime

Renaissance woman؟

How to undermine karma

The wise man built his house on rock, dumb man on sand parable was the product of a system that didn't know better than to sustain elitism and discourage invention. What if a poor fucker had an inheritance of only sandy land? Be sure that today, it isn't only low income houses in Ejjipura that are willing to fall. Sure every second sundry one storey construction even in tenements are using reinforced steel bars filched or borrowed, but I'm not sure the quality of land on which they intend to stand is given much thought even in more prestigious commissions. Whether it's water logged is about the only issue. Pumps are got from somewhere and the water bed for the locality is drained out. That's another issue altogether and the point is: the dumb fart who was left with sandy land can either follow Laurie Baker's advice and keep that land for a beach frond shack nothing more, or he can try flicking a couple of helical piers and anchors directly from some Razack of the Prestige Group who is I think getting away too easily with fucking up roads with construction material while he lives in a gated community. Ya – so the sandman should consider this. And some heavyduty drills.

Thachom Poyil Rajeevan

Most writers (mostly the kind who go about describing themselves 'writer') perform as miserably as their prodiguous input/output. Then there are those that crush you to abject humility in the sound of what theyve done. T P Rajeevan I heard once in a decrepit book shop reading out his poem translated from Malayalam, and I could not handle it. It's been 5 years and I do not remember the poem exactly but I wish to point out that most of his work, it was self-published - none of the starry eyed plopshit or a face in femina. Try out
When glasses look back.

VK Krishna Menon

Of all those blue-eyed babes in that Independence Mooment Club, there is one who makes my blood jump*: VK Krishna Menon. Although born into what passed for privelege (though nothing is certain in Kerala), his story suggests the thrum of someone with the hunger of an underdog, strangely. He never had his meals on time and ran on tea. You probably remember him for the marathon UN thing? A gripping orator, enviable conversationalist and not surprisingly a nifty networker, this is someone I would want to spy in his element.

Did you know he co-founded Penguin Books? And Pelican.
He has been described as 'the most disliked person in India' (which says a lot about the TIME editorial line and a lot about him). I really would like to know who constituted TIME's survey sample. really some rags.

So i spend on the cheapest sl in the market that comes without hdds, optical drives and worst still for all sluts for convenience - without windows. Yes, it comes with linux (xandros) and you'll have to pay 3K extra if you want the familiarity of your jealous cross-eyed old wife, windows. then the nervy part, I needed an usb hdd.'Seagate snubs Linux'; and what about Lacie. For psychological confort I returned the Seagate for a Lacie 120G (Seagate makes too much money anyway; the Barton Centre guys even made a refund of the difference). And it wasn't all plug and play. You've got to mount that fat(32) from console. And I had to hunt for all this. And figuring out mighty clever things like my hdd was identified as sdc1 and not sda1(as given in most quick examples) by rummaging through output of the dmesg command. So what did it in the end was: mount -t auto dev/sdc1 home/usb after mkdiring /home/usb. The best part is I don't need to mount and unmount everytime, the loading and unloading happens. I hear this compatibility crap isnt going to happen with the dvd drive. And for the connectivity bit that got me walking in the sun for 2 days to speak to various bums in tata and reliance (no options support linux), I figure my best solution is what is still being called breakthrough technology - dove (anangram). I don't want to give everything away. But i will soon.O, and if you find yourself in the same situation, here are the links that saw me through:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/mandriva-30/mount-an-external-ntfs-usb-hard-disk-201441/
http://www.fraw.org.uk/download/cltc/cltc_bb-01.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/mount-external-usb-2.0-hard-disk-with-ntfs-74312/
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=875&p=3
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=12602
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=105296
*Note to uber: My post on tehelka next. as soon as my eeep is set free for my post is sitting in it - amassing 2 pages in that time; it might be a short story*

Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave. - Brancusi

Vindhiya

With a blurb photo like that, I'd want to pick up this book. The reviews snatched my interest, 'Cupid's Alarms' and 'Warmth in his eyes'. Regret I cannot read Tamil but the brotherly translation is supposed to be good. O and Vindhiya was her plume name, her actual: India Devi.

While I munch currencies of expired beaten rice, let met tell you there is a lost generation of South Indians who do not speak 35 pure and deep indigenous languages and dialects. There is also a subset of that lost gen that happens to be direly dyslexic and so incapable of learning any of those tongues even after ardent and prolonged exposure. So a standing joke between my sis and I (who has now left me behind by showing after marriage she knew malayalam all long; latent) since college days, was our earnest translation of the Tamil Hit song: 'Chinne Chinne Assae'. Guess what our take was? Here goes: 'Tiny Tiny Ass'.
But the best part has to be that I am learning from scratch.
scritch scritch.

The Supremes

Not to get lachry-nostalgic, but hearing about The Supremes made me think that us 3 siss should get together some day and give a performance surpassing even those of old times.

Let this not take away from the person and work of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer

The Perch production was alright. Actors with their urban confidence and awareness. A mediocre production and the joke of a standing ovation which began when one clapper wanted to stretch his legs. I was suspect too. What was the point of putting up a little show of resistance, so we stood up and clapped and blushed a bit at our own show while the performers linked hands, touched their several toes and looked up touching their respective hearts at intervals; a few seconds into the awkwardsness I think it became fairly obvious to them what the case was. I am very clear what I appreciate is the absolute selection of Basheer for a production; not so much the delicate distracting Aparna Gopinath as Basheer himself. No mistakes about that.

[Written yesterday: I'm fairly zimmed since ages after protective company in old dens after a venerable malayalam english play and everyone saying byebye and how we must fix for a parting trek in 2 weeks, I am fairly marooned and in need of not engineered privation but fixed meditation - unthrown. I will miss insights and D's one on geniune people she introduced me to but whom she felt unworthy of, whom I already knew were 'true'. You know who they are no? The kind of smile that invests everything and dies right in you, some fragility that kissed you on the cheek and did not want to leave you.]

In the adaptation, I suspect the plainess has gone missing with the urbane tics/antics of the actors except most definitely the one who played the part of Basheer - a composed, even and perfectly-cast Paul Mathew (ex-Captain). All in all, I need a break from stories of men and their outlook.

Tum brum allergy or What goes round or One ick deserves an ack

"The daily rituals in Kerala temples are traditionally performed by Namboothiris, and often by Embranthiri migrants from the neighbouring Karnataka, but not by Tamil Brahmins...
...in the past Nambudiris considered themselves polluted by even the touch of other Brahmins: Eda Shudha touch of Tamil Brahmins such as Iyer, Iyengar, Pattar which required the Nambudiri to bathe before resuming activities)..." - Wikip

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

D getting married. awww. What can I say? Congrats.

At long last, i can announce my fully amicable divorce from 'writer' jobs and yes a nevermore to the top spin world of somebody else's advertising. For this I have to thank the meeting I had with a pretty smart mallu head of a beat 4-letter big agency of my picking. Walking in as a dyedinthestool socialist (as I had) in a thin kurta with underarm sweat moons reaching to the waist - is like asking for it. But I had a perfect exchange with the gun who pointed to exactly what it was I was trying to hint at: no more jobwriting for me please; i'm into people and talking to them and always have been. So 'suit' obviously. And now the ball's in my court and I hit it not only beyond the stands but outside the stadium, and I walk into exit all smiles at making my peace.

**** My special thanks to D (who doesn't read blogs) for just being there in a tricky patch. I'm not one to believe in the friendship biz. which is mostly about public show and pledged to sex arrangements; we're frigid, distant, emotionally-impaired planks with separate agendas, but she was there when I needed an ear, and that counts for something better.

Kiss kiss fuck fuck

Astounding

The bunch of photo-op-seeking Indian Yinglish writers are balls. Because O V Vijayan came before them and quietly wrote 'Legends of Khasak' and went on with work; no keeness, smiles or special angles for a lover behind the camera. I'm glad I didn't die before reading it. Astounding. Read it and then remind yourself - he wrote this in Malayalam and then did the glish translation himself. This is not about false pride in flaunting the vernacular like U R Ananthamurthy proved to a friend yesterday, this is about being humble enough to notice, hear and understand everything: people from outside places even brilliance beyond language.

Tee-hee. titter. Goldfinch braves snow.

BBC: William Wells' photo of a goldfinch in Oxfordshire.

Let's forgive this guy for living in Delhi and then blogging about it like anyone should care. He opines like a non-Delhiite though from his name you couldnt tell which part of the grand land he's from (which is at it should be). Mayank Austen Soofi must have parents, or atleast one, more enlightened than many to give him that name. But to get to his ogging: I remember objecting to one of his posts; his writing is excruciatingly underformed when not superbly rescued by his caption-spiked photos. Readers, readers - take a look at his Delhi photos; they express better. Just take a look at them. Excellent. As with other good documentary photographers, the point is: their hearts in the right place. Then they're building a body of work. It's the kind of journey that's worth watching.
other news 1, Can someone assist me in moving out once and for all from Bangalore? My spine is slowly filling with dead lead.
other news 2, Trolley talk - mixedrace identity ; Adwoa-Shanti Dickson
other news 3, And what's with not announcing Frederick Dove's removal as presenter of Outlook on the BB World Service? Few weeks back, I just happened to catch his swansong and the sadness in his voice saying it was his last show. And that's the last thing he says. Nobody like that should leave without an elegy.

miasmic

This left me very strange. Yesterday night i had harmless but affecting overlapping dreams as if they were happening again from the exact past with some inventions. My first acquaintances - who used to come home and whose families I would move with shamelessly - were back and visiting me like before with some boys i was a little anxious about on behalf of neighbours. Parents had just left and party had just arrived and the place was bright and done up fine. Just as the party stepped in, I had to step out (along with a very longstanding friend) for a quick visit to a kind of old city club - a very run-down small sort of bowring. This club which was a kind of wooden pub was frozen in time - with a few old civil service men and attitudes. dusty tables and worn wood panelling. Somewhere reached through a bylane of Shivajinagar - and there they all sat, not many, moving slowly and waiting for some old man or another. A family came in - Armykind with Southern class, strong wife, and wellsettled adolescent son more like a friend of his father. I was only moving about. Back to the first frame when the friends were at the gate, *issa for some reason had pinched my cheek and looked sympathetic which as always made me feel arrogant because she had no idea. Things moved on - no conclusions, just miasmic.
***
I had no opinions about this treat of a sequence, I was just on an errand but I was so disembodied and in very odd way alienated by the whole tapestry.
So today at desk, I'm feeling a bit shifted, displaced, mislaigned...
***
another feature piece in the miasm was that the fridge door closing mechanism was impeded for good. So what? i slam it a lot in real life big deal who wants a fridge.

materialicious

Another thing and featured above page 2: Acrylic One Composite Solutions: material is a solvent-free, water-based resin It is used to mimic all kinds of materials - wood, concrete, metal, slate. Criticism would be brought on by large-scale production.
In other news: Not only is Baichung Bhutia one of the few Indian sportsmen in the right sport, he also happens to be one of the few with any balls.

Dayabai

I was thinking if I were to leave this blog alone for a long time, the post I would want seen right on top would be about Dayabai (Mercy Mathew). Almost every day there's a moment when we think we were belittled by someone or something we read on other people's wins of some kind. Some people I've met lately have been saying they dont know what it is they want to do in life and fear they'll end up nowhere and pitied and without the pledge of a man. It should be clear that everyone has an obligation to be a very particular fanatic. Dayabai is someone about whom many herdhumans, who have seen her about her life, feel sorry for. She's about 60 now and with age comes a little immunity from unwanted impressions. But in her 30s40s they thought she was positively deranged - an unmarried woman unaligned to any ideology or political party, club, living in a village she was neither born in, brought to nor invited into. If you watch videos of her you can see how easy it is to pick her weakneses out, you could start with her voice that is almost constantly shakey with poorly managed emotion. This makes me think of a certain opposite a lot of women and men (Jat Club) like to hold up as a model for strength and women: Renuka Choudhary. Strident in everyway: large, loud and commanding. Another moment is enought to deliver up the ghost of stage thrills. Everybody likes a good show; the pity is not knowing the default is masks-off and forgetting lines and mumbling and looking disgraceful and vulnerable. Then again lets be true to ourselves about what it means to be a woman; something that's isntinctively puzzled at the ambition of boxing police officers and outshouting another gender.

This time last year, Tony Joseph stepped down as Editor of Businessworld after a couple of years in which he really made it something that poohed out some infectiously dull competition. Really, it wasn't just that, I remember thinking ever since it was launched it carried the best journalism in the country. But even after I came to see that financial journalism is simply better than pulpy mainstream because it just had to be factually competent and name the right theories in a way politcal journalism here for some reason doesn't even pretend to know, it was still clear that businessworld was combining exciting information in right-sized packets in a dimension and cover that never threw attitude, just excitement in a very new way. It would be pertty accurate to say Tony made this happen.

So when I saw last month he was no longer the editor, I could only hope Jehangir Poch wouldn't bung things up. From what I've seen so far he's playing it safe and not trying to fix a fantastic creation.

Marcel Proust: everything makes sense

The art of letting slip: the name of a famous relative & other more meaningful arts

To certain people letting slip the name of a famous relative is the only fix for their flagging self-worth; they do it very often. Others marry for that sweet privelege, acceeding to bonded copulation for a long-coveted proximity to recorded literary history. This gets me to my most famous contemporary relative who by above standards is emininetly disreputable. This would be something to boast about if he were'nt deceptive and apologetic of what it is he really does. dear cousin chroma (not real name but rhymes).
On to the more meaningful arts and news:
- I've been looking for this medieval illustration of the the mythical-seeming Land of Hermaphrodites that Marco Polo mentioned from his travels. But it's nowhere on the net this illustration.
- This morning I found myself dancing like Pan to some radio track. With shades on. Halfway in a pose, Peeping into the mirror for an inst, I was in this bachanallian Pan pose [image], one knee cocked to the level of my neck
- Sestinas make sense but still not certain what canzones are meant to obey
- In thoughtful news: Coming to the assistance of Kerala's vanilla farmers (facing falling prices) Amul has decided to switch to natural vanilla flavour in its entire range of vanilla icecreams. An Amul spokesman said the move would make Amul the first national brand to use natural vanilla extracts instead of synthetic vanilla. Farmers had contacted GCMMF and Sharad Pawar to make use of natural vanilla flavour mandatory for all ice-cream maufacturers in the country.

Aluzinc cladding house, Chile

Aluzinc cladding house in South Chile (?good in all lighting)
Architects: Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects

I am in absolute love with my darling eldest sister who visited home yesterday in a fresh boy cut. Now in her seventh month with her second, she sat like a sweet happy bud when i saw her yesterday evening. Wearing her favorite pink T with white polkas and sportingthis new tumble boy cut that brought out her cherub blossom. What a pretty thing. And pulling off a nice surprise like that on everyone including her husband. Simply Adorable and the most precious sweet thing I have seen in ages. Exuding this general love for all things even the air blunting softly around her. Only small fulfilled independent birds have made me feel the same way. Some plants, and flowering trees too, squirrels and sparkling stars.I must get something for her this weekend. dear sweet treasure.

It's been a year since I could pick up any fiction, so what can i do but congratulate my instincts and the circumstances that led me to sound direction that got me here: Last month after tortured mulling, it was picked; nothing could change my speed and it took 3 weeks to walk through the confiding marvel of Banville's The Sea. Being so well turned at every step, I can't reconcile with the need for its smart ending. Just past midnight, you see it's been just a few minutes since I read the last words. Was Rose's identity coup really necessary? Maybe I'll come round in time?

David Yocum and Brian Bell's architecture office (Atlanta)

Isn't it pathetic there are writers incapable of self-reflection who boast THEY DO NOT WRITE FOR MONEY and then expect their books to sell. I mean then you write for what?? Brushing your teeth with capacitors? Or some kind of erection you get from saying it? But no - we're supposed to understand your hidden inheritance; that fixed deposit and apartment your parents left your bleeding butt. Old wealth. I can smell the prestige. like Chanel or something. That such self-effacing greatnesses live among ussses makes me cry. Sitting on all that wealth and dressing like one of us; spending money on books instead of flashinesses.
In other news I'm having some fun curating at Pigmy - which get us to another thing. I'm doing a retrospective of some of my blog posting that never got posted because it piled up in .txts instead.

Whatever you may say, Maureen Dowd is right up my street. Read her here and then here.

Madame Tutli-Putli

Hey, so instead of watching sub-standard Hollywood mulch described in last post, here's something you should try and catch. S mentioned this yesterday! Ofcourse this wasnt inspired by married women who think theyve sorted it out so well for themselves.

The first Hollywood flim I see in years leaves me sniggering from the fourth frame or maybe even the second and discounting 6/10 of the visual content of most frames. This Michael Clayton thing in running for the tra-daah Oscar. The tired trademark devices of outrageously busy office rooms in impressive panic mode where everyone succeeds (to me, hilariously) in appearing busy and if they're important, also fashionably distressed so they get to rub their face and put a hand on their hip. Dialogues that carry the audience along; allowing them to snoop on some intense affair of involved jargon. Then the usual pyrotechnics for relief and then a line that makes a desperate-for-cooption Indian audience exclaim and puff and guffaw at: 'I am Shiva, the God of Death'. Only both times it was spoken I heard it as: 'I am Sheba, the God of Death'. Ok, anyway, that really makes the grade.Lawfirm vs. biotech co. Sooo this is an Erin Brokovich, Bourne Identity overlap that's taken the worst of each and brought in little else except hack and treadmill dialogue only 2/10ths of which anyone understands unless they really care and watch it a second time. Again its male-dominated, women are artless or shakily crafty which I know is true in real life but in the last year I've begun to see a good majority of well- grounded, rounded women. On the whole, flim-flam waste of time. Oh and there's all that dolby-digital gravitas thing going to forbode some pyrotechnic or the other.

That brings me to a little tribute I'd like to make to my companions of the evening 'IS' and 'S' who have taught me a couple of lessons in the little time I've known them. Their stable, undemanding and free-willed selves have taught me that company is best enjoyed for itself and is ruined by demands. Their ancient friendship is before me and there is no other set of guys I have enjoyed drinking with as much, even if at any time, one or the other or both have some excuse for abstaining. Well. Here's a mug to them.

Exhibition on till March 30

Venue: NCBS
Already begun, exhibition on till March 30th 2008, 9.30 am to 5.30 pm, Monday to Friday
Curator: Annamma Spudich
More details

Wikileaks

global defense of sources and press freedoms, circa now—

Tuesday 19 February, 2008

1. This, my friends, is news of the day: Following a Calif Court ruling, wikileaks.org was taken offline. Who was petitioning what? "The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities.[Source: BBC]". The bank in question is Julius Baer and it was whistle-blown upon by Wikileaks.

But is this an empty victory for Baer? Because there be mirror sites. You can read the offending documents here: http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Full_correspondence_bewtween_Wikileaks_and_Bank_Julius_Baer
And here is an an instance of someone who got jittery about wikileaks back in March. I mean downright hostile - he gets to reputation even.

2. In other news, with a exciting ruling awaited on the BAE-slushfund-Saudi case any time now. This appears the latest development: Blair used 'irresistible pressure' to halt investigation into BAE-Saudi arms deal

Can the media try covering new Indian authors who avoid: summing it up as 'love and loss', protagonist pairs like twins or alteregos, inclusion of pickle factories, getting their blurb photos taken by their caring husbands*, auspicious references to critical time done abroad. does it go on?
Honestly the most original and sensible English writing in India today are translations from the vernacular.
The metro English stuff is just self-conscious piddling. To make things worse their champions try to make a fashion statement while theyre at it. With all the sub-standard stuff parading I'm ready to read only in kannada or malayalam; only its going to take some time. Movies should help.
*this is to send the message that the author has a rich nude private life

clinton: the common crafty catty shrew
obama: exceptional

Sarah Lucas

Nayi Neralu (Based on a novel by S L Bhyrappa)

Exquisitely composed, sensibly paced and simply reassuring. In sets, Kasarvalli has dispensed with the responsibility of weighty historical fidelity in details by keeping it spare, but this is alright and even possibly accurate. If I had a problem with anything, it would be in the continuation of historical representation in stories of a kind placing the brahmin woman as queen of virtue and the tribal woman as available. (If at all such a thing is about virtue and worth making declarations on, I know only too many half or full brahmin sluts, legs and home wide open like a venus flytrap, clinching a marriage out of their life's only catch along with their balls.) This perceived flaw in the ethics of the narrative occurs to me only much later though, and again - this should be laid at the door of Bhyrappa.

I loved it and it was perfectly and quietly concluded with Venkatalakshmi's 'radical conversion of her being-in-the-world'.

I want to make it this Sunday 7:30 am to the Glass House. really do. and you?
(Following post will list all we found)
Brahminy Kite
Pariah Kite
White-cheeked barbet
Koel (male-female)
Coucal
Spotted doves (making out)
Grey drongo
Palm swift
Golden Oriole (small!)
House Crows
Jungle Crows
(Prasad addressed himself largely to the kids which is fine; they were a more loyal audience, unlike a group of flitty adults who insisted on getting distracted by 'Visit Shimla' salesboys and similar sideshows. Subbu was in better form sketching with strange enthusaism for kids)

Wanted: either The Sea or Book of Evidence

unwell

First thing to report in ages,

When the invitation arrives one long week after being informed that I might be considered for an invitation to curate, you'd think this was the time to say something arrogant. Instead I'm saying:

It is my honor to Curate.

My first subject is Botero. Will need 3 days to settle on one work and put down the right line.

the blue light will do.

Wait wait - but this talk is absolutely brilliant because its at some of the multiple interstcies of my multiple interests: African fractals in buildings and braids. Bamana sand divination as 'geomancy' in Europe?
Conscious use of scaling and recursion in Logone-Brini's architecture
Ring-shaped fractal in Ba-ila architecture
Fractal model for Mokoulek; Nankani village in Mali
(Scaling patterns common to all indigenous architecture? No
That any society without a 'State' structure functions on a heirarchy and has a bottom-up architecture.
Only African ones were fractal; native Americans used a combination of 4-fold symmetry and circular symmetry)

• Intuition? In some case they had sophisticated algorithms:
• Recursive geom in Mangbetu design
• Fractal construction in Ethiopian cross design
• Recursive Eulerian paths in Lusona(Angola) *
• Self-organising patterns in Owari/Mancala/Bao/Sogo

Practical Fractal: Scaling in an African windscreen (when fences in the Western world are Cartesian; strictly linear) And the great: Bamana sand divination (Binary code recursion) using deterministic chaos like a pseudorandom number generator: thjis may be implemented in hardware (relevance as core-base study in Engineering schools in these communities)

Using fractal structures for structuring postal addresses (imbalance of imposing a grid structure postal structure on a fractal village). Finally, google's search engine ranking uses the fractal structure of the Web; why it was a more successful than other engines; it was the first to take advantage of the selforganizing properties of the web. It's in ecological sustainability; the developmental power of entrepreneurship; ethical power of democracy; why the AIDs virus (and other virulencies) spreads so fast; destructive effects of capitalism

IN PIC: Columbia Street Building designed by French-Brazilian architecture firm Triptyque for an ad agency called Loducca
On the other hand, mathew & gosh architects sounds more promising than what they've put out so far. what were they thinking of? desert homes? it's Bangalore - i dont think the city needs people who want to make a dubai out of it. they can of course, still change. their current style is more welcome in a more crowded market with numerous breathing alternatives. in their homes, i can picture my skull cracking in an unremarkable fall on one of their hard edges. Their work for Malabar escapes is much nicer though - which I suspect is because they weren't creating from scratch and a lot of the charm was irrevocably in place. The good news is that Bangalore has a sweet outfit called Total Environment.

Yes, Publishing. How important? This important.

This one goes out to my sis - Buggles 'Radio Star'

I heard you on the wireless back in Fifty Two
Lying awake intent at tuning in on you.
If I was young it didn't stop you coming through.
OwwaOwwa
They took the credit for your second symphony.
Rewritten by machine and new technology,
and now I understand the problems you can see.
OwwaOwwa
I met your children
OwwaAwwa
What did you tell them?

Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.

Pictures came and broke your heart.
Oww-A-A-A-Oww
And now we meet in an abandoned studio.
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago.
And you remember the jingles used to go:
'OwwaOwwa'
You were the first one.
OwwaOwwa
You were the last one.

Also posted to bngbirds

Hi - I was finally initiated into birding after years of static interaction with the g&i 'birds of south india' (the book was enough to please me). however, i got round to a kind of professional birding only yesterday in zwin - with a passionate birder from Manchester. He lent me a pair of 8x24 binoculars, let me view through the telescope and provided top-class commentary on everything birds. This was a dream initiation. To get to the point, here are the birds we spotted mostly all on the same stretch of marsh-like land:
little egret; lapwing; shellduck (uses rabbit burrows for nest); starlings; jakdaws; starlings; red shanks; oyster catchers; curlews; waders (either grey on golden. not certain); grey plover, ringed plover; greater crested grebe; little grebe; mallard; gadwell; pochard; greylag goose; buzzard; kestrel; herring gull; less black back gull
blackheaded gull; cormorant (very happy to spot; last time i saw one was in kerala)
Since it was right there, we went to the bird enclosure in the reserve; and i hope the birds within are there only because they were injured or ailing; i would be sorry otherwise; i dont think its doing anyone a favour if the proposers thought it would be a helpful crash course. I saw a rook, night heron and stork there. And then the very striking eagle crow.
Thats all. The total experience really picked up a stale period in a retentive country. And reaffirmed something I never doubted: the unique and thrilling urge among birders to share and discover with anyone. This is a fine religion.

From last weekends guardian review, the evocative story and art of edward burra, and the sparkling *The Bridge of the Golden Horn by Emine Sevgi Ozdamar* reviewed by Jaggi. And I was going to pull up The Big E on something, but I didnt get the damn special report to the damn cafe.

If ur wasting urself on a charmless life-wife-butterfly fiction, first of all, its an insult for u to stop by here, secondly if you see the chink of redemption, listen to Juan Enriquez on 'growing new energy'. He makes a reference to Normal Borlaugh - read about him here.

Neil Gershenfeld on Fablab & Stefan Sagmeister on why design

I'm not going to blame the brun bier but i slipped on the floor of an internet cafe and broke nothing thanks to my fitness and running . running tmmrw mornign also after foot heats since my left foot's been feeling broken for some time. In other news, decided on UL and MD...Can you see the impassioned ambition in BM's first albums - first the work always.

Hyperbolic-paraboloid surfaces - notorious

Africa - Do business there

And a good ambassador - though the speech is not incontestable.

I'm curious about John Banville. The Sea.
and W G Sebald;
also left was mentioned by newly appointed cd at om belge.

I've never been able to separate a person's attitude from what they have to say. They may make a really good argument but be perfectly hateable as persons; and I would never put my vote with them. Like Naomi Klein - unbearable. If I would have to list people to back up an argument, I'd go for someone else, less smug, shallow and botheringly cocksure. Like the Edwards Saids and Chomskys who aren't spending time on their eyebrows, freetrade lipstick, or a commanding voice. Making a point without being ungracious, messily combative, unbearable and over-the-top. On the whole, men have the composure for it; like favourite sons who have always been sure of their authority and strength. Dignity and sense.
A few good women are around though, they're just so hard to find I think they have to take a conscious effort to develop a kind of composure in strength. The package of both good content and matching form I'm afraid is so important and hard to come by.

Not for nothing is Brussels celebrated as the most boring city in Europe, I had my suspicions but I suppose its only decent to reserve/commit opinion till after the first wave. Predictably as a city aware about the bitching, its put in place some red herrings like gay/lesbian bars, which I suppose those at desperation visit to see something genuinely seamy. Will be going there very soon. I also reserve my suspicion that police turn on their sirens only to remind that theyre beign dutiful and reassuring taxpayers. Considering I have to keep myself amused, here are the other nice facts Ive been entertqined by: telephoto lens to be less intrusive in filming of the drumming monks; the federql reserve interest rqte cut sounded wrong; oxfams concern of the regularisarion of use of biofeuls leading to a land rush in africa and asia (this has to be weighed); rebound effect; the significance of significant figures.
We shall leave this decent morning with a Bakhtin quote used by AKR in his essay Towards a countersystem:
"Every thought senses itself to be from the very beginning a rejoinder in an unfinished dialogue. Such thought is not impelled towards a wellrounded, finalised systematically monologic whole. It lives a tenselife on the borders of someoneelses consciousness."

i miss the stupid cups of cheap coffee you could keep having and a few days back i was craving the spoilt and fluorescent cream on old cakes slices you easily get in all edgy bakeries. then yesterday i wanted to gnaw wheat grain; feel it between my teeth and tongue and after biting it some softish flour thing you can finally make it after dissolving long enough in saliva. then i missed ubiquitous pointlessness. what do you think is happening?
maybe spending whole holiday tomm on a unaffordable book got on 'e.m'. did i tell you i got half-mugged on the metro when i was walking in a dark passage last sunday. 2 guys were tailing me and as fate goes i was the last person in a crowd up the elevator, one of them tapped me on the back. isn't that a spooky way to start? and why was I calm. but not going ahead with the story. we'll keep it.

great stuff

Spent the whole day getting to Louvian_la_Neuve to meet A Drese who put together the book on Dayabai, Lady of Fire, that you would have read in a past post here. Here's a pic of dayabai again; A Drese was a wise gracious host and shared a sense of remaining viciously commited to what you feel strongly about. She gave me a copy of the film she put together; will try to put it up on youtube. after permission, how could i forget.

Another world is possible

Almost forgot I had a stand on it in the first place. That most people allow themselves to feel complete in society settings (read 'parties') only when their better half's languishing somewhere in view in the same enclosure. Enough so if they feel even partially alienated, they mope through the bravery and finally agitate their mobile to getting their aff over using some voice tricks with implications. It is a failure of faith. This sight has been so disappointing from birth. It was strange, observing it all yesterday whether they're putting up a good show or not, they're fishoutoftwater without their halves; less ready to throw caution to the winds on their own terms. It's exactly the sort of situation I really pity; but some cava sparkling (Freixenet) helps at those times to play a little game about being airy for a stiff while only. Which is when I decided to say biebiegottogo to cameo regret faces somewhere and walked to the metro and rode without putting in the ticket; officials can pull you up for that; and there was a tense moment when one tailed me as I waited.
In other news, it seems Malta and me just click. And also that if tomorrow evening's readings are going to be about gender tensions, I am going to make a very big noise next to my duvel. and zats awl.

Tracy Chapman: You're the One [Live]

Why we were meant to build houses; not buy them

And this is what you get. Pleasure. Several houses in many earlier layouts and even some current ones in Bangalore hold houses whose construction had considerable involvement of the owner. These houses include tenement-shanties that you can see straightaway are absolutely inventive and the work of thrill and sweet concern. All I ever wanted was to never live in an apartment but a house that stood on ground and yes, that we were involved in building. It's important not to get besotted over ownership of course, but when pops put together something, however hemmed, several years back, it became true. Now look at this pretty thing in the favelas of Sao Paolo. Special waves of good energy going out to Estevao Silva da Conceicao. Home construction should not be the preserve of the academically trained; practically trained - ofcourse. As Estevao has been - as assistant to a builder for several years.

Bookmarked

Scientists identify part of brain that makes us 'think twice'

'Developments in brain imaging are bringing us ever closer to a scientific understanding of why a particular individual is the way they are. The ability to check, reconsider and withhold an action is essential given the complex social settings in which we live,' he concluded.
-Professor Haggard, UCL

Hyperreal

I do not want to visit paris even though its just 3 hours away. For what? I can see the dumb arc d't right here. I even go jogging round it. But if I were heckled into it, this is the one tour i would make - Paris' Sewer Network. No, not event that.

Finally made it to the CdeVoyageurs for the BWG meet. Had the same Duvel stout that the men were having. I had to smile into the distance while 2 groups had their own discussion before I twisted into the gap in good time. We could not have the usual room and were demoted to the basement instead with grace. The first 2 poems ran well. Only think I couldnt come down from the beer to read as it was being read. And then I go break decorum and read someone else's poem and also dont bring copies for everyone. That's because i did not know; no one had old me. egad - to the bwits in attendance. However, the poem i read was ofcourse akr's obituary. And they loved it. All in all I came away looking like a louse (all wrong). And walked back quite a bit still floating from the duvel to zee metro back to the room. As for the bwg, I loved the critics. No politeness here. I love it. Now writing for them...for next week.

Hanif

I've always felt this way when most within and turned out, specially so now as before. When the light comes in through the wedge of a tall curtain and I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up - ready for a book. I crave Hanif Kureishi once more. Always have. He's lost not of his immediate pleasure, and neither have I. It's been much water since Buddha and many sniggers of rehashing. Hanif any day or night. I want to know.

We couldnt keep to the estimate to view either of the previous exhibit, though we all still have time till the year end. That has more to do with exceding budget estimate for the week. Thats because had the local beer after work yesterday, courtsey a nice adventure with K; later that evening went to a party hosted by a greek to celebrate his change of job from M to some law form. A number of greeks in attendance, small party, impotent speakers, gracious host, all quite fine, talked a bit, headed back at 2 in a taxi [3 of us might have alked back though, only we were exhausted]. And then today on shoes and a bag. So thats how the budget was exceded, so I walk for a week to and from work in recompense. And smoke instead of dinner.

Rubens

These emphatic tours to ressurect the impression for old masters have come in for the ubiquitous criticism. What so, since I struggle to believe I am even alive, it helps to consider that even an idea with a memory from time is perpetuated and reinforced some how. So when you were 7 you read somewhere about the renaissance and you heard about the great masters, and in a week you can see their paintings; if its a conspiracy of course they would just be copies. Anyway, so i save up and go to both da vinci and rubens.

'Rubens, a Genius at Work', opens September 14 and will run through January 27, 2008; Royal Museum of Fine Arts is located near Brussels' Central Train Station in the Regentschapsstraat/Rue de la Régence 3, 1000 Brussels.

Apparently, not to be missed

roosh

ok this is in a tearing hurry but a huge congratulations to me after ages for doing something that was confirmed clever. finding my way to avenue de beaulieu at short notice, with only help from a bad map, relying on the metro on first use (was only the tram before) and then getting there in a fourth of the time weirdly forecasted. since i only knew merode, thats where i took the metro from after coming to the conclusion from a metro map that i look out for 1A in signage and that the name 'hermann=debroux' should be expected on the LED of the metroplane as the last stop. thats all. thats all. the only part i cant boast about is that i arrived an hour before the meeting.
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
finally walked down to the living pqrt of the city which i really found by accident yesterday or before. had actually meant to look for la maison de bicyclistes cos i found their maps werre simply more sensible. this was somewhere at the end of flagey. the shop was closed and i wandered instead. and a great wander indeed. some colour and crime at last. the congolese immigrant community; witnessed an inelegant scuffle when a skinhead tripped a black on crutches; the community didnt let him go easily; and when i turnned back after 20 minutes he was still swaggering after defeat. i saw a group of arabie types picking a fight with a white female motorist and all i wanted to do was stab the arabie types. sorry but though i approve of ganags entirely, the araby and south asian types do it so badly.
then there's another little bit i want to add about what happened during my wait this morning but i guess that will be the next post. till next time then.

let me add that: there we go again having to be surrounded by the confortably trilingual (minimally). knowledge of french and dutch is ensured if youve grown up here. i look to the right and watch the rooftops. meanwhile, here is a pretty useful format converter, but don't know if it works like a charm; but its just a beta version. here it is: youconvertit.

the charming touch is that apart from format conversions in departments of documents, images, audio, and video; it offers the sweet little unit conversions as well. it's this abdication from the race that really touches in the campaign of serious services. it really is just simple sand, mud, and bricks, in the end. it helps that some services never lose sight of this.

The only thing that would really make me happy now is if someone came along with me and showed me how to use the public laundromats with alarming french-dutch buttons and other strangenesses. What happens if I use another soap powder - do some sirens go off? damns hells.

Pull not thy punches; punch the bunches

Coming after so long, this is going to be something vitally desperate. The truth that some people require less consideration / fewer emotional concessions than others; variable for each over time; so people who are hooked (however badly) are simply less deserving of margins you should give the independent thinkers, assuming minds. Lets make one thing very clear, there's absolutely no need for bleeding hearts in assessments or receptions.

I hate the fragile observations of some stupid idyll like its going to pass; like how well you connected with a poorly-dressed person like yourself on the cheapest bus; like about some crass damp hertitage building close to tipping on a starving crowd with few ideas or about another frigging language up for classical status. I vomit on talk of the cars you've tried out just to show how about-town you've been; how about showing how about-your-toesized-brain you've been? People giving readings of pseudo-naive* effort; unable to tell a white ass from a white ass . Titbrains all for particular species of beaten-down servile animals, not thinking twice about feeding them more maddeningly defiant lifeforms, if they havent already advanced to conforming their diet to something fashionably human while also appointing themselves spokespersons for the undisguised gratefulness of their mindless charges. Meanwhile here are some really nice things we came across:
Stingy practical Nagoya has the last laugh
Try watching -
I’m Not There I hate Bob Dylan though; his lyrics should be read
And I've never heard of dedicating an obituary, but I'm dedicating this to someone -
Professor Susan Hurley

* see: pseudo-naive art (different from naive art)

The Day

Music for The Day is going to be almost all Tracy Chapman, some original compositions, and other unexpected ones like The Proclaimers 'A Thousand Miles'.

Invitations going out only once.

Appams at Tiffanys

Meanwhile, do I thank my lucky stars for the lucky stars themselves and that means the slapstick troupe of family of which I yam a starpart - mostly walk-on. Comically independent are each and so were the childstars encouraged to be if only to accomodate the independence of the perenially exploding hyperactive parentstars. Rare Family Sunday on town today taught me something I can pass on to any restaurant-goer round the residency road parts: If you're at Devatha Plaza and deciding between Casa del Sol and Tiffanys, guess which one's the one if you want a plain good family-friendly child-friendly crowd-friendly place and food. Tiffanys. If its just you and an impotent man and both of you have airs and issues (other than the human kind), first of all Tiffanys doesnt need your type and secondly, youd probably already have seated your fatasses in delsol.
That aside, Tiffanys is priced genially too. About 100 per head. We just wonder what the 500 of delsols was trying to be, and they were trying too hard with the facepaintings and brand painted on the cheeks of waiters clearly not in on the fun. I'm afraid the general mood of the waiters have always affected my appetite - the more disaffected they are, the less happy I am (identification with unhappy people and situations will kill me one day I know). The comfortable and wise waiters at Tiffanys have been there since that time and they had the attendant stillness and sense of ownership that makes the whole business precious for everyone - including clients.

Merchant-Ivory: Byword for insufferable

The breed of M-I worshippers are also the kind who would scorn back at this post and me (even outside the context of this post) with: 'Rich, coming from her - edifice to bad taste'. They're also the kinds who'd have no opinion of Periyar or Lib Theo.

Did you Cherry Blossom your shoes today?

Israeli agriculture is total bogus, it won't last three weeks without American aid. And in any case, drip and sprinklers that work in the Negev desert are not exactly built for Lonavala, with 2400 mm of rain! - P Sainath

Dwell on that for some time and then continue reading the rest of this post where i say: Can anyone tell why a book store would stock so many copies of Confessions of an English Opium Eater. One bookstore in leela's does. Then I saw this browsing Jude the Obscure:

Save his own soul he hath no star (Swinborne)

Decided to name a post 'the importance of being shabby-like'. The ESG is getting into action with a meeting called by the BBMP on tree policy. The Hindu Independence supplement has great stuff by E V Ramaswami of the Dravidian movement on the Black Shirt drive and what it was about. An economist on why it is not entirely true that The North is swallowing all the gains of the South. Then, Lord Krishna be damned when we have Akka Mahadevi of Shimoga to show women the way. Then mid sis is down with the unecessary impramatur of a PhD to add to her globe-sized ego. Her final vows in 2 sundays and only one thing i will admit: she sings the Magnificat atmospherically; she'll be doing it with Big S and Catr. In other news, why must I see fat-assed avoidables in aiports. But such is my fate in spate: the absurd will in abundance fall on me. Lastly, I have this for some incredible unfortunates:

"Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women… O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do thus?"—Esdras.

Mercy Mathew: Dayabai

There are those people who like pointing out Medha Patekar is the real deal, A Roy - simply the showgirl. There's just a little problem with any claim on behalf of either: Mercy Mathew precedes both. I finally got 'the lady of fire' book I had seen 5 years back in H&B.

Dance bars are back:The raunchy, full monty, high-kicking can-can girls of Ashwathnagar

and a chest-obsessing client

(Photo courtesy: SloganMurugan; i took the liberty of a title caption)

Battle at Kruger

Way to go, lowly buffalo: Kicking cats in the pants.

If it came to choosing between Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg by Hugh Barnes and The Moor of St Petersburg: In the Footsteps of a Black Russian by Frances Somers Cocks, I'd go for Frances' excited take on it because she is not academic, has been irrepressibly jumpy about this for years, and unlike hugh's precocious and varied output, 'The Moor' has been the subject of all her published work (numbering: 2).

Hebbal Tank, this Saturday, 6:30 pm, forest dept. nursery entrance

Challenging state gov policy on lake privatization;
be there. or stay in your room and wank with pets.

Wong Kar-wai

Murugan again; living evocation, great pic

Every second fool has a cam these days; taking a predictable view and bandying a banal ethic. But this guy always goes one step further and looks in his own special way, and it shows. He shares it with us again. Look here and here.

Dear reader, how are you feeling? how are your nicely growing bloody investments coming along, racing like your pointless libido that has by now doused the urge? how are all your tidy arrangements coming along? your rightness? your loved one with the little prick? hows it coming - your assets, your network of friends? your NAV, you boastfuls, your point? And now tell me: whats the point? What's the point when you did nothing to help the man who was lying lifeless on the busy pavement of sj road today evening next to his 3-wheel cycle for handicaps. People walking by without stopping. And you in the auto in passing, shattered. Ofcourse he might have drunk passed out. but Fuck it, he fell, and people in falls anyway anyhow can concuss. There was a clinic 20m away. What are the rules christ - it was made safer for strangers to help a few years back. But ofcourse, its easier to help animals.
Please stop and act. What makes us think again when it comes to humans.
Let go lord. i must learn. but what is the truth?

The way some people go about pasting private life event pics in public spaces makes me agree more than ever with Nassim Nicholas: not to 'approach anything as a game to win, except of course if it is a game...I have also learned to stay away from people of a competitive nature, as they have a tendency to commoditize and reduce the world to categories...There is something nonphilosophical about investing one's pride and ego into a "my house/library/car is bigger than that of others in my category"-it is downright foolish to claim to be the first in one's category all the while sitting on a time bomb.'
Touche. I also think Ch7 of FbR- 'The Problem of Induction' is the best in my assessment. So far. Because I havent finished yet.

Kaiser of crap maybe, but not surprisingly - compelling.

Weekend indeed. We had to trawl through town to find a place that was screening the finals. GInn was, so we sat there through the highest class beauty of tennis. Just the first 2 sets. No apologies here for the lengths I will go to watch key finals. But plenty of thanks to the ppl who consented to tag along and enjoy it as well. Almost no unforced errors or nerves and from a distance you couldnt even tell one from the other from the shots and coverage. Women's matches were something of a joke in comparison and if it weren't for the taunting presence of the (ruling inspite of being erratic) Williams sisters, the women's tour would be exposed for what it really is: a charade. Except for a handful of lady players who are barely challenged and so left to charade, everyone else seems to be jerking off. A pity. What does it take to be dead serious. Maybe spending a little less time bleaching hair and primping.

Daddy killed a Cat

Who could have ever thought killing a cat by hanging could renew a marriage.A few moons back, that's what my dad did. He didn't mean to renew anything, just kill the cat who was being a perfect nuisance getting into community food vats, drowning, gagging, and wanking out. One day he decided cat's time had come. He nabbed the brat on the run, had it wrung, and hung. When mum told me about this last week, I was a bit appalled but warmed at the thrill she didn't try to hide. She said she had never before heard of anyone catching a cat and killing it. Dad did have pets of this kind as a kid yes but not in the owning sense. I guess this brat really had it coming. But we wont forget too easily how visibly broken he was when he thought he had run over a pigeon. He was broken for a very long time.
We respect the distinction. Birds are something divine.

Ex oriente lux??
To some men ex bangalore, it's:
even one-tenth o(/a)ccident, be lux.

The Ressurected Cinquecento - will do well

How Late It Was, How Late

'Kebab rat does a Lazarus'

A rodent first found for sale in a Laotian kebab stall is the sole surviving species of a group thought extinct for 11 million years AND NOT the first known member of a new order of living mammals as initially held.
Lazarus effect: when an organism turns up after a long gap in fossil records.
(Paraphrased but curtsy: New Scientist, 60 seconds section - March 2006)

Shortlisted

Saul Kripke

Paris, Texas

Who killed Bambi?

Serena Williams vs. the French

Spite of the provincial French, Serena lifts the cup for her post-match analysis:
"All she had to do was show up," Williams said. "I just pretty much stood back and let her take advantage of me."
Tantalizing.

Tinariwen

Forget aerosmuth. (And some people's juvenile itch for them really got to me) I think there's a bigger world. And this Tuareg band -Tinariwen- is brilliant. It's also true that Ag Alhabib's first guitar was a contraption fashioned from a stick, a jerrycan, and some bicycle brake wire.

They say, no-one should hire mbas below 35, i think there's a bigger pestilence to avoid. Writers who write before theyve lived. Especially the kind who run a good chance of getting published for the wrong reasons. (I'll tell you what those are later)

Never Forgive, Always Revenge

No one had to teach me that; no one had to inpsire me. So when a few months back a sly ex disingenously sends a group mail with a sham ingenuous-mask of a 'i'm finally getting married ' message, retribution was immediate and given. I dont want to geive too much away, but it was done in way that ensured he couldn't respond and likely resulted in him feeling massively impotent, enough to make him plan to whip his silly new wife that night. I encourage wifebeating that way; she looked liek a sissy anyway from pics. The point is: Zadie Smith had something to say on retribution that got me here:

I'm all about vengeance. I have stalked boys, I have phoned them at two in the morning, I have scared off their girlfriends, I have smashed their mirrors, ripped up their clothes and thrown their stereos down corridors. I don't know why, I just can't help it. I have never been able to hide a feeling. I have never been able to understand the principles of House and Contents Insurance. I have never been able to forgive anybody anything.

Glad I can say that I'm proud of the work of every single blog in my buds&wisers list. Most of the time, people think its a space to rub other's backs. And ye - so its their blogs they can do whatever they want. But some time back I decided I wouldnt patronize drivel or foamy spew I cared little for and now i'm left with this compact list of special bloggers who are all on a some kind of roll right now. I wish I could present awards to each of them; special mention ofcourse to my long running favorites: bangalore boy murugan and mysore's top magga ubermensch.

How do you feel?

how do you feel when you see a honeycombie?

All i feel like is wanting to rub my hands on it to feel the rough and then stuff it into my mouth then make a 'cha cha' noise because the honeycomb parts would have gone and hexa-gone into my back teeth grooves. cham cham. yes. thats what.

how about you?

This can be pokey and all but continuing my talk with **o on the importance of resistance, here's this quote that struck by Wiggenstein "The difference between a good architect and a poor architect is that the poor architect succumbs to every temptation and the good one resists it."

The site of another thing set me off again. sakan. It's about care and ardour in the smallest detail; even just the intention of attention; the pledge and felicity to care. Feeling it to the point of distraction from construction itself, you know? This is easier in physical labour, which is why a sloppy job in something like carpentry just should not be tolerated. Make a thing like it was the last thing you would ever make; i know i had said 'first thing' when I first wrote this, but I think I mean 'make it like it was the last thing anyone would make' ; looking both with a rheumy wise and steady eye on the most considerate and beautifult things we have seen loved and learnt.
Meanwhile, this comforting and very pleasing pod isn't a flash in the pan; it's very aware. It's the work of the Kazuya Morita Architecture Studio, Kyoto. It's made of fibre-reinforced concrete (white cement+lightweight aggergate+glass fibre). The perforations were created by ataching styrofoam rings to the mould before applying the mix; later removed with mould when the concrete hardened. The proportions are similar to that of a hen's egg.

Masters of Deceit

(I just had to share this)
Just love the fucking hateable raven; specially bcos it gives not a starbusting damn.
he says - i'm being practical here, u pussyfooting crapspouting deluded dimwits. Why I mite even scavenge the crap you spouted.

It's not the first time. A conservative married woman groans about a back ache. and thinks nothing of saying out loud to me, 'i dont know why. i never had any back problem before marraige. only after marriage it started'. O-ho. I'm thinking - 'Don't tell me you didnt figure out it's the sex.' And no doubt he's putting all his weight on you and asking you to arch your back and shift a bit. And maybe he even does her the favour of slumping at the end of it.

days of performance contemp dance return - starting mayday; notices when we are through - after approx halfayear of megadeth training. but how much more toned can a person get. it isnt fair - but the wings are worth all the sweat.

View from Evening Auto

inside another, old lady budged needlessly but primly in painted toenails below pink sari. the temple of her toes she had made them. deities by basic attention.

A Timeline of Timelines

Don't know how other ppl manage with circles but my lot's to move on whenever I figure there's nothing more to learn from a situation. You reach an age and stage when you'd be foolish to still want to fit in in a context some imaginative circles keep repeating. Private rooms, lounges - if you surveyed, you could count who's trying to prove nothing. Cliches start with the visual. Just be around the people you're comfortable with and don't try and help people fit in - they know how to take care of themselves. Be yourself.
Shine.

Cummera Cummera, burning fright

The culture of being among people, kills individualism. Soon, you talk like the physical people you spend your spare time talking with. (Ofcourse, if you have no worthwhile opinions, it doesnt matter what u do). You don't have a choice most of the time; you have company foisted on you. But even when it is a choice, private people relent too often. It's important to stick to your guns and your personal deadlines and block regular days for self-time. I envy Diogenes.

There's a new open book at your elbows - assuming there no outstanding feature on one page - which page do you look at first? The one on the left or right? I'm verso, subverso! We also thought Archilocus was chilling - I wonder what the contents of his killer crit-writ were. I also think Diogenes' comebacks were onthespot. Comebacks like that arent easy. The timing, relevance and ease of cracker comebacks are something divine.

Pardon the idyllic unethical pre-raph image insertion. Another post on the problem I have with the pre-raphs. But this painting shows Diogenes in the barrell he took to living in. More than that, I think you should read about him. Do you have reputation for being largely contrary and difficult? Diogenes was better.
*Btw - don't miss the Reeth Lectures - Today at 9GMT.

The namesake's no shakes

If it's a sign of things to come, the first model rollout from BMW's Chennai plant, proves the whole project is one big mistake. Unweildy, uninspired, lookwise the 320i is a mirror of the mitsu lancer - who are they kidding? When some companies in their current avatars are on their way down, they tend to demonstrate a remarkable flair for sinking money in misguided projects. The only thing I saw standing out were the run-flat tyres. These tyres have a stiffer sidewall - which allows a fully laden car to be pushed at up to 8okph for 50km even after losing air, 'a boon for lady drivers'. Is that some USP or what? Inspite of it, I saw one of these uninspired machines on the road yesterday. The buyer must be a type.
--
Saw The Namesake - but seriously, whats all the noise about? Resoundingly cliched - ofcourse nair would be cramped by the book. But honestly - I've heard and read this kind of thing before. What's with the priveleged immigrant pangs theme anyway? With this theme, its too damn easy to play up the paying up audience. And ofcourse theyre the only ones that matter. please.
--
Then there's a very important question: When someones writing for the whole world, what language does he write in? Ans: He is limited by his own knowledge of languages, and will communicate in the language he knows best. He is limited by limits of his knowledge. But he is not limited by what he knows. This gets me to the point I want to make. It's not really language that's the issue, because he would only ever want to write the same thing once; so even if he knew all the world's languages he would have to write in only one because he will write that story only once and most likely that's what he meant. What I want to get at is the use of culture-specific stock words/phrases. Why should I be expected to know what a 'macaca moment' is? What's with all the yiddish a reader's expected to know in the middle of a great article. Shvitizing? Shmuck? What? I'm saying a writer should put limits to their flair for the increasingly fashionable, culturally-loaded stock if they really care about about their farflung fans. There's this article by John Mullen that takes this debate way ahead - inspecting the famed style of the precious Economist and the intentions.

I'm not kidding. In the middle of a bad head state in my morning auto ride, I saw a 'Feel my love' sticker in another auto. Nothing surprising about that I know. What I wondered about was where the driver had the sticker stuck. You know the lever to the left of the autodriver's seat? The one that they yank to start up the engine. There. The 'feel my love' sticker was nicely pasted along the length of it. No mistaking where he thought that sticker was since its creation meant to be stuck. What do you think was his frame-by-frame thought journey from the time he saw the sticker hanging about in the stationry shop, to the time he decided it was meant for the length of his engine's crank? ANyway the effect on me was to stick my head out of my auto to be absolutely sure of the copy and also to make sure when the light went green, he yanked it roughly the same way all other autodrivers do. Well ye so I was confirmed in both things afterwards. My only problem is, the location of the sticker means, most of the time, the autodriver is going to be the only one to feel his own love. in one single yank that too.

Laurie Baker passes away

In the last archi camp I was priveleged to be a part of, Laurie Baker was spoken of in reverence. None of the greenhorned or ossified architects ever succeeded in getting a minute with him. Everyone mentioned COSTFORD (an affordable housing initiative) and stuff. But I was only really convinced of his influence on the odd last visit to Kerala when an otherwise uninspired uncle showed us his new house. All CSEB and the definite imprimatur of COSTFORD (he said as much), exposed brick. Thats when I knew Baker had really done something: made something of a rage of what could be considered ugly anti-style to the regular unimaginative Keralite.


...
"The Man of Tao...Harms no other being/By his actions...He goes his way without relying on others/And does not pride himself on walking alone/ While he does not follow the crowd/He won't complain of those who do..."

I know, I know - after the Walk alone post, I should be the last person to quote this quote. But I'm on a journey and my opinions evolving by the moment. I never forgot the lecture on mob spirit in school. It would be a running experience. So it was pretty this little saying by Chuang Tzu. And here are some more:

No drives, no compulsions, no needs, no attractions: Then your affairs are under control. You are a free man. (19:12, pp. 166-167)

The man of Tao remains unknown. Perfect virtue produces nothing. "No-Self" is "True-Self". And the greatest man is Nobody. (17:3, pp. 137-138)

Kele Okereke

Pretty upset he read englishlit at kings, but if i can keep that aside i can go right ahead and say Kele Okereke is pretty exciting. His band Bloc are Mercury Prize nominees and I've never heard or read about them before this little happenby today. Kele has gone and said, that rock group Oasis have "made stupidity hip", also calling them "repetitive Luddites", the last an accusation most bands cant duck. Btw - i also liek Kele's arms (see how it reflects moonshine) cant help falling for these things. In other news, yesterday caught that Amrita Shergill thingi at MM. Something of a laugh if you ask me. Called India's 'Kahlo', AmSh was just that - in her convenient hybridity and the suspect merit and originality of work. To make things worse, this little docu was made by her neice who also ensured we never forgot that, by referring to AS as 'aunty' too often. In the post-screening freeforall she played the disarm card by letting on one of her challeneges in doing the docu was avoiding the inevitability of putting it like the subject was her aunty. You know, even in real life - I'm seeing this confession tactic is becoming really common: you confess to exactly what youre guilty of, so the critics are psychologically disarmed of a valid concern because you were so gracious to admit your failings even though ...Never intended posting anything at all on Amrita Shergil, but I had asked ckm before the screening if AS could have been aware of Kahlo; their lifetimes did overlap, ive just found.

One of Susan Sontag's last essays (unpublished), beautifully titled Pay attention to the world, makes a case for the primacy of the novel in a puddle of distracting visual and other mediating gimmicks. I enjoyed it though I saw parts that were specious. And here's a fine one by Guy Dammann on the importance of literary feuds, To my mind, pens unsheathed in enmity write with more wit and interest than do the nibs of praise ... and I'd prefer any literary feud to the soppy, self-serving associations that most great writers have in place of friendship.

***

And then the event of the weekend had to be the talk by S V Srinivas, Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. His subject: Moments of Irrationality and the Willing Spectator:
An argument about Popular Cinema as a Political Form. It's always such a pleasure to listent to slick, informed, cogent, rational speakers. In total awe of the erudition, composure, gravitas and absolute flair.

Walk alone

Its only too easy to take out marches in multiples. A single person making an issue on their own tends to look really stupid. and very Sad. But from a lot of things I've seen around, it's the people who move alone, who make this world a more considered place.

While others sold out, this Chinese woman has kept her house defying repeated calls from authorities to concede. well.

Bob Woolmer dies

What must he have gone through?

Justice AR Lakshmanan restores faith

Some judges were trying to get him to compose himself. Others said he shouldn't have got emotional at all. I'm saying: here is a man. So what were the fellow judges trying to say? It's all part of the business of being a judge, to get threats? No. Never cease to be outraged and utterly emotional at violation of sensitivities. Then there's another thing, an immune and mature judge would have gone ahead with the case and also been silent over the threat. But then you see, we would never know what he was being influneced by. How many hardened judges have we got - too many. And to be as fair as possible - we all have an impression of SP particularly and their culture. Justice Lakshmanan restored faith in the judiciary. I'm sorry he's resigning in a few days.

Nothing I've read of Meena Kandasamy has sounded off-key. She's struck it just right again and again. Even her index finger is shaped perfect; all her fingers are. I think uber mentioned her some time back; someone to look out for. Didn't Arko read from her book that day? So i distrust her PhD, age deficiency, certain social definition, her skin and her limbs. How about some hairy sad sunburnt unbelonger who wears makeup that cracks and grips a wisdom that thrills without the imprmtur of an academy. Pedigree, even hybrid, honorary pedigree is mity tiring. I still think i might browse her book somewhere. And just forget what I just said, this lady poets beautifully - try her here.

I need to take a minor diversion here and report 2 immediate things:

• Passing away of Baudrillard of hyperrealism
• The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 - sorry but considering i'm an open-minded slut for product design, it's not surprising my socialist spirit appreciates even unfortunate captalistic trophies. It's not really the idealblowing W16 engine (which is 2 V8s sharing the same crankshaft). Just the contours; it's handcrafted, and only 300 produced that were handed out selectively. It spun out a bit on its debut run and some talk of uncool bay overheating. But that's about all dressed up and nowhere to go - what to do with the ambition? How babies want to put things in their mouth most of their waking time is how i felt when i saw this thing. O and the BV came to my attention with this news of a crash that thankfully injured noone.

Niven Govinden and how the Cauvery tribunal got me peace

Euuum - who is this reviewer, Sheba Thayil? I've noticed her before on the hindu's lit rev. it's entirely to my own failings for sweep gens of mostly substandard egoprints, that i've never really stopped by much of her stuff before. There's pradeep sebastien and an anand and some interviews and thats about as far i usually go into the rev. And then I read her 'Impossibly good' review of Niven Govinden's 'Graffiti My Soul'. She starts with - 'Who is this author?' and that's what made me stop mid-fart at brekfast today. With believed blessings from Clive James for the essential arrogance of genius, I'd say the best writers in any form in (from) India today are simply original, earthy and casual in a forward-backward flip. Forward-backward because anyone can put on a kind of casualiness, but with the good ones, its on-demand and deliberate as well, to look like something less troubled. Ok forget all that - i'm just saying south indians are unfailingly better at it. So no surprises both Sheba Thayil and Niven Govinden have it. It: the arty genius that makes beautiful things.
I was just wondering if Sheba's in some way related to Jeet?
***

In other news, here's a story on: How the Cauvery tribunal ruling saved me money. It saved me money and even got me peace of mind. I live in an enriching neighbourhood peopled largely by racuous families on-the-make. The Cauvery tribunal ruling worked to silence them all. It's not the knowledge of the ruling itself, but how the area's cable-operator chose to retaliate. Most of the city's cable-operators have pushed a couple of buttons or dragged down some sliders, effectively blacking out all tamil channels or at least the noisiest and most-watched. And then I was witness to an unbidden but welcome live case-study on how the noise-making capacities of the folkes of my neighbourhood was really driven by the media. Not only were their space-age tv's subwoofers silenced (because they believe in theirthing or nothing), but they were even speaking more kindly, with a retiring humanness they were never known to have. All the peace meant, I could get a lot of work done in my own gaza strip room. That's money saved. and peace everywhere for some time. Now ... how to silence a mucky bollywooded neighborhood?

aaaaaaaAaaaaaaaa

Ok. A lot of things happened and before I bark i better put them down.

1.Considering I consider few things sacred, I never really know how I'm going to react when the one thing (for the time atleast) is pilloried and wanked around even in writing. And that's what Clive James did with the memory of Bruce Lee, something of a guru to me. But I really enjoyed his mischeivous class rant and really did. Sometimes you know when someone has had damn good fun writing something. And I say, you either write with a chronic erection or a lethal depression, or you know, just spare ppl your writing. It shows; that's what happenend. Boisteriously biased, judgemental, rude and packed with indisputable axioms - i loved it and laughed before I could even think. Then later in the day, another one of his pieces, on Brazil, the useful satire witnessed in the background of an orgy months back. His bio quite a thing too. nice boy. tear me up anyday.
2.guess what i did?

3.I'm reading excited reviews of the latest production of schaeffer's equus, radcliffe's rite of passage stage deb. the hype's got me for many reasons. because some hype gets me, one. then, the steel wire horse mask used by the actor Will Kemp who carries around radcliffe for a long while. then the plot, not just for the circuit but really the theme. a stable boy gets horsey with his horses and gouges their eyes in a euphoric dance. Then the inevitable psychiatric treatment. I'm excited that radcliffe really looks like he's climaxing in many scenes, but what fixes me is why every review's panning the relevance and worth of schaeffer's proposed premises. o well - the establishment knows best. and in one case we have intellectually propriety defended by an eddmirrably pedigreed charles spencer of the daily mail.I also wonder how radcliffe's going to sustain his show till June, 8 times a week!Also, entirely coincidentally, slogan goes and put up this pic of a down-at-heel local horse. although i cannot entirely appreciate slogan for not respecting her privacy, at least he let the hidden face be. I'm only thinking this horse is still overcome with the shame of knowing what the sight of his reduced state will mean to her parents. rubbish at her feet. succour is the wall.

4.I'm in talks with some ppl on viewer/reader expectations in film/writing. just local crowd local film even ok. we decided even in accessible and less stultified supplemet writing, everyone's playing it safe. like they never want to spoil their prospects of bedding even the stray someone. The promiscuity has made the intellectual city the cave it has become. You see a bad job, call it a bad job, rallying all the facts and summoning no fallacious arguments. So, we've banded to form the razor tongue brigade. almost nothing is sacred. more disrespect please.

5.Now check this out: Forbidden love of brother and sister

just found out that

1. i enjoy making people laugh. specially if they're kids.

2. 'New language for divided Cameroon' - specially caught by this cos of the alienation of language in general. and the way its spoken.

Just when I was losing faith in the world, I find out - as i said befor - a sound i had heard before, men at work with 'down under' and this rubbish hilarious video. its the way some things should be. "Do you come from a land down under?Where women glow and men plunder?Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?You better run, you better take cover."

First:
Deeps threatens to be in shambles at the extended deputation to the Andamans. The docu on the forgotten hmong ppl appears to have done that. but ull have all the paradisical birdwatching to do and the flora tagging too no? well i aim to visit because its been ages since i crapped in the free air. and dear manic bud, we'll visit at least once in 2 months and bring all kinds of movies.


Second:
This little girl's going to write a novel all over again. Maybe she should join deeps in the andamans just to avoid the crapheads who are destined to hound her now that she let on.

Third:
I never believed I could work this much at work. Its butt cracking but so gratifying, i'm not going to let incompetent coats ruin the show. Cowards deserve no mercy.

Fourth:
I've fallen for Men at Work's 'Down Under'. What can I say? What a trip - I was looking for you.

Fifth:
Beer at noon tommorow!

Venezuela Rising

Not only did D, S and I finally come together the other day, but it was at a festival that i really enjoyed - the tricontinental - where i warmed the hottest gay men the city has to offer. the festival had its share of unbearable dit-twits carefully dressed to look careless, but you know i went for the ones with coconut oil dripping. And which film got the crowd award for quick cult favrit - 'Venezuela Rising'. Ha ha - bless my soul. exquisite and unapologetically one-sided. I could have made love to the guy next to me at the energy it excited. Just as well. Everyone felt it too.

The other magical docus i saw were: bushman's secret and between the lines (india's third gender).

1. Ethnomusicology 2. Spivak

http://webdb.iu.edu/sem/scripts/home.cfm
http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/artist?id=1068
http://www.long-sunday.net/spivak/
http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/files/Ghostwriting.pdf

Some things struck the minde in awl the muddy dwunk state - like what. No the struck happened even before, like that the whole charade of saying nice things to ppl about some hardlabored work that may really be sadly crappy inspite. why do they gush and stream about then? to keep the subject happy specially so since the suject is usally whit-witted to look for anything further than such assurances. Let me lay my own stunning mammary aureoles straight and say I barely ever compli crap these days myself and getting even darker with time - bcos it means i'm the biggest object of that crit. still all legions - grow up.

Gnarls Crazy -

If the only thing Gnarls Barkley is remembered by is Crazy, as well as it was the only track they ever came out, it was worth it. The best and most original chart-arriving track I've heard in years. Who cares about an entity conspiracy; this is culture- and history- defining work. Just one of such creations is enough for approximately 4 lives. and beautiful for one.
and such lyrics so acheived:

And I hope that you are having the time of your life,
But think TWICE.
That's my only advice.
Come on now -
who do you, who do you,
who do you think you are?
ha! ha!! ha!!!
Bless your soul!?
You really think you're in control?!

Left Hand Brewing

Great work - I'm happy Total Environment works in Blore. Neat from my removed view. And then there's also the Crawford Partnership in London.

I have a tiny bubble of criticism on just one crumb of one lyric, but I like the great sound and wonderful acheivement here(!), so here's presenting: Manoj Jacob and his one-man band Shoestring. You can listen some free downloads of his music there. Have heard of him before but zis news came to me via sloganmurugan, the larger-than-life flailing shutterpup :D
***
And I dont like the way blogger shunted all users to forcibly sign in with google forthwith. obviously its google's canniving at work. as someone i know would put it 'aaaiy. wtf?' i might just go forever to wordfuckingpress. already i'm getting joomla done thankyou. so its me own bloody website from now on. soon.

And that's the way I love it

fire turns white trash to flyash

Galleon Gallatta and the Regatta called Fear

Been ages since i got to my music collection. and i found i cant stand any of it. instrumentals better than song. carnatic more convincing vocals. But this guy in pic, i still respect and like.

Saketh: We haven't forgetten

The Deccan article on Saketh Rajan's encounter death in Chikmagalur still hangs in my room. It's been hanging there for 2 years. Feb 06 will be his death anniversary. Believe you can still get his much respected volumes on the history of Karnataka - Making History (1&2). Mysore boy Saketh (Saki), grad from Maharaja's College, Mysore and a gold medallist from IIMC, had also jointly authored the book 'Newspaper in the Framework of Space: Mysore's Urban Press' right after graduation. He was responsible for exposing the Rare Earth Material Plant that was coming up near Mysore for the enrichment of Uranium without the knowledge of the area community.
Back when I had a blog called Isthmus of Ignatz, I had put this thing on his death. And then that post got crowded out by some other frivolous posts. So maybe it wasn't entirely clear how much I attached to him and his choices, and ofcourse all the people who continue to work as he did.






*Guys, you'll have to excuse me. I am going to be filling out this post very slowly, asmwen I have the energy and time. By the time of his anniversary I expect this too be as complete as it can get.

what i did on midnight crack:
went to the terrace and watched the highup and sparkling firework affairs and thought it was one of those great just creation things: shining on the rich, the poor, the suspended middleclass, and the nobodies, homeless. I think the last enjoy it the best. these highup fireworks are beautiful and usually collective afairs in the pottery road and cgarden area that usually puts up these affairs. I watched and there were some single men also watching on their single terraces. Then I watered my dad's plants, watched the highups again. The 3/4 moon remained. I came down, turned the radio on, and typed this.

Since birth and for a very long time into early addlessence, i recognized only one ideal for beauty in men and one ideal for beauty in women. Dad-Pup-Pap. Mum-Ummay-Maaw. I revisit and I see once again. Here are b&w pics of my da and umm in their doe-eyed saladballad days. Maa - still madbeautiful as ever. Dad - handsome. Both keep a manic spirit of adventure and dash and rush and catch trains and autos and buses and a lot of mischief and fun. Paps just got himself a pair of used bongodrums someone squirelled from Kenya; found out today. Maah and I still maul each other and clown and flirt in public. a fascinating kidcouple. *6 woofs up, 2 paws down. 6-2=4.
I run round jmahal park 4 times.
:)

delusional.

'will' can be such crap no? because illumination came to me when i was staring at the offed tubelight while squatting on the bed in the dark room right after jerking off, listening to bryan adams against my will.
***

saddam dies. and they loved it. i dont want to explain why - i cried very angrily. let all the slick wily pontificating suckers get away with their crimes and fuck to heavens right.
and there are snakes in this world. cowardly snakes.

No more.

whats the problem?
is there a problem.
i become the person i meet.
what finds me clear
is when i run
at 4am round jmahal park
4 times.





***
Love this: Paranoiac Refuge

Goldsmith interests me. Who cawld him "the most boring writer that has ever lived"? Think this hes fascntng. But i thought of it first ok? dripping off th e page.
***
Were any of you guys there at Jeet Thayil's reading yesterday? He was good in good parts. If I distrusted anything, it was his composure; although he did have to take a suck of water every 2 minutes or so. Although I didnt 'piddi' any of it, his 'in malayalam' poemtype, i enjoyed for the alienation it caused to the non-malls in the crowd; who had to smile politely as the dapper mall journos bawled and guffawed and slapped themselves in selfish glee. But this apart, I'll say he was good. But I believe I heard someone better. An undercelebrated poet. also a mall.

Been taken by this challenge for a very long time:
How little can you live on?
Have begun to see over time, that many of our complexes at work and in life are built on material upkeep. So we feel less racked about asking for an obese salary , when we have so may contesting claims for it besides our modest selves: like the car loan, condo rent, ditsy boyfrend, club membership, moet&chandon or just expensive fuel.

Say: crapno no. i mean: cheese

Squeeze me, but crap shouldnt be parading as camembert. The Calcutta High Court in an uncharacteristic display of speed, rules that the TMC's proposed 48-hour bandh is illegal. And that makes the CITU bandh (called last week) what exactly? Ha Ha. Ok. Now coming to what I should have said earlier. It was great staying with Vij and her family in Cal, also because its been ages since I've been around people who are really passionate about politics, and don't think it's unfashionable to talk about it, which is about getting involved.

Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)

Strongly recommended

So it's hazaaron khwaishein aisi. I'm not so sure what the fucjk Geeta Rao's (played by a punjabi) trying to do there, but she's alright. The movie got me remembering. I'm glad it was made. Now i go get doped to join work tommorow morning in a haze in what is not my most favorite localitea in bangalore. anywhere else dammit. the only thing that's wrong.

Kolkota is good fun. Staying with Viji, who takes big time care. City's charming as is the home I stay in. Ok - so you want me to say something irreverant? I'm telling you - about Cal and Bombay, these cities are far ahead of impressions.
***
Meanwhile, just to make sure you sleep less well, maybe you should know how business is done, and when you just shutup and wank - as the UK does for Jaudi arabia.

Chanel No. 4

It appears many copywriters are have faecal dreams. Does this mean something? Should we just ignore it? I will keep you updated.

Ich bin Dung

My tummy is tumid and i feel like a disco bunny. But all wandering dream interpreters, stop here, there a job. I have strangey dreams these daysies. Just try and read this:
The Bangalore Metro system was finally up and the city was looking very slick and eurochic. For some reason even in my dream i was thinking Zurich. But it was Bangalore. And I was getting off the station stop on Airport Road like some busy and confident exec alighting from the train and walking down the platform talking to a faceless frend. But I was wearing only a kurta or something without pants or underwear, even as i was carrying a workbag. And as I was walking and chatting with my friend, I was crapping along with elan. Nice mounds like dung were definitely trailing me. And although I was aware I was doing all this as I talked and walked, exec breiefcase in hand, I was also hoping that there was no one important or worthwhile behind me witnessing my dung trail.
Now tell me - what the binglights does this dream mean? Someone told me that it symbolises my socialist contempt for capitalism. I'm glad to hear that interpretation. But I hardly know any socialist who will put up with a comrade who craps like that in public.

Yes

Siddharamaiah wins Chamundeshwari

Did you know - for a long time now most ditsy preg mumms have been conniving and succeeding in cesarean offload at least 4 weeks in advance of full-term. Why? So they don't put on full-term weight also they bounce back to ditz stats in no time. You perfect absolute assholes - just go abort. Better still, don't even bother getting pregnant, you weak-willed smut-nuts. Who will you not not be selfish with then, if not the closest thing to your own creation. Fish-farts. Your tits were never great shakes anyway.

A K Ramanujan's flowering tree

Peter Sellars has collaborated with classical composer John Adams to produce a libretto based on an AK rendering of a folk tale, A Flowering Tree. The selection of AKs work is probably not a surprising coincidence. They were both MacArthur fellows at some stage. Maybe its a sworm group thing, to spend at least some time promoting other (ex-)/mcarthur fellows or referring to their works significantly. So if one MacArthur fellow atleast goes on to do something fantastic he can pull up the others and we'll go 'yabba - these mcarthur fellows ...' (just bitching)
Ha, anyway let me not complain about this one piece of fellowship. A K Ramanujan has always been my man, and I'm sorry he went away so soon. I'm yabbing anyway and let me move on. "A Flowering Tree," premiered early last month in Vienna. A joint commission of the Barbican, the Lincoln Center, New Crowned Hope, and concert orchestras, reviews convince me 'A Flowering Tree' should be a pleasing affair. What I trust is the swirling multi-ethnic collaboration. The cast is assumed by Javanese dancers who dance to original choreography. And the thrilling virtuosic choir: from the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela.
The next scheduled performances:
December 21, 22 - Berlin, with the Berlin Philharmonic
March 1-3, 2007, - SanFran, San Francisco Symphony
August 10, 12, 2007 - London, Barbican Centre
May 24, 2008 - Amsterdam, Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
sometime 2009 - New York, Lincoln Center

So, if you find yourself in any of these cities at these times, with some spare money, you may want to wander in. If you don't have the money, try sleeping with a member of the troupe. If you're not likely to be in any of these cities, jerk off.
I will.

Yes

Nobody afraid of Socialism

Anti-homeless benches

Some of you just haven't checked out my blog's side listing. If you have, you would have seen the Architectures of Control link, and followed it through, and this news below will come as nothing new. Now just take a look at this fine public minded movement taking place in a lot of fancy cities, this one, Tokyo: anti-homeless benches (caption: cant lie down, cant lean back). My goat feels particularly worried since very soon me and my goat might have to depend on public benches.

The red herring

And while this Singur thing was brewing, a certain iguana's mobile hawk eye couldnt help noticing things and making connections. On most days this past week i saw cpi(m) poster girl, brinda karat's pics striking some daring poses with a group of people who looked like they could do without her. I call her the red herring, and i'm willing to bet this was nothing but slimy diversionary mnvrng.

CPI? What CPI? Mamta's the real deal

The CPI(M) probably thinks nobody's watching the fine scene in Singur. Very nice. Think again. So the sharecroppers were the first to surrender land to accomodate the Govt. dole to the Tatas? Any surprise. The Lord gives and the lawd takes away. Sharecroppers you see, are tenant farmers; formerly landless farmers for whom the CPI(M) won this tenancy status to the sound of trumpets. And then like a sham friend, the Govt. asked for it back because they had a richer friend to entertain. So most of the sharecroppers surrendered. But, you see there were those who actually owned the land in the proposed SEZ gift area, who decided they weren't going to be sold out. What's happening in Sringur now is simply, that the CPI(M) wants to push the prickly farmers, activists and media out of the way. They've sealed off the area. Violation of some fundamental freedoms. Anyone making a noise about this? Mamta Bannerjee. Medha Patekar went over 2 days back and the govt whisked her to their guesthouse which she refused to stay in. She spent the night in the jeep, then she was prvented from stepping into Chandanagore yesterday morning. Pleasantly Mamta (Didi), has great pull in Kolkota city, so the TMC (her party) and SUCI are not going to let this go. Frend&foe Viji, who is in Cal, and thankfully keeps her fire, is covering this on her blog.
CPI(M) - we're watching.

Snoop: Doggy Style

Sometimes you come across things that you want to keep secret. But kept that way means risking a spectacular heartburst spraying blood and membrane on unsuspecting gawkers and mawks. So look you idiots leading dimwitted lives, frittering your sperm/eggs/time in an elaborate game of fantastically polite manners, for your own dum sakes try the For Beginners series. It's in the style of: documentary comic book and the perfect primer to the most forbidding philosphies. Pick one up and believe. You get the Indian priced version here at premier and bookpoint. Bookpoint being a pledged orient longman distributor has the fuller range. I have to warn you though, while its never tedious, if you prefer tame trips, these affairs are trecherously satiric. The wicked shall squirm in uncontrollable ecstacy. This is a series that should strongly consider the suggestion of regional language adaptations. Malayalam? Kannada? With me you can find: Foucault, Derrida, Sartre, Heidegger, Saussure. I sleep with them every night. More recently got myself, postmodernism, englang, art. With foucault, derrida, and sartre, I understood jouissance. titillation is nothing.
I'm saying: this is the backdoor to the thrilling party of previously thot remote projects. Hence, Snoop: Doggy Style.

Hugh MacLeod mostly 'distributes his cartoons freely on the internet', in exchange for the consideration of purchase of a bottle of Stormhoek some time. For the technical tickle on license terms go here, ok.

Raah. Wily body managed to get CK Meena to visit the primping domain of my blog. I've raved about her before as the only worthwhile suppli writer in the city. Have to admit, I was critical about one of her pieces, but only about something i've dangerously chosen to be nervy about. Let me be blase and say, she's grounded enough to expect and demonstrate nothing like airy accomodation. I've eyed her book, Black Lentil Doughnuts at Premier several times, and it's only the price that held me back from the next step. time to try.
***
Excited about the chance to watch Jaane Bhi Do Yaro. Sensible Slogan points out that if you're a mangy dog for detail then you'll want to look out for the Osibisa poster in the scene in the music shop. Too many interesting ppl have told me this is one movie I shouldn't miss.
**
The bookies are meeting on the 10th. And the book is: Pico Iyer's The Lady and the Monk. In other news, wonder why i'm meeting so many xbatchmates in toilets at night. Not complaining, i'm happy happy.

A certain hairy fairy has consented to ferrying love notes and silky dog ears to the object of my desire :DDDD

Dave Lee. Save us.

If youre a Bastardized-Nglish-song-listening Bangalorean new to radio, youd think all it takes to be an rj is big tits/(in the absence)allure, chamakchamak accoutrments, an age somewhere around 15, and a projected iq somewhere below 3. Yesterday my fingers stubbed on a range crank on my 50-yr old radio, and out came the sound of shindigo's day-trippin' pavitra: 'Now all you guys out there, pinch one pinch of cardammom and place it on your plate. Now guys, use your etiquette. Use your fork inside-out and poke your crotch under the tablecloth. Now don't let your host see this under the tablecloth. Now You're listening to bangalore's definitive lifestyle show. Ime pavitra *erotic breathe-out*' If it wasn't that it would have been someone trying out Barker's irrelevant manic voice modulation to make up for lack of content. My follices began sprouting hair and my finger stubbed the crank off. I scrabbled across the floor, fetched an aluminium vat, held it to my chin, and wept.
I miss Dave Lee Travis.
The only worthwhile Bungalore RJ I know is Anjaan. and i dont know if he's still around.

!

BABY VIJAYANTI AND PUPPY MANOHAR

Alek Wek: The-black-and-white-cow

I hate gorgeous. And what exactly does Oprah Winfrey mean in her interview with model Alek Wek, by: "If you had been there when I was growing up, I would have thought of myself as beautiful"? Why does Alek even have to explain herself on beauty. Why does she even think she might be beautiful and to whom. O, its the industry you vye in. The agency that picked her, was only thinking: novelty. On one score atleast. Not on others. She belongs to the tallest race on earth.
And her name? Alek was named "the-black-and-white-cow" after a Dinka tribal good luck symbol. Luck. yes. Bitch.

Award-winning reviews

Perumazhakkalam: Great all-round acting. Touching realism.
Kamli: Nice Theme. Okay. A little patchy.

Rimbaud ou Rambo

To seminal minds and open hearts

Considering I was in the running for some transgender agony aunt post in bombay last month, there must be some valuable crap I can dispense to indie females who really value the open air, open xchange and rewarding company. MINUS romantic intrigue.
A common bleat heard from someone who hasnt got the mix right is: she winds up in crappy social situations. Advised in the hetro section:
1.If you're a female: walk out at the first suggestion of bitch domination from the female agent of a situation.
2.Get you own transport. Even a moped will do. Depending on anyone, makes them think they call the shots. Soon you find youre pulling punches because of a service.
3.Never ever accept a girlfriend's plea to join her on a date with her 'guy' (whether she admits to the intrigue or not). Even if theyre in a big groping group. For crying out. They can get someone else to witness their shimmies.
4.If you think getting a guyfriend along to the above situation will make the above fix easier for you, be prepared for some action that night. Even of you have no feelings for him. What did you expect?
5.If youre the fresh-faced kind of girl who has no yen for games, you owe it to your self-respect to preserve that nature. Sharpen your sense of smell.
Smell a fucking rat. Sharpen all your senses. Rape the rat.

Today evening

Films and beer into morning.
I shall be dressed in my best babasuit. yall.

spotted!

Kishan, Sheshadri and Kiran spotted the following birds on 13 - 11 - 2006 at Hessarghatta Lake. Time - 6.30 am to around 10.00 am. List by Sheshadri:
Grey Francolin (Francolinus pondicerianus) call
Common Swallow (Hirundo rustica)
Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus)
White-breasted Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis)
Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis)
Little Cormorant (Phalacrocorax niger)
Little Egret (Egretta garzetta)
Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea)
Pond Heron
Large Egret (Casmerodius albus)
Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola)
Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos)
Little Ringed Plover (Charadrius dubius)
Red-wattled Lapwing (Vanellus indicus)
Black Kite (Milvus migrans)
Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus)
Indian Roller (Coracias benghalensis)
Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea)
Greater Coucal (Centropus sinensis)
Rose-ringed Parakeet (Psittacula krameri)
Asian Palm Swift (Cypsiurus balasiensis)
Blue Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)
Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis)
Ashy Drongo (Dicrurus leucophaeus)
Rufous-backed Shrike (Lanius schach)
Eurasian Golden Oriole (Oriolus oriolus)
Indian Robin (Saxicoloides fulicata)
Common Stonechat (Saxicola torquata)
Pied Bushchat (Saxicola caprata)
Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis)
Red-whiskered Bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus)
Red-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus cafer)
Ashy Prinia (Prinia socialis)
Plain Prinia (Prinia inornata)
Booted Warbler (Hippolais caligata)
Tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius)
Greenish Leaf-Warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides)
Large Grey Babbler (Turdoides malcolmi)
White-headed Babbler (Turdoides affinis)
Purple-rumped Sunbird (Nectarinia zeylonica)
Purple Sunbird (Nectarinia asiatica)
Shikra (Accipiter badius)
Tawny Eagle (Aquila rapax)
Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus)
Pale Harrier Female and Juvaline
House Crow (Corvus splendens)
Jungle Crow (Corvus macrorhynchos)
Indian Treepie (Dendrocitta vagabunda)
Common Iora (Aegithina tiphia) Call
White-cheeked Barbet (Megalaima viridis)
Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala)
Common Hoopoe (Upupa epops)
White-throated Munia (Lonchura malabarica)
Spotted Munia (Lonchura punctulata)
Large Pied Wagtail (Motacilla maderaspatensis)
Oriental Magpie Robin (Copsychus saularis)

Legal B-grade eagles

As a lay, except for a semester, I recognize the humility with which you must approach the Law and the machinations of the Legal system. Then 2 things caught my eye in the journals today:
One thing noone, however humble they are, must have to tolerate, is mystification and delays. But this is what we have on the plate today:
1. Apex court rejects plea for probe against Kumaraswamy
Maja: Apex Court? What's that?
Me: Just a fancy way of referring to the Supreme Court. Don't let that imtimidate.
Maja: weeji. ok. I won't. Let me get over it first. *simmer, twitch*
(5 minutes lapse)
Me: Ok. Finished reading the article?
Maja: O ya ya. I'm not too happy with so much of what I read here.
Me: Like what?
Maja: Well, why was a valid plea for action against offences, rejected?
Me: What kind of offences are we talking about?
Maja: Offences under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act (and other relevant laws)
Me: Ok. But what were these offences exactly. And who is suspected of being guilty?
Maja: The petitioner, that is the guy who brought the case before court in the first place to intitate proceedings...
Me: I know what a petitioner is. Get to the point.
Maja: OK ok.
Me: SO? What offences and by whom?
Maja: Offences of this kind - Acquisition of huge property and amassed wealth in the State.
Me: Who does the petitioner makes these allegations against?
Maja: The Chief Minister, H D Kumaraswamy, his family members, and Minister for Forests, C Chennigappa.
Me: My My!
Maja: Exactly.
Me: But one second. What's wrong with acquiring a lot of property and wealth? If you're rich you're bound to have lots of money, right? What's wrong with that?
Maja: Weeji!!! What are you saying ya???
Me: Well what? I'm being reasonable. If you're rich... that's the definition after all, right? Don't just over-react. Explain.
Maja: All right. I will. From my sketchy knowledge of some citations in past cases, and from what I think is reasonable as well, I will tell you something.
Me: What?
Maja: It is not the fact that they are in possession of some wealth and property, that is being alleged by the petitioner.
Me: Then what?
Maja: But that their assets are disproportionate to known sources of income; possibly also that their path to acquisition of property was easier by virtue of position; possibly also that they have acquired property that was previously disallowed from claims for private possession, etc. I don't know about these last few. Other laws and not just the PCA have been cited, please note.
Me: Ok. Hey you have a point even with just the first point. I remember the disproportionate assets cases being brought against Jayalalitha as well. And I don't know what became of that.
Maja: Me neither.
Me: So did the Supreme Court admit this petition?
Maja: I'm sorry. But I have to compose myself. This part sets my teeth grinding.
Me: O. Take your time then
[Maja grinds his teeth against a grindstone. Sparks fly.]
[5 minutes later]
Maja: I'm back
Me: So did the Supreme Court admit this petition?
Maja: No. It didn't. It rejected the plea.
Me: What??? On what grounds!?? Pray tell.
Maja: Well let me just use Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal's own words here:
"we have serious doubts about the bon fides of the petitioner. It seems obvious that someone is behind the petition of this type."
Me: Well!! Obviously someone's going to be behind a petition!
Maja: And that's what the counsel (for the petitioner) replied, "Undoubtedly".
Me: Well i'm glad he said so. And then what happened?
Maja: To this the Bench replies: "let them come to court. We cannot permit them to fire from somebody else's shoulders. Why can't political parties who are behind (this?) come to this court"
Me: I don't get this at all. But please read the remainder of the Bench's text.
Maja: Right. Bench: "We have serious doubts about the bona fides of the petitioner who is a memeber of the legal preofession. It is not approporiate for a member of the legal profession to lend his name to file a petition of this nature. We are not converened about the merits and demerits of the allegations raised in the petition...we are concerned with the bona fides of the petitioner approaching the court in a PIL."
Me: !
Maja: Wait and this is how it concludes: Bench: "Let a proper petitioner approiach the appropriate forum. We decline the prayer in the petition with costs quanitifed at [...] to be paid to the Legal Services Authority."
Me: I have so much to contest in this statement!
Maja: Lets meet on this in the evening, ok? Need to meet the dentist
Me: Ok then.
[TO be continued ...]

Hi Sky,

Turn dark very long and quickly, and if it can't be helped, you may:
send chains that drum in crumbles, like beady conversation.

WARNING: Do not illuminate.

In the city,
Bright mornings have killed 5 people so far this week.
Each of them had woken alone on their chequered sheets,
And stepped outside in bright emptiness. It is reported,
The brutal morning light had illuminated piles of cement,
Unweathered demolitions, and their own dull skin.
Back in their homes,
Each of them died in different ways.

WARNING: The quality of light on bright mornings.

Why my little heart will beat for birds

Hello everyone. This prim bright upstart is not just anyone. My friends, this is the White-capped Redstart (Chaimarronis leucocephalus). I would also like you to see what a White-capped Redstart looks like when in a poetic mood. And how it looks when it is utterly dispassionate.

Welcome back, Ortega

But a little disturbed about his retired spirit. More than a little.

Yallis-in-chains/Got weed?

We went for the more despairing parties and merveilleusly lost contact during its time. 5 hours into the tease when it was at the crest before disintegration, I would find myself, negotiating on tiptoes among the ruins of limbs, some inanimate, in the dark. All the while clenching the 11th batallion beer, peering at the more interesting remains. When I peered too close and found a stud staring back I would grab some tray or glass lying around to make it look like hard business. I would gratify myself with the common sight of boys/men kissing inert, stunned girls. They would go no farther than that if they had only come this far by now. What's this? A copy of 'Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams'. Rohit kicked my foot and held out a fresh joint with 'always clockwise stupid'. Lifted my beer trophy to tell i would stick to that tonight, had to teach next morning. Unexpectedly he tripped me with a martial move of malice. And I was down beside him, my beer foaming quietly on the carpet and paper. Heaving myself on the elbow, I got up on my knees, picked up the bottle still warm from recent grip, and bonged it with felicity on his cocked knee. He crumpled and howled dimly and sorrowfully, crouching pathetically to his side. I was sorry. I stroked his dear head and nape, put my nose in his hair and ear, delicately releived him of the reefer, took it to the balcony, and smoked it myself.
***



In other news:
Offering 500 buxom bux to anyone who can correctly identify that piece of Palace Grounds outer wall that carries the graffiti: 'Alice-in-chains' 'Got Weed?'.

Thoma in Leh, snapping himself all the way. So very proud of my first coco taking off on his own the minute he was let off in bombay, going straight to the airport and taking the first available ticket he could afford, far away. Next drink to you. And me.
Doing the same thing.

Bari Theke Paliye

Thank you. I have been resting very well. To wake up to all these difficult choices. It must be horrible to be alive, or the greatest fun. Meanwhile, attended a screening of Ritwik Ghatak's 'Bari Theke Paliye'. Though I thought I might sit squirming throughout after chacha's tacky bulbul song sequence, things turned around after we're shown his getup is a little hoax. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. Though i suspect my loudest chuckles were also in response to the pious subtitles. And though in the end, everything turns out well for 8-year-old runaway, Kanchan, we're noting that he has played some morally ambigious games with the acquaintances he causally strikes up on his roamings; he leaves them as soon at the first sign of trouble. While only once does someone get the better of him; a boy his age who steals his shoes. He does get unseriously beaten up in the coal yard by a pair of adolescents, and i like the flair of their closing line to Kanchan's ingenous q:"You steal??" with,"What did you think, we read the scriptures?"

Inauthentic insites

All phots curtsy: Sudha
At roughly the same time history dates the stirrings of the Renaissance in Europe* (14th C), an ominous conquest was laid and a complete victory soon registered at its doorstep: the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantine, was taken by the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet (Mohammed) the Conqueror. The gcrandiose creative expression in the Vijayanagar kingdom in the face of constant enemy overtures from around and afar, took place at the same time. Whether this is a coincidence, or a demonstration of the surge inspired by overwhelming threat, something frenzied and euphoric was happening in a kingdom that was the Vijayanagara Empire. Though no one could say it in any way rivalled the technical innovation and mastery of the Reniassance, if there was ever a first Renaissance (rebirth) in any geographical area of what is today called India, with something to show for it* as well, it was here: in this capital city of an empire that spanned all of South India (including Goa).

It would not be unreasonable to suspect this frenzy was conducted in the knowledge of an immanent successful attack from the surrounding hawks of the Deccan sultanates, that for the period during which the kingdom was at its greatest, had been successfully beaten down, notably by the most inspired and successful king since the city's fouding, Krishnadevaraya. An unprececented victory in the defining battle to capture Raichur from Adil Shah, sealed Krishnadevaraya's distinction. A trained fighter, he personally engaged in the battle, charging the second line in despair of victory when the first fell, to register what all accounts put as the most sensational triumph of the Kingdom. Nuniz's account of this battle is, as Sewell put's it, vivid. Check it out here, under "The Siege and Battle of Raichur, and Close of Krishna's Reign".

But with Krishnadevaraya's death and the accessssion of Achyuta, Vijayanagar was more compromised than ever with all the inherited wealth and creation from previous rule without the great reign of inspired leadership. The catastrophic defeat of the great Vijayanagara it had become and to which it would never return, came in 1565, in the reign of Rama Raya, at the hands of the combined forces of the formerly divided Deccan sultantes.

As for the the destruction, it would have to be considered disingenuous at some stage. Not only because of the effort it would have taken to damage any part of a structure that in several cases was made of granite and monolithic, but because some remarkable structures, that may have been easily broken up, were left untouched. I am thinking the members of the rampaging army were simply awed on these occassions, or at least their commander was sufficiently shamed by the magnificence of the work, to order his men of violence, destruction, and base mob skills (like him), to let it be, move away, and take a break; or less virtuosly, the stone was too much of an effort to break. But considering that after its fall in 1565, the capital city was subject to repeated invasions, the explanation for unbroken structures would have to something more inspired. Unless. Unless once again, since the invaders were all alike, they trusted the wisdom of the marauders who preceded them and left untouched what the previous armies had left untouched. (Naturally, all wooden structures were torched and we can only imagine the brilliance of its addition).

Though much of the destruction may be credited to the sultans of the Deccan, later invaders would include the Maratha armies, the menacing Haidar Ali and finally, Tipu Sultan. Sewell convincingly points out that nothing remarkable would have come of the Vijayanagara empire, indeed it would never have existed, had the many assertive and quarrelsome local leaders not conceded* that to put up any successful resistance against the forces they agreed were enemies, they would have to acceede to a leader among them and project something like a united front. Compromise and amalgam, pulling at the joints; it barely held together at all; that it did, is to the real, repeated and persistent thrust of enemy armies.

***
This was a kingdom of legendary wealth; Paes and Nuniz record the flamboyant display of city life; rubies, pearls and diamonds were not infrequent payments at the sprawling bazaar that traded every commodity they were familiar with and others, raiments, a variety of grain and pulses in abundance, citrine from plentiful orchards. It is said the Portugese Empire fell with the Vijayanagara. (Deepa who taught children at Hospet for some time, recalls a bit of the lore that the children piped, most of which has turned out to have recorded basis. One question that still confounds me, is: what exactly was this great wealth based on? trade. but the speciality? The children had told her that everyone in the city knew that the wealth came from the prostitute trade. This would also explain Sule Bazaar, the name of which the guidebook dismissed as unimportant and possibly misleading, predictable because of some implications on pride of the writer. But also diamonds - the 'mines of Golkonda', on the north bank of the Krishna river became proverbial. Also, explorer Sassetti has much to say for the wealth made from the horse trade).

There are many versions of the genesis of Vijayanagara, and though I am emotionally attached to one mentioned by explorer Cuoto of a sheperd who was anointed King by the ascetic Madhava, I think the most probable has to do with Harihara I and his brother Bukka who had served under Tughlaq. There is a suggestion that they were taken to Delhi, were converted to Islam and sent back as Tughlaq's deputies in the South; once out of the reach of Delhi and back South, they slipped into their own skin, reconverted and put their lot behind the successful pricipality of Anegundi. (This is a version Naipaul mentions in 'India: A Wounded Civilization', though its a version that keeps it to Harihara I.) The people of the city never forgot that Harihara I was once sold (made muslim) and served on the other side, and it is probably for this reason that he never dared call himself king.

LOOKING ABOUT
We saw every place in the book expect those on the other side of the Tungabhadra. I guess we were so content with the Sacred and Royal Centre. We also gave the recently excavated Pushkarani a miss; now this is more regrettable since from pics it appears so well preserved it's hard to believe it isn't some shady PR trick. We started out with the Kadalakai Ganesha then the Mustard ganesha, then the Krishna temple and the Krishna Bazaar with a sacred tank next to it. Plantations were only recently cleared.

ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING, CONSERVATION
So then these are the places that had that jnsq that appealed to me. Somehow the vaunted Vitthala Temple didn't give it to me. But just as a dyk - the wheel of the stone chariot were designed to and do revolve. Everyone went about banging the musical pillars and I have to admit that I did it too. I'm sorry. But tired after the first tap and ear stick, and instead gawked at a couple romancing through the medium of the pillars. These are the places that pleased me:
Royal Center
Hazararama (!)
Lotus Mahal
Elephant Stables
Sacred Center
Virupaksha
Ugraha Narasimha
Matanga Hill
And at every span of it, the shimmering Tungabhadra. I would want to return to visit the suburban settlements, particularly the village(?) of Anegondi. Of the several outstanding remaining monuments and structures, it was a surprise to me at least that only a few were under some UNESCO list of endangered world monuments, with help from them, with some identified remaining others maintained by the Govt. of Karntaka. Numerous others remain unmarked, and theyre up for unobstructed claim from the first guy who will get around to it. To make things more promising, in 2004, the group of monuments in Hampi was removed from the UNESCO list of world heritage in danger. Don't ask me what the consequences of that will be. I saw some seriously questionable restoration work-in-progress and work-in-place. Supposing to serve as support structures to pillars in the Achyutadevaraya complex that clearly needed support, were immense trapeziodal buttresses erected from block quarried from a defining hill of boulders that framed the view of the complex. Ofcourse they overwhelmed the structure itself. This is the least of the mindless meddling that will be the theme of Hampi. No comments. Just: What the point of being inheritors to a legacy like this if you can't accept it may be something? Hand it to these guys from UPenn who have put up some of the most impressive studies on Vijayanagara in the Vijayanagara Project, available on the net.

Aqueducts


Hazararama Temple


BEHIND THE SEENS
1. Personally
Back with the most unabashed tan of the siecle.
For me, the trip to Hampi and the time in Hampi became more than the sum of its events. In fact each event became more than just an event and took on larger meanings for me at a viable age. The significant sensations began when we guessed at the train to board. 5 minutes later, the TT asked us to get the hell out cos out bogie was further ahead and unconnected to the current bogie. We hoofed and ran because we knew there was no time left for the train to start. And then while we were still running guess what happened? The train began its movement and we actually let 4 seconds pass before we decided it was now or never. Selfishly, I climbed in first and badly and fell inside. S came in after and made it in better style. But this was not our bogie and as we stood in the interim point, we saw that this bogie was also unconnected and we had to come out again and jump to the next one at the next station if we wanted to board and bed at all. And as we stood trembling in the interim passage at the drag expected of us at the next station, a stud appears and tries to be saviour.

In 3 seconds I had my back and bag in his face; after a minute of frantic rattling, the train reluctantly decelerated for the malleshwaram station. And it turns out the 5 minutes stop is less than 45 seconds. There is no station or platform. Have you ever tried boarding a train from a ditch as deep as a platform is high? So not only did we run and trip on deep gravel jelly and bush with a few farmers in the dark knowing time wouldn't stop, but we had to get onto a step that was inches above out head and already moving. The run was about life and I weeped inside as I panted and scrambled again; it shouldn't leave without me. I hoisted myself, willing massive mechanical efficiency for life and everything I wanted. We had made it.

Got off the train at 7:30 the next morning, after seeing a huge lake and what looked like a nuclear reactor but was possibly the steel plant mentioned in a few documents. Walked up to the bus stop; put off by the sight of a man puking at the foot of the door of the bus we were supposed to take, we decided to take a rick to Hampi. We managed to slip out of the guesthouses he had tried to ram us into once he had reached us there. Found one on our own called 'Vishnu' and decided it was okay and cheap enough. We stayed in one of the many guestrooms in one of the byelanes off the main colonnaded thoroughfare stretching between the monolithic bull and Virupaksha Temple.

We walked down to the German Bakery which was run by a Tibetan family and overseen by a Mallu Ayappan. They played Bob Marley to death and had bunting with the Ethiopian tricolur. Walking back down to the main avenue after going as far as the monolithic nandi on the far left, we hired a heavy duty tvs (should have been a bullet). These guys are pricey and charged a bomb for just that. Also bought a tiny map and guide book. I saw many white-browed wag tails, a bee-eater, some parrots, a kingfisher, egrets, crows, swifts, and some others I couldn't name, also bats and reptiles, inside temples. Lots of cows, goats and buffellows were about. Carnival Pilgrims. Tribal tourists. But the cobra sitting next to me at the side gateway to sule bazaar has to earn a post all of its own. :(

Climb to Matunga Hill
We took the most trecherous climb up Matunga hill, following the steps to the left of the monolithic nandi. We really should never have made it to the final landing before the little ascetic shrine on top. The scottish girl up there, who is not a regular feature, told us she had come up an easier way but before we used it to go down, we saw the cavetemple higher up, and all 3 of us proceded to it, up a sheer side ascent before regular slabs. Sewell tells that the temple could date back to 3rd or 7th centuries, though the use of mortar suggests it would have been much later. One thing everyone can be certain of is: this little temple on top of this hill that gave this transcendant view of a land, would be very special for hermits, ascetics, spiritualists. I would love to spend a week there on my own some time.

+ the nightsky
+aqueduct
+WHo was Naipaul referring to?
+Tungabadhra - a tributary of the Krishna River


Notes
*Sewell dates the creation of Vijayanagara to 1336, during the reign of Edward III in England. The city was formally founded in 1336, by brothers Hakka (Harihara) and Bukka (Bukkarayya), who were the first kings of the Sangama Dynasty. Let us also note that the the Muhammadan advance on the Deccan began only at the
end of the thirteenth century

*Sewell: "...Prior to A.D. 1336 all Southern India had lain under the domination of the ancient Hindu kingdoms, -- kingdoms so old that their origin has never been tracedWhen Vijayanagar sprang into existence the past was done with for ever"

*Sewell: Its importance is shown by the fact that almost all the struggles of the
Portuguese on the western coast were carried on for the purpose of
securing its maritime trade; and that when the empire fell in 1565,
the prosperity of Portuguese Goa fell with it never to rise again.
a city with which for richness and magnificence no known western capital could compare

REFERENCES
Hampi - Guide Booklet
Naipaul's India: A Wounded Civilization
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/fevch10.txt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara
http://www.vijayanagara.org/

***

It's RajyotsavaMeanwhile some ppl are having animal sex

I realise I'm simply tired of people who are still nitpicking over what language you dare not know. Theyre just as narrow as people who stonewall outsiders because they dont dress or smell like them. So if i dont speak much kannada after being here so long, I should be ashamed of myself. GIve me a break. I'd sooner apologize for not knowing how to fly an LCA, when my uncle designed it. Guess what I'm thinking of? The whole of expanding space, ideas and histories. New languages and new styles.

This should also teach me never to alienate anyone, wherever theyre from, or wherever I am. But I'll keep away from (not: keep out) the stale, regressive and eternally earthhabit-bound.

The House of Being

Have you ever felt it when words become such a failure.
They fail to the length they lie when they were intended to hold and communicate the truth. Music vs. Song. Very often when I speak to someone about something difficult that has happened between us, I find my feelings and thoughts have already moved far ahead of that static which i just spoke. The failure of words, language, the attempt to communicate the truth is a running tragedy.

It doesnt take a Heidegger to see words begin to impoverish with usage over time. The word will never come as close to the meaning as when it was first spoken to earnestly convey.

Sometimes without a word, you communicate by just being there; even with all the wrong words, you despatch everything you meant. But so much of the world is not about these spritely, romantic, fabulous moments. The practise of law, issues of justice, evaluation, manoeuvring, survival, persuasion. The compulsion is to keep devising to transmit the closest to dynamic impressions, that make listeners and readers look up and rethink in their average-everyday*.

Glad eventually got great train tickets back and watched a trippy screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey the same day and made it to the book club meet on sunday. Everyone who read her floss, dissed desai. Though one guy said there were infrequent flashes of inspiration in all the drivel. What else? Just recovered from a bone-breaker fever yesterday and trying to get rid of the delirium today. Got this whole post on hampi but waiting for the pics to animate it as well.
Also think its time to learn from once-and-for-all-lessons learnt this year

Now that the insufferable tourist crowd is out of Hampi, i make my way at last! Cya round. i'm holding on ...

Baritone Barbie

1. I entirely approve of the type used in Atwood's 'Negotiating with the Dead' [Typeface: Adobe Garamond 11.5/14 pt]
2. D H Lawrence's 'The Rocking Horse Winner'
3. Gilgamesh?
4. "Reach me a gentian, give me a torch" - D H Lawrence
5. Phyllis Chesler's 'Woman and Madness'

***
Sep 29 TLS Reviews that made me want the book:
+Jennifer Coates' review of Anne Karpf's The Human Voice. Her review is titled Baritone Barbie, in reference to this infamous adventure by the Barbie Liberation Organisation: "In Dec 89, NY, the Organisation bought 800 Barbie dolls and switched their voice chips. When children opened their presents at Christmas, the Barbies shouted 'Vengeance is mine!' while GI Joes trilled 'Lets plan our dream wedding!'. The public was outraged."
+Steve Poole's review of Andrew Hussey's Paris - the secret history of Paris. Paris can never again be the Paris of Sartre with coffee shops for lingering debates. 'Paris - a husk, a virtual theme park of past glories'.

I'm a pseudo-intellekchell! getmeyout

Now why doesn't that pinch? I suspect it's the cheap thrill i get all the time from getting to know things, however scatty, and then the joy of making amateur connections with my own experiences, records, and remembering what others had said on the same thing, or something related. Rubber band games. With sticky ends for easy tacking anywhere. (note-to-self: bbc sp.- punk rock gave license to the amateur). Shit, no look, they'll say. Look at the number of times she's used 'i' in this post so far: the final indication of her obsession. She'll take that too and fall for it again: I am an obsessed voyeur, of my self as well.

Also, I would like to know if anyone can direct me to that piece of lit crit that discusses, the percpetion trap: belongers seem to have a better license to challenge/shame the principles of their group than outsiders, or perceived enemies. I had asked that to Anand Patwardhan a bunch of years back a propos some controvesial film on the ayodhya affair, he'd just come out with. Did his being a distinct Hindu make it easier for everyone else to lionize him for taking a brutal stand against Hindu fundamentalism? Would he cut less ice if he were Muslim and as corrosively expository?

He wasn't too excited about the question and didn't say anything worth remembering. But I would like to read a more complete discussion on that subject of who seems to have a better license to criticize; belongers or outsiders. Or is the more valid license of a belonger just a perception?

Contrarely

(1)
Who am i but a furtive unwashed gerbil chomping on the fur of my gritty upper inner thighs in spare time, spitting out nipped fleas and flea eggs in between. But this rodentious beanpod thinks desai is bland. What is her story? - ask all rodents. Rodents only need listen to her voice and banal opinions on radio to know what she has to offer. I'm sorry, but rodents want to know ur creds, And we're not talking of an oxbridge or ivy in ur life. Prim girl says with pride: mama had major inputs in work; ats why mama was more nervious than baby. Inheritance indeed. Spare. Rodents want high flavour and glistening guts, not mincing obdedient bugeyed dullness beaming at shutterbwugs. She's the kind who at puja time, is secretly certain her success is down to her particular food timings and habits or because she jerks off with twiddling her left tit and not her right. Thank her lucky habits. Thank my habit, I'm never going to read crap when I can avoid it.

Rodents believe they can see all this in a person's face. What they've got.

Pahmuk? now this is a man.
Risk and contrariness are everything.

(2)
Being contrary isnt an end in itself, but one fine day when some look back, they find they've taken contrary positions almost every time. Outsiders put it down to a misdirected curr nature, being congenitally combative, always on the look out for something to tear. But subjects in such situations would agree, it wasn't even about playing devils advoc; but being uncomfortable with mediocrity. Ofcourse you can introspect, repent, and change and become what Naipaul calls 'defined by the external' when you started out wanting to define.

What's an opinion anyway? It doesn't take nothing in the end to buy opinion. The promise of continued good money or more money or power and more power. One goes with the other. In the commercial world, it's called a raise/promo. Or as I am saying, even sticking on for the great pay deal you rightly or wrongly assume you're not going to get anywhere else.

Maybe you work for a large company or school or research institute (in smaller places that aren't co-ops, employees on small pay are always more vocal and contrary). And then something happened that raised your ethic heckles. Then as if by magic, with time, it's not something that's worth talking about anymore. (You even forget you more than once weakly threatened to resign over the issue if it wasnt corrected.) Because some of the quickest resolutions have happened without a single significant verbal exchange on the issue. Out-of-sight-out-of-mind, no longer.
Your incipient dissent was nipped insidiously: with a raise/promo or the promise of it. Now you work with the very thing you felt wrong about, it's in your eyeballs, but with conditioning and the rewards from normal response to the program, you're fine. Everybody loves this person. As for the reviled others, they say:
But still, the fates will leave me my voice,
and by my voice I shall be known. [Ovid]

Play me backwards

accumulated posts buried in text doc:

***
Africa Online

MIT-trained Ayisi Makatiani started Africa Online with two other Kenyans in Boston. Africa Online is Africa's largest ISP, which has operations in ten countries. Read the article in the Economist. I liked it.

***

Heard: black horse and the cherry tree. good.

***
covers can be better than originals; and anyone can do that favour for dylan.

***
Remembered ahmedabad. cept, guj univ, manic peacocks and the hottest south men... delhi calling? met deepa from pu french on cs last week. we decided to hoof it to koshys to catch up a bit more. Since college, she's been to jnu, did her time in delhi, before returning to run the down to earth show in the city single-handedly. she's been cooling off since them. she talked about the dylan screening and she thought baez was beautiful and really made dyl what he was. we bitched about someone who didnt make the cut to nls, but paid her way to a masters seat in harv law. man. a session. good to catch up.

***
About Ahmedabad. Heard about the upmarket Seva Cafe? It works :)

***
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guastavino_tile
Guastavino tile refers to the "Tile Arch System" patented in the US in 1885 by Spanish architect and builder Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908). It is a technique for constructing robust, self-supporting arches and architectural vaults using interlocking terracotta tiles and layers of mortar in a thin skin, with the tiles following the curve of the roof as oppossed to horizontal (corbelling), or perpendicular to the curve (roman).

***
What is your name?
A few days after birth, a few facts have to be put down on a sheet. Along with the indisputable 'blood group: O-ve', I was described under religion: catholic. To make it less easy, it was also decided that I should belong to that dying tribe of Indian catholics who are actually given a catholic name (even though they're almost all actually pre-christian), and not a 'normal' name as well to blend in the crowd better. I don't know what's worse - to seek to cover up a historical fact or to stand out when you didn't choose to. One thing is clear: it's cowardly to change names, just to fit in. Should I be grateful that my first name is almost immediately followed up with the unfamiliar and unsettling syriac veetil name?

With a name like a supposedly unIndian one, it's like having your reputation precede you. Krischen! some exclaim, audibly or inaudibly, as soon as they hear such a name, after asking you to repeat it the fourth time. I used to try to explain 'no, you see, i'm communist; my parents maybe .. but...'. Then I realised how it came across. Like I was trying to convince them I was really pure Norwegian both sides. And denials really look pathetic. So instead, I deadpan, to the memory of Garfield, who sadly, is not culturally neutral, proving my wretched bias again.

But one thing that certainly happens when you're pegged a cath, is that you think twice about seeming pro-cath in anyway. That would be less forgivable than islamic fundamentalism. And that's more than a little tragic. So if I'd want to quote from the Canticle of the Sun, I'd precede it with something from the vedas (if I knew it) or shelve it altogether. Though I'd defer to the writings of basavanna or adi sank anyday, than the vedas, which like the temples, was for too long the precious jam of the preistlies. Yes - i'm coming to it sometime: Dalits and Liberation Theo.

Then there's the suggested exclusion or your unnaturally overexcited participation. It isn't always like this but on atleast 2 occasions, frends have passed around some piece of sacred art or iconogrpahy and sheepishly passed it over me. I usually have 2 options when that happens: yank it back or let it pass. Usually, i let it pass, unless it's one that's really different, and that hasn't happened yet. (note: We can do with more gods.) Or the office puja thing, if you participate, everyone's thinking 'chilled out ya!'; if you don't 'stuck. church prick'. I just wolf the prasadam for the hunger pangs, not the god pangs. However I'm not sure if that stands to reason, going by the following related incident:

Long ago, a bizguy I was working for, who was also an RSSian, actually went all over the top once and pulled me up for answers about the wafer they handed out in Church. Why, he asked, all vexed, did they prevent non-Cathlics, from taking it? Did I have any idea, he asked me, how hurt he felt when he was excluded as a boy? I shrugged. But If I was around at that time in his infancy, I would have told him the codeword to get the wafer inserted was: 'Amen'. And if on the side they asked you if you were Catholic say: 'Yes, father'. But Mr. Betraj, if you had said that, you would be agreeing to a number of things, even that: 'You can be anything you want, and everything at once.' Which, presuming against infinity, the irrational, tragically contradicts. Finally, anyone in their right materially-minded mind wouldn't want to trade the privelege of belonging to the priestly fatty layer of the majority, however fractured.

***
Today morning I rubbed this lizard's belly from behind the curtain. And ever since, it has been hanging around my wall, demure and lovestruck. It's pretty. Looking up at his tail-end, i'm sending him my love.

***
For all the noise made about nabokov, i think he's soulless. The boy who'd score 10/10 interminably. with a straight face and no regrets. Like a machine without a soul.

***
Torture is ...
Having a rare copy of Bruce Lee's 'Game of Death' staring at you, but being unable to watch it because of some rec speed mismatch or other such crap.

Things that made me laugh-splutter recently:

1. Jug Bean's Menagerie a Trois or How to Review B'lore's English Theatre Scene

2. Slogan's Ant in the pant: Adventures with Krishnappa

3. Maciej's wary descript of Kundera's 'Unberable Lightness' as sexually-transmitted book

Delight

If orgasms fail you completely, maybe youre like me. I'm convinced that a woman is better off with a book between her hands as someone else grunts between her legs and over her face (blocking out the light).

In the last year, my most memorable orgasms by external agent, came from books:
Derrida (for beginners)
and now,
Ya. Perelman Physics for Entertainment (1,2)

So if anyone thought they would pick up the Ya. Perelman 1+2 sometime in the future from Blossoms, they can forget about it. They were cleaned out yesterday. :)
I intend to gift the Perelman to my nephew on his 5th birthday. Or maybe wont. Man, it's gold. This was the USSR.

Yes!

My thoughts exactly. Particularly the part where he advises Americans to read Chomsky instead of wasting their time on Batman and Superman movies that "make people stupid." Ok, so he slipped on thinking Chomsky was dead, but let that not take away from the point. US government officials like Condy, say his language was unbecoming of a head of state, 'comic-strip'. Really judgement is the right of the makers of a language of diplomacy and an institution of mockery , so they're right. But the clearest indication of US Government as Bigot of Privelege, is ambassador Bolton's remark that Hugo's speech didn't warrant the presence of anyone higher than their junior notetaker.

Serendipity. The word doesn't sound right for what it's trying to say. It sounds like it means 'to sip coffee in serenity'. So i'll say a lot of things are coming quickly together in my field of idea vision. It's important to say 'quickly' because if all these related things happened over a year or even a month it wouldnt be remarkable enough. The most notable of these is when i put together oriana fallaci with the pope vs. islam thing and then I see a few others had done the same thing. Then 2 days later, I attend a bookclub meet and their book was a kundera. and all that week before kundera was the theme. I had had a great chat with vij on kundera's 'unberable lightness'(debates Neitzsche) in the previous week and then the day after the guy i meet is reading Neitzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Anyway, the day after the book meet, where I had decided not to pick up the recommended book, I decided to revisit bookworld and pick up a friendly copy of kundera's 'immortality' which I had left reading 2 years back. It's pretty and just my thing. Then I find before arriving there, that he has a mention of Fallaci in Immortality:
“…who is the pioneer of modern journalism? Not Hemingway who wrote of his experiences in the trenches, not Orwell who spent a year of his life with the Parisian poor, not Egon Erwin Kisch the expert on Prague prostitutes, but Oriana Fallaci who in the years 1969 to 1972 published a series of interviews with the most famous politicians of the time. Those interviews were more than mere conversations; they were duels. Before the powerful politicians realized that they were fighting under unequal conditions–for she was allowed to ask questions but they were not–they were already on the floor of the ring, KO’ed.” And truly if anything, this lady stood for courage.
Then before I had even begun on Immortality, I thought I saw this whole Pope-Islam thing as sibling rivalry. This is what Kundera explores in the world of the protagonist, Agnes.

***
Location Envy: I remember all those people I got to befriend in my time in Bangalore, whove left for other lands, states, places, contracts. Something so natural just happens. People move on, they do it all the time. But the mist of wist cracks you sometimes.
***

Some bloggers are picking on the Naxalites. Why? They must stop. Really. :) Let it be known that it's only the presence of humane mallus in the city that calms the otherwise indistinguishable Naxalites. *beam beam*
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In other news, C K Meena disappointed me for the first time with her last piece on names.
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In other news, gay men turn me on liek nothing else. Guess hwhy.

I'll tell you what the Pope vs. Islam thing reminds me of - the thing between siblings. The elder sis: pontificating, berating, high-minded, triumphalistic; the younger sis: brooding, petulant, agressive and dangerously tantrum-prone. I was nearly done with this huge piece on "Courage vs. Caution. When do you speak your mind?" worthy of publication in The Economist. Then i realised this: Big sis-small sis. Tant piss. And I should know.
(And i think Madeline's article in The Guardian was narrow. And might just publish my piece)

But we can still have a great debate on this over soda at koshy's ok?

Crazy Crazy.
Finds made in the last 2 weeks :
2.AfriGadget
3.Architectures of Control in Design
4.Figarospeech(for my students)
5.Rebranding Africa
6.I love Track 6. It's mine.
***
4-year-old Mita danced on the smelly park grass in her brief pink frock. She twisted in circles with the other mindless children of the park time. 5 times she turned breathless in a deathly pleasure run and nearly panted back to mother's bench. At last, tired and smiling, she finally drifted to her mother's bench. Mother looked up freshly and pleased to receive. They looked happily at eachother. Then Mita asked,"Ummy. Explain the role of breasts in lovemaking."

Can a cartoonist help me on this?

[Pop at pulpit delivering speech in speech bubble]
Pop: "Φαδρον μν τοιοτν τινα λγον φη επεν, Hops are doctrinally irrational μετ δ Φαδρον λλους τινς εναι, ν ο πνυ διεμνημνευεν..... Παυσανου λγον διηγετο. επεν δ ατν τι· ο καλς μοι δοκε, Φαδρε, προβεβλσθαι μν λγος, τ πλς οτως παρηγγλθαι γκωμιζειν..."[3 p