Of Ch**thiya sulphates and Shubha Panthuvarali

What a wistful whimsical song this is. I am so in love with this right now. Aaromalae be damned. In one master stroke Vishal Baradwaj has managed to completely evoke all the nostalgia of old hindi songs. The lilting swing step beats are so beautiful that in the interlude between 04:28 to 04:36, I was transported to my Thanjavur Agraharam Mitham Oonjal. Whoa. Very seductive.

Oh and this other piece is a very refreshing Hindustani Thodi (Classical Shubha Panthuvarali).

Its been a really long time since I heard something this authentic and nice in this ragam. And exceeding 7 minutes! Absolutely delighted this music season.

Woody

Just finished watching Annie Hall twice. Man, this is the only movie I have seen where all they do is talk talk and talk. And what a pleasure it is when the lines are so hysterically funny. I had to put down some gems here, so I can get a laugh once in a while when I read them.

Alvy Singer: I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That’s the two categories. The horrible are like, I don’t know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don’t know how they get through life. It’s amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you’re miserable, because that’s very lucky, to be miserable.

Alvy Singer: I think, I think there’s too much burden placed on the orgasm, you know, to make up for empty areas in life.

Alvy Singer: Oh stop it, you’re having an affair with your college professor, that jerk that teaches that incredible crap course, Contemporary Crisis in Western Man…
Annie Hall: Existential Motifs in Russian Literature. You’re really close.
Alvy Singer: What’s the difference? It’s all mental masturbation.
Annie Hall: Oh, well, now we’re finally getting to a subject you know something about.
Alvy Singer: Hey, don’t mock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.

Alvy Singer: [narrating] After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I… I realized what a terrific person she was, and… and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I… I, I thought of that old joke, y’know, the, this… this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” And, uh, the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y’know, they’re totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and… but, uh, I guess we keep goin’ through it because, uh, most of us… need the eggs.

Being.

“Hey Honey. I am waiting at the airport past security check. They haven’t started boarding yet. Call me back or see you when I see you!”

She puts the phone in her bag and switches on her iPod. Shuffled playlists play in random order; the genre of songs shifting as chaotically as her thought process. She decides to pen down before she forgets certain ideas that she had had over the week and forgotten to write about. Because invariably, when she sat down to write she would most certainly forget the context of some important thoughts that she wanted to save from rotting in the nooks of her mind. She mulls over an idea she had had over the last week about writing variations of a conversation in the mind of one of the two people having a conversation. She wanted to write about why everybody carried preconceived notions and preconditions of how a conversation or an outing or an interaction would go – if not fully planned out in the head atleast as an immediate before thought. She tries to come up with a storyline that would coherently hold that idea. She decides she can’t. Each thought branches into its own story and digresses into multiple branches until she can no longer keep track.

Maybe, just maybe, she will write about writing this. Maybe she will put herself into the story about writing the story. She grins. The vanity. She thinks she can pull off a Charlie Kauffman. Well, maybe not that complicated right at the beginning. Or is it actually easier to write something more complicated than write something simpler. How can she not make a story complicated when she cannot even think of the simplest things with just one way of getting it. So should it be in first person? Should she write it like she was writing it? But that would make it too personal. In a way that is beside the point, but still if she makes it in third person, she can delineate herself from it later. She can always pretend it was just a story. Why does she want to do this exercise right now? This might turn out to be the most boring thing for anybody to read. What can possibly be interesting enough to write about her wanting to write about writing this in an airport waiting for a flight? There are no drivers or plot points or secondary characters. Its all her and its not even full of her. Just about her writing this. Wow. This is vain. So vain she feels like puking on herself.

Or maybe she has a fascination with the stream of consciousness style of writing that she is reading right now. She has been wanting to experiment writing in that style for a while. Maybe her subconscious is driving it.  Or maybe the voyeurism of reality tv culture is really getting into her subconscious. Maybe she wants to explore just what it feels like to expose her mind, be naked in front of an imagined audience, even if it is just a small peek. Is she becoming a diva? Is she starting to like being noticed? Well, if that was the case she would have written in first person and taken the credit. Not hidden behind an imagined conscience. Oh my God – is this her ID that is doing the talking? When she talks to herself, if she refers to herself in the third person, does that mean she is assuming a soul-like higher manifestation, loitering just a few inches above her physical self and subjecting herself to scrutiny? Is this what hearing voices in your head sound like? Is this herself or is she herself? Or both? If it is both who should she listen to? Or is it neither and the “herself” doesn’t even exist as an entity? Is she going through an existential crisis? Why does she have to get into the dynamics of the thought process and her mental make up every time she tries to write something that is not a news article or an opinion piece. She started off simply enough – the setting of an airport lounge and iPod songs does not in anyway necessitate this kind of “paathaala karandi” analysis of the deepest crevices of her mind. She could have as easily framed a narrative around the songs and just made this a light, music oriented story piece of a girl waiting for her flight to meet her boy. Why did she not do that? Didn’t she start off with that idea?

Sigh. Can this be any more yawn-worthy?

Watching Interviews II

I usually refrain from making sequels to posts unless they are stories (a mistake I committed only once with Aval series), but when circumstances and society force me to make a commentary, I have no choice but to oblige. (Oh yes, I most certainly am a megalomaniac with visions of grandeur about myself!) Things have changed considerably since this. I was in a different midwest state with no TV back then and all my watching interviews was done over the internet. So, I stuck to people I knew were good and did not dare to experiment. A year with a 40″ second hand TV and cable in another mid western state later (drum-roll band-playing trumpeting  - I have endured a year and two bad winters in Iowa!) I read that post and realized that its not current at all. I still watch interviews and shows the most on tv and the internet – other than movies ofcourse – but what I watch now is totally different now from then.

I did not know of a certain Mr. Jon Stewart back then, and now I am addicted to the daily show. Man, for a guy who talks for laughs on Comedy Central, he makes the most political sense and thats saying a lot. I don’t care for any of his follow ups (Colbert/Rachel Maddow) but he is a really funny guy with some really good writers. I used to be a Jay Leno regular when he was doing the Tonight show on CBS, but then they decided to totally fuck themselves by moving him to a time slot competing with Law and Order SVU and bring in the lanky boring Conan O Brian to the tonight show. I hate both shows now. You just don’t compete with Law and Order SVU – if its on in any channel, I am totally watching it and so is the majority of the tv watching population i am told (here’s to conforming yet again! sigh!). So, I turned completely loyal to David Letterman and I actually find him funny in an old-but-contemporary-grampa-kinda-way. Yeah yeah he might be an asshole boss with all those bedding associates controversy, but I totally refuse to judge a performer by his personal life – same reason I don’t care for Tiger’s indiscretions. He is good at something and I pay attention to only that. If he is still good at that, he deserves credit for that.

When I started gymming a year back, I started running on the treadmill much to my distaste but given the biting cold/arid dry weather almost through out the majority of the year, there is no hoping for me to run amid the trees and the parks and the shrubs and the dogs and waving a friendly ‘hello’ to grampas and grandmas and showing off my toned legs to random people on the street. Sigh, thats the one and only thing I miss about California. Anyways getting back to the point, the running in the treadmill thing excited me a little because now I could watch news/interviews/shows on any of those 12 TV’s and run maybe a little more than I would if I ran outside. So on I went from one TV to another, one time slot to another every evening trying to catch something of substance and something of taste to retain my interest for the half hour (2.5 miles) that I was sweating it off on the treadmill. After a month of this shifting and shifting, I came to realise what a total red-belt-conservative-mid-western region I was in. All TV’s would air either CNN (when a) situation room with Wolf Blitzer – one of the lamest shows on network TV or b) Lou Dobbs – the CNN equivalent to Fox’s O’Reilly aired.) or FOX (the biggest achievement of FOX is to have convinced people that it is a News Channel. It is owack of the highest order) or Sports (which meant only teams from Iowa got air-time and most of them except the cyclones were lame and I am not a big fan of American football) or Wheel of fortune! (I even tried to get into that but the treadmills and ellipticals in front of that TV were always taken by 60+ people). This was ruining my workouts because I was ending my routines earlier and earlier disgusted with the shows on TV. Jon Stewart as soon as I got home was my daily antedote. So now, I run on a treadmill that faces the wall and I am hooked upto my ipod queued up with George Carlin’s stand up comedy! I run like a crazy maniac laughing to myself for a good half hour!

There is this one desi show that I try to catch up with every week on youtube. Its called “Beautiful People” and is anchored by Anuradha Sengupta on CNBC-TV. They are refreshingly intelligent interviews with very interesting people and I am totally glued these days. Her thought process excites me and it feels really good to listen to her conversations that makes even some really boring people sound intelligent and come off as smart. Oh, and I havent given up my infatuation for Vir Sanghvi. I catch up with him on his blog these days – loving his counterpoint pieces. I hope after yet another year, I still retain my appetite for some of the things I have come to love in 2009 and they do remain current with my taste.

Of eggs and oil

Woman deciding to not let cells multiply when inconvenient = Wrong, Sinful, Irresponsible, Against the will of God.

Man jerking off every night not letting cells multiply/Hundreds and thousands of cells wasted in condoms  = Natural.

Cells are cells are cells. People, keep it simple.

The wise Mr. George Carlin used to say, “How come when it’s us, it’s an “abortion,” and when it’s a chicken, it’s an “omlette?”

The unfinished basement

When I move into my own first house, it should, absolutely should have an unfinished basement. That and an island kitchen are the only musts. In the unfinished basement, I shall spend two summers making some totally cool wood work for

1. a library for stuff from here and more
2. a full on gaming set-up that would be used interchangeably as a saturday night horror movie watching home theater system with BOSE surround speakers.
3. a vintage wine rack that is strictly for adding that extra class. (not saying wont be for anything more)
4. a media library for the stuff from here. – This being the whole point of this blog post.

The view from the edge

“Hey paathu paathu. Careful”, he yelled out spontaneously. He had caught her leaning from the railing-less ramp. His hands involuntarily grabbed her waist and stayed there. It was a pretty good hike to the top.

“So what, if I fall? There is so much perspective out of being in the edge. Its worth the fall, if there is a fall.”

“Will you one day just let me fall?” she asks, looking at the water flowing softly far below. “Yes”, he says. She turns to look at him, waiting for him to finish the sentence. He hugs her close and whispers,”The day you stop pushing, I will let go”.

“Hey paathu paathu. Careful”, he yelled out spontaneously. He had caught her leaning from the railing-less ramp. His hands involuntarily grabbed her waist and stayed there. It was a pretty good hike to the top.

“So what, if I fall? There is so much perspective out of being in the edge. Its worth the fall, if there is a fall.”

“Will you one day just let me fall?” she asks, looking at the water flowing softly far below. “Yes”, he says. She turns to look at him, waiting for him to finish the sentence. He hugs her close and whispers,”The day you stop pushing, I will let go”.

Nujood

News item:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/08/26/yemen.divorce/index.html?eref=rss_world

There are so many constant reminders throughout the world about all the things we take so much for granted. To think that I found random relatives giving idiotic retrospective “advice” that I should have chanted 3 and a half lines of sudharshanashtakam to “save” my marriage was heights of torture. Obviously I have barely even graced the surface. Its all so damn relative. Come to think of it, it might even be fun to sit and humor said relative and have a good laugh at the end of it.

Guilt

மௌனத்தால் எரிக்கும்

உன் கோபம் சகிக்காமல்

திரும்பி நின்றேன்.

நீ எங்கேயோ நிற்க

என் முதுகுத்தண்டில், உன்

ஒரு துளி மட்டும் சுடுகிறதே!

Blood on the dance floor

I am not an MJ fan. Never have been. When I was in school I belonged more to the Back Street Boys generation that made fun of MJ fans as being retro and out of league but secretly dance to “Beat It” and “Thriller” trying out the moon walk. By the time, I was listening to and appreciating pop music, it was the mid nineties and MJ was the wierdo by then. My colleague, Jim was offended today when I told him that when I was in school, we believed MJ to be an “ali” (the all-encompassing tamil term for transgender/transsexual/homosexual/cross-dressing/even slightly effeminate/masculine men/women). He tells me MJ was God here. I tell him MJ was God in India too. The keyword being “was”.

I have been reading article after article since yesterday on this superstar who fell from grace. Every link from Michael Jackson’s wiki page has a huge story. Peterpan complex. Regressing into the psyche of a 10 year old. Preserving the ignorace. Desperately clinging on to a childhood he probably never had. A hell of a lot of money. An irresponsible brat. A pedophile. Skin disorders. Body dysmorphic disorders. Anoerxia. Anxiety. Addiction to painkillers. The drive to become the best. Obsession with music and dance. Fame and fan following like no one has ever seen before. None of these are a good combination. It doesnt take an expert to see all this and acknowledge that any single person dealing with this is bound to break. The thing that actually caught my attention was the role of tabloid sensationalization that has followed him every minute. I personally know people who hesitate to even say things simply because they are afraid it will attract attention and scrutiny.I can only imagine what it must be like to have your every move evaluated by every nobody in the world.

I was touched and deeply disturbed by these videos on youtube which feature the parts that were left out of the controversial documentary – Living with Michael Jackson.  Here is the link to Part1, there are 9 parts in all accessible from the related videos on the right -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvhwWDCV9Bo&feature=related

Maybe it was the effect of reading and seeing so much. Maybe it was the combined disgust against false information, media frenzy and tabloid culture. Maybe a disgust against information itself. This last homage I read made me choke down tears. Nothing is what it seems. Words are themselves an interpretation of thought. When they pass from one person to another, they change interpretation colored by each of their thoughts. Fact isn’t fact. Life itself is just one big game of passing the secret. It never is the same in the end as how it was when it started. As Jim would say, its all one big cluster fuck.