dematerialized

XKCD and Dos Equis, or why I suddenly feel like posting

2009-08-23T05:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, on XKCD:

Elsewhere, The Most Interesting Man in the World (!!)

Previously, on Slate:-)

Making. Things. Up. Down. Yes. No. Maybe.

2009-08-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

Cast, Crew and others:
Z and her wonderful house;
D, Z's very incredible but extremely crazy mother;
N, who might not become more than a friend.

...

The vague outlines of the plan began brewing in my mind earlier in the day. To bring it into fruition would require a rainless evening and clear skies. At least. While rare in their simultaneous occurrence - even more so now when the full force of the monsoon is upon us - they were not the only factors.

“What are you doing this evening? If you're up for it, come over, and we can sit on Z's roof... howl at the moon.” I'd asked N as we were all dispersing, hoping to be out of earshot from the others. “I'm going for dinner with these neighbours/house-guests, and not sure when we'll return. I'll message you, OK?”, she smiled back.

We've never really talked on the phone, except when about work, or if something has to be coordinated. In fact, I don't think I have the “Hi!! I felt like chatting, so just called!” with anyone any more. :-|

...

It was much after 10, and we had been sitting – chatting, catching up – perched, almost, in one of my favourite spaces of that wonderful house. N had looked at her phone a couple of times already, the preparation and winding down necessary for the coming work-day probably on her mind. Noticing these glances, I realized I'd delayed too much – this evening, and in general – to bring it up, to ask.

...

Just a few hours earlier, I'd been on the other side of the parapet, pushing, but not too hard, against the small door, hoping to overcome the wood's seasonal swelling. The foray, apart from being preparation for the evening's plan, was many things: part curious exploration, part a childlike-revisiting of previously discovered places and features.

There had been bit of glee too, at the unrestrained freedom afforded by an empty house, and consequently, awareness as well, of how fleeting, strange, and rare these circumstances are. Despite the appreciation and gratitude - a debt that I can never repay - of having learned, experienced and gained so much in this house and its vicinity, I've always felt restrained in the company of its occupants. Z, a precious friend, like an elder sister, and, at times, a confidante, is quite private, organized and very proper. Many delicate negotiations (,/with) un-enunciated expectations and precarious balancing acts have been required to keep relations on the rails. Given the sensitivity of these matters, for N and me to have been able to discuss these things – apprehensions, misgivings, initial impressions and gut feelings, gentle, affectionate jokes on uncovering others' quirks – has been rare, comforting.

...

The last time N and me had sat on that roof was early this year, on a clear, cold January night. The ladder, of thick, aromatic and expensive wood, noticeable in a country where bamboo – tough, (and in the words of my neighbours and colleagues) “cheap and best” – is ever-present, led us eight rungs up to it. Z was South for the winter, and had requested me, very generously, to house-sit on the weekends. Those days, for that seems like a prior stage in my life now, I would organize my backpack, and reach the village on Friday evenings, leaving early on Monday, to reach work by 9.30.

Like that last time, D had someone staying for the weekend in her upstairs guest room. D's house, two small gardens and hedges, and one thin river stone path across from us, was silent, but not dark. The lights were on, and despite being subdued by an ageing, yellowed lampshade made of handmade paper, we could see. Silently witnessing someone else worried me: was it possible, on this silvery and silent night, for us to be seen as well? At some level, this rendezvous with N on the roof seemed quite clandestine.

Nothing happened, of course, on the roof or off it (I think back now - what was supposed to?), but the feeling reminded me of how my life in this village is composed of many delicate and precarious balancing acts.

...

We had been spotted in town a couple of months ago by one of my colleagues, when N and me were meeting one afternoon, for chores, shopping, and lunch. “Who is she?”, he teasingly asked me a few days later. “It's easy to tell, you know”, he continued, “guys look straight ahead, and don't notice anyone or anything else, not even their friends.”

...

Afraid of letting it slip through my fingers again, with wavering courage, and suddenly remembering how I'd wanted to phrase it, I finally blurted it out. “Earlier today, during the assessment I was conducting, you'd said, 'be gentle and don't force things.' This struck me... and reminded me of something from a long time ago. I'd asked if you were single...”

It's strange, but there are very few snatches of conversation from that evening that I remember in detail. Up till then, we'd been talking about a ton of stuff – probably about recent events, things we'd read or stumbled across on the Internet, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, common friends, their proclivities and their mysterious/unexplainable tendencies... Most of that has since slipped from, or isn't immediately available, to my mind. Just three memories remain: discussing the various shapes, phases, faces and impressions of the Moon, how she seemed like she was glowing in the moonlight, and, thinking about it now, what seems more and more like a very gentle “no”...

...

2009-01-23T22:01:00.000-08:00

(Half an hour ago)

Sitting at a roadside shack near the Lake, too tired and weary to make breakfast and do the resulting dishes, I'm starting my day at 10.30am, with a bun-omelette combination and chai. It's cloudy but not cold, and somehow, the fragrances are sharp.

Three locals - ragpickers and waste collectors - are sitting on the inclide/hillside a few feet away. I chatted with one of them some weeks ago about the weather and he told of the beautiful langurs who visit our area when there's snow in the mountains/forests beyond us.

Since then, we exchange smiles and perfunctory greeting, like amicable residents of the same village.

Suddenly I smell it... and notice the thing in his friend's hand. A bong! Hash, at 10am!

They see me begin a grin, and he smiles hugely, strangely and mildly guilty, very happy, and generally glad. Maybe this is the secret behind the craggy, toothy/toothless smiles I've been getting :-)

Back at my place, I suddenly notice the smell again. Maybe it's in my clothes. Or just in my nose. Or, maybe, just in my mind...

"S/Lang-crobatics"

2007-04-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

So, while sitting around, minding my own business (i.e. a program displaying open comics, other windows containing pdf's waiting to be read), I was hit with the latest jewel in urban information awareness.

"Go visit buyselloldbooks.com - I saw it written on the back of an auto-rickshaw."

Some browsing later, I realized there wasn't much to be found in the steaming piles of database generated hippopotamus excreta, apart from Stephen King, Erle Stanley Gardner, Carolyn Keene, R. L. Stine, Sidney Sheldon. That, of course, was until I came across a jewel: "Pavitra Papi (Punjabi)."

Hmm... Apart from this sounding like "OOF! I stepped out of the bus terminal, and there was this guy selling brightly coloured/covered booklets of porn stories :-( ", it took me more than a couple of seconds to clear the confusion this book's title caused.

"Then, it hit me."

Juggle three languages, their pure, vernacular and slang, and you'll realize 'papi' - which in hindi/punjabi connotes 'sinner' implies something very different, as per the wisdom dispensed at urbandictionary...

"Up... and Down..."

2007-03-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

I found myself smiling yesterday... Curious, if only due to the following comment during a recent encounter on google:

BigP: hi, what's up

me: mmm... trying to write an abstract...
trying to write matlab just fooling around
what's up with you? big weekend ahead?

BigP: ya tom is iron maiden... my first international band show

me: mine was... sting, i think, and oh, that really sucked.
i don't know if it'll work out. the demand : abstract by the end of the month :-(

BigP: i hope they get iron maiden right

me: want to write on one of these themes

BigP: sounds serious

me: hehe. yeah, i wonder if i am... :-( :'-(
oof. nowadays, it's as if every smiley i want to write/type is a tearie ... wtf.

BigP: hahahhahaa. i am hearing "tearie" for the first time

Back to our story, of course, asides aside...

It had probably been something between ten months and a year since our paths had crossed. "Long lost" acquaintances, stumbling into each other maybe last February, at a nearby coffee shop. Having coordinated to intercept each other in the neighbourhood market (and proceed to the university thereupon), the plan was to search for students, for a promo/photoshoot, a gig that Play had snagged.

During the journey back - one which I hadn't imagined would be conducted by car (I hadn't really given much thought to what to imagine, actually...), the conversation turned away from the missed connections experienced during the previous half hour, and to the condition of traffic on the Outer Ring Road. (ha.)

me: What's your strategy for staying sane during these commutes? The unending barrage of traffic sounds - autos that emit phatphatiya vibrations, motorcycles (their silencers missing) pretending to be Harley-Davidsons (but actually becoming just Hardly-Davidsons), and the rolling thunder of buses - just makes my brain want to go into hibernate :-(

Play: I've gotten used to it all, actually. Work involves so much travel that I nearly do everything in the car now... I've had this car for eight years now...

That was when (or so I'd like to believe) the realization hit me - about why I'd found myself smiling. The car was a Maruti 800. Favoured steed of the 80's, the first car for many of my friends' parents, and of friends - loved and/or lost - when they turned 18 (or responsible.)

In that instant also came another understanding. Of why (for me) these memories of careening around in Maruti 800's have such a gloriousness as well as a warm absurdity attached to them - a sort of liberatory 'anything can happen', with endless "tu bas aaja, phir hum chalte hain."

It's in large parts due to the suspension of these cars :-)

All we do in them is bounce up, down, and around...

...

2007-02-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, these days, I see myself... I'm hanging...

Soak

2006-12-08T23:16:00.000-08:00

This clip is from 'Volver'. (It's too bad that using Youtube results in the imagery's vividness being lost :-( Go here, for the original rip/extract. View via VLC)

If

2006-12-01T05:48:00.000-08:00

As I sat, head down, eyes on some text, not glancing at the screen, extracting a passage and making notes, something happened. A song by the Blue Man Group, randomly queued, had been playing. When this section was reached, the music stopped being in the background, and a frightening thought resulted.

That if it was me who walked in through the door at that moment, on to me - as twin, dream, ghost, or out of body experience - I would've been reminded (by this scene of someone attempting the projection of a furious focus into an arcane footnote of an extremely obscure book)... of (the image of) (a) Jack Torrance, hard at work...

Hmm...

2006-11-16T05:51:00.000-08:00

Another Tintin

2006-11-10T02:57:00.000-08:00

A composite of some images I found online:

This text interprets, incorporates, and expands, in many ways, my own feelings about Tintin. By 12, I'd probably read the entire series, being an active participant in atleast two (neighbourhood-based, and school-based) pre-teen 'black economies' of sorts. Within them, books were lent, bartered mortgaged, and in my case, consumed as if I was pouring them into myself (and maybe vice versa too...)

Other hazy memories are of my biggest gift at age 9, FOUR volumes of Tintin, and how I lent them out, after being convinced by elder, smarter and very sleazy kids in the neighbourhood. The only things I ever got back were empty, flippant statements like, "oh, they're with my cousin in Jamshedpur", said in a 'look I really don't care so stop asking' tone.

But in contrast to this generic, 'loveable' Boy Detective, this Tintin is much more complex. The depiction is of a Tintin who lives in a predominantly mining town in England. It begins with him being unemployed, cursing, drinking, and generally venting prejudice. Further on, when the area is gripped by worker's strikes, Tintin turns anarchist, hurling Molotov cocktails and attacking police. Interestingly, the revolutionary intent/spark makes the proletarian movement confront the prejudices harboured within itself, about homosexuality and immigration.

The larger change in the depiction of Tintin is from disenfranchised and directionless to someone who considers introspection, activity, and maybe even emancipation.

p.s.
A good way to read the comics would be to:
1. Download this zip file ( ~ 12mb)
2. Download and install a Comic Book Reader
3. Rename "tintinrevolution.zip" to "tintinrevolution.cbr". This will allow it to be loaded/parsed within the Comic Book Reader.

It really is a small world...

2006-11-09T23:58:00.000-08:00

One morning, quite a few weeks ago, a situation that usually careens into the zone populated by stony faces and pained silences recurred here at home. "What's your plan today?", I was asked. Despite it not being on the lines of the quip/advice a professor (she told those curious enough to ask her that her daily routine was "I taught, I read, and I wrote"), let me in on some months ago I'm sure there were a few of the usual nefarious activities planned out. (Haha. As if. :-( ]

Some further probing by/on both sides revealed what was actually going on. Being worried about what my plan might be, I had of course not been told that someone close-yet-not-painfully-close had been hospitalized, and it was time for transfusions to begin. The search was for a little over a dozen units of A-negative blood, and word was being disseminated through all channels available. Being friends of this family, we too were nodes through which this paigaam (correct word?) had been sent out. The patient (maybe by the time this blogpost ends, the exceptional irony of that word will become evident...) had contracted a strain of Hepatitis, and needed a liver transplant.

Having recently been cut off from 'spaces' where such an appeal might be made, I asked three friends, all of whom, coincidentally, live and work in the vicinity of universities. One (F1) didn't reply; a second (F2) tried, but was unsuccessful, and the third (F3) found one willing donor, who was A-negative.

I don't know how to prolong this post but one of the incredible events that occured during this whole episode was getting to know my real blood group. It's strange, when for about a decade you've depended on this kind of knowledge, and suddenly a cheerful nurse says, "ok Mr. B-negative, go to Room 23 and wait your turn."

In the long tradition of cracking bad PJ's, the only thing I can think of is how much I need to be positive, while be(ing) negative.

To return to the guiding thread of "it's a small world"... it turned out that F3's connection was a guy I happened to have met. We realized while coordinating who/where/how to reach over the phone that we'd played basketball, on opposing teams, only a few weeks earlier! While he was a regular, and I was trying to get back after years, the condition of the court really ruined any chance of game. A surface worse than mid-monsoon roads, the concrete was gravelly. What might've been a minor fall elsewhere - a "arrey kuch nahin... abey game kyon rok ke rakkha hai, shuru kar yaar, shoot maar" - drew enough blood from my left knee to give the sock and shoe a dirty light-red blood-tinge that will never wash off. We'd hardly played with each other (just once, with me checking someone else), and here this guy was. "Not knowing me from Dickens", he was tested thrice over, and willing to, on the day of the transplant, have his blood piped through a machine that extracted his healthy platelets, for them to be fed into the patient.

A day before the big operation, we got word that the doctors had rejected the organ donor. It needed to be a blood relative, or the whole thing might fall through. And after that, we slowly lost touch :-( What do you say to someone whose brother is just weeks away from death?

To veer headfirst into oncoming traffic, into the lane proclaiming "it's a small world", here's how this post ends. The only possible donor who was medically acceptable refused to part with (t)he(i)r liver, even while knowing that it's an organ that's supposed to be surprisingly regenerative.

We learnt two days ago that death finally occurred, after a domino-theory-like multiple organ failure.

It was the patient's daughter who had refused.

Calvin and Sin City :-D

2006-09-14T02:13:00.000-07:00

(Seen at Comics Place)

Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, at Siri Fort Auditorium

2006-08-30T03:09:00.000-07:00

Last evening, at Siri Fort, was an experience I'd like to have again, very very soon. Ustad Shujaat Hussain Khan and later, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia performed for nearly three hours. I was able to make a bootleg recording of their performances :-) To access/download, follow this link.

How to use/listen:
The archive ("pandit hari prasad chaurasia.zip") contains two files, an .exe (the player) and a .pvc (the music).

1. Extract "VS2_VM1_Player.exe" to a folder (other than a root directory) and execute it. A folder called VM1_Player will be created in that same folder. Also, with the execution of VS2_VM1_Player.exe, the music player ("VS2_Mini_Player.exe", which is located inside the VM1_Player folder), will load.

2. Extract "pandit hari prasad chaurasia.pvc" to any folder and - here comes the important part - drag and drop this file onto the music player. This will cause the music files to be imported into a hidden folder within VM1_Player (SD_VOICE\SD_VC001.)

To view a list of the tracks imported into the player, right click the program, and select "Edit file" from the menu. In the absence of codecs/plugins, these files cannot be played/accessed/edited in any way other than through the VS2_VM1_Player.exe program.

Hope you enjoy the music, and, from next time onwards, I'll try to seat myself closer to the stage...

p.s. email in, if something doesn't work.

Aha's and Hmm's...

2006-08-29T03:52:00.000-07:00

Following the intensive - and ('even'?) shameful - negativity expressed recently, an attempt at «redirection»...

The 'first half' - as many people around me, who are either getting older, bolder or colder, say - a few days ago was bizarre. Informed just that morning about the passage of a close family friend, we headed off early in the morning, for the north of the city. A sculptor, to edit the descriptor used by a news-ticker, he was past ninety, and had been keeping unwell for a few years now. The end, when it occurred, was pacific, as so often happens...

Three 'things' - but 'singularities' would be the perfect word - struck me in what all was set off by this event. Maybe 'amazed' / 'confounded' / 'impressed on me' would be more accurate...

First, the calm, silence, and strength with which it was borne, by someone who had lost their spouse of more than fifty years.

Second - and with someone I met there - a phenomenon I've experienced/witnessed elsewhere: the care or craft with which some people use language. Sometimes, it's people who happen to teach, who demonstrate this. I mentioned someone he knew, to which I was told, "yes, BM... I haven't taught him, but he worked with me on a project." Then, considering the words (carefully?), T said, "he's talented... and capable."

Maybe the whole exchange would be less cryptic, make more meaning/sense, if you knew ('about'?) the three of us (BM, T, and me)...

The third snippet was a consequence of decision taken in haste, and only mildly regretted. Already 'up north', with the university barely a handful of kilometres away, a visit to its library found me confronting two books I've been looking for, for about six months now, books that I feel I need to read. To not have found them listed on any electronic catalog, and then see them, lying undisturbed, unopened, unfound, on a shelf before me... if only I could describe that surge of feelings better... :-/

_

Anyway, to deal less with the sublime and unspeakable, a few links:
- Bizarre photos from the Moscow Underground
- Incredibly images of Metro Art and Architecture from the world over.
- A remix of an Isuzu ad from the 80's. The image below is a preview of sorts. Very Jackie Chan.

After finding the audio track (Karaja, "She Moves") that serves as the remixed ad's background, a quirk in my playlist led to this very funny sound-sequence :-)

Of Clowns and Dancers

2006-08-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

[Currently grooving to 'Missing', 'Rods and Cones']
_

These images aren't particularly well shot :-(

The only solution would be to actually visit Jatin Das' exhibition ("Another Day Another Time, Journeys Across Foreign Lands") at the Lalit Kala Akademi. Too bad it closes today.

The Chinese Clowns...

The Mauritian Dancers

wow...

What If...?

2006-08-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

It began with, "Ma, Sis has written an email. Take a look at it." Suddenly, I noticed a strange phenomenon - an absence in front of the (main) computer, with only the photos of the four of us - which I've put on the logon screen - staring back. Glancing into my room, I realized an email I'd just composed and sent to K (on my computer) was being intently pored over.

It concerned K (K for (Mr.) Kubrick, Old Monk, and brief mention of having whiskey and getting home at 3am.

Attempting to defuse the situation (but that's the giveaway, isn't it?) I brought up the mail from Sis on the main computer. The general reaction and atmosphere was no longer "early morning positive."

Five minutes later, "beta, whiskey pi ke padey thay kya? bus yeh yaad rakhna ki raat mein agar police ne pakda, kuch bhi poochne aur bolne ke pehle, woh teen-chaar haanth maarte hain."
_

Given how painful, in terms of self-exploration/revelation/understanding the past year and a half has been, this exchange brought back a bitterness. Of how, often, on confronting the unknown, the first mechanism was of (giving me something to) fear. And what/how things/life would've been, had it not been (continuously) seeded in such a way.

:-(
_

So much for a grand return to blogging...

A Teaser

2006-07-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

'Mr. Kubrick', mentioned many moons and more updates ago, is back. Heheh... this snippet reminds me... a long time ago, during an extended spell of bad academic results (WTF! Can school be classed under 'academic'??) my father noticed me goofing off, instead of studying.

Pointedly he asked, "is this 'nice to know' information, or is this 'need to know' information?"

In the same tenor, I wonder where " 'Mr. Kubrick is back" would fit, in the context of this yet-to-arrive blog post. Maybe in neither category. Anyway, maybe that outpouring was just to get over the lethargy with words I've been feeling lately.

Sent Mr. K. this comic strip. His reply, a little while later was, "as long as we don't say that at the end of our lives..."

:-)
_

Meanwhile, someone seems to have recently reached my blog on following this query. How true.

6th July 2006

2006-07-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

(But) why is the struggle always with ourselves?

AAA :-| :-(

2006-07-05T05:06:00.000-07:00

Currently, going crazy :-( Doesn't help, having this play in my head...

Taking off from one of my favourite Nelly songs...

2006-06-20T04:39:00.000-07:00

Originally composed as an email, this was destined for sneaky BCC (so no one would know who else it was sent to) distribution amongst only very close friends Until I thought it'd be a better idea to post the text here.
_

Two aunts dropped by, home, and later, into my room, recently. (Why do I get the feeling that this sounds like the beginnings of a horror story?) One's staying over the weekend, de-acclimatizing after a trip to Mansarovar. The other, a doctor, seemed to have cut work, and come over for lunch, a long chat, and a relaxed nap with her sistahs. Since my computer was running, a disk full of Mansarovar pics was popped into the drive. Whatever.

Seeing them I wished the focus had remained on the incredible scenery - the mountains, valleys, rivers, and forests - instead of being obscured by one person who I knew, and the dorky smiles of her trip-friends.

Then someone's email account was logged in to, another bunch of pictures downloaded, and a/my distant cousin's engagement rewitnessed.

(me) "How did they meet?"
[I.e. did they huff or did someone else puff?]

(maasi) "His mother searched on the Internet"

(me) "Which site?"
[Went unanswered :-]

(me) "What does the girl do or plan to do?"
[Actually, I should've asked what cousinji does. Patriarchal attitudes... recur so easily, bypassing all thinking and understanding :-( ]

(maasi) "She's just finished mba from Symbiosis. He's in Bangalore. She would probably work there, afterwards."
[The fact that it's arranged, and it's happening to her immediately after 'her studies are over' already sounds like bad news.]

(me) "Aap aise tedhi ho ke mat baithiye. Galay mein dard honay lagega, maasi."

(maasi) "Hai re. Beta, how come you have so much white hair?"

(me) "Kuch nahi maasi, look at my parents. I think i'll go all silvery within ten years. Is your son greying a lot too?"
[Desperate attempt at trying to shift the target before changing the topic.]

(maasi) "Not as much as you. And, he's not doing a Ph.d."
[Well, technically, neither am I.]

(me) "Yes, but he (my cousin) is a father now, and has a 2 year daughter. In ten years, his greying will accelarate. I know it."
[Shameless attempt at trying to obscure the fact of having forgotten my niece's name.]

(maasi) "Arrey beta, now we are all old. Getting youngsters married is what we look forward to. Tum Ph.d jaldi se karo, aur uske baad....."

It was at this moment i think (or would like to think) that the slideshow ended. By reflex and one key combination, I minimized all windows. What stared back at us was my current wallpaper. I normally prefer a black background (old habits die hard), but the image was irresistible. And its alternatives, unthinkable.

My mother looked, and, as if speaking for the three of them, said, "arrey, yeh kaun hai bhaiya?" Said with that measured expectancy, the whatever-this-leads-to-can-be-handled tone that I've often heard from my parents.

It was a probe... a feignt... an opening gambit. Especially the casual-noncommittal-interrogative in 'bhaiya?' ;-)

I wish I could've given my trademark Tamil movie star smile - bad imitations, severe neck muscle strain, and glint-in-the-eye included...

(me) "Pataa nahin." (And since now was not the time to lie) "Internet pe ek photographer ke portfolio se. Wahaan se photo hai, aur photos ki series ka theme football tha. Dekho, left side pe jo hai uski aankh se aansu nikal raha hai. Wah, shot ka kya composition hai."
[I don't think I said that last sentence during the exchange. Am adding it here, though...]

They were all standing behind me. Not wanting to ruin things, I resisted the urge of hinging around to gauge their reaction(s.)

Well, better a tear drop, than a football balanced magically on an incredibly hot Chinese fashion model's funky little sweet ass. There, I said it, and didn't censor it. Now you know I'm on my way to becoming a dirty old man :-( But follow this link, and you'll know what I'm referring to... (Oh, and this too.)

To rework what I told a friend, internet hyperlinks like these almost stand atomistically. Alone, independent, unchained, atleast to my memory. No trace remains of how they were chanced upon...

P.S.
(me) (quickly shuffling through and evaluating the engagement's photos) "Arrey. Kaisi ajeeb baat hai ki bus ek photo, jisme ring pehnaayi jaa rahi hai, mein dono thoda thoda smile kar rahay hain. Baaki sab mein daant padne ke baad wala mooh hai banaaya hua hai."
[A sad attempt at injecting some (misplaced?) humour.]

(maasi) "Beta, jab arranged marriage hoti hai na, buri haalat mein hotay hain log. Bahut darr lagta hai."
[Translation: "Young one, you have a lot to learn."]

The tangent might not be evident (to you), but her maneuvre reminded me of a now-classic dialogue from a genre-inventing film, Master Killer. a.k.a. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin Temple. In one part, the disciple San Te is unable to cross a water filled ditch designed to teach students the basics of weight, balance, and pressure. He keeps getting dunked and drenched, missing meals because his fellows are able to clear this test, which stands between them and the mess hall.

Before yet another attempt (soon to end in humiliating failure), he notices junior monks shuffling along a parallel path, devoid of obstacles, going wherever they need to go. Feeling sneaky, he decides to cheat... push(ing) his luck. As he leaps the wall, the monk in-charge of this, the lowest Chamber, appears out of nowehere, kicks him off the boundary, and headlong into the ditch.

The monk then gazes, and says (this is from a bad English dub), "the wall is low, but Buddhism is high."

!!!!!!!!!!

:-|

2006-06-13T04:38:00.000-07:00

If this image is obscured by the template being used in this blog, click here

Hello! Bye Bye!

2006-06-03T00:46:00.000-07:00

If you, like me, were entranced by the MotoRazr ad - its conceptualization, the music, the phone, the model, her smile and her eyes - maybe here's what you've been waiting for.

Click below, to download:

the ad (motorola_v3_razr.zip)
the tune (Dabrye - Hyped Up Plus Tax)
a 30 second stub of the tune

The ad's theme (technology), its visualization (collapse and folding, of objects, their boundaries and their concreteness, into their vicinities - and finally, into space) and the termination of this process (stepping away, to reveal the cellphone) was incredible.

At a deeper level, the concepts these depictions emerged from weren't startling, but maybe, in continuance of a theme that's been a co-traveller of (the thinking of) technology for a long time... err... from the Enlightenment, atleast, I would think.

But it's as if Motorola wants us to feed on the Razr, without wanting to draw attention to (rephrasing something the main character in Being John Malkovich said) the technological, capitalist, material, and metaphysical can of worms the product's pitch opens up...
_

I'd like to utilize this message to announce a hiatus from blogging. Yes, yes, I've wasting much time composing a similar post previously, but things are different this time.

'BRB', without the 'R'...

p.s. Listening to the full 3.36" of 'Hyped Up Plus Tax' makes me realize how carefully engineed the ad really is.

Furthermore, to build from a misrecognition, of "really" as "reality", "listening to the full 3.36" of 'Hyped Up Plus Tax' makes me realize how carefully the reality the ad proposes is engineered..."

AAAAAA!!!

2006-04-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

May 19

A Youtube video of a traffic junction somewhere in India. Important: the light doesn't seem to have worked at this road-cut in a long time.

Why might people drive/behave this way? Because, when you gotta go, you gotta go... ;-)

It becomes hypnotic, after about a minute of watching...

May 13

"Is it the questions that drive us, Neo..."

May06

Hehe :-)
_

These are dangerous times. (Insert Mojojojo laugh.)

Whenever it was, I'm just hoping that the last time you said, "Oh! I read/learnt it on the internet!" wasn't in reference to bomb making, blowing up tanks, bringing down networks or hacking your younger sister's IM password (note to self: my sister's standard password is somewhere in the vicinity of "sugar and spice...")

Anyway, since the net presents limitless opportunities for the expansion of one's horizons, I thought I'd post yettanethur link: How to make Beer. (via)

Mmm.... Beeeeer...
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May04
Pearl Jam - Inside Job
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May02:
Some really really nice music
Stories of inmates at Guantanamo Bay

(both links via SM)
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May01: MIDIval Punditz - Raanjhan (w/Abida Parveen)
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(A day later)

Currently grooving to: Rang De Basanti's Paathshaala (Be A Rebel) and Opening Music
_

Ekdum...

Groove...

2006-04-23T01:27:00.000-07:00

Currently dominating my playlist are these four songs (joined into a single 13mb file)

How to download (since rapidshare.de's interface isn't very intuitive): Follow this link, On the page that comes, scroll down and click where it says "free." When the download ticker reaches zero, fill in the colourful random text and begin downloading.

"Slam, bam and thank you, ma'am", in many ways...

2006-04-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

... Ever asked yourself, "why am I doing this?"

... Ever seen The Animatrix, and had that section called "Kid's Story" resonate within you, leaving you asking, "am I really here? Do I really exist?"

... Ever seen that amazing existential comedy 'I Heart Huckabees' (and while not being distracted by the oh-so-delicious Naomi Watts or creeped out by Mr. 'Rock, you rock' facial fuzz long haired langoor's slimyness - he does bang the hot French theorist, though...) and wondered what the world was about?

WTF: "the oh-so-delicious Naomi Watts" ?? Ewww :-(

What's gotten into me? Hmm... something on the lines of what makes Jack Nicholson's character in Kubrick's The Shining clack out a ream full of "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy." That pic of Calvin, that's exactly what work is making me look like, these days.

Watts' acting is incredible though (Mulholland Dr., especially the auditioning scene.)
_

WTF: "creeped out by Mr. 'Rock, you rock' facial fuzz long haired langoor's slimyness - he does bang the hot French theorist, though..." ????

I need to speak to real people, and not play conversations through my head :-(

The guy was quite creepy, though...

Setting aside these questions for a moment... I thought I knew what this blog was about. Until, a few minutes ago, when on checking my site-stats, I noticed someone had reached here after googling for "how to rob an ATM". Don't believe me? Check the screenshot.

This really calls for exclaiming out loud, "wha' tha fuck?!?!"

Note to self: File this under "search engines lead to the craziest things." (More on that, soon.)
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If my life was somehow magically linked to Orkut right now, the good news would be "you are never selfish with your advice or your help..."