When many of us in Chennai don't have water to take bath, guess what these dudes use to wash themselves? That's right. Beer. Would you do that? Check out this link from NYT.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Taste of skin
When many of us in Chennai don't have water to take bath, guess what these dudes use to wash themselves? That's right. Beer. Would you do that? Check out this link from NYT.
Plug: Literary Notes from Kerala
I chose the following para because of personal reasons. But the blog is really interesting and is here.
"Comparing it with contemporary literary scene in TamilNadu, there are so many brilliant writers and poets like Sundara Ramaswamy , Jeyamohan, AsokaMitran, Athavan, Pramil, Devadevan, La Sa Ra etc.. but there are not many publishers and no popular magazine is ready to publish their workss. They find it too heavy. I remember reading Charu Nivedita saying, ‘If my essays and stories got rejected in Kumudam or Ananda Vikatan, then I will send it to Mathruboomi. And I know, it will get published”
"Comparing it with contemporary literary scene in TamilNadu, there are so many brilliant writers and poets like Sundara Ramaswamy , Jeyamohan, AsokaMitran, Athavan, Pramil, Devadevan, La Sa Ra etc.. but there are not many publishers and no popular magazine is ready to publish their workss. They find it too heavy. I remember reading Charu Nivedita saying, ‘If my essays and stories got rejected in Kumudam or Ananda Vikatan, then I will send it to Mathruboomi. And I know, it will get published”
Dad
(This is more like a diary note than anything to do with movies. Skip it if don't like notes from my life)
My Dad, who died in May 2001, loved the movies. I inherited that trait from him. Dad's affair with the pictures began when he was in college. He and his friend would buy an anna worth of peanuts and walk the three km to the nearest cinema hall munching the nuts slowly so they would last for the way. Week after week on this brief trek to Trivandrum's Sreekumar theatre, they did the same. Most English movies that were released in TVM then were trash. A few though were liquid gold like say, Lawrence of Arabia.
But the picture that my dad most liked was You Only Live Twice. He knew that the movie was just an entertainer. But the circumstances in which he saw the movie were such that it occupied a special place in his heart.
After completing his MA in Sociology, Dad hunted for a job for about eight months. He became increasingly depressed that it was taking him so long to become independent financially. After failing to land a particularly sought after job as a psychiatric social worker, my Dad came to his hotel room and worried about his uncertain future. Deciding to shake off the blues, he went for a walk that ended in a movie hall, which was screening YOLT. When he left the movie in which Bond famously lives twice, my Dad believed he had a second chance. A month later he landed a job in a bank.
I began watching pictures with my Dad as a kid. In our neighbourhood in Nagercoil, English movies were taboo because of their sexual content. Even the now acceptable levels of sex in James Bond movies were then frowned upon. But my Dad, being an enthusiastic Bond fan, took me watch some of these pictures. My mom, who was too ill to accompany us to the theatre, would make him promise that I would be sent out of the hall during the kissing scenes. I distinctly remember watching Never Say Never Again, Sean Connery's last brush with the Bond franchise, in this comic fashion.
In his middle age, Dad's interest in films waned and he began enjoying the more mindless movies, like Narashimham. That was the last movie I saw with him.
My Dad, who died in May 2001, loved the movies. I inherited that trait from him. Dad's affair with the pictures began when he was in college. He and his friend would buy an anna worth of peanuts and walk the three km to the nearest cinema hall munching the nuts slowly so they would last for the way. Week after week on this brief trek to Trivandrum's Sreekumar theatre, they did the same. Most English movies that were released in TVM then were trash. A few though were liquid gold like say, Lawrence of Arabia.But the picture that my dad most liked was You Only Live Twice. He knew that the movie was just an entertainer. But the circumstances in which he saw the movie were such that it occupied a special place in his heart.
After completing his MA in Sociology, Dad hunted for a job for about eight months. He became increasingly depressed that it was taking him so long to become independent financially. After failing to land a particularly sought after job as a psychiatric social worker, my Dad came to his hotel room and worried about his uncertain future. Deciding to shake off the blues, he went for a walk that ended in a movie hall, which was screening YOLT. When he left the movie in which Bond famously lives twice, my Dad believed he had a second chance. A month later he landed a job in a bank.
I began watching pictures with my Dad as a kid. In our neighbourhood in Nagercoil, English movies were taboo because of their sexual content. Even the now acceptable levels of sex in James Bond movies were then frowned upon. But my Dad, being an enthusiastic Bond fan, took me watch some of these pictures. My mom, who was too ill to accompany us to the theatre, would make him promise that I would be sent out of the hall during the kissing scenes. I distinctly remember watching Never Say Never Again, Sean Connery's last brush with the Bond franchise, in this comic fashion.
In his middle age, Dad's interest in films waned and he began enjoying the more mindless movies, like Narashimham. That was the last movie I saw with him.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Graceland - Paul Simon at his best
If you have listened to Simon and Garfunkel in The Graduate, you may not recognise Paul's voice and compositions for his more recent solo album Graceland. And I should defenitely add to that list you won't recognise, Simon's unique lyrics for this album. After having listened to Graceland for every night over the last week, I feel Simon's lyrics to this album are among the best for any rock album - and that should include Dylan as well. Graceland is the name of Elvis Presley's estate in Memphis. (More here) But what Simon does with his album is borrow some really beautiful instrumentation, chanting and howling from the traditional music in Africa. Yes, howling. It's great to listen, btw.
If S&G were singing sweet ballad like songs with enchanting lyrics, then Graceland is in part African, in part Jazz, in part Rock n Roll and in part Rock music.
While Graceland found its way into Rolling Stone's best 500 albums ever list, it was also taken to task by some reviewers like this one.
But I have now listened to it more than a few times and I really do like it. I find it a liberating experience to listen to music which is from the 'other'.
Some of my other posts about rock music are here.
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