Archive for the 'Literature' Category
Friday, May 9th, 2008
ScarJo’s special friend
Miss Johannson’s debut album is shaping up to be the most polarising album of the year. Mainly because its made up of a bunch of Tom Waits covers. I actually like the few songs I’ve heard. I say kudos for trying to interpret a critically acclaimed albeit not that popular artist rather than doing some terrible, self-indulgent trash. Anyways, 3 questions.
1) Can you guess who does the backing vocals
2) Who produced the album (difficult but Al might get it) and finally
3) Spot ScarJo’s special friend who fleetingly pops up in the video.
Friday, April 4th, 2008
Inequality, Inequality, Inequality
Three excellent posts on income inequality by Kathy G, on her excellent new blog, The G Spot.
(Actually there are four posts, but the extra inequality wouldn’t have made for such a good title)
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I read ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ by Mohsin Hamid. Its actually very short and only took me a couple of days to finish. Its worth reading if only because the author comes from a very similar background to us and the story is largely auto-biographical.
My main reason for bringing this up though is that I think the author might be added to list of Pakistani men who think they are a gift to the women of this world. Having said that, maybe I’m being a bit unfair as the love story is a tragic one, especially if its true.
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I found a link for the John Lee Hooker and Friends gig! Seriously, why did no one introduce me to the blues before?? In a very short period of time its probably become my favourite genre of music.
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
desi’s and ayn rand. who knew?
following on from atomsmasher’s last link, here’s a discussion on the NYT books/dating article at Sepia Mutiny.
apparently a lot of american desi’s end up becoming big ayn rand fans at college. i know one such person - although he studied in canada so i’m not sure that counts. al-tahafut, can you enlighten us further. are you a closet ayn rand admirer??
i’m going to guess that part of this correlation has to do with the fact that american desi’s are generally rich and so wouldn’t be averse to a capitalist philosopher. i could do some pseudo-psycho analysis on the role their parents play but i’ll leave it to ‘randomizer’.
Also props to this comment by Minkey Chief.
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
hall of mirrors.
well, this is always an interesting thing to think about. personally, i think everyone is influenced by the work of those who came before. sometimes it’s a positive influence - one might think a certain style of music is intriguing and that further experiments in that direction are worthwhile - sometimes a negative one - one might think a certain style of photography is dull and that going further down that road isn’t worthwhile.
if we talk about recycling pieces of art - entire songs, films, books, etc. - then it’s possible for someone to create a replica without adding anything to it. i think the basic fact is that the value of the new piece depends on the creativity and the talent of the artist who finds some inspiration in the original, gives it a personal interpretation, and then recreates it.
i’d agree that there’s more value to be found in old things than in new, but then that’s mainly because there are so many more old things than new ones.
it’s funny how films and plays are different like that. i don’t really know why films usually run in cinemas for just a few months, but plays can run for decades. i mean, dilwale dulhania le jayenge ran [and may still be running, i don't know] for over a decade in mumbai, but that’s an anomaly. it would be an excellent thing if major cinemas did show classics alongside new releases, but i think the industrialisation of cinema [and music, and literature, and more] makes it difficult to see that happening on a large scale.
a word on the johnny cash video - i got into him around a year ago and went through most of his american recordings. tom petty played for cash on a couple of those albums, and, if i’m not mistaken, that’s petty doing backing vocals on the song. i think it’s a good example of someone taking another’s work and giving it something extra.
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
On novelty
That dicussion we were having reminded me of a quote i’d read by Francis Bacon somewhere.. i think you guys will like it.
Salomon saith, there is no new thing upon earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge is but remembrence; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
All novelty is but oblivion. nicely put.
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
ghalib, iqbal, kiernan
do you mean to say “hit me baby one more time” was lifted from ghalib? if so, i’ll have much greater respect for him now. what a classic lyric it is.
funny you should mention ghalib - i picked up a book of his poetry, and another of iqbal’s - at the library last weekend. english translations usually fail to impress, so i was lucky to find books with parallel urdu and english text.
the iqbal book is translated by v. g. kiernan, a marxist historian who also translated faiz, as atomsmasher pointed out to me once many months ago. it seems he’s disappeared off the face of the internet, and i don’t even know if he’s still alive, though he did have a book, "america: the new imperialism", published in 2005.