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Get Simpsonised here.
Link courtesy Kris.
So the weather's been absolutely scrumptious these last few days. Not the best weather to get much work done, but then no one said the world was supposed to be perfect, eh?
We had to drive down to CP on Saturday to visit a client's site at the Statesman House and there were four of us and it was raining all the way and the radio was belting out rock from the 70s through to the 90s and it was perfect! Work barely took an hour which meant we had time enough for roadside bread pakodas, tikki sandwiches, chai and languid smokes a-plenty.
Aby was feeling exceptionally generous (the weather does that sometimes, dunnit?) so, broke as the rest of us were, we decided to head to Big Chill at Khan Market for dinner. Pity the place was overfull, and we had to settle for beer, spiced jamaican rum and pasta at Chona's, a couple of blocks down from Big Chill. After the build up we'd have been disappointed, but for the weather and Aby's largesse, of course.
I think my one tip to tourists jetting down to India for a holiday would be- visit us during the monsoons. As long as you're not bothered about being more than a little damp all the time you'll love it. The rain turns everything into one big, happy thingummy and you feel in love and there's dance in your bones and a song on your lips and you want to stop and kiss random pretty women on the streets.
Here's to the weather, then!
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Chilled Corona, with a slice of fresh-cut lemon and Captain Morgan Jamaican Spiced Rum are my two new favourites for the season. Cheers!
We had to drive down to CP on Saturday to visit a client's site at the Statesman House and there were four of us and it was raining all the way and the radio was belting out rock from the 70s through to the 90s and it was perfect! Work barely took an hour which meant we had time enough for roadside bread pakodas, tikki sandwiches, chai and languid smokes a-plenty.
Aby was feeling exceptionally generous (the weather does that sometimes, dunnit?) so, broke as the rest of us were, we decided to head to Big Chill at Khan Market for dinner. Pity the place was overfull, and we had to settle for beer, spiced jamaican rum and pasta at Chona's, a couple of blocks down from Big Chill. After the build up we'd have been disappointed, but for the weather and Aby's largesse, of course.
I think my one tip to tourists jetting down to India for a holiday would be- visit us during the monsoons. As long as you're not bothered about being more than a little damp all the time you'll love it. The rain turns everything into one big, happy thingummy and you feel in love and there's dance in your bones and a song on your lips and you want to stop and kiss random pretty women on the streets.
Here's to the weather, then!
-----
Chilled Corona, with a slice of fresh-cut lemon and Captain Morgan Jamaican Spiced Rum are my two new favourites for the season. Cheers!
The 1934 BMW R7.
And no, I'm not even going dream of thinking of asking how much it costs!
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Via The Cool Hunter
Second chances are beautiful things. They are full of hope, and the promise of redemption. A chance to fix all past mistakes, or in the very least, to not make the same old ones the second time around.
Wristcutters, based on Kneller's Happy Campers, a short story by Etgar Keret, follows the story of young, 20 something Zia (played by Patrick Fugit of Almost Famous fame), who slashes his own wrists following an unsuccessful relationship, and finds himself in some sort of purgatory afterlife peopled by, well, people who've taken their own lives. Everyone seems miserable, in purgatory, or at least passively resigned to their fate, and no one ever smiles here.
Panoramic shots of the bleak landscape, heavy post-processing and a succession of spaced out, resigned characters underscores the futility of the position Zia finds himself in. Having done himself in once, he's hardly likely to chance his, err, wrist again, is he?
The hopeless setting of the film, though, serves as a fitting background to tell a story of second chances; of having hope, seeking redemption and finding love, in the end. The icing on the cake, for me, was the million dollar smile Zia flashes at the camera right at the very end before the jump cut into whiteness.
Oh, and there's Shannyn Sossamon (also of A Knight's Tale fame) looking hot in an undernourished and anorexic kind of way. If you're into that kind of thing, of course...
_____
Graphic novel lovers check out Pizzeria Kamikaze, by Etgar Keret based on the same short story. And if you do get your hands on a copy let me know. I'd like to bum it off you for a few days. Sweetly, of course.
Pretty much everything I've done in life I've done because I wanted to, with nary a thought to what that looked like, or felt like, to the people in my life. So it's quite an ego bashing to admit that most of what I know, of myself as a lover, and I use that word in its broadest sense, I know through the eyes of the women who've been a part of my life over the years.
Mind you, I say most, not all. Still...
It is an interesting thought, though, that some parts of you are only visible, and comprehensible, when bounced off a significant other. Is this why most of us feel incomplete, at some primal level, unless we have a companion to share our lives with?
My last post, a week back, was about watching Before Sunrise, again after a long time. I followed it up with Before Sunset, which incidentally, I'd never seen before. What hit me the most was the contrast between the two meetings. While the first was full of hope, promise and expectation, the second had undercurrents of disappointment and rancour which finally boil over towards the end. The difference, I think, between being 20, and still making one's way in the world, and being 30, worldwise and cynical.
I don't think, though, that the movies, back to back, would have made as big an impression on me if the contrast hadn't resonated with my own life. I did not truly realise, until that point, how much I have changed in the last 10 years.
With one important difference, though. I believe I am happier, with myself and my life, now than I ever was at 20. And this is despite the cynicism and sense of been-there-done-that that seems to boil over every once in a while. Or perhaps, as a friend of mine mentioned in conversation the other day, though my troubles run deeper I am better equipped to be happy, inspite of them.
There is, however, a lingering sense of incompleteness that stands out, occasionally, in bas-relief especially at the end of a long, tiring day when I know there is no one waiting at home. Perhaps, though, what growing older teaches you is the non-immediacy of these lingering disappointments regardless of how looming and ominous they seem in the present circumstances.
C'est la vie...
Mind you, I say most, not all. Still...
It is an interesting thought, though, that some parts of you are only visible, and comprehensible, when bounced off a significant other. Is this why most of us feel incomplete, at some primal level, unless we have a companion to share our lives with?
My last post, a week back, was about watching Before Sunrise, again after a long time. I followed it up with Before Sunset, which incidentally, I'd never seen before. What hit me the most was the contrast between the two meetings. While the first was full of hope, promise and expectation, the second had undercurrents of disappointment and rancour which finally boil over towards the end. The difference, I think, between being 20, and still making one's way in the world, and being 30, worldwise and cynical.
I don't think, though, that the movies, back to back, would have made as big an impression on me if the contrast hadn't resonated with my own life. I did not truly realise, until that point, how much I have changed in the last 10 years.
With one important difference, though. I believe I am happier, with myself and my life, now than I ever was at 20. And this is despite the cynicism and sense of been-there-done-that that seems to boil over every once in a while. Or perhaps, as a friend of mine mentioned in conversation the other day, though my troubles run deeper I am better equipped to be happy, inspite of them.
There is, however, a lingering sense of incompleteness that stands out, occasionally, in bas-relief especially at the end of a long, tiring day when I know there is no one waiting at home. Perhaps, though, what growing older teaches you is the non-immediacy of these lingering disappointments regardless of how looming and ominous they seem in the present circumstances.
C'est la vie...
Daydream delusion, limousine eyelash
Oh baby with your pretty eyes
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and milkshakes
I'm a delusion angel
I'm a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we are going
Lodged in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I carry you
You carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me?
Don't you know me, by now?
- David Jewell
From the film Before Sunrise
______
Trying to work out my thoughts enough to cobble together a post on what the film explores; self-fulfillment and self-discovery through a significant other. Would be interesting to see how that turns out, if that turns out...
Oh baby with your pretty eyes
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and milkshakes
I'm a delusion angel
I'm a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we are going
Lodged in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I carry you
You carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me?
Don't you know me, by now?
- David Jewell
From the film Before Sunrise
______
Trying to work out my thoughts enough to cobble together a post on what the film explores; self-fulfillment and self-discovery through a significant other. Would be interesting to see how that turns out, if that turns out...
A long, late night drive from Noida to ITO along wide, empty roads (the chrome yellow of streetlights throbbing dully on the slick, tar-black roads) got Aby and me to SPA for Utopia, a couple of nights ago. It was really the best counterpoint to an otherwise uneventful weekend, recreation-wise.
Now SPA is a charming, old world type of institution and Utopia, its annual cultural fest is supposed to be one of those much awaited affairs, where anyone off the streets can walk in and partake of the revelry, only no one actually does. There are only, ever, a few handfuls of people in attendance- all of them students, most of them undergraduates, with far too much time on their hands to let an evening of music, weed and booze just go by.
So Utopia turns out to be charming and old world, much like the host institute, where everyone knows everyone and the music's mostly good, the booze mostly free and the weed... Well, the weed's just weed, isn't it?
And I realised, as I stood there semi-headbanging to (mostly) passably thrashed out metal played by young, amateur bands that made up for their lack of virtuosity with their abundant energy and enthusiasm and generously sprinkled doses of cuss words in the lyrics of their self-styled compositions, that this is, precisely, what I love about these gigs- the fact that everyone knows everyone, and that everyone's there to have a good time and there's booze and weed and good-natured banter, and there's music too and it doesn't matter if those guys on stage aren't the best in the business!
No professionally organised rock show, with top bill artists, can ever hope to evoke the same kind of magic. The bonhomie is, almost always, missing. And though the music may be good, nay- the best, its still not quite the same thing...
Perhaps that explains my frequent visits to CityPulse, when I was in Ahmedabad, to listen to Purple Flower playing their stock repertoire, weekend after weekend. I mean, yes, no one plays CCR better than CCR but then you wouldn't get to sit down and share a smoke and trade a few laughs with Fogerty right after he's finished playing Proud Mary, would you?
So that's the clincher, really- the sense of belonging. And even though the cops turned up at around 10.30 to put a stop to all the loudness and noise, people still hung about and chatted and smoked up and caught up on each other's lives. I'd like to think everyone had a good time, all things considered, and that's really all that matters, isn't it?
Now SPA is a charming, old world type of institution and Utopia, its annual cultural fest is supposed to be one of those much awaited affairs, where anyone off the streets can walk in and partake of the revelry, only no one actually does. There are only, ever, a few handfuls of people in attendance- all of them students, most of them undergraduates, with far too much time on their hands to let an evening of music, weed and booze just go by.
So Utopia turns out to be charming and old world, much like the host institute, where everyone knows everyone and the music's mostly good, the booze mostly free and the weed... Well, the weed's just weed, isn't it?
And I realised, as I stood there semi-headbanging to (mostly) passably thrashed out metal played by young, amateur bands that made up for their lack of virtuosity with their abundant energy and enthusiasm and generously sprinkled doses of cuss words in the lyrics of their self-styled compositions, that this is, precisely, what I love about these gigs- the fact that everyone knows everyone, and that everyone's there to have a good time and there's booze and weed and good-natured banter, and there's music too and it doesn't matter if those guys on stage aren't the best in the business!
No professionally organised rock show, with top bill artists, can ever hope to evoke the same kind of magic. The bonhomie is, almost always, missing. And though the music may be good, nay- the best, its still not quite the same thing...
Perhaps that explains my frequent visits to CityPulse, when I was in Ahmedabad, to listen to Purple Flower playing their stock repertoire, weekend after weekend. I mean, yes, no one plays CCR better than CCR but then you wouldn't get to sit down and share a smoke and trade a few laughs with Fogerty right after he's finished playing Proud Mary, would you?
So that's the clincher, really- the sense of belonging. And even though the cops turned up at around 10.30 to put a stop to all the loudness and noise, people still hung about and chatted and smoked up and caught up on each other's lives. I'd like to think everyone had a good time, all things considered, and that's really all that matters, isn't it?
This pretty little video reminds me somewhat, in a poor-man kind of way, of the early, pioneering work on pixilation by Norman McLaren. More importantly, to me, it highlights Marshall McLuhan's famous claim from the 1960s that forms the title of this post.
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