Apologies for my shameless blogxistence

Apologies for my shameless blog-xistence

It has been almost one and half years, since I started this blog. My part of the blog universe, the little voice(a completely falsely-modest title), has been read, heard and remarked upon by many. Some credit does go to my shameless publicity at the bottom of emails and other not-so-subtle hints to 'go check this link'. Most most of the credit however, goes to people who have quite generously linked me on their blogs.

I have often promised to add a blog roll and never done so, making the Little Voice a dead end, of sorts, for readers who wander here. The only reason being, I was too lazy to create one. Time to make amends.

I have gone a step further to create an entire blog devoted to blogs I read quite regularly. Some of the blame for creating a 'entire new blog' goes to blogger.com for providing this hugely tempting button on the dashboard - 'Create blog' and the other being that, a great number of links seem too crowded on one page and encroach upon my current blog's Lebensraum.

My Blog Roll Page

The Return of the Games

The Return of the Games

The Summer Olympics have returned to the country where they first began. Albeit in much altered circumstances. Islamists have been asking Muslim athletes not to take part. An Iranian world champion refused to fight an Israeli and forfeited a chance for a medal. The ghost of the Munich games still haunts. Tainted athletes in the quest for personal fame risk bringing an entire country to shame. After weeks of speculation the Greek 200m winner Kenteris won't run. The rings representing the continents still have to bind the whole world together and the Baron Courbetin's Olympic goal is still as far as it was 108 years ago. Yet, the Olympic Spirit will be blazing strong in most athletes.

Nobody wants to know where you grew up, how much your sponsor gave you, what stuggles you faced to get on that lane. All that matters is the starting line, the sound of the gun and who gets to the finish line first. Everybody else can make excuses...later.

Whither India?

This could well be India's best year at the Olympics despite the excuses for non-performance of many of the 'outside chances'. For the first time we have a few athletes who are actually going there to compete and not just for sight-seeing.
The Indian women shooters and world records holders did not deliver but Major Rathore did getting India's first silver. So we have moved a little higher to the silver than the lone bronzes of the past two. Good to hear that he has swiftly been rewarded Rs. 80 lakh. Interestingly it's a Korean company Samsung that is offering rewards to Indian athletes winning medals.
The other medal contenders Paes and Bhupathi are one win away from a medal of some sort. To do that they have to win one of their next two matches. Today's match is big and will start a few minutes from now. They are a better pair than Kiefer and Shuttler. For now Paes and Bhupathy have left aside their money squabbles and ego hassles to rally behind Team India.
It seems that Pillay's Ultimate Dream will remain unfinished. Indian hockey looks to be complete shambles. Our neighbours in comparision have been demolishing teams and not making comebacks like ours against minnows like South Africa. Today's game with Australia is a a must-win. We will need a miracle or lots of luck to make it to the semi-finals. Last Olympics' lone Indian star Malleshwari exited with a back injury. She has never looked her best this year. Disheartening, that after winning one bronze Malleshwari thinks she is has more than contributed to Indian sport. Is their lack of enthusiasm a reflection on our lack of seriousness about our best athletes and sport in general, other than Cricket?
That finally leaves the best Indian athelete in Anju Bobby George. Hopefully by then we will have atleast two medals on the board. The flag bearer of the Indian team should not feel like Atlas carrying the hopes of 1 billion people and then be crushed by the weight their collective hopes. When she gets on the runway on the 24th we want her to fly.

My diatribe on Cricket coming up..

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo
****
Just saw Salma Hayek in Frida. A few months ago, I was at the Detroit Museum of Art (Post)where I saw Diego Rivera's famous 'Ford Murals' and was really impressed with his statement. That's how Frida first saw Diego as a 14 year old, painting a mural in her school.
I always had this impression of Salma Hayek as a 'dumb brunette' prancing about in movies like Desperado, but this movie changed all those perceptions. Hayek as Frida is one of the best perfomance by any actress that I have seen. Julie Traynor, the movie's female director has done a great job directing Hayek and a host of other talented actors in portraying the intensely tragic story of Frida Kahlo and her complex personality. A biopic on someone like Kahlo is always difficult without being overly sympathetic or sensationalizing the spicy details.

Frida Kahlo lost the use of her legs as a polio victim, then learned to walk. Then she again became a cripple as teenager after surviving a terrible bus accident and learned to walk again. She would undergo more than 50 operations which did more to break things rather than mend them. While recovering she began to paint and then showed her work to Diego Rivera, Mexico's most famous artist. Diego Rivera (played by Alfred Molina), an unrepentant womaniser, was impressed by her work but attempted to seduce her. Frida resisted and wanted to be evaluated as an artist. She asked for Rivera's genuine criticism of her work. She insisted on 'equality' and principles of 'comradeship' which impressed Diego and he never thought of her again as just another girl on whom he could use his fame to serve his own purposes.

They got married within a few months much against Frida's mother's wishes. The fat Mexican and his frail, crippled wife had a rocky relationship. Despite Rivera's constant philandering and Frida's bisexuality, they could not do without each other. She fought a losing battle in trying to make Rivera completely her own. She was not without her own amours. Most famously with painter Georgia O' Keeffe and Leon Trotsky. Trotsky (played by Geoffrey Rush) was given asylum in Mexico on Rivera's insistence. Frida's brief affair with Trotsky hurt Rivera deeply and they were divorced for a few months, after which Rivera returned.

The picture above has her famous moustache and shows the duality of her personality and sexuality. Considering the amount of personal tragedy and endurance of pain her story is almost like Van Gogh's. It is remarkable how she did not go mad. The movie ends with Frida being carried, bedridden, to her first exhibition in Mexico. Frida's story is a remarkable story of endurance and overcoming personal tragedy through Art.

The film uses a lot of special effects which I thought was a great idea but poorly done. For a great example of how to use special effects without it getting in the way obviously, see Amelie.

Geisha

My Memoirs of reading "Memoirs of a Geisha"

Just finished reading Arthur Golden's unputdownable book - Memoirs of a Geisha. (Also see: Sumedha's review.) An extremely well-written fictional autobiography of the life and times of geisha-Nitta Sayuri. It is an astounding achievement considering how an American can attempt to write about a alien culture and esoteric tradition, and as a male effortlessly get in the skin of a woman and write such a sensitive first-person account of a geisha. The book is so well-crafted that this fact, will be completely erased from your mind after the first few pages you are convinced that this is a truly transcribed from the interviews given by Nitta Sayuri to a Dutch-born Harvard professor. The scholarship of Golden with regards to geisha culture is beyond doubt, though I was most impressed with his style of writing such a book. Every word, sentence, idiom and metaphor has an authentic Japanese feel to it. He talks with metaphors using the 'waves, the moon, cherry blossoms, plums in rice cakes' that it often reads as a Japanese translation. It is extremely hard to be so authentic without sounding contrived. If anything, the plot seems contrived with a fairy-tale ending. It hardly matters in the enjoyment of this tale, as he transports you to Kyoto's Gion district in the geisha heyday of the 30s and 40s. Almost effortlessly, you watch the geisha require two people to help her dress in their kimono and apply makeup. You take a walk with them along the Shirakawa stream, observe their rivalries, jealousies. You watch, as these girls sold by their desperate families into slavery fight like cats to make a success of whatever life handed out to them. As Mameha says, " We do not become geisha because we want to, but because we have no choice", as their personal desires were often sacrificed to what made most business sense.
Geisha are not prostitutes, but still are available for money. A whole lot of time and money, cheekily put, 'a lot of buck for a bang.' The kotah is a close Indian equivalent of the Japanese okiya. Reading this reminded me of Hindi films like Pakeezah and Mughal-e-Azam. Okiyas preserve the Japanese traditions of music, dancing, poetry and theatre. It takes years of training and following strict protocols and a lot of hardwork before one becomes a geisha. Ironically, we learn that most men who can afford the services and company of geisha rarely know how to behave and mostly end up drunk. Their dance and craft is in the end always secondary to what men finally just want - SEX. When Sayuri finally learns for what she earns the highest price, she wryly comments, "..it was as if somene was scratching the inside of my thigh."
The sexism of the times and the whole concept is exemplified by the fact that daughters of geisha had no choice but to be geisha and sons could even become heirs.There are very few Geisha left in Japan, now replaced by the cheaper versions of escorts. Female exploitation still continues in some form or the other.

Geisha may soon be relics of an age past,
But parallel lives of mistresses and wives will remain.
Despite everything somethings just don't change.

News Update
This is going to now be made into a movie produced by Rob Marshall (Chicago)

I-Pod Post

What it takes to woo some students
The changing face of the American University. A great example of selling the Dream the American way?

Meeting God

Meeting God

I met God last Saturday, but delayed this post 'cause I was waiting for the pictures. I waited for the pictures, because like Alice I wonder,
'What good is a blog if it does not have any pictures in it'

In any case, I had waited longer for this particular moment. To hear him is one thing, to see him in person is quite another. God was unshaven, in blue, and wearing white sneakers. GOD -as in Eric Clapton.



Opening Act: Robert Randolph and the Family Band
Getting God's darshan is not always easy and at every 'Concert of a Lifetime', I have to always endure the first hour with some irritating, unworthy opening act. Robert Randolph and the Family Band were a huge surpise. I had never heard of the band before, though the reviews said that they would be quite good. They were quite wrong. They were phenomenal and a revelation to me. This was also the first time, that I heard a pedal-steel-guitar 'live'. That thing can wail, scream and screech like no other guitar. The band was dressed in what could be called,'contemporary attire of Black Americans' , ie. a baseball cap (backwards of course!),baggy shorts and basketball vests. It looked that someone had just transplanted them from some Cleveland street-game onto the stage.
Everytime black musicians start a music-style, after berating it at first, the 'whites' come along and then make it very own, forcing them to invent something new. Yesterday it was Elvis, today it's Eminem.
What made the Robert Randolph sound so unique was that it was firmly rooted in the blues but had additional layers of rock riffs, hip-hop beats and even some alternative-rock sounds colouring their music. Robert Randolph and the Family Band combine all that they probably grew up with, all their traditions of jazz, blues, rock and roll, soul, funk and hip-hop to come up with something that is fresh and unique. As if their music was not good enough, they had quite a few stunts up their sleeve. They played with so much energy,feeling and intensity that the crowd was on its feet after the first 15 minutes. During one piece, Robert kicked the chair he sat and started to kick his legs about and began to dance, while still making the pedal-steel-guitar wail and weep. Then for the penultimate song, the band decide to have fun and started swapping instruments to show their virtuosity. The drummer, Marcus Randolph who kicks big-time ass on the skins knew his chops on the pedal steer guitar too!
I have yet to see a concert where the opening act in its 4 piece set gets 2 standing ovations and a request for an encore. This band is going to make some great music and are really worth a separate concert to themselves. They won't remain opening acts for long.

The Clapton Set
If that was not excitement enough, the Clapton band walks in and then God himself, bathed in blue light walks onto the stage. Clad in blue jeans and white sneakers reaches out for his Fender Stratocaster and almost immediately starts playing, before the idea has even sunk in that you are seeing Clapton in person. He followed the opening song with the blues classic 'Hoochie Coochie Man', which was not his best rendition, but the guitaring was great. He is old, his voice is not what it was but hell he is still the best axe-man in town! After the first two songs, he took a chair and his acoustic guitar and said, " I shall now play a couple of songs from Me and Mr. Johnson." That and a few quickly muttered 'thank-you's would be all that we would hear. EC likes the guitar to talk. Thanks to the big screen and a sympathetic cameraman, most of the time the camera was focused on his fingers. The back-up band is great. . Doyle Bramhall, the second guitarist is pretty handy with the slide. If there was a show stealer in the band, then it had to be Billy Preston on the keyboards. What was he trying? To look like Ray Charles with those goggles? He played one of the most amazing solos, with a method to his madness. The drummer was not too impressive.

As noblesse oblige, any famous act has to play their most famous songs. The second half of the show were all Clapton standards. From 'Have you Really Loved a Woman' her burst into 'Badge'. For the past few weeks I had been listening to the 4 CD box Set of the 'Layla Sessions' where all sorts of jams and cuts that never made it were present. Today even after almost 30 years, he choose to play the song very much like on the original CD. For an artist as prolific as Clapton( he has issued an album almost every other year) there are just so many songs that you can play in one night. Which to choose? Yet, I wish he had played more. He never played one song from the Unplugged album, if you don't count Layla and not much of his Cream stuff other than the Badge. Wish he had done, the other Cream tracks. Wondered why he never did the raunchy and energetic 'Crossroad'. The most excruciating moment was when he played Badge. When everything seems to be going fine in the song, Mr. Clapton stops playing before music's most famous bridges. For a whole 10 seconds nothing, the crowd is now up on its feet, ' wondering is he going to play it?' or ' change it?' and then loud and clear he hear the Harrison-Clapton bridge, as it is. Great everytime you hear it.
He came on again to play 'Sunshine of your Love' as an encore, this time with Robert Randolph and company. It was a riot. The crowd waited and waited, but the great Clapton came out no more. Randolph bowed to Clapton, he hugged him and then Randolph placed his baseball cap on Eric's head.

End Note
Clapton said that 2002 was his farewell tour, but he came back again to tour this year. Its certain that Clapton is just wrapping the threads of a career as one of the most extraordinary guitarists of our time. Clapton has come a long way from his first burst into fame, whilst still a teenager and his apotheosis in the late 60s on subway stations. The cocaine-induced glory of the Cream years, to then dealing with his addiction problems and also coming to terms with personal loss. Clapton has given music a lot, but if you think about it music has given him escape throughout his life. It's not just Layla and Assorted Love songs that he has poured his troubles into to find relief. It's is most songs in some way or the other. Over the last few years he seems to be paying back his debt to music, his idols and also coming to terms with his own life. Reptile was tribute to his family, the Pilgrim album, an allusion to his life and a Father he never had. A few years ago, he teamed up with the legendary B.B. King for the great Riding with the King album. This time to Robert Johnson in Me and Mr.Johnson. With Robert Johnson, Slowhand has paid off all his debts and made his tributes and has come a full circle from the time he heard The King of Delta Blue Singers to the present. He is now back where he started from. I don't expect him or anyone to redo the Eric Clapton journey again. There might not be any exciting new work from him other than rehashed box sets or more years on the tour. Lucky to be here on what might be his last tour, still hope there he might churn out one more.

For complete set list and more pictures

Movie Reviews

Movie Reviews
I should be seeing the movies atleast, for all the fines I paid. Saw quite a few movies in the past two weeks. Apologies for possible spoilers.

My Shtick
In my experience, I always find that the vaunted and deemed 'classic', old movies are major disappointments. Either, the effects or the ideas that the movie then introduced have been mimicked so much, that when you see the movie,(eg: Citizen Kane), it fails to register, or you just expect too much (eg: Psycho). The special effects, baring really rare cases, are not a patch on even the worst flicks of today.
After the numerous disappointments, I have now begun to hold a position opposite, to what I call the Unecessary Reverence Handicap
which is - Despite what you really feeling that a classic sucked, you deceive yourself to believing that is was excellent and praise heaped on it is justified. Why? Because imdb.com,the experts and everybody else says so.
My new Scant Reverence Attitude is not much of a help to have an unbiased view either.


Hiroshima Mon Amour(French,1950s)
****
Hiroshima Mon Amour from the New Age of French cinema of the 1950s was really good. At end, I wondered why I liked the movie so much, despite the insipid principal actors. Clearly this a movie that revolves strongly around an excellent story by Marguerite Duras and really clever and artful direction by Alain Resnais. The present, and the past are both intermingled, as are the present and past lovers of the French woman in Tokyo. She comes to Tokyo to come to terms with a personal tragedy, hoping that Hiroshima would help alleviate the pain. The actors are not very expressive but the dialogues are memorable. Throughout the movie you seem to be thinking their thoughts, trying to read between the lines. What makes the movie a compelling watch is how Alain Resnais slowly draws the curtains and slowly reveals the story. He makes us reflect on what tragedy holds more significance for and individual- the private or the public?

The Best Years of Our Life(1940s)
***
It's not hard to see why this movie swept the Oscars a few years after the war ended. It is one of few movies that deals with the problems of the veterans and not just the war. Three serviceman, an Army sergeant, a Bombardier Captain and a Naval Midshipman, return from their tours of duty. All of them return to different social circumstances and learn to cope with problems of marriage, disability and settling down to a normal civilian life. Also present is the composer, Hoagy Carmichael in a cameo role as the bar-owner, Butch. It effectively shows the tension between the civilians who want to 'get-on' with life, now that the war is over and veterans who feel that they need to be given special treatment for their wartime sacrifices. Without being overly sympathetic it shows how they all come to terms with the changed life.
Excellent performances by Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews and the lovely Teresa Wright.

An Affair to Remember(1950s)
*1/2
At the risk of sounding chauvinistic, this is nothing but a classic chick flick. Cary Grant, a playboy and the fantastic red-head Deborah Kerr meet on ocean liner and fall hopelessly in love despite being attached to significant others. They agree to meet and marry in six months if they still feel the same about each other. The first half was really good with the comic scenes and the sizzling chemistry of what is a hopeless romance. The second half and the story after that was quite a drag with the movie just wandering. Yet to see a girl make such a senseless decision as Kerr. I thought only blondes were dumb. The movies throws in songs by children for no rhyme or reason. The last scene is quite good, in a losing effort to save a movie that falls apart after the half.

Zelig(1980s)
****
After the disappointment of the previous movie, I sought solace in Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, hoping that the neurotic, psychotic self-deprecating Allen would not fail to disappoint. I really did not know what to expect of this particular movie, which made it an all the more fun movie to watch. Woody Allen the actor does not talk much except for the interview scenes. The idea of making 'mockumentary' on a fictional Jazz Age figure Leonard Zelig is pure genius. All Zelig wants to do is ' ..blend in', which he does to the extreme of transforming himself to kind of people he is with. Zelig is the Human Chameleon. If it were not for Allen or Farrow in the main roles, anyone would believe this as a Discovery or the History Channel documentary without blinking an eye. Not seeing Allen in his element is more than made up for by the general whackiness of the theme the development of Zelig's fictional career. The serious narration are a trip and appearances by luminaries such as Susan Sontag, Saul Bellow and Dr. Bruno Bettelheim in colour between the shots make it an all the more believable nonsense. Gordon Willis, the cinematographer stomped on the film in the shower to give it the aged look. An outstanding job by Willis to create the shaky, scratchy, out-of-focus B/W shots.
These special effects placing Allen in scenes with Lou Gehrig, Al Capone Hitler and prominent members of the Jazz Age are 15 years ahead of Bob Zemeckis' Forrest Gump scenes.

Coffee and Cigarettes(2002)
***1/2
This was black comedy in black and white. It has about 14 unrelated fictitious short stories/scenes, all taking place around coffee and cigarettes with a star list of actors. The opening scene with Benini was the worst of the lot, but it prepares you for the crazy stories that follow later. Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan provide the longest and most hilarious story of long-lost cousins. Steve Buscemi plays an Elvis Conspiracy theorist and Bill Murray a caffeine addict. Iggy Pop and Tom Waits try their hand at one upmanship. Cate Blanchett is fantastic in playing herself and her cousin who is clearly jealous about Cate's celebrity status.
By the end you are clutching your gut but also thinking about the fake social graces we adopt, out litte delusions (thinking coffee is champagne), attempts at buying love, friendships and failed efforts at making good impressions. Hilarious!

Killer Radio Waves II
I hope this is not some pattern, this Friday the killler radio waves struck again. This time to announce the death of Bill Randle, the Cleveland disc jockey who first introduced Elvis Presley to the nation and the world on TV in 1954.
Things to investigate/check before jumping to conclusions about the deadly Friday Killer Radio Waves
1. Does NPR make death announcements only on Fridays?
2. Do I listen to death announcements of celebrities on other days?
3. Will someone be struck by the Killer Radio Waves this Friday?

Hilarious- The Cheney-Edwards Debate

This was hilarious to read. Check it out.
The New York Times > Week in Review > Sneak Preview! The Cheney-Edwards Debate

Eight Books or Then and Now or You owe..
(A nostalgic look at books, libraries and ..)

It happened again. I now have fines at the Cleveland Public Library. Being an avid reader, over the years I have become a member of various libraries. All libraries whWhich has now when I think of it a hobby of its own. I somehow feel an itch when there is some library that I can but have not yet become a member. The thought being, that a different library has quite a different selection of books, which are hard to find in the libraries that I am already a member of.

Pune circa 1988
The United Services Library or the Poona Club library was where I hung out most evenings. My only grouse against the libary as kid whilst growing up, was that they had a limit of 8 books. I was like Kipling's elephant child full of 'satiable curtiosities' and here we had the librarian saying,
'You already have 7 books on issue, so now you can take only one book'
'One book?', I would say looking wistfully at my 'treasure trove' of the eight books, painstakingly unearthed and which were now piled upon his desk.
Then I would look at the librarian with the best 'lost-puppy' eyes I could manage. There would be a few moments of silence, as the librarian would look at register, then at me and then at the pile of books.
'Okay, take two more books and make sure you return the others by tomorrow.'
My heart would leap joy yet I never felt like hugging the librarian. He was the 'enemy'. This would pose the dilemma - which ones out of the eight would make the cut? One of the librarians was a really strict chap, who would not say much. Once in a while could be cajoled but to make his point about The Rule, he would write in big, bold letters in red ink on the top of the register. '8 BOOKS only'. Librarians have that power. That evening, I knew would be a familiar family fight over who was hogging the the quota. Then an agreement would be reached. My father would return his unread books so that his son's would not grow up deprived and also not create such a racket. That was all later, after I went home. There were more urgent things to do.
After the choices were made, naturally I had to return the other books back to the shelves. The children's section then, and even now, was never arranged. The books were all over the shelves. Now you can imagine, why I would not want to part with these treasures accumulated after about an hour of searching. What does a desperate man do in such circumstances? I hid them. This being a regular occurence, I had devised this foolproof method of hiding books. What I did was to take about 6-7 books out of the shelf and place one of 'my' books with it side flat against the back of the shelf. Then replace those 6-7 books as they are usually stacked. Now my book was hidden behind. Its quite a good trick. I would come back the next day and retrieve the books after having returned the other books. It was almost foolproof, cause I discovered that the books on the lower shelves were being 'lost'. It seems that the pesky brats about half my 4'2" then, would often rip the lower shelves, thus exposing my 'booty' to other predators.
As I got older and was able to cycle further out I became a member of more libraries. This helped me circumvent these artificial restrictions that were blocking my growth as an individual. Hah!

Ann Arbor, MI circa 2002
'You mean.. there is no limit on the number of books!!'
'Yes', said the librarian.
I promptly went downstairs and got nine books, for the obvious symbolic reasons. Of course, now I no longer had the time to plough through the books, as before. When I had when I was 4'2". That's the damn problem with life. When you need something the most either you can't afford it, are disallowed it or you are under-age. Later when you can afford it, are allowed it and are of the right age you don't have the time or worse, none of the former inclination.
Now I borrowed more and read less. Also the University of Michigan has a 6 month loan period for certain books. I read them eventually, slowly but surely. Perhaps 8 books are took much to read. A week has only seven days right? But some habits die hard. As if, the 14 libraries of the U of M, including the Inter-library loan system(ILL) were not enough I become member of the Ann Arbor Public Library (AADL). It's a hobby remember? But it's an expensive one as I have realised but not learning my lesson.

Despite changes in borrowing privileges, one thing has not changed - having to pay fines. Over all these years and after borrowing hundreds of books, we as a family (admission of collective guilt is always easier) lost only 4-5 books, but we paid a lot of fines. Even with the quota of 8 books then. Something inherently pathological, that me and my family were always late in returning books. Often after paying hefty fines, at the end of every year, we would all be on the mend. Then like drug addicts we would slowly be sucked back into our old habits. Some book would be read, left in some shelf or mixed with our own numerous books and would resurface after months. Mostly the effort of my mother to arrange our rooms. At Michigan, inspite of having the facility to renew online, even call and renew books, I have still have fines (let's be polite and not mention the amount).

I bike back to the Cleveland Public library to return some of the books after getting their missive with 'You have 3 books and 1 CD overdue. You owe $__ in fines'. In less than 8 weeks, I have managed to defray the costs of another library by paying fines.
I am at the counter trying to do some damage control and return the late materials 10 minutes before closing time.
'I have some fines that I would like to pay', I tell the librarian as she peeks through her bifocals.
'Okay let me see..what we have here.'
I wait there, as she checks the record. I know that once money had changed hands, my slate at this library atleast will be wiped clean. I firmly decide that I won't let this happen again.
'Okay, you're all set', she says.
'What?'
'I took it all off. You owe nothing', so saying she smiles.
'Mmm..Thanks..Thanks a lot', I mumble shocked by this angel in bifocals wondering how I did not notice her halo before.
I walk back as if I just received a pardon from the death sentence. Of course, I won't let this won't happen again, ever.

Killer Radio Waves - Brando

The Killer Radio Waves
It's about 10 minutes past 5 and I have ducked out of work little early taking advantage of the long weekend. I eject the CD and then tune into NPR to get the usual dose of the news. Then I hear,

' .. you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.'
'It wasn't him, Charley, it was you. ....'

'Hell!', I say to myself. What's up with Brando now? Is he dead? He died? Shit!'
My question gets answered after this famous dialogue from On The Waterfront ends.

'....You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charley.'

Then the voice of Rob Siegel takes over, 'Marlon Brando was 80...'
'So he did die today.', I think to myself.
Then almost immediately I am corrected, '...He died yesterday and being the private man that he was ...'
Whenever I turn on the radio to tune to NPR and I hear a really old song or a voice. Its the Killer Radio Waves. It's usually bad news. Nostalgia always seems to turn to algia if its on the radio. A few weeks ago,it was Ray Charles and somehow its always on a Friday. Some Black Friday!
You hear their best work but also have to hear about their earthly failings. Today they talk about how fat he later became, his three, but too numerous marriages and other amorous affairs that almost ruined him. His tragic last decade. They talk about his whimsical prices after the Godfather so that he could raise money for the definitive Native American film.
Luckily its radio and not TV and hence you can imagine whatever picture you wish to see. I always see this Brando from 'A Streetcar Named Desire' which so far is the most astounding piece of acting I have ever seen. The sheer intensity of the man. Every other actor who played Stanley Kowalski hence has played it in his shadow. He also defined the Mafia don when he played Don Vito, but then it was an old Brando, a Brando with a brace in his mouth, a rasping Brando. A Brando well past this one in the picture. For me the Brando who died today was this the man in the picture. A brooding, muscular beast of a man with the furrowed brow. Asking you the question - "Whaddya got?". One of the greatest.
Then the radio turns to other more mundane things. Hear about more deaths in Iraq..AIDS deaths in South Africa.. Is it the killer radio waves again?

Fahrenheit 9/11: Moore and more...
Last week, Fahrenheit 9/11 was released after a month of drama. You have to see this one, regardless of which side of the fence you are on, even if you tend to sit on the fence. My friend, of suspect credentials(watches Fox News and other Right Wing Channels) and I, starting arguing the moment we stepped out. Luckily, the prospect of beer distracted us from the argument.
The Set
In a world where any publicity is good publicity, it was not surprising to see my neighbourhood arty-farty Cedar-Lee Theatre packed with people. The public voyeur that I am, it was fun to make a note of the demography. All groups seemed to be well represented. The left-wingers with braided-armpit hair, the elite in their suit and tie. Youngsters with blue-coloured hair, old matrons with powdered faces, the modern peaceniks and aging beatniks. For a movie that generates such interest, however prurient, it's always a tall order to live upto the 'great expectations'. Especially if you are trying to put this film at a pedestal where Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 stands. (For lopsided, right-wing view see: by Christopher Hitchen's: Unfairenheit 9/11.)

The Movie
Before we get to the honest motives and the complicated politics, I want to mention a few points about the movie as a movie. No one, but the most slanted reviewer can deny that Moore has done painstaking research with facts, the clips, and collecting the interviews. He shows the most incredible archival footage; including a Wolfowitz applying spit to his comb before a TV interview, Bush stating that a 'dictatorship' would not be a bad idea, the interview with the US soldiers where they of which music they like to listen to while attacking and others. Michael Moore with Fahrenheit 9/11 takes you on a roller coaster ride of raw emotion. You will find intense laughter morph into biting satire and then a scene be filled with moral and political indignation. After splitting your belly laughing the next one would be one that leaves a lump in your throat. Some have called this manipulation, cheating and even patronising the audience; I think it was sheer genius. The editing and the soundtrack was brilliant, including Ashcroft singing. Some of the best scenes: He makes you a part of the long shot of the mother crying as she reads her son's last letter. You can feel the furious anger of the Iraqi woman as she calls on Allah to destroy the Americans or the Iraqi mother as the Americans burst in to arrest his young college going son. The comedy of the Fresno peace group and the old man at the gym and the result of speaking his mind. I liked the way he introduces 9/11 with nothing but a black screen and then about 2-3 minutes of sounds recorded from that morning. In the darkness you hear the cries, the ambulances, the crashing glass and you can feel the visceral fear that someone might have felt trapped in one of those buildings. Then the slowly the picture comes back to light. Brilliant!
Of course he does go overboard with some of clips. For instance I don't think the Florida classroom clip is relevant. The oblique premise that Iraq was a peaceful country. Quite a few clips are taken out of context like the 'Bush dictatorship' one and this casts a shadow on Moore's argument.

Bush
The movie demonstrates a well known fact to the audience what a nincompoop the Chief Executive is. Is that patronising the audience? Bush is simply a 'President's son' and has failed with distinction, everything that he has tried to do in his life. The presidency a well-known fluke. One clip shows the cowboy Bush on vacation. He makes a really strong statement on policy and then smirks and says, 'Okay now watch this drive'. Moore shows his bungling Arbusto years and the Texas National Guard coverup. Some of Moore's comments here are superfluous and he indulges in some wicked editing. The scarier side is how major corporations want to cash in the opportunity in the destruction and re-construction of Iraq, the collusion of the Saud and Bush families, the oil pipeline through Afghanistan and the related Taliban visit to Texas.

More..The movie is not just about Bush and his inept administration, it's much more than that. Most critics of the film accuse of being lopsided. I disagree. It may have not shown Bush and other issues in flattering light, but it does try to see the whole picture, or rather the parts of the frame that get left out in the papers or on TV. It is the more substantial and deeper issues about America, the rotteness of big business and the real axis of evil, American foreign policy and the economy in small town America, that Moore really wants to talk about.
He takes on congressmen both Dem. and Rep. by accosting them on Capitol Hill, asking them if they would like to enlist their children. He rides a bus in DC reading out the Patriot Act. He forces a candid admission from a legislator, that they don't ever read ANY bill that they pass. He takes on the issue of how the Armed Forces target the poorest and most under-priviliged to join, as if they were offering them a job. Hitchens and other critics accuse of him of 'wanting to have everything'. Is it unfair to tell the story from everybody's point of view? Is it wrong to tell the story from a point of view of an adrenaline-charged, CD listening attacking soldier and later as another soldier undergoing rehab for lost legs? He shows the brutality of the conquerors and the humilation that the defeated suffer. He shows where these the kids now dead soldiers come from and their bitterly weeping parents.
The cost of war is not borne by those who wage it or against those who it is waged. It is the common, rather in most cases the worst off of both

Moore These issues are not just Bush or election-year issues. They are issues for all time. Whether Moore is the best documentary maker of recent times maybe debatable, but whether he lacks the courage to tackle them is never under question. There is more to come from this bear of a man from Flint, Michigan. We thought he just liked to bust Oscar ceremonies as a stunt.

Judge a CD by its cover?
It is hard for me to step out of a bookshop or a music store without picking the 'last-must-have-CD'. However addicts like me think that they can tell quite a bit about the CD by listening to a few tracks. Very often you judge a CD by its cover, or where it is placed in the story. "Oh, that's hip-hop", or, "Oh, that's country". For some reason, people are always polarized when it comes to these two genres. Wonder exactly why. I often listen to this 'online-only' NPR radio(?) show, whose name is derived from from their popular current event show - All Things Considered. Don't forget to see the archives which have more interesting topics. I found this particular show quite a fun exercise - CD Covers ( on NPR's: All Songs Considered: Special Edition).In this edition the programme's producer Bob Boilen and a music journalist try to guess kind of music by simple looking at the CD covers. Was impressed by two bands( won't give it away, now). Would like to listen to them, if I can get hold of these obscure CDs.

New Blog
Since once is never enough, I have created a new blog called
Hail!Helicon- A Writer's Blog. It is a group blog, so all are welcome to join.
Just send me a mail(Achilles AT GMAIL)

Walmart's Bed Spreads, Shams and other scams - Part I

Walmart's Bed Spreads, Shams and other scams - Part I
For the past month I have been fighting a losing battle in trying to use a Full size bedsheet on a Queen size mattress. I was spending a good amount of time in the morning adjusting the sheets so that it does not look ...nevermind..I decided not to be so cheap and get the correct size. Ironically, after deciding not to cheap like many other people out there I headed for the monster from Bentonville, Arkansas. After finding parking, itself a big battle I reached Walmart. Saturday mornings at Walmart are like a Family Picnic where everybody seems to be invited. A BBQ grill outside would make the picture more complete.
I was caught in the Saturday morning rush-hour aisle traffic. People admonished the cart speeders, some cast hurt looks at those with these automated carts, while others traded business cards upon cart crashes and filled insurance claims. In short, it was crazy! After navigating through the few backups and not being tempted by the 20 zillion, '$2.99 only Walmart Unbeatable Prices', I reached the Bed and Bath section. Walmart does not offer much to trying-to-be-classy-at-a-low-price comsumer. The three variables of price, color and size seemed to be mutually exclusive. Then from the corner of my eye, I spied this package that would match the color scheme. So I loaded up my cart with my lone package, with a smug smile of being the savvy consumer resisting the false temptation(oxymoron?) of wanting to fill the whole damn cart till things fell out. I also ignored the 'look-at-him' dirty looks from the other cheapster citizens of the Free World who had succumbed to the temptation of buying the 20 zillion, '$2.99 only Walmart Unbeatable Prices' and had forced another backup, now at counter. For some time I wondered why they don't have these quick checkout counters? Maybe those with '15 items or less' (a grammatically incorrect sign) are strange beasts at Walmarts.