Who is your elephant in the room?

Mine is your disregard for my poor heart which I gave up to you. What’s yours?

On Lagging Behind

I have a steady static line that is lagging slightly behind in recent times. I press the on button, and speed into action only to be distracted by the bright colours streaming through the window. It has the soft glow of the evening sun’s last kiss and I must stand on the balcony and will the day good tidings. It rewards me with a cool breeze that momentarily lets me forget everything that is piled, pushed, gathering, and neglected in my life.

The Bell Curve…

Via this wonderful site

Daily Show goes to Iran

The Daily Show Rocks!

I laughed and laughed until I cried and someone asked me, “What’s wrong with you?”

Implicit in the much-too-much quoted “factoid” (young people get their news from the Daily Show, Gasp!) is the suggestion that young people are stupid. As the years go by, I am beginning to think that the Daily Show is the only reliable news source on American cable television.

Acchhoooo…

I am traveling again and caught a stupid cold-thing. I keep sneezing and growing red in the face. No fever yet, but head feels heavy and Chennai’s weather is not being nice to me. But other than that, the training is painfully boring. I will be glad to be home. There is something very soothing though about watching American television with decent internet speed. But I will be glad when it’s over.

This time around I traveled AC train. The things that make the upper class sections on the train special are simple things that could easily be incorporated into the sleeper coach class. Curtains, for example. And a more managed crowd. The AC is stifling. I hate being packed in a train’s AC. But I would go for that anyday, that the grim of the crowded sleeper compartments.

Birds and Plastic

Via the Dish

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

For more images from this fascinating series, click here.

Diwali in India does sort of suck

I meant to write about this last week. About how Diwali in India still sort of sucks. Picture in your mind a very old woman (90) walking. That careful, nervous way she is moving? As if each step is a little unsure of the ground underneath? That’s how I walked last week during Diwali.

Diwali induces this weird nervousness in my body where even if I know that a bomb will probably not go off, I am still anxious about it. It’s freaky. It does not help that my neighborhood was fucking crazy last week. At night, all you could see was fire and bombs. You could not go outside without risking stepping into a stray bomb. The scary part is when they simply light a bunch of them, there is some 10 minutes when it goes off, but not all of them goes off at the same time. So some stray bomb could go off several minutes later. It’s all fucked up. I did play with some fire-crackers, but mostly wished it would end already.

Waters talks about The Little Stranger

Interesting.  As I mentioned before, I have been fascinated by the writing process. And the causal way in which Waters describes the enormous hard work that goes into her writing is telling. Her books are so well structured and disciplined. Writing takes time and hard work and discipline—not just good ideas.

I am also struck that Waters is not bothered by the “lesbian writer’ label—to the extent that she feels the need to re-frame her latest novel as a “queer” novel despite a lack of lesbian (or gay) characters. (She has good points, but the explanation feels forced).  She even seems to feel the need to explain the heterosexual romance in “The Little Stranger” (as awkward). “Lesbian fiction” brings to mind a kind of novel that is largely reductive of the richness found in Waters’ work, so why embrace the title so. I thought it was interesting that while she had no issues with being pidgeon-holed as a “lesbian writer”, she corrects her novel’s characterization as a “ghost story”.

I loved The Little Stranger and was glued to it for much of the two weeks it took me to finish it. The ending did not have the grand splash that I was expecting, but I was satisfied nonetheless because the entire book was such a pleasure.

Prevent Rape with Lip Gloss

I actually like the idea, I just wish they wouldn’t call it “date rape-preventing lip-gloss“. Umm…

Managing director of the company 2LoveMy, Tracy Whittaker, explained that girls on a night out with suspicions about their drink can just dab the taper in, and watch to see if the colour changes to blue. “If they turn blue tell your friends immediately and get help from security and the police,” she explained.

Making fun of “hipsters”

This was cute. I don’t usually link to random blogs and quote them extensively (okay, no, I do all the time). But this post describes this middle-aged couple having a night out on the hip part of town while being hopelessly hip-free. I like to think of myself as above hip, too cool for anything in the world type. In other words, I sneer at everything. I am practically Buddhist without the requisite belief, faith or practice. It’s all in the mind.

Anywho. I especially liked this:

There were two sites we particularly wanted to visit. One was a funky yarn store my wife was interested in. It seems knitting has become not only a way to create thoughtful gifts for friends and relatives, but also an ironic statement on how life weaves together different strands of being and yet all you end up with is a washcloth.

and then this:

With no visible piercings and an entirely too sensible haircut, he was obviously not among the shop’s target demographic. When he had the nerve to ask the cashier where he might locate such a kit, he was told “nowhere in NoDa. You might try the CVS drugstore. We don’t carry that kind of thing at all.” Now if he wanted to knit himself a shirt from scratch, and use genuine virgin alpaca to do it, this would be the place.

Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza

I was reading this post from Coates, and it is a smart, thoughtful article about eating out and being healthy. But I was suddenly assailed by a deep-seated cry for Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza. My god, that ungodly amount of cheese drizzled in tomatoes and green peppers—all on top of 8 crisp taco hard shell chip sandwich of baked beans! I want it now!

I can get my heart’s desire worth of Amrikan food here in Bangalore. I cannot walk ten feet without hitting a Dominoes, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Chillis, TGIFs, even Ruby Tuesdays. You can get your pastas here. But the one large hole in my food world is Mexican food. (Stop snickering and saying, “Taco Bell is not Mexican food”). I love my enchiladas, and chimichangas, and nachos layered with sin. And Mexican food (in Bangalore at least) totally sucks. The worst thing is that it has this weird curry under-taste that made me shudder the first time I ate it. The enchilada is all chappati-esque. I like my chappatis and curries, just not disguised as Mexican food.

I am feeling misty-eyed about American food now. I miss that heartiness in the stuff I eat. Like a big bear, you can get your arms around and hug them properly. Don’t get me wrong, I totally love Indian food. Even your basic dal and rice satisfies me. Indian food is simply tasty and usually good for you. But American food has its own distinct fullness that I miss right now. Even when it doesn’t taste like much (mashed potatoes) there is something plush and rich about it.

Arrested Development

Deep Thought of the day:

Indian movies of a certain decade always seem to have their characters hit puberty when they hit college. Like, what’s up with that?

Art using Dead Flies?

Weird, and more than a little creepy.

Click here for more art with dead flies

Distractions

I am distracted by the sudden resemblance of your beard to a talking vagina. I blink and your face is your face again — innocuously non-genital.

I am Eighteen

I think it is time for poetry. It has been way too long.

Via ‘The Virago Book of Wicked Verse” (edited by Jilly Dawson)

I’m Eighteen
By Anonymous, Chinese folk
Translated by Cecilia Liang

I’m eighteen,
he’s nine.
At night
I carry him to the ivory bed.
He’s more son than man.
Damn the lousy matchmaker
who found me a husband
small as a nail.
In the middle of the night
he pisses on me.