bloggeranon

Why I adore Albert Camus:

See:
http://bloggeranon.livejournal.com/17818.html
http://bloggeranon.livejournal.com/17537.html

A critic put this in words that needed nothing more from me: "..His ability to conjure landscape in long, long sentences of exact description without resorting to simile or metaphor is extraordinary."

Expression should be succinct and powerful, a self-made phrase that randomly evoked 2 sentences from memory:

i. J: "Expose the correct level of detail, not too much, just exactly right".
ii. About G: "With a handful of salt, he shook the British empire".

Expression is what defines us.

Current Mood: awake

Another excerpt from "The First Man" by Albert Camus:

'Ah!' his mother said to him, 'I'm glad when you're here." But come in the evening, I'll be less bored. It's the evenings especially, in winter it gets dark early. If only I knew how to read. I can't knit either in this light, my eyes hurt. So when Etienne's not here, I lie down and wait till it's time to eat. It's a long time, two hours like that. If I had the little girls with me, I'd talk with them. But they come and they go away. I'm too old. Maybe I smell bad. So it's like that, and all alone...'

She spoke all at once, in short simple sentences that followed each other as if she were emptying herself of thoughts that till then had been silent. And then, her thoughts run dry, she was again silent, her lips tight, her look gentle and dejected, gazing through the closed dining-room shutters at the suffocating light coming up from the street, still at her same place on the same uncomfortable chair and her son going around the table in the middle of the room as he used to do.

She watched him as once more he circled the table.
'Solferino, it's pretty?'
'Yes, it's spotless. But it must have changed since the last time you saw it.'
'Yes, things change.'
'The doctor sends you his greetings. You remember him?'
'No. It was long ago.'
'No one remembers Papa.'
'We didn't stay long. And besides, he didn't say much.'
'Maman?' She looked at him, unsmiling, with a mild and vacant expression. 'I thought you and Papa never lived together in Algiers.'
'No, no.'
'Did you understand me?' She had not understood; he could guess as much from her slightly frightened manner, as if she were apologizing, and he articulated the words as he repeated the question: 'You never lived together in Algiers?'
'No,' she said.
'But how about the time Papa went to see them cut off Pirette's head?'
He hit his neck with the side of his hand to make himself understood. But she answered immediately: 'Yes, he got up at three o'clock to go to Barberousse.'
'So you were in Algiers?'
'Yes.'
'But when was it?'
'I don't know. He was working for Ricome.'
'Before you went to Solferino?'
'Yes.'
She said yes, maybe it was no; she had to reach back in time through a clouded memory, nothing was certain. To begin with, poor people's memory is less nourished than that of the rich; it has fewer landmarks in the space because they seldom leave the place where they leave, and fewer reference points in time throughout lives that are grey and featureless. Of course there is the memory of the heart that they say is the surest kind, but the heart wears out with sorrow and labour, it forgets sooner under the wight of fatigue. Remembrance of things past is just for the rich. For the poor it only marks the faint traces on the path to death.

Current Mood: awake

An excerpt from "The First Man" By Albert Camus:

Jacques Cormery did not answer. Surely too many had died, but, as to his father, he could not muster a filial devotion he did not feel. For all these years he had been living in France, he had promised himself to do what his mother, who stayed in Algeria, what she for such a long time had been asking him to do: visit the grave of his father that she herself had never seen. He thought this visit made no sense, first of all for himself, who had never known his father, who knew next to nothing of what he had been, and who loathed conventional gestures and behaviour; and then for his mother, who never spoke of the dead man and could picture nothing of what he was going to see. But since his old mentor had retired to Saint-Brieuc and he would have an opportunity to see him again, Cormery made up his mind to go and visit this dead stranger, and had even insisted on doing it before joining his old friend so that afterward he would feel completely free.

'It's here,' said the caretaker. They had arrived at a square-shaped area enclosed by small markers of grey stone connected with a heavy chain that had been painted black. The gravestones- and they were many - were all alike: plain inscribed rectangles set at equal intervals row on row. Each grave was decorated with a small bouquet of fresh flowers. 'For forty years the French Remembrance had been responsible for the upkeep. Look, here he is.' He indicated a stone in the first row. Jacques Cormery stopped at some distance from the grave. 'I'll leave you,' the caretaker said.

Cormery approached the stone and gazed vacantly at it. Yes, that was indeed his name. He looked up. Small white and grey clouds were passing slowly across the sky, which was paler now, and from it fell a light that was alternately bright and overcast. Around him, in the vast field of the dead, silence reigned. Nothing but a muffled murmur from the town came over the high walls. Occasionally a black silhouette would pass among the distant graves. Jacques Cormery, gazing up at the slow navigation of the clouds across the sky, ans was trying to discern, beyond the odour of damp flowers, the salty smell just then coming from the distant motionless sea when the clink of a bucket against the marble of the tombstone drew him from his reverie. At that moment he read on the tomb the date of this father's birth, which he now discovered he had not known. Then he read two dates, '1885-1914', and automatically did the arithmetic: twenty-nine years. Suddenly he was struck by an idea that shook his body. He was forty years old. The man buried under that slab, who had been his father, was younger than he.

And the wave of tenderness and pity that at once filled his heart was not stirring of the soul that lead the son to the memory of the vanished father, but the overwhelming compassion that a grown man feels for an unjustly murdered child - something here was not in natural order and, in truth, there was no order but only madness and chaos when the son was older than the father. The course of time itself was shattering around him while he remained motionless among those tombs he no longer saw, and the years no longer kept to their places in the great river that flows to its end. They were no more than waves and surf and eddies where Jacques Cormery was now struggling in the grip of anguish and pity. He looked at the other inscriptions in that section and realized from the dates that this soil was strewn with children who had been fathers of greying men who thought they were living in this present time. For he too believed he was living, he alone had created himself, he knew his own strength, his vigour, he could cope and he himself well in hand. But, in the strange dizziness of that moment, the statue every man eventually erects and that hardens in the fire of the years, into which he then creeps and there awaits its final crumbling - that statue was rapidly cracking, it was already collapsing. All that was left was this anguished heart, eager to live, rebelling against the deadly order of the world that had been with him for forty years, and still struggling against the wall that separated him from the secret of all life, wanting to go farther, to go beyond, and to discover, discover before dying, discover at last in order to be, just once to be, for a single second, but for ever.

He looked back on his life, a life that had been foolish, courageous, cowardly, wilful, and always straining towards that goal which he knew nothing about, and actually that life had all gone by without his having tried to imagine who this man who given him that life and then immediately had gone off to die in a strange land on the other side of the seas. At twenty-nine, had he himself not been frail, been ailing, tense stubborn, sensual, dreamy, cynical and brave? Yes, he had been all that and much else besides; he had been alive, in short had been a man, and yet he had never thought of the man that slept there as a living being, but as a stranger who passed by on the land where he himself was born, of whom his mother said that he looked like him and that he died on the field of battle. Yet the secret he had eagerly sought to learn through books and people now seemed to him intimately linked with this dead man, this younger father, with what he had been and what he had become, and it seemed that he himself had gone far afield in search of what was close to him in time and in blood. To tell the truth, he had received no help. In a family where they spoke little, where no one read or wrote, with an unhappy and listless mother who would have informed him of about this young and pitiable father? No one had known him but his mother and she had forgotten him. Of that he was sure. And he had died unknown on this earth where he had fleetingly passed, like a stranger. No doubt it was up to him to ask, to inform himself. But for someone like him, who was nothing and wants the world entire, all his energy is not enough to create himself and to conquer or to understand the world. After all, it was not too late; he could still search, he could learn who this man had been who now seemed closer to him than any other being on the earth. He could...

Now the afternoon was coming to its end. The rustle of a skirt, a black shadow, brought him back to the landscape of tombs and sky that surrounded him. He had to leave; there was nothing more for him to do here. But he could not turn away from this name, those dates. Under that slab were left only ashes and dust. But, for him, his father was again alive, a strange silent life, ans it seemed to him that again he was again going to forsake him, to leave his father to haunt yet another night the endless solitude he had been hurled into and then deserted. The empty sky resounded with a sudden loud explosion: an invisible aero-plane had crossed the sound barrier. Turning his back on the grave, Jacques Cormery abandoned his father.

Current Mood: awake

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/magazine/07teasing-t.html?pagewanted=1&em

..By becoming your worst fear.

.. after 'Life of Pi'

Current Mood: awake

I found the link (http://www.users.muohio.edu/erlichrd/vms_site/afric.htm) after chatting with mssnlayam. Something that I wanted to jot down when I could. I apologize to the people for whom this is the umpteenth repetition/rehashed discussion.

This was the best part of "African Genesis" by Robert Adrey, a book I highly rate for the author's liberal and liberated thought process, even though the book has started to show its age, but its remarkable for a book written at that time.

If anyone had seen the thought process of the early Christian settlers and the atrocities that they committed on the American Indian natives(something well recorded in "People's history of the United States" by Howard Zinn), you'll see what I am trying to capture. The same thing applies to all those who think all muslims in India should be sent to Pakistan, immigrants in the US to X, Biharis in Bombay to Bihar, "outsiders" in Bangalore to X(ahem!), "return to the golden era of our ancestors", .....and other bullshit.

So here goes:

" My third assertion, far less speculative, is that conscience as a guiding force in the human drama is one of such small reliability that it assumes very nearly the role of villain. Conscience has evolved directly from the amity-enmity complex of our primate past. But unlike civilization it has acted as no force to inhibit the predatory instinct. It has instead been the conqueror's chief ally. And if mankind survives the contemporary predicament, it will be in spite of, not because of, the parochial powers of our animal conscience.

The limitation of conscience lies in its territorial nature.... Conscience organizes hatred as it organizes love.

My conscience is totally amoral. I shall delude myself that it directs me to act in the interests of human good, and well it may. But with equal force it will direct me to act in the interests of human evil, if such evil is in the interests of my society.

Society in its ancient wisdom does not appeal to my conscience through reason, for my conscience being of animal inheritance will respond with a minimum of force. And so conscience in human society becomes an essentially anti-rational power. "

- Robert Adrey

This generalization, I think trumps Richard Dawkins highly-immature attempts in his "God-Delusion" series to attribute all evil in the world to religion.

The only "noble savage" out there is the anarchist.

Hear, hear! Joker :D

Current Mood: calm

..physique for Karate is this, apparently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG1X8Ouu-GU

Great video, albeit a bit older. I wish I could find some on Matsubayashi-Ryu. Goju is for monsters, powerful but a bit too contrived for my liking.

I found this:
http://kata-reference.com/index.php?style=5 reference, but no sequential documentary.

So I thought, at some point I should consolidate these links and then I thought, why not blog? Its been a while anyway. As usual, this entry will have too many divergent links for public consumption, but then again..who cares?

I have been trying to find the BBC series that profiled each martial art, that was aired 3-4 years back. It was covered by a lady. There was also this bald Danish guy, a 5th degree black belt who covered a similar series on National Geographic, but I keep getting confused on which one was in which series. The ones on Kungfu, Kalarippayatu, Okinawan Karate, Capoeira, Muay Thai were stupendous in that order. They also covered Tae-Kwon-do and Iranian wrestling. The Okinawan Karate section had this one Japanese policeman practice shoving on a coconut tree. I would just kill to get my hands on that one. So if someone knows the right links, please point me to it.

The one on Kalarippayatu that I could find http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZZYl2IUKbo is close, but not as good as the one I saw in the TV series. The BBC version had a spectacular chuttuval (metal-foil-sword) fight.

Tae-kwon-do stands out in my memory, since I saw it in action. Back when I was 12, a friend of mine, a green belt demolished this 6-foot rowdy(who always had his way) in YMCA with side kicks when he tried to bully his way in, for a TT game.
I vaguely recollect Tae-kwon-do, in the series, but anyway I was pointed to some excellent videos by Richie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j1w--TjqVY,
which I use as the standard reference for all kicks.

I don't remember if ju-jutsu was covered. The video on Gracie-Ju-jutsu which I passed around to a few friends is the best I have seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVCKEbiEJNc&feature=related
A must see, just to see the 91 year old GM move. As Django says, I wish I was that fit 'now'.

I saw some good ones on Silat, a Malaysian art recently, but haven't tried looking it up on youtube.

One thing I can tell after seeing all this..
..Don't ever ever pick a fight with anyone. You never know who knows what.

Current Mood: calm

but this is "The Man":

http://www.taichiindia.com/in/what-is-taichi2.html

No, I am not learning Tai-Chi.

Current Mood: calm

-William Forrester

Current Mood: calm

sequence of NY times readings with other random stuff:

This article about the surprisingly high(I won't use "statistically significat" :D) occurrence of dyslexia among entrepreneurs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/business/06dyslexia.html?em&ex=1197349200&en=f55a560d5b78d58f&ei=5087%0A
If you have ever noticed stuff like dyslexia increasing with age or "leaders" who are all "big picture" guys you can concoct some interesting pet theories here(with a does of Shamanism of course :D)

The previous article needs to be compared with this piece which appeared a couple of days back:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/health/04mind.html
Perfectionism: Good or Evil??

And this one about "Pushing yourself":
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/health/nutrition/06Best.html?em&ex=1197349200&en=dd6d9a52f9a9b698&ei=5087%0A

And this one, demonstrating why I read this section of NY times. Not because the writing is good or that the analysis is insightful. It is the scientific observation of completely mundane stuff that makes me read it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/health/research/04beha.html?ref=science
and then again by scientific, I don't mean correct/unbiased/neutral. At the very least, an attempt to statistify things are done (much like politics, as some one reading this critically would notice :D)

A play about Darwin(contains spoilers). Not too interesting, unless you see the play.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/theater/reviews/06trum.html?ref=science

If you got this far, you are lucky to witness me lauding a Tamil movie :D (How about Cauvery, as a hint, for those who don't know why I normally wouldn't do this in public). I saw "Evano Orvan" and liked it. No fluff in the movie, crisp, grim and some good subtle stuff to watch out for.

Finally I saw a post that surprised me. So I have a more general (abstract and nerdy too) question would be "How would you like your life to be: 'An Operating System' (A bunch of trap handlers :D) or an 'automaton'?"
Think about it.

I might be a bit behind the wave, as usual but If you are a music aficionado and haven't played "Rock Band" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Band ; http://www.rockband.com/ ) yet, you are missing something. Of course, if you are already one of the talented ones, and can strum Stairway to Heaven at the drop of a Roy Harper hat, you might not appreciate it. Then there will be these cynical Luddites who go on about how Note A goes in B way and gives you C pleasure which a stupid game wont give. In true rock star fashion say "F*** Off" and play it.

I personally rate the drums above the guitar, since it is almost real. Its got 4 drums and a foot pedal. Turn on paranoid and enjoy the manic beats. So I am off with my band with Insen(Lead Guitar and Band leader) and Stewie(Drums). Being the lead singer, I protect my voice with extra doses of coffee and beer nowadays. Stewie kicks ass on the drums and in true modesty, I am next in line. So smashed fingers and burns are only natural in our line of work(The same old Rock rivalries :D).

Check out some of the songs we found during our tour:

Rolling Stones: "Gimme Shelter" : http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mqg1WVVmgx0&feature=related
Mountain : "Mississipi Queen" : http://youtube.com/watch?v=QQpBwHiULmE

and the song I naturally fit into:
Radio Head: Creep : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpblnsJEWM

and my top score(97%) till now:
Black Sabbath: Paranoid: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SRwwYWlbP2U

I am itching to play Zeppelin, LMR(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7vs21ZKrKM) and PF but there are only so many songs now.

Current Mood: chipper

a reminder to read some contemporary sensible stuff too:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/books/review/10-best-2007.html?em&ex=1196485200&en=4e758f9010c87bf6&ei=5087%0A

about this article in NY Times about "Denial":

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/health/research/20deni.html?ref=science

"The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life" enters my "wanna read" list on facebook.

But then I went on to read 2 more absorbing articles, one of which is faithfully quoted

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/weekinreview/18zernike.html?em&ex=1195707600&en=df5a2bb5d32eae0e&ei=5087%0A

Due to laziness, I avoid sharing my thoughts. It is not just about typing. Anyway as I can feel my brain degenerate, I think I need to
A) start playing bridge again
B) Fantasize over Theory or
C) Start doing this. This is a very veru good idea. Seems to be made for people like me : http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/fashion/18science.html

The only thinking I do nowadays seems to be about foosball. Am I addicted or what?

Current Mood: contemplative

After reading the book, I hid it in one corner of my room. I did not want to see it again. No, the book isn't bad. It is so disturbing and real that I couldn't take it...It was not like I was in a bad mood either. I had gotten through with this one big chunk of work. I had won some silly drag race and was pretty pleased with myself. I came home and got to experience a not-too-mild earthquake, something that ought to shake you up and put things in perspective, but No! The quake only generated excitement and pleasant after-effects(as all people that I talked with/chatted/received mails from me will testify)...So that night I finished the book that I had been reading for nearly a month now and it kind of jarred me awake. I am back to my usual pleasant stupor now, but it took me a while. So I don't really need to be writing this, but it is unfair to ignore what moves you. Anyway I have here a different section from the book, a section which, when I read, had made a mental note to retain in some flavor...and Yes, the book will go back into hiding the moment I am done with this blog.

"
Lying on the floor of the flat-car with the guns beside me under the canvas I was wet, cold and very hungry. Finally I rolled over and lay flat on my stomach with my head on my arms. My knww was stiff, but it had been very satisfactory. Valentini had done a fine job. I had done half the retreat on foot and swum part of the Tagliamento with his knee. It was his knee all right. The other knee was mine. Doctors did things to you and then it was not your body any more. The head was mine, and the inside of the belly. It was very hungry in there. I could feel it turn over on itself. The head was mine, but not to use, not to think with, only to remember and not too much remember.
I could remember Catherine but I knew I would get crazy if I thought about her when I was not sure yet I would see her, so I would not think about her, only about her a little, only about her with the car going slowly and clickingly, and some light through the canvas and my lying with Cathrine on the floor of the car. Hard as the floor to lie not thinking only feeling, having been away too long, the clothes wet and the floor moving only a little each time and lonesome inside and alone with wet clothing and hard floor for a wife.
You did not love the floor of a flat-cat nor guns with canvas jackets and the smell of vaselined metal or a canvas that rain leaked through, although it is very fine under a canvas and pleasant with guns; but you loved some one else whom now you knew was not even to be pretended there; you seeing now very clearly and coldly-not so much coldly as clearly and emptily. You saw emptily, lying on your stomach, having been present when one army moved back and another came forward. You had lost your cars and your men as a floorwalker loses the stock of his department in a fire. There was, however, no insurance. You were out of it now. You had no more obligation. If they shot floorwalkers after a fire in the department store because they spoke with an accent they had always had, then certainly the floorwalkers would not be expected to return when the store opened again for business. They might seek other employment; if there was any other employment and the police did not get them.
Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation. Although that ceased when the carabiniere put his hands on my collar. I would like to have had the uniform off although I did not care much about the outward forms. I had taken off the stars, but that was for convenience. It was no point of honor. I was not against them. I was through. I wished them all the luck. There were the good ones, and the brave ones, and the calm ones, and the sensible ones, and they deserved it. But it was not my show any more and I wished this bloody train would get to Mestre and I would eat and stop thinking. I would have to stop.
Piani would tell them they had shot me. They went through the pockets and took the papers of the people they shot. They would not have my papers. They might call me drowned. I wondered what they would hear in the States. Dead from wounds and other causes. Good Christ I was hungry. I wondered what had become of the priest at the mess. And Rinaldi. He was probably at Pordenone. If they had not gone further back. Well, I would never see him now. I would never see any of them now. That life was over. I did not think he had syphilis. It was not a serious disease anyway if you took it in time, they said. But he would worry. I would worry too if I had it. Any one would worry.
I was not made to think. I was made to eat. My God, yes. Eat and drink and sleep with Catherine. To-night maybe. No that was impossible. But tomorrow night, and a good meal and sheets and never going away again except together. Probably have to go damned quickly. She would go. I knew she would go. When would we go? That was something to think about. It was getting dark. I lay and thought where we would go. There were many places.
"

So, why the train, really?

Current Mood: awake

mkrishna80 asked me the other day. I should thank emeritusl for introducing me to it.

The primary reason is it gives me something to do in between builds :) but then again I get to see articles like this:

1) After seeing Sicko, I pretend to be interested in stuff like health care. It helps to carry off images of maturity in old people discussions.."Should I move to SF to get free health care or wait for Hillary Clinton to get elected and NOT do her health care fiasco again?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/us/14health.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/us/politics/18clinton.html?ref=us

Of course I don't care. My company pays for my health care but then I should still be considering my new found layers of flab.

2) Remember Ayn Rand, anyone?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html?em&ex=1190260800&en=a452c5a143f0a472&ei=5087%0A

3) The follow-up for 2): Some "intellectual disgust" descriptions on http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/science/18mora.html?ref=science

The article itself drags in the middle though there's some interesting stuff towards the end.

4) Will I get better rates when I refinance for my auto-loan?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/18cnd-fed.html?ref=business

Current Mood: awake

I read this article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/fashion/16lucid.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

and was stunned to see that it is a phenomenon. If I have talked to anyone long enuff, I would have told you stories of how I used to dream up strategies in Warcraft. Of course, in the interest of sobriety, I'll leave the "e(ro)soteric" stuff out.

I apologize to all mortals who can't do this. This article reminded me to get back to reading Pathanjali, so I can add "at will" to the previous sentence :D

Current Mood: chipper

that convinced me that I am not an intellectual. People who have read the sequel to Pirsig's all too famous book might recognize this. Don't bother reading it if you don't plan to read the book. Nothing can be more innocuous than a surface reading of this passage...

" In a society that thoroughly distrusts authority of any sort, he had native personal magnetism that singled him out in any group. In a society that exalts moderation and the easiest way, he was turbulent and could act violently upon occasion. In a society that praises a pliant personality that "talks lots"- that is, that chatters in a friendly fashion- he was scornful and aloof. Zuni's only reaction to such personalities is to brand them as witches. He was said to be peering through a window from outside, and this is a sure mark of a witch, At any rate he got drunk one day and boasted that they could not kill him. He was taken before the war priests who hung him by his thumbs from the rafters till he should confess to his witchcraft. This is the usual procedure in a charge of witchcraft. However he dispatched a messenger to the government troops. When they came his shoulders were already crippled for life, and the officer of law was left with no recourse but to imprison the war priests who had been responsible for the enormity. One of the war priests was probably the most respected and important in recent Zuni history and when he returned after imprisonment in the state penitentiary he never resumed his priestly offices. He regarded his power as broken. It was a revenge that is probably unique in Zuni history. It involved, of course, a challenge to the priesthoods, against whom the witch by his act openly aligned himself.

The course of his life in the forty years that followed this defiance was not, however, what we might easily predict. A witch is not barred from his membership in cult groups because he has been condemned, and the way to recognition lay through such activity. He possessed a remarkable verbal memory and a sweet singing voice. He learned unbelievable stores of mythology, of esoteric ritual, of cult songs. Many hundreds of pages of stories and ritual poetry were taken down from his dictation before he died, and he regarded his songs as much more extensive. He became indispensable in ceremonial life and before he died was the governor of Zuni. The congenital bent of his personality threw him into irreconcilable conflict with his society, and he solved his dilemma by turning an incidental talent to account. As we might well expect, he was not a happy man. As governor of Zuni and high in his cult groups, a marked man in his own community, he was obsessed by death. He was a cheated man in the midst of a mildly happy populace.

It is easy to imagine the life he might have lived among the Plains Indians where every institution favoured the traits that were native to him. The personal authority, the turbulence, the scorn, would all have been honoured in the career he could have made his own. The unhappiness that was inseparable from his temperament as a successful priest and governor of Zuni would have no place as a war chief of the Cheyenne; it was not a function of the traits of his native endowment but of the standards of the culture in which he found no outlet for his native responses."

Current Mood: contemplative

I post this. I jumped over my various trips, new foosball mates, waveboard adventures, virtual titbits, great lunches, hot gossip and emotional roller-coasters to post this. The best thing since sliced bread. I never really liked sliced bread but u get the point ...:D

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/879

Yeah, one might wonder why all the fanfare about a plugin. I have wandered through the mazes of lynx, elinks and firefox itself for getting over the squeeky bastard. Now it rests on my left, while I rule the world with my split "natural" clickety-clackety-finger-punch-bag and wonder what the next wave will be.

My guess is this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stumpwm but I m not investing more time on this till there is a windows version. Till then I gloat over my newfound control of these pesky creatures.

Current Mood: chipper

It was well over 6 years ago that I first saw this stunning video with Santhosh on Mtv. I didn't know who this crazy band of shirtless people standing in the midst of some ancient ruins were, but the music was awesome. I had no idea that this song was Echoes and of course. It was somewhere in the middle of the song, and still no pressure from Santhosh to switch to ESPN or CNN World sports, probably due to the intensity of my wonder-struck expression. This variety of music was unheard of, of course and still is. and then as the video swivels, the lettering on the speaker came into view with "Pink Floyd, London" on it and then "oh" went both me and Santhosh. "This is Pink Floyd??" and I had become a fan.
I told this story many times later, all about Floyd and how the drummer's sticks became a whirl at the end of one song (Set the Controls for the heart of the Sun) and in spite of collecting all there is to Floyd in the early days of MP3 and gagaing over them, the videos of Pompeii were still out of reach. Now, in the days of youtube, when collecting music seems no longer required, these are available with no effort..

Live at Pompeii 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u70HdOuzPc&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeaW4ZoXmJY&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQL0YUA8Np8&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLjXgRo2WGs&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 5 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uYWjso-cU8&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 6 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljT64SkuPqQ&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 7 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5CVglSzGus&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 8 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nISFHFjERWE&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 9 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq1tK2DWRz4&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pke96y0lAfQ&mode=related&search=
Live at Pompeii 11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntV_-JXgmRs&mode=related&search=

but still no high fidelity stuff but I guess its only a matter of time, but the people have given up on good stuff and listen to trash nowadays. Anyway check out Waters screeching, or blowing smoke rings in Part 3, or doing wisecracks. Its brilliant!
More things to see:
Nick Mason on the last shot of part 3
Beginning of Part 4, which contains the riffs that made Raghava wonder what mad inspiration that must have made them do this, but thats true for most of Echoes anyway :)
Waters poohpoohing the death of Rock in Part 5.
Part 6: Watch Mason do at 0-60, lose a stick and still do a 100.
Part 9: Set the controls..

Of course, there is still the problem of continuing songs with multiple links, making a playlist should solve that.

Some other interesting things (I know I am a few years late but so what?):
A whole bunch of floyd covers by Dream Theater:

"Hey you":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIL_KE38q28&mode=related&search=

"Us and them":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsxBzBmSSu0&mode=related&search=
If you see some of the comments on this, you'll see why I agree with Manjesh that Floyd fans are eminently hateable.

"Comfortably numb":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M5rBwZjgBw&mode=related&search=
The version of "Comfortably Numb" by Dream Theatre and Queensryche, settling all questions about the musical lineage of Queensryche :) and Balls to anyone who thinks otherwise, I would have given an arm and a leg to see that solo live. Still Dream Theater does "Won't get fooled again" better. I don't know why people even expect covers to be exactly like the original. Don't miss Petrucci go mad on this one.

I see my previous entries and think to myself that I blog only when there are "events" happening but maybe that's just me. I guess I wouldn't have been doing that if I were a regular blogger. I still consider it a waste of time. Too many I's in one paragraph. Anyway...Since my large (horribly large, uninteresting and apparently sane ..I know :D )last entry, there have been enough to write about but like the weekend warrior that I am, I'll continue to be the weekend wartime journalist like one of my fav writers but I'll need to start driving better to do that. Of course, just because I don't drive ambulances in tough times and get injured I'll never qualify to join the elite league. Very funny huh but even the best go through trying times. More than a year after eying "Fiesta" and in spite of having so much history behind the book, I had never read it but I finally did read. I am a sucker for novels set in the 20's-30's, with lots of wine and esoteric choices of alcohol and women but why?? Of course I'll change track sometime but while I enjoy my paid vacation(which incidentally is starting to look less like vacation and more like "Hey! Thats why they pay me." ) I see no reason to change. So all you people who claim the supremacy of Jason Bourne or wonder whether angels and demons existed before the 90's or better yet claim that Indian writing in English is what you dig, please continue to do so. Someday I'll get out of this weird high brow inclinations towards (mostly translated) Nobel prize winning works and laugh at all pretentious people like me. In the meanwhile, I'll go around worshipping Hemingway. Hesse is getting too suicidy for my liking. They should have changed places really. All his life Hesse wrote about people having a good time and dying off in the end, while Hemingway went around writing people having an even better time and dying off in the end. In reality Hemingway did have a good time while Hesse went around escaping from monasteries and chasing boyish looking women around colorful brothels. It is rather unfortunate that Hemingway commited suicide. I would always have betted on Hesse to go in first and of course if I was around to roll the dice then Hemingway would have earned an exotic and not so high brow accident involving charging bulls, lots of wine and horrified faces( ( but very beautfiul and well-kept, mind you!!)..Nah Huxley doesn't deserve more than a sentence and I am sure that he would have whipped himself to death shoutinig old English verses. Anyway at the end of the day (hee hee) Fiesta is a very well written feel good and book with a frustratingly impotent viewer but Brett more than makes up for this. It was Hemingway's first big novel and of course he hadn't reached the heights of his brilliance that he managed to to somehow clamber up in "For whom the bell tolls" but still I can't wait to get my hands on another one of his books. In the meanwhile I read a little fairy tale collection written by Mr Hesse and guess what happened at the end of the first story. It starts with a D. Ok Ok I am waiting for the next round of growing up. Some one pleaase throw a good author that I can move on to!!

And just to spoil a perfectly good cryptic title http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness