The cuppa that cheers

Seattle Metblogs, that lovely purveyor of all things Seattle, rhapsodizes over the drink that makes Seattle what it is. I'm happy to note that I've been to most of the Seattle places on the list, though a few still remain.

I'm getting to be a bit of a coffee snob, comparing my poison of choice across different branches of Starbucks, Tullys, Peets and the various fine establishments mentioned in this blog entry. Choice quote:

"If you have to ask why Seattleites love their coffee so much, you obviously haven't been here during the long, dank winter when it feels like the whole world is made of grey. A little liquid love goes a long way towards easing the daily doldrums."

Blog Alert - Passion for Cinema

George Thomas points to Passion For Cinema, a blog run by and for cinephiles. Anurag Kashyap, one of India's finest scriptwriters (Satya, Shool, Yuva) is blogging there and documenting the creation of his new film, No Smoking. One hopes he at least gets this film released - Paanch and Black Friday went down without a release.

He has a couple of great posts on the making of Satya - more in this series are expected in the future. 1 2

Satya IMO is one of the best films to come out of the Indian film industry in the past fifteen years, and I do not say this statement lightly. 

Anurag's posts point to the enigma that is Ram Gopal Verma, a creative process gone awry and how greatness seems to stem from chaos. Recommended reading if you're interested in Hindi films of any sort.

Movie Minutes

Flushed Away

The delightful whimsy of the creators of Wallace and Gromit (I still haven't seen the film, but I remember seeing a couple of shorts someplace) makes this very silly comedy work. It's a relief that the gratuitous pop-culture references which really killed Shark Tale for me don't surface here as often.

High points of the film:

- A group of slugs/leeches/what the hell were they? singing "Don't worry, be happy" and a couple of other cleverly picked songs.

- A French mercenary frog voiced by Jean Reno. His gang says "We surrender" at random times. They stop for five-hour lunches. And yes, they travel with a mime.

- Bill Nighy and Andy Serkis ('My precious' Gollum) as a pair of good 'fer nothing sidekicks.

Don - the chase begins

Farhan Akhtar doesn't disappoint in this slick re-visitation of the classic. SRK is surprisingly good, especially as the comic Vijay. His Don is as much respectful tribute as personal interpretation. Priyanka Chopra is competent and Boman Irani shows serious acting chops to complement his comic timing I've seen in various other places.

The soundtrack too is a good re-work, using the high points of the old and blending it smoothly with new refrains and  lyrics. The new title song and Raat Baki work well and the songs don't flag the pace of the film. The fight sequences are slick and except for a couple of sequences which are really arbitrary, they re-define Bollywood style for this generation.

Neatest touch: In Don's 'safe room', Edvard Munch's Scream is hanging on the wall. The painting itself was stolen in 2004 and recovered in August this year. Assuming they shot the film before that, it's a good painting for a man wanted in 11 nations to own.

As always, the blighted weather outside and a general lack of outdoor-sy things to do will meet the 'end of Oscar nomination' season and lots of movie viewings are in order. Still pending: Iraq in Fragments, Babel, The Prestige, The Departed and The Illusionist. Yes, I'm also looking forward to Casino Royale. The fun just began.

Useless Fact for the day...

Johnny Cash's hit single I walk the line turns fifty this year.

It's a weird coincidence, learning this fact last week after hearing a cover version of the song by Live more than ten times in three days. I can't help it. If a song's stuck in my head, I have to scratch that itch till I get the song out of my system. Recent candidates for this honor include Rage Against the Machine's Renegades of Funk and Sigur Ros' Saeglopur. But I digress.

While the original Johnny Cash version is in his trademark country-blues style, the Live cover is all seriousness with good use of the electric guitar. This (in my opinion) probably suits the song better than Johnny Cash's style. Heresy, I know, but that's just me.

The song however reveals the power of Johnny Cash's writing, wrapping so much feeling in words so simple. It's something Live (and a lot of songwriters for that matter) could do well to learn from.

It's your TV. Have it your way.

Earlier: XBox 360 and the digital hub

Now:  The XBox 360 to sell TV shows and films via downloads.

The XBox is primarily used by that elusive demographic - 18-34 year-old men. These people don't watch much TV,  don't subscribe to newspapers much and are likelier to surf the web or play games. It's not funny to see the amount of real-world socializing gamers do about playing online. (It's the hot workplace conversation topic - even in the land of the NFC Champions).

Microsoft and Sony (whenever the Playstation 3 launches) are going to be prime candidates for trying to convince this demographic to get TV shows and movies via their game consoles. HD downloads is what will drive this at first since there are no HD downloads available on any online stores as of now. Hi-Def DVD standards are still converging, so it makes more sense to just buy your HD content on the 'Net, especially since you are likely to keep your XBox for 3-4 years.

Add a Media Center PC to the equation and there's interesting twists on the whole experience, including recording HD cable and over-the-air shows using your TV tuner card to play back on your TV(s) in the house. Plus downloaded shows via your XBox in the hall can be played back on your bedroom TV.

The digital home entertainment world is converging. And we're still waiting on Apple's ITV.

We're done talking.

It's time.

Useful IE7 hacks

Internet Explorer mostly brought tears to my eyes not too long ago. IE6 was slow, and before XP SP2, really vulnerable. They worked hard to lock it down but the lack of tabs and any real utility made me look at Firefox and boy, did I love it.

However, Microsoft launched IE7 a few weeks back. It is a significant re-write and update of features for Internet Exploer on both XP and Vista. It is important, simply because even now, more than 85% of the market uses IE. A few quick notes:

- Tabbed browsing finally comes to the IE world! On Vista, you can drag and drop and re-order tabs. El Neato.

- A big plus for me is the ease of use with respect to RSS. My browser is my default RSS reader now and the ease with which I can import and export OPML lists makes it easy for me to use my favorite feeds across multiple machines. I prefer it over Sage and Live Bookmarks in FF personally, though YMMV.

- A couple of things about it to me are still annoying - the text search is still archaic. Come on, vi had inline text search, what, twenty years back?.

However, IE's add-on API set isn't too bad, and we have Core Services' Inline Search to our rescue. Quick to install, and easy to use. Sweet. A number of add-ons are listed here - http://www.ieaddons.com

- Also, while Wikipedia and the major search engines are all in the search providers that are available easily, I wish IMDB were as easily available.

This is solved by the nifty customize menue under 'Find more search providers' that Microsoft provides on their website, making it easy to add your own search providers. Providers I added include dictionary.com, IMDB and the local county library online database.

This is a feature that copies the Opera/FF world, but the last bit of customization makes it better than its predecessors. (I mean, would anyone really write a custom provider for my library? I'd do it myself, but that's besides the point. What would a newbie user do?)

Firefox has significant momentum behind it, but IE7 may be just about able to stem the bleeding of users away from IE. IE is still playing catch-up with Firefox in terms of end-user features, but at least there's a modicum of competition now.

I heard it on the radio

When I was in India, I'd listen to the song "November Rain" by Guns n Roses and think "It doesn't rain here in November*."

The song is beautiful in a way only sad, epic songs can be. Axl Rose's rasping voice, the piano, the strings and Slash on the guitar put together a song that washed away so much pain in an eight-minute orgy of excess. The video is no less with a real story, back-story and loads of symbolism to go with it (more here). Then there was Slash blazing away on lead guitar, standing on top of a grand piano in his trademark wide-legged stance. 

It's pouring outside on a cold November Friday. The radio plays, aptly, "November Rain". I soak in the lyrics and the music and I think back to another beautiful song.

"Radio, what's new? Someone still loves you."

In other news:

KMTT, my favorite area radio station is crowned one of the five best in rock radio by Rolling Stone.

*At least it never did where I lived.

When it rains...

There's a saying in Marathi about a tree branch breaking exactly when you sit on it.

Two days after I complained about the unfair depiction of Seattle rain in many places, it rains cats and dogs and maybe a few orcas as well.

In other news:

I link to Ramanand's general review of Alexander McCall Smith's books. "The Number One Ladies Detective Agency" is exactly like the title sounds. It is droll, slightly quirky and thoroughly enjoyable. While he may not win a Booker, he wins the prize for most interesting book titles with gems like "The Kalahari Typing School for Men" and "Morality for Beautiful Girls".

The book's hard to dislike and the best part of the book is the fact that it paints a different picture of Africa - an Africa that is civilized and on the path to progress. Not the one in the media perennially in need of 'saving'. That by itself makes it worth the read.

Halloween

There's something irresistibly adorable about a child all dressed up as an angel of some sort yelling 'trick-or-treat' and then 'thank you' (on a watchful parent's reminding).

As I watched my bag o' goodies deplete, I smiled indulgently. Even as work deadlines tick ominously around me, I turn around and say 'You're most welcome' to every one of those kids. After all, they livened up my workplace. They chased away my blues.

Work will wait. Halloween only comes once a year.

Elsewhere: Bhavna's office livened up last year.

Impressionable

I don't consider myself to be a big art aficionado. I enjoyed my trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York two years back. I still stand and look at a painting if it catches my attention. But the aesthetic value of a painting, for me, is Kala Akshar Bhains Barabar. That, of course has never stopped me from having an opinion or made me any less curious. A thing of beauty is a joy forever and all that, and I try to enjoy what I can.

However, I still think Impressionist paintings are something else. I don't understand what makes them what they are, but some of them (especially Monets) stand out and the style is immediately apparent. The blurry brush strokes and the out of focus visuals make for a slightly surreal effect.

Why Impressionism suddenly, you ask? I was making my way through a gift shop this weekend and a bunch of postcards caught my attention. What annoyed me about the postcards was the fact that they depicted Seattle as a place where it rains heavily enough for you to have to carry an umbrella around.*

However, the postcards reminded me of the Impressionist style**, and I noted the seller's website to go take a look at similar prints. A nice example here. Another one here.  

*I've never had use for an umbrella in the 18 months I've lived here. A light jacket suffices.

** I don't think these qualify as Impressionist, but they evoked a similar reaction.

Relevant News

I complained just over a year ago about Indian sites being really bad with RSS and general web compliance. The Times of India pleasantly surprised me today. After a downward spiral of over five years, they seem to have seen the light. While some of the frivolity on the front page exists, the content and ease of use is improving significantly for power users. They started slow, with RSS feeds for the front page and certain sections like sports and editorials. However, a RSS feed for a single columnist - on my wishlist forever, has been added. Awesome is too common a word to describe it. I can finally read Gurcharan Das and Swaminathan Aiyar linking off my RSS reader (IE7 rocks!) without knowing what Shah Rukh Khan did for Diwali.

Thank you, Times of India. There may be redemption for you yet.

Good Will Hunting

I like trying different genres of writing from time to time. Next on the agenda is a play (we are reading Cyrano de Bergerac in a book club I'm part of ). However, out of pure curiosity, I decided to try a screenplay.

I first remember skimming through the screenplay of Pulp Fiction in a bookshop a few years back. The words lept out at me in a way the dialog on screen didn't.

So, when a cursory search on the local library database indicated that the screenplay for a personal favorite, Good Will Hunting was 'on shelf' (versus having to put a hold on it and wait for it to be returned), I took it as a sign and picked it up then and there.

Film, needless to say, is a very visual medium and the screenplay reflects it. Physical descriptions of characters are more detailed, and there's scenery descriptions much more detailed than in a play. There are moving shots, descriptions of shots of the Boston skyline, the Charles River and so on. Since Good...is a spare film in terms of its setting (it's fully set in Boston), it's less so than, say, a Lord of the Rings would be.

The film narrates a short period in the life of Will Hunting, an orphan genius who works as a janitor in MIT. He is 'discovered' by a mathematics professor, and along the way, meets a psychologist - an equal to his genius and attitude. The film is very Hollywood and triumphant in some ways, celebrating 'smarts' over 'intellectualism' - as director Gus Van Sant puts it succinctly in the foreword.

But the dialog. Oh, the dialog. Crisp, quirky and celebrating the art of the repartee, it makes the film what it is. It is hard to imagine two young Hollywood actors writing this script. Especially not young actors whose names are Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. But they did, and they did well enough to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

I've seen the film and it's hard to imagine reading this and making a lot of it without seeing Robin Williams as Sean and Matt Damon as Will. That's the bane of reading a book adapted into a movie after watching the movie or reading a screenplay. It's difficult to immerse yourself and create a world of your own. The world-vision you have of it is slightly contaminated by what you've seen before.

But this has been an immensely enjoyable journey into the world of Will Hunting.

Skylar: Maybe we should go out for coffee sometime?

Will: Great, or maybe we could go somewhere and just eat a bunch of caramels.

Skylar: What?

Will: Come to think of it, it's just as arbitrary as drinking coffee.

Travel Musings

- Even as a reasonably tolerant traveler, the level of security checks is beginning to get to me.

Casualty: A deodorant forgotten in my carry-on bag. I'm sure security sees this Axe-wielding traveler as a threat to the virtue of the female populace on board the flight. Consider yourself warned.

- That quintessential American invention, the car cup-holder is better designed to hold grande or venti cups of coffee than tall ones. Tall coffee drinkers, ...erm...drinkers of tall cups of coffee struggle with dexterity to get a reasonable grip on the cuppa. All this while actually driving the darn car.

- You get used to a car and then driving a rental car becomes difficult. Then you get used to the rental and going back to your own car is a joy. The dexterity! The control! The acceleration! Korean cars rule! OK, the last one's a tad much, but my car's a Ferrari compared to the Ford Fusion dear Enterprise decided to foist on me.

- Roethlisberger is the leading jersey in Pittsburgh by miles, though central PA divided its loyalties equally with McNabb. Terrible towels are sold in rest stops too.

- Seattle feels like home more than ever. My favorite metropolis seemed more distant now and a tad easier to get lost in. The Emerald City seems friendlier now. Familiarity can breed love, too.

SoaP

There's cartoons and there's cartoons.

This one's jaw-dropping in terms of sheer topicality and timing.

http://www.time.com/time/cartoons/20060826/4.html

Indian Ocean: An Oasis of hope

A slightly modified version of this article appeared in Hafta magazine last week.

A common problem with so-called "fusion" artists is that the fusion between the different aspects of music seems forced. This is true especially of wannabe popstars with art-house pretensions or one of the many emigrant/second-generation South Asians on the underground scene in the UK or USA. The best (Nitin Sawhney is one name that comes to mind) have definitely have made use of their hybrid upbringing and myriad influences, bringing something of that into the music they make . However, the worst of the 'fusion' genre generally involves an obligatory tabla or dhol beat interspersed with hip-hop rhythms and rap competing with Indian vocals.

At the other end of the spectrum is the one Indian band whose music brings the word "organic" to mind. Indian Ocean fuses together various elements of their influences and beliefs as musicians and human beings to create music that may be called 'fusion', but this fusion sounds natural and not forced.

Be it the dramatic segues on Bhor (on Jhini), or the Knopfleresque flourish of wizardry at the end of Khajuraho (on Kandisa), Indian Ocean has time and again shown why it is so difficult to pigeon-hole them as a band. Promiscuously absorbing influences from Indian folk, rock music and adding the improvisational sensibility of jazz, Indian Ocean creates a collage of sound that is uniquely Indian and contemporary.

Indian Ocean is a paradox in many ways. They've been around for 15 years, yet haven't had the kind of mainstream success that you'd expect. They have a cult following among certain sections of the population and yet, a large number of people haven't heard of them, leave alone heard their music.

They are Indian, yet they follow the American band model of incessant touring and live shows to build their popularity (versus the traditional music-video route, though they have had a music video for Jhini out). They perform songs that are political in tone (Ma Rewa - based on a traditional folk song, is about the river Narmada - a dam on this river is at the center of a controversy), yet refuse to be labeled a political band. Ironically, their biggest shot at mainstream attention - the soundtrack for Black Friday went down quietly since the movie itself ended up running only for a day in theatres before being pulled.

The band, however, soldiers on, going from strength to strength. They are on the road continuously, and are now on their fourth tour of the US, where people who've heard them back in college(or not) attend their concerts to be blown away by their live performances.

Still grounded and extremely down-to-earth, the band members are a revelation. They made the courageous decision to live off their music a few years after they started. Was it a hard decision to make? "When we decided to, it didn't seem like a big thing." says Susmit, the guitarist. "But then, as kids you do things that when you are grown up, you think about and say "I could have died doing that."" he says, and laughs.

Animated and well-read, the band members are livewires off-stage too. Effortlessly riffing off well-known Hindi and English film songs, satirizing everything from the humble coconut to George W Bush, they keep their hosts and us (the host's guests) in splits. For a group that just rocked a 500-strong crowd for two and a half hours, their spirits are high and their energy infectious - a requirement for the time spent away from family on tour. "The band is like family to each one, in some ways substituting for our real families back home, at least when we are on the road." says Asheem.

One can only hope that the effervescent spirit and passion that resulted in the formation and sustenance of Indian Ocean takes root in the hearts of more talented artists throughout the country. The purity of their music, their refusal to compromise on their beliefs and their success despite the odds is a beacon of hope for creative people who despair at the present state of Indian popular culture.

Days go by...

This photo's for Lalit.

The madness started two days back with P&G's gift in the mail.

Starting from midnight, with the cake my parents got and followed up by another one Lalit, Shailu and Vasanth got, it was special.
It ended with RK calling at 9:15 (Sir jee, shukriya) and Bunty SMSing at 10:00 PM . It's already the next day in India, so he says "I hope I'm not late :-(" . No Bunty,you're not.

Muchos Gracias. You rock my world.

And yes, those of you whom I barely know, and yet you left scraps for me on Orkut. Thanks for being so thoughtful. But really, get a life.

What a wonderful world...

Seen in a public school in Seattle.

Dharam Sankats and supping with Lucifer

Formula1 took the most fun twist I've seen it take in the past few years. Michael Schumacher ensured that Formula1 was never dull, and the past few years have been intense - racing-wise or otherwise. As he hangs up his helmet and racing gloves, Kimi Raikkonen moves into the hot seat at Ferrari.

With Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya leaving, Kimi's a personal favorite among the drivers left in Formula1. Ice Man to Michael's Maverick*, the blue-eyed Finn has always impressed me for his coolness and the impressive results he nursed out of a pathetic McLaren (pathetic in terms of reliability, that is). I've rarely seen him make the kind of mistakes that took out the mercurial Montoya (another favorite, if only for the fact that I see a bit of my earlier devil-may-care attitude in him). Moving to Ferrari is a good move, especially since he doesn't have to contend with playing second fiddle to Schumacher, something that probably drove Barrichelo to tears.

The problem is with the fans. McLaren has its set of rabid fans (less than Ferrari surely, but lots), and at least a few of them are fans because they are the anti-Ferrari. Raikkonen is the anti-Schumi, the prodigy who made it to F1 on sheer talent and wins only on that basis. People supporting Raikkonen and McLaren found a happy union of their loyalties.

What now? For techies, it's almost like Linus Torvalds working on Windows for Microsoft. They'd want to support Torvalds, but that would mean supporting Microsoft. Conflicted? Hell, yes.

Raikkonen's supping with the Devil Incarnate of F1, and I'm happy. My loyalties are towards driver skills, and I want Raikkonen to get a good car.

Schumacher and Raikkonen on the same Ferrari team would've been a darn fine sight to see, but two star drivers on a team do not a great team necessarily make ( case in point: McLaren early this season) and a strong team may elevate drivers and the team to really good levels (Williams-BMW with Schumacher Jr. and Montoya from the 2002-03 season). I only hope Raikkonen's luck turns, and he doesn't drag Ferrari down with his blighted fortune.

*Kimi's nickname is Ice Man, but Maverick's from Top Gun.

...Under Protest (Pine, Pike), take a right here!

Shailu writes of an interesting way to remember the streets in Downtown Seattle. "Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest" indeed.

Speaking of Gods, after reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods a few months back, Terry Pratchett's Small Gods is a good change of pace. Laugh-out-loud funny, thought-provoking and yet mostly silly, it's all in good fun. Somewhat like the Blandings series of P G Wodehouse books I read way back. I lean towards Blandings over Jeeves personally - it's a matter of personal taste, and there's something special about a prize pig being named "Empress of Blandings."

I think I'll name my pet dog Lemuel Gengulphus.