Repeat Telecast

Donnie Darko - A Singular Explanation II

2005-12-22T15:01:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movie, Science Fiction, Space-Time, Opinion

Part one here.

After visiting the movie's homepage, which takes approximately an hour to solve through, and referring Cellar Door, not to mention half a dozen website reviews and explanations as well as a few dozen blog entries, it seems everyone buys the concept of a tangent universe (apart from the usual allusions where superhero stories are concerned--Donnie is Jesus, yada yada yada). They use that very term, tangent.

Referring Roberta Sparrow's book, which is available in its entirety (well, as much as available) both on the homepage, or if you can't be bothered to trudge through the puzzles, on Cellar Door, as well as inspecting Donnie's letter to her, most of my theory seems to hold true. Except that the terms used are Manipulated Dead, the Manipulated Living, the Artifact. Or some such.

In many ways, Donnie Darko is much less a science fiction story than it is the first issue of any new comic book character. See Spiderman, for the most part. We have the logical build up of a crisis, the logical build up of the hero who is guided by situations around him (Spidey loses his uncle; Donnie loses Gretchen) to accept his destiny and finally the resolution of the crisis/birth of a hero.

There is some ambiguity regarding what date exactly does the engine fall at the very end. Some say it's October 2nd. I still think it's 28 days later, and the engine follows its natural timeline progression.

But, and this baffles most any theory put forth, the conversation at the final stage of the puzzle at the homepage suggests that the engine which fell on the Darko roof belongs to a plane which still has its engine intact. And this piece of information is revealed in phone conversation which occurs in 1991, ie, three years later. That means, two engines of the exact same details exist. Which can only mean that the one which fell, fell from somewhere else.

Unlike many, though, I think that last piece of information was put forth to simply confuse most of the theorists. A kind of oddball. If anyone has any ideas on this, please do share.

No information about the sister--was she on the plane? No ideas. But, if you buy the above phone conversation, then perhaps that flight never took place. Where did the engine come from, then? Perhaps it came from the tangent universe. But somehow this line of thinking sounds like Spielberg cockadoodle.

There are some arguments against the superhero line of thinking, and I'm not saying they're just plain wrong, but, according to me, the one thing fuelling the superhero argument is simple: the movie's title.

Exhibits: Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Hulk, and even The Mask. And so on. All of them superhero movies. All of them named after the hero.

That's it, then. The experiment was more or less successful. I get to shout it from the rooftops: unlike Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which I didn't decipher very well till fellow board member on the House of Leaves forum, *o* explained it, I got most of Donnie Darko by myself, in a single sitting, without any references. Pin a medal on me.

One last note: cautious readers will notice that there are two point number fives in the previous entry. You get three guesses why.

Donnie Darko - A Singular Explanation I

2005-12-20T14:56:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movie, Science Fiction, Space-Time, Opinion

Consider this a spoiler warning. If you haven't seen the film, stay away from this post, and the one which follows. Although, because it's no Shyamalan film, knowing the events or the ending will hardly ruin your viewing experience. Watching the film will help make sense of what follows.

If I am right about this, then Donnie Darko portrays one of the four basic queries and conceptual variants of time-space I have always pondered on.

The first is answered quite aptly in 12 Monkeys: can we really change events in any time-space co-ordinate except the present? The answer, 12 Monkeys tells us, is no.

12 Monkeys will have to wait for another thorough dissection, though. For now we concentrate on a film which never crosses into pretentiousness; never tries to be art for the sake of art; much like David Lynch's films and 21 Grams, dares to leave in a way suited to much open-ended, multiple-threaded, many-outcome result; and above all, manages to be mainstream.

All right. Keep in mind I have seen the film less than 24 hours ago; have referred none of the internet websites; have not browsed the film's homepage. What this entry is, is a singular analysis. In part two, we shall compare my interpretation with the interpetation derived after referring all the content on the web.

In a chronological sequence, this is what happens. I have skipped some events because they either feel inconsequential, or make better sense explained out of chronology.

1. Through an undescribed accident, a jet passenger plane (a 747) loses one of its turbine engines, which, freefalling, is sucked into a space-time continium breach--also known as a wormhole--and, of all the various space-time co-ordinates it could come out in, it is thrown into the same space co-ordinate, but some 28 and a half days earlier.¹

2. Because of this rift, this singularity, a parallel or tangent (tangent seems to be the word suiting it best) is created, which exists only (I'm doubtful about this) for as long as the period between the end of the singularity (when it lands on the Darko house) and the beginning (some 28 days later, when the engine actually falls). In this tangent universe, the one human who is most directly affected by the event--Donnie Darko--aqcuires special powers. The engine in question crashes on the Darko house, specifically on Donnie's bedroom. By all means, Donnie should be sound asleep and he should get crushed under the engine, but besides having superpowers in this tangent universe, Donnie also has a superfriend, Frank.

3. This tangent universe is, of course, an event which should not occur, and much of my theory rests on the notion that the universe does what it can to restore itself to the original timeline. So, the universe (or God, or whatever decides such things) assigns Frank, who is a secondary sufferer (Donnie is the primary sufferer, Gretchen is also a secondary sufferer, while the rest are tertiary, or further down the pyramid), to guide Donnie through the objective. The objective being: stop the engine from falling into the wormhole. Frank, on the night when the engine crashes onto the house, leads sleepwalking Donnie out of the house and onto a golf course.

4. The problem here is, unlike Frank (who wears a bunny suit and doesn't have one eye when Donnie stabs him, and later, again loses one eye--perhaps the same one--when Donnie shoots him) and Gretchen, who will die in this tangent universe through the natural course of tangent events, the other sufferers--tertiary and beyond--cannot accept death the same way, and yet, 28 days later, when the engine falls through the wormhole, they will die, as Frank suggests: the world will end (bear with me on the loose 28 days; the exact time is an actual figure, which may or may not have any significance besides being the exact time of existence of the tangent universe--I think it's the engine's serial number, but that's popcorn Spielberg mentality) when it reaches the beginning of the rift or singularity. The interesting thing here is that, unlike all time-travel based sci-fi movies we have seen, instead of having an event in the past echo an event in the future, in Donnie Darko we have an event in the future affecting the events of the past.

5. The role of the tertiary sufferers is to guide Darko in the right direction, through the path the universe chalked out for him, but they are reluctant to do it. Miss Pomeroy informs him about Cellar Door, but she is fired. His science teacher explains Stephen Hawking's concepts on four dimensional space as well as the future spear, but he can't explain further because he may lose his job. Similarly, Gretchen, although a secondary sufferer, is more or less Darko's guiding beam. She is the one who first introduces the concept of Donnie as a superhero, upon which, Donnie's expression suggests that he's only just realizing that perhaps he is. His answer being a simple, "I am."

5. Grandman Sparrow (aka Grandma Death), according to me, is a survivor of a previous time rift, also a primary sufferer, and by surviving through both the tangent universe as well the normal one after successfully restoring it, she becomes a kind of informer to Donnie; she's locked into the sequence when she writes a book on time travel. Her book--which the Physics teacher provides--informs Donnie of people's logical future arrows, which define their future actions. Donnie can see his future arrow too, but he does not change its course, which may lead to the big paradox of the whole idea, because by changing the tangent universe's future, he nevertheless does defy the tangent future arrow. But, at the same time, if he doesn't follow the future arrow and doesn't stop the engine from falling into the wormhole, then he alters the course of the primary universe and hence creates yet another tangent universe which may or may not run similar to the already existing tangent universe. Donnie's future arrow leads him to his Dad's closet, where he finds a gun.

6. The reason why he floods the school and sinks the axe in the statue is unclear, but perhaps we see it to get an idea that he indeed has superhuman powers. Sinking an axe in a metal statue is not ordinarily possible. Ditto chopping a water pipe.

7. Towards the end, we get a surefire glimpse of Donnie's ability to have the complete plan of how it's going to work when he suggests that his sister should throw a Halloween party, since she's gonna be in Harvard.

8. Grandma Sparrow keeps checking her mail everyday because she expects Donnie's letter. The reasons are unclear, but she also needs to be at that exact spot in the middle of the road on the big night in question so that the secondary sufferers, the ones who die, can actually be created and can hence play secondary roles from the end, ie 28 days ago.

9. We find the bullies hiding in Sparrows cellar (Pomeroy's Cellar Door), who are, as I explained earlier, there to stop Donnie from reaching his goal--stopping the rift and ending the tangent universe; but are also there to further the chain of predetermined events towards the creation of the secondary sufferers and the ultimate objective. How it goes is, Frank, Donnie's sister's buddy, drives at superfast speed back on the road passing Grandma Sparrow's house. Outside, Frank manages to swerve in time to escape crashing into Grandma, but he ends up crushing Gretchen under the car. When Frank steps out, he's wearing the bunny suit. Donnie shoots Frank in the eye using Dad's gun. All the events in this step are what lead me to this whole idea to begin with: this step, this crucial night, is when things are set into motion; it is the beginning of the tangent universe's preparatory phase, the beginning of the tangent universe but a few hours away, and the end is some 28 days earlier, when the engine actually crashes into Donnie's room.

10. Donnie drives up to the exact spot where the movie begins, and as the wormhole begins to form, he stops the engine from falling into it.

11. When this happens, the tangent universe is obliterated. In an interesting take on Hawking's memory mysteries (refer footnote one), we later see that most people involved in the tangent universe--Jim Cunningham and everyone else--seem to remember those events once they're back in the primary timeline, but cannot project those memories at will. It's as some poet said, a dream you only remember in the watches of the night. And that too, in concealed fragments.

12. Donnie goes back to bed on the exact day the plane engine falls on his roof (not 28 days earlier), only, this time, because there is no wormhole, the engine crashes on him. There are a few hints suggesting that he knows it's going to happen, but doesn't bother trying to escape--because if he does he will be deviating from his future arrow, creating another singularity, another tangent universe.

13. It must be noted, that we see Donnie's mother and little sister in the plane whose engine crashes inside the tangent universe, but because the tangent universe is obliterated, Jim Cunningham's house doesn't burn down, his kiddy porn dungeon isn't found out, and Donnie's mom doesn't have to chaperone the children instead of their phys. ed. teacher. Also, the final recognition between Gretchen and Donnie's Mom can lead to a thousand interpretations, but the only one that makes any sense is step 11.

There it is. In 13 steps.

The question you will ask: what about the little sister? She should be on the plane. And that's certainly one of the questions I shall be seeking an answer to when I scan the internet.

The theory is by no means solid, I have skipped through or overlooked--deliberately--a lot of things which could be clues, but it is the only one which takes into account the majority of events, according to me.

Entire movie in one paragraph: time singularity occurs, tangent universe is created, someone in tangent universe is assigned to stop the singularity from occuring, some help him, some are against him, some help in fragments, he succeeds, the primary universe goes on, the engine falls on the exact date it seperates from the plane, and things run their normal course.

Stay tuned for part 2.

_________________
¹To get a basic grasp of the terms, check the glossary to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. If you can't be bothered to buy or borrow that book, check this handy link. Again, check the glossary.

It's A Gas

2005-12-02T20:41:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Celebrity, Opinion

On VH1, there's a series called The Fabulous Life. I've just seen it for the first time; this one focused on London.

Processing all those numbers is a bit overwhelming.

I used to think that the rich are just human beings with a lot of money.

They're not. They're nasty; they're spoilt; they're another species.

John Travolta stayed at a hotel where the standard fare is thousands of dollars per night, and he had his own private chef make him a peanut-butter jelly sandwich.

Many grands worth of manicures. You get diamonds pressed into your fingernails. Glitter polish.

These people, they have backrubs every second hour.

Jennifer Lopez had peacocks flown in.

Madonna had a special brand of tea flown in just because she felt like it. Halfway around the world.

A 14,000 Dollar tea-bag. A family could have enough food for a year in my country on that kind of money. With five kids, even.

These people, they spend 1.7 million dollars on clothes they'll never wear. In three hours.

These people, they throw dozens of hundred dollar bills just to get into some club and drink martinis.

There's nothing wrong with wanting the best of everything, but after a certain threshold, it becomes silly. Please, will drinking tea from a bag stuffed with diamonds make it any better? Is it even worth spending those 14Ks on?

How much stuff do you need, for crying out loud?

The point is, do these people value what they have? They don't need to wait for what they want; does anything have any worth for them?

This entry might read like a have-not dissing on the haves, and some of it surely is, but it's not because they have a lot of stuff and billions have none. I don't subscribe to the snatch from the rich and give to the poor logic, as long as the rich have earned their riches. These people, the ones with the most, what do they do? Cut a crap album each year. Act in a movie or two each year.

In the insect hives, the ones with the most resources tend to serve the most--or one of the most--important roles in the hive's growth, existence and more importantly, it's future. In our hive, they do nothing at all.

Gray House

2005-10-27T20:38:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Mystery

Ever since my father thought I was old enough to wander without adult guidance, the beach was one of my favorite haunts. I grew up with kids who were more or less the same age as me, and we discovered more or less the same things at more or less the same time.

How it went is, one of us would knock on everyone else's door--didn't matter who. He'd say, "Chal beach jayenge."¹

Didn't matter what time of the day it was.

Except that it decided more or less what we'd do at the beach.

5 in the morning meant either cricket in the sand or long walks from Holiday Inn to The Centaur Hotel. Along the coast. Walking in the water. Collecting seashells. Tiny button-shaped round discs which we used as beads in board games I don't remember now. Making up weird theories about how those button shells are mini spaceships. This was after we heard a friend's dad tell us a story about aliens on mars. Before that we didn't know about aliens.

7 in the morning meant frisbee or what we called Jackie Channing. It consists of weird karate moves where you more or less land on your head. Your hair, it fills up with sand. Oh boy, and you don't want to go home with your head full of sand or your mother will hose the sand off you. Or so my mother always said, though she never did it.

9 in the morning meant skipping beach altogether and stopping at the video game parlor along the way and playing Street Fighter on the coin operated machine. We'd use one coin and get almost an hour's worth of play. That's forty five minutes above what's allowed. We knew a lot of tricks.

1 in the afternoon meant simply sitting under the shade of the Holiday Inn's rock wall and shooting pies in the sky and watching, as Floyd sang, some distant ship's smoke on the horizon admist sparkling water.

And by the way, all this, it's just me making those days seem clearer and sunnier than they were.

4 in the afternoon also meant video gaming, then racing to the beach to grab kulfis.² Sometimes we also flew kites. Both with simple threads and new nylon threads, which didn't cut and so weren't half as fun in Kite Wars.

6 in the evening meant digging your feet in the sand and wiggling your toes, building castles (which more or less looked like sand mountains riddled with wormholes), watching the sun set, and playing cricket or, in the rainy season, football.

8 in the night meant staying close to the food shops and gobbling snack after snack after juice after drink after golgappa³ after joke after joke.

All this, every single day, every single time we went to the beach, we passed one of the biggest temples in our area. I never went inside it, but it always looked pleasant from the outside, through the gates. If you've seen one big Indian temple, you've seen them all.

Opposite this temple, on the other side of the road, there was a gray house.

A barb-wire fence dense with wilderness surrounded it on all four sides.

It was gray all over. From the roof which slanted on both sides to the broken glass windows to the barred door to the wheelbarrow which used to be there for almost a year and then disappeared.

In all our trips, I never saw a light inside that house. Not once.

None of those who visited the temple payed the house much attention, or so it seemed. We once asked one of the temple guards about the house, and he kept squishing tobacco and betel nut juice in his hands and said, "Koi khabar nai, bhai."⁴

A friend said nobody went in there because the ground--which, surprisingly, was grassless and rocky--had one lakh snakes. Cobras and pythons and boas and those red black white striped ones he didn't know the name of.

Another told us a witch lived there.

One of the big guys--probably nineteen at that time--told us, ghosts.

Not that any of it is true, but what he told us is (and this was right after watching Chota Chetan--a 3D movie) this: two kids lived in the house. Two ghosts. Their parents died in the house of some disease. Those kids, they died of starvation because they couldn't step outside their house. Outside their house the field was full of poisonous snakes who could turn you into a snake if they bit you.⁵

The guy who told us this story, he went bald at age twenty three. Not kidding.

And just to make it more interesting, he added, "Sometimes they come out at night because snakes can't harm them anymore. They're ghosts now."⁶

He added, "And sometimes they visit other people's homes and--"

This kid I knew, he went, "They won't come to my home. I've got Ganpati's⁷ photo on my door. They won't dare enter."

And this guy, he went, "Sometimes they play in the temple."

The kid, he pissed in his pants. Not kidding. He was probably ten.

When one of us first introduced the idea of vampires to us--and this was probably a couple of years after the two ghosts living in the house, even before we snapped twigs into two and tied them up in a cross with rubber bands, one of us said the gray house had vampires living in it. That's why there were no lights in it during the day, because they sleep in the day. Someone suggested visiting the house at night, but none of us had the balls to take up that offer. Not even for a Pepsi each day for the rest of the year.

What you probably won't believe is the house never aged. Except for the wheelbarrow which disappeared. If you took a photo the year after it disappeared and then took a photo nine years later, both photos would look exactly the same.

My friend's dad, the same one who told us about aliens, once suggested that the house housed a power line control unit, or perhaps a water pump like the one in the huge playground behind my house.

Someone, perhaps our building watchman, suggested it was government property.

We never found out. Although we never found a board or a signpost suggesting anything like that.

I don't remember the last time I saw that house, just like I don't remember the last time I went to the beach (although I can say almost three years have passed since I've been there), but after someone asked me about the house today, I made a trip to my old house and then from there walked the old route to the beach.

The temple, it's still the same. More or less.

The house, make what you will of this, is still there. The left window still has that same cross framework. The lower right pane of that window is still cracked.

The gate is still the same.

The temple's guard--not the same one we talked to so many years ago--still doesn't know anything.

What's puzzling is, why is such a place uninhabited. By people, at least?

The house is next to a temple. Prime, prime, excruciatingly prime land. Holy land. Why is it empty? Why is it locked?

_______________
¹Let's go to the beach.
²Kulfi: call it ice-cream on a stick.
³Ice on a stick with a glass of multi-flavored non-alcoholic beverage.
⁴No idea, brother.
⁵None of them cared that someone had just said that very same thing a few days back.
⁶He said it in Marathi, but making footnotes for every translation gets mighty painful after a while.
⁷A Hindu god with an elephant's head and a man's fat body. A rat drives his wagon.

Cold Mountain

2005-10-22T12:52:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movie, Reviews

Set aside Cold Mountain's boring, predictable and oh so mainstream story, and you still have a flawed movie which occasionally hovers around greatness.

Yes, the first fifteen minutes are interesting; yes, they are quite bloody and dirty; yes, having so many people on the screen as opposed to 3D characters (vis a vis Lord of the Rings) makes interesting scenery; but it's all ruined when Inman (Jude Law) takes out Ada's (Nicole Kidman) picture then tucks it inside a book which, predictably burns. But, and also predictably, the photo does not.

Yes, Ruby's (Renee Zelwegger) character is smarmy enough to be likable, but it's tailor made for the Oscars, and Renee can't really act.

Yes, everything good they've said about this movie is great.

Here are a few things they haven't talked about.

There's a scene deep into the film where Inman has to drag around five dead men who're handcuffed to him. It's never clear why he's draggin them, although he's probably doing it to reach a dead guard's pocket, wherein lies the key to the handcuffs. The amount of effort it takes to drag so many men is neither downplayed nor overplayed. It's just right. It's not impossible, but it's no walk in the park.

The scene where Ruby's father, a musician, is almost shot, is also terribly cliche, but well executed. He plays a song which his killer sings with him. Then boom.¹

The scene where Ruby twists the cock's head, comic gold.

Also of special note is almost every scene of brutality--from walking on a pile of wood placed upon a woman's hands to undressing a soldier (Cillian Murphy in a completely underused cameo), letting him run away and then watch a woman (Natalie Portman in perhaps the only worthwhile role she'll ever have; that's not saying she actually portrays it well) shoot him--as well as the stark contrast of the costumes and the sets in almost every frame.

Giovanni Ribisi dragging a dead cow is also entertaining.

Jude Law gives a strong performance. Perhaps not one of the best ten or even twenty performances I have seen, but certainly stronger than either of his co-stars.³

And quite possibly the strongest moment of the film: Inman stumbles into a corn field. A group of negroes holding baskets of eggs passes by. He offers them a dollar for an egg, and tells them he means no harm. They eye him up, then walk away. These are no troubled yet ready to serve slaves. They don't want to kill all whites, but they're not about to help them if they don't have to. Of course, the director ruins it by having soldiers shoot the negroes not five seconds later.

Which is, I suppose, the trend with this film. Each time the films sets up a great scene, something cliche happens and ruins it.

Central to the film is a man's travel home to his love. Fine, dandy, Kay O, but check this: the woman he loves, the woman he suffers so much for, he's known her for about as much time as you know a character in one viewing of a half-hour sitcom.

Right after the scene where he drags his handcuffed corpses, he meets a mountain goat lady who patches him back up with weird forest drugs.

Ada gets a glimpse of the future in a magic well mirror.

And what about the letters she sends him? If I ever write lines like the ones she writes, I'll make sure I keep them locked up. Overtly sentimental, incorrigibly sappy, meant to tug at our emotions. They fail. Massively.

Nicole Kidman does a passable job of faking an accent. So does Renee. Jude fails. You just can't help noticing his British clippiness. It springs forth.

Inman's journey is also stale. Every possible predicament that could befall him does. From dead boatladies to snivelling, rotten conmen who, using the illusion of food and sex con Inman and his buddy.

More cliches: Inman gets more than one opportunity to have sex. Being quite the noshy young fellow, he totally denies it. Talk about principle, dude. Another cliche? Cillian Murphy's character who tries to go cover the baby, and the accompanying soldier who tries to rape Portman's character. For once, can't we see a group of soldiers who are completely ruthless? Why not show someone blowing the baby's head off? Cruel? You bet, but didn't that ever happen in war? If art is supposed to mirror life, if art is supposed to encompass everything that is human, every facet of our behavior, then isn't it only right that absolute savagery be portrayed too? Why does a soldier need to rape a woman? We've been shown a character who vehemently, as I said, denies offers of sex; so why can't we have a soldier who simply doesn't feel the need to rape every woman he sees?

More? Sure. But is there any merit in discussing them? I don't think so.

The biggest complaint I have with the movie is also, sadly, a director's way of creating a film that will cater to the brainless sap which comprises most of the cinema goers.

The story is about a lover's journey to his woman. Almost four years later. With only a kiss and about two hundred spoken words as the reason. Oh, sure, Inman declares he doesn't believe in the war's cause anymore, but that's just happy crappy.

So, scene: Jude Law walks home and his beloved Ada confronts him with a gun and commands him to turn around and leave. Cause, you know, he's grown a beard and she deosn't recognize him.

He turns around, shaken, completely unsure about what to do. He starts walking away, and then she recognizes him. Who knows how.

She shouts his name, and the camera zooms in tight over his face with Ada's silhouette blurred behind him.

He closes his eyes and...

Can you please say perfect ending shot? I don't know about you, but this is the point where the movie should end. It wouldn't make the movie great, but it'd make the movie a lot better.

Shirley Jackson, in her amazing The Haunting of Hill House, says, "Journeys end in lovers meeting."

Why didn't Anthony Minghella follow this simple but elegant rule?

Instead, we get a further half an hour where tremendous shit happens and Inman ends up dead. Uh, before that he sleeps with Ada. Once. Or maybe half a dozen times. And can you believe it, she gets pregnant! Isn't that novel?

Instead, we get an epilogue where everybody's happy and Ruby's father has escaped a total of three attempts on his life. Ruby appears to be a mother too.

Everybody's happy, except... what's the fucking point of watching almost two and a half hours of film where the guy we're supposed to root for dies? The point is, I don't care if he dies or lives. I don't care what comes after he meets Ada. That's the end for me. Everything else is just excess fat. Included only to please those who seek end of movie duels and happy people.

See, the duel scene, I knew, absolutely, positively knew that both blondie and Inman would die. No hesitation, no doubts.

But still, for a moment after blondie fell down and we focused on Inman, I started hoping that for once we wouldn't be fed another cliche. That Inman would live. How terribly stupid of me.

Should you watch this film? At least once. Absolutely. It's gorgeously filmed, and you will take some of the images with you when you leave. Just ignore the story and dialog. Hear the dialog to some other movie on your iPod⁴, if you prefer.

______________
¹Irritatingly, the father survives.²
²Also irritating is the way the killers find out that Ruby's father is a deserter. When father tries to fool the killers into thinking he's just a musician and not a deserter, the fat guy admonishes him and divulges all the information. how stupid is that? Even fictional idiots (which the fat guy obviously is) should have enough common sense to play along.
³Did you notice how similar Jude Law and Ewan McGregor look with beards?
⁴Did you check out the new video iPod yet?

Blog Search

2005-09-21T11:57:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Opinion

Blogger.com bloggers will be very happy with the new Blog Search on the Navbar. It actually works, google spiders through blogger blogs faster than before, and it shows you results almost immediately after you've posted a new post.

For all users who've been using third-party search engines like Bravenet and Technorati, you can now remove them. Me, I will hang on to Technorati search a little while longer.

I sense more important things from Technorati headed our way.

Why the Music Industry Cannot Stop mp3s

2005-09-17T14:03:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Music, Industry, Opinion

Music piracy is nothing new. We've been doing it since the recordable magnetic double-sided tape.

The difference between the old ways and mp3s is that mp3s do not degrade with each new copy. With a tape, once you reach the third generation of copies the songs sound dull and seem to come from another room. With mp3s, as long as they're originally encoded at a good enough bitrate from a good enough source, you're all set. There are minor problems with bass and high fidelity, but after getting to 172 kbps and above, those stop mattering as well.

That is one of the big three reasons why mp3s are so popular.

The second is easy shareablity, portability, transferrability. Thanks to a small file size, transferring a song takes virtually no time at all. Also, the transferred song is durable. As long as you have a copy of the file somewhere--and that somewhere is, of course, the internet--you needn't worry about losing that song.

The third reason is similar to the reason why amazon is so popular for books: you get the whole deal. Hard to find songs, hard to find artists, you get them here. And it's always waiting for you.

The music industry, though, just can't seem to understand that the reason why people prefer mp3s is not just that you can get them for free, but because mp3s are--compared to CDs--a terribly awesome format.

The problem with mp3s for the music industry, though, are the same as most of its benefits: most of its benefits are directly attributed to it being a computer file format. And computer files, by their very nature, by being software, exist in a medium that is literally free for all.

I have started downloading mp3s of almost all the audio cassettes--English, at least--I have collected over more than a decade. Think about it: carrying a hard drive the size of your palm beats carrying stacks of audio tapes any day.

Though a lot of those audio tapes have certain sentimental and nostalgic attachments, and though I certainly won't throw them away, if for no other reason than simply for the covers, mp3s--or more advanced encoders--are simply the way for music.

Is there a viable merger for the obviously unstoppable music sharing phenomenon and the music industry?

There is one, and I'll mention it last.

With the advent of the iPod and its general popularity, there is a chance that Apple and RIAA might enforce some sort of filter which would enable iTunes to detect ripped mp3s and delete them or lock them till they're bought.

But that would soon be made redundant by some company who creates a player which doesn't give a shit about copyright--pretty much like iPod is now.

What else can the music industry do? Perhaps they could provide mp3s on the AudioCD itself. They have done so with Springsteen's Devils and Dust, and it is certainly a welcome idea.

What else? Artists could go independent. George Michael offered all his songs as mp3s on his website. For no charge. Other artists offer their mp3s for some price.

But that's now. Once our current generation of recognized artists die away, then what? If artists sell their own songs, how can we know what is crap and what is not?

The music publishing industry works pretty much like the book publishing industry. How many online novels from anonymous, unheard of novelists have you read? How many did you like? Exactly.

When you're holding a published book in your hand--although certain bullshit like Dan Brown does pass through the publisher's hand--you have a certain assurance that the book has passed a level of approval.

How many self-published novels have you read? Exactly.

So, artists selling songs is not the future. Neither are CDs.

There's a debate going on about how CD sales are actually up since the mp3 boom, but any sort of hardware media device for music is going to die soon. People simply won't be bothered to carry CDs when they can lug all the music in the world in their shirt pocket.

Come on, which of these would you prefer to carry around on the bus: your laptop or your desktop PC? Exactly.

Similarly, video DVDs shall die too. Already we can download a DVD quality movie (a DivX rip) that is the size of a CD-R.

The only conventional format for arts that will not change is paper.

The Ebook revolution failed.

Big time.

Ebooks are still around, but most people simply prefer holding a paper book than reading off a screen. People like taking the book wherever they go. You might argue that palmtops provide a similar convenience, but still, reading off a screen just cannot beat reading off paper.

As simple as that.

Audiobooks are gaining popularity, sure, but they're an alternative to reading a book; not a substitute.

Audiobooks are perfect when you cannot read, or cannot find decent conditions to.

But audiobooks limit the reader's trip. They offer a version of the book filtered through the narrator's own interpretation of the words and the dialog.

Audiobooks are almost always offered in mp3 format, though, and that's the viable solution for music I mentioned earlier:

Make the music available only in a software file format. Discard CDs altogether.

If the music industry had made a deal via which buying mp3s was simply way too cheap to download free mp3s, we'd still have a viable solution. But they're not doing that. If, say, an mp3 album cost you as much as your newspaper, you'd feel ridiculous downloading for free. I would.

For every person who does not buy a ten dollar album, you will find ten people who will buy a dollar album.

It will even out. And, as I said, if it's cheap enough, people will simply feel too embarrassed to download illegal copies.

But of course, because the music industry is full of nincompoops, that's not gonna happen.

In the meantime, I feel absolutely no guilt downloading Frank Sinatra's oldies.

The Animatrix

2005-08-24T21:32:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movies, Opinion

Three things about The Animatrix, since you've heard the rest:

1. The animation--barring Final Flight of Osiris, which is in 3D--is top notch. You will be stunned the way you were the first time you saw Ghost in the Shell.

2. We finally get a decent enough--although hackneyed and predictable--answer about why the machines rebelled. It's something right out of Asimov. It fits. Stupid, but it fits.

3. But it still doesn't answer the question I consider the most important: what the hell do the machines want all that human energy for? Just to exist? What's the point in that? I mean, let's see: the reason the machines rebel is mostly to have equal rights; to co-exist. To be treated like human. But what are they doing with all the energy in a world where the prototype of humanity or society doesn't exist? They certainly aren't building playgrounds or schools. They certainly aren't playing cricket or football. So what are they doing? They don't look like they're doing any set job, either. I mean, they can't be producing stuff in a factory. Who'd use them? There are no consumers. T-1000 said in Terminator 3: Without a mission a robot's life would have no meaning. So what would the robot do? Shut itself off? On one level, it's all subtle: the robots are just an antfarm. They make energy and they spend it making more energy. But I don't think the Wachowski brothers work on subtle levels. Of course, the Matrix universe is pure pop-culture, and wasting time analyizing it is really not worth it, anyway. But still, even Stephen King's stories fit, don't they? The Matrix stories just don't.

I have a big complaint with The Matrix: Revolutions. Schultz from ruthlessreviews handles it better. Go check it out.

944mm

2005-08-07T13:28:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Nature, Disaster

On 26th July, 2005, the city wades through water a metre deep. To get home.

Kids swim outside my house. We don't have a swimming pool in our compound.

A world record: 944 mm of rainwater.

One night, and the city is washed back. This is the antonym of progress. Everything we knew--shops, clinics, marts, cars, lives--swept away. Like it happens in movies.

Water in foodgrain, sahib, useless. Throw it out. Bakery's shut down, no bread. I know, sir, but what can we do? What can we do?

Water in milk, sahib, cows and bulls drowned, sahib. Throw it out. Bury the carcass. Or let it rot; let it rot. Do not mock me, sahib, my dairy, my cowshed, my home, God took it away. Have you seen my daughter? She hasn't come home, sir. Can you help me out? Won't you help me out? I fed you milk, sahib. Won't you help me out?

On the street, dozens of wasted cars, bikes. Public transport a mess.

Trains derailed. People stranded.

And outside my house, kids sailing paper boats that barely last a minute before filling up with water.

No phones, can't call your folks to find out if they're okay.

No electricity, nothing to do. In the night, light a candle, but what's the use? What's the use? The wind blows it out. Close the windows, but the windows rattle and the glass may break, and that certainly won't do. So sit in the dark and sing and hum along with your mouth organ, but how can you sing? How can you hum? All alone, nary a clue where your father is; nary a clue what your mother will eat.

Cook some rice for dinner; the fridge is out. Eat plain rice with curd and salt.

Try to sleep, and that'll get you through the night; sleep always does.

But how can you sleep? Outside, cars drowned all the way, their burglar alarms going off, and why doesn't someone shut it off? Why doesn't the owner go down and shut it off? Nobody can shut it off; no one can risk his life.

Water in the clinic, sahib, water in the chemist's shop. No medicine. And if the stagnant water breeds disease, what can we do? What can we do?

God is angry, sahib. We shall sacrifice more goats. But how can we do that? So many of them have died already.

Water in homes, water in slums, water bursting out through gutters.

People walking home, falling down manholes they can't see.

Alligators in the water, someone says. Alligators, and snakes. Please, don't scare us any more than we already are. Please, beg you.

What about schoolchildren? Stuck in schools, safe at least, but how can you be sure?

I drive a rickshaw, sahib, but it is ruined now. What shall I do?

Fifteen children in my house, sahib, where do we sleep?

A corpse floated by me when I was trudging in the awful, awful mess. I didn't do anything, no one did anything, sahib. We just let it float by. What could we do? Where could we put it?

Why isn't the city equipped to take care of the rain, sahib? What do they do with our money? Where are the police, sahib? We haven't seen any of them outside. Where are the politicians, sahib? And why didn't the weather bureau warn us? If they did not see this coming, then what good are they? Why are they earning money for? What job are they doing?

My crop was ruined, sahib, all of my fields flooded. Why did this have to happen, sahib? What have I done wrong? What have we done wrong?

Bride and Prejudice

2005-07-23T11:27:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movies, Review

Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice is, I'm sorry to say, full of shit.

The biggest highlight of the film is Aishwarya Rai, who can't act to save her life, and does look way too dull and sleepy in some scenes, but still manages to keep you glued to the screen when she is on it.

Other than that, everything about it is wrong.

Let's begin with the beginning: American Dude goes to India, says it feels like New York, then they park in front of three cows and American Dude asks, "Where the hell have you brought me?"

As if you didn't already know India is a pile of stinking gobar gas.

After that you get to see a rich family with many daughters. It might as well have been an American family. It sure doesn't give much of a shit about spending money on gala weddings. This family participates in garba just as well as Punjabi bhangra. That's not how the families are in India; not even rich ones. The Mother--call her Big Mac--is your typical fat Indian mother who only wants to send her girls away. The whole arranged marriage deal is a sham.

You have four daughters: one dances and plays the sitar and sings--call her Singer; the second finds love during the Singer's marriage (or at least it seems she's getting married; don't ask me if she is)--call her Smitten--which kickstarts the story like so many overdone Bollywood tales; the third is a Hip Cool Rad totally now girl who stays up all night texting boys and wears revealing clothes--call her Hip Cool; and the fourth (our Ash) reads, takes pride in her country, wants to stay home to look after her father, and generally be the kind of girl a supposedly all-Indian guy would die to marry.

Yeah.

Can you say cliche? Perhaps you can't because you haven't been spoon-fed these same details in over ten thousand movies over and over again.

The father is a jolly fellow who loves Ash and is her best buddy and so forth.

These people have no jobs.

American Dude and companion (Balraj--the guy smitten by the sister) come to the marriage for a hitherto unspecified (and unimportant, as it is revealed later: the Dude's here to build a hotel in a long chain of global hotels) reason. American Dude sees Ash, and in grand Bolly tradition notices how beautiful she looks.

And then they differ in opinion: Ash gives patriotic speeches that her India is full of golden ducks.

She says the American Dude does not even know what the real India looks like. She says it's not just five-star hotels on beaches and stuff.

Well then fucking show me the real India. Duh! That's my biggest gripe with this film.

If you've read my previous entries, you'll know: people take a shit on roads; and then sleep in the same spot. And this happens in the biggest metropolitan city of the nation.

If you want to see real India, you'd do well to watch films like Split Wide Open, or better: Born into Brothels. Beware, though; Born into Brothels might break your heart. I know how this place is, and the film still broke mine a little.

So Ash and American Dude go to a beach in Goa¹ which is nothing like a beach in Goa and Ash plays a guitar to signify how "modernized" India is. We can play the guitar! Look at us! We read books! We're not b-ass-ackwards!

Those patriotic speeches piss me off. Each time Ash opens her mouth to speak about how American Dude and all Americans are crap, delusioned, and lousy pigs who only got lucky and how Indians are pure, pure, pure pearls washed in milk and honey, I feel like asking her to shut up and just look straight at us instead. That'd be value for money, at least.

So Ash and American Dude are pissed off at each other. Like any classic romance. Inspired by Pride and Prejudice, y'know.

There's another American (or Londoner) Ash meets in Goa, and they seem to click right off. This guy--call him Bloke--says all the right things: he says the rich don't really get to see the real India², and howdy do.

Ash being smitten and all invites Bloke to her place for garba and stuff.

Bloke says he sure will. It's Ash, for cryin' out loud! How could any guy refuse?

So Ash and her sister (who did wear swimsuits, sure, we're so modern!) come back home, and Big Mac has called some Indian export from America to select a bride.

It seems Big Mac and family is one big pool for foreign wannabe grooms.

This guy--call him Smoochie³--is all Americanized, likes Hip-Hop, and stuff. He tries to woo our lady Ash, but she's put off by his weird eating habits.

And he also doesn't look like Tom Cruise's nephew or anything.

He says he's very rich, but she's not interested. Her friend is, and we later find out her friend marries Smoochie. Plot, baby!

Bloke comes to Ash's place, and they sing-n-dance and piss American Dude off even more.

Bloke leaves promising he'll email (how modern! We know how to use MSN Explorer!), and before that Balraj leaves promising sister he'll email too.

Both never do.

But Bloke emails the Hip Cool sister. He wants a fast lay, or something.

Ash's friend and Smoochie invite Ash and three others to their marriage, and everyone except Dad and the Singer sister go to America. But they make a stop in London along the way to see Balraj, who isn't home.

Meanwhile we're shown a couple of scenes where Hip Cool sis meets with Bloke in a ferry or some such place.

Meanwhile American Dude happens to be traveling on the same plane as the foursome to America.

And I'm tired of the bullshit story.

Here's the one liner for the rest: They go to America, Bloke's bad intentions are revealed, Ash sees American Dude in a new light, and they get married.

Did all that happen in a little over two hours? You bet.

Did I mention the Singer Sister does a snake dance reminiscent of Sridevi in Nagina?

Did I mention how utterly disappointed I was with this film?

It was a crossover success, it seems. That's natural--for an audience who knows nothing of Bollywoo'd song-n-dance staple, Bride and Prejudice would feel fresh and new. But for someone who's grown on this stuff, grown over it, off it, and ultimately jumped off the wagon, it's a retarded waste of time.

Oh, that girl from Gilmore Girl makes a cameo. So does some other grandlady. There's loads of song-n-dance; the kind that makes me retch.

They even managed to make Ash look pale and plain a few times. Completely unforgivable.

__________________
¹Big Mac comments, "Balraj will get to see her in a bikini!" See? We ain't b-ass-ackwards! We don't mind our daughters wearing bikinis!
²That phrase, "real India" is getting on my nerves.
³For no particular reason.⁴
⁴And on a completely unrelated note: if you search for repeat telecast on yahoo, you get this blog as the first result.

Harry Potter Sucks!

2005-07-17T13:48:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Books, Harry Potter, Opinion

You'll hate me for this: Harry Potter sucks.

Of course, that is my opinion, and it doesn't have to be yours.

I have only read the first book in passing, so most of my opinion is biased on personal prejudice without even reading the full series, anyway.

Harry Potter sucks for a multitude of reasons:

1. It's written for kids, but it's not written for kids. Books like that always suck. Yes, even Stephen King's Eyes of the Dragon sucks.

2. The writing is just substandard. A wee bit better than Da Vinci Code, sure, but that's not saying much, is it? I can stand blocky writing as long as what's happening is intriguing enough; Neil Gaiman's work immediately comes to mind. Harry Potter is soulless, dull, monotonous, unexciting.

3. Harry Potter, the kid, the protagonist, is a dweeb. I can't, even on a superficial level, relate to him. Not even as a kid.

4. Hogwarts is bollocks. Quidditch is bollocks. Not one thing about the supposedly magical school is remotely enticing. Harry Potter's world is not half as interesting as Peter Straub's Shadowland--a far superior and highly underrated book on magicians by any standards.

5. Every huge monster presented is just a leftover from Lord of the Rings and Neverending Story.

6. I just don't care about anyone in the book. No one. I wouldn't mind if you hung them up on crosses and torched/electrocuted/drugged/tickled them to death.

7. Finally, I love kid's books. I'm not kidding. I still adore almost every fairy tale ever written. Cinderella's glass slipper still fascinates me. So does Sneezy and company. But Harry Potter just doesn't. I highly doubt if I would've been hooked to the series if I'd been a kid.

Really, read it as just a book and not something else: on a completely unsymbolic, plain story-for-sake-of-story level, and you just might find out how bland it really is. I could cough up a story like that in five minutes.

You might argue that it's still good entertainment, and I've got nothing against readnig only for entertainment. In fact, I abhor those pretentious boors who consider fiction as redundant and won't read anything that isn't Joyce or Pynchon or Delillo or Nabokov. Harry Potter doesn't entertain me. That's as plain as I can put it.

Reading through the first book I kept asking myself, why am I reading this? Why am I wasting my time? Why am I reading this when I could read something else?

I had no answer to coax me through.

And every brief synopsis about every sequel only assured me that I wasn't missing out on anything great.

Harry Potter may be getting people to read again, as John B. says here, and it's certainly a good thing, no doubt. For people who never read, Potter may certainly be a real treat for the imagination, but if Harry Potter is all they're reading, then that's a jolly shame.

London Burning

2005-07-08T09:32:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): London explosions

The thing is, I sympathize with those who lost their loved ones in the London blasts, but I can't quite find any shock in my heart at all.

A little grief, perhaps, that terrorism is still so rampant, but nothing else.

I've seen too many bomb blasts happen in my country to garner enough emotion. That's the simple truth.

After you've seen men burn people alive, I don't know, you tell me, just how much should I care about a bomb in a country so many, many, many days' journey away?

Make no mistake, I don't mean to sound like I'm pro-terrorism or anything. Any time someone loses his life through no direct consequence of his own actions--or aging--it's terrible.

And when the cause of death is man-made disaster it's especially more pungent than, say, a tsunami.

But--as I have said so many times--everything I can say about these blasts has been said before.

These blasts have been done before.

May the ones injured get well soon, may there be no more blasts.

But I find it rather hard to convince myself to find a lot of faith to support the latter. Sorry for sounding so goddamn pessimistic.

The X-Files Timeline

2005-07-07T19:08:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): TV

As a devout follower of all 9 seasons of X-Files, not to mention the movie, and endless internet research into all conspiracies and ideas presented on the show, I feel like an idiot not having even talked about it in my blog.

More than that, not linking to a site that has helped me sort the whole thing out countless times over--enough so that I actually saved all those webpages and printed them out.

It's a comprehensive timeline of each episode. Not an episode guide.

Check it out: The X-Files Timeline.

Don't be surprised if you feel like Cancer Man after you're done reading, though.

Live 8: Three Snapshots

2005-07-03T16:49:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Music, live8

By now you can get the veritable shitload of information on yesterday's Live8 concert. You'll only get three things here:

This Is What We Do

R.E.M. never fails to amaze. On a day when everyone else pitched messages about adding your name to the list, the blue paint-goggled baldy walked up to the mike, and said, "We are R.E.M. And this is what we do." It has to be the best opener I've heard.

And they proceeded to perform a truly rocking song.

I'm almost certain that baldy has faulty wiring somewhere inside, you see all those tics every time he performs--especially that blank, distant look. But who cares? They're musicians. And that's what they do, and do it very well.
#

The Who

Of all the bands who performed before them yesterday, none had the raw energy of The Who's performance. Bar none. Not even Robbie Wiliams' usually livewire performance came close.

The guitar playing was furious. Furious.

You could almost see charge pulsing through the crowd. The whole place went electric.

If you head to live8live's concert index, you'll find The Who aren't on London's list.

Certainly one of the best surprise concerts I've seen.
#

The Pigs Have Flown

Is what a crowd member wrote in big letters when Pink Floyd went on stage.

If you can't understand why someone would stay awake all night long just to watch Floyd perform together after so many years--especially if that someone only saw it on a TV--you probably don't know why someone would like Pink Floyd's music at all.

I stayed up till four in the night to watch them.

Yes, they're having a repeat telecast of the concert right now as I'm writing this, but it's recorded. It isn't live. Let's not get into the technicalities about how something shown on TV is never really live.

If you don't understand why someone would stay up all night to watch a band perform, you probably don't understand just what it means to see all four of them on stage together again--something I did not expect to see in my time.

Live8 may or may not succeed in changing the minds of those men, it may or may not change the future, it may or may not be future's important history regarding humanity, but it already has secured a place in the books for reuniting perhaps the greatest band of all time.

Boiler Room

2005-06-29T19:49:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movies, Review

The first thing that strike you when the credits roll is just how much better it was than what you were expecting, how much better it was than a complete disaster.

Is it a good movie? Certainly not.

Any movie with Ben Affleck apart from Good Will Hunting automatically gets three points removed out of, say, a total of ten.

Boiler Room uses one of the narration devices I like a lot. If used properly, the first person narrative works wonders, as you will see in Goodfellas--Scorsese's best, bar none. We begin Boiler Room with Giovanni's viewpoint, we view the whole movie from his viewpoint till the director completely screws it up by showing us scenes where Giovanni is not present.

You cannot break such a basic first person viewpoint rule, dumbass! Wannabe sreenplay writers and directors take note. I've seen it happen in film after film after film. Road to Perdition begins with the kid's narration, but shows scene after scene where the kid is not only not present, but scenes he doesn't even hear an account of from his father. And this coming from Sam Mendes is simply unforgivable. Perhaps the only film where breaking that rule is justified is Fight Club--and you'll agree with me upon why.

Boiler Room's soundtrack is unneccessarily hip.

The love angle with the black receptionist is just forced. So is the overblown guilt between father and son.

I don't know how accurate the depiction of a stock broker house is.

The story? Ribisi is the son of a judge, runs an illegal casino business in his house. When ol' Pop finds out about sonny's business he freaks out.

Ribisi, wanting his father's approval back, joins a stock firm, learns the ropes, becomes a broker. Fine and dandy. Daddy's happy his son's legit; son's happy he's gonna make his first million pretty soon, plus he's getting along just fine with the receptionist (who also had a relationship with Ribisi's friend earlier, the friend being the guy who got Ribisi into the firm--can you say triangle?).

Fine and dandy.

Then Ribisi finds out the firm is as illegal as his casino business. And then the FBI selects Ribisi of all people to help stop the crime. And Ribisi being the basically fundamentally good guy, agrees! And he walks free, unlike Liotta in Goodfellas!

Can you say totally expected?

Oh, and big ding: the film begins with the classic flashback device; which I truly abhor. Unless it's done the Carlito's Way way.

What the film lacks in substance, though, it makes up in style. And I don't mean style as in cool and urban et al. I despise those terms. No, the style comes through in the cinematography, the camera angles, the cocksure lighting which mirrors the cocksure attitude of the main players.

The only reason Ribisi is cast in films is to give hopes to basement nerds everywhere that you can look nerdy and still make it big. Which is a damn shame, because he is a pretty good actor. No Liam Neeson or Johnny Depp, this guy, but his performance is mostly believable.

Some of the dialog is pretty good. Some lines are stinkers, though. "I need some chocolate loving," Ribisi tells the receptionist when she asks if he needs anything.

You get the feeling you're not being suckered, though. There's no Shyamalanesque twist in the end. Which is a relief. Just a simple story which gets from point A to point B and leaves you there.

It's a film on stock, and it pays homage to both Wall Street and Ross. It openly admits it's stealing from both. Definitely wise, unlike Tarantino.

There are small things you can pick up: The first time we see Ribisi, he's wearing a Cunning Linguists T-shirt. A lot of sleek cars are on display. The film is a walking advertisment for menswear--pretty much like Fight Club.

One thing I particularly liked was that even after ol' Pop finds out about sonny's casino business, sonny doesn't shut it down. Pretty selfish, pretty 2000 AD, if you ask me. But then, as I said, they ruin it all by forcing the father-son dynamic toward the end: Ribisi tells the FBI he'll go on record and expose everything about the firm if his father walks free. Ribisi tells, "Jail would be worth it for that much."

Ain't that heroic?

So why'd I watch the film anyway, if it sucks so bad?

First, it's a no brainer. And after reading something like House of Leaves, not to mention every single thread about it on the forum, watching a no brainer is a, well, no brainer. You have to wind down, y'know.

Second, the film is laid back.

Third, Ben Affleck has much, much less screen time than even Saving Private Ryan, which is terrific news.

And lastly, any guy likes watching movies about an average joe getting rich.

It's a nice way to laze away a rainy afternoon when you're down with a cold.

(Did you notice how I skipped mentioning Vin Diesel altogether? That's how his presence is in the film.)

Losing Track

2005-06-24T20:36:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Opinion

You lose track of time.

When you're doing something you like, you lose track of everything else.

Three days of getting wet in the rain gives you a splendid cold. Runny nose, watery eyes, sore throat, the works. You can't sit at the computer for more than five minutes before you start crying alligator tears and rubbing the snot off your upper lip.

And yet, and yet when you load up Propellerheads' Reason to edit the song you finally managed to somehow add a final ending minute to yesterday, your eyes stop watering. And then the next time you look at the clock, an hour has passed.

This is what doing the thing you love does: it takes away everything else. When it's just you and that thing, it's just you and that thing. And nothing else.

The cure to misery, heartache, and pretty much everything is this: find an obsession.

Pink Floyd Shall Put You To Sleep?

2005-06-21T18:08:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Music, Opinion

This girl I know, she says she listens to Pink Floyd as bed time music. Like a lullaby.

When I ask her why, she says, "Oh, it's soft and not like metal."

Now I don't have a right to tell people what they should do or shouldn't, but categorizing Pink Floyd as bed time music (or New Age/Ambient, in other words) just doesn't sound right.

I wonder if she even hears the words. How, pray, can you go to sleep hearing words like "The lunatic is in my hall"? Words like "Mother do you think they'll try to break my balls"?

Words like "I need you, babe, to beat to a pulp on a Saturday night"?

Granted, perhaps I'm not the right guy to talk about Pink Floyd's lyrics. I've never really experienced the so called Teenage-Angst or depression. I do not relate to a lot of Floyd's lines.

I understand them, though. No, strike that, you can't really understand someone else's words. I can interpret their meanings, filtered through my own perceptions and prejudices. Where I'm from, you don't need to walk more than five minutes to find depression, dirt, filth, decay, excess, longing, seperation, shock, fatigue, helplessness, insanity, sadness, loss and loss of will.

I see parental abuse everyday.

My neighbor calls her son a madarchod haramzada¹ everyday.

All of which comes down to this: what I know of my world tells me that Pink Floyd is not music for celebration. Or sleeping.

Am I going to tell that girl all this?

No.

If she hasn't figured it out by now, I don't think anyone can make her.

__________________
¹Motherfucking bastard/fucktard/sonofabitch.

Hero

2005-06-17T15:11:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Film, Review

Yimou Zhang's Hero will be remembered for two things:

1. The cinematography, which beats Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's by far.

2. Jet Li in an A-film after a series of washouts.

The movie lacks soul. The story, while obviously important to Chinese culture, is not insipring. The characters are barren and devoid of everything that I could call human.

You know how the movie will end about an hour before it actually ends.

But none of that matters. For all of its 99 minutes, you're almost constantly mesmerised by the sheer visual prowess of it all.

In stark contrast, each scene seems to have a specific color. The characters wear clothes matching the color of the set. When it's blue, it's all blue. When it's red, it's all red.

I suspect the colors are meant to portray different emotions, but I'm no artist, so I have no clue.

There are a few goofy Chinese flying-through-the-air moments, a few fights which don't really take place, a few fights which are supposedly fought in the mind (using the Chinese Martial Arts equivalent of ESP, perhaps). Between them, though, there are quite a few arresting fights.

The kickass quotent may not be as high as Crouching Tiger or even any of Boss Bruce Lee's movies, but the fights are by no means dull.

What stays with you throughout, though, is the music. There are no pleasing, happy melodies here--the kind you hear in Lord of the Rings. The score is almost always sad. The undertones are always loss, longing. This film may end on a plea of hope, but its music provides none at all.

If you go watch this film then, do not expect to be overwhelmed by emotion. What will at times overwhelm you, though, is the combination of the right image accompanied with the right sound.

One scene to watch out for is the Army's attack. Those arrows, the sheer quantity of them is menacing.

Chimpanzee Jack 2

2005-06-15T13:45:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): People, Opinion

Part one here.

Ole Mike is free to abuse children again.

Did you think this case would go anywhere else?

That the jury would decide anything else but not guilty?

That this case is anything else but a publicity stunt?

I bet Ole Mike's gonna go on a world tour again. Promote a new album. A new diaper line. Heck, a new baby powder. Who knows?

Now that even paedophilia isn't a big enough crime, do we even need the charade of courtroom justice?

Shpongle

2005-06-10T13:59:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Music

I'm not one for the mainstream four on the floor trance scene. Never really liked techno.

Was about ready to disregard electronic music as a passing fad extinct before it was born.

Then I came across a site called psynews.org which introduced me to a facet of electronic music I, and most of the rest of the world hadn't heard.

It's called psychedelic; it borrows from Pink Floyd; it's mostly four on the floor.

Yes, it's four on the floor, but it's great.

Most psyheads hear it high on LSD.

I don't need LSD.

I've tripped out to Dark Side of the Moon too many times to be sure.

Tucked away in a little corner on psynews.org is a section called Chill-Out and Ambient music.

This is where you'll find Shpongle.

I don't know if it is even possible that a piece of music can completely change you, but it happened to me.

When I heard their first album, Are You Shpongled? I could not believe that such lush and beautiful--yes, beautiful--music could exist. More than that, I could not believe that two men and a few instruments could create such brilliance.

Shpongle is Simon Posford and Raja Ram. Both veterans of the psychedelic trance scene. Simon Posford is also famous in the psytrance scene as Hallucinogen.

You can't really see it when hearing Shpongle, though. The difference is as huge as pre and post-Roger Waters Pink Floyd.

Shpongle's music is so lush that it is really not possible to describe it in words.

I don't know how they did it, but their music perhaps assembles almost all the sounds in the vast soundscape that the human ear can pickup, and mixes all of it in a striking balance that to someone like me who has dabbled in music production, it is nothing short of a miracle. As a writer may want to someday write something like Joyce or Nabokov, I wonder if I could someday create music as fulfilling as Shpongle.

I said once that no one will really love something the way you do. And it is true. I cannot make you love this music as much as I do, but perhaps you could love it in your own way.

Shpongle's music cannot be categorized. It is ambient, but it is also not music you can go to sleep to. It has horror elements, it has elements of comedy.

One thing it does constantly is take you away. You close your eyes and hear And the Day Turned to Night, and you will be transported. Not in a I'm-so-high-I-can-fly way, but in a way any good book can transport you: you think of nothing else but the music.

One thing about it: it never gets old. I've heard Are You Shpongled for roughly three years now, and the songs still give me the same satisfaction.

When their second album, Tales of the Inexpressible came out, I rejoiced.

Was it as good as the first? Suffice to say it was.

Could it have been better? I don't honestly think so: you cannot top the very best there is, after all.

Tales... was a departure from Shpongle's psychedelic roots, and incorporated a lot of live instruments. Was it an overproduced World Music album, though? No sir. No way.

Their third album came out on the 6th June, and though I haven't yet heard it, I certainly will. It is supposedly their last. Which is fine. I doubt if I could take any more of such fascinating music.

Music which frankly makes everything else sound like dry coughing.

I love Shpongle's music. And I do not use the word love as often as almost everyone else.

Shpongle's music might very well be one of the very few human achievements I think are actually worthy. One of the very few achievements that define the very best of what we can accomplish.

Lord of the Rings - Not a Review

2005-05-31T20:09:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Books, Opinion

The best thing about J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is that it isn't anything else but a story and a world.

Sure, you can pick at it and find meaning, philosophy, ideals, but that's something you can do with anything. Even The Da Vinci Code.

Consider: Fellowship begins with a problem and the characters immediately set about solving it. No deep characterisation, no motives, no justification. Just hop-te-do, here we go to the wide world with hairy feet and unruly hair.

Two Towers sets up the stage for the grand finale. Return of the King gives us the finale.

There are things I don't like about the book--deus ex machina is almost gleefuly present, so is scruffy dialog.

But it does what it sets out to do: tell a story.

A good one, at that.

I don't know about you, but I don't really expect anything else from a novel.

Becoming a Man

2005-05-27T23:06:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Opinion

In Siberia, you become a man when you learn to capture and control reindeer. Or so TV says.

What did I do to pass from being a boy to a man?

What did you do?

Was there ever one single moment where you thought that this is where you leave the kid behind? That you are no longer what you were? Known Some Call Is Air Am?¹

As far as I can remember, I never had that specific jolt where I thought I would no longer be a kid.

To be very frank, I don't even remember what being a kid was like. I remember being a kid; I remember a few things I did when I was a kid. I don't remember what it felt like to be there.

Do you?

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¹I am not what I used to be. - Johnny Truant, House of Leaves.

Chimpanzee Jack

2005-05-24T14:39:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): People, Opinion

Just like you, I've been somewhat following the Jackson events with a morbid, amused, serves-you-right eye.

Here you have one of the richest, most famous--loved, even--people of all time screwing it up over and over and over again.

In my country, Jackson was a rage; one of the first English artists to find his way in the market.

I have a few good memories of trying to shake it like Jack on songs like Black or White and Jam.

I didn't have the net back then, and I didn't know he'd had his skin lightened. I didn't care. He had groovy beats and at least some of his words sounded okay--blame it on not hearing enough English music. If I'd known Pink Floyd before I knew Michael--let's not even think about that pleasant scenario.

The first shocker came when I saw a Michael Jackson documentary. His face, dammit. He'd screwed it up so bad that the only angle the cameraman could really use is one which didn't have Jackson's face in it.

His speech. That's exactly what it felt like; a kid reciting a memorized speech. Frankly, for the whole duration of the show, I couldn't figure out if I was hearing a man or a woman. Dad suggested it was something in between. We had a laugh over that, but I thought it's more than possible.

Here is a man who can live anywhere he wants, but creates his own Neverland. Okay, I don't think that's bad or even ridiculous, but all the money in the world and you still give us jackass comments like your deformed mouth and nose are the result of a disease and subsequent reconstructive surgery? Dude, please, they could've given you the most perfect jawbone and nose in the world, and they gave you this? I don't see how they could, unless you specifically asked for it.

I mean, come on, Celine Dion looks better than you! And I never thought she could be toppled from the top.

He does things like hanging his own kid outside a window for the media to see. Before that, he marries someone like... uh, no comment.

He gives us lie after lie after lie, and then when something like child molestation comes up he pleads innocence. And expects us to believe him.

The point is, it doesn't matter if I or anyone else believes Michael did it or not; he quite literally dug his own grave by doing everything he could've not done but did.

I often hear people say I'd give anything to be rich. Well, I wouldn't want to be Michael Jackson; not for all the money in the world.

You want to see an example of what a complete fuck up is? Michael Jackson is it.

Episode III

2005-05-22T18:53:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movies, Speculation, Star Wars

As of now, I may be only one on this planet who hasn't seen Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Strike that; I may be the only Star Wars fan who hasn't seen Episode III.

They say it's a good film. Nay, a great one. It doesn't suck as much as the other prequels. The press says George Lucas goes out with a bang. If this is his swan song, it's the best one he could write.

But if the critics are to be believed, then Bruckheimer is a genius. Ditto Michael Bay. Who are they?

Remember Bad Boys? Coyote Ugly? Those films are such a disgrace to cinema that I won't bother italicizing their names or providing IMDB links. They are not worth anybody's time.

I've heard Jar-Jar isn't in the film. That's as good a piece of news I want as any regarding this film.

Someone said Chewbacca makes an entry.

These things may be great, but what I really want to know is, does Lucas stray from the history of Episode IV, does he follow a straight narrative that ties up all loose ends and transitions smoothly into the original trilogy, or does he change a few things, deliberately introduces a few changes?

What I really want to know is not how good the film is, but whether it is actually neccessary in the Star Wars universe. Does watching it, in any way affect watching the original trilogy? Or does Episode III, like I and II stand alone by itself?

The Cow Who Came Back

2005-05-20T19:27:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Personal, Memory, Opinion

One of my earliest memories (perhaps the earliest) is of playing with the head of a cow.

A rubber cow with a cowbell. About the size of a man's fist.

You could squeeze it.

How old was I then? Nine months? Five years? I don't remember.

Years later I bought an Archie Comics Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic digest, and in one of its stories, an inter-dimensional cow head transports the four turtles to another dimension. That head pretty much resembled my memories of the squeezable cow, and when I first saw that comic book cow I had a flashback that was shocking in its exactness. I don't think I missed out on any detail in that flashback. I saw myself on my back squeezing the head. I remembered the smell of Jasmine flowers, though back when I was that child holding the head, I didn't know their name. I remembered soft light from a bulb, partially blocked by a wall.

The impact of that auditory, olfactory vision was so huge I began wondering, if one event can leave such a perfect imprint in your memory, then why can't every moment do so?

I read somewhere that when you say you don't remember something, it's because you never remembered it. You never really stored it. It didn't leave an imprint. You filtered it out; assigned it an unimportant status.

I think, though, that we cannot possibly filter anything out. We let everything in. We only filter our sense of recall. That is, we set our filter when we're looking for something in our databanks, not while we're storing something. I have no proof regarding this, at least not yet.

Where the mind is concerned, though, literally anything is possible.

Say Cheese!

2005-05-18T18:25:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movies, People, Speculation

One of the biggest reason the original Matrix works is because it neatly supports the idea of how the individual is greater than the pack. Just like The Truman Show, it places the fate of an entire population in a normal individual's hands.

The focus shifts from the decisions of an entire population to the decision--and the fate--of one man.

It is certainly an empowering thought that you could be the One. Heck, anyone could be the One.

But it is, in the grand tradition of developments in the novel, inherently narcissist. We are, after all, so completely possessed of and by ourselves. The camera is always on you, baby. And the camera is always on me, baby. I'm no different.

The point is, though, that nobody else really cares about you except yourself.

The point is that if you don't care about yourself, then, and only then, truly no one cares about yourself.

What I'm wondering about is, is this attitude beneficial to both the individual and society, or harmful?

On one hand is Osama Bin Laden who single handedly changed the fate of the world. On the other are both you and I.

Record

2005-05-15T13:15:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): History, Opinion

Nature and weather experts keep foretelling unbearable heat in the future because of the Green House effect. Melting Poles. Chaos.

Analysts predict that war and/or natural calamity might simply wipe off our race.

History suggests that an ice age is in the neighborhood.

History suggests that an extinction is also in the neighborhood.

They know all of this.

Then they accuse you of being a pessimist.

All of our politics, our tastes, our emotions, do they matter in the big picture? Do you know what a 7 year old kid who lived, say a hundred years ago, felt, liked, hated, wanted, in, say, Cape Hope? Not just any seven year old kid--we're not generalizing personal thought--but a specific one.

I don't.

If we know something of someone, it's because they left a record that was found.

You see, the desire to show your life might be typically narcissist, but without it, there would be no recorded history.

We don't think that what we do everyday--those small things like brushing your teeth with a toothbrush--are noteworthy, but I doubt if the Harappan civilization thought much about making clay pots. The knowledge that they did make pots is important to us future explorers, because we can, knowing that fact, form a suitable chronological progress line of technological advancements.

Who knows, the next sentient race after us might one day pick up your toothbrush from an excavation site and wonder what it is; then refer records--books, more importantly film--and place the object as a toothbrush.

The point is, we're never really sure if we're making history or just doodling our way to oblivion.

The point is, none of the races before us knew that, either; they still willingly or unconsciously left records. They had no idea if their records would survive--or at least that's my opinion--but leave footprints behind they did.

The point is, if they hadn't left anything, we wouldn't have found it. And that is a good enough reason to leave our own record. We might not live forever, but our essence--however tattered and unfinished and obliterated--just might.

Our future might be shaky, and we might not be able to do anything about it, but our future's history is in our hands.

Friday the Jason Xth

2005-05-13T21:02:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movies, Review, Horror

I don't even know why the original Friday the 13th was titled so. I haven't seen it. I've seen five sequels, although don't ask me which ones. It's kinda immaterial, isn't it?

Last Saturday I saw Jason X, which is more like Jason in Outer Space.¹

It begins in a top secret lab on some Mars-like planet where Jason is held captive. As the film's heroine will later tell us, they keep him there because he just can't die. They've tried everything, she says. From fire to knives to bullets to what have you.

And this is where I saw the first blooper. Why don't you just cut Jason into X pieces and store them in seperate platinum containers, or something? I don't remember watching any Friday the 13th sequel where anyone attempts this. Not one. Though once you find out he can't be killed, chopping him into pieces is the most logical option. To me, at least.

Anyway, as with all top secret facilities, things go wrong, and the heroine and Jason end up being frozen solid.

Cut to the future and a bunch of discoverers, uh, discover them. They bring them on their spaceship, which has a neat gizmo that can refabricate lost tissue and bone so you can lose all the limbs you want and still get 'em back. They drag the two frozen bodies to the spaceship.

Needless to say, a lot of random nonsense happens, and both the heroine and Jason wake up. There's a lot of random killing, and in the end Jason ends up at the bottom of an ocean/sea/river/lake. Only, this Jason is more Terminator than slasher.

Now, I am a self-confessed B-movie geek, but Jason X is just irritating. I suspect it's a prequel to more new, improved Terminator Jason sequels, but do we really need anymore of those? At least with me, if a metal man isn't Arnie, I'm not interested.

File this one under nonsense.

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¹In case you're wondering why I'm talking about a movie I saw a week back, check the date of this entry.

Profanity

2005-05-12T12:39:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): English, Opinion

John B.'s comment for this entry, combined with Johnny Truant's ramblings on the word "fuck" in House of Leaves got me thinking, where, exactly, does a profane word gain status as a profane word?

We all know that fuck is profane, and so is bastard, asshole, and so on and so forth, but why are they profane?

When a kid hears an adult say, "Shit!" or "Damn!" he's more than likely to repeat them in conversation. He doesn't know if they are profane or not. All he knows is that they are a part of the language adults speak (and therefore a part of the language he should speak), and they are expletives, used to express, perhaps, surprise, because that's the context in which an adult is most likely to speak those words.

It's only when a parent or a grownup admonishes the kid for using that word that the kid finds out that it's a bad word.

In a way, we learn about bad words just like we learn about every other word. We are taught. Just like we are taught what is good and what is not, what's right, what's wrong.

But who, originally, decided that fuck was a bad word? For that matter, who assigned fuck its original meaning?

You think about it for a while and you come to the conclusion that trying to trace a profane word's origin is really no different than trying to trace any word's origin.

What I'm wondering, then, is if profanity is as much a part of the language as any other, why is it so taboo? Why is profanity looked down upon when it is, after all, just another expression tool in the language?

Why, do we feel, that "use the toilet" or "push" is a more polite expression to use than "take a shit"? Why, exactly, when all three terms convey the same ultimate meaning, is one considered more appropriate and refined?

The Uninitiated's Guide to Douglas Adams

2005-05-11T18:14:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Books, Writers, Science Fiction, Humor

On this day in 2001, Douglas Adams, best known for his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books passed away.

Authors die, nothing new about that, but Douglas wasn't any author. He was the man who wrote the funniest lines I have read. His books showed us just how utterly insignificant we are, and then told us it's still okay.

If you haven't read his books, I suggest you do. His books are essential reading for almost everyone--except perhaps people who consider everything as an instruction book and would follow Arthur Dent's method of flying.

I've heard snippets of his book readings on the web, and if reading his books is funny, hearing him read them is hilarious.

So go read the Hitchhiker's Guide. And after that, read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. You might want to read his non-fiction after that; I haven't.

I heard that he died in the middle of a book, but I don't know if it's true. It's happened before with Isaac Asimov. Sad as it sounds, it could be a marketing strategy.

It doesn't matter, really.

I just hope he didn't have any more Marvin the Paranoid Android stories left to tell.

Oh, and remember to keep a towel handy when you're reading the books, just in case.

Also, if anyone has seen the movie based on the book, how is it?

Love

2005-05-10T20:55:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): English, Opinion

The way I see it, love is a terribly overused word and emotion. What we previously called adorable, we now love.

The things which we liked, we love them now.

This girl I know, she says, "I so love Blue! They're so cool, man!"

I ask her why she loves them.

"Because they're so cool! And their music is so, like, rad!"

I say, "Oh." Call it my prejudice, but I mostly abhor mainstream pop. Sometime later I ask her, "So what else do you love?"

She gives me a list I'd better not reproduce here. Not once does she mention her mother or her father. Not once does she mention her house, her life.

I'm not trying to pull her pigtails (not that she has any); what I'm saying is that love just doesn't mean what it once meant.

Just as genius has replaced brilliant, cock has replaced penis, I'll kill you has replaced Don't do that or I'll hurt you, love has replaced like.

What love meant is now, in a sense, wordless.

John Crowley wrote this little gem in his Engine Summer:

The sphere was solid with Plunkett, and only waited for someone to be in; like, like the meaning of a word waiting for a word to be the meaning of.

As of now, the way I see it, love and Plunkett share the same fate.

The Dove Who Used My House

2005-05-09T18:46:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Personal, Memory, People, Birds

A black dove fluttered into our house once, and got stuck in the gap between the sofa's backrest and the wall.

I wasn't as strong then as I am now, so I couldn't pull the sofa and release the bird. I tried shaking the sofa nevertheless, shouted random shit at the bird. It didn't budge.

I wasted some time deciding what to do, then took a stick and prodded the bird.

Worked like a gem.

The bird flew out as if someone had shoved a hot poker up its ass, and after it came unstuck, it flew from one wall to another, resting on a cupboard, resting on a chair, finally resting on a table where it released piles of dove-shit. Must've been scared out of its skull.

I felt like twisting its neck watching him ruin the table on which we ate our food. Don't tell me you've never had such impulses before.

What I did instead is prod it with the stick again. It flew out the window.

I cleaned the shit, but didn't eat on that table that night.

Where I live, crows and doves shit anywhere and everywhere. The roads are littered with white splatters, the cars all have multiple spots, you can't walk under a tree without looking up all the time.

Where I'm from, cows and dogs shit in the street.

Where I'm from, people shit in the street.

Where I'm from, people shit on rail tracks, watching trains zip past them on a parallel track.

Perhaps the bird was from another country.

How else do you explain why it shat in a house?

Frailty - A Non-Christian Review

2005-05-08T12:26:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movies, Review, Horror

Bill Paxton's Frailty works, and not because it portrays the most ruthless depiction of God yet, but because it shows us just how willing we are to believe something, even if we don't understand it.

Frailty begins with newspaper clippings of a series of murders commited by a serial killer dubbed as the God's Hand killer.

The FBI officer in charge of the God's Hand case (Powers Booth) gets called to the FBI HQ in Dallas. Someone (Matthew McConaughey in a surprisingly good performance), he's told, has some information to give about the God's Hand killer.

The FBI agent meets this man who introduces himself as Fenton. Fenton tells him the killer is his brother, Adam. Fenton then proceeds to recount the crimes of his father, and as he narrates, we move into a flashback, where most of the movie is told. This is a classic cinema technique I don't like, but the film actually necessitates the flashback device.

In the flashback, we see a single parent family: a Father (Bill Paxton) and two kids. One of those kids (the younger, Adam) is blond, the other (Fenton) has black hair. The father is not a worthless drunk who beats his kids everyday; rather, he is the role model for all good fathers. He does his job, eats meals with his kids, imparts knowledge and wisdom without forcing it down their throats, gives them enough freedom to pursue their childhood wanderings.

The boys are also, in a sense, perfect.

They have a perfect little house just behind a pretty garden (called the Rose Garden; a sure symbol if there ever was one).

Like all horror films, though, this perfection does not last long.

One night, Father wakes the kids up and tells them he had a dream. The angels, he says, told him that damnation is near, and that there are demons walking among humans on Earth. He tells them the angels--and God--have a job for him and his family: hunt those demons down. He says God will give him weapons and a list of names to hunt down.

Adam believes his father outright, while Fenton finds it hard, if not impossible to believe.

Father gets the weapons--an axe, a pipe, two gloves.

The way he gets these weapons is interesing, and although the scenes portraying this break the very first rule of first person narration (we see scenes where Fenton or Adam are not present, only Father is), it's forgivable because it's interesting.

Father gets a list in the next few days, and when he shows the list to the boys, Adam says he got a list too. Father reprimands Adam, saying his list is fake, and that Father's list is the only true list of demons. Fenton mentions that the names on the list are names of people. Father tells them (though not in the exact same words) those demons hide inside people

Soon, they start kidnapping demons, bringing them to a newly built cellar (of sorts), and kill them there. Father says that when he touches those demons, he can see the evil in them.

After killing the demons, Father and the kids--Fenton reluctantly--bury the bodies in the Rose Garden.

There are a few more twists and turns, but the basic gist of the whole movie is this: we're never sure if Father is indeed having those visions and is literally God's Hand, or if he's merely delusional and just a serial killer.

When Fenton just can't bear it, he complains to a police officer, and Father kills the officer, and then weeps that because of Fenton he has killed a man. Someone who was not on the list. Which tells us that Father believes that the ones he killed were demons. Completely believes.

For this outrage, Father locks Fenton in the cellar without food or water for many days and tells him to pray till he sees the truth.

We learn that God told Father that Fenton is a demon too, but Father chooses not to believe that.

After a while, hungry, weary, thirsty, tired, almost delirous, Fenton says that he does see the truth--the light. Although we get the distinct impression that he lies just to get some food and water in his belly again.

To celebrate this, Father hands the axe to Fenton and tells him to kill the next demon when they bring him into the cellar. Fenton kills Father instead. The demon doesn't live, though. Adam kills him.

We come back to the present where Fenton leads the FBI agent to the Rose Gardens. And though this is a question we should ask the first time we see young Fenton, it is only now that I think of it: why does the adult Fenton have blond hair?

The film reveals the big twist at the end where we find out that Matthew is not Fenton, but Adam. That Fenton really was a demon, and Adam killed him. And also the FBI agent is also a demon who killed his own mother. Adam kills the agent.

The film veers towards the idea that both Father and Adam really are God's Hands. The very last scene of the film--Adam, who is really a Sheriff, shaking hands with an FBI agent and telling him he's a good man (the handshake implies that what Father said about touching hands and sensing evil is true)--specifically underlines this.

But it's more interesting to look at it as an open question.

Most serial killers are, after all, somewhat delusional.

With what authority can we, or anyone say that one delusion is delusion and another is an honest sign from God or anything else?

The real question this film poses is what I talk about in this entry. Self-Persuasion.

It also talks about somethng else though: the human spirit--for lack of a better word--is frail, after all, it tells us.

Is there a chance that Father passed the delusion to Adam? Yes there is. You tell yourself a lie long enough and the lie becomes your truth. You tell someone else a lie long enough and if he trusts you, it becomes his lie and his truth.

Frailty is, by far, the best film about God I have seen. It is also one of the finest films made about the human psyche.

Religous organisations may balk at this film because it conveniently wipes off almost every reassurance religion makes: that God is kind, God is just, God will not make you suffer the way he made his Son suffer.

Frailty's God is not only merciless, he is cruel.

But above all these threads, what stays with us--or at least with me--when the film is over is doubt and mild unease, both intermingled.

Doubts about religion. More crimes have been commited in the name of religion than anything else. We even see some of these as right. We justify some of these murders.

But just how sure can we be that our path is right? That unlike Frailty's ambiguity, our God is really guiding us?

How can we be sure that it's not all just mass dementia?

For a mainstream film to deal with so many ideas and still be an engaging experience, it's a very big feat, and no surprise at all that the film never made it big.

Watch this film. It will, at the very least, intrigue you.

Self-Persuasion1

2005-05-06T20:41:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Psychology, Opinion

Remember that old tale about the sour grapes? It's one of the most important insights into life. We believe what we want to believe. If need be, we can make anything mean anything.

The ostrich is not an idiot because when it buries its head under the ground it thinks no one can see it. Because it can't see anyone or anything.

The ostrich is an idiot because not does it merely think so, it believes the fact. Because the fact--however stupid it may be--suits the bird's current need.

Are we any different?

The Germans believed Hitler. And I can only speculate whether it was because he promised them things they so obviously wanted or because they just wanted someone or something to believe in.

When you believe your lie, it doesn't matter if they push you through a lie detector test, shoot you up the ol' wazoo on drugs, torture you to neverland. If you believe your lie, it doesn't change.

Fanatics like Bin Laden don't--nay, can't see the folly of their ways simply because they know without a doubt they are right, and their cause is just, and everyone else is wrong.

And why go to these extreme examples? We do it everyday. The TV tells us a million lies and we buy them all--not because we're monkeys, but because those lies suit our needs.

All of advertising is built upon this concept: a suitable lie.

You see an actor or a sportstar endorsing footwear, and... are those Nikes you're wearing? Adidas, perhaps? If not, then surely Reeboks, right?

You think you can be that sportstar. That might be true, you might be, could be, but then you'd be a minority. How many of us who wear Nikes will be sportstars? And yet, do we not, almost unconsciously, believe we will? At least when we're kids?

Don't tell me you never thought that you could be Superman even though everyone told you that wasn't possible.

A friend of mine tells me how they're learning Suggestive Agreement in his marketing course. What they're learning is to persuade costumers into buying their product.

I told him that that isn't possible. I told him that at most what they could do--strike that, what they do--is help a costumer persuade himself.

If you let a costumer think that it's okay to believe that a certain product--a lipstick--will really make her look like a model, if you do it just right, she'll believe it, because everyone wants to look pretty. You didn't convince her, she convinced herself. You only egged her on, pushed her. She would've bought and believed the shit anyway, you only helped her by feeding it in a spoon.

They say you can't make anyone do anything in hypnosis that he won't do otherwise. Well if you can't make anyone do something they won't in hypnosis--which is as submissive as a mind gets--how can you do so when that person is awake and aware?

_____________________
¹For a basic course in what persuasion is according to psychology, visit Steve's Primer of Practical Persuasion and Influence. It's written in a language that someone who knows nothing of psychology or has at best a layman's knowledge (like me) would understand.

Opinion

2005-05-05T12:59:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Psychology, Opinion

You take anything, anything at all, and there are always two opinions about it. You're either pro, or against.

Abortion, say. The new world says it give us the right and freedom to choose. The old world says we're goin' straight to hell, fella.

You can't not have an opinion about anything. That's the way it goes. You can choose to keep your opinion to yourself, sure, but you can't just not care.

I might not, for example, give much of a damn about a certain book, a painting, a movie, a song. You might.

Does that make the particular book or painting or movie or song a bad one? Why?

A good one? Why?

Many disagree with me, but whether that particular book or movie is good is immaterial. What matters is how many people are of the opinion that it is good, or bad.

I, for example, detest Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, but does that make it a bad book?

The bestseller lists prove otherwise, don't they? According to the masses, the book is a massive success, a good book.

Is the book art? I most definitely don't think so. But does what I think matter if I am a minority (which is the case here)? In a population like ours, it probably does not, at least as long as I don't have an influential voice.¹

I don't like some of the so called "great arts"² either. Does that make them any lesser works? The distinction here is that for me, it does. It may not for society.

I may consider something as art, and society might not. Which one of us is right? From my viewpoint, I am; from society's, it is.

Individual opinion is almost never encouraged--especially if it does not match your own opinion. When was the last time you didn't like a film and then heard someone say he liked it and you didn't wonder what exactly could anyone like about that film?

When you find a few people who share your opinion, who also happen to have an influential voice, then that opinion--not your opinion, but your collective opinion--becomes a majority opinion. And then, the individual who does not share that opinion has no worth; or at least, his opinion does not. The distinction here is that his opinion becomes worthless to the majority, not to him, personally. Because personal opinion is hard to change.

We might change our opinions on things once in a while, sure, I'm not saying we don't, but unless we do so from simple observation and logical evolving and reasoning, we do not like to.

You might not agree with me on any of this, and that is just your opinion.

None of us is neccessarily more right than the other. You're not wrong, and I'm not right.

______________
¹Influential voice here means one or all of these: fame, money, political pull, religous pull, critical, mass-media pull.

²Let's not talk about how exactly they came to be recognized as great works; at least for the time being.

Masque

2005-05-02T21:04:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Internet, Blogging

Behind the mask of anonymity, I could say anything. I can pretend I am a woman. I can pretend I'm an actor. A sportsman. A rock star. Someone in the biz.

When you're anonymous, you can be anyone you want.

I choose to be what I am in reality. Why? Simple: pretending I'm something I'm not will not get me jack shit. If I tell you I'm flying in a private jet getting a lap dance from, oh, I don't know, Heidi Klum, and that I'm also conducting a big business deal simultaneously as I type this entry, will it change anything? Will it ease my sleep? Will I be happier? If I told you I have a nine inch dick, what will it accomplish? Liars prosper, sure, but only those who project their lies with the right amount of cunning to the right group of people. Telling you lies will not get both of us anything.

Where I'm from, pretending you are something you're not is not a hobby, it's human nature. Projecting an image of being who you want to be instead of striving to be what you want to be is the norm.

Am I saying I've never lied? Absolutely not. Am I saying I've never lied for my profit? Absolutely not. But I do both as infrequently as I can.

You can build up this whole new person on the internet, you know. Someone who is nothing like who you are.

Or you can be what you are in real life, and use what you are to further yourself.

I choose the second path.

The first one sounds tempting, especially because it is so easy, but maintaining an alter-ego needs a lot of hard work, a lot of concentration. As Pink Floyd say, one slip, and down the hole we fall. Like a house of cards.

I'd rather use all that concentration and hard work doing something that would help me in the life I already live.

I will still keep things out of this blog¹, but everything that is inside it will be fact and truth as I know it.

_______________
¹You'll have noticed that so far this place hasn't been a blog at all. I'm mostly omnipresent. You don't know, for example, what I do, where I'm from--something that you learn almost immediately elsewhere. Is there a reason behind this deliberate anonymity? Does it matter? This has been said before, but the answer to that is this: you have to figure it out for yourself.²

²For those who mailed: I'm no guru. The writing in this blog has been, to some extent, tangential and obtuse and deliberately scruffy. I was only being careful, you know, before wading new waters. I still am being careful.

The Past History

2005-04-23T21:04:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): History, Opinion

There's a certain reassurance in history. We men have survived even after the most outrageous atrocities a species could commit. The reason for this, I think, is that these atrocities were never commited the world over; they were localized phenomena. Consider World War II. It never went to the Indian subcontinent. It never reached the poles. The biggest diseases, the biggest contagious outrages rarely crossed continents.¹

There's a certain awe in history. We men have created some truly spectacular wonders. Whether these creations were technological proliferations, artistic endeavors, architectural marvels, or a combination thereof is immaterial. That they were created and many of them are still more or less intact is most certainly not. We humans, it tells us, are capable of preserving wonders.

There's a certain mystery in history. Nobody knows the exact origin of the Egyptian civilization. Nobody knows the reason behind the Pyramids, or why they are aligned to the stars. Nobody knows why there exist lines carved in the scorching deserts--lines that form patterns visible only when seen from a considerable distance up in the sky. Patterns like the shape of a scorpion, a monkey.²

There are many patterns in history. When they say history repeats itself, they are not kidding. When I say everything has been done before, I'm not trying to pound philosophy in your brain. The evidence is clearly there in your history book.

You will find almost astounding similarities between any invasion. Take Napoleon's invasion, take Hitler's. Take the Mughal invasion of India. Ditto British. Each one of them share similar traits, and those traits are in turn similar to the ones found in an ant invasion of a termite colony.

History predicts the present. History predicts the future.

What we know of history is only infinitesimally smaller than what we don't know.³

We can choose to ignore history, but that would be the path of the fool.

The path to anonymity. To inconsequence.

To extinction.
_______________
¹AIDS is not contagious. It is transmissible, but it does not spread through air or water.

²We still don't know why an ancient civilization made patterns which could not be deciphered from the ground. Especially since that was an age when even hot air balloons were unheard of. Signs for Gods? Aliens? Speculation rages on and on, but no one answer is more appropriate than another.

³Which is, in turn, infinitesimally smaller than what we don't know of. These facts are buried so deep we may never uncover them, they may already be destroyed beyond redemption.

Man on the Moon

2005-03-31T17:37:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Opinion

The last time the future gave us any hope was when man landed on the moon. The undoable had been done. Perhaps this was as far as humanity was supposed to go, because everything has gone downhill from there.

The biggest event of the 20th century will not be a natural or man made disaster which took many lives. It will be a man in a suit jumping around a gray desert.

They say we--each of us--make history with every step we take. History stopped paying attention after the moon.

Nothing, you see, can top it. When I found out the first time that yeah, we really did make it to the moon, I felt small. I felt there were many things that I didn't know about. I felt that if we had made it to the moon then surely perhaps maybe possibly we also made it elsewhere. The center of the Earth perhaps. The Sun. Who knows?

Was I disappointed to know we hadn't? Did Dodos go extinct?

Once you've had sex, great body draining sex, masturbation feels like eating an M&M instead of a chocolate cake.

It's like that.

Someone died? No big deal. We made it to the moon! Top that!

Nanotech, huh? Pooh-pooh. We made it to the moon! Top that!

Solar cells? Solar cars? Computers, huh? 4 Ghz, you say? MP3? Bridges? Airplanes? Disneyland? Earthquakes? Tsunami, huh? Train wreck? We made it to the fucking moon! Top that, you asshole.

Nothing really surprises anyone anymore.

Information

2005-03-01T20:21:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Internet, Opinion

The internet is a maze. The real underbelly always hides away in some unexplored alley. You can search for it, but not with the conventional tools. Everything you want to know is out there, but it does not want to be found.

You can abuse the net, like most do. Porn, music, movies, it's all out there to abuse as much as you like.

But the one thing that is perhaps the biggest and most underused part of the internet is information.

And then too, not all information is available everywhere. There are many nooks and crannies, many different tools to help you, but they will only help you if you know how to use them.

Some information will still be unfound. You will search for it, search for a way to search for it, jump from server to server, page to page, following leads, following blanks.

You will need ten lifetimes to see every single piece of information there is. You will need to do this since conception. And then, when ten lifetimes are over, the internet would be ten times as huge.

Hyperlinked web pages, http, ftp; they're all the front face of the net. The real work gets done using mostly unknown channels like Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Newsgroups. Using dead protocols like Shell, using text parsed program feeds.

What you know about the internet--music, movies, software, porn, business--what you know amounts to nothing compared to what you don't know.

You want to know how to break locks? It's out there. How to kill without any evidence? It's there.

Harmless, painless, comfortable suicide? It's there.

How to make your own TV.

How to get a bigger penis.

How to crack any piece of software.

How to kill hardware.

How to create a prosthetic, fully-functional robot with six degrees of freedom.

How to make a fake passport. A fake visa.

Fake money.

It's all out there.

It does not want to be found.

Imagined: Experienced

2005-02-15T17:04:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Personal, Memory, Nostalgia

This kid, playing with his friends in the backyard, thinks he knows everything about everything. They're all scattered on the tree, sitting on its branches, curled around its bark, swinging from its creepers. This kid, he absolutely believes he's the by-God king of the fucking world. No doubt about it. No sir.

He's sitting at one of the top branches, legs dangling, munching roasted peanuts.

Below him, one of the kids is singing a song which really says this: My train meets your train and we crash and hey! Happy days are here!

This kid, the king of the world, he has just found out the other meaning of cock.

The other meaning of pussy.

He's about to tell his friends, and about to make absolutely certain that they think he's the king, too.

"Say," the only girl in the group says, "I gotta get home." She plops down from her branch, and then leaves.

This is the moment. It's just the boys now, and the kid can share it all.

He opens his mouth, and then can't say anything, because right then, the shadow is upon the tree. It wasn't there a moment back, the kid can assure you; the shadow just crept up like it always does.

He looks down at the other kids, but they seem to have gone far away, as if they're on the lowest branch of a fifty feet tall tree and he's on the very top.

Above him, in the mess of leaves, there is a big, red thing sliding at him.

Someone is talking to him; he doesn't understand who or what. He cannot make out the words.

Someone is grabbing his arm, pulling him... up? Down? Where? He doesn't know.

That red thing up there is zoning in on him.

The air suddenly smells ugly, raw; puke-air.

He cannot feel the branch between his legs. His hands seem to be frozen.

That strange speech gets louder, and louder, and then it gets so loud the kid snaps his hands over his ears and shuts his eyes tight.

Someone says, "Hey, come on! You wanna live here forever?"

The kid, the king of the world, opens his eyes and there is no shadow. No red thing. No puke-air smell. This is just the ordinary summer afternoon it was before the... what? Daydream? Daymare?

Someone says, "Come on, let's go break some windows!"

The kid just jumps from his branch, clings on to a creeper--Tarzan style--and lands on his feet with practised steadiness.

When we are kids, we're all insane. We all see things that aren't ~~really~~ there.

Some kids grow up. Some don't.

Tastes

2005-02-06T13:54:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Movies, Music, Books, Opinion

You try to define life. To find reason.

You look around yourself and what you see depends on what you want to see. If sadness filters your thoughts, it filters your vision.

Everything around you is different for everyone else. Nobody really shares your point of view. Nobody ever will.

The things you like, no one will like them the way you do. The books which consume you, they will not engulf anyone else in the same way. The movies which move you, the songs that resonate forever in your memory, they are never the same for everyone else.

Everything you feel about everything you like is your own to possess. Where everything else is a copy of a copy of a copy, your tastes are yours alone.

Your tastes are who you are. What you are. The only difference between you and the past, the present, the future.

That is the only reason of existence. The definition of life. Why we are here.

All of this has been said before, but your tastes are yours alone. And taste is one of the reasons of this place. The one thing which renders this place apart from everything else. The only thing which renders everything apart from everything else.

The only difference between you and I.

What belongs, what doesn't

2005-02-05T19:24:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Opinion

This place is not a commercial. You do not have to buy anything.

You do not have to accept or agree or refuse or deny.

This is a perspective. A point of view. A point of origin. A point of failure.

A point of singularity.

Blasphemy isn't allowed here.

Lies aren't welcome here.

Perfection doesn't belong here.

This is a question. This might be an answer. The answer may be wrong. The answer may be a question. The question may be the answer.

You do not know everything. We do not know everything. Omnipotence doesn't live here.

This place sounds too rigid, too dry, too pretentious.

And yet, pretense does not ~~consciously~~ belong here.

We've all done the things that have been done before. We will always do the things that have been done before.

The I-guy behind this place, ~~the author~~, does not claim to know anything. Nothing he says or does is new. Nothing you read here will make you money. Nothing you read here will get you laid.

This place is an unfinished house. There may be a bed here; the plumbing might not work.

This is not a castle. Not a kingdom.

Everything you read here might be true. Everything you read here might be false. But lies aren't, ~~repeat~~, aren't welcome here.

The first lie that isn't welcome here is everything about me that isn't true. How I look, where I'm from, what I do; those lies stay out. Those lies do not matter.

The first truth that isn't available here--~~for a while, at least~~--is everything about me that is true. How I look, where I'm from, what I do; those truths stay hidden. Those truths don't matter.

The first question that doesn't have an answer here is my sanity.

The first question that does have an answer here is the point of this blog. The point of this blog has been said before. In other blogs. By other people.

The first question that is answered in another is this: am I wasting your time? The answer is this: do you feel like I am?

Repeat

2005-02-04T18:23:00.000+05:30

Technorati Tag(s): Opinion

Everything you read here has been said before. Nothing is of any consequence.

Everything you read here has happened before. To someone else.

Every one you read about here has lived before. Died before.

The air you're breathing, someone else breathed it before you did. Before we did.

Every single thing you've done has happened before. You've taken a piss, you've had your lunch, you've slept, you've betrayed, you've fought, you've hated, you've loved. Someone has done it before you.

The movies you see, they're a copy. The songs you hear, they're a copy. The books you've read, they're all old stories.

Everything, ~~repeat~~, everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.

It's all recorded.

~~Repeat~~, recorded.

The present has been done before. The future has been done before.

Everything you have read here has been said before. Nothing, ~~repeat~~, nothing is of any consequence.