Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

I use the word emoticons but

my navigator waves

a stern red line under it

and frowns.

It seems even emotions need

a grammar of their own

Blogbharti

My piece on Vikalp. In Blogbharti's new Spotlight Series.

Go read.

Pink Thoughts in a Pink Shade

Since the year-end list making time is upon us, I thought I'd avoid books and films in favour of flowers. Pink ones. All from, or near, our garden.

So, in order of appearance (I shouldn't have centered them. Sorry about that.): Tabibia, Balsam, what I used to think of as Periwinkle but now I know it isn't, Bauhunia, I don't know, Bougainvillea, ditto, a variety of Hibiscus that turns pink(er) as evening comes, Geranium, Tabibia (close up), Roses, Bougainvillea, Coleus, Frangipani, Rose, Tacoma, something with pink leaves, Coleus, Anthurium, Penta, Rose, Hibiscus, that thorny cactus like plant but hybridised for bigger flowers, Hibiscus, more pink leaves, Bouganvillea, a kind of Orchid, Impatiens, Bouganivillea.

Phew!

Oh - click for larger image.

Update: I find that it's tabibuia and tecoma. Who knew I had to have a Telugu accent to say the names of (some) flowers?

Genre Bending

This is hilarious!

But that's nothing compared to life at Sather & Stirling, where no one is quite what they seem and everybody has something to hide. Lois soon finds herself swept up in blackmail plots, missing persons, and sinister filing schemes, with a predatory boss and duplicitous co-workers, to boot. Armed only with her wits and her copy of the Standard Secretary's Desk Reference, Fourth Edition, Lois must prove that she has what it takes to make her way in the business world. But surely there's time for a little bit of love and self-discovery along the way?

That, my friends, is Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary. By someone called Monica Nolan. In other words, it's a real book.

I must confess, when I read the blog to which I've linked, I assumed that it was a joke. Which would have been more fun. A book that no one ever wrote, but which was so deliciously ripping-off and hoaxish...

Wherefore...

Writing Challenge! For the Holiday Season! Bring on the exclamations!!!

What you have to do is, take a genre - any genre - crime, romance, sci-fi, wild west, spy, kiddie, rom-com - heck, even porn, if you feel like - or any combination whereof (you could choose kiddie crime in space, for instance. But I would be enormously relieved if you left out any combination that included kids and porn) and bend it until it takes on weird and wonderful shapes.

What you write has to be the long blurb that tells you most of the story. And it shall be linked to here when it's done.

Enjoy!

Go

Go, the game, of which Kawabata said, "Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double entry accounting."

And this is the game he describes in his book Meijin.

I love complicated games so long as other people have to play them. Me - I fling the chess board and men the minute I'm beginning to lose. Which is usually five minutes into the game.

[Via Vitro Nasu, which is a blog I really like.]

*

Poetry with Pragati Day 1:

1. Anjum Hasan – Apparao Galleries -11.am
2. Vasantha Surya – Goethe Institute – 11.am
3. Anjum Hasan – Subway (Besant Nagar) – 4.30 pm
4. Vasantha Surya – The Park - 4.30 pm
5. Amadou Lamine Sall – Alliance Francaise – 6.30 pm

Amadou Lamine Sall, the Senegalese poet, has just been to Hyderabad. He will be inaugurating the PwP Festival this evening at The AFM, 24, College Road, Chennai.

Poetry with Prakriti: Chennai, 15th-30th December

The Prakriti Foundation is organising a Poetry Festival in Chennai starting tomorrow. Participating in Poetry with Prakriti are approximately 30 poets. Each poet will read at four different venues, over two days, making this the largest poetry event in the country to date. I think.

Venues include Fab India, art galleries, Cafe Coffee Days (this is the thing that really worries me. I've been to Caferati read meets at CCD's and they're not reader friendly), institutions and book stores.

The saddest thing about the festival, for me, is that I won't be there for the whole thing. Most poets, it turns out, are going to be there for the two days that they are reading and maybe one extra day. The exceptions are, of course, the poets from Chennai.

I would have liked to hear Anjum Hasan, Arundhati Subramaniam, Gieve Patel, Sukierhtarani, Kutti Revathi, Vasantha Surya, Meena Kandasamy, Sharanya Manivannan, Jeet Thayil, Tishani Doshi and Vivek Narayanan read. Old friend, Siddharth Menon will also be reading but on the same days I am, at different venues. What to do.

Which reminds me:

I am reading on the 28th and 29th of December. That's Friday and Saturday. At the moment, three of my four readings have been scheduled; the fourth venue is still uncertain.

All other details, including the schedule, (some) poets' bios and poems to be found on the Poetry with Prakriti site.

If you're in Chennai, come for at least one reading! And if you're a blogger I haven't met but have interacted with (and, well, even if I haven't), please come say hi there? I remember someone leaving frustratingly mysterious messages here after the Bangalore reading.

Glow Cat

Cats that glow in the dark.

And exactly how are they supposed to hunt at night if their prey can see them miles away? And how is this going to help 'endangered animals like tigers, leopards and wildcats' survive if they are cloned to look like phosphorescent ghosts?

Oh. I get it. All creatures great and small can run away screaming, thus leaving the big cats safe and starving.

Human ingenuity is a wonderful thing.

All Rights Reserved

Via Harriet this article by Wendy Cope in The Guardian, where she rails against the free availability of poetry - especially her poems - on the internet:

Often the offending websites are the responsibility of well-meaning enthusiasts, who have no idea that they are breaking the law. Neither do the people I meet every now and then who say: "I liked your poem so much that I sent copies of it to all my friends." I'm supposed to be pleased. I've learned to smile and say thank you and point out very politely that, strictly speaking, they shouldn't have done that. They should have told their friends to buy the book. Or bought it for them.

I sympathise, a little bit. Someone's written something that's taken them many years to put together and they most certainly don't want the whole made available to everyone without benefiting from the exchange in any way.

On the other hand, everyone who writes wants to be read and remembered, wants to 'enter the language', as A.E.Stallings says on Harriet:

I am sure she is legally correct. But at the same time an internet chat board or blog or list serv is not an anthology out to make money. It is a conversation. Is not dialogue impoverished without recourse to quotation? Without being well-versed? Does not such quotation, when properly credited as to its source, constitute fair use? (though I imagine that is a legal concept that varies from country to country...) Imagine what it would do to poetry dialogue on the web if we hesitated to use real life examples.

People talk about poetry because they love it. To make every discussion of poetry pay-per-view is to make it invisible. And god knows, it's seen little enough as it is. Surely it can only benefit the poet to have her work where it's available?

I'd like to agree with Stalling when she says that if people read a few poems they like, they're more likely to buy the book. Then I remember the woman who wanted to 'go through my book' and return it, instead of buying it; I'm reminded of the Paterson book I xeroxed and sent to Equivocal because not only was a second copy of the book not available, it would have been unaffordable to buy two copies when the one could be xeroxed and shared.

Does someone lose out by it? It depends on what you call loss. Sure, someone did not make a few bucks on a sale. But they had one more person - perhaps more - who read their poetry.

Wendy Cope might be indignant at the money she might be losing but it seems frankly stupid to worry about who makes a few bucks once you're dead. Unless we're willing to put the production of art on an exact and equal footing with other kinds of products, it seems futile to think of it's worth only in monetary terms.

Non omnes moriar and all that.

Avatar with Rosemarino and Garlic

I'm talking about Roberto Benigni in Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law. I like him better here than when he's shouting buon giorno principessa! and climbing over chairs to grab at golden statuettes.

Watch. And I'll be back with a longish post tomorrow.

In which Spaniard is comforted by Quan Tick

It is only now, after more than ten rather stressful days, that I can say with caution that things ain't all bad. In other words, I can sit around and begin to feel sorry for myself for missing the film festival.

Thinking about all the great films I'm missing, and determined to put salt on my wounds, I looked for news of what was happening in Trivandrum. I admit I was not looking for comfort. I had thought it would be roses, roses all the way for those attending the opening and I could settle down to half an hour of deep envy.

Instead I find India Glitz determined to make me crack a smile.

12th International Film Festival of Kerala will feature the retrospectives of world famous film makers Pedro Almodovar and Quan Tick. The Almodovar package will feature 13 films of the famous director which includes all his important works like Law of desire, Labyrinth of passions, Talk to her, Volver, Women in the verge of a nervous breakdown, Bad education, all about her mother, high heels, Flower of my secret, What I have done to deserve this?, Live flesh, Dark habits and Kika.

Quan Tick, the first of the Korean directors to bring the country's cinema to the world market will also be having a retro which will feature his eight films. This will be the first time; Quan Tick is having a retro in any of the festivals in India.

Who is Quan Tick, you might ask. Don't. Just enjoy the punctuation. I feel like my grandfather who used to read Churchill's dubious histories for the sheer pleasure of the language.