Babel - Movie Review

Dhoom 2 was better.

A Dream Come True

NY 7th November 2006. Oh, to see II some day....

Shows

I'm sure there were more....what have I been doing with my time? Kurt Rosenwinkel w/ Tonhino Horta, Ben Street, Rodrigo Silva Donny McCaslin Quartet (Ben Monder, Scott Colley, Antonio Sanchez) Dave Fuzscinsky's KiF (Steve Jenkins, Skoota Warner) Bela Fleck and the Flecktones Paul Motian Quartet (Chris Potter, Kikuchi Masabumi, Larry Grenadier) L Subramaniam

My day

Each morning same story.

Wake up. Cock an eye at the clock.
Panic, then realise its not late at all, close eyeszzz.z....zzz.....

Open eyes, panic! It's late!
Rush, rush, brush, flush.
Pack laptop, pop tap locks, take helmet
 and bike past fellows well met
but who I don't like,
out the door and into the street.

Automatic doors slide aside and introduce you to the heat.
H E A T.

Murder by degrees as one rides,
alert and watchful with eagle eyes and bat ears to hear the shush,
the whispered breath of approaching death
in the form of a mom and Huey, Dewey and Louie
 in a big fuckoff SUV,
keeping cool on the way to school.

Sandwiches and traffic jams,
well behaved commuters mutter into cellphones that flip
and clack back with a whack.
Fast talking radio show hosts honor the ghosts
of the dead in Iraq.
Bluetooths blip plaints and curses through thin air,
the vapour pulses with despair.
A woman walks across the parking lot.
She is black.

Off the road and cutting short
through the parking lot
of the Nassau Coliseum (sic).

Acres of tarmac with the odd car parked,
baking,
the arena with names not its own
(but not on loan)
shimmers in a grey and white-lined bleak heat.
Freak street!

Fast cars blur the final curve,
the glass and steel mousewheel towers above.
The office.

Cool elevators serve rides and propaganda,
dinging the floors to the top.
Below, the freeway races non-stop,
like bubbles in a pipe.
Inside the blue light nothing seems right.
I wish I could disappear, drop out of sight
and just be by your side.

 And thats just how it starts, my day.

Obligatory Conspiracy Theory

Is this all just pure coincidence? http://www.patnadaily.com/news05/october/100605/bjp_leader_shot_at.html http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/22shot.htm Twice in six months? Sure sounds fishy to me....is someone trying to assasinate him? Who could it be? And for what earthly reason? At around the time of the Reliance Petroleum (that word again!) IPO? Could his brother be some sort of scapegoat in some bizarre high powered game of oil, share dealings and power? Does the Shivani Bhatnagar episode imply a pattern, a modus operandi? Is the brother mentally ill or not?

V for Vendetta - Movie Review

It's nice to see so many movies with a political message come out in the same year. Starting with Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana (I have newfound respect for George Clooney which will last I suppose until he too is co-opted by the liberal media) and now V for Vendetta - 1984 meets Batman. Of late I am turning into an anarchist. As the abuse of power grows around the world and the hard won freedoms of the last century are being eroded, I have less and less faith in political institutions like the State and the Military and pretty much all religious institutions. In the West, the future seems very uncertain. The US, especially, is in deep trouble. The President wants powers to arrest and detain without trial, to spy on the population and to wage war where he sees fit. It is a given that the State will try and assume such powers, that is the nature of power. What is worrying is the American people's acquiescence in these totalitarian plans. Reading rightwing blogs and watching the news and commentary, it is shocking (well, not really) how uniform the message is - give up your freedoms and we will protect you against those shadowy enemies of ours. Be patriotic. Honour the flag. Believe things that go against your own interests. Denounce your neighbours. No matter how much you believe in the goodness of your President, these are dangerous powers to return to the State. Without freedom, life really sucks. Rightwingers in the US as well as much of the UK media totally denounced the movie saying it is anti-American and glorifies terrorism. Both of these statements are true. Whether this makes the film reprehensible is another matter altogether. I would ask the patriotic Americans to remember all the things they said when the jackboots stop outside their door. So it was with a warm glow that I left V for Vendetta. It is a call to the people to stand up and protect their rights. Its message is one of cynicism - don't believe what you read in the papers. Don't believe the television news. Agreed, blowing things up isn't the right way to go about things either, but the basic message was fine. There is a lot of politics in this movie. I got the same feeling as I got while reading 1984. Orwell says in 1984 that 'perhaps the best books are those that tell you what you already know', and this movie definitely fell into that category. I have to admit that I am really impressed with the Wachowski Brothers. Their Matrix movie was an eye-opener for me, in the sense that I had never really spent much time thinking about the illusory nature of things. And V for Vendetta while it didn't inspire any new thoughts fell so neatly onto my current frame of mind that I was totally hooked. The film itself is flawed in many respects. The plot isn't really the best ever. There are too many diversions and subplots that end nowhere. However, I must say that the way the backstory is revealed is masterful. Hints and allusions give us some of the story at the start ('Her brother was at St Mary's', 'The former United States', etc) and the rest is revealed in a manner consistent with the fact that all the protagonists are intimately familiar with their recent history. Good science fiction is like that. V is complete fantasy of course. In the final analysis, this is a flawed but beautiful film. I put it right up there on my list. The final scene had me thinking about Gandhi and how he managed to mobilise the entire nation with the strength of his ideas. As V says - You cannot kill me for beneath this mask there is not flesh and blood but an idea and ideas are immortal. Having said that though, it's not like the film is going to change anything. The Wachowski's are the first to put out the thought in film that the US is headed for major trouble - civil unrest, civil war, civilisation crash - and the reaction is going to be 'Inpossible. The American economy is too strong. The country is too powerful.' (I'm quoting verbatim from one of my banker friends). In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond shows how most of the civilisations that ceased to exist did so soon after their peaks of population and power, and they collapsed hard due to having constructed such somplex societies that they could not adapt to changing circumstances. I believe that in the year 2000 and some double digit number, historians will look back and say 'But we knew this was going to happen....why did we let it go on?' C'est le human nature, mes amis. Anyways, when I got back I immediately checked the Tomatometer and I found one review which touches on nearly everything I thought about on the Tube back home including - wow, how did the studios agree to make this movie and what exactly did the Wachowskis have to do to get them to agree. It's the best review of the movie in my opinion. Read it here

Syriana - Movie Review

What a great film! Top writing, amazing production values and that certain je ne sais quois which imbues every frame with meaning far beyond it's 1/24th of a second would warrant. The film deals with the nasty politics and business of oil told from the viewpoints of pretty much everyone who's connected with it. From the oil men - both those in their suits and private jets to the contract worker on the rig - to the bankers to the politicians and the intelligence agencies to the Emirs who sit on the "world's greatest natural resource". The tagline "everything is connected" rings throughout the movie as we cut from scene to scene telling the stories of all these different people. The ruthless lawyers and oilmen, the Emirs with their hands tied by the awesome military and economic might of the United States, the conscienscious derivatives trader who befriends a progressive contender to the throne of some Middle Eastern emirate and Clooney, fat Clooney as the CIA man and the common-variety suicide bomber - they are all connected in this massive web of treachery and corruption ("Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain't nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That's Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around here instead of fighting each other for scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win."). The politics of the movie are put across subtly with no pandering to audience ignorance. Director Stephen Gaghan makes his point quietly. The production values were superb. What beautiful cinematography, pacing like a Kenyan marathon runner's and music just subtle enough to nudge you into the right mood. If you live in the real world, you must watch this movie.

Mike Stern Live at the Jazz Cafe

I hadn't been this excited about going to a show for a long time. I've been a fan of Mike Stern ever since I heard his album Play. Play was particularly important for me because it pulled me out of a long funk wherein I had completely stopped listening to music. Mike's weird bendy notes and long eloquent lines reminded me again what a joy a great album can be. Thus it was that I was all agog with anticipation when I went down to the Jazz Cafe with my old concert buddy to watch the Mike Stern Band. And did they blow me away? Sadly, not. Don't get me wrong, the show was great! It's just that the sound sucked and the drummer totally ruined the evening for me. So Mike's got this hot female drummer who is absolutely horrible. Yes, her nipples show when she sweats and her beautifully toned arms and flat abs are a treat to look at but come on - does she really have to hit that drum so goddamn hard each and every goddamn time? And when one sees Mike cuddling her and blowing little kisses into her ear, it just makes one upset you know, like if she were good it would have been okay but she's just a rank amateur....ah well. Also they played all the songs too fast and too loud. Listening now to my autographed CD of These Times I can't help but notice how much better the songs sound when played a bit slower and without such a loud rhythm section. Damn you woman! Mike has this way of making everything he plays seem so effortless. You're watching him play and you think hey, I could do that! That is part of his genius. He did a couple of tracks from Play a few from These Times and many more that I hadn't heard before (including a few from his upcoming album Who Let The Cats Out (aw Mike...c'mon!!)) Bob Franseschini was on sax and Chris Minh Doky on bass. Chris is the most awesome upright bassplayer I have seen in my life. He'd take these long complex runs down the fretboard and I swear he nailed every note bang on every time, time after time. Incredible. I'd seen Bob Franseschini one time before with Dave Weckl at this show and I think he looked a lot happier there. Mike's a real sweet guy but the vibe from the band wasn't great. I mean I'd be pissed as well if I'd had to put up with that drummer Kim Thompson. Mike is a real sweet guy. During the break he sold and signed the CDs himself and he was in such a good mood and he thanked everyone profusely for coming out and buying the CD. Apart from all that though it was a great evening. It was a real treat and I consider myself priveleged to have seen Mike Stern play from five feet away.

Larry Carlton Live at the Blue Note

My attorney has never been able to agree with the concept, often espoused by former drug users, that you can get a lot higher without drugs than you can with them. And frankly neither have I. Or should I say, had. Ever since this trip started I've been eschewing my daily smoke just because a break is good every now and then and besides the Americans have a totally unsophisticated approach to the possession of the odd leaf of happyweed. So imagine my surprise when one evening (the 30th of March to be precise) I find myself enjoying a drugless high. Larry was on that night and yes, he was in the mood for jazz. The band started with a nice version of Freddie Freeloader and then settled into a set of Larry's tunes. Larry played about six different guitars that night, alternating between ripping electric solos and more laid back acoustic pieces. The band was tight as a drum. Larry's son played bass and held a nice groove all evening. The drumming was top class, as were all the musicians really. Pure smooth-as-silk jazz at the Blue Note in NY. Life couldn't get better. And this is why one should write the reviews immediately after the show and not wait a week.

David Smith at the Guggenheim

David Smith was one of the leading abstract expressionist sculptors of America and is on display at the Guggenheim. I really liked his work, even though I have spent precious little time looking at sculptures and really have no specific tools to analyse or describe what I saw, but I will try anyways. To start with, the Guggenheim is an astonishing museum. Frank Lloyd Wright really knocked the ball out of the park with this one. It's a very strange feeling to be walking around looking at art only to suddenly realise that you are inside a piece of art yourself, making up the kaleidoscope of colours inside the totally stark white of the museum. The curving ramps interspersed with straightline columns make for some very interesting perspectives. At times one suddenly finds oneself on a balcony looking down at the crowds milling in some gallery or the other and it really makes the head spin. Wonderful. So there I was trying to take in and make sense of this whole David Smith thing when I see something that lightning-rodded the whole experience and turned it into electricity -

Interior (1956)
After that I was quite happy to walk along the curving staircase getting blown away by DS. Works of his that made an impression on me were 'The Letter', 'The Music of the Landscape' and the little one with colours in it. The exhibition was so wonderfully curated that not only did they present his works but also enough background info for one to get a sense of his mind and thought process. For example, they had a full room of his sketches. DS said that sculpting was too slow a process and in order that his ideas have a chance to flow freely, he would sketch incessantly. He had two studios, one for sketching during the day and another for sculpting into the night. Some of his 'sketches' though, are big huge drawings in his trademark sculpting style, hardly possible to call them sketches. They provided a huge insight into the mind of the man.
Study for Tanktotems In another room, they had his actual sketchbooks on display, with his notes and jottings and everything. DS also made a series of 'Medals of Dishonour' to express his anguish at the Spanish Civil War. With titles like 'Bombing of Civilian Populations' or 'The Clergy Cooperates' or 'Death by Gas', these are fiendish works in bronze depicting the ghastly scenes of children impaled on bombs, hospital ships singing, angels of death in gas masks. Hard core. In between this David Smith orgy, lie the Guggenheim's permanent collections, a wonderful way to cleanse the palate between courses at the David Smith buffet. I especially liked Picasso's 'Woman Ironing', Van Gogh's 'Viaduc' (made the other impressionists on display look like rank amateurs) and a huge one by Jackson Pollock - Seas of Grey I think it was called.

Rova Saxophone Quartet live at the Stone - Review

Full-power avant garde jazz. We got there late and the show finished early, so all we got to catch was a forty minute set and I say - thank God for small mercies. It's not that the music was bad, it's just that avant-garde music with it's bizarre tonalities and disdain for resolution can make one feel very uneasy indeed. The band was superb - two horn guys, a bassist, a cellist and a percussionist, playing floor drums and providing sparingly used samples and street sounds from his laptop. The bass player was playing this huge acoustic bass, an old battered and much loved instrument and he was thumping along and singing and smiling this huge smile. The cellist, a mad Eastern European looking man who slouched in his chair and made faces while playing, bounced these mad lines off of the bass line and the two of them seemed to be having the best time ever. The two saxophonists played some lovely atmospheric passages and some blistering solos which made no sense to me but which were, I suppose, avant garde gold. So the Rova saxophone quartet has four albums to its credit, each of the musicians is early middle-aged at the very least and there is no doubt that they have enough chops to send anyone packing, yet they played this tiny venue to twelve people and thanked everyone for coming and sharing the evening with them. This is what I loved most about the show.

Bike rides

This happened in January but I figure it's not too late to write about my bike ride to Goa and back, especially since I count these two rides as the best of my life and real formative experiences in my motorcycling life.

When Anoop and I did this trip last time en-route to Trivandrum, it took us two days to cover the 530 kms to Goa, so when I set off from Pune at about 8 am, I figured I'd reach Goa sometime the next day. The weather was just perfect - mild winter sun, clear blue skies, and the road was flat and smooth. I headed down NH4 at a good clip, stopping once for chai somewhere south of Satara. Further on, I took the Chiplun turn-off, a stunning crossing from NH-4 to NH-17 and reached Chiplun at lunchtime. Quick break for lunch and a reassesment of my itenerary revealed that if I pushed I might just reach Goa before the end of the day. So I pushed it like a maniac all the way down NH-17 until about 1630 hrs, when the fatigue started to kick in.

 I was really starting to fade and needed a break yet the urgency of reaching Goa remained. I decided against a break, instead figuring I'd ride the next hour or so at a comfortable 60kmph. No sooner had I slowed down than I was passed by a red Pulsar, similarly loaded with luggage (he wasn't bogged down by a paraglider though, lucky bastard) and clearly going my way. Perfect. I just follow. It was sweet, with the Pulsar clearing the way for me I could really relax and take some time to enjoy the ride too. About an hour afterwards I figured I'd relaxed for enough time and squeezed the throttle. As I passed my unknown benefactor I figured I'd give him a little wave, but we were on a turn and I couldn't see his face. No matter. A little further on I stopped for fuel. After tanking up I waited by the highway, smoking a cigarette, for the guy to pass, but he never did. Strange I thought. There was nowhere else to go. Anyways, I remembered his license plate number - MH04 CN 7147 - and figured I'd bump into him somewhere in Goa perhaps. I was already thinking of him as some sort of guardian angel who appeared when I needed him and then disappeared immediately afterwards.

I pushed on through the gathering gloom, crossing Sawantwadi in the dark. Getting into Goa in the dark is usually horrible with everyone on full high beam and speed almost impossible, yet on that day, there was almost zero traffic. In the end I reached my destination at 2030 hrs, a straight 12 and a half hour burn from Pune to Goa, with perhaps an hour spent on breaks. I was dog tired, but immensely happy. I'd done 560 kms (double my previous best) and made it to Goa in a single day. It was a rare achievement, and one of which I was inordinately proud. And imagine my surprise when the tripmeter (which I'd reset in Mumbai the previous day) read out my guardian angel's license plate number - 714.7 kms. Shocking coincidence? I think so.

Coming back was actually even better. I remember nothing of the ride. I set off late, 1122 hrs, and was suffering from a runny nose and stomach likewise, so I figured I'd reach Kolhapur by evening, then carry on to Pune the next day. Right after Sawantwadi, I took the Amboli ghat via Gadhinglaz and Sankeshwar. It's probably the shortest route from Goa and it was a happy accident for me to find it. At 1530 hrs, I was blowing past Kolhapur at 120 kph with a big smile on my face. Another four hours of high speed burn, and I was down Katraj ghat and in Pune at 1922 hrs - eight hours from Calangute to Pune. I was flush with endorphins and took about two days to come down from this ride, by far the best of my life. It was 420kms, a full 160 clicks shorter than the ride out. Before these two rides, I was of the take-it-slow and enjoy-the-ride variety, but now I find that these endurance tests, these marathon high-speed biking sessions are far more fulfilling.

XML-RPC Excel client for the NSE

I spent the afternoon writing an XML-RPC server and client in Excel for accessing the National Stock Exchange's order books. This is great if you want to just get the current bid and offer prices for various options or futures contracts in a portfolio. The RPC server scrapes the NSE site for the info and returns it as XML. The simple getquote() function in Excel is responsible for sending the request and returning the answer. The sample Excel sheet is at http://patang.org/projects/nse/XMLRPCOptionViewer.xls You might have to add a reference to the comxmlrpc library in the macro code. The library is available at http://comxmlrpc.sourceforge.net/. Right now the RPC server only returns the bid side quote. I'm working on making it return more comprehensive data. If you download and use the spreadsheet, please let me know.

2006!

Great news - Project Carpool is now on Sourceforge. Details here