They just have some of the most singable songs out
there. Some of my favorites memories
are from being in a car belting out the numbers with my sisters with the windows
open ( this was pre-air-conditioners in cars!)
A lot of their numbers are fast but some of my
favorite are the slow ones
It definitely has attraction but is
it physical or mental?
Does it have be both or can it be either/or?
Some movies, books about people corresponding
through letters - is that also true love? Is there something like true love or
is it only true till it lasts?
So here they scan brains in love - they are
seriously different from Normal functioning brains - so we do know it's true-
that your brain is changed
It's also true that most couples don't retain
that state of brain into the relationship - the beginning is always way more
euphoric and frankly it's like a brain addicted!!!
But this study actually shows a couple of couples
( do pardon the pun) who have
that feeling even after 25 years together!
Who doesn't love the idea of love? Or being in
love? I do however think it is way over emphasized in the culture now a days -
I mean the love between couples. Love as a whole can never be over emphasized -
it covers way too much - feeling for parents, kids, family, friends, activities
etc etc etc etc
I think doing the right thing - whatever it means
for you - is important too.
Nobody else can decide for us what we think is
the right thing as it will always be different for different people.
And sometimes what may appear to be the right
thing isn't and vice versa.
Where do you draw the line between finding
happiness and doing right by yourself and providing happiness and doing right
by others?
This is pretty much comics part deux. My favorite
comic series are the Fables
by Bill Willingham (
one of the best Comic creators- ever!!).
The premise is basically that some characters
from our favorite fairy tales like snow white etc have been in exile from fable
land since the 1700s and have been living in new York since. In plain sight but
disguised among us non magical non fable Mundy's (A bit like Once Upon a
Time- but totally different- WAY better) At war with the guy who exiled them. Super super
fun and frankly it is FABULOUS!!! Some of the main characters are of all the
options - the big bad wolf and snow white for two!!,
I really am not doing justice to the series -
but try them!
When I think about it - I think it's so great
that people can make a good livelihood doing something like this - writing and
illustrating Comics. How and when did it occur to them to choose this as a
profession?
Coming from India I was actually quite limited
in my thoughts. Saw only the standard options. I'm sure if I had thought of
something cool I could have pursued it but coming from where I did - it just
didn't occur
I think that's one great thing about the USA- You
can seriously pretty much follow your dreams and if you are good in whatever it
is that you are pursuing you can make a living off it.
Also in the USA though there is a lot of
materialism there are SOOOOOOO many people who have options and still pursue
career choices that will never make lots and lots of money - like teaching
kids, or social work etc. But I know so many wonderful people who have done
just this and so well!!
I find that a lot of people in the USA really
get passionate about what they like and really follow it- like running, crafts
or whatever it is. One way of gauging if a society is like this to see the
number of specialty stores they have and the USA have them in all genres!
Another society like this is the Japanese.
So a lot of my exposure to the Japanese society
is through their ............... COMICS!!!
Japanese comics are called Manga. Now a lot of people
associate manga with porn. While some of it is (because it can be sold with
less restrictions as it drawn and not photos) - most of it is not. There are
many many genres within manga called Shonen, Shoujo etc etc aimed from
Pre teens to teens to grown men and women.
Some of my favorites have been (They have mostly
had Anime and Movies made from
them) I actually really dislike Anime- the voices are so squeaky and the
movements so jerky- it sort of takes the coolness out of the story. I won't
even get into Cosplay and
all the other things that have come out of Manga!!
Nodame Cantible- meant
of teenagers. About classical music and a prodigy
Skip
Beat- meant for tweens - about this girl who gets into acting to win the
love of her life- or so she thought.
One
Piece- for pre-teen tween boys - about - what else - pirates! Yo ho ho - the pirates
life for me.
Fullmetal Alchemist- Fantasy for Tween Boys- all about fighting- has the 7 sins in it- as people!!
They can run into 20 - 25 volumes! Thankfully
the public library close to me has them - they can be quite expensive as a
hobby otherwise
Anyway - from them it really seems like People
get very passionate about one thing and dedicate their lives to it.
Another thing that sort of proves this is the
documentary "Jiro
dreams of Sushi"
Very interesting award winning documentary. Obviously about sushi! - duh
About a guy called Jiro who had a Michelin 3
star (the highest rating- probably the only restaurant without a private
bathroom to get it!!!)- restaurant and has spent over 70 years perfecting the
art of sushi and for him it is ART!
Worth a watch- This is a link by the makers- you
can watch the movie for $2.99 J
So I
love the comics genre- have since I was a kid. But what I knew as a kid - the Indian Indrajal
comics, Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle are as different from the genre I now
read, as chalk from cheese!
Since
the past nine years I have discovered the genre of comics written for the
grown person- definitely not for kids!
The stories are fabulous and the
art is too. One of my favorite books about the comic Industry was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Written
by Michael Chabon - loosely based on how the comic industry really evolved in
the US
His
real story is pretty cool too- he was a video store clerk (highly educated, intelligent and okay looking) - his now wife,
Ayelet Waldman, a high powered lawyer - would come in to rent movies.
Lalalalala they moved to LA - He sold a script. Both now authors. One Pulitzer prize. Many kids.
She got into a serious controversy as she said she would choose his life over
her kids as she loved him more!
Anyway
- that was so not what I wanted to write!!!
I
wanted to write about X men and Mr.Jackman!
So
this whole genre of superhero action movies is soooooooo cool. The
stunts themselves are so well executed!
In
this latest X-men - my two favorite scenes are the whole top of the train thing
and I just LOVE the Japanese martial arts genre. I love the whole double handed
samurai fighting thing ( Kill Bill 2 has some great scenes!). I blame it on having watched "The 36 chambers of
Shaolin" as a 10 year old!!! ( my strongest memory from that is
when he is balancing the two buckets of water on his shoulders and trying to
cross the water on the bobbing logs)
So if
you read the X-men comics - the X-men in it are nowhere near as sexy as the
movies. This is once when I love the movies a lot more - but given the hero -
how could I not! So in the comics - wolverine is short and stocky and looks
like a wolf. Seriously hirsute. But supposedly full of animal magnetism (presumably
pheromones)
So
thankfully they went in a different direction in the movies as Hugh jack man is
pretty cool as Wolverine.
But also
as an individual! He is such a confident person it's amazing. One
gets e feeling he is really comfortable in his own skin. Grew up
in Australia. Did TV. Broadway - can
sing and can seriously dance. Obviously
is a one of the biggest action figure icons of our time now. So look at this
image of him from X-men And
now watch this song!!! ( from a Broadway Play he did- sort of put him on the map)
His part starts from 45 seconds in-
GOLD PANTS!!!- need I say more??
It's
so sexy when someone can take themselves so not seriously! He is so confident
about himself and his masculinity that he portrays this character perfectly.(based on Peter Allen)
Another
thing not so well know about him is he dated and married a coworker from one of
his first shows. Who is 13 years his senior! They have been happily married for
17 years.And when she married
him she was the big star!
They
have adopted kids and people use this point to say she's his beard- seriously ??-
doubts about Hugh Jackman?
But even if it was true - SO WHAT?
Actually
apparently they had trouble conceiving and miscarriages etc.Frankly
I think people who adopt are super nice and super generous in soul and Actions.
My respect for them is tremendous.
You
know people find it so easy to speculate about the state of people's marriages
but I think the only two people who know how a relationship really is are the two
people who are in it!
Also
voyeurism has become such a socially acceptable pastime - hell - there is serious
money in it - trashy magazines, Facebook anyone?
That
boundaries are not observed at all - definitely not for celebrities and quite
often not for personal relationships too.
Now we
really have to decide what it is that we are comfortable with for ourselves in
terms of voyeuring and try to stick with that!
So
back to Mr.Jackman
To be
honest - I haven't liked too many of his other movies though have heard really
good things about Prisoners - on my playlist!
But
all the best to him - and may he make many more X-men movies :)
So I first watched this series through pirated
video cassettes (remember them?) that had been recorded in Pakistan and pirated
across to India all the way back in 1987!!
It was in 5 cassettes and the video library guy
would charge Rs.10 for each and we had to see and return them in 1 day! And the
whole family (minus my dad) would sit glued!
And it was worth it! Have watched the complete series at least 4 times!!!
The level of story and acting was wonderful.
The casting was wonderful too. Each and
every actor was good and appropriate for the role! So apparently that time in Pakistan they had a
group of actors directors etc who would make shows with very tight budget much
like NSD plays in Delhi, India now.
So let me fill you in with some stories behind
the show and also what happened to some of the people after. So let me start with who else - Ahmer Ansari!!
Urf- Rahat Kazmi
So in real life Rahat Kazmi was quite an
intellectual and had actually gotten through to the Pakistan IAS - which he
gave up for his love of acting- which is unheard of - then and now!!! He has done quite a lot in this field and actually in education too- is a principal at a college now!
He was married to Fellow thespian Sahira Kazmi- quite
gorgeous
She was actually the director of Dhoop Kinare!!!!
And apparently seriously scary! If you want to see them together see - Parchaiyan - based on "A portrait of a lady".Well done though I don't like the plot
- but that's just me.
So apparently she was so scary that - Dr Irfan
(Sajid
Hassan ) was seriously scared of her.
A funny incident was - if you have seen the
show Ahmer Ansari's hair suddenly changed tremendously half way through. It
looked really bad!!! The Story behind that is that Rahat Kazmi and Sajid
Hassan were bored and hanging out and they decided to give him a katora cut -
put a bowl on his head and cut around it.
As you can imagine his wife the director had a
heart attack!
The next person to talk about of course has to
be Dr Zoya Ali Khan (Marina Khan).
So she had a British mom and was a Pakistan air
force brat who actually couldn't even really speak Urdu
The real life Anji, (Kehkishan Awan) was a close friend
of hers and she was visiting her at a shoot and got offered a role. The
breakthrough role for her was Tanhaiyyan.
She even had a her own talk show for a while.
Even did a DK reunion on it- quite interesting! This is the link
Then
this song when they go on the field trip - a favorite. So click the link- it has the actual video- I am not being able to embed it though. The thing with DK is that is a sooooo subtle!
One of the things I appreciated most about Dhoop
Kinare, was that while being a romance (am a sucker for a good one) it was not
at all hysterical but well thought out. Well plotted and well executed.
Another interesting thing is, you know the
maid/surrogate mom Fazeelat Bibi (Azra Sherwani) - she was actually quite
sophisticated in real life- very often wore a sari!
So while in India it was traditional to wear a
sari and considered modern to wear a salwar kutra it was the opposite in
Pakistan and only the most modern women wore saris!
But if you think about it - saris are pretty
sexy. You have a huge strip of waist and back showing!
So apparently in ancient India they didn't even
have blouses! Seems to me it's trending that way again!
The whole culture used to be extremely
"open" till the advent of the Muslim culture.
I find the whole concept of shame (interms of clothes/clothing) is also very
interesting.
Man was obviously born naked. Then they started
Covering up and covering up. And now in so many different cultures and
religions, in fact in almost all of them, it's bad or shameful to show skin!
I mean - Why? What's so good about not showing
skin and what's so bad about showing it?
The whole thing about inciting inappropriate
thoughts - the ones who think it - does the abundance or lack of clothing
really make a difference to them?
I sometimes think it's just another thing people use to define themselves
and judge others.
I personally believe- to each his own- though of course if I see
someone scantily clad it does unfortunately still shock me! Alas the conditioning of society!
So my
introduction to this Sonata ( Beethoven's Violin Sonata No.9) was through a book called "An Equal Music" by
Vikram Seth.
In it, the
main character, who is a violinist, is
challenged to perfect this. Given my current fascination with the Violin music-
I of course immediately looked it up.
I had first read
this book 16 years ago- but hadn't understood a word or identified with or even
tried to identify any of the music.
Now - when
it makes a little more sense I have realized- this piece is wonderful- I found
a rendition by Nathan Milstein- have a listen. I could only find the 1st and
3rd movement by him. Have included a 2nd movement by another artist- here you
can see the difference in the quality of playing and the differences of how it
makes you feel while listening!
Other than
the music what is particularly interesting is the story behind the name and
also some events inspired by it!
So
apparently Beethoven was emotionally impressionable- kept falling in love with
many women ( he apparently fell in love with and wrote some music for almost
every female student!) Unfortunately, as for many musicians of that time- even
though they were sometimes geniuses, the women they met normally belonged to a
higher class so they weren't too successful with their romances. This was made
worse by the vagaries in their income as a lot of that was dependent on the
patronage of wealthy people. ( on a side note- artists almost always had that
burden to bear in the past- how horrible! Am so glad it is better now- or at least
I would like to think so!)
Anyway,
Beethoven had written this Violin Sonata- No 9. He had dedicated it to the
Violinist George Bridgewater. They even performed it together but after the
performance apparently Bridgewater insulted the morals of Beethoven's latest
fancy. Beethoven promptly changed the dedication to the most famous violinist
of that time , Rodolphe Kreutzer,
despite the fact that he didn't really care for Beethoven's music ( yes- people
like that existed)
This was
just a back drop- what I find interesting about this sonata- it is obviously extremely passionate- so much
so- it inspired Leo Tolstoy ( yes- THE Leo Tolstoy) to write a passionate
Novella about it!
The story
revolves around the music and feelings that develop between a married woman and
a violinist based on this music. And the husband's jealousy. I haven't read it
but it's supposed to be extremely misogynistic. And full of censorable scenes.
So much so that it was censored not only in Russia but America too!!!!!
You can
click here for a copy to read it if you want (not copyrighted!!)
It's just so interesting to me that Music written in
1803, inspired a Book in 1889, which inspired a painting in 1901 and a movie in
2008!!!
I also
wanted to talk a bit about Vikram Seth. I think he is soooo talented!
I read him
first at nineteen- "The Golden Gate"- I LOVED it!
So this is a
novel written in verse, based (kind of obviously- given its name) in San
Francisco.
It was not
only written in verse but had something called 590Onegin stanzas(sonnetswritten iniambic tetrameter, with the rhyme scheme following the unusualababccddeffegg pattern
ofEugene
Onegin). Frankly I can't figure out what all this
means but if you read the book each stanza has
the same number of sound breaks in every line. And that changes between
lines.
Have put in a few stanzas to give you the
flavor- from the beginning- so maybe not the best
To make a start more swift
and weighty,
Hail
Muse. Dear Reader, once upon A
time, say, circa 1980, There
lived a man. His name was John. Successful
in his field though only Twenty-six,
respected, lonely, One
evening as he walked across Golden
Gate Park, the ill-judged toss Of a
red frisbee almost brained him. He
thought, "Who'd gloat? Who would be glad? Would
anybody? " As it pained him, He
turned from this dispiriting theme To
ruminations less extreme. He
tuned his thoughts to electronic Circuitry.
This soothed his mind. He
left irregular (moronic) Sentimentality
behind. He
thought of or-gates and of and-gates, Of
ROMs, of nor-gates, and of nand-gates, Of
nanoseconds, megabytes, And
bits and nibbles… but as flights Of
silhouetted birds move cawing Across
the pine-serrated sky, Dragged
from his cove, not knowing why, He feels
an urgent riptide drawing Him
far out, where, caught in the kelp Of
loneliness, he cries for help.
So writing the story in this form had had to have been
seriously tough.
Does the author concentrate on the plot, or making sure the word count, sound break etc are as they should be?
What got to me what despite all the mastery of the English language that went into it- when I read it ( and I remember
this well) a quarter way into it- the story was so interesting I forgot it was
in verse!
This also was a big deal for me as, as soon
as I read it- I realized I could rhyme too!!! Extremely badly but this got me
started on writing and I have been trying since!
If you have never read any Vikram Seth- Try
this or even his collection of poems "All Ye who sleep tonight".
Frankly I couldn't get through "A Suitable boy"- it was super boring
for me- dropped it after reading 600 pages (it was 1000 pages looooooong)
Here's a small poem by Vikram Seth
Interpretation: Vikram Seth
Somewhere
within your loving look I sense,
Without the least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,
Somewhere within your heart the heart to leave.
When I hear
it I visualize the scene for this I imagine it in the 1940's (in black and
white) in a lounge with this sultry sexy brunette in a strapless gown crooning
into the microphone.
This is just
such a sassy, shameless song- I LOVE IT!
J'en connais tant tellement ça me
prend tout mon temps,
I know so many that it takes all my
time,
Et même ma maman qui m'adore
tendrement,
And even my mom who loves me dearly,
Elle me dit : "C'est pas bien,
ce n'est pas bon tout ce rien,
She tells me: "It isn't right,
it isn't good all this nothingness,
Reprends ton droit chemin..."
Go back on the straight and
narrow..."
J'en connais des superbes,
I know some beautiful,
Des bien-mûrs, des acerbes,
Some mature, some acerbic,
Des velus, des imberbes,
Some hairy, some beardless,
J'en connais des sublimes,
I know some sublime,
Des mendiants, des richissimes,
Some beggar, some very rich,
Des que la vie abîme...
Some that life damage...
J'en connais même tellement ça me
prend trop de temps,
I know so many it even takes too much
of my time
Et ma pauvre maman se dit en
soupirant,
And my poor mom tells herself with a
sigh,
"Qu'ais-je fait pour cela ?
Est-ce de ma faute à moi,
"What did I do to deserve this?
Is it my own fault,
Si ma fille est comme ça ?"
If my daughter acts like this?"
J'en connais dans chaque port,
I know some in every port,
Dans chaque Sud, dans chaque Nord,
In every South, in every North,
J'en connais sans efforts,
I know some without efforts,
J'en connais qui vont dire,
I know some who will say,
Que je suis bonne à maudire,
That I‘ve got to be damned,
Et moi ça me fait sourire...
And it just makes me smile...
This song is
so-"I know and I don't care how it looks and I still love it!" I think
it actually is her attitude to life!
So I liked
this song even before I read the lyrics translated. I think I have started
appreciating not understanding the words in music because so often if we like
or dislike the meaning that affects our feelings about the music.
Much like a good
looking person. Who suddenly becomes not so when they start talking!
Or someone
not so. Who becomes! (definitely prefer experiencing the latter!!)
Of course
Ms. Bruni doesn't need to deal with anything here. Gorgeous, talented in voice
and lyrics!
When you
hear her name , if you have heard her name and can recall it goes straight to
Nikolas Sarkozy's Girlfriend/Wife =
Model = naked photo controversy!
But she has
sooooooo much more to her!
So she is
one of those people who came from a very wealthy family- legal father and the
real father! (much like Mick Jagger and Liv Tyler. What is particularly ironic
here is that she actually had an affair with Mick Jagger!!! Eric Clapton too
but then who's name dropping?) Her personal life does not seem the nicest. I
have no issues with multiple partners but Father-Son - that’s just icky! I
don't want to focus on that but on her talent.
Anyway- at
20 she was one of the top 20 models worldwide. She has acted ( got nominated
for awards for her role in "Midnight in Paris") and of course her
music.
I heard the full album this song is from (Quelqu'un m'a dit: Someone told me). I do like it. I was on the lookout
for more French music that had a gentle flow to it after the Edith Piaf
"la Vie en rose" Hadn't found anything. This is very different but it
appeals. I will be hearing her other stuff too. The second album is poems by Good
authors set to music (No Promises)
Au Revoir
till next time. (Though you will be doing the seeing- I don't get to see you!)
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