études

BBC had aired Leonard Cohen's Live in London concert (2008-09) some weeks back and I had a great time watching him perform – especially the fantastic opening song "Lover Lover Lover" (video from the Bratislava concert of the same tour here). Some time before this, I had picked up his book, Death of a lady's man, a collection of poetry and prose. But I just couldn't read beyond 7-8 pieces. I don't think his poems as such will work for me as much as they do when set to music. For the record, I don't listen to Cohen just for the words. I love the tunes and of course, his singing.

While on the topic of words, prose, poetry etc., I must mention that I absolutely enjoyed reading Aseem Kaul's études, a collection of (very) short fiction, much like the author's blog posts. I am not sure whether the contents of the book were previously published on his blog, though the formats of some stories are strikingly similar. There are some cheesy pieces here and there, but by and large it is full of imaginative, metaphorical, stunning poetic gems. In fact, this book worked for me better than Cohen's.
Read the Mint review here.

A Boy named "Sue"

I wonder why a male singer would cover a song which has a female protagonist in first person, and vice versa. In some cases they adjust the lyrics to take care of the gender references – like changing “I’m your lady” to “you’re my lady” (Power of love, not sure which one is the original) etc.

Two brilliant covers I heard recently that doesn't take the pain (well, it’s not possible in these cases) to do a "gender flip":

Rosanne Cash – Long black veil (a live version here)

The White stripes– Jolene (Jack White sings Jolene Jolene.. pls don’t take my man, heh! Heard it on Sound Opinions)

The same old tune

“Genius borrows nobly. Art is theft. Good poets borrow; great poets steal. James Joyce said, “I am quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors-and-paste man.” Who owns the words? We all do, though not all of us know it yet. Art is not a patent office. It’s a conversation between and among artists.”

That was David Shields, in the introduction to his post on NYT’s Living with music blog series. I don’t agree with him on this, as you know there is so much art out there which is absolutely original... like...er, I don’t know. His playlist, however, is very interesting – a list of recyled/sampled music.

Achiever.

My Salinger tribute

Last week, I read at least 10 JD Salinger tributes.
Two of them worth linking: Salil Thripathi writes A world full of phoneys, in his Mint column, stating that Indrajith, a character from a Bengali play is our very own Holden (for me this could be perhaps Agastya Sen from English, August, although in a different way and slightly grown up). American movie writer Kim Morgan lists six movies which could have been influenced by The Catcher in the Rye.

Apart from changing my life etc. (another loser, eh?), the book induced in me this wonderful pastime of spotting phoneys around me. At work, in the pub, in media... everywhere. I also started appreciating people who were not. If I had kept a list, I could have made it into Holden’s Hall of Shame (phoneys), and Fame.

Two striking figures from the recent past from Indian media that comes to my mind now, for the Holden's Hall of Fame - people who chose NOT to be phoney:

Anil Kapoor: For just being himself at the Globes and the Oscars and immensely enjoying every moment than being conscious about the celebrities around him and the etiquettes. Each time Slumdog won, he was shouting and cheering- even if he had whistled desi-style, it would not have been out of place!

Kavita Karkare: For courageously ignoring societal pressure and rewriting the clichéd image of the Indian widow, at the funeral of Mr. Karkare.

In a society where grief over death is rarely a private practice, where formalised mourning rituals encourage families and communities to survive loss by reliving it through loud expressions, where bereaved women are expected to wear white and look distraught, Kavita Karkare refused to mount her sorrow publicly.
Dressed in a red and light brown sari, a small bindi on her forehead, a red bangle on one of her arms, her hair neatly combed, she projected an image of forbearance that badly needs to be registered in our collective consciousness as dark fears surround us. (Outlook, Dec 2008)

But for those who hated Holden, maybe I should just shut up and take a Prozac.

Society, you’re a crazy breed
Hope you are not lonely, without me.
(Into the Wild, Vedder/Hannen 2007)

RJ clichés

Often heard on the radio after a song: that was so and so “..belting out..”, “..keeping you company…”, “with his version of..” etc.
Meghna of Radio Indigo, Bangalore, actually said this after a Chris Rea song while I was driving to work: “That was Chris Rea keeping you company with [on] the Road to Hell”.

Note: This was in 2008 or 2009 and Meghna is no longer with Radio Indigo.

Year-end list '09: Music

Thanks to the longer drive from home to work last year, I listened to a lot of new music in 2009, both new and old releases. I can’t really recollect all of them while writing this, but thanks to Pearl Jam, U2, Springsteen and DMB for their 2009 releases and keeping pop music alive. Apart from the rock veterans, I loved the new artists too – yeah, Lady Gaga. I think 2009 was a great year in music!

But my most loved album of 2009 is Rosanne Cash’s The List. Johnny Cash’s daughter sings from the country standards’ list her dad gave her while she was young. My pick from this album is the amazing version of “Long black veil" with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco on guitars. As someone said in a review, hope she records the remaining songs from the list, maybe one album per year!

Ray and Lucy

Two powerful movies - Frozen River and Wendy and Lucy - with very poignant female lead characters and both directed by women. Just a coincidence that I watched both over a weekend.

Film reviews

Reviews by two film critics, Jim Emerson of Chicago Sun-Times and Baradwaj Rangan of The Indian Express, pans Avatar. Interestingly, both these critics panned The Dark Knight too, last year. I had my own rant about The Dark Knight, but loved Avatar!

Jim Emerson:

As much as I take delight in the appearance of the Na'vi characters themselves,
the biggest disappointment of "Avatar" for me is the visual design -- a kitschy
mélange of 1970s Roger Dean album covers by day, and Thomas Kincaid "Painter of
Light" Christmas-twinkle scenes by night.

B. Rangan:

Avatar, on the other hand, has no teeth. It feels like a sci-fi story envisioned
by a tree-hugging schoolgirl from the 1980s, who wrote the first draft in
longhand in a pink diary, probably after watching the Billie Jean video on MTV.

Year-end list '09: Indian rock

Namaste by Karnatriix – They are like one of those bands you have seen at Freedom Jam, relatively unknown, mixes rock and raga, and delivers a high quality performance. Namaste is their debut album, truly an exceptional one with the awesome, awesome performance of the carnatic classical staple “Entharo”.

Raghu Dixit Project does what Euphoria and Rabbi has done before, but it is heartening to see more quality music being produced in the Indian folk-rock genre. My favorite track “gudu gudiya” (in Kannada) is more or less similar to Rabbi’s “Bulla ki Jaana”, in concept (unearthed ancient poem) and perhaps in tune also. But, I like this one too.