on intellectual guilt over watching Avatar

So I was reading through this article recently, with a mixture of cynical agreement and guilt. The sort of person this Avatar-heretic was talking to was probably the sort of person I am. The sort of person who sniffs at movies built entirely out of CG cotton candy and tough talk. The sort of person who tries to grasp the nuances and symbology behind characters and dialogue. The sort of person who believes they can spot an artist of quality when they see an obscure, once-unknown movie. And still, this sort of person bought tickets to Avatar, saw it, enjoyed themselves shamelessly and saved the intellectual guilt for after the entire experience was over. Well, I'm still saving that intellectual guilt for something to feel truly ashamed over. I'm not guilty about Avatar.

It can't be denied that this piece is a nice way to put all the hype about Avatar in perspective. I saw it, and I couldn't say I didn't enjoy it. It was an awesome visual spectacle with little in the way of story to recommend it. I can see how this can be a problem for people who believe movies are 95% about dialogue, characterization, acting, message and narrative. Unfortunately, the box-office reality is that different movies pull different viewers in for different things. Die Hard was not about symbology or complex narrative. The Incredibles was not about meaningful dialogue and questions that explored existential dilemmas (at least, not on its face). Similarly, Moon, which was one of the best-acted movies I've seen recently, was not about visual spectacle. The movie-snob tend to forgive such movies because they usually mix in some scraps from each of these factors to combine visual spectacle with some of the more refined ingredients we've come to expect most movies to contain today. The movie-snob would find it much,  much harder to forgive something like Avatar for a simple reason. Avatar was little more than a glorified rollercoaster ride. But what a ride. It was massive fun, on a purely visual level. It managed to achieve one of the primary objectives of the commercial movie (wish-fulfillment) entirely through the visual spectrum. James Cameron achieved what he promised to achieve. He created a visually incredible world and then placed the viewer within that world through the magic of his revolutionary use of 3D. From a technical perspective, that was an amazing achievement. Story, dialogue, complex characterization be damned. This movie was not made as a showcase for any of these things. James Cameron wanted to be the Lumiere Bros of 3D. And if he gets recognition, he should get recognition for little more than this (nevertheless pretty amazing) achievement.*

I suppose the reaction that most moviegoers have to Avatar is the sort of reaction people must have had on watching a Lumiere brothers production in the 1900s. There would have been tons of open-mouthed fascination over... what exacly? People leaving a factory, gardening, babies eating food, a sea bath. There was no reason to feel intellectual guilt on the enjoyment of such things at the time because there was no such thing as a tradition of storytelling through cinema. It was, at the time, a purely technical achievement. The ideas of using characters as visual symbols, adding nuance to dialogue and acting, hell, even creating a story for the purely visual experience to roll on were slowly perfected over the next century and a half, and have now become de rigeur in even the most blatant market-pandering movie that thrown out of modern cinema factories. This may explain why, when a movie is released as nothing more than a showcase of technical talent and such a movie receives massive critical and popular acclaim and gigantic box-office takings , so much intellectual guilt is thrown into its enjoyment. It really shouldn't happen though. And I'm not wasting mine for what I knew, from the start, would be pure visual spectacle. Hell, that's the only reason I watch a movie in the theatre anymore. If I want to appreciate a movie for its storytelling, dialogue, acting or symbology, I'd have better luck pulling it off the net and watching it in the peace and comfort of my home.

* - Of course, there's the Oscar problem, which asks a completely different question. If I had time to waste on this, I would, but I don't, so I wont, except to say that the Oscars have been bullshit for a long, long time and I cannot fathom how a movie which is such blatant visual eye-candy (albeit tasty eye candy) can be nominated for best picture or best direction. With the other categories I have no beef. Film-editing, Art Direction and Cinematography have always been categories which fall somewhere between technical and artistic excellence, and a nomination in those areas is hardly a surprise. Sound-editing, mixing and visual-effects are not (though music is) and I wish Avatar all the luck in the world for a win in those categories.

New Net Addiction: Aardvark

Oh man, I have problems now. If you've seen my earlier posts, you may have noticed that I'm a bit interested in the internet. Now I'm getting addicted to Aardvark (recently acquired by Google, by the way). However, this is quite a different addiction from any of my earlier internet opiates (like cracked.com, the google reader, wikipedia or achewood). This is the first of my addictions where I'm actually required to play an active role in information production/exchange.

Ok, so, some background on that. In my opinion, one of the primary problems of the creative mind is something I call consumption dependency. Most people love consuming movies, books, art, music and random internet humour. In theory, this is supposed to be a good thing because all the amazing stuff we consume is supposed to feed into the amazing stuff we produce. Unfortunately, the problem with the net is that it presents us with a neverending ocean of consumable information. Faced with such a bounty of cool stuff, the mind is numbed into repetitious consumption and no production whatsoever. This is what I call consumption dependency. Aardvark also thrives on consumption dependency to some extent, allowing users to post random queries into its search box like any other search engine. However, the difference is that Aardvark also creates some sort of production outlet, transferring those same questions to other users who have professed (some) knowledge of the field relevant to that question. So if someone were to ask the cold, uncaring internet for their opinion on a Kurt Vonnegut book, they could actually get a reply back from someone who knows something about Kurt Vonnegut (or at least books in general). This actually makes me feel productive while doing nothing more than answering trivia questions. Wonderful! I should quit my job!

Ok, so the other reason Aardvark seems like fun is that it allows you to feel just a little bit like a know-it-all. Need answers on efficient labelling in gmail? Which post-cyberpunk SF novel to read next? Where to get decent dimsums in Chennai? I'm the goddamn Oracle!

So, in conclusion. Illusions of productivity + Delusions of Grandeur = Oh no not another deadly but irresistable waste of internet time. In the context of the evolution of the net, however, this could just be the next big thing.

Celebrating the return of the Precipice and musing on MBs

One of my favourite blogs is back again, with fascinating takes on life, literature and much randomness. I made the mistake of leaning over the Precipice into one of the places recommended here, and promptly lost an afternoon in hitherto-undiscovered poetry.
I also end up wasting way too much time commenting on the posts at the Precipice.

So I saw this post today on Indian MBs, the Kama Kahani series, apparently, and as usual, I couldn't help but respond. Before I realised it, what should have been a simple 3-line comment ballooned out of shape into a diatribe, an apt reflection on the distances I must travel before I consider myself an adequate writer. At any rate, I decided to pick up the scraps of my comments and post them over here (another apt reflection on my drive as a writer, the literary equivalent of serving leftovers instead of cooking a fresh meal).

I suppose I should provide you with some context. I'm specifically addressing the last paragraph of the post, which asks if we're making altogether too big a deal about the sexist cliches in MBs when all of television advertising is nothing more than a gigantic universe where scantily clad women lean at awkward angles over compression pumps and stare lustily at camera lenses. I can't help but agree more regarding TV advertising. However, I still think there is a massive difference over being exposed to stereotypes in books and on TV. The primary difference is that TV is a passive choice, where a person is bombarded in the middle of their favourite tv show with jokerfaced smiling Mas doling out kurkure. All this has to be endured by the viewer irrespective of their choice of show, or of its redeeming qualities, if any. A decision to purchase a book, on the other hand, is an active choice, where a person is choosing to put down money (or utilise human capital by loaning a book from a friend). When such books are MBs, however, this decision translates into an active choice to use money (or human capital) towards the ends of consuming formulaic writing about gender stereotypes in luuuurve.* This active decision-making usually implies a greater deal of openness to the ideas within the book, as opposed to the ideas presented on TV ads.** Of course, in the end, there's no denying that an MB is pulp, as is the whole 'Conan the Barbarian' series or the entire genre of noir fiction. But there's also no denying the impact of pulp fiction on our thought processes and our attitudes towards the world and its inhabitants. I could get into a whole other diatribe about this, but I should probably sum up because I'm beginning to lose your attention. Basically, it worries me that smart, progressive women who would rarely (if ever) snivel and give way to simple brute force (whether applied to the body or the mind) are choosing to read about smart progressive women who snivel and give way to charismatic, primal male stereotypes. It almost feels as if this is some sort of dark, repressed fantasy.

Of course, in the end, everyone has their guilty pleasures. Mine is probably reading comic books about anarchist revolutionaries who challenge the status quo.*** In the end, such literature allows the reader the illusion of revolt and non-conformism without all the fuss and muss of actually going out there and changing anything. I still love it though, and I cannot deny myself such escapist pleasures, guilty as they may be.

* - A side rant - I personally find the male stereotypes in the few MBs I have read about as offensive as the female ones. The totemization of physically and mentally aggressive men who believe in and practice force (whether physical or mental) as a means of achieving their ends is a problem that is not merely limited to MBs. In some ways, I believe that it lies at the root of the charisma that surrounds violent people throughout history.

** - A side note - I suppose this wouldn't apply to those people who decide to try out an MB for simple experimentation, or those who have one foisted upon them by a well-meaning friend. That may go without saying, but it was worth clearing up.

*** - More sidey-sidey - Consider V for Vendetta or Grant Morrisson's 'The Invisibles' series. In fact, it was the latter, in a brilliant twist of meta-commentary, which alerted me to this harsh reality, in Vol 2 Issue 13.

An Open Letter to DM Theatrics Regarding Two Gentlemen of Lebowski: Please Youtube This!

This is a letter to DM Theatrics, who are planning to put up a production of 2 Gentlemen of Lebowski sometime soon.

from: ViralFish
to: press@dm-theatrics.com
subject: An Open Letter to DM Theatrics Regarding Two Gentlemen of Lebowski: Please Youtube This!



Ok, this is clearly not a press request. However, its the only contact email I had for the fine gentlepeople who were magnanimous enough to stage a production of Two Gentlemen of Lebowski. Therefore, if you are one of these gentlepeople who are capable of making decisions about this, please consider my proposal. If you are not, and know one of these gentlepeople (whew, political correctness takes more effort to type), please forward this to them. Thank you.


Guys,

As a follower of the Dude and as an unabashed supporter of the Bard and all Bardly performances, I would so have loved to attend this event. My chagrin at being unable to attend is aggravated by the fact that I was in New York until a few months ago, and have returned recently to my native India. It is in this spirit that I present to you a modest proposal:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE YOUTUBE THIS!!!

You may think there are a thousand reasons why you shouldn't do this but I have presented a brief analysis of those that I can fathom:

1. It will kill demand for seats in the actual theatre

No it wont. Under no circumstances will it do so. Nuh uh. Not a chance.

The Big Lebowski is a movie that has attained cult status (No, I'm not kidding at all, look it up on wikipedia). This means that its fanbase may not encompass the bloated ranks of your average 'Twilight' movie. In fact, to all appearances, its fans may not appear even half as fanatical as your average neo-vampire pseudogoth who applies fake blood on her wrists 'for Edward' every day. However, that is because the followers of the Dude are not fans. They are disciples. They have internalised the Dude in body and spirit.

For every moron who looks at a q-tip and says 'What is this?' there is a Dude waiting to say 'obviously you are not a golfer'.
For every tool who screams out at us: 'The bums lost! The bums will always lose!", there is a Dude who is willing to put his hands up, say 'fuck it' and saunter out with his pick of any rug in the house.
For every bigot, chauvinist, fanatic and fundamentalist, there is a Dude who will stand up to them and say 'That's just, like, your opinion man.'

These people will come. They will prefer to come because, for a follower of the Dude, watching an enactment of Two Gentlemen of Lebowski is the same experience as Christmas mass is to a practicing Catholic: You can try to watch it on tv, but thats just not the same as mouthing the lines together, enjoying a feeling of communal brotherhood with your fellow follower or enjoying tasty snacks mid-performance (ok that last one was in bad taste).

They may not try to pay, because, come on man, the Dude didn't teach us to pay (except in the form of dubious checks for sixty nine cents). You may find a few more followers trying to sneak in through backstage than through the front of the theater. You may even find a few people disguised as security men who suddenly attempt to sidle into an extra seat. However, you will fill your seats. And with a few intelligent ushers, I'm sure almost all of them will be paid for. So thats not something you have to worry about.


3. It will be a pain in the ass to do.

Oh come on man, it will not. Now you're just being plain lazy. Which is cool, and very understandable. But if you guys dont have the time and energy to do it, just ask around man. I will bet you that someone will do it, probably for a pretty nominal fee, possibly for free. And it will be worth it, for reasons that I am outlining below.

3. It will kill demand for a video
You may already have plans to record this show and sell it. If you do, I'm sure you'll make some cash. But lets look at this realistically. There's 2 reasons why you may not get to make much cash out of this if youre only going to put out a paid performance.

a. Your audience comprises followers of the Dude. Their preferred means of access to anything is 'free', after which comes 'cheap'. And if there's one other thing a follower of the Dude likes, its sticking it to the man, low risk style. Put these two factors together and for every 1 dvd you sell, there will be 10 Dudes watching a pixellated low-res bootleg video of your show. As a guy who is interested in intellectual property, I can tell you that that's actually not such a bad thing. In this day and age, for every 1 copy of a blockbusterr dvd sold, there's 1 copy being pirated. But pirated copies tend to build demand for the original, and in the long run, can actually feed sales for the original work. (I should probably link to something here but I'm on a roll. Just take my word for it.)

b. However, this model applies well to blockbusters and big-studio productions because they have the cash to publicise this stuff endlessly, so even if 1 million guys pirate their movies, another 1 million have heard enough about them to go buy the original on dvd. However, you guys do not have that luxury. You do not have big budgets and you do not have enough clout to publicise something like this by conventional means.
What you do have is the power of the followers.
The Dude is very much an internet icon, being the sort of person who appeals to people who spend a lot of time giggling-high on something in front of a computer. Put out a youtube clip of 2 Gentlemen, and these people will transmit that information online faster than 2 girls and 1 keyboard cat. After that, you've got eyeballs, which is the biggest currency in the world today, more so, I imagine, for a group of people whose revenues are dependent on people seeing and hearing them perform. Let your imagination run wild.

c. And you can be sure some of these guys will be youtubing this stuff anyway. Sure, you can try as hard as you can to make sure no one takes grainy, horrible, low-res cellphone videos of the show, but in the end, someones going to put that shit on youtube. And I am going to watch it. And feel terrible about the fact that I missed this wonderful performance and all I get is a minute and a half of some nutjob who decided to record the show in the middle of an epileptic fit.

On the other hand, if you put that stuff on youtube yourself, you will have instantaneous coverage. The Dude is beloved all over the world, and if you combine the love of the Dude with the love of the Bard, you have a recipe for viral success! People will watch, and while watching, they may actually love it enough to want to get a DVD of your performance.

Also, a theatrical performance is, by its nature, ephemeral. A moment of beauty, then gone forever, save in the minds of those fortunate enough to witness it. A youtube video is not usually considered beautiful. But it is a record, one that hopefully may be perused by generations after ours, in an effort to understand the creature that was early 21st century man. Please man, leave them with something better to see than '2 Girls 1 Cup'.

You may have reasons other than this, but I just ran out of energy. Let me just end this appeal to your higher (and lower) conscience by imploring you,

in the name of the Dude and the Bard,

to consider and act upon the reasons I have offered.

ViralFish

P.S. I call this an open request because I may post in on my blog, ViralFish. If you are concerned about this, worry not, as the 6 people who follow my blog will agree with me wholeheartedly, while at the same time supporting your noble endeavour 100%.

The Jelly Mould and Suicide Advice

Over the past few days I've been living inside a jelly mould. Moving involves an effort that I can't usually be bothered to take. Getting up off a bed is like fighting more than just gravity. Everything tastes the same uniform taste inside the jelly mould. Jelly. Conversations and personal interaction make it through some sort of viscous, colourless filter that strips everything down into a monotonous droning hum, sort of like carrying on a conversation after going 24 hours without sleep, but without the feverbright buzzing at the back of your head.


No I am not living inside a jelly mould called Daniel.


The tragic part is, this hellhole of a City has actually been beautiful over the past few days. Steady unseasonal rains for the past three days. Beautiful green streets and lovely weather.

It is sometimes possible for me to be unnaturally influenced by a recent piece of literature. Considering I've just finished reading The Bell Jar, I shouldn't be too surprised.



Not a jelly mould (but close).


Today I mildly pondered the possibility that I'm depressed. I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that one of the symptoms of depression was ennui. I also remembered that another important symptom was contemplating methods of killing oneself. Not merely exploring the possibility, but analysing the options, based on predetermined criteria. I then realised that I had never really given serious thought to the methods by which I may choose to kill myself. I have considered earlier the manner in which I would like to die (in my sleep, peaceful-like), but I realised that reflecting on how one would like to die bears little or no connection to how one would like to kill oneself. For one thing, the motivations for killing oneself may vary greatly from the motivations for dying (it could be argued that there is no real motive for just dying, but I don't really agree). You could kill yourself

a) out of sheer boredom,
b) out of sheer despair,
c) out of self-hatred,
d) as a simple 'fuck you' to the world or someone in particular, or
e) in rare circumstances, out of consideration for other people.
f) Any permutation or combination of any or all of the above factors



A reasonable illustration of motives a) and c)


A reasonable illustration of motive e)

While there may be other motivations, these are the ones I could come up with. Having selected a suitable motive or a bouquet of motives, it is then important to choose the general tone with which you could choose to end it all. Of course, according to your motives and your general levels of squeamishness, there are a variety of methods you could choose. In fact, the list of ways you could think of to kill yourself is almost limitless. However, for the sake of brevity, we could limit ourselves to a few important highlights. You could decide to:

a) Have a big, messy ending (e.g. jumping off a building)
b) Have a quiet, non-messy ending (e.g. take sleeping pills and drift away or the Sylvia Plath special)
c) Have a macho sort of ending (e.g. commit seppuku or shooting yourself)
d) Have an absurd, ridiculous sort of ending (take sleeping pills while standing on the edge of a tall building with a samurai sword strategically placed on the ground below. And a chicken.)
e) Have a long, painful ending (you could drink yourself to death like that guy in Leaving Las Vegas)
f) Have a long, (relatively) painless ending (slit your wrists and blow bubbles in your bath tub till you die. Or you could read a book, if you don't own a bathtub)
g) Have a stupid, desperate, suffering, extremely messy ending (hang yourself and void your bowels)
h) Have a long, drawn out, dramatic ending (drown yourself.)
g) Have an extremely psychedelic ending (overdose on something lethal and interesting)




Seppuku: A cool way to die



Chicken = What were you thinking?


may= +
Note: Studies have shown that an attempt at suicide by psychedelic drugs may result in seppuku with a chicken.


The presence or absence of witnesses at any of these will depend upon a number of factors, including whether you want the world (or that special person) to whom you want to deliver that final 'fuck you' to notice. Of course, in these wonderfully networked times, it is quite possible for you to deliver your message to the entire world with little more than a webcam, a laptop and a decent internet connection. Just make sure the angles are right because you know there won't be any second attempts for this little stunt :-) .

If youre really serious about this whole thing and not some sort of emofreak who's just craving attention, it is suggested that you please stop bellyaching about it to all and sundry before youre going to do it.

Also, it is inconsiderate and sloppy to get someone to help you out, so try not to. Unless of course, you're too chicken to do it yourself and you're paying someone good money to do it or you, in which case, it is advised that you hire a professional with good references.


A professional with good references.

Now that I have effectively contemplated suicide in as many of its motivations and forms as have occurred to me, I can officially classify myself as depressed. Hooray.

The moral of the story, children, is Look both ways before crossing the Street. Or don't. It's up to you after all.

Something wicked this way comes.

The city is like a giant complex of smoke and facades, behind which a billion unspeakable things may happen in the course of a day. You may be living in an apartment block holding hundreds, but if your neighbours perform secret sacrifices to eldritch gods, you will never know. You will walk down a crowded street in the middle of the day, but if a hand should reach out and pluck the person walking next to you, you will never know. If all the members of your office are covertly engaging in organised mass sexual congress, you will never know. If you decide one night to go out into the dark and embrace your inner freak, whatever he may be, they need never know. In this sort of beautiful anarchic anonymity, strange things have the chance to lurk and grow. Strange, and perhaps even beautiful sometimes, but often merely macabre.
I love Delhi for its delicious urban legends. The flavour of the moment, for instance, is the Hammer Man. And before that, the even stranger story of the Monkey Man. This story is not about them. It is about the things you will never know about. Of course, if you're a sufficiently warped individual, there's nothing to prevent you from opening the manhole cover and taking a peek at what crawls beneath. And this is basically an effort in that direction. Witness:



I don't know what this is. In this crazy place, it could be anything, ranging from the mundane (some sort of MCD/DDA warning) to the misleading ( a bunch of students having fun) to the macabre (the symbol used to mark the spot where volunteers for blood sacrifices to Eldritch gods may assemble at precisely three fifty three in the morning, leaving no trace behind by three fifty six). It appears all over my part of South Delhi. On direction boards, on walls, on busstands. This particular specimen appeared on the wall of a flyover I was crossing. As you can see, its neither outrightly mundane or macabre. It's not your average skull and crossbones denoting danger. Rather, it is the sunken, emaciated image of someone's face, complete with eyes, a nose and a perfunctory sort of mouth. It's also not an overt image of threat or violence. The eyes hold no violence, instead, preferring to fix the observer with a baleful glance that seems to tread the line between bovineness and malevolence. There are bags under the eyes, perhaps to indicate some measure of malevolence, but more probably to convey suffering and depradation. The lines also seem to indicate that, while the person who created the stencil for this image (for I believe it is a stencil painted one, judging by the sharp, symmetrical outlines that accompany all the images, as well as the extra thick borders) inserted some of the features of a face, he clearly was aiming to portray a skull to the casual passerby. However, it is more than that. It is a portrait of a visage that is halfway between deteriorating from a human face into a vacant skull. Decay in its final stages before death. I would like to think of it as a message, but I am a little looney. I've asked my fellow Delhiites if they know what it is, but no one seems to have a clue. Very few others have even admitted to noticing it. Is it a desperate cry for help? A dire warning in the endtimes? A bloody marker for doings of unimaginable horror and depravity? You will never know.

Saddam's Execution: Another link in the hate chain

Anyone notice the way hate wars work? You know, like ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or Hindu-Muslim hatred in India or even relatively smallscale stuff like family vendettas. I was just looking at this link here. Saddam Hussein sentenced to death, apparently. It just seems obvious to me that this is probably the dumbest thing to do to a former leader of an entire country. I'm going to make a little logical deduction here:
I am making the (not terribly tenuous) assumption that the entire court process can be manipulated by the American Government, going out on a limb and deducing that George Bush is insane.

He may be insane-smart or insane-stupid but that doesn't detract from the fact that he's probably sentenced the world to another century or so of violence and bloodshed. Either that or wipe out the entire middle east.

Why?

Look, Saddam is obviously a violent dictator. There seems no doubt about that. He may caused much pain and suffering and is probably respnsible for the deaths of many thousands of people. That does not detract from the fact that he's a charismatic leader and that right now, he is a symbol for the politicomilitariculturosexual oppression of the Middle Eastern Islamic cultures by the West. If the manipulative bastards in Washington have decided to execute him, all they've done is sentence him to immortality as a martyr. And there's nothing manipulative bastards like more than a martyr. Just give it a year and the manipulative bastards in the Middle East will be crawling all over him like flies looking for a place to lay their eggs. A decade from now we're probably going to have militant Saddamists who'll blow themselves and a roomful of little schoolchildren into tiny bits, screaming "for the memory of the prophet Saddam!!!".
And then they'll carpet bomb the Seychelles.
Idiots.

At any rate, this got me thinking and I decided to try and illustrate the natural pattern of hate violence in the form of this fun to fill hate-war simulator.

Here's a little fill-in-the-blank illustration of the chain of hatred:


1. ___(X)__ (insert stereotypical name of choice. e.g: Mohammed, Dhansingh, Syrnizxyk), who happens to be an __(A)____ (insert nationality, religion, gender, football club preference, anything a sufficiently manipulative bastard can con people into believing is a difference between them and other people, thereby making said other people "evil sadistic bastards") ___(F)___ (insert negative karma inducing action here e.g: stabs, rapes, stones) __(Y)____ (insert any other name here, it doesn't necessarily matter) who happens to be a ___(B)___(again insert fit material for manipulative bastards, doesn't have to be a counterpoint to the earliermentioned difference) or __(Y)__'s __(Z)__ ( insert property or person close to Y, may in some cultures be no difference between the two e.g. goat, wife, daughter, football).

Note: Actual reasons for aformentioned action are irrelevant.

2. __(Y)__ or (if Y is dead or otherwise disabled) Y's __(W)__ (insert name of person or group of people who were affected deeply by Y's death e.g. son, family, creditor, Rotary Club, fellow goatherds) grows to nurture an all-consuming hatred of (X) and decides to take revenge by (F)ing (X)
or (X)'s Z.

3. __(MB1)__ (a manipulative bastard or a group of manipulative bastards) of the (B)s sees an opportunity here to get __M__ (anything manipulative bastards usually like e.g. power, money, more goats, women) and convinces a group of (B)s that all the violence and negative karma happening here was because (X) was an (A) and that the only way to bring positive karma back to the land in general is to (F) all the "F"ing (A)s and their goats too. Soon all the (A)s above a certain age are F'd (most probably something to do with death and/or sexual/economic depravity) and their Rotary Club memberships are confiscated.

Note: The (A)s, (B)s, (X)s and (Y)s can all be interchanged here. But the (MB1) remains a constant.

4. All the little children of the (A)s grow up hungry and poor and unable to get a decent education and the only thing that they have left to hold on to is the memory of how all the (B)s (F)ed their daddies, mommies, brothers, sisters and their goats too.

5. __(MB2)__ (another manipulative bastard or group of manipulative bastards) manages to convince the little (A)s that the only way to put their ___(D)'s__ (daddy's/mommy's/brother's/sister's/goat's) tormented soul to rest is to (F) all the "F"ing (B)s and their rotary club memberships too. Soon all the (B)s above a certain age are F'd (most probably
something to do with death and/or sexual/economic depravity) and their goats are... whatever.

Notes: See how X and Y have conveniently left the picture. If they do remain, they will probably be nothing more than adrenaline boosters used by either of the MBs (Remember the (X)!!!! This is for (Y) and his goat you heathen (A or B)!!!!)

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5, escalating the level of (F)ing with every turn (start small, with smallscale murder and rape, move on to executions, mass burials and suicide bombings and move up to biological warfare and carpet bombing).

7. Meanwhile, the MBs have all the M they could ever ever want and live happily ever after.

8. Permutations and combinations and the occassional additions of other groups is permitted, provided that they all follow the abovementioned rules and involve a manipulative bastards.

Note: Since, for all concerned except the MBs this is a loop of (F)ing and counter(F)ing there is no point saying

"The End"

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God's Final Test

aIn the course of my unemployed trawling on the internet over the course of the last few years I have come across some intensely passionate and profound writing. For some strange reason a good amount of it seems to revolve around bad movies. It’s hard to match the vitriol and sheer visual breadth exuded by such masters of movie hating as Mr. Cranky or the people over at SomethingAwful. However, I for the most part have a relatively high pain threshold when it comes to watching movies. This has enabled me to withstand even the likes of such cinematic greats as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
Everyone faces their nemesis at some point or the other. I met mine yesterday, in the form of a hasty decision to watch “My Super Ex Girlfriend” at PVR Saket, for a hundred and fifty a seat, at 11:30 in the night. I did feel this strange premonition before I was walking through those fateful theatre doors. I had a feeling I’d made a big mistake somewhere. It may have been Uma Thurman’s drawn emaciated death’s head face attempting to look peppy, or her costume which made her look like a tricked out undead dominatrix who’d flunked S&M school for looking too cute, or the constant urge to punch Luke Wilson’s life-sized poster in the crotch, but I just had a feeling.
I’m not going to bother explaining the plot to you. I feel “explaining” anything in this movie may insult your intelligence. Barebones: Thurman play blonde bombshell superhero G-Girl (wtf does G mean? One of the many unsolved mysteries in the course of this complex and subtle movie) who fights crime when she isn’t a mild-mannered bespectacled brunette art curator in a New York Museum. Luke Wilson is the average Joe project manager who doesn’t get much luck with girls and decides that since he is so overwhelmingly desperate, the emaciated body of Uma Thurman will have to do. It is therefore, in the traditional manner that he sets off the resulting bizarre chain of events. He is ably assisted in his endeavours by *, who plays his relationship-guru-from-hell best friend. Unfortunately, what he assumes will be a simple one or two night stand turns into a boiling passionate romance (at least as far as G-Girl is concerned) with the skeleton revealing her secret identity. Wilson, who becomes a little perturbed about Uma’s increasing tendency to smash his car windows and her attempts to tear off his manhood in her lovemaking frenzy decides to break it off. This is where the movie is supposed to flap its soiled, bedraggled wings and fly a bit. Unfortunately it doesn’t. It hops about, spreads its wings and flops facedown in the proverbial box office trashcan it was dragged out of. Uma, in her Shakti-esque fury, boils Luke’s goldfish, almost destroys his apartment, turns his car into a celestial object and lasers the word “Dick” onto his forehead. The sad, pathetic attempt at upping the pace is spoiled by a boring and utterly chemistryless relationship blooming between Luke and * (who, by the way, seems to have gotten into the habit of playing the pathetic waif with inner strength since Scary Movie). The only cheery bit in the movie was the part where the enraged G-Girl tosses a great white shark onto the recently consummated starry-eyed colleagues. I was hoping the shark would remove the offending Wilson brother’s head (or at least his manhood, since that’s what started this whole sorry mess of a movie off anyway). Alas, this was not to be. The conniving two-timer survives and the noble great white (who really has done nothing wrong, really) ends up a sorry mess on the pavement. After this, the movie continues to crawl on to its inevitable finale, where the director (in what he must have considered an attempt to add some class to the show) introduces a full-on super powered cat-fight between the skeleton and the waif. However, the pathetic loser saves the day by introducing the skeleton to the man who truly loves her, her long-time arch-nemesis, supervillian and high-school sweetheart, Professor Bedlam. It was at this point that my subconscious began hurling insults at the movie screen of its own volition, and began screaming “Please make it stop! Please make it stop!” at my eyes. It is important to point out here that somewhere during the intermission I realised that I was fighting a strong impulse to kill the people who had come to the movie with me. And the people in the seats behind me who must have been hired by the theatre administration as live canned laughter.
This is supposed to be a smart New York movie with snappy lines filled with wit and cynical insight. Instead, * the character installed in the movie specifically for the purpose of funny one-liners gives us “I hear you have invaded the female nation and are spreading your democracy”. Of course, he was not the only person responsible for bad one-liners. Our hero the great thinking penis also gets in a few good ones. When faced with skeleton girls almost naked form the obviously dedicated architect goes “Wow! Now that’s what I call structural integrity”. I cannot think of a single intelligent thing said in the course of the entire movie, except for “Maybe we should all kill ourselves”. Oh wait, that wasn’t in the movie. It may have been wishful thinking.
In conclusion, I do not believe that this is merely some bad movie. I believe that this movie is a warning from God. God sent this movie here as a test to us all. It is important that we realise this and heed his message. If enough people go see this movie and it becomes any sort of success, God will kill us all in waves of fire and great white sharks, and the characters in this movie will all come back as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. So do your part to save the world. Stand outside the theatres in picket lines and beg and implore all around you to not watch this movie. If required, use your live bodies as barriers to prevent people from entering the theatre. You may lose a limb or the life of a dear one, but trust me, in the final analysis, it’s worth it and you would have done your part to save humanity.

Find YOUR groove on the net. A case study of Dr. McNinja !!!!!!

Dr.
Mc
Ninja
!!!!!!

As an illegal wanderer on the frontiers of the net (hah! Nerd Glorification Alert!!!) one comes across many strange things. In a medium where one's creative potential is limited only by one's capacity to set up a web page (or find some willing sap to do it for you) you come across some pretty interestingly twisted minds. Very often, these guys provide art, literature and entertainment of a far higher quality than your average LCD inspired media publishing industries. To be fair to mass media, the morons who try to sell you Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo and rattrap pseudohighbrow DaVinci Code paperbacks (not to mention Pavitra Parker, what is that?) are just plain playing it safe. They're not going to print a million paperbacks, or sink 50 million into a movie to find out not enough people want to see it. So they go for the shotgun approach to publishing: just spray the masses with whatever crappy sentiment is going to stick to the largest number of them. The natural assumption made by most people after seeing something like Terminator 3 make it to the top ten box office hits for 2003 is this: Most people are stupid and will watch anything you throw at them.
Personally, I don't think this is true. I think everyone finds something in art that rings true to them. Or at least, they're capable of finding such a thing.

Which is where the net comes in. Its trite to say this now, but the net is still the single biggest potential threat to mass media in this day and age. Todays internet is created by and for individuals. Maybe there aren't too many of them, and maybe this particular bunch tends to talk about ninjas, star wars and RPGs a tad more than the rest of the populace, but its them who're keeping the internet alive.

And there's creation out there. Which is what I want to talk about. Witness the multiplicity of aspiring writers out there who're suddenly getting eyeballed (even if its only 4 or 5 pairs, at least someone's reading this). Witness the number of aspiring moviemakers out there who finally have a way to show someone the cool things they've made. Graphic novelists, radio jockeys, comedians, artists, designers, everyone can have a place here.

This is where Dr. Mc Ninja comes in. First off, what is Dr. McNinja? Extremely simple. He is. a ninja. doctor. An irish ninja doctor, so it seems (where does this fit into the 'Mc' angle, I have no idea, could someone please educate me?). The guy who created the free webcomic (Chris Hastings, inked by Kent.Archer.) decided to spin a story around his name on the SomethingAwful forum and ended up churning out this incredibly fun, tongue in cheek tale of a man reared by his parents to be a ninja (psychotic killer) and faced with the angst of being a doctor (compassionate healer). On the way you've got 10 year old 60 foot lumberjacks, animated hallucination-induced thanksgiving (katanakka) turkeys, megalomaniac Ronald McDonalds and Pirates (Arrrrrr). Its pretty freaky stuff. (all this in 3 issues!!)

Ok, is this too much information to fit into the average DC/Marvel potboiler? I'm sorry, did'nt mean to overheat your brain.

The point is, the net makes it possible for people like this to make their own incredibly strange contributions to the world of art/entertainment/whatever. And it makes it possible for randomisers like me to read weirder stuff everytime I hit the net (never get tired of it). And to write long rambling reviews about it.

Dr. McNinja guys, wherever you are, I hope you keep on katanakking.

Opniyama - Review in dialogue

I told someone to try Opniyama the other day.

She said, what is it?

I said, it's a game.

Doubtful look, I'm not very good at games.

You don't have to be good at it, there's nothing to win.

I don't do too well at the keyboard either. Or at the mouse, and I hate all the squishing little creatures and stuff.

Manic gleam, You don't have to do any of those, you just wander around.

Wander around? And do what?

Plant trees.

More doubtful look.

Ok, just give it a shot. I promise you'll like it.

Random entering of keywords and fiddling with mouse, waiting for loadscreen, tadah

Ooh, look, its all drawn like in a sketch, and its beautiful. There are trees, and strange little things, and look, there's a shower plant. I'm going to take a shower, and woo, i have a grapple hook, and I can fly around the place and, whats that, the tree dropped something, its a seed. I'm going to pick it up, and oh, look at those little caterpillar things, its like alice in wonderland. i'll just drop the seed here and, wow, a lion tree. How big is this place? It's huge. There's even a little map here, and I can see myself, hello, and i want to find more seeds, look, there's one, what sort of tree do you get? This is so much fun!

Told you you'd like it.

Mapping the Collective Literary Consciousness

The internet as a collective consciousness. An idea flung about so often its almost become dogma. But has anyone seen a way towards mapping this collective consciouness, of visually tracking the depth of this strange interconnected consciousness. Perhaps such an exercise is impossible, because a collective consciousness, just like any other consciousness, is infinetly multifaceted. However, it may be possible to map out one facet of this consciousness as a sample study, as a showpiece for interconnectedness...

Well, thats my take on gnod, anyway. Gnod is two things at once, an intuitive searchable database and a map. The searchable elements are a little limited: books, movies, music. Its supposed to work like a search engine for things you dont know about. Let me stick with explaining Gnod Books ( Gnooks!) for a start:

 

1. The intuitive database

Access the intuitive gnooks database and type in three of your favourite authors

Gnooks processes your query and throws back the names of some other authors that you may like, dislike or not know at all. Click accordingly.

The end process is a list of authors that are pretty much connected, on some level or the other, to the ones you just keyed in. In itself, no big deal, the database throws back authors who were liked by other people who keyed in authors similar to yours. Its a learning database, but then again, what isnt nowadays?

Now for the cool part.

 

2. The map

Access the literature map and key in the name of a random author (try to get it right, please). In about five seconds, the browser takes you to a page that explodes with words, names of authors, that scatter to the corners, or bunch around the center of the page, with your author's name at the epicenter. Slowly they settle into tentative positions, shifting ever so slightly now and then. This is the result of all your database entry creation: A collective map of all the authors who were liked by other users, placed in relation to the author you keyed in. Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and other satirical science fiction authors huddle together for warmth and comfort, surrounded by at least fifty other names, all placed in relation to Kurt Vonnegut (my search).

 

It need'nt be more than an exercise in coolness, or a place to find more authors like the ones youve loved, or to map the very idea of a genre as a spot within the landscape of literature... Its potential appears mind boggling, however, as it graphically displays the landscape of literary preferences. Check it out, see what you think. If your a bookie fan, this is some sort of psychedelic dream come true.

 

Or a totally new way of seeing and mapping the topography of literary preferences.

Ruminations on the end

We live in strange times. Our world grows steadily demystified, dissected, denuded of romance, de-romanticised, if you will. There are no points on the map that havent been scanned and scrubbed vigorously of mystery by satellite imagery. There are no races that hold strange esoteric talents or mysterious cultures living in isolation from any but their own way of life. There are no mysterious creatures of fantastic proportions left to discover. They've even uncovered the poor giant squid, caught like paris hilton on spycam. The mysterious kraken of old lies bared to all, its fearsome unimaginable proportions requiring no further imagination in the cold lens of an underwater camera. There is probably no spot left on earth which, if traced for human contact within the past fifty years, would come up negative. There are no more Macchu Picchus. I mean, of course there is a Macchu Picchu, but whats the point, where's the awe and splendour of the unknown, when you've got fat german tourists and korean shutterbugs crawling over that once inaccessible fort where men considered themselves either gods or dead.

Where is the dragon?

Where is el dorado and shangri-la?

Its not surprising that in these rational, scientifically verifiable times, fantasy sees a redux. These are the days where the only true creatures of awe inspiring fantasy lie within the head. the lion was once considered a semi-mythical creature by the Chinese. There's very little myth left in a creature left to feed, fart and fornicate in a cage.

 

I'm not pretending to make some sort of point here. Perhaps I have little or nothing of any real substance to say, and a whole bunch of you can get back at me on how new the world is... Write in and try to convince me.

The Golden Age of Game

There's something vaguely satisfying about being at the start of a revolution. its brilliant to look at all the poor suckers tryng desperately to catch up and getting very excited about some concept which you've gone way past, man. Like, far out.
Oh, yeah, im satisfied. I'm seeing a revolution happening right in front of me. It's happening at the bookstores, in Pallika Bazaar and Richie Street, on the desktops of people between 6 and 26. The new age of interactive entertainment. Say goodbye to tv, chuck the feelms, the Golden Age of Game is coming.
Its impossible to ignore, the new age of interactive entertainment. Admittedly, games can't claim to compete actively with tv or the flicks yet, but a number of factors are going to make all of that go away.
1. computers are getting cheaper and cheaper every 6 months.
2. More and more people are becoming computer literate, or realise the pressing need to be so.
3. Games are becoming more and more realistic every day.
4. The themes games deal with are becoming much more relateable to the average ajay.

Most people would outright deny this ridiculous contention, citing the absolute lack of people who really play games. Not so true any more.Even now, hundreds of thousands of people interact with each other, build strong alliances, develop intense hatreds, fall in love and exploit each other on MMORGs(Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games) such as World of Warcraft, or Ultima Online. Even more just go online or hit the LAN for the express purpose of machine gunning, flaming or cunningly left flanking their good friends on multilayer enabled games like Counterstrike or Starcraft. For people who dont think lots of blood is their thing, any amount of good old fashioned legalised psychological violence is possible while playing the Sims, where ironically, you escape from reality by simulating it.

Another concept that is getting blown out of the water is that games are for kids and nerds, and not for "normal people". Give that one a rest, please. The number of people obsessed with the NFS franchise, or cricket 200andsomethingortheother puts that one to rest immediately. Besides, the one about games being for kids... Well, has anyone seen the covers for games like any of the Resident Evil series or even Deus Ex? They're marked M, for sale to Adults only. And its not the gore that puts these labels on the games. Software and hardware today is competent enough to allow games to deal with issues as complex as any "soap opera conundrum". In Deus Ex 2, you are faced with complex political choices, like the one between security and material wealth and inner happiness and spiritual satisfaction.(You may also have to help a gay cultural affairs minister to hook up with a guy he' been keeping an eye on).

Affordability used to be a major factor with games priced at ridiculous rates like Rs. 1600 (about $40 in 1996) per game and people in most 3rd world countries, capable of affording a cheap movie at Rs. 1o per tape or Rs. 30 per vcd (for rent) would never imagine getting a game at these prices. (Hey, I once bought Dangerous Dave for Rs. 200). Today, thanks to our fine eyepatched buddies, the software "pirates" everyone in a majoor city has access to a game at the rate of about Rs. 100 per game. And comps arent so bad anymore either. You can buy one thats rudimentarily game enabled for about Rs. 20,000.

If you still dont buy all my word of mouth bullshit, just perfom following simple exercise: Head to the nearest rel;iance webworld, or satyam gamezone or whatever: there are multiplayer tournaments happening in India for games like counterstrike and quake III arena. A bit outdated admittedly, but still, happening. Its gonna take some time before the revolution shows us people playing starcraft for millions of dollars like in Korea, but that day isnt too far off. So, addicted gamers of the subcontinent, unite, our day will come, and when it does, I know whose back is gonna be up against the wall first...

The Return of the Things

somthing I find hard to understand about people. The automatic rejection of any theme which professes to deal with the larger-than-life. Larger than life images, larger that life themes, larger than life worlds. Of course, if a medium does'nt outright profess to be larger thatn life, but manages to stretch the boundaries of imagination and reality in its own establishment way, noone seems to care. This is how you end up with scenarios where people dismiss fantasy and sience fiction and comics as kid's fare, but are more than happy to see Clive Cussler's "Dirk Pitt" rappell off an airplane, on to a zeppelin, kill all the neo nazis on the zeppelin with a tuning fork, then jump off and detonate the zeppelin with abovementioned tuning fork.
Well, watch out Dirk Boy, fantasy and science fiction are making a comeback. The Lord of the Rings movies and the Matrix trilogy (okay, please dont make me go into the actual quality of the latter) are making people open up their eyes to the inherent metaphor within the "absurd". I mean, after seeing the matrix, people are actually starting to ask, "what if?". Some of them are even trying philosophy. This is why, leaving aside the actual quality of the matrix trilogy, I mark it down as something of an influence.
As for comics, as you can see, most of the marvel heroes are at last getting their turn on the limelight (and also, in the case of Daredevil, getting totally raped by it), and raking in huge bucks by the look of it. And soon , it'll be the turn of Dark Horse's Hellboy to enter the fray. Now, if there's one movie I've been meaning to watch, it would be Hellboy. What a brilliant concept, the antichrist as the saviour of mankind, ragnarok betrayed, metaphor extreme.

Of course, it is possible that all this commercialisation of fantasy and science fiction will destroy its earlier purity and beauty and pulpify it for mass consumption (as one of my friends argues about everything from computer games to art, basically doesnt like sharing). I dont deny the possibility that the return to public consumption for fantasy/sf could change its shape, but who are the elite to say what shape it should take? the purpose of fantasy/sf is to provide to use the world, unadulterated and undiluted, through its own fractured lens, so we may see the beauty and the horror of that which happens around us with that much clearer an eye.
If that be the strange fruit of this union, then so be it borne.



pop philosophy? maybe. But its still food for thought.

Whe I was very young, I used to have these strange fantasies.

I used to wish that one day, all the dirt, the grime, the sludge, all the muck in the world would suddenly levitate, fly up into the air, hover over the atmosphere and then disappear, and everything would be spotless, clean and... nice.

When I grew older I saw this article in the paper. It was an interview with this Serbian (or was it Bosnian?, or Slovak? I dont remember). He was talking about how he used to kill mothers and children in a small mountain town thereabouts. At long range.
First, he would get them in their sights.
The mother would probably be running, with her child held protectively in front of her.
Then, he would take careful aim.
Shoot
And get the child in the stomach. So he wouldnt die instantly.
Then, he would watch the mother in agony while she screamed and her child's lifeblood drained away in jerks and shivers.
Then he would shoot her in the head.

I think it was that night when I went to bed and dreamed that somehow, all the bad men, the evil men, they were suddenly levitated, lifted high into the sky, and then, somehow, in the midst of all the screaming and the moaning and the wailing, they were ripped, spliced, shredded into particulate matter, and a fine rain of blood, and a fine snow of bones would fall over the earth.

And everything would be perfect. No bad men left in the world. No more evil. Nice.

Why did I share this with you? I dont know. I just had that same dream again recently, and all the "bad people" had faces I could recognise. They weren't necessarily people I knew, but I knew their faces. They were faceless when I was younger. Why can I recognise them now?

Social Science Class

One thing that really bugs you when you're doing a lot of researchonline is the profusion of on-the-point, relevant websites which you know will just spit out what you need, but which you probably have to pay$45 per mont, with a $100 deposit (or some shit like that). There is, however, one place i have my eye on, and i'm gonna get it baby, coughing up or no coughing up. Its a place called Questia ,and it supposedly has 50,000 odd books and 400,ooo odd journals! and this includes works of fiction such as john steinbeck's the grapes of wrath and innumerable (ok, a lot of) chomsky tomes. The best part... subscription for one year amounts to just Rs. 6000/-. For a net addict cum book-o-phile like me, that sounds (painful but) payable. Ok, ok, ok, went tangential there for a second. My POINT is... here's one pretty comprehensive site of legal and basically most types of social sciences research which you don't have to pay through your nose for. The Social Sciences Research Network is a pretty well laid out place for research on economics, law and accounting, with information systems and marketing coming up. Ok, thats not exactly the social sciences we expected, but hell, for a (not necessarily enthusiastic) law-gopher like me its pretty damn useful. Extensive links to quite a few US and international journals, MOST of the articles free and a pretty easy search engine. Not a bad deal. Just 1 thing. unless you want to contribute an article, dont register.It's free but worthless. Happy researching?

The First Comedian

The World has seen much comedy, some of it rather funny. The World has seen Oscar Wilde, Roald Dahl, P. G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and hopefully, it will survive Adam Sandler. However, I dont care what the world has seen, this George Bush guy is GREAT!!!! I mean, I haven't seen a class act like his since... I don't know, since... Bal Thackeray! I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about, but for those of you who don't here's a small sampler of the First Comedian. Read this first and then move on the greater things. This is a poem comprised of actual quotations from the King himself, and arranged by Washington Post writer Richard Thompson. LadieeeeeeesanGennelmen, lets hear it for Make the Pie Higher!
Ok, people, if you enjoyed that, then you should know you've only had a small sample of the Man's Genius. Here's a link to a site selling this EXCELLENT book I really hope to own on the same lines, with FREE SAMPLE QUOTES. Chuckle through the Presidential Eletion Fiasco, Snap your ribs through the World Trade Center Bombing and suffer Cardiac Arrest at the expense of Saddam Hussein. Ennnnnjoooooiiiiiiiiii the Presidential (Mis)Speak Calendar.

Also, I really get pissed of when people put this guy down, cause, as a friend of mine told me earlier, if this stuff had been written by a guy like Syd Barrett or Jim Morrion or any other psychotic genius, people would be worshipping him like a GOD.

Neo Bill Gates

I'm just wondering if Bill Gates has any ability to appreciate irony whatsoever. Here are the two head honchos of the one of the most widely reviled (even by people who use their stuff) companies in the world, and THEY'RE talking about rebelling against the Evil Empire. It's Beautiful. It's like casting Caesar and Brutus to play Asterix and Obelix against the Romans. I wish i could link you guys to a photo, cause its too hilarious for words. Maybe i will later, but still, here's the story morning glory, and i think its a laugh riot. Check out Agent Bill Smith

Arty Farty

ok, before i start on anything here, i'd like to point something out... Art can be Really Cool!! The reason i'm pointing this out is this: Everytime i download what i feel to be a fun picture from the net, and spend about half an hour admiring it, i realise that i want to share this incredible thing with my buddy-boys. So i take all the effort of copying out on floppy, carting off to said buddy's computer and showing him, voila, cool pictures! He stares and then goes, "Vaat all this art fart gas (Annirudh and Koshy, if you're reading this, please do something unspeakable to yourselves). At any rate, i dont think people should see art as "egads! look at the interplay of light and shade across the right ass cheek", or "gosh, those lines are so indicative of a classic oedipus complex". In other words, i feel that art is not to be the preserve of the few who can talk technical about it. On the other hand, i also have a problem with those guys who automatically dismiss anything classified as "art" from the purview of their mental mindscape. Basic upshot, you dont need a 90 degree nose or a degree in Artistic Appreciation to enjoy art. Here's a collection of a few of my thus far favourite artists. i found this really good site which provides pretty high-def online copies of their work called Art54 . It's got a lot of pictures of a wide range of artists. My favourites are:

1. edvard munch . When you check out this site, make sure to look for the pictures of the lovers painted in a blue light. I think its one of the most beautiful i've ever seen.

2. h r giger . One of the totaly weirdest artists i've ever seen. if you like very in your face psycho art, check this out.

3. m. c. escher who seems to be a brilliant sketcher, please notice the "face-belt in the sky" painting, as made famous by the two famous art critics,Koshy John and J. Anniruddha. If you dont like these, please surf around. You're bound to like something. Give it a shot.

Interesting argument for free software in schools

A brilliant case here for using free software in schools. More importantly, it argues for the knowledge to read code as something to be made available to all. Check out this link on free software and code for all