It's All Geek to Me!

« February 2005 | Main | April 2005 »

March 28, 2005

What's Vishy listening to?

I have a highly eclectic taste in music. I find it hard to point to one genre of music and say it is my favorite. I'll listen to just about anything except rap and hiphop. I go through several "song possession" attacks, when a song completely takes over my waking moments and plays itself over and over in my head. At these times, I IM most people on my buddy list and send them the song that is possessing me. However, this is a grossly inefficient system because I have to send songs to multiple people. Wouldn't it be great if people could just connect to my computer and listen to what I am currently listening to?

I downloaded and installed a SHOUTcast server instance on my computer. If you have Winamp, you can listen to a random selection of what I am listening to at the moment.

Just do the following:
Right click on Winamp. From the Play menu, choose Location.... In the input field, enter "quantumplate.servemp3.com:8000"

I give absolutely no service level guarantees, but chances are you'll hear something being played if you point Winamp to this location.

Posted by Vishy at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2005

Intense Ilayaraja Inspiration

Ilayaraja, a South Indian composer, has produced some excellent musical works. Some of his musical training was in London and it shows in the way he seamlessly blends the best of Indian and Western classical music. His two instrumental albums, How To Name It and Nothing But Wind belong in every fan's CD collection. The man's raw talent shines forth in these albums.

My favorite few are "Study for Violin" and "...And we had a talk" from HTNI and "Mozart, I love you" from NBW. The first one is an excellent rendition of an already haunting keerthanam from Thyagaraja, "Thulasi Dhala Mulache Santhosha Mukha". The second one is a Carnatic counterpoint to one of Bach's famous violin concertos. The third track is plain ol' Ilayaraja -- excellent music to pop into the CD player after a long day of work.

Right now, both these albums are playing in the background and I am trying to get some work done. There's little that beats the awesomeness of coding to this music. Music to haunt your soul.

By the way, I have MP3s of all the tracks on both the above albums if you want to sample them. Get in touch with me if you want in. If you need to get a hold of these albums, they are available on Amazon.

Oh, and by the way, I recently bought myself this pretty gadget to pop CDs and tapes into. I am truly in audio heaven. It even plays DVDs, which might fit in with some other evil plan of mine. Watch this space for more on that.

Posted by Vishy at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2005

My personality distilled

News flash: my three top characteristics are Emotional Stability, Intellect and Openmindedness, in that order. I am low on Sensitivity and Paranoia.

Go figure.

The blow by blow appears below.

Posted by Vishy at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2005

Vishy's Vonderful Vitticism #3: Meetings

A quip from a coworker who categorically wishes not to be named:

"In meetings, it is better to let people think you're stupid because you are silent, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Posted by Vishy at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2005

Are all Bollywood movies musicals?

Short answer: no, not according to me. You may disagree, depending on what the word 'musical' connotes to you.

The Indian film industry is commonly thought to be the world's largest producer and consumer of movies, certainly by the number made, if not in absolute dollar terms. Indian movies hold great sway over the population not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and in other South Asian countries. They are also an appealing way for Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom, United States and the Caribbean to keep in touch with their cultural roots.

Indian movies have been ignored by the West for several years now. However, due to the recent emergence of India as an economic juggernaut and the recent spike in the Indian population outside India, its sphere of cultural influence is also growing. Several movies have been made targeting audiences outside India. Most notably, Lagaan comes to mind among recent movies in this category. An Indian movie is hard to miss. The conventional wisdom in the West is that Bollywood movies are all musicals. Characters are thought to break out spontaneously into song and dance, destroying the flow of the movie when the audience has already been sucked deep into the nuances of the plot.

The word 'musical' can connote different things. It could simply mean a movie with a few songs in it. Or it could also mean a series of songs and a plot that embellish each other, produced specifically to showcase the abilities of both singers and actors.

In the first sense of the word mentioned above, Bollywood movies would qualify as musicals. Bollywood movies and Indian movies in general feature songs integrated into the plot of the movie. This practice arises from Indian dramatic tradition which predates Indian cinema by a fair bit. Dramatic art forms like Nautanki and Kathakali tightly weave song and dance sequences into their main narratives, resulting in a production not unlike modern Western opera. Major plot points can occur during a musical or dance segments just as often as during plainer, more recitative segments. This tradition carries over to Bollywood movies, where it isn't uncommon to see plot points happen in the midst of a song. Even if a song doesn't contain plot points, it usually carries some thematic significance or relates to the mood of the character or movie. In other words, songs in a Bollywood movie usually carry meaning and give insights into the plot or the characters. The Indian film industry measures the success of a movie in two ways -- its sales at the box office and in record stores. Some movies, such as Dil Se and Bombay did not impress at the box office, but will still be remembered as great movies because of their music.

In the second sense of the word mentioned above, a movie and its songs may well exist independently of each other. In this case, songs become superfluous distractions that strike you with the incongruity of Julie Andrews breaking into These Are a Few of My Favorite Things in the middle of the von Trapps' escape from the Nazis. More often than not, I have heard 'musical' being applied to Bollywood movies in this slightly derisive sense. Reading over the comments for Bombay at imdb.com, I saw a comment questioning the appropriateness of making a musical about the 1992 religious riots in Bombay. I would counter that assertion by stating that all the songs had relevance to the plot and not one tried to denigrate the seriousness of the riots. I have tried to figure out why songs in a Bollywood movie seem superfluous to a Western audience. The best I can come up with is that the song segments in a Bollywood movie frequently do not have subtitles. To a Western viewer dependent entirely on subtitles to understand the movie, the song segments appear to be incomprehensible blobs of celluloid entirely unrelated to the rest of the movie. Even when there are subtitles, the poetry and cultural connotations inherent in some songs just don't translate very well into subtitles.

As a caveat-emptor, I should mention that Bollywood movies are also sometimes made specifically to showcase music, dance or costumes are also made. In many cases, this showcasing is worked into the movie's setting. For example, a movie made to showcase songs may have a musician as its main character. Given the sheer number of Bollywood movies produced, there are also bad movies where songs are pathetic pieces of duct tape used to buy time and cover up massive plot holes. There are superfluous songs that have the following lyrics, roughly speaking:

I was walking on the street
Eating bhelpuri (a roadside snack)
I was taking my girl out
If a spicy morsel knocked me out, what am I supposed to do?

I was walking on the street
Singing some song
I was flirting with people
If my grandmother died, what am I supposed to do?

There are also Indian movies without a single song. Fire and Black are recent movies of this sub-genre that come to mind.

Music is an integral part of the culture and tradition of Indian film. Much like spices make Indian food rich and flavorful, songs add zing to an Indian movie. As such Indian movies form a distinct genre -- a fact implicitly swept under the rug by applying the term 'musical' to them. To make the generalization that all Bollywood movies are bad musicals with superfluous songs is tantamount to saying, for example, that all Italians are alcoholics just because they commonly have a glass of wine with dinner. Mamma mia -- how's that for a musical?

Posted by Vishy at 10:37 PM | Comments (1)

March 09, 2005

Vishy's Useless Factoid of the Day #4: Beginning school causes anorexia

It's a messed up world when 6 year old girls have body image issues.

Six-year-olds 'want to be thin'

Posted by Vishy at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2005

Useless Factoid of the Day #3: Ema Datshi

Mmmm... spicy food.

I thought I was an aficionads of spicy food of all flavors -- jalapeno, habanero, tapatio sauce and wasabi. I am willing to try food that makes me tear like I was just in a chemical weapon attack. Eventually, after the spice has died down enough, I would still have enjoyed some aspect of it. I even briefly considered buying this T-shirt.

However, nothing I could do can beat ema datshi, the national dish of Bhutan. Ema datshi is a unique preparation made of chilies and cheese -- that's right, the chilies are actually used as a vegetable.

Mmm... now to find a friendly Bhutanese person or Bhutanese restaurant in my general area... or better yet just go there when I go home!

Posted by Vishy at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2005

Canadian identity

From random readings about Canada on Wikipedia and Salon:

Peter Gzowski's 1970s CBC radio show, "This Country in the Morning", announced a competition to find the Canadian equivalent of the phrase "As American as apple pie". Entries had to begin with "As Canadian as... "

The winner was "As Canadian as possible, under the circumstances".

Posted by Vishy at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)

March 05, 2005

Urban Genesis

A sketch about my morning commute. Comments welcomed and appreciated.

Darkness. A rumble from the depths of the earth. The primeval Om. Let there be light. A glimmer of gold on the tracks as it turns around the corner. Stand behind the yellow line. Wagon after wagon in the Ark passes, tousling my carefully coiffed hair in its wake. Small price to pay. I am witnessing the urban Genesis, after all. And the Genesis is good.

A door glides to a stop before me. The gateway to a new day opens. Two by two, every species of human enters the door. Step all the way in. Stand clear of the closing doors please. Finding legroom near a pole makes me resort to Cain-like tricks. A brief yank to my wrist and I am off. Next to me is a homo iPodicus, whose mp3-entranced face I focus on as tunnelling darkness resumes outside. As the Deluge of darkness rages outside, I get a comment about the book I am holding. Have you read other books by him. Did you like Angels and Demons. No, I liked this one better. You better avoid Digital Fortress.

Another stop has pulled up outside the door, tempting somebody to abandon the now-overcrowded Ark. How did poor Noah manage, I think, with his Ark, infested with snakes, spiders and scorpions. Did he store the lobsters and flounder in a tank at the door, like a Chinese seafood restaurant. A seat is vacated. The shortest journey from point A to point B is the straight line between them. In this Ark, it instantly becomes clear to me that even shorter journeys are possible when one of the endpoints is a seat during rush hour. Stand clear of the diving people please.

All seems well as we re-enter the tunnel. Suddenly, the Ark stops. Perhaps we chanced upon an Ararat. Noah sends out a pigeon and apologizes for the delay. Homo iPodicus smiles at me as I avoid eye contact. The wait for the pigeon is long. The Ark story was probably before the Big Bang, when there was no Time yet. The pigeon doesn't return. The Ark must move on. With a heave and a sigh, it relinquishes its temporary resting position.

Transfer is available to the ACE12379NQRWShuttleToGrandCentral. Transfer is not available to an empty seat. I get tempted by another Ark pulling up across the platform. Time begins at Times Square. Putting my deliverance in peril, I leap across the Firmament into another Ark ecosystem with a different mix of species. A yank, a tunnel and a yank later, I look at my watch. It has been forty foreminutes and forty hindminutes since I got into an Ark. I have arrived at my Ararat.

And so it comes to pass that the Ark takes me from firmament to firmament like so for five days. On the sixth and seventh day, I rest. And the rest is good.

Posted by Vishy at 12:02 PM | Comments (1)