I am so happy I finally got to see 'Stage Beauty'. It's heady - not with the stench of inch-perfect period drag and perfume, but with thought and insight. It is spirited and cheerful about its anachronisms. It even has a smart soundtrack. The fact that Billy Crudup has incredible hands also helps. For some reason I cannot now remember I had expected to be troubled by its treatment of gender, but that final exchange between Maria and Kynaston, where Maria asks him, 'And what are you now?' and Kynaston answers, 'I don't know', repeats this, almost awed by the revelation yet utterly at ease with it - I could have wept yes. Yes to this film, damn your cynical damnations of the human psychology, yes because 'I don't know' is a more powerful and true and audacious answer than 'this' or 'that'.

I am listening to the B-52's and my two-year old stash of Italian pop. False nostalgia reigns.

And the fangirls screamed.

OH GOD I AM REALLY DOING IT.
I AM WRITING TO STEPHEN FRY TO TELL HIM HOW MUCH I LOVE HIM.

Wonder if I can insert a salacious little epistle, codified of course. A double dose of pleasure, don't you see, first the cerebrum-wriggling exercise of deciphering the message-within-the-message, and second the trouser-squirming delight of ... well... having deciphered it.


Classes, semester three, year two, day one: Excellent. Remind me again why we didn't have Old English in the first semester?


Aishwarya keeps hinting at me to blog about things that are consequential. In fact, now that I mention it, I welcome suggestions from all quarters! I can't ever seem to be serious on this website, but I suppose there's no harm in trying. I'm game.

UGH.

Anyone from my college who's reading this - please confirm or deny the rumour that classes start on the 10th.

Working on my Bullshit Detector (tm). The zero-tolerance setting, that is.

I could explain, but I know enough about people not to trust them. So.

Notes to self.

1. Penalty shootoutss are mildly traumatic, when not downright entrants into the 'trainwreck' category.
2. FIFA's giving them referees some kinda crack and it is NOT JIVING.
3. Oh Brazil, how sick and tired I am of you. How sick and tired exactly? I wrinkle my nose and yawn the moment I see Ronaldo tumbling towards the goalpost.
4. ESPN India telejourno hack with glasses? Shut your pie-hole. Failing which, just, like, die or something. Thanks.

Memeage.

Got tagged by Aishwarya. Not tagging anyone in turn because my blog readership beyond the other people she tagged is er doubtful at best. So here goes.


I am thinking about
Sunnyside up, eggs.

I said
'We all know which of them really was hired for being pretty.'

I want to
Draw.

I wish
That gorgeous book on Schiele didn't do the inanimate-object equivalent of dancing naked in front of me. With bells on.

I miss
The news, sometimes.

I hear
Lebanese pop. Vot?

I wonder
If I should write to Stephen Fry (oh my god, my palms are so clammy they're practically clams, how do you write to that man without exposing yourself as a witless loutish spewer of metaphoric botty-dribble?).

I regret
School.

I am
Your daddy.

I dance
Like Moz.

I sing
Songs by The Smiths, operatically. I am awesome. *inserted pointed look from taggee in general direction of tagger*

I cry
For my country! Alas ehui hay bhogobaan.

I am not always
This patriotic.

I write
In cursive. Ain't nothin' sexier.

I confuse
Death metal bands with other death metal bands.

I need
Money to spend on books.

I should try
Sushi.

I finish
With a clean plate.


Ta-ta for now.

Fame fame fatal fame.

It's been a rough couple of months, my little honeylumps, sugarcrumbs and other assorted antipastry. Did you miss me? Aww.

I have the cough from hell, very puerile of old Luci to poke me in the alveoli with his silly cutlery every two and a half minutes. It's summertime and the weather is fine for the sweet oblivion of sleep and misery. I now have no idea if I should pick up a Middle English reader or a copy of 'How To Read D.H. Lawrence's Fiction Without Wanting To Commit Random Acts of Homicide - For Dummies' because this optional course business is just sparkly and unpredictable like that.

There seems to be a copy of 'Trainspotting' in the Film Studies library, which is exciting but sad because Ewan IS SO NOT Rent Boy.

What else? VH1, please stop showing Arctic Monkeys videos. As India's resident expert on British 'indie' rock, I declare them provincial, overrated and just plain sorry.

I fail to understand what I've recently identified as a folkloric obsession with the procreative powers of snot, but I guess it's all good.

God the heat.

I've been licking the fridge clean of all kinds of yummy summer fruits. Aam, well, of course, but also talshash and lichoo - such chastely pale watery jellyish things.


While writing songs - rather heavy on the lyric side, alas - I occasionally stop and think, why do I even need a defined 'chorus'? Or for that matter a 'bridge'? But the basics are basics for a good reason. The real challenge of songwriting is not even the songwriting part. And yes, one of the songs is dedicated to an oddly charming, quite alarming man with a disproportionately large head on his queenly shoulders. It promises to be by turns lustful, worshipful, scathing and cold. (I've been learning from the Wainwright-McGarrigle school of the politics of lovehate.)


I was almost forgetting. Last night I watched an entire episode of a reality TV show! It was called 'The Cut' - you know there's plenty of design school wank to be found where people have 'clothing artist' after their name. These shows never fail to amaze me - we have here successful (well, one measure of success at least), smart young people who are getting The Big Opportunity to prove to the world their successfulness and smartness, but all they manage to prove is their (callow) youth. Tommy Hilfiger (did I spell that right?) is the Donald Trump, here, as the ugly corporate panjandrum with hair that would be ashamed to grow on the arse of an... ass. And the tagline? Is the brilliant, cutting 'You're out of style. Take the runway.'

Um! Let's see. There were pushy, desperate, people, of course. Poor teamwork, predictably. On one team there was a straight white woman who had to work with a gay black man;she harrassed him and in doing so made an revolting clown of herself. On internationally broadcast telly. People must have really fucked up brains if they can take so unquestioningly to heart that all publicity is good publicity.

I have a tremendous distaste for any smart successful young person who can say without collapsing into self-deprecating humour that they are the best and they always win and they don't know what being second is. Crass, crass, crass. But then reality TV was never supposed to be about reality - it's about TV, and this sort of earnest pronouncement is good for a laugh. Because suspense is impossible in a medium where every day brings a new cliffhanger.

But this is old hat. I missed this week's 'House', bah.

'... of nothing in particular'

I looked at the first Sin City book today. The story bored me to death but I was hooked to the gorgeous stark art. Come to think of it, I thought the artwork was unnecessarily fussy. Comic geeks, feel free to kill me for the sacrilege.

I have a Holy Bible now. The inside cover says

Presented to :-
Dr B.D. Agarwalla F.R.C.S.
4 Bishop Lifnoy Road
Cal-20.

With best of compliments of :-
Michael Bhattacharjia
Gideon Association.
C/o "Waldorf"
24-B Park St. Calcutta 16.

Today was a beautiful day. Today was a beautiful day in Kolkata. Today was.

A gem! Truly, a gem!

Found in a PoCo theory book:
... whereas Western gynocriticism heralds the pen(is) as responsible for fathering texts and the female ink/milk as a possible lubricant for the blank page.

I read gender theory and literary theory and it's a lot more fun than you'd think, but the sheer hilarity of it shines through, sometimes. As it does up there.


One of the recent Da Vinci Hullaballoo articles somewhere quotes flamboyantly gay actor Ian McKellen. What? Ian is one of the least flamboyant actors around. He brings the snark, you idiot journo, prepare to be decimated. But it reminded me of how much of a cliche it's turned into, like troubled rockstar, only more pervasive. If you're gay you are by default flamboyant. If you're straight and you regularly talk to the press about your sexual exploits, you're not labelled flamboyantly hetero (Eva Longoria, I'm looking at you). The undertone is, however, that 'flamboyance' is somehow disturbing. The world likes its gays withdrawn, depressed, closeted, dead. Woe unto them if ever they express a lack of shame or guilt! Of course, Lesbians Don't Exist, except in the liberated (COUGH) fantasies of straight men, so there are no flamboyant lesbians. But wait, what does it then mean whenever the players of the Brazilian football team are written up as 'the flamboyant striker' etc etc. ? Oooh.


When I was at school, a lot of girls who watched the football World Cup were mocked by the boys for supporting teams because the players were attractive. I call bullshit. First of all, boys, there happens to be something aesthetically delightful about grown men piddling around on grass in shorts and translucent jerseys clamouring after a BIG BALL. (Incidentally, going by the spirit of the PoCo book sentence I quoted, perhaps the reason why goalies are so frequently villified is that they're in the sole feminised role in their team? Their job is to resist, if in vain, penetration? I like this little theory of mine.) Second! Make fun of your fellow fans only when you've pulled that twice-life-size David Beckham poster off your own wall.

You can crush us, you can bruise us, but you have to answer to...

Increasing reluctance to reveal much of my thoughts. The world filtered through my ego, slick/shoddy rainbows in puddles of petrol.

I've been drawing and writing, though. And have rediscovered the Clash.

So. Hello, of sorts. Recommend a contemporary work of fiction in either Bangla or Hindi. Sharp, smart, bitter, possibly on crack. Go on, I've bookworms burrowing my brain through and they demand tastier morsels.




Beastly!

With Gaaaa-wd on our saaaa-ide

I am ITCHING to skip straight to the Johnny Cash.

Reader, let it be understood without any doubt remaining whatsover that music is above almost everything else, for me. Even above literature. There, I said it. No big deal, really, multitasking brains and opposable thumbs, y'know. But still. I can't claim to have heard more music than anybody or the coolest bands or anything - and I don't care to, that sort of declaration has nothing to do with music and everything to do with the distended, diseased ego even so-called 'music experts' often fall prey to.

However, my musicobsession should not be construed as indicative of an indiscriminately open mind. I am willing to try anything twice - I will make the effort I sometimes I do not even make for books or for people - but I will not stand being talked down to - my experience as a musician and a listener deserves simple human respect, and a little more from hacks who take the easy route and say, for example, oh, you don't get Jimi Hendrix, you're a loser.

I don't get Jimi Hendrix. What does that mean? Precisely that. I don't get Jimi Hendrix. What it doesn't mean: that I'm somehow 'inferior' or 'ignorant' because I don't enjoy his music.



Oh, and by the way: the next person who says that Queen the band are 'not worth talking about' needs to... do either of the following:
1) Listen to their damned music already. Don't open your mouth before you've opened your ears, idiot.
2) Accept that this is their own opinion and that it does not allow them to stomp childishly over people who like Queen. Music is not about power, or at least it should not be and why perpetrate when you can progress?



I think Frank Zappa is the shit. It's ok by me if you think it's shit. You want to discuss it? Let's agree to disagree and START FROM THERE. Let's shake hands. Or just shake your hips. Music is fun. It's not your kingdom and bands are not your phantom army. Listen and let listen.

Five things.

1. My mother apparently watches Animax. I'm speechless.

2. I am making a new mixtape. This one's for my useless arse of a brother. Haven't planned the tracklist yet, but Janis Joplin's 'Mercedes Benz' has to be in there somewhere. Because, as we all know, it's a song of great social and political import. I am a potentially compulsive maker of mixtapes. I don't make them for people I like or love, I make them for people who want to listen to new things. Surprisingly few people, would you believe it. And this puts me in an awkward position, because my brother does not want to hear new things. He wants to vegetate under the influence of Eurotrashy technotrica. I'm ashamed of him :[ Or maybe they think I'm going to stuff their ears with artery-splitting industrial rock. Which, for the record, I rarely listen to, and only two or three bands. Mixtaping is so horribly indie, but I get an enormous satisfaction out of introducing music to people. I like to hear things like: 'Wow, I thought she was a a certain kind of singer, you know what I mean? But actually she's amazing.' This is the best, though: 'I listened to it, and I want more!' Loyal readers (yeah, right), feel free to ask for one of these spifftacular compilations, and I'll come up with one sometime after the first week of June.

3. 'My' room in this flat is an utter downer. One wall is all desk and shelves, another is tedious porcelain and glass goods I am told would make us thousands at the auctioneer's. Another is window and door. The one wall I have relatively free is badly lit. I've decided to put up a noticeboard there, to pin photos, drawings, reminders, quotes and other miscellany on. Is that a very teenage thing to do? I'm afraid I can't care. Waking up to the sight of Morrissey waggling bouquets of flowers and wearing one of his blinding 80s shirts would be heavenly. And I'll finally remember to do all those chores I'm supposed to.

4. Last week I saw my first Pasolini film - his take on the Canterbury Tales. It was hilarious, it was porny, it had Ninetto, it was - well, almost everything I expected a Pasolini film to be. I'm actually more familiar with his literary work - read his first two novels and many of his poems in translation. And of course I've read about him. I don't think I was prepared for the level of slapstick sexviolence, although I think I took to it better than, oh, twenty- or thirty-odd other students in the AV room did. A lot of nervous giggles and meaningful silences in the air. The last sequence, with demons in lurid body-paint shitting out churchmen and welcoming the new denizens of Hell with some thorough buggering, nearly had me in splits. And that's interesting, because the joke of this film, the comedy if you will, was so blackly malicious it wasn't really funny anymore. Ah, don't you love tortured avant-garde cultural icons. They're there to make you feel better about yourself. If you dare.

5. Bob Dylan is gonna be a radio jockey. Cue news items starting: Hey Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me... There're rumours of a new biopic on him featuring five or six different actors as Dylan. Very cool idea, especially as it seems they're not going for physical resemblance. The article also said that Julianne Moore is going to be in it, but not as Dylan. Bah, why not? A woman playing the Sainted Not-yet-dead White Male Bard of Classic Folkrock - that would be cooler than Antarctica. Although let it be stressed that these are rumours - which when Dylan is concerned are cranked out with unholy speed and regularity.

mapless

you've conjured the snow. now make
a circle, inhale
with caution. learn this tongue
of precious metal. do not
call, for it will come
in its own time: that sullen
wing, that slow reverb.

I just wanted to tell you

that if I were any more in touch with my inner child I'd probably be a paedophile.

Here, have this.





Also, the Tim Supple Dream was seriously delish. And had some seriously dreamy and funny actors, too. For some reason I misread the brochure and thought we were going to walk out onto the greens with the play. That would have been quite interesting, though.

Exorcising the Klimtmonster.

Didn't think about this. Argh. How expensive is gold leaf??

Oh but I may as well try and catch the wind...

He's like a hobbit. He even looks like Billy Boyd. It's silly-making, to hear this floofy pixiehobbitminstrel burring about black-eyed native girls. We all know what boys like him do in Mexico.


So I voted. A deformed purple exclamation mark on my left index fingernail proves that yes, indeed, I voted. What is there to say? I stood in line for half an hour early in the morning. It was breezy and nice. I said to my father, 'Look! A cat!' and pointed up at the ninth floor of a high-rise. My father did, and gravely replied, 'Your eyesight must really be failing. That's a pigeon.' I suppose I did wonder for a moment how the cat could swivel its head like it did... But I was far from the only person present with failing eyesight.
A little old lady with frizzy triangular hair scolded her not so little old husband as other old ladies snickered or looked away. The first polling officer outdid many of the hard-of-hearing voters: he was completely deaf. 'I haven't voted before.' 'WHAT?' 'Here's my library card.' 'WHAT?' The second polling officer was hard of seeing, and succeeded in detaching entirely my photo from said library card because he couldn't find the stamp. Eh.
I'm almost sure the machine I voted on was rigged. But no matter. It's not that kind of democracy anyway, and judging from the hysterical news coverage later in the day 'first-time voting' is overrated beyond all reason. As I said, no matter. My parents bribed me with yummy greasy fried breakfast; after which I promptly fell asleep, waking up not before three hours had passed.


'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Reread this last night, am going to the Tim Supple production later today. I'm quite excited by the prospect, although like any narrow-minded middle-class maiden I am a little worried about having to travel so late in the evening. Worse than any monstrous mouse, I tell you.

I was in the room when my mother was watching one of the Bangla TV programmes - you know the kind, with segments on cooking and health and law and fashion. The latter my mother watches to 'check out the competition', as I like to call it. Today's fashion segment featured a stinking rich, greasily complacent woman boasting about how she gives jobs to 'underprivileged children'. Um... does she know how creepy that sounds? My mother told me about this fifteen year old girl. She was hired by a boutique owner to do extensive embroidery on a sari. It was the girl's first real job, and did it with complete enthusiasm, staying up nights to finish it by lamplight. When she was finished, the boutique owner gave her... thirty rupees. The girl went home and cried because she would have thrown the money in the woman's face except when you're poor thirty rupees is better than nothing and it was - it is a form of prostitution but what can you do? I can't not hate these women with their fluorescent orange hair (a hundred henna treatments all gone wrong), with their mincing little-girl voices, with their expensive jewellery, going on these fucking 'women's shows' and making their name out of someone else's labour, the someone else invariably cheated out of her deserved pay.


Submitted my L&OA paper yesterday. It's twelve pages of doublespaced but solid prose. I'm quite sure it won't be boring, although I felt a little twinge of regret looking at everyone else's papers, all prettily foldered-up, with pictures to complement the text. I'm not big on the funky fonts, though, this is a paper and not a fan website. I have great hopes for my paper, I'll work on it some more.

Rap, or, I'm Not Kidding.

Re: my new fascination for rap as a form. I say rap as a 'form' and not as (misguided definiton of) 'lifestyle', because I have seen pictures of stupid NRI gangsta-rappa-wannabes and I cannot understand why people should wish to ghettoise themselves. I will be honest and admit that what I dig most about music is melody. And I haven't been listening to any rap lately. I also know very little about the history of rap beyond what was mentioned by the ubiquitous Professor Lal in one of the Lit & Other Arts classes. By the way, I like the name 'the ubiquitous Professor Lal', it has a lovely gangsta feel to it, I shall call him that from now on.

I took an interest in the work of Tupac Shakur and of Notorious B.I.G. - see, any art form or instution will be rife with Dead Males, whether Black or White. No I will not quote Michael I-love-children Jackson, thank you. Who else? Hmm, does Eminem count? I think him tiresome, immature and masturbatory to a disturbing extreme. Yes, and of course Public Enemy's 'Fears of a Black Planet', whose cover I once spectacularly misread as 'Fears of a Black Plantaganet' (I blame History cramming, but it's still charming).

Let me put it this way. I am going to listen to rap this summer and contemplate how a young brown middle-class feminist can appropriate and transfigure that experience. I have been writing rap, and because the internet is a crazy place and I am a crazy person I shall record my songs in .mp3 and force my friends to listen to them. Thence, naturally, to a lucrative record deal. Don't expect any gyrating women in the video, though - oh, all right, I'll throw in some dashingly pretty multiracial dancer boys. Happy? Good.

It is like a vacation.

Vocative.

O ... o. o. o.

The stench from the canal.

Only connect.