The Good Samaritan and The Bad Dancer

I have a theory I experiment with regularly: Self destruction can be used as a tool to spread joy. That may have sounded a little dramatic, so let me explain with an example of self-destruction. If you are bad at something, the people who are good at it will experience feelings of pity/ sympathy/ compassion towards you, and will be given a chance to display these feelings and perhaps assist/ encourage you in some way. This will make them feel good about themselves. Worst case, they'll laugh at you, which is also spreading cheer. The people who are bad at it, seeing someone worse (you've gotta be the worst) will feel uplifted and also good about themselves. Making all these people feel good about themselves, you will also feel good about yourself. And I do.

Until now, I just play with this theory, but the real task would be to be deliberately bad, and never let anyone know. For this you must do zen stuff like sacrifice your ego and exercise restraint, which I am still unready for - I have to let someone know what I'm doing, first of all.

This led to the Bad Dancer's Club. We occasionally have parties at college where the social thing to do is dance. Initially it began as a sort of rebellion against the pathetic songs that were being played - Me and the Dog started to dance badly, like really badly - out of rhythm, and gracelessly. Slowly, but surely, the worse dancers joined us, fascinated by our total lack of coordination (I don't think I can convince people that I dance pretty decently any more), while the better dancers were amused by our foolish display (The smug ones were irritated, because "I mean, come on! When are these guys gonna realise it's not funny any more?").

It may sound condescending (I feel it does), but it feels great to have fun with the not-as-goods and amuse the very-goods. I wish someone would do this for me when I struggled with cricket.

Disclaimer: I am not being patronising or exploiting other's weaknesses. My road to disaster has always been paved with the best intentions

Happy Birthday Shiverkumar

When days are getting cooler, the air-conditioning in the bus i get home in mysteriously becomes stronger. Today, I was directly in the stream of one of the vents, and had only my iPod for cover. So I quickly played The Ghost Of Tom Joad by Rage Against The Machine. I recently found that this song has a peculiar effect on me - at one point in the song, the music dies away and only the vocalist is left saying

Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, you'll see me"
You'll see me (x8)

The "You'll see me" part integrates back with the guitars so well that it gives me the shivers every time without fail, and shivering is a natural mechanism to fight the cold air conditioning that prehistoric apemen encountered.

It led me to wonder if I was the only one who had a 'shiver' song. If there were more people following this blog (I sneered too), it would have led to an interesting forum.

The Scream, Edvard Munch, 1893

He must have one helluva 'shiver' song.

Huevos Del Toro

There are some months when you are just so bored by everything, that you watch a ten year old movie like Requiem for a Dream, and it waves a red flag at you, and you feel something stir inside even if you're colourblind.
By coincidence that time will also be the time when one of the best metal acts ever, Lamb of God, will decide to come to your city out of the blue and play an amazing concert that brings the house down like a china shop.
Further, you will be able to go to your hometown, which also happens to be one of the most beautiful places in the country, where you are plied with good food and drink, and no BS for a weekend.
There is no right, there is no wrong; there is no good, there is no bad... BUT, this month (the past 30 days, actually) kicked bull. (Triple take, I must have meant "butt", right?)
So, I dedicate this blog to the 30 Days of Night, or the 30 Dates of "Nice!", however you may have it, between April 23rd (My birthday) and May 23rd (optimistically in the future), and just how awesome they were/will be. Hope you had a great time under Taurus too. (They knew Taurus was a bull and not a cow because from here on Earth, you can see right under him, up in the sky)

Community Archives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hope you liked all the bull allusions. Find 'em all for 20 points!*

* Points-are-subject-to-market-risk.Please-read-the-offer-document-carefully-before-investing.**

**If you could say that within 5 seconds, you may already have won 20 extra points!

ART for slow PCs Part II

What I missed out mentioning in Part I was: You can't release the window as you drag it, so the whole drawing has to be done in one sweep. THERE! I'm glad I got that off my back, and I hope it doesn't hurt our relachandship.



And now,
(Contd. from previous issue) As she entered the bus, she was aware of a couple of eyebrows raising. She ignored them, though she was secretly thrilled at the attention. Now who will be the lucky one? she thought. Finally, her eyes rested on a thin guy in a black t-shirt, silently moving his head to the beat from his iPod, which she could faintly hear even from where she was standing.
She casually walked the aisle, like an out-of-work East European supermodel, and settled down with her bag in the seat next to him. She heard him audibly sniffing, unmindful of the fact that he could be heard. Her fruity perfume seemed to work as advertised. He fiddled with his iPod a little. Once she caught him taking a peek at her face. He turned away rapidly, but she knew he was checking her out.
She decided to give him a little thrill - as he changed tracks, she brushed against his arm as she straightened her bag. She felt his forearm tense, and smiled smugly at her ability to give this lesser creature some kind of joy.
Suddenly, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Now this was too much - she hadn't given him any hints to try starting a conversation.
"Excuse me but my headphone cord is caught under your arm, could you move a little?"

I'll never understand the cold looks I get from strange women in the bus.

Triple Take That

This is my favourite wordplay of the day, week, whatever - it can only elicit irritation! Use the most obscure word, to elicit a double take, and then lie, till you can score a triple take! A bonus 10 points if you can actually get it to the next level*
Sample triple take:
"Hey, man? How was the party, heard it rocked!"
"Yeah, dude, it was totally chand!"
"What?"
"I said, it was totally awesome!"
"Oh..."
"Why?"
"I thought you said 'chand'-"
"Yeah, actually I did."

By the way, 'chand' is pronounce like 'shunned', but you can come up with your own word, if you must.

Next blog: Art Rendered by Trails II, with some information I forgot to mention in Part I.




*Points can be redeemed for being abused in a language of your choice

What Happened in Las Coorgas

Prologue: My uncle, a feudal landlord, needed some advice on securing the goodwill of the Gods on his mansion in his estate in Las Coorgas (or Kodagu, in the language of the Ancients). Being the only (almost) architect, I politely acquiesced and took Osiris as a companion, with my aged father on my back for his wisdom.

As we (our ship) climbed into the hills, I noticed the storm clouds gathering in the horizon, headed our way. By the time we reached the town centre, Madikeri, we were caught in a thunderstorm rivalling those at the fights between the Gods and the Titans at Olympus. Never had we seen or heard such an awesome display of Nature's fury directed at Man. As we took shelter in a nearby tavern, we wondered what we had let ourselves in for. But our prayers were answered - a moor on a gleaming white ship took us aboard, agreeing to ferry us to my uncle's mansion and back in return for a small fee and our company.

At my uncle's mansion, we were greeted by a fearsome creature of the Netherworld, Pippus III, son of Pippus II, a direct descendant of Cerberus, the hellhound conceived in the very depths of Hades.

By the grace of the Gods, the creature was chained, and could do us no harm until it was acquainted with us.

We were greeted by the landlord, my uncle, and his stately parents, and after an exchange of pleasantries, were taken to the dining hall, where a sumptuous feast had been prepared for us by the mansion's servants, who were efficient enough to never be seen. After much food , we set down to our task of communing with the Gods, but not without the symbolic sacrifice of our livers, by consuming a quantity of ale fit to please even Dionysius himself.

By evening, we bathed in small naturally heated pools which my uncle had cleverly integrated into the design of his mansion, and then set out on some grey stallions from my uncle's stable to meet some relatives in the neighbouring shire. My uncle was an experienced rider, and many times our hearts were in our mouths as he navigated his steed with a skill we had only heard of from travellers and madmen. At our relatives' palace (for they were the local royal family in the area), we met the aging Queen mother, and were then entertained by her son-in-law, with much eating, drinking of ale, and exchanging of stories. On our return, we took a detour to the Valley of the Fireflies, and witnessed a sight we could never forget - swarms of Fireflies, some the size of our hands, lighting the dark night sky, so that we may not miss the stars, our astral companions. Our hearts filled with awe at this sight, we returned home, and almost immediately fell into our beds, in deep slumber, wondrous of the day ahead.

The next morning, after a delicious breakfast, we took leave of my uncle and his parents with promises to return soon. The moor had sent a friend, in a white ship with red sails, to take us on a pilgrimage of the nearby holy sites in Las Coorgas, before we had to leave once more for our homeland. After paying obeisance to the Gods, the temples of whom might be said to compete with those at Athens for their serenity and closeness to the heavens themselves, we descended to the foot of the famed cascading Falls of Abby, where countless travellers had lost their lives, dashed to the hungry rocks below.



After clicking a couple of photos, and being disgusted by the profusion of plastic bottles and wrappers at each of the places we visited, we met a friend of my dad's back in town and then went to the Raja's fort and garden. The view of the valley was nice, but I had been there before, when it wasn't marred by the pollution and noise, as well as the Park maintenance people's (failed) efforts to beautify something which doesn't need beautifying. Took a shot anyway:



By then our taxi driver had taken his pay and split in his white Ambassador. We had to walk back till the bus stop, where we had a quick dinner and finally headed back home. All in all, a great trip, though it could have lasted for longer. Epilogue: If I'm lucky, my uncle'll call me back and I can give further suggestions for his house's landscaping or perhaps do some site supervision. All under the influence of beer.

The Dissertation From Hell

For those who came in late: In the fall of 2009, I was required to write a dissertation for my course in Architecture. My subject was on Large Scale Graphics which respond contextually to the Architecture they are created on. If that didn't make sense, you're not alone: I spent the whole semester trying to make my guide understand what I was studying, and finally passed with decent marks with no one on the external jury panel getting it still. Its semesters like these when you just finish what you started out to do, trying to lose as little blood as possible along the way.

Sound interesting? Here's the link.
If you use any part of it, please do my ego some good and gimme some credit.

It may not seem tight and slightly childish in parts, but that's mainly (I hope) because

• I was continuously working to make someone(idiot) understand my concept from scratch, and therefore couldn't get deeper.
• To satisfy a couple of egos (more idiots), I had to add stuff which wasn't really relevant

Anyway, I've uploaded it as it was, to remind me. as this haiku explains:

Even a pet project/
Shampooed regularly/
Will develop fleas.

Gotta love them haikus.

Operation Diamond Racket Outtakes

One of the many fake outtakes i created last month for a great South Indian film (hope you can hear the sarcasm dripping through the kilobytes) called Operation Diamond Racket.
In this scene, the heroine has mistakenly shot at our hero, mistaking him for her brother's killer. In the actual movie, he understands and forgives her after she begs for mercy (kshamisu bidi - forgive me).
But I spliced it with another great scene in the movie, where the vamp is asking him (post-seduction) whether he'll leave her for another vamp if she gives him her location (ya, i know, too many pronouns, just watch the movie).
What results is a hilarious (for the 50 people who really know about this movie) and obscure (for the rest) clip; anyway, now it's online - bwuahahaha!