Ecchi Ninjutsu

The secret powers of Japanese samurais and ninjas that kept the Mongols at bay. (Courtesy the fabulous io9.)

Music for Airports

NF is visiting his hometown of Lucknow from December 14th to January 23rd. All those jobless enough are enjoined to visit.

शनिवार की सुबहें / बुरी स्मृतियों के गड़े मुर्दे

आओ श्रम के लिए, सेहत के लिए, हम करें रोज़ व्यायाम
देखे हमको सारी दुनिया, हम करें कुछ ऐसे काम

<*पेंपें-पेंपें-पें, पेंपें-पेंपें-पें, पें... पेंपें-पेंपें-पेंपें
पेंपें-पेंपें-पें, पेंपें-पेंपें-पें,
पें... पेंपें-पेंपें-पें*>

हम हैं नवयुग के निर्माता, काँधों पर बोझ उठाना है
हम हैं नवयुग के निर्माता, काँधों पर बोझ उठाना है
आगे बढ़ने की चाहत, पीछे ना कदम हटाना है
आगे बढ़ने की चाहत, पीछे ना कदम हटाना है
हम हैं मंज़िल के दीवाने, कर पड़े हैं हम अभियान
देखे हमको सारी दुनिया, हम करें कुछ ऐसे काम

...



कुछ यातनाएं अकेले समेटे रखना उचित नहीं है। उन्हें मित्रों के साथ बांटने से (सुनने में आया है) प्यार बढ़ता है।

For Chrissy :P

And so it was in the year of the Great Emancipation that the Ministry of Robot Affairs banned the use of sarcasm in the workplace.

The Loosest, Baggiest Monster of All

Underworld is a big, sprawling, savagely intelligent, breathtakingly ambitious and unbelievably beautiful work of art that confirms Don DeLillo's status as probably the best American novelist alive. 

It is the book David Foster Wallace would've wanted to write; but could never - despite his exceptional artistic wizardry and flashy, pyrotechnic prose. The reason has something to do with the difference between brilliant (which David Foster Wallace undeniably was) and truly deep (which Don DeLillo is and DFW wasn't - though he did sometime veer dangerously close to it).

It is a nonlinear (both in time and in narrative structure) fragmented-though-deeply-interconnected tale of several different characters whose lives are tied together by the ball that starred in the shot heard around the world and its journey through their lives; and another earth shaking development that unfolded on the same day - the successful atomic bomb test of the Soviet Union - which also affects directly, as well as indirectly, the destinies of the numerous characters in the book.

  

Don DeLillo has given us in Underworld, a true masterpiece, whose incalculable artistic merit confirms his status as probably the greatest novelist of our age - a fabulous, fabulous achievement indeed.

10/24/2012

El Ten Eleven playing I Like Van Halen Because My Sister Says They Are Cool. And yes, they're even better live!

Better Later Than Never Redux

The great Lloyd Shapley wins the Nobel for Economics!

With this, the coronation of the holy trinity of Game Theory - Nash, Aumann and Shapley - is complete.

Time now for champagne to flow.

Cheers!

@Somnath: Yes, We Were There!

Although banal reasons like the absolute impossibility of easy access to the venue and scarcity of frequent train lines between the village and home cut short our little trip to the film festival and we ended up watching only the first half, NF can confidently assert that Somnath's fabulous animated short "The Candy Tree" was probably the best little gem out there! 

Somnath's film was the third from the beginning and although the audience was comprised mostly of old geezers with only a sprinkling of young blood, 'The Candy Tree' drew approving laughs at the right places and a thunderous applause at its end!

Another brilliant film to be showcased was Jonathan Ng's "Requiem for a Romance" - a fabulous tale of a breakup superimposed on a kung fu fight sequence. Yoko Ono (yes the Beatles' destroyer) also had a film on the show called "My Hometown" and it was the most retarded and third rate film of the festival. One imagines that her work was shown only because the fledgling festival needed big names to prop itself up!

And of course, given NF's fabulous impersonation skills, a local newspaper reporting on the film festival mistook him for the Director-in-Chief Somnath! Here's the link to the item: http://www.thedailymail.net/articles/2012/09/16/news/doc50553490c663c093171125.txt

For those interested in viewing 'The Candy Tree', here's the film on Youtube:

Somnath, take a bow already!

Naambaa One

#0: Do you speak Russian?

NF: <*???*> No. I'm Indian.

#0: <*begins singing in a slight accent*> दोस्त दोस्त ना रहा, प्यार प्यार ना रहा... (tr. Friend did not remain friend/Love did not remain love...)

NF: ...

#0: Do you know who's it by?

NF: <*knowing better than to mention Mukesh*> Raj Kapur...?

#0: <*with conviction*> Yes! He was the best. The number one!

NF: Da da!!!

Mi-ni-mal

Courtesy: Chrissy

The Documentarian

Although there are many a bone NF has to pick with Adam Curtis's spin on the nature of the state of the world, it is undeniable that anyone familiar with his oeuvre will not be thoroughly disabused of the notion that the technocratic impulses of scientists and economists are free from deeply embedded, almost-unconscious ideological biases; or that at least the manner of their use in human societies is impervious to abuse. His latest effort: All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace is another such three part attack. 

One may disagree with his conclusions, but it's impossible to not be a fan.

डॉक्टर साहब (उर्फ़ "दोक्था - थेन्मा")

The Dark Knight Falls

Shame on you Nolan, shame on you!

A Punchup at a Wedding

#0: You're the biggest hypocrite in the world.
NF: And your supreme powers of observation have just turned me into your biggest fan ever.
#0: <*smirks to #1*> This just proves my point.
NF: <*with an even bigger smirk*> Oh but this time I was just being ironic.

अथ नंगा फकीर उवाच

आज प्रेम चोपड़ा की बड़ी याद आ रही है!

That Paradigm of Science Fiction

Here's a short fanboy review of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction by the brilliant Paolo Bacigalupi (courtesy, Wired): How Cyberpunk Saved Sci-Fi. (For newbies, Paolo Bacigalupi is the writer of The Windup Girl - the fabulous dystopian SF novel set in the globally warmed, near submerged, future Thailand. It won the 2010 triple crown in SF - Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial award -  a feat previously achieved only by <*gasp!*> William Gibson with Neuromancer.)

Here's Bacigalupi commenting on what Gibson would've referred to as a "Nodal Point" in science fiction writing:

Science fiction had lost the thread of reality. Human beings weren’t going to the moon; we were going digital.

And at the end of the (rather short) essay, Bacigalupi points out another nodal point that his fabulous book internalized in its plot and narrative design:

And of course, the huge question mark is global warming. There are so many variables, from sea level rise to disrupted ecosystems to catastrophic droughts, that a bunch of our comfortable narratives about what the world will look like—let alone how we’ll adapt to it—are in play. Just as when we were on the cusp of cyberpunk and didn’t know it, I’m hoping now for another new breed of writers, people who can craft drive-by speculations that leave us gasping with surprise. Those kinds of writers don’t just see the future; they see the present.

This framework is an excellent way to understand the contribution of the cyberpunk movement to fiction in general and SF literature in particular; and Bacigalupi (and of course the great Ian McDonald whose River of Gods - an SF novel set in near future balkanized, dystopic India is a deeply thought, masterfully etched anticipation of such a nodal moment (On this point however, one must note that McDonald's entire ouevre is a tribute to such an exercise and in this respect, he's probably the leading SF write alive today!)) is a prime exponent of such a style. This movement within SF emphasizes narratives that are set in the near future, almost always dystopic developing nations (Bacigalupi's Thailand and McDonald's India, Turkey and Brazil) and tackle head-on the major themes that any writer worth her salt needs to intellectually grapple with - global warming, massive corruption, debilitatingly poor societies, staggering economic inequality and so on - the "low life" part of the deal. Add to it the "high tech" - the second half of the cyberpunk aesthetic - sentient financial trading algorithms, ubiquitous, frugal, improvised, genetic engineering, self organizing, cutting edge nanotechnology - and you have a smorgasbord of heady, complex, edgy ideas about the future of humanity.

Hurray for this new wave of science fiction; and hurray for the new crop of writers championing it!

 

06/15/2012

Yes! I Am A Long Way Away From Home

White Noise

I Know You Are But What Am I?

San Pedro

Mexican Grand Prix

Stanley Kubrick

Stop Coming to My House

Cody

Ex-Cowboy

How To Be A Werewolf

2 Rights Make 1 Wrong

Ratts Of The Capital

ENCORE

Rano Pano

I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead

We're No Here

(Photo courtesy: Ninja Awesomeness.)

जो बोले सो निहाल

<*एक मध्यवर्गीय परिवार, शर्मा जी चम्पक के माता-पिता का आतिथ्य स्वीकार करते हुए चाय की चुस्कियाँ ले रहे हैं*>

शर्माजी (चम्पक से) : बेटा तुम कौन सी यूनिवर्सिटी में पढ़ रहे हो?
आज्ञाकारी चम्पक: जी लंड यूनिवर्सिटी में.

<*सन्नाटा*>

शर्माजी (सकपकाते हुए) :  बेटा तुम तो जज़्बाती हो गए. मैं तो बस नाम जानना चाहता था.

What is Dead May Never Die

Alfie Allen is a fuckin' gangster! Cheers to Theon for stealing Tyrion's glory!

The Big Fucking Problem

Has been solved.