On Geeks vs.Nerds and Perverted tube maps

In simple terms Internet could be defined as a large congregation of people .
Who have no name , assume identities and have a bit of fun time in their lives. Or Think so.
People on the internet for all practical purposes can be easily classified as bad and good. And both of them are presumed to be ugly unless proved otherwise.

Now the bad people are the nerds who generally want to get your money or your time or your girlfriend or far worse your attention . So they flickr, blog, wiki or dickey whatever, in any case, the sole motive is their insatiable greed for self appreciation in the otherwise meaningless universe that only yawns at their existence.

Among the good people are the geeks who understand the needs of the general public and get on to do the needful. This post is to celebrate the spirit of that benevolent geekiness. Here are the few mentionables.

Thanks to the Sticky geek for making the virtual life almost to feel like real life.

And big thanks to Pai Mei ,who made black Japan beta 2.0 for Firefox mozilla 2.0 and saved many a fastidious lives like mine. I was so depressed that they didnt have my eternal favourite Black Japan compatible with Firefoz 2.0


~ A quick note about the header art---

It is a pop art by Simon Patterson, called The Great Bear after the constellation. It is a modification of the classical London tube map where in the station names are changed to important personalities or stars in the history of humanity. The different tube lines represent different disciplines. So if you want to reach Nietzsche from Bogart you know you have to take a southbound actors line (corporate black) from Mornington crescent to Moorgate. The poster hangs majestically at the Tate.
You can find more about it here.

There was a similar music map released by guardian last year.
I remember the first time I came across this, I almost wept cursing Patterson for stealing my inchoate idea that i was working on for years. See,this is what happens if you are born a bit late, You end up missing all the fun and have nothing to be proud of except a post-modern faith stamped with a wifi, both of which in grand scheme of things amount to nothing better than a smoked up cigar.

C'est Moi

Been catching up with the deci--lists of the different authors from the book mentioned in my last post. If you want me to explain the whole experience in two words-- not surprised , in one word-- predictable . However, the popularity of some choices baffled me.
Take for instance, Madame Bovary, which is a decent book but perhaps slightly overrated. I understand the theme is delicate or more so in the times in which it was written . The craft is surely commendable but to put that in the top ten books of all time is bit ludicrous. Also, lets not forget it was written over a period of seven years?
God!! you could have had unimaginable number of affairs in that time! Or if we had granted Mr Joyce so much time, he would come up with one more grand chronicle of humanity so the world could have been conveniently divided into AJ - BJ After Joyce , Before Joyce.

On other things-- I must admit I am a huge huge fan of T-mobile marketing team. I reckon they have a few geniuses working for them. Just look at their adverts for the last three campaigns. Superlative. Remember the wonderful U-fix adverts? The chaps have this uncanny knack of digging the best music tracks to fit their adverts to perfection. Like the Nouvelle Vague melody I melt with you for the U-Fix. Now they have chosen a wonderful Arthur Russell tune to go in with their latest street-talk adverts.
I wouldnt mind to buy a drink to whoever came up with that one.


Caught up with Eisenstein's Strike and Its a very similar to the pleasure of revisiting an ancient wisdom lost in childhood.
The montage and narration are fastcut and unique, even when compared to his later movies. Dont you think the first borns have a special charm ?
Right from the first shot he takes direct charge of your attention and carries on without any dip throughout. Just Like a director ought to. And, did I forget to mention that he is blessed with an innate sense of music that is so rare amongst directors these days. Okay, may be except Tarantino.
As soon as we were done watching the movie, I spent good few minutes imagining how Eisenstein would have explained his visual epiphanies to the team or the editor. Oh, what a task!
And the exercise suffuses me with high anticipation of what my own thoughts might find, very much like how it is when-Banville asks us to imagine Locke pacing about after reading Newton's letter or when Ondaatje asks us to imagine Kipling's pen moving over the paper.
What is the damn word,? Yes, Magnifique!

Cheers

Bookbites

The Ten great books:

It was elle who told me about it first. Subsequently, a lot of discussion has been generated around the choices and reading habits following the release of this book last week. Had a quick peek through and its amazing how you and your favourite authors almost have related taste in books if not matching.

Although I am not into quantifying , I am definitely into lists. So spent a few minutes of considered thinking to choose my deci-list. And the cream is almost the same of that Irish wag John Banville. And, ain’t I pleased about it?



So here’s Banville's:

Ill Seen, Ill Said
Notes from the underground
Ulysses
Doctor Faustus
Moby-Dick
Lolita
Austerlitz
Dirty Snow
Gulliver's Travels
Vanity Fair

And here’s mine:

Ulysses
Notes from the underground
Moby Dick
Invisible Cities
Lolita
Great Gatsby
The Trial
Magic Mountain
On the road
And I always find it hard to pick between English Patient and Catch 22.


If you have nothing better to do for now, go make yours.

Ahoy!

It is half past five in the morning and the day is wine dark with leathery smells of damp winters. Just wanted to report back as promised. Its been quite enriching.
Heres a crop from travel note:

February trickles in slowly with  promises of sunlight here and there, glimpses of azurer skies and longer sunsets. I remember once sitting in a train on a summer evening  some whereabouts Yorkshire opposite a lovely lady who had no clue how lovely she was. She sat engrossed reading a book, her deep auburn locks drifting across her ivory forehead. Her eyes  wistful and pear like, intently following the lineage of words. Her lips curved  in a silent smile. The long orange hands of the dusk sun, capacious and bright, travelled all across the pewter clouds,  past the woods, past the yellowing grass and streams of quavering water, through the sealed glass onto her face, making her soft nose gleam like an yellow pearl. 
In that moment she was just perfect.

She was just there, alone and oblivious of the whole universe, so subtle and sublime. With neither future nor past.
A Ding an sich.
My heart , swallowed a sea. Like a  moment of  eternity consummated in a frame festooned against the constancy of life, she looked unbearably beautiful.
She was, in that minute an  Edward Hopper painting alive. 


PS- Thanking all the enquiring voices.


And may have to dip into great sea again,

Oh grey sweet mother, snotgreen sea, scrotumtightening sea, the mother of all great consciousnesses, holder of truths and secrets, stand me in good stead.


So long,

Boarding Pass...

Five senses then to gather a small part of the infinite influences that vibrate in nature, a moderate power of understanding to interpret those senses, and an irregular, passionate fancy to overlay that interpretation-such is the endowment of the human mind. And what is its ambition? Nothing less than to construct a picture of all reality, to comprehend its own origin and that of the universe, to discover the laws and prophesise their destiny. Is not the disproportion enormous ? Are not confusions and profound contradiction to be looked for in an attempt to build so much out of so little?

~Intellectual Ambition, Santayana


Glimpse isn’t enough, have to become it. Yet another experiment.The first of this year on. As ever under such circumstances, see you after 21 days ie 4th February.

Lunch time thoughts:

Lunch time conversations on a gloomy sullen post holiday friday generates such discussions:


No doubt about it , a computer mouse is the greatest of all human inventions. Aye!

Death by Life...

Another October falls slowly and
burns my thatched heart. I’m awoken
from your dreams- the same song that
plays when you walked naked
down the stairs, The yellow dawn dangling
by the gleam of your nose; the smell of all night
love. In a silent gun salute, my heart beats
twelve times a year. For us . Memories of the words
spoken with our eyes, trickle letter
after letter into the book of drying trees; All the poems
I wrote in March and read aloud to you late night
by the lone candle, get crushed by
strangers’ oblivious feet. Leaf
by leaf,
I wither.

At 36000 feet....

Desire herself, is
bodiless, but embodied
she is beautiful. Smiles at times
could be intoxicating too; formless
agendas coloured by emotions. Like for instance

love. Or even lust. Weakened by memory of
the loved ones, loneliness
for a few hours, at
thirty six thousand feet makes
you lust even after strangers at work. The principle
well known to air travel industry.

Gedankenexperiment.....

In terms of understanding the human condition, with all the limitations of the its meaning inclusive, the year that’s gone past has been remarkably encouraging. Now we got to concert efforts to further values.

Quest...

[1] Appartus for the journey.....
Havelock island, andaman galapagos, India.




[2] vision of fulfillment....
somewhere off bay, Port Blair.