Shambollic

shambollic — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:29:00 +0000

adbusters

shambollic — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:33:00 +0000

Over the last 2 weeks, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading almost every one of the tedious posts of this alok’s blog i’ve pasted before; I wouldn’t have bothered if it was just opinion. There’s hardly any of that, in fact it’s vigorously derivative and is steeped in references to sometimes obscure european art house films and a series of books starting with ‘Melancholy’, Sebald comes in a couple of times. Can’t help noting the restraint and even academic temper of his posts which are a devoted record of critical impressions, sample this post.
The few times he does dot his opinion, I can’t always agree (like when he can’t understand what’s so great about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). Considering my infantile but steadiy-eroding prejudice against north indian people (will remain anti-Hindi though) even if they happen to be on the social sidelines of New York, my reverence for alok’s posts is a development. Admittedly he lacks some essential slant and original convictions, but he is somehow reassuringly comfortable with his relegated position of temerity. He is up the right street.
***
‘sikkapatte kannada, swalpa hindi, totall bengaluru’ hoarding/ print ads
wtf radioone? I’m sorry but the debrained visualizer-copywriter (actually glutonnous CD – since they usually hog the fancy accounts) of the hot shop 4-letter agency that came up with this revelation is wrong. He forgot the 3 other south indian languages + inglish-of-a-sense which have precedence over hindi in the south. I think the ideal here is: if a south indian radio station (it isn’t i know) isn’t going to register south indian languages – who is? jabalpur fm?
all that said – the radiocity website design by bcwebwise is a super job.

Funereal

shambollic — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Watch this interview. Icelandic band Sigur Ros.
Their painful selfconsciousness, resounding discomfiture is impressive. you could trust them. But the interviewer has a lot to be pulled up over. I do not appreciate the interviewer’s insensitivity to the complexes his subjects have to deal with. These include:

The language English (not a language the band is comfortable with)
Their place as visitors (shakey for anyone but the most arrogant, culturally/personally)

Facts such as these you can fairly factor even before you begin an interview. These are ‘benefit’ facts, that gives your guests the benefit of consideration. The most composed (relative) and eloquent of the group is the one who has not surprisingly spoken from the start. He could be a father, the oldest in the group. He is not half as interesting a study as the rest. I don’t refer to him after this; he fields the first question and remains in unassuming charge …
Note how 2 members reach out for their papercups at the same time on the second question. The meek-postured boy in stripes closest to the camera only wants to leave and has taken to contorting his tongue in his mouth. He is the last to put on the headphones; wisely he puts it on only when the interview has begun. Half way into this interview, the mood of dire unease has not lifted. The member furthest from the camera has now placed his hand to to the side of his head – the thinking stress pose. Inspite of the thinking, he has spoken little yet his eye movements indicate he may be turning manic and distressed. When the interviewer uses the word ‘life’ (‘Are you enjoying life?’) it seems to offer hope, and most of them look up but not much is said. The interviewer hapless in his own desperation at what may go down as a failed interview asks a rude ‘Are you having fun…’. This helps no one and the answer is a deadpan ‘we’re having fun’. clearly this Icelandic team is not going to open up like the savvy American. The interviewer seems to raise his voice a bit and asks ‘Are you a bit of a phenomenon in Iceland?’. The word ‘phenomenon’ cracks them up and they chuckle privately but audibly suggesting they have private opinions about the interview, the interviewer, the choice of words, what it tells about the culture.

The cruellest move is when the interviewer turns on the one who has not spoken a word till then. The boyish one in stripes. His anxiety is clear, an expression of dread, he clears his throat holds his breath and taps his fingers in the runup to the specific question ‘hopelandic’. Then it should surprise no one that this tense boy’s first answer is an expletive. He nervously-defiantly says ‘fucking bullshit’ which is beeped. After initial laughs, the expressions of the bandmates indicate they do not approve of what their bandmate just said, the impression he is creating. The interviewer turns indulgent and school marmish. The interviewer persists and tries to put in words for him which makes the boy more difficult and contrary.

The interviewer becomes confrontational and strident when he could be considerate. Embarassed, his bandmates try to answer on behalf of their boy to cover up his social deficiencies. There is an expression of part-sympathy, -concern, -anger in his fellow member’s . One of his mates, on the extreme right turns red-faced after putting in a quick word on his mate’s lyrics.

The interview ends with an obvious ‘edit’ and the withdrawn face of the fractious band member in stripes and his bandmates; we could imagine there was an ugly face-off (‘Drop it will you; picking on Jaan’)?

Looking back, I see the interviewer has spoken more than the rest – we know nothing more about the band. Quite remarkably, they have succeeded in showing up the inefficiencies of the interviewer, who is likely an over-acheiving media student with 3 children of his own.

We could consider the challenge in interviewing groups, where the one interviewer decides to question each and every person in that group before all. What happens inevitably is that the first to be interviwed has the pleasure of speaking primally, instinctively, less selfconsciously. While the others among the last to be called up have to deal with their own built-up opinions and reactions to everything so far. And unless the room was noisy and distracted, there would be every reason for the final few who are called up to be nervous, self-conscious and unable to express the complex range they have built up by then. It would be the responsibility of the interviewer to pick out then who he would not naturally pick out for a comment and give that person the lead in expressing and in a sense dominating proceedings (subsequent to this initiation, the turned-in member would not even be occupied by his primacy or deficiency in participation)

shambollic — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:23:00 +0000

corpus

Cities and Ambition

shambollic — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:01:00 +0000

shambollic — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:28:00 +0000

Blogs: Alok’s Dispatches from Zembia and The Laws of Light and Honey
Essay: College a toll booth on the road to employment?
Essay: The Craft of Musical Communication
Random: Polyhedral Maps
Mag: Jumpcut

Dr Binayak Sen

shambollic — Sat, 31 May 2008 03:56:00 +0000

It’s not officially a crime to put in a word for Naxalites, but it appears all you need is a bit of prominence in which case a sympathetic word/act will find you ambushed into jail. Ignorance of law is not a valid claim for defense in court; so even if we can forgive the untenable expectation of awareness of all daft legal developments, CAN THE PUBLIC KNOW WHAT THE STAND ON treating Ns as humans IS? If there isn’t one, who should be held for pre-emptive imprisonments? The government and Left is so spectacularly self-absorbed, dishing out Padma Bushbags to metal-chewing Mittals and dyspepsic Noyis, they should really look up from their orgy and see what their wilful oversight is telling the world. Tell me that the A-team NDA boys of Wharon, Harvard, MIT don’t read the Economist. Or maybe Mukti Morcha’s Shaheed Hospital doesn’t rock their radar like Mount Sinai. They say, justice delayed is justice denied – i’d say: injustice prolonged = bloody crime

Renaissance woman؟

shambollic — Sat, 31 May 2008 02:57:00 +0000

How to undermine karma

shambollic — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:19:00 +0000

The wise man built his house on rock, dumb man on sand parable was the product of a system that didn’t know better than to sustain elitism and discourage invention. What if a poor fucker had an inheritance of only sandy land? Be sure that today, it isn’t only low income houses in Ejjipura that are willing to fall. Sure every second sundry one storey construction even in tenements are using reinforced steel bars filched or borrowed, but I’m not sure the quality of land on which they intend to stand is given much thought even in more prestigious commissions. Whether it’s water logged is about the only issue. Pumps are got from somewhere and the water bed for the locality is drained out. That’s another issue altogether and the point is: the dumb fart who was left with sandy land can either follow Laurie Baker’s advice and keep that land for a beach frond shack nothing more, or he can try flicking a couple of helical piers and anchors directly from some Razack of the Prestige Group who is I think getting away too easily with fucking up roads with construction material while he lives in a gated community. Ya – so the sandman should consider this. And some heavyduty drills.

Thachom Poyil Rajeevan

shambollic — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:55:00 +0000

Most writers (mostly the kind who go about describing themselves ‘writer’) perform as miserably as their prodiguous input/output. Then there are those that crush you to abject humility in the sound of what theyve done. T P Rajeevan I heard once in a decrepit book shop reading out his poem translated from Malayalam, and I could not handle it. It’s been 5 years and I do not remember the poem exactly but I wish to point out that most of his work, it was self-published – none of the starry eyed plopshit or a face in femina. Try out
When glasses look back.