So Here's What

devoured by my own pleasures

2012-02-11T02:06:00.000-05:00

My head is a little hazy this past week. Not enough hours of the day for music, reading, watching movies. There's a different and deeper involvement with social media. Twitter is really new to me, and it's nice to be able to drop a quick line to someone I admire. Not just, oh, say Amitabh Bachchan (it was his fans I followed there in the first place), but also an odd assortment of folks like Josh Malina, Pee Wee Herman, Susan Orlean, Merrill Markoe. I read little snippets from Colin Quinn and the Dalai Lama and Joe Hill. Met up with Tricia there, the woman who writes the amazing Coney Island blog Amusing the Zillion (I originally registered there under the name @northofconey so the Coney Island people do follow me.) Not many of my friends are there, but Gretchen Kunz is, and of course it's where I first met Shiva.

Facebook has been a slightly busier place than usual for me of late. Of course, it's more public. I only have 23 followers on Twitter, but I have 131 friends on Facebook. Then again, Facebook does have private corners like messaging and text. A lot of music content for me there, since my friends are a little heavy on the musician side. (Also rediscovered a little know of my college radio friends.) I haven't counted recently, but there are quite a few of my old boyfriends there, a few of whom do flirt. Old reliable Bob Steiner, wicked Michael Sheehan. And some old friends where the arm's-distance quality of Facebook is just right.

So many music clips! so many movie recommendations! so many jokes and political quips, clever notes to respond too. But then there's also a like of YouTube to look through to find just the right bit with which to represent myself. There are emails I have to crop, which would run to a novel if I said everything I wanted to.

This is a winter of breathing slow and hard, thinking warm thoughts.

After a long online chat the other night, where I was told about how fascinated westerners seem with the Kama Sutra, I decided to finally read it. I'm not sure how many translations are around, but I downloaded Sir Richard Francis Burton's (Project Gutenberg), which I know was the first English translation. I guess like most (stupid) westerners, I believed it to be something like a sex manual, with hundreds of sex positions laid out, and so on. The beginning does deal with sex, explaining how a man and woman should properly enjoy each other, and describes and names certain attitudes and acts. But a lot of it, and the entire book, is just more about relationships and social rules -- most of which seem to be bendable or breakable. For instance, it tells how a proper wife should be chaste, but then there's a lot of space devoted to methods of seducing married women, or sneaking into a harem to enjoy the king's wives. Most of the book is about courtship, really. Some is quaint, some is sensible, and some is astonishing.

Enjoy an unwilling woman by drugging her and taking her home, then enjoying her before she comes to? Legitimate pastime then - date-rape now. Attracting a woman, when encountered at a party, festival, or friends's house, by stroking your mustache, jingling your ornaments, and (my personal favorite), sitting a child on your lap, placing paan in its mouth with your tongue and stroking its chin. O rly?

Overall, it was a pretty interesting social history, a really odd, ancient slice of life. Vastly entertaining.

And our old pal Amitabh is again in the hospital. I knew about his 1983 injury while making the movie Coolie, but did not know that he had subsequent abdominal surgery in 2005. I knew his spleen ruptured and was removed in '83, but apparently he's had lasting intestinal issues, including an incisional hernia. So he's having an operation today for something related to that, and apparently the doctor saw something else on a CAT scan. The EF, of course, are losing their minds. Those are some seriously crazy people, and I still sometimes make the mistake of trying to interact with them. There are a couple I can say that I like, but not many I enjoy reading. Anyway, I think I can also say that Amitabh is maybe too soft-hearted when it comes to those crazies. He follows a handful of the craziest on Twitter, and blogs from his hospital bed to make all of the insane fans happy. (Though it does also serve the purpose of getting accurate information to the media.)

Some video? oh, if I must. I was lucky enough to find this one, the opening song of the show I attended last January:

This is how to love David Johansen.

Then I started with "Smooth" again, by Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas. That song hooks me and earworms me up more often than I'd imagine. I'm afraid I may have passed it along to Shiva. There's something so sexy about that song that it's almost scary:

Kind of makes me wish for summer already.

Plans for the weekend: finish watching Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (recent movie, well received, Hrithik Roshan). Make one more necklace and one more pair of earrings for the Village Scandal. Continue to play four or five different games of Words with Friends at once, and get creamed in most of them. (My Scrabble skills are way rusty, and my friends are way smart.) Buy a few things online. We got our hands on a little extra money and I may finally buy myself a kameez and a bottle of Mitsouko.

I've been wearing Bal a Versailles, which I bought - reasonably - on a hunch. It's not bad but I have a feeling my aunt Mara used to wear it -- it makes me think of her. Barry likes it a lot, but it's not my favorite.

Actually I saw a thing on Fiverr the other day where someone will blend a cologne sample to your liking, which of course intrigues me.

I think everything is intriguing me lately. He does feel like it should be spring, leaning into summer...

my head is spinning somewhat

2012-02-07T14:40:00.000-05:00

Can't really say why, but it is. Too much good mood. Too much good mood + can't talk about it = what do you think it equals?

All else is what it is and what it's been: work is still good, I feel hopeful about the jewelry, I'm trying to arrange a dinner with Robin for the 16th or 17th. Robin will understand the spinning-head stuff. Her head has been known to spin over such things.

Money sucks, sucks, sucks. Barry had a shot at a job at Ohel, working with developmentally disabled people, but it turned out he had to have a driver's license. He's now applying for a slightly less good but similar job, also with Ohel. Of course, I suggested that he look for similar jobs in other agencies, WHICH HADN'T OCCURRED TO HIM.

As we say in Mangalore, oy vey.

oops - double LMFAO

2012-02-06T19:54:00.000-05:00

I guess I did LMFAO for two posts in a row. Well, I like LMFAO. Watch the videos again -- maybe you'll like them, too.

Otherwise, I'm still listening to Hindi music, but I've thrown some Latin music and a few other random things (Robert Palmer for one) back into the mix. How often can I listen to Eer Bir Phatte and scratch my head over what it might mean?

no Super Bowl content whatever

2012-02-06T19:51:00.000-05:00

I really have to remember that no matter how much I love reading Amitabh Bachchan's blog and even leaving comments, most of the commentors (the "EF") are totally insane. Or some are totally insane, many are partly insane. Anyway, I am often stupid enough to let some of them bother me, and often it's an issue of snub or neglect rather than attack. Still, I let someone get to me over the weekend, and I let it make me feel lousy. And then -- whoop, mood swing! -- I saw something this morning on Facebook that tickled me no end. Only takes one nice person to counter a dismal mood. I'm lucky enough to have a lot of nice people in my life, so the nasty ones can just take a hike. I only have to remember not to let myself be bothered by them. I'm so oversensitive sometimes.

I made one more of the Village Scandal necklaces this weekend: 8mm lapis beads, with dangles in white "rice krispie" pearls, 4mm round blue agate, 4mm lapis barrels, 4mm iolite saucers. (For those of you scratching your heads: dark opaque blue, white pearls, translucent medium blue, dark opaque blue, transparent dark blue.) The blue and white looks very fresh. I think the third one will be pink and light green, which is pretty much my favorite spring color combo. I have some round 10mm faceted cherry quartz that's been sitting around for a while, and I have insane numbers of all kinds of green beads. And I think some little pink pearls. For some reason, I have way more green and yellow/orange stone beads than any other colors. Way lower on the pink/red, blue, and purple.

I did make the move to silver-plated headpins. It didn't hurt too much. They're sooo much less expensive, and they look fine. And it's really nice to work with material where I don't have to feel stingy. I bought 500 headpins for around $8.

It looks like my PPSC holiday jewelry sale is going to go ahead, except it's been morphed into a crafts fair, which means I'll be alongside other sellers. It'll be small, so there won't be other jewelers, but there may be a potter, a painter, etc. I'm slightly disappointed, because I really wanted (and expected) to have the showcase all to myself; and I'll certainly earn less money. But it's a big vote of confidence and a great opportunity, even a little diluted; the Board of Directors voted to go ahead with it on Friday, so I really have no cause for complaint. The Board rocks, really. I used to take minutes at the Board meetings at NYU Law School, and man, that was a dull group and a dull meeting (although the lunches were pretty good). The PPSC Board is smaller and way less formal, plus I can even make some suggestions or comments and it's OK -- sometimes even very much welcome.

The people at PPSC...well, we all understand that they have professional training that I don't, but no one uses that to put themselves above me. They all act as if we're all talented and useful, just in different areas. No one assumes that I don't know things. When I worked at Tarcher, the editor-in-chief, Mitch, was (and is) a very bright guy, but he tended to assume that other people were not, especially people in lower positions than he was (like me). Once we were coming out of a sales meeting, and he said, about a sales guy in the meeting, "You know, Hal Fessenden's brother is this really crazy avant-garde movie director." I said, "He's Larry Fessenden's brother?" And Mitch said, "How do YOU know about Larry Fessenden?" Pardon me, but fuck you, Mitch. No one would ever do anything like that here...not only that, but they're always quick to give me credit, and always welcome new info and new ideas. It's not just that I'm a little older now and not someone's kid assistant; the people here don't really have anything to prove, and they're mostly pretty warm, kind folk.

I guess I'm counting blessings right about now. Financial need has been twisting my life in a truly miserable way over the past year, with no end in sight. But I work for and with nice people, and I have some very wonderful people in my life.

Apart from making that necklace, I spent a lot of the weekend watching Downton Abbey. Highbrow and addictive. I watched the entire first season on Netflix over a couple of weeks, and then totally cheated and downloaded the entire second season and have now watched all of it. So they'd better hurry up and make that third season! I'm reserving my opinion on HBO's Luck; so far, a lot of good actors, and a whole lot of horse-racing jargon. That guy Gary Stevens is in it, an actual jockey who was also in Seabiscuit. In fact, looking at the IMDB, it seems he won the George Woolf Memorial Jockey award in 1996 before playing George Woolf in Seabiscuit in 2003. You can't get much better trivia than that!

Although...speaking of trivia...I've kind of come late to the game concerning LMFAO. I guess Party Rock Anthem was a huge hit last summer, but I've just discovered it. Those guys are awesome. And here's the cool trivia part: not only are they uncle and nephew, but they're the son and grandson of Berry Gordy!

So I guess I must...

http://youtu.be/KQ6zr6kCPj8

http://youtu.be/MBg1SxfCCM8

http://youtu.be/HnhGU-J5MxE

well, I decided

2012-01-29T22:57:00.000-05:00

I decided to do a small, special line for the Village Scandal. The woman had said she was interested in a necklace like the one I was wearing, but in a choker length. I made one, I'll make two more. Then I came up with an earring where I put about a dozen beads on headpins, put them on a jumpring, then chain and an earring hook. Kind of a play on a 1960s cocktail earring. Since this store does a lot of vintage-look stuff, it should be perfect. Made four pair of the earrings, and I think I'll make one more, and maybe one for myself. I've done that style some, only without the chain.

Apart from making four pair of earrings this weekend, I watched The Dirty Picture and Senna and a few episodes of Downton Abbey.

Downtown Abbey: had to see what all the fuss was about. Dear Lord, it's Upstairs Downstairs again, and with Maggie Smith in it! You had me at "Ring for tea"!

The Dirty Picture was probably one of the better mainstream Hindi films of 2011. Vidya Balin was excellent, and I always like Naseeruddin Shah; I actually know him from western movies too. It's awards season over there, too, of course, so you get a pretty good idea of what was mainstream in the past year. (Also, I watched those Indian showbiz programs on Saturday morning, and that's all they're ever pushing.) So, there'll be a lot of prizes for films and people in films like Don 2, Ra.One, Bodyguard, Desi Boyz, and so on. Vidya Balin should win some prizes and there were a couple of first-rate songs in The Dirty Picture. But it's gonna be all Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.

Where was I? Dirty Picture. Some of the plot was just really bizarre, and I find that in a lot of Indian movies. Sometimes I must be missing something...other times, it's probably just bizarre. In this movie, I couldn't quite figure out why the Abraham character (Emraan Hashmi) became the enemy of Silk. I got that he didn't like the idea of using sex to sell movies, but I didn't get why this made him feel he had to destroy her. It just seemed like an insane overreaction. And then there was this business about how he both liked and and hated her, and since I couldn't figure out why he hated her, it wasn't working for me at all. But the overall rise-and-fall plot was just fine.

Senna was a very talked-about documentary last year, about a Brazilian Formula One race car driver who was very successful and well-known in the mid-80s until his death (crash) in 1994. Not being much of one for car racing, I had no idea that they put cameras right on the cars, so there were big chunks of the movie where you are actually watching a race from Senna's seat, which is pretty amazing. But I was also acutely aware of the construction of the film, that what was shown was very carefully chosen to create only one opinion about the man and the events. No distractions, no uncertainties.

This is going to be a murderous week at work -- classes starting tomorrow, and I've somehow found myself with three interns. Learned just this past week that I would have to take a high school intern along with the two college interns I already have. I feel like I'm going to spend all my time finding things for them to do. And I'm going to have someone in there with me almost every working hour, which feels a little stifling. But I'll just take it as it comes.

Do I distract myself with never-can-happen imaginings? Well, yeah. Having a small life day-to-day doesn't mean I can't have a big life in my head and my heart. I don't suppose there's anything wrong with doing the daily things right, as much as possible, and dreaming big dreams.

in the cheapie store, I kid you not

2012-01-25T23:02:00.001-05:00

If by any chance you didn't see it on Facebook, I was in a big discount store today and ran right smack into Richie Havens. At first, I thought, wow, there's a guy here in the discount store that looks just like Richie Havens! Then I saw another guy had come up and started talking to him, and I realized that it indeed was he. I introduced myself -- rather, reintroduced, since I had interviewed him around 1996. I mentioned the interview and he said he remembered it, which was either true or very nice of him to say. We talked a little about Bill Perry, a blues guitarist who had started with Richie, made a big impression with his own band, and died very young of bad health coupled with bad habits. I promoted Bill very heavily when I was first at Blues Revue and Bill had released his first album with a national label. (Bill indeed lived up to my hype, which made me a lot of points at BR, since I started there with basically no music journalism experience except an interview with Peter Stampfel in Folk Roots.)

Anyway, Richie is a super-sweet guy, just a very laid back and mellow guy. And he belongs to a very elite group: he played Woodstock. In fact, he opened Woodstock.

I was not old enough to be at Woodstock (1969), but it was a huge event in the consciousness of every American rock fan. It was the first of the big outdoor multi-day multi-band concerts. And the line-up was outrageous. I believe the Who gave their first US performance. Ravi Shankar performed. Janis Joplin and Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Grateful Dead. Oh, and Jimi Hendrix. So it was kind of cool today to spend a little time chatting with someone who played Woodstock.

I'll sign off for now, since I just got distracted on YouTube and watched a Ruben Blades video. I can see I'll be doing some pool-table bouncing around YouTube for a while. I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW.

Here's the Ruben Blades video, which is a great song on a cheesy set, probably from the 1980s. Well. I can't find the right one. Why I cannot retrieve a list of My Favorite on YouTube (owned by Google) to Blogger (also Google) is beyond me. I have to do a search on YouTube, and often can't get, or am not sure I have, the same version I have saved in My Favorites. WTF GOOGLE?

Screw it: http://youtu.be/nQ_YCctsSWs . This is Ruben Blades doing Camaleon. I haven't listened to him in a while, and he should be listened to. He totally rocks. Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure that the reason I never listened to him more is that I don't understand the lyrics. Duh. I've pretty much listened to nothing but Hindi music for a couple of months now, and I understand way less Hindi than I do Spanish. I think Ruben's going to get back into the heavy rotation at some point.

Well, why don't you all come along on my YouTube tour? First off, I have no idea who's reading this -- Indian movie fans or craft jewelers? -- so I'm just not aiming this at any one. I'm just gonna watch some videos I like.

I just discovered these guys the other day. This is because I am over 25 and new music does eventually get to me, but a little more slowly. They're pretty popular. Their songs are very dance-y and synth, but they're really catchy. And these videos made me laugh my ass off...not surprising. The band is actually called LMFAO. Here's the wild part: the two guys are Berry Gordy's son and grandson (one is the uncle of the other). Berry Gordy founded Motown. I keep thinking I shouldn't like these guys, but I do: http://youtu.be/MBg1SxfCCM8.

MY president can sing an Al Green song! http://youtu.be/T-hDt2E8MoE. Maybe we should elect Al Green in 2012. http://youtu.be/COiIC3A0ROM

That's probably enough for now. I have big plans to stay up late and watch a movie, to be determined.

oops

2012-01-23T15:55:00.000-05:00

I somehow forgot to mention that I also watched The Artist yesterday. This was a charming and wonderful movie, revisiting the silent-to-talkies transition in a very sweet way. And you gotta love the dog.

Oscar nominations tomorrow morning!

not great & not funny

2012-01-23T14:26:00.000-05:00

"Not great" was the movie I watched last night, Dark Matter. About a Chinese grad student, used (in an academic sense) by his faculty mentor, then discarded when his work threatened to supersede his mentor's...the change in the student's behavior seemed very sudden, and I have no idea what Meryl Streep's character was doing there. I guess the character -- a wealthy, well-meaning woman fascinated with Chinese culture who tries to make the Chinese students feel welcome -- was made to represent the overall cluelessness of the Americans interacting with the Chinese students. And the wonderful Bill Irwin, who played the husband of the Streep character, had absolutely nothing to do. If you're going to bother to put Bill Irwin in a movie, at least give him something to do involving dance or body movement (see My Blue Heaven or even Eight Men Out).

Not funny: this idiot writer.

I made a necklace last night, just for the new store: a rosary-link choker with drops between the joins, mostly carnelian with a little citrine and a couple of pearls. And now I find myself out of headpins. I may have to make the move to silver-filled, since silver is just way too expensive. But I think I have enough pieces now to bring to The Village Scandal this week.

Holly or Bolly? both

2012-01-22T00:33:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched The Descendants, the new Alexander Payne movie with George Clooney. Whenever I think about Clooney, I think about his good taste as a producer, his good work as a director, and how much he makes me think of Cary Grant. But for some reason, I tend to forget what a good actor he is. This was really not a glamorous role, and he was entirely believable. He's always more subtle than I expect. I don't know if the Oscar noms are in yet (don't think so) but I'll say he should be be up for best actor (perhaps also for best supporting for The Ides of March). Who would have thought the handsome doctor from ER would have turned out to have that kind of talent?

I'd had two recommendations for Dil Chahta Hai (one was actually for anything with Aamir Khan) so I watched that. For a friends/romance/comedy movie, it was quieter and less silly and less melodramatic than many. (No "boing!") sounds effects like in KANK. And Aamir Khan is quite good. I knew what he looked like but hadn't seen one of his movies before. Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna were also quite wonderful. All around, no one overacted, the musical scenes fit nicely. There was a scene in a movie theater with Saif Ali Khan and Sonali Kukarni where the two of them are in a scene from a 1960s movie; I don't know the movie, but I bet the character Ali Khan was supposed to be is Dev Anand. He had that Dev Anand look to him.

Met someone today (is that the right thing to say when it's online?) who is a great fan of James Stewart, via Alfred Hitchcock, not via Frank Capra. I am an unrepentant hater of Frank Capra. He's generally thought of as a great filmmaker, but I find him so sentimental and manipulative that he just makes me ill. And it's a shame that he hijacked James Stewart into a lot of that.

But I totally get James Stewart via Hitchcock. He's not an actor I think about all that much, though I kept flashing back on a young James Stewart, kind of Philadelphia-Story era, tripping over his own long legs, when I saw this:

No, really, not just an excuse for another Big B clip. It really did make me think of James Stewart.

It occurs to me that if you like James Stewart (this is for Pankaj if you're there), that you'd also like Jack Lemmon. He did great comedies (Some Like it Hot) and great dramas (Days of Wine and Roses) and great character parts when he was older (Glengarry Glen Ross). And by the way, everyone who likes Scorsese and Tarantino and those guys should check out Glengarry, which was written by David Mamet; his stuff fits in there very nicely. Plus the movie has guys like Ed Harris and Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin...and then Alec Baldwin shows up for about five minutes and steals the entire movie.

But back to Jack Lemmon: to me, the contemporary actor who is most like Jack Lemmon would have to be Tom Hanks. He went almost effortlessly from being a light comic actor to being a serious actor with real talent. (He won back-to-back best actor Oscars for Philadelphia and Forest Gump, although I may not have those in proper chronological order.)

He's also in Apollo 13 which is one of my flat-out all-time favorite movies. I can't even critique that movie because I'm so blindly in love with the space program stuff (which was done with painstaking accuracy) that I can't even take it apart. Great actors, especially Ed Harris. (Ed Harris is a link to my other favorite space program movie, The Right Stuff.)

Someone found me on Twitter today and asked "Bolly or Holly?" Both, thank you. I'm enjoying hanging out with other film fans (again, if one can say that about online connections). Otherwise it's fairly solitary. Barry has not caught the Indian movie thing the way I have.

I was kvetching a bit on Facebook today about having so many movies backed up that I couldn't decide what to watch. (Yiddish alert! Kvetch = complain.) As I said before, two opinions pushed me to Dil Chahta Hai. I'm thinking The Dirty Picture might be next. Don't know if I'm up for another one tonight, though, and I'll be spending some quality time with my jewelry table tomorrow.

are these oddly similar, or was it just the 80s?

2012-01-21T13:09:00.000-05:00

What do you think?

more jewelry news, for one thing

2012-01-20T16:08:00.000-05:00

Robin and I went out Wednesday night for Indian food (something we've been doing for many years, way before my Indian film/music mania). Good food, and there are a man playing a sarangi, which was quite wonderful.

But before dinner, she took me to see a little accessories store that had hats she liked, called The Village Scandal. It did indeed have a lot of nice hats and other accessories, kind of faux vintage. We ended up at the counter looking at jewelry and chatting with the owner. Robin mentioned that I had made the earrings she was wearing, and I showed off the necklace I was wearing, and the woman said, "I could sell something like that in choker length. Do you ever sell your jewelry?" So it looks like, without trying, I'll be doing some consignments there. I wasn't even trying. Very cool; made me feel great. So even though nothing of mine is there yet, please do visit The Village Scandal, at 19th East 7th Street (I believe it's between Second and Third Avenue), New York City. Or tell your friends in New York.

I actually made my first-ever consignment deal some years back on another night that Robin and I were in the east village to eat Indian food, at a store called Back from Guatemala, a south American craftsy store that also had nice jewelry. On a trial basis, they took a Y-necklace with oval ocean jasper...funny that I remember the exact necklace. I was going to do more business with them, but the manager got sick, and then the store closed. Robin seems to bring me luck as far as jewelry sales.

Robin has of course always been a huge supporter of my jewelry, but she's always worn very simple, petite pieces, so that most of what I make didn't suit her. At one point, I made maybe half-a-dozen pair of earrings for her with a simple, one-small-bead drop. But she's decided to get more adventurous, and I gave her a couple of necklaces for her birthday and she's wearing them a lot. One has amethyst up one side, citrine up the other, and a kyanite drop in the middle. The other has tiny fluorite beads with a big Thai silver orchid pendant. I actually have a reasonable photo of the former at home and will post it here.

The other thing I did on Wednesday was buy bangles. I swear I'm not an Indian wannabe, but I've been looking at women in Indian movies wearing piles of bangles, and it's a great look. I never used to be too crazy about bangles because I was afraid I'd squeeze into one and not be able to get it off...which didn't stop me from eyeballing jade bangles down in Chinatown. (I still wouldn't mind having one of those.) But between an accessories store near work, and a Tibetan store in the east village, I ended up buying about 30 bangles in silvertone, goldtone, and some blues and greens. They don't hurt my wrist when I use a mouse (which some bracelets do). They are super-wearable and comfortable, they look great, and they jingle when I move around. I LOVE them. Now, of course, I need red ones, and some other colors. (What I really need is more storage for my jewelry. The big jewelry box I've had for many years is stuffed, several other little boxes are stuffed...I probably need an entire shelving system to keep it all.

My past and near-past office intern, Sarah E., just said goodbye, and it's truly heartbreaking. She interned for me last summer, and called a couple of months ago to say she'd be in town in January, and did I need some help? She was here for a few weeks, and not only helped a lot, but was wonderful company. Very sweet, very smart, very sane. I'll miss her a bunch. She'll be back from Smith for spring break in March, and said she'd be in touch.

It's supposed to snow tonight, and I'm looking forward to a nice weekend indoors, making jewelry and watching a movie or two.

Since the friend who's fallen in love with Amitabh is waiting for her copy of KANK, I decided to rewatch a little of it last night. It's actually kind of cheesy and silly. Interesting to see my own reaction compared to the first time I saw it (around three years ago) and the second time I saw it (about two and a half months ago). I'm starting to think I may have overestimated Abhishek...although I did like him in Delhi 6. I don't think I can bear to watch Dostana, which apparently involves a couple of guys pretending to be gay to get girls or something -- I mean, ew. I'd like to see him try his hand at remaking one of his father's films (he might have to tie up SRK and Hrithik to get the roles), and then we can see if he's got the goods.

Ram Gopal Varma has been posting some very sexist and negative tweets of late. My friend Shiva said something about RGV being or seeming drunk...and that must be it. He thinks like a drunk. On the other end of the spectrum, I've been following Anupam Kher, and he seems like a wonderful man. As soon as I can scrape up $30, I'm buying his new book.

SOPA/PIPA: Bad. Indian government not protecting Sir Salman Rushdie: Bad. Italian cruise ship captain ordering food after the crash: Bad. Johnny Otis and Etta James dying: Sad. Sorry to short-change you on news and politics, but it's not really my forte.

a force of nature

2012-01-16T22:53:00.000-05:00

A woman I know saw "Rock n' Roll Soniye" when I posted it on Facebook about a month ago, and she is now in love with Amitabh Bachchan. That kind of thing will happen.

A Star is Born...oops, I mean Abhimaan

2012-01-16T13:57:00.000-05:00

There are three versions of the American film A Star is Born: one from the 1930s, with Janet Gaynor and Frederic March; one from the 50s, with Judy Garland and James Mason; and one from the 70s with barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.

The plot concerns a successful male actor/singer who marries an up-and-coming female actor/singer, his career goes downhill while she gets very famous, and he turns to drink and dies or kills himself.

Then there's Abhimaan (1973). This follows the same storyline, except that the last act is more complex and somewhat far-fetched. After the male singer turns to drink, his wife returns to the country and it turns out she's pregnant. She loses the baby, loses her will to live, and he comes to get her and take her back to the city. He had given up singing when she became successful, but her doctor tells him, "The only thing that will help her is if you sing again." Really? So he sings, and she snaps out of it and sings with him, and they live happily ever after.

That being said -- the movie is quite enjoyable. This owes largely to the stars, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Badhuri (who became Jaya Badhuri Bachchan later that year). They both looked marvelous, and the chemistry was obvious. The other real plus was the singing of Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar, which was absolutely sublime.

Another thing I want to mention, in terms of this movie and other older Indian movies, is that unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much film preservation going on. Since this was actually on a legitimately issued and purchased DVD, it's clear that the picture and sound quality has been permitted to age and degrade, which is a terrible shame. There's a big push in the US industry to preserve and restore old films; director Martin Scorsese is a well-known leader of this movement.

Of the three versions of A Star is Born, the first two are excellent. The earliest one is not a musical and the characters are movie actors. In the second, Judy Garland is an actor/singer, since you can't put Judy Garland in a movie and not have her sing. The third one was basically a vanity project of Barbra Streisand's, and she's about as vain as they come. Kris Kristofferson's role was edited down to a nub, and the movie was basically written off as an expensive disaster.

a couple of American films

2012-01-15T10:54:00.001-05:00

I guess movie criticism has become a big part of this blog. Some years ago, I had a lot of back trouble and had to spend a lot of time in bed on my back, which was when I bought my first VCR. I watched so many movies that I felt I had to justify all of that time spent, and starting writing reviews for the NYU Law newspaper (I was working there at time, not studying).

I'm not sure why I felt guilty about spending so much time watching movies, but I suspect it was AA. I'd been sober for about six months before I hurt my back, and the way I spent my time had become very careful and deliberate. Taking life as it came had caused me to be drunk and high, as I understood it, and I had to relearn what to do with myself. I walked on eggshells for those first few years sober, and I guess it was a good way to get into better habits. Make no mistake -- AA was the best and the only thing I could do back then. Later on, I found it stifling and way too closed. (This is a little on my mind since an old sponsor just got back in touch.)

Yesterday's films were The Ides of March and Moneyball. The former was directed by George Clooney, starring Clooney but mostly a showcase for Ryan Gosling, who has grown into a marvelous actor. A lot of good character actors in it, too: Paul Giamatti, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. It involved secret dealings within a Presidential primary. Well done and interesting for American viewers, probably a little difficult for others.

Same with Moneyball. Mr. Bachchan tweeted yesterday, "Life is too short to explain cricket to Americans." Explaining baseball to Indians is probably just as tough. (And no one, as yet, has been able to explain football to me.) Moneyball is a true story about the general manager of the Oakland A's in 2004, who adopted the mathematical statistical analysis of Bill James to rebuild a team which was staggering from the loss of three key players. He didn't win the playoffs, but did break an MLB record when the team won 20 consecutive games. It was a really nice performance by Brad Pitt, who's starting to remind me a bit of Robert Redford. Also nice work by Jonah Hill. And what do you know -- Phillip Seymour Hoffman again.

Hoffman and John C. Reilly are two actors I can watch in almost anything, and I tend to think of them together because I saw both for the first time in Boogie Nights. (Which was one of my favorite movies, and I recommend it wholesale if you can handle even more sex than in the usual American movies.)

As much as it's not a good thing when we have computer trouble at work, it does mean I'll get a visit from Tamsir, who is one of the nicest, coolest, and most interesting people I've met in a long time. He actually showed up with flowers for me yesterday, since we hadn't seen each other since before the holidays; totally unexpected, and it made a big impression on me. I know he does read this blog occasionally, so if you're reading this -- thanks again. I'm so glad to know you.

this is not about Indian films

2012-01-13T16:14:00.000-05:00

I need new photos. I pretty much hate all of the photos I have of myself: not flattering or badly dressed or no makeup or that horrible short haircut I got in summer 2010. Feh.

This one's not so bad (I'm dead center) but it's from high school. Don't we all look great in fuzzy pictures?

One of the things I always loved about V., I must say, is that he always thought I looked exactly the same as I did when I met him (when I was 18). Maybe so, though I'm a mite heavier and my hair's turned grey, close to white. (I started to go grey around 25 and dyed it for many years). V. once showed me an old picture of his ex-girlfriend, A., when she was maybe 25, and said, "She looks exactly the same as she does now!" But I know A. -- she's heavy, stooped, wears glasses...she just looks really worn-out. V. must have time-travel-vision. He does have some good qualities. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss him...he was great to talk to, until his agenda changed.

I watched Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory on HBO last night, and although I'd already known that the WM3 were released in August, it was good to watch it happen. They got out on some weird thing called the Alford rule, where they had to proclaim their innocence but plead guilty, and were released for time served. I find it very confusing, even with this explanation on Wikipedia. But at least they're out. And there's nothing, as I believe I said recently, like a good documentary.

In fact, if I hadn't seen this doc, I don't think I would be able to get through the book I'm reading, The Great Bridge by David McCullough. Some subjects are just too difficult for me without pictures. For instance, I would not have the faintest idea, even with all of the explanations, of what a caisson was, without having seen visuals in the doc. I often forget to mention Ken Burns as a favorite documentarian, because most of his works are on TV. (Well, so were the Paradise Lost films. Beats me.) Of course, most of his docs are multi-part and very, very long; hard to recommend them as movies. (Examples: Jazz, Baseball, The Civil War.) And then there is his brother Ric, who made a wonderful film about Coney Island.

Yes, it's link day. If I've already done this research, I suppose I ought to share it, along with my ever-present opinions.

My opinion is that it's been very quiet here at work today, and I feel pretty ready to leave. Although Tamsir is coming in soon, to fix Susan's laptop, and I haven't seen him in ages. I hate when the computers break down but also like it because then Tamsir comes in. He's another favorite person to talk to. The last time he was in, maybe two months ago, I told him that I'd started watching a lot of Indian films, and he said, "Like Amitabh?" (The response I usually get is, "Like Bollywood?") Of course, Tamsir is from Senegal and was brought up on those movies. But I liked him even before that.

A musician I haven't seen in a long while posted a link on Facebook today to an article about plus-size models, with photos of a very lovely size 12 woman. He commented, "I don't like skinny women, I like REAL women" or something to that effect. When I first knew him in 1993 or 94, it always seemed as if he were dating the skinniest women he can find. Yay! he grew up!

golden line #3

2012-01-12T12:18:00.001-05:00

(Amitabh's replies to comments are shaded in yellow on the blog, and are referred to as "golden lines." This is my third in 2-1/2 months.)

Jennifer Levy says:

January 12, 2012 at 12:44 am

I’ve always believed that art reflects the culture. I don’t think art necessarily panders to the culture, but if art is produced that does not please people, they will not support it. This matters less to independent artists, but if those who produce art are also looking for a large profit, or just to make a living, they will make art or films or books that will appeal to the greater part of the public.
Western influence is felt worldwide, and some is good, some less so. A lot of people point fingers at MTV for introducing the quick-cut editing that has become ubiquitous in TV and movies. I find that a lot of art is less leisurely, and to me, that is a bad Western influence. And personally, I’m not happy when I see contemporary Indian films and the costumes and music and highly westernized. I want to see India in Indian films! But as a result of all of the modern communications, cultures often seem to dissolve into a single, often low-brow, culture. In the US we use the expression “lowest common denominator,” meaning something so simplistically appealing that everyone will like and understand it…something that will not go over anyone’s head. That art is attractive and easy to consume, but personally, I like something more challenging.
Love, Jennifer
Best wishes and good thoughts to Nandita!

ab says:

January 12, 2012 at 10:25 pm

jennifer levy … thank you for your observations

Nishabd!

2012-01-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

We're on Indian film again tonight. I promise some other topics, but I must talk about the film I just saw.

I don't know if either Amitabh Bachchan or Ram Gopal Varma should ever work with anyone but each other. This is the third collaboration I've seen (after the two Sarkar films), and maybe the best.

Part of the reason I like RGV so much is that he speaks the language of American film. I may have said before that he was greatly influenced by American genre film, but my new cinematic cohort used the word "noir," which is absolutely on target. And boy, you don't see a lot of noir in Indian film.

RGV also seems to understand Amitabh's strengths as an actor and has cast him in roles where he really shines. I've read online that some people don't think he's much of an actor. In a lot of his earlier roles, the challenge of the acting may have been less; at times, he seemed more like a personality, persona and presence that a great actor. But no one can see this film and deny that he's a very, very fine actor.

Also -- no small thing -- AB looks really, really, really great in the three RGV films I've seen, which are all from the '00s. It has something to do with costume, hair, makeup, lighting, and photography, but it's the director who makes sure all of it is right. Oh, and he makes sure you can see the guy's eyes. Anyone who lets Bachchan wear dark glasses in a movie should be shot, and anyone who suggests it is an idiot. You can quote me.

The movie is pretty much a remake of Poison Ivy. Teenage girl brings home teenage friend to spend some time, and the girl seduces the father. Except that Nishabd is much more of a love story, and the girl in Poison Ivy was evil and manipulative, not just a sexy schoolgirl who thinks she's in love. Another major difference was that the star in the American movie was playing the girl (Drew Barrymore), and the star in the Indian movie is playing the father.

Sidebar: the US film industry doesn't have the kind of large and long-lived acting families as the Hindi film industry, but the Barrymores are one. From www.IMDB.com: Daughter of John Drew Barrymore and Jaid Barrymore. Half-sister of Jessica, Blythe Dolores and John Blyth Barrymore. Niece of actress Diana Barrymore. Granddaughter of actor John Barrymore and Dolores Costello, on her father's side. Great-granddaughter of silent film actor Maurice Costello and Mae Costello. Great-niece of famed actors, Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore.

John Barrymore was hugely famous in his day, kind of an earlier Laurence Olivier -- stage, then silents, and some talkies before he drank himself to death. His wife, Dolores Costello, did silents and then played a lead role in Orson Welles' second-best movie, The Magnificent Ambersons.

Drew Barrymore started acting as a very young child and was in the Steven Spielberg film E.T.

Nishabd did seem to bounce around a bit between romantic and sexy. There was even a brief kiss on the lips, which was pleasantly shocking. Poison Ivy, of course, was a lot more explicit...and I've seen Indian movies with a lot more touching, kissing on the neck and so forth. I guess the girl's character was very sexy, but the father was very romantic.

The scenes where the father (big surprise, his name is Vijay) can't stop giggling because the girl has been flirting with him -- really crazy and great. It's not an expected reaction, but it makes a lot of sense, and is overt in a way that is more unique than sexy scenes. And Amitabh just nails it, goes big and succeeds.

I don't think this movie went over very big in India. Maybe it's too noir, too genre, too American.

n.b. Wikipedia says it was based on American Beauty, and also mentions Lolita, a 1986 film called Anosha Riska, and a Bengali film called Nisshabd (whose director sued RGV for infringement). Say what you will, RGV steals wisely.

wealth and charity

2012-01-09T14:10:00.000-05:00

A little research has shown that Mr. Bachchan does participate in some charitable activities, although I read in some places that he is private about such things.

I understand that there's a different quality to private charity; I've written about it in terms of myself. I try to give away money every day, though I don't mention it often and certainly don't report on specifics.

But for wealthy, well-known people who care about how the public perceives them (Mr. Bachchan is certainly on that list), it behooves them not to keep their actions and donations private. Can you imagine how people would feel about Bill Gates if no one knew that he was giving away enormous chunks of his fortune? On the other side, I read Steve Jobs' biography, and absolutely thought less of him because he didn't have a philanthropic bone in his body. Shameful. I know it's only my opinion, but it's hard to be a citizen of the world if you turn a blind eye to the needs of others.

I am in nothing remotely approaching stable financial condition. I panic about money a lot. But I can always peel off a quarter for someone on the street, or for a musician on the subway platform. My mantra is, "I don't have much, but I share what I have." Someone is always worse off than I am. And I certainly don't do this for the benefit of some heavenly reward or a pat on the back. I do it because it makes me feel good about myself and it makes me feel like part of the world. Lots and lots of people don't have the money they need, and that quarter might be as important to someone as $100 would be to me.

Considering that Big B is so sensitive to the media and especially to negative press, he might want to toot his horn a little more loudly. Just my opinion.

I just interviewed a candidate for a spring intern (I'll have two this spring), and she was wonderful -- I think she's a keeper. Bonus: she's from India and loves movies.

Indian films and wealth

2012-01-09T10:23:00.000-05:00

I read that Amitabh Bachchan disliked the movie Slumdog Millionaire because it suggested that all Indians live in poverty. Really? one movie about a few poor people and the environment of poverty in which they live? and doesn't this exist in India?

Most Indian films portray people who are at least middle-class, if not rich. If there are poor characters, they are stuck in the beginning of the film to show a character's humble beginnings, only for a short time; when the film flashes forward to the character's adulthood, he is then well-off, or at least working.

Most "masala" films, the colorful ones with the singing and dancing, don't involve poor people at all. They don't appear in the proportion in which they appear in real life. Before I started watching Indian film, I knew there were a lot of poor people in India, and that's not wrong.

I was actually somewhat shocked by the plot of Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham, where the wealthy father would like permit his son to marry a working-class girl from the town. (It seemed to me at one point that she was also Muslim, but not later on...this was confusing.) Even the middle-class people were considered inappropriate as friends or mates; the wealthy couple refused to attend the wedding of the daughter of their children's nanny (rather, the husband refused -- the wife wanted to go, but had to bow to her husband). This really left a bad taste in my mouth.

I adore Amitabh Bachchan, but let's face it: he's a very rich guy. It seems he came from a well-off family. He has rich-guy problems. He loves the color and spirit of Mumbai, says so all the time...but Mumbai is also full of poor people, and I haven't heard him mention them. Is this a blind spot? does he do extensive charitable work I haven't heard about? He did mention recently that his family continues to earn money from a big pharmaceutical company in which they are invested. Does he just plain have too much money, and has he lost touch with the people who don't?

Like KG3, or KANK, Slumdog Millionaire deals with only a part of the population. If it's a part Bachchan doesn't want to see or acknowledge, that's his problem, not the filmmaker's or the audience's.

palate cleanser: American documentary

2012-01-08T17:00:00.000-05:00

One day, when I was working at Penguin, I saw a tall, good-looking blond man with a mustache walking toward me, and he looked familiar. I said, "Hi," and he said, "Hi," with a big smile, and I thought, "Wow!" Charisma just wafted off him. It took me a second to figure out who it was: the documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, whose companion book to Supersize Me was being put out by the imprint next to mine. (This has happened to me a few times, when I've seen a public figure: they look familiar to me, so I greet them as an acquaintance just before it registers who they are -- and that I don't know them personally. But it probably seems a lot more friendly than gawking and pointing, which I imagine is more pleasant for the famous person as well.)

I had seen Supersize Me and knew that Spurlock was a terrific filmmaker, but hadn't realized until that time that a lot of it owed to Spurlock's performance as himself in the film. His work is great, but his appearance in the film is what puts it over the top.

I just watched his newest film, Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, and it's just fucking brilliant. He's so smart, such a smart filmmaker. Basically, what he's done is to make a film that is basically 100% product placement -- the $1.5 million to produce the film was generated entirely from product partnerships. And while he honors his contracts with these sponsors to the letter, he somehow manages to make a point about the horrible ubiquity of advertising.

OK -- there is a connection here to Indian film. Indian films are a lot more overt about the role of product placement. At the very beginning of each film, along with the usual list of producers and releasing companies, they have a title for "Product Partners," and lists them all right up front. American movies hide them in tiny type within the closing credits. Both are honest, but Indian films are more open.

I love American documentaries, and they're very different from most of what I've been watching. Although I did watch Errol Morris' Tabloid a week or so ago, and recently rewatched The Thin Blue Line on cable. Morris is another brilliant one. His topics are a little more eccentric; he's kind of leaning in a David Lynch direction at times. Michael Moore is left-wing and anti-corporate and amusing; Spurlock is anti-corporate and wickedly funny. I've seen a few best docs of 2011 list, and have been checking out a few.

But the one I'm really looking forward to is the third Paradise Lost doc, coming out this month on HBO. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's first two films shone a light on an egregious miscarriage of justice, the case of the West Memphis 3. Three small boys were found dead in West Memphis, Arkansas, and the local cops decided to point the fingers at three teenage boys who liked to listen to heavy metal and wore black tee shirts. They made up all kinds of stories about devil worship and sexual torture, and the kids all got life or death sentences. They were finally released this past summer, after eighteen years in prison.

Morris did something similar in The Thin Blue Line, which also led to the release of someone unfairly convicted of murder, even though his documentary had a somewhat dreamy quality (enhanced by a fantastic score by Phillip Glass).

American documentaries just kick ass.

One more connection: would some excellent American documentarian please make a movie about Indian film, and hire me to do research?

more movies, more actors

2012-01-08T07:49:00.000-05:00

I started watching Agneepath yesterday, although the subtitles got screwed up in the middle and I wasn't able to finish. (I've gotten a second copy which I hope to be able to finish.) There's a remake opening soon, and I thought I would watch the original Amitabh Bachchan version first.

Somehow, I was under the impression that this was one of those films based on Hindi myth, and I'm not sure why. It might have been the promo snippets I saw from the newer film that suggested it, or maybe the title. But it's far from that. It seems to be one of those Indian films that doesn't cop to being a remake or "inspired by," but is in fact...well, basically, it borrows really heavily from Scarface. Like Sarkar, Bachchan is made up to resemble Al Pacino in a big way, and wears a lot of white suits. He's a gangster, his mother doesn't approve, and it looks as if his pal has taken a shine to his sister, apart from the fact that the gangster, Vijay, starts off working for four established gangsters and then takes over their business.

The good surprise in this movie (so far) was Mithun Chakraborty as the pal, Krishnan. Like Manny in Scarface, Krishnan is a less sophisticated foil to the lead. This is where my knowledge of India fails me somewhat, but he seems to be identified as a "southerner," which I'm sensing is something like the way American southerners were once stereotyped: good-natured, non-urban, old-fashioned. But Chakraborty takes the role and runs with it. The movie is most not musical, but more than an hour into it, there's a scene where Krishnan shows up at a dance to check on Vijay's sister, and gets himself a nice little dance number. It's like being in another movie for a little while. In this scene, Krishnan comes into the "disco" party, where the young people make fun of him, until he shows them his "coconut disco." The character announces himself over and over as having a master's degree but working as a coconut "wallah" (vendor). I have no idea why they're disco dancing in 1990, unless the film is set earlier and I missed those cues.

The actor has had a very long career, and I'm interested in seeing more of his work.

And speaking of remakes...there was an exchange on Twitter yesterday between Ram Gopal Varma and Amitabh Bachchan in Hindi, which seemed to have something to do with remakes and flops and American film. One of my mutual followers there was nice enough to translate for me. It's kind of thrilling to be privy to that sort of thing. RGV was basically saying that Indian remakes of American movies are never as good as the originals, and that America makes the best original movies. Amitabh replied that one never hears about American flops, and besides, what about films like Sarkar and Sholay? (Sarkar is the Godfather-inspired film that RGV directed himself, and Sholay, Bachchan's big breakthrough film, was a remake of The Magnificant Seven, which itself was a remake of The Seven Samurai.)

RGV may have been taking a swipe at Players, Abhishek Bachchan's just-released movie, which is a remake of The Italian Job and opened to lukewarm reviews. That couldn't have pleased Big B too much; he's like a mother bear protecting a cub when it comes to Abhishek. On Friday, he retweeted every single positive thing about Players, giving me the brief impression that it was something of a hit.

I get two TV programs a week here that deal with Indian movies: "Showbiz India" and "Namaste America." They're basically combinations of movie-star gossip and promotions of big commercial films (although "Namaste America" usually has a segment of political news as well). As I've watched the shows over the weeks, the films promoted went this way: Desi Boys, The Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl, Don 2, Players. The new Agneepath (which Hrithik Roshan) seems to be next on the list. It was on one of these shows yesterday that I learned Players was not all that well-regarded. One of the shows interviews customers leaving the theater, and even though half are in Hindi, it's pretty easy to tell when someone doesn't like a movie. No one seemed to like the music.

For the most part, Amitabh's fans drink the kool-aid when it comes to Abhishek. (For my non-American friends: "drink the kool-aid" means to blindly follow. It comes from an incident in the 1980s where an American cult leader's followers committed mass suicide by drinking a poisoned soft drink similar to "Kool-Aid.") One member of the EF was brave enough to report that she didn't much care for Players, but that was an exception.

A lot of the newer films don't excite me that much; they're geared to a younger set of viewers, with younger actors, and more Western dress, music, and themes. I can watch American romantic comedies and American Idol if that's what I want. I like Indian movies to be Indian...hate to see them spoiled by the worst of the west.

One other thing from yesterday's show-biz shows. They showed Bachchan at a promotion for a new book by Anupam Kher. Kher is kind of an interesting guy; there isn't that much info on IMDB or Wikipedia, but he seems to be something of a renaissance man, a writer, activist, and theater actor as well as a long-time character actor in Indian film (he's also done a little crossing over into Western films like Bend it Like Beckham and the Ang Lee film Lust, Caution). He's also married to the actress Kiron Kher, who played opposite an older Amitabh Bachchan in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and Veer-Zaara, but was something of a bombshell as a younger woman. She's still quite lovely.

I swear there was something on my mind besides Indian film, but I have no idea what it was.

end of week and mostly good news

2012-01-07T13:43:00.000-05:00

In the good news department: Judy called me in yesterday, and floated an idea for next year's fundraising. She proposed a pre-holiday sale of my jewelry, where I would split the money with the institute in some percentage. She was thinking about a private sale within the PPSC community, and then opening it up to the entire analytic community. She also said that there were some photographers in the community who would probably be glad to photograph my work.

When I gave her some earrings as a holiday gift (and also sent home a pair for her wife Lee), she was very effusive about my work. Lucie tipped me off that Judy's birthday was on New Year's eve, so I picked out a very nice necklace for her, which she really adored. She asked me if I sell online, and I said I occasionally sold to friends, but that I wasn't properly set up to photograph my jewelry. (This is an old story...I've tried to photograph my work numerous ways, and even bought a digital camera, but the camera couldn't shoot close up enough. Plus it's difficult to light jewelry properly. I looked into it, and what's recommended is a "light cube," where the jewelry and camera actually go into a plastic cube with special lighting, and the piece is lit all the way around.)

I'm really excited about this. The analytic community is exactly where my jewelry is going to sell. I can't tell you how many faculty members I've seen wearing ethnic/handmade jewelry. It's a lot like Jannah and her friends-- same age range, more or less the same sort of style. Plus, analysts are often not poor, and it'll be a fundraiser, so I'll be able to charge healthy prices, and will do well even if I'm donating half.

I did say that I might need a little money ahead of time to buy supplies, particularly silver, and Judy said, "Oh, we'll give you a budget." So that's that. This can potentially lead to special orders, private customers, and even photos so I can sell online. That's a win-win. Judy is just the best.

My intern from last summer, Sarah, offered to come in and help out for the month, before she goes back to school, so a lot of projects are getting cleared out. I finally had the breathing room to clear up my poor cluttered desk, and I actually seem to be caught up. Plus it's great to have Sarah around; I like her a lot.

Here's the news that isn't great and somewhat perplexing: I mentioned that Rochelle (of the "EF") offered to take me to some of the Raj Kapoor movies on her membership at MOMA. I responded in the usual spot (the comments), thanked her, said I would love to, and gave my email address so she could get in touch. And she never did; the festival has already started, and she posted yesterday about seeing the first film. I mean, WTF? I'm not at all sure what this is about. Her offer seemed genuine and generous, but she's either way low on social skills, or maybe just trying to seem genuine and generous. I suppose it's not a secret at this point that I'm a little sensitive to being snubbed when I reach out to people...and this time, it was her reaching out, and then dropping the ball. I'm very tempted to comment in the blog or to get in touch on Twitter, but I'm far from sure I want to pursue this. And even if she made the offer publicly, it doesn't mean it's right for me to bring it up publicly. But I'm disappointed and a little hurt, and I guess I'm not sure I can bring it up "in front of" others and be nice about it. It just kind of sucks to be in this position.

One more comment about my blog stats. For some reason, a post I put up in October 2009, about summer camp and theater, has twice as many hits as any of my other posts. I have absolutely no idea why, since I wouldn't tag it as one of the most interesting things I've written, not by far. Another great mystery.

klezmer and Hindi music

2012-01-05T13:20:00.000-05:00

I wish I could remember all of the music theory I once knew. If so, I could tell you exactly what similarities I hear between Hindi and klezmer music...is has something to do with chord changes and keys, and "blue" notes and modal scales. Mostly, the melodies seem to have something in common. Here's some klezmer, and tell me what you think:

This one doesn't seem to come up for embedding, so here's the link: http://youtu.be/9i3BU8yTN9I
This song in particular, whose title translates to "A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden," in particularly reminds me of this one, which I posted yesterday.

"A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden" is also the title of an excellent documentary about klezmer, made in the late 80s and shown on public television.

Short form: klezmer is Jewish traditional music. Longer form: Klezmer derives its name from the itinerant musicians who wandered Eastern Europe and performed as street musicians. It has elements of Gypsy and other Romanian and Hungarian musical forms.

Before the late 80s, it's presence in the US was limited to Hassidic weddings (Hassids are the ultra-orthodox Jews who wear long black coats, side-curls (pais), and cover their heads. Versions of klezmer melodies also showed up in some American popular music, most notably the Andrews Sister's version of Bei Mir Bist du Shoen ("By Me, You Are Beautiful" -- or, to put it in non-Jewish syntax, "To Me You are Beautiful").

This was very popular in the World War II era.

In the mid-to-late 1980s klezmer was revived mainly by two groups. The Klezmer Conservatory Orchestra came out of the Boston Conservatory of Music, one of the top classical music conservatories in the country. Some of the students there were itching to find something different and interesting to play, and they came upon klezmer. As you can see from "A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden," one of their frontmen was decidedly not Jewish. He is the famous jazz clarinetist Don Byron, who also led his own klezmer band for a spell.

The other band was Kapelye, led by Henry (Hank) Sapoznik. Hank played traditional American stringband music, and when he was on a collecting trip down south, one of the elderly Appalachian musicians asked him, "What about your own music?" This sent Hank into an investigation of klezmer, the founding of both Kapelye and Klezcamp (a festival/workshop for klezmer players), and starting to use the name Henry rather than Hank.

This also won't embed: http://youtu.be/xd7IHKDIrVg. It's Kapelye playing live on Fifth Avenue in New York. The bearded fellow shown briefly playing tenor (4-string) banjo is Hank/Henry, who taught me to play old-timey banjo (traditional American music on a 5-string banjo) when I was 14.

Another classical music who embraced klezmer is the great violinist Itzhak Perlman:

Perlman is playing here with klezmer legend Andy Statman, who plays both clarinet and mandolin. Andy also started out playing American music -- bluegrass, which is a jazzy form of country music. That's how he got to be such an amazing mandolin player. More Andy and Itzhak:

"Flatbush Waltz" is one of Andy's compositions..."Flatbush" refers to an area of Brooklyn which was once heavily Jewish.

This is probably enough klezmer for starters. There's another fantastic American klezmer band called the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, and the modernized klezmer of Frank London and the Klezmatics. I'd also be remiss not to mention the excellent clarinetist David Krakauer (especially because he's the brother of a close friend of Robin's). Recordings of older klezmer musicians like Naftule Brandwein can also be found.

So...is this to your liking, and do you hear anything in common with Hindi music?

earworms

2012-01-04T10:04:00.001-05:00

For those of you who are new to this blog, an "earworm" is a song or piece of music you can't get out of your head.

All of my recent earworms are in Hindi. My mp3 player has been packed with only Hindi music for about two weeks: songs from movies I liked, Kolaveri Di, Kabhi Nahi, and big handfuls of Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar.

Current earworm: Mujhe Naulakha/Log Kehte Hain Main Sharaabi Hoon from Sharaabi. Both of them have really cool rhythms. I recently posted a video with only the Log Kehte Hain part, but here's the whole thing:

When I "view" this blog, I can't see the above video, although I see it now while editing. So if you can't see it, try http://youtu.be/tciligWD6_I.

I am mulling over an idea about the similarity between Hindi music and klezmer, but I need to spend a little time refreshing my knowledge of klezmer before I start posting and making comparisons. I wish I remembered more music theory, because I think the similarity involves chord changes and minor keys and something modal...

If anyone wants to comment on their current earworm, I'm always glad to hear them. I wonder if certain songs, or types of songs, have a tendency to stick in people's minds.

two more good ones

2012-01-03T16:29:00.000-05:00

I have having some thoughts this morning about starting a new blog, or changing this one, into one devoted to taking fellow Americans into my exploration of Indian film. Here's the problem: I'd have to use "Bollywood" in the title, and it's not a word I like to use. It carries the implication that India is trying to copy the US, that Indian films are only a knockoff of US ones. But that's what Americans tend to call the Indian film industry, and that's how they would find this blog. (And yes, I do use "Bollywood" as a keyword in my posts for that reason.)

The only way I could make it work would be to call the blog "Bollywood for Americans" and as the subtitle, something like: "The first rule of Bollywood for Americans: don't ever use the word Bollywood!"

Having said that Indian film is not trying to copy American film...here's video from Sharaabi, a remake of the American film Arthur. The song is really lovely, as is the dancing of Jayapradha. I haven't finished watching the film, which was made in 1984, but apparently it's the one where Big B hurt his hand. It wasn't nearly as bad an injury as I'd once thought.

The second one for today is from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, which is often referred to as K3G. I watched it in chunks over the past week or so...and I think I may have seen it before. When I first saw KANK a few years ago, I watched a few other Shah Rukh Khan movies, and I think this is one of the ones I watched. It started to seem familiar when Kareena Kapoor showed up as "Poo." But I don't remember anything else from that viewing -- not Abitabh, not Kajol, and not Hrithik. This song is Shah Rukh and Kajol, just a lovely melody.

Yaarana, K3G, and a nice start to the new year

2012-01-02T15:13:00.003-05:00

Between last night and this morning, I watched Yaarana (1981), which I found to be a very sweet and entertaining movie, despite the confusing and sometimes bizarre plot. So many of the Indian movies I've seen focus on family, but this was different: all about friendship. There is something very old-fashioned about the movie. Early on, Amitabh plays the country-boy-in-the-big-city, which I like just as much as the angry-young-man. His relationship with his best friend's son is charming; he works really well with children. And he looks so very handsome in this film. I've also become very fond of the song "Sara Zamana."

I also finally finished watching Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham (2001), which was very much to my liking. Since Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna was the first Indian movie I ever saw, that became something of a baseline for me, as far as "masala" movies (that is, Indian movies that mix comedy, drama, romance, and a lot of music). KANK is packed full of wonderful stars, a lot of color, and some great music. K3G is very similar, with some of the same stars. And I cried a lot at the end.

For those of you who are reading this for the film-related content -- I wanted to mention that my number-one online reference is the Internet Movie Database. If you need the year of a movie, the name of a cast member, and particularly to see what other movies an actor or director has made, you can't do any better.

This has been a great long weekend -- unexpectedly long, since I didn't get the OK to take today off until Saturday night. (Email issues.) I've taken some long walks, watched some movies, and have been generally calm. My mind seems to be free of static and of bad thinking. Terrible how badly I can upset myself with the junk between my ears.

I made eight bracelets yesterday. In looking for some cheaper materials to conserve my supply of silver, I went back to memory wire bracelets. I made a set of three with soft fluorite nuggets (which is green and purple), a little amethyst and a few Thai silver beads, and then a set of five with small faceted round rock crystal and smokey quartz. I love wearing bracelets, since bracelets and rings are the jewelry I can see best on myself; I can see and enjoy what I'm wearing. I'm also a fiend for earrings. I wear fewer necklaces because sometimes they just seem too busy with printed tops and being so close to the earrings. But that's just me. I also love anklets and can't wait until they're back in season again. But it's December...I'll have to wait a bit.

Also -- right under the wire for 2011 -- Barry's gotten himself a bit of work. Our lovely downstairs neighbor, Johnny, who died some weeks back, was on disability; since the landlord doesn't live on premises and this building is too small to have a super, Johnny was kind of Carmine's assistant. He did things like put out the garbage, washed the floors in the hallways, let the meter-readers into the basement and let Carmine know if there was any problem in the building (blown light bulbs, etc.). I had suggested to Barry that while he isn't working, he could ask Carmine if he could take over these tasks. I didn't know if Carmine was paying Johnny anything (although I guessed that he was), but I figured it would at least be a goodwill gesture. So Barry is now the new Johnny, and will get $100 a month from Carmine, off the books. Even though it isn't a significant amount of money, Barry will feel good that he's doing something and bringing something in. I'm very glad about it.

Oddly, I haven't heard from the "EF" woman who offered to take me to the MOMA movies on her membership, although I posted my email address some days ago. Don't think I can afford any $12 tickets if I don't hear from her -- $5 is hard enough, this time of the month.

I've also decided to pinch pennies even more and join the gym -- there is a Lucille Roberts in the building where I work, and it doesn't get more convenient. It's under $30 a month, which even I can afford. I dropped my Filesonic membership, which I mostly used for downloading ebooks (I have more now than I'll be able to read for years and years), which puts another $9/month back in my pocket, and will probably also drop Pogo (the casual-games site I subscribe to, also around $10 a month). I'll make it work.

last day of the year

2011-12-31T14:46:00.000-05:00

Nice party at Robin's last night. Re-met some of her friends, and a couple of new ones. She served some nibbles and then some more substantial food; I could live forever on tostones with a dab of dill sour cream and a piece of nova (lox) on top. (Non-Americans: tostones are plantains, a banana-like fruit but less sweet -- the slices are fried, smashed to discs and then fried again. Lox is smoked salmon.

I enjoyed the folks there, although there was one woman who seemed a touch obsessed with her ex-dog -- that is, the dog her ex-boyfriend got when they still lived together. I love my cats, but I don't think I ever talk more than a few minutes about them. I swear I heard 20 minutes+ about Buford the French bulldog.

I love where they're living now, in Crown Heights. It's a typical changing neighborhood these days, bodegas and organic health food stores. It's another one of those Brooklyn neighborhoods that's cycled around: a Jewish neighborhood where my mother and Robin's were both born; an uneasy mix of Orthodox Jews and and African-Americans (occasionally causing riots and big crime stories when one group came into conflict with the other); and now, gentrifying. Any neighborhood with beautiful old building stock will eventually be reclaimed; if the neighborhood has become run-down, it will be cleaned up, and soon enough...unaffordable.

At home, I couldn't figure out what movie I wanted to watch, so I watched snips of a few. Saw a bit of Don 2. Shah Rukh Khan seems to be encroaching on Tom Cruise/Jean-Claude Van Damme territory, and I predict we will end up being Bruce Willis. I don't feel bad about making these American comparisons because someone is trying to internationalize him and turn him into a worldwide action star. Ra.One didn't quite manage it.

Then I moved on to what I hope is the worst movie Amitabh ever made: Shahenshah. It's an unbelievably cheesy masked-avenger sort of movie, a superhero without powers. He does have a lock of silver hair and a leather jacket with a bulletproof metal arm. His daytime identity is as a goofy, corrupt cop (these sort of characters are often identified by their chewing paan, a mild stimulant made of betel leaf and a few other substances. This was Amit-ji's return to films after his 1984-87 political career, and he looks a little puffy, and the movie is very old-fashioned for 1984, Behold, Shahenshah:

Then I abandoned this movie and rewatched some of Buddah Hoga Tera Baap. It put Go Meera Go into a little more perspective, as the character of Vijuu is supposed to be something of a dandy. Hence, the clothes. This time, he seemed to me to look a little better in the video, as it sat within the movie. I want to rewatch the rest and see Hema Malini again. She's probably my favorite of his leading ladies.

In 2012: kinder to myself and my body (diet and exercise). Less quick to judge people, especially negative judgment. Kinder to others. Learn and grow. Happy new year to all of you.

end of week

2011-12-30T11:11:00.000-05:00

It looks like this week will end well, after I started it off feeling somewhat resentful that I had to work on Monday. Monday was the legal holiday for Christmas, and no one was working; this place was dead. It's true I had been a bit behind the week before. I'd taken off two sick days over two weeks, which is very unusual, but I had a bit of sciatica on one of the days, and the second was simply a small collapse due to stress. This week was very quiet at work and I am entirely caught up, so I'm going to see if I can take Monday. On Tuesday, my last summer's intern, Sarah, is coming back; she very graciously offered to work here during January, before her new school term starts, so she'll be in Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. My interns tend to get jobs like filing and copying and scanning and updating lists in the computer. My projects tend to be a little more complex, plus I do a lot of what I call "fielding batted balls" -- that is, responding to phone calls and (mostly) emailed questions and requests. One needs to know a lot about this place to do the "fielding," and I try to get to every bit of it very promptly. When I get in every morning, I generally have anywhere from 15-60 emails waiting for me (low number during summer break, high one early in the semester).

There's a personal advantage for me to sitting in front of a computer most of the day. I'm able to take a few minutes and do something like this, or some bit of research, checking home email, looking at Twitter, and seeing Amitabh's blog posts almost as soon as they are up.

And speaking of Amitabh's blog -- there's an NYC resident among the EF, her name is Rochelle, and she recently posted about a Raj Kapoor film festival coming up at MOMA. She has kindly offered to go with me, as I get a $5 ticket price (as opposed to $12) as the guest of a member. It'll be nice to meet her, too -- don't know how many of us there are in NYC.

In general, I seem to be on the radar of at least some of the EF, and some have mentioned me and had nice things to say.

Robin is having a new year's eve eve party tonight, which is pretty much all I have planned for the weekend. I haven't seen her new apartment yet (though I think she's been there a year) -- so much for both of us living in Brooklyn! It is a bit of a pain to get from my house to hers, since we're on opposite sides of Brooklyn (I'm in Gravesend and she's in Crown Heights, bordering Prospect Heights). I have to take one train toward the city and then another one back. It's probably been two years since I saw any of her friends, so I'm sure I won't remember anyone. (After visiting Jannah around twice a year for around nine years, I finally know her friends fairly well -- at least I can remember all their names and how she knows them!)

My analyst seems to think that I am not out-of-line obsessed with all-things-Bollywood...or I think that's what she thinks. I have to kind of figure that out from the questions she asks, which is very typical of psychoanalysis. They ask questions to help you to talk about the issues, and the questions are very well-aimed to get you to the desired topic.

However: it is very difficult to get an actual answer from an analyst. Extreme example: when I walked in on Tuesday, before we had started the session, I asked, "How were your holidays?" Her response: "How do you think my holidays were?" (If you are in analysis, I hope you are laughing your ass off at that one.)

I think it's great that some people are starting to come to this blog because of their interest in Hindi film. I hope the other topics don't seem too weird to you. Hang around, and there will surely be more Bollywood content.

Which reminds me: I sent that Jugtar Singh clip to a few people who aren't necessarily Indian film fans, and they adored Jugtar. Gretchen said she would watch him interviewing anyone.

new favorite talk show host: Jugtar Singh

2011-12-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

I happened upon this on YouTube last night. No idea where Singh is based or what this show is, but this interview is a riot, especially when Jugtar sings his new version of Kaike Paan Banaraswala, with all kinds of lyrics about the internet. Amitabh also explains about ExFm and TwExFm, the blog and Twitter "extended families" to which I proudly belong. This is probably the best interview I've seen with him, although I've only seen a handful of his English-language interviews.

I know how you got here!/the last word, maybe, on Go Meera Go

2011-12-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

I'm a newbie at Twitter, and didn't really know how to check my "mentions," so I didn't know until today that @astroshiva very nicely recommended my blog, saying that I knew quite a bit about Bollywood and such. (And again, thank you so much!)

And speaking of Twitter. I got a tweet response from Amitabh this morning, so I am (as Mike Myers used to say, as "Dieter") as happy as a little girl.

I hope this is a good version of the video, since as I've mentioned, I can't access my YouTube favorites from Blogger. I've talked about this video before: how I saw it, realized that it was some sort of greatest hits medley, and researched around for a while for the information to help me understand exactly what it was. I've learned another couple of pieces, so I think I may have the whole thing researched and deconstructed.

These are indeed four songs from Amitabh Bachchan's hit movies of the 70s and 80s, remixed and sewn together with the "Go Meera Go" hip-hop portion. The number is sung by Amitabh himself and son Abhishek (Abhi did the rapping).

The first song is "Kaike Paan Banaraswala" from Don (1978). Don was remade in 2004 or 2006 (too lazy to look it up) with Shah Rukh Khan; SRK's sequel Don 2 just opened this past weekend. I'm not sure how that's going to work, since (at least in the original), Don is killed around halfway through the movie; the police replace him with a lookalike (who I'm pretty sure was called "Vijay") to infiltrate Don's underworld gang. I saw the SKR Don some time back; is it possible that Don didn't die in that one? or was Don somehow not really dead? these mysteries may be cleared up once I see Don 2.

The second song is "Pag Ghungroo Bandh Meera Nachi Thi" from Namak Halaal (1982?). I believe this song may predate the movie and may be a traditional song; the idea in the movie is that a naive country boy goes to the city and gets up and sings at a nightclub, and I think this is supposed to be perceived as an old-fashioned song (although it's all discoed up).

The third song is "Rang Barse" from Silsilla (also around 1982). Amitabh and his poet-father wrote it.

Fourth song: "Saara Zamana" from Yaarana (maybe 1981). This was still a missing piece the last time I wrote about Go Meera Go. In Yaarana, Amitabh wears a suit studded with lights, an idea he got from the Robert Redford movie "The Electric Horseman."

All of these songs were originally sung by the great Kishore Kumar, except for "Rang Barse," which Amitabh sang himself.

The last (maybe) missing piece: almost all of the dance moves are quoted from earlier films. I've watched Go Meera Go a bunch of times, and as I watch more and more of Amitabh's films, I keep seeing bits of the Go Meera Go dance turning up. I found this to be extremely cool. I was led to this realization, a bit, from a little "making-of" clip on YouTube. Unfortunately, every time a bit of information I needed was about to be explained, whoever was speaking went from English to Hindi. But the choreographer said something to the effect of, "There are no new dances. This is pure Amitabh Bachchan dance." I didn't follow this at first, maybe because I hadn't yet realized that Amitabh pretty much has his own dance style. But the choreographer (Remo) was explaining just what I said above.

The other comment I must make about Meera is that for the most part, I don't care for the way Big B is dressed, lit, or photographed. It isn't all that flattering. I know that he actually likes that style of clothing, the white pants-and-colorful shirt-and-scarf thing, but it's not to my liking. He looks a lot better, IMHO, in a white kurta or a dark suit -- or, as at the very end of Meera, tight jeans. But for the most part, this video failed to make him look tall and slim; he may not be as slim now as he once was, but see the Jhoom video, from just four years earlier, to see how he can be photographed to look tall and slim. Additionally, it's unfortunate that he's so rarely photographed anymore without dark or clear glasses. He has such great eyes. (Again, see Jhoom.)

I swear, I hope these are good video versions.

I take it back/how did you all get here?

2011-12-26T16:52:00.001-05:00

That woman who was driving me crazy? I'm just going to let it be. Sometimes I'm a little oversensitive and see a slight or attack when none is intended.

I love to read the "stats" on this blog, although I'm not really clear on what they all mean or indicate, especially the part about "referring sites" and "referring URLs" and "traffic sources." It's frustrating, because the part I can't quite get is how people are getting here. They don't seem to keep stats for my keywords. But I can say this: I seem to be getting read more. Double-digit daily pageviews (say that ten times fast) are new. I absolutely don't get how or why I'm getting readers in Russia -- but hello, people in Russia! And especially hello, people in India! Considering that I've had a passion for Bollywood for all of two months, I think it's way cool that I'm attracting even a teeny-tiny bit of attention in India.

I can't figure out how to get people to this blog, although I've done better with this than getting people to follow me on Twitter. I used to send my email with a signature file that had the web address of this blog, but I realized that I email quite a few people whom I don't really want here (e.g., my dad and stepmother). It's listed on Facebook and Twitter (although the Twitter link led to the disastrous recent event of my oversharing being read by exactly the wrong person). I know that a few of my personal friends do come here (hello, personal friends!); and then there was the friend I met through this blog who turned out to be my wife-in-law! (Hello, Harriet!) Anyway, you are all very welcome here, and I appreciate your taking the time to visit and read...since I'm kind of over-thinky and neurotic and obsessive. But hey, we all have our shit.

what Big B said to me today

2011-12-26T13:40:00.000-05:00

From Amitabh's blog:

December 26, 2011 at 1:46 am

Dear Amitabh,
The photo of the Sunday well-wishers (posted to Twitter) was a little scary. I’m still amazed by the Sunday crowds that come to pay you their respects.
I don’t really celebrate Chanukah or Christmas, but I do exchange a few gifts with particular friends at my workplace (a small school). As the recipients were all women, I have what I often give, which is the handwrought jewelry I’ve designed and made as a hobby for the past nine years or so. I wear my own jewelry every day, and it’s become commonplace to me to wear something I’ve made, not bought. So I was surprised at how strongly my friends reacted to their homemade gifts, how moved they were to receive something I had made myself.
I didn’t quite get it until I received a homemade gift in return: a jar of the most delicious tomato chutney. I kept thinking to myself, “It’s so fantastic that Lee made this, it was so wonderful to get something she made herself, she’s so thoughtful…” And then I realized why those seven or eight women were so happy with their earrings and necklaces. It’s a good feeling to give something of yourself, and a good feeling to create. It reminds me of who I am.
With love,
Jennifer

ab says:

December 26, 2011 at 10:43 am

jennifer … homemade gifts are the best … well done on your hand made jewelry

how can this be?

2011-12-26T11:25:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe I am at work today. It is simply dead as a doornail. I don't even know if there are any therapists in the treatment rooms. The subway was dead quiet and the streets were dead quiet and even my coffee cart guy (who is Muslim) wasn't out this morning. I keep thinking maybe I'm here by mistake, that I was really meant not to come in today and misunderstood Lucie. I had asked to use comp time to take the 23 and 26th, and the 30th and 2nd, and she questioned whether I felt behind in my work. I had been out sick twice over two weeks, not very usual and very much stress-related, and had felt a little behind at one point. Now the coming week seems yawningly empty, though there will probably be therapists around for the rest of the week. Judy should be back in tomorrow, and Lucie will likely be working from home (she only comes in here Mondays and Fridays).

I'm pleased to report that I managed to pull myself out of that dreadful self-consciousness about the perceived snub/competitiveness of that woman in the online community; the community involves Bollywood, and my "problem" with this woman was tainting the whole thing for me. A piece of this was also that I had recently seen part of a film dealing with caste and "reservations" (basically the Indian version of affirmative action for persons from lower castes, who had been disadvantaged as far as education and employment). I had then read a piece in the New York Times about the caste issue, and had asked something about it in this online community. I had included my email address, in case someone felt they wanted to reply private, but I had absolutely no response, privately or online. I started to think that perhaps it had been a rude or offensive, a topic One Didn't Discuss, and somehow this got tied in with the difficult woman. Maybe I expected that as a fellow American, she might have been kind enough to respond to this very American question (even if only to tell me that it was bad taste to bring it up). So I ended up posting an apology for having asked the question, in case it had offended anyone. I had no response to that either, which was kind of a relief.

I should explain that this community is basically a cast of around 300 characters who read an comment on the blog of a particular Bollywood personality (connect those dots, if you would). The blogger clearly reads some of the comments and occasionally replies, but the commenters seem to also communicate with each other and even build bonds and friendships. I guess I was expecting to feel more welcomed, but maybe I'm just too new. I suppose this was also some of the issue with this woman: we had discovered some things in common and it seemed as if she reached out to me, and then when I responded, she was silent. This is probably a snub, or her feeling somehow threatened; one of the things that I found annoying was that she seemed to be trumpeting a very close personal relationship with the blogger. I somehow read this, in addition to her maybe-snub, as a message that she was the "American girl/best friend," and that there was no room for me. She did a lot of sharing (the rather uninteresting) details of her life as if he would hang on her every word, both on the blog and on Twitter. (I did notice that he does follow her on Twitter, but this may owe to her being an old-guard fan, who knows? Not my business.)

However, no one else posts things like that. Some people have been lucky enough to meet him, and there have been some posts saying things like, "It was nice to meet you, thank you for spending a little time with me," and some very gushy I-love-you posts; but no one else is acting like she is having an actual love affair with him. I realize that she is probably bugging the shit out of a lot of people, not just me. Additionally, if indeed they were having such a close relationship, it wouldn't be playing out so publicly; they would simply email privately.

I had a situation in the past where I belonged to a fan community which was not a blog, but simply a fan group/listserv, and it happened that I was a close personal friend of the person of whom we were fans. But apart from passing along some news (prior to the time when he became computer-literate enough to participate himself), I didn't go on and on about how we spoke on the phone every day or what I got him for his birthday or a joke he told me or a trip we went on together. He was a musician, so mostly I reported on things connected to that. I made no secret of the fact that we were personal friends, and it was understood that I had special access; I did mention when I had attended a rehearsal, or a private party he played, or when he played a new song for me in his living room. But it was never, "I'm the only one he invited!" or "No one else has heard that song yet except his wife!" or "I sat in the front row at the gig and he smiled at me the whole time!" I mean, yuk. My posts were more along the lines of, "Victor played a song for me that will be on his next album, a bouncy Cajun thing with anti-Bush lyrics, very funny. The producer has been stalling, but the album should be released in June."

Anyway, I just decided that this woman was a big asshole and everyone knows it, if they bother to think about her at all. And since I had no response at all from anyone about my caste questions, I stopped letting any of it get in the way of my participation as a commenter or my enjoyment of all things Bollywood.

I did want to say something more about Twitter. I had joined some time back, but found the word limit very frustrating, and couldn't figure out how to get followed anyway. I followed a handful of people, mostly comedians, who did know what to go with 140 characters. But I probably hadn't logged on for a year until recently, again following my Bollywood curiosity. So I'm following about 4-6 people/media outlets connected to Bollywood, and have added on more comedians and writers. I'm still only followed by about 10 people, but have started participating in some hashtagged jokes, where I have to say I'm holding my own decently well. There were two particularly good ones over the weekend; one was tagged something like "Scorsese Xmas," which was basically lines from Goodfellas with Christmas things stuck in (e.g., "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be an elf. For me, being an elf was better than being president."). The other was something like "If the movie was Jewish," which was film titles with Jewish things incorporated/substituted (e.g., "The Jewish American Princess Bride"). I contributed about the to the latter; I am most proud of "A Gefilte Fish Called Wanda," which got retweeted!

Which brings us to a third topic: movies. My Bollywood fervor does not seem unusual to me because I am a lifelong film buff; I didn't simply become mesmerized by the pretty colors or by Amitabh Bachchan. I come from a family of people crazy about film and theater (and in my brother's case, opera too). I have a reasonably encyclopedic knowledge of American film, which includes actors and directors, and to some extent, screenwriters, cinematographers, producers, studios, composers, and so on. It occurred to me over the weekend that maybe this was not a universal interest; it was during the Jewish-film thread on Twitter. I was about to post "Our Daily Matzoh," and stopped to wonder if the other posters would be familiar with King Vidor's 1934 "Our Daily Bread." (I didn't post it; still not sure.)

So the Bollywood thing is just another hunk of film stuff, although it is my first deep interest in the cinema of one particular foreign country. As a teenager, I watched my share of classic "foreign films" from a host of different countries: Japan (Kurosawa, Mifune), France (Jean Renoir and the New Wave), Spain (Bunuel), and of course all kinds of movies from England. I'll never know about Indian film what I know about American film; there's an awful lot to take in. Plus in Indian film, in addition to knowing actors and directors, there are also composers and singers and choreographers.

In American films, I know actors and directors best; see Andrew Sarris on "director-as-auteur": he posits that the director is the person who is most responsible for creating each film. It's a very American point of view, and for me, one I subscribe to as far as American film. Different story for me with Indian film. Except for someone like Satyajit Ray (who is more in the category of art-film director than Bollywood director), I haven't seen anything too distinctive in Indian directing -- with the notable exception of Ram Gopal Varma. I have a feeling I like Varma a lot because he's clearly very much influenced by American film, and a lot of his movies are in American-type genres like gangster films (he directed the wonderful Godfather-inspired Sarkar and Sarkar Raj).

I'm getting familiar with a fair number of Indian actors, of course, and already know the names of 20 or 30 lead actors and a handful of character actors. I'm less familiar with the singers, although you can't go wrong with Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar, who are of an older generation. I can't name a single songwriter except for two contemporary ones, Vishal and Shenar, and can't name any composers. Of course, I struggle with Hindi names and Hindi song titles and Hindi movie titles, because they are all entirely foreign. I've studied French and Spanish, and can make some sense of Italian, Portuguese, and even German; but in Hindi, I can't figure anything out and have to memorize words and names exactly, and watch all kinds of videos, interviews and clips to learn how to pronounce any of it properly. (I swear it took me two weeks to learn how to say "Amitabh Bachchan" correctly, after having spent a few days memorizing the spelling.)

Understanding Hindi words is even more difficult, since song and movie titles are rarely translated into English. I only seem to learn any meanings from a combination of hearing certain words repeatedly and reading subtitles; not knowing Hindi syntax or sentence structure, it's often hard to detect the meaning of a single word from hearing a sentence and reading its translation. I can say with some authority that "dil" means "heart," since it turns up as much in Hindi songs as "corazon" does in Spanish ones. There are also some cute doubled words in Hindi, like "kuch kuch," which (I'm fairly sure) means "something." I've also figured out which words mean "father," "mother," "brother" and so on, plus certain pronouns. I might know 20 or so words.

The idioms are beyond me, and sometimes one has to watch or listen very carefully to understand what's going on. For instance, I watched Maya Memsahib over the weekend, and there was one playful scene between a man and a woman where the translated dialogue made no sense at all; but from listening, I realized that each person was saying something that rhymed with what had been said before, so they were kind of improvising silly verse. Between trying to really understand the social and cultural context, struggling with the language, and simply the length of time required to consume so many very long movies, it's a pretty exhausting pursuit.

Maya Memsahib, by the way, was of some interest to me because I had read that it was a little sexier than most Indian movies, plus it was based on Madame Bovary. I enjoyed it, although I found the ending kind of weird and confusing. I do find I can understand the Indian point of view a little better when I see films that are based on/inspired by/remakes of American films, or a familiar piece of literature like Madame Bovary. The familiar material helps me see what is different and unfamiliar. (I recently bought a DVD on eBay that I can't wait to see: Ram Gopal Varma's take on the deliciously trashy American film Poison Ivy, with Amitabh in the role originally played by Tom Skerrit.)

I also started watching Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham (which I think means something like "In Joy and in Grief"), which is the same kind of masala (mix) film as Kabhi Alveda Naa Kehna. It's full of family drama and comedy and romance and dancing, with a host of very familiar faces: our old friend Amitabh; his wife, Jaya Bhaduri Bachchan; Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukarjee, Kajol, and Hrithik Roshan. It's from 2001, and everyone looks fantastic, although it's not the best hair I've seen on AB.

I'm fairly certain that he's worn a hairpiece since the mid or late 80s -- that is, that it's a hairpiece and not a weave or transplant -- and it's sometimes very close to natural and sometimes very close to awful. He also had his jawline tightened up at some point, subtle but very good work. I mostly hate fake hair and hate the idea that men have to display a full head of hair to be considered attractive, but I cut AB some slack here. For one thing, he was known from the old days for having an absolutely splendid head of hair; and even at nearly 70, he's still more of a leading man (albeit an older one) than he is a character actor.

On the topic of hair...Shah Rukh Khan is also known for having a simply gorgeous head of hair, and I found this really funny video on YouTube, nearly three minutes of clips showing nothing but Shah Rukh touching his own hair. It's silly and yet kind of fascinating, because he really is stunning in it. Let's see if I can dig it up...

It's a little weird getting YouTube videos onto Blogger, since for some reason, there isn't a mechanism to simply go to "My Favorites" on YouTube and select something for posting there. The Blogger link to post videos requires you to search YouTube, so you have to look up or remember the exact title of the video. However, a sear for "Shah Rukh hair" found this one right away. Enjoy.

why difficult online people? maybe try art

2011-12-25T02:28:00.002-05:00

I wrote about this privately tonight; in fact, I wrote in great detail for my anonymous blog, but still felt shy about publishing it, so I kept it private. I recently joined an online community where I am feeling ill at ease, mostly due to a snub by one person, and some posts by her that I felt were directed to me in a hostile way. But I think she probably makes everyone uncomfortable, not just me. Still, it's all making me a little queasy. Bad drama, and with someone who does not have to be a player in my life. I'm trying to hang in; I'd like to stay. (I had an overt conflict with some very mean people in an online community some years back, and it was a very unhappy time.)

And something good: I've been making jewelry again. I do wish I knew how to photograph jewelry well enough to post pictures. I have a digital camera that I think is as hopeless as my ability to do digital photography. I've never taken a good photo of any of my work.

But I started again recently, mostly because I wanted to give some holiday gifts. And although I have a great deal of perfectly lovely jewelry already made, I sometimes feel like I'm cheating if I don't make something specifically for a certain person. As if a piece of handcrafted silver and gemstone jewelry, made by me, isn't a good enough gift on its own. Geez.

Yeah, so I was thinking about making something like eight new pieces of jewelry, which was so not going to happen. I ended up making only three new pieces and only gave away one of those. Everyone else got perfectly lovely jewelry that I'd already made.

Part of it was that I was beginning to make a new style of earring, which means that the pieces I was making would be slow, and would evolve and improve. Which is what happened and is still happening. I made the fourth one today, the first pair that I felt was harmonious with my style.

The idea I had was this: a wire piece like an inverted V, only with a loop at the peak to attach to an earring hook. At the bottom of each stem of the V would also be a loop, with a short length of chain attached in-between, like a bridge. Then beads attached to the chain. It's a pretty labor-intensive style; plus I was doing it the hard way until I made the piece today. I was beading the chain after it was hooked in to the wire, instead of beading it and then attaching it. Trust me, it made a difference.

So I had to fabricate the piece with wire, which takes a lot of patience and a little more precision than I usually need. I measured and cut the wire, then coiled it on something called a jig, a little pegboard. The pegs are the guides around which you bend the wire, to get a uniform shape. It's still tricky to get it right. I had to use the softest silver wire, called "dead soft," and then hammer the shape to harden it.

Then I had to decide on the type of chain and number of links. And then the color and shape of beads to use.

First pair: eight links of chain, one round 4mm light amethyst on each link. This was most like the one I'd seen which had inspired me. (My wire skills are so far behind the piece I saw that it would be a joke to call mine a "copy.") The next one had a bigger link of chain, and four purple rice pearls; that pair I gave away. The third had soft garnet nuggets, maybe around 4 or 5mm, also eight links, one bead to each link. I wanted to give those to a blonde woman from work, but she had said she had trouble with heavier earrings, so I ended up giving her a different pair with garnets. (She's an absolutely delightful student who brings me coffee and always stops to chat.)

Today, I went for eight links, with a 4mm carnelian cube on each link, then added a bright-orange rice pearl to each of the six inner links. I like working with those colors a lot, the translucent carnelian worked perfectly, and the double-beaded links have some of that cluttered look characteristic of a lot of my pieces. I've made a lot of bracelets and some necklaces that were lengths of chain piled up with beads, often many varied sizes and colors. I also do a lot of necklaces on wire links where I add beads to the connections. It's a lot easier when you're not making two pieces that have to match, plus everything is much smaller with the earrings. I usually bead chain with beads averaging 8mm.

This is probably a foreign tongue even to other jewelers. I actually did make a little drawing a tried to scan it so I could upload it here, but either my scanner or my scanning software seems to have conked out.

But the point is that these two sessions of jewelry-making required a lot of time and concentration, and everything else just kind of fell away. There isn't a lot of creative bliss in the rest of my life; I work hard and concentrate and take a lot of time when I write, but that's just about the opposite of mental peace. Making jewelry is very centering; there's something so present about creating something for use and adornment, and so restful about trading verbal for visual. It's good to get away from words and onto color and shape. It's good to work with my hands.

I had fallen away from it because my workspace is small and disorderly, not very inviting, and also because I don't know how I will be able to replace any silver I consume. Silver is much more expensive now, and I am much more broke. I probably have enough beads to work with for years, but the silver is a problem. Still, I can't let the future stop the present. You can quote me on that one.

questions about Indian ("Bollywood") films

2011-12-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

Indian film question: what is the significance of dancing with a red scarf? I've seen it in a couple of movies.

Indian film question number two: Why is no one making (basically non-musical) films as good as Sarkar and Sarkar Raj?

Indian film question number three: Back to the "Sarkar" films: what does the chant "Govinda, Govinda, Govinda" mean?

To what extent is "Bollywood" considered an insulting term by the Indian film industry? I know that certain industry people don't care for it at all, which is why I tend to say "Indian film."

my name is Anthony Gonsalves - for real

2011-12-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

I may have mentioned how much I enjoyed the surreal number "My Name is Anthony Gonsalves" performed by Amitabh Bachchan in the film Amar Akbar Anthony, but the number was a tribute to a real Anthony Gonsalves.

His story: http://bollywood_celeb.visibli.com/links/rYBFoY

good...and bad

2011-12-16T10:02:00.001-05:00

Well, "bad" is my ongoing concern with privacy and money. I did decide to keep a second blog where I can rant and rave anonymously about those things that are both bothering me and attracting me too much. And I have a second, private email address, and have been making use of "private browsing" at home, as not to leave an electronic paper trail. Never thought I'd have to be so cautious about privacy as regards my spouse, but apparently he likes to look in on what I do and to take things the wrong way. Really, really not good, as far as marriage goes. I'm sure a lot of people have a lot of different points of view on this, but I think everyone needs some privacy even married couples. For the record, I don't think I'm doing anything wrong that I require privacy, at least not at the moment. But perhaps some thoughts and ideas should be kept private.

The money situation got a little worse because Barry fucked up on paying Verizon (which provides our phone, internet, and TV). I let him pay the bills, which are three per month (Verizon, gas, and electric), and generally total around $300. I knew he had not been paying Verizon in full (which I don't like -- I had been encouraging him to pay a little more than the minimum to eventually get the bill paid down to zero). He assured me that he was paying the minimum to keep our service -- except he wasn't. So I got home on Wednesday and the phone, internet, and TV were all turned off, and we had to cough up around $400 to get them back. This is about the worst unexpected financial hit we've taken since I had to replace the dead computer, and it happened right at payday. So I have to look forward to an entire month of not having enough. Had to cancel New Year's with Jannah ($60 in train fare), any hopes of seeing a doctor ($30 co-pay), and may have to quit therapy, at least for now. I tried to cancel dinner with Robin tonight but she said she'd pick up the tab.

The good news is this: with all of the running around on Twitter etc, @astroshiva recommended this blog as a good source of Bollywood info, which is very flattering to me. I consider myself a rank beginner.

So I ought to say something about the first half of Yaarana, which I watched last night. (It's so hard to watch any more than half of a three-hour movie on a weeknight!) I had been anxious to see this for a bit -- Netflix had it, but the subtitles were off by about three lines (that is, the title would come on three lines later than the bit it was translating), so I had to stop. I ended up having to buy a DVD. And it was well worth it. For one thing, Kishore Kumar and Mohammed Rafi do the singing. Also, I liked the themes of solid friendship and wicked family, and the fact that Amitabh plays both a country bumpkin and a talented singer. (He really is wonderful at playing a bumpkin. I'd like to see him do more comedy, though he has done some awfully funny TV commercials in recent years.) I like Amjad Khan as the friend-for-life. And although I wasn't sure that the tag from my old friend, Go Meera Go, was from an actual song, it seems it is: Sara Zamana from Yaarana. There you go. So now I know all four songs from the medley, and where each one comes from. Kaike Paan Banaraswala" from Don, "Pag Gungru" from Halak Namaal, "Rang Barse" from Silsilla, and "Sara Zamana" from Yaarana. So maybe I do know a thing or two about Bollywood -- at least about Amitabh and about Hrithik Roshan's weird thumbs.

I really need a subtitled copy of Sholay. Have not been able to find one online, and it's not a good month to buy one on eBay...which I might do anyway.

I am honestly not finding a whole lot of friendliness so far in the BW fan community, and that's a shame. Maybe I'm still too new. Someone reached out on Twitter to see if I was the same person from the blog, and I responded, then didn't hear from her again. You'd think the other nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn would like to do the secret handshake, but no. Maybe she's not so nice. Maybe she doesn't like not being the only one of her kind. Can't say -- it's in her head, not mine. But I never do like feeling snubbed.
I think this will be a weekend to make jewelry -- not just for holiday gifts, but for some piece of mind. I do need to be creating again.

When I start to follow, say, a certain actor, it's not just about appreciating someone his art, it's about growing my own. It's about being inspired. So, let's check out that inspiration this weekend, shall we?

not too happy

2011-12-14T16:15:00.000-05:00

I put up a post yesterday that was too private; one person saw it before I took it down. However, it was the one person who would have been upset by it, and he was. So much for pushing the limits of a public blog.

In general, though, I seem to be accumulating a reasonable readership, though I don't get comments or feedback. Maybe everyone just likes watching the clips.

I was home yesterday with a touch of sciatica - well, more than a touch. And seeing a chiropractor is a pipe dream. My insurance charges a $50 co-pay, although my chiropractor only charges $45 to see him without insurance. Still, too much money.

I've been watching things other than Bollywood for the past few days. It was getting a little rich for my blood; or perhaps over-the-line obsessive.

Still trying to figure what to do with this urge to be creative or to reach out. I always think about writing - lots of folks think I should - but there's no book here. There's just no book. There never has been. The things I know well are too boring to me, and/or too obvious. I would have to write about something I know but which isn't me and isn't my life. I don't know if such a thing exists, at least in my head. Maybe my brain just doesn't stretch enough.

I'm almost done with the new Stephen King book, 11/22/63, and it's been awfully good so far -- just curious about how he ends it. Not sure what I'm going to read next, but probably non-fiction. I like to switch back and forth...unless I'm gorging myself on a single author, as I did with the Preston/Childs "Pendergast" books. But I'll probably "flip" through the Kindle and see what's around. I'm only carrying a small number of my books on the Kindle now...if you can call 500 "small." I have easily 1,500 more stored on my computer at home. Too many on the Kindle makes it a little sluggish. And when I charge it, I do trade books around.

It's payday today, and I feel like I'm already out of money. Most of it's spent by the time it gets here: bills, Metrocard, analysis, and some paying back (for instance, our pharmacist lets us slide until payday). It really depresses me, especially because I always want to be able to have a little treat, buy a little something...and it's not gonna happen. Or if it does, we'll be short. Things would work a lot better if I weren't the only one employed in the family.

obsession?

2011-12-09T13:28:00.000-05:00

Even if Barry does think that Bollywood movies are good for me, it doesn't mean I don't have an unhealthy obsession. But I'm starting to learn that I'm not necessarily the best judge of my mental state -- it came to me via analysis, which would mean I'm spending my money wisely.

I've mentioned, I think, that I enjoy reading AB's blog and that there's a community of around 300 people who are daily commentors. (The interface here marks the latter word as misspelled with either -er or -or.) And I'm starting to see some really icky obsessiveness there. I think that the people who call him "a god" need to get a life, or perhaps a more conventional god. And there are clearly some women who are very much in love with him, or think they are; crushes aren't a dreadful thing, but sharing them with strangers, and particularly with the object of the crush, seems weird to me. Some of it makes me kind of queasy, and some of it makes me feel sorry for the people involved. AB is kind to and patient with them all, but I wonder what he really thinks about some of those folks. If he's truly as spiritual as he seems, maybe he doesn't judge them -- which would make him a way better person than I.

That having been said...here is a recent find on YouTube:

I think this is really funny, and the ponytail is kind of cute.

And one more:

This is an actual American-style music video, not a movie clip. Adnan Sami is a Canadian of Pakistani descent, I believe, and living in Mumbai. I have no idea what this song means, but I like it and the two of them are cute together.

bad smells, odd hair and unusual fingers

2011-12-07T16:58:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned that our downstairs neighbor, John, died about a month ago. What still remains, alas, is a dreadful smell in the building. He was probably only dead in his apartment for a few days, but this is my first experience with having had someone die in a small apartment building (three floors, six apartments in all), and I (fortunately) had no experience with this smell of death. It's something like bad body odor mixed with something a little worse. It's sad, plus it's just plain awful. Carmine, the landlord, hung a pine Christmas wreath on the front door (right next to the door to Johnny's apartment), and while I think it was done for seasonal reasons, it did cut the smell a lot. But it's not gone, and though it's dissipated a good deal, what's left is equally unpleasant on every floor. Where we live on three is just as bad as it is on one. A neighbor on two put a container of some kind of odor-absorber right outside her door, the kind of thing you'd put next to a cat box. But even in a weakened state, the smell is still there, all over the building; I smell it every time. At least it's not in our apartment. It's not a good reminder of Johnny; it's a bad reminder of his sad end.

I started a second blog on another site, but I haven't really posted. I'm not sure I really need another place to write, if you add up this blog, Facebook, Twitter, email, and the comments section on Amit-ji's blog (I add at least a short comment pretty much every day). I also do have people to talk to -- Barry, my friends, and particularly my analyst. Between it all, most bases are covered. But not all of them, and not all together, and not all written. Obviously, my analytic session once a week is where I can get out the most sensitive stuff, but I guess I feel the need to write that all down, too. Where to find the time to do that, in addition to stuffing down three-hour movies?

Dribs and drabs of B-wood nonsense: I finally did see a missing-link picture today, a photo of Amit-ji between his younger bushy-haired period and his present suspect coif. His hair did get thin, his hairline did recede a bit, and though the picture I saw wasn't dated, it looks to me like the mid/late-80s, which is when he gave up film for several years and I guess wasn't photographed much. There are differing opinions as to what exactly is on his head now: transplant, weave, or piece/wig. I sometimes think I see what appear to be hairpiece lines, that spot where the purchased hair meets the natural hair badly. But by in large, he seems to have better-than-average hair replacement.

Drib #2: Amit-ji had an accident in the early 80s where a firecracker went off in his left hand. It had to do with the Diwali holiday, though I can't remember if it was an actual celebration or one in a movie. He had some surgeries on it and apparently he can use it, but I found a picture today that showed it pretty clearly, and he seems to be missing the last digits on all four fingers.

Drib #3: on the other hand, the popular and handsome Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan has an extra thumb on his right hand. It is weird as hell. Doesn't make him any less handsome (ditto, of course, for Amit-ji's hair and hand), but it's peculiar-looking for sure. I'll try to take a little time to post pictures from home.

Oh, one more thing: I finally found a source for mp3's of filmi music, and I've crammed by mp3 player with it. (I have a Sansa Fuze which I love dearly.) I was curious to see how much I like the music without the visuals (or, as they call it in Bollywood films, the "picturizations"). I like it very well so far.

masala therapy

2011-12-06T11:12:00.000-05:00

Barry pointed out to me the other day that I haven't had any of those bad mood dips or uncontrollable weeping since I started my -- some would say obsessive -- romance with Bollywood. Additionally, I find myself doing a lot of related research so I can have a better understanding of the movies: Indian culture, religion, politics. I probably know about 20 words in Hindi, at this point, but can also remember and say a lot of Hindi movie and song titles. (I have English subtitles to thank for most of this.)

So on the one hand, it's a crazy obsession which includes a hard crush on you-know-you...but it's also become something of an interesting hobby and a path of self-education. Plus, thanks to the internet, it's mostly free, with the exception of a few movies I've had to buy because I can't find them subtitled online.

I find I'm not too interested in anything else, but that's par for the course when I adopt a new enthusiasm. There were times when I was interested in nothing but jewelry and semi-precious stones; times where I was interested in nothing but (God help me) the music of the Holy Modal Rounders; and times where my mind was totally consumed by (ditto) bottlecaps. (Don't get me started about the connection between the latter two.)

OK, I'll pretend to be well-rounded, and post some bottlecap pictures, for old times' sake:

I've also gone back to Twitter, where I can be found as @northofconey. It seems less difficult than it once was to come up with brief bites, though I only have a handful of followers. If you use it, come see me.

what I am reading now and so on

2011-12-05T16:08:00.000-05:00

I am reading the new bio of Steve Jobs. Even though I'm a PC and very suspicious of empires like Apple, I find Jobs to be a fascinating character.

I watched Bollywood movies again a lot of this weekend. Barry pointed out that I haven't had any severe mood dips since I started watching Bollywood movies.

What I've had, however, is an increased interest in sex, or rather, increased feelings of desire. Since I've been dead from the waist down for a couple of months, this is a very nice change -- although, as before, there's not much to do with it. There hasn't really been anything to do with it for 3 or 4 years, except enjoy it on my own (ahem). This is a tough-to-solve issue, and my husband is not much help -- won't be the guy, and won't sit still for anyone else to be the guy (I've never asked, but his attitude about this is pretty clear). Some months ago, he said to me something along the lines of that he was sorry he hadn't been able to provide the "intimate" part of things, and that's when I realized that there was no hope that he would even try to participate again. I am determined not to spend the rest of my life without sex, but I'm not sure how that's gonna work. I had something of a patched-up solution during the early '00s, but that particular scenario, as the other person used to call it, is off the table.

I'm not sure if analysis is helping with this, or if it's just my hormone replacement pills -- that is, the return of desire. Maybe it's just the Bollywood movies.

This is the part of Baghban that didn't make me cry. What a weepie that movie was! Here, they celebrate the holiday of Holi, big B looking his fine 2003 self.

In an earlier movie, Silsila, there's another Holi scene, featuring the beautiful song Rang Baarse, but Silsila (1983) made me squirm a little. Amitabh-ji plays a guy who's cheating on his wife. His wife is played by his real wife, Jaya. His girlfriend is played by Rekha, with whom he was suspected of having a long-running affair. In this clip, he dances at Holi with the girlfriend, where the wife looks unhappy in the back. The Amitabh/Rekha scene are very sexy, though she barely speaks in the movie -- mostly just looks smouldering.

This song, Rang Baarse, was actually written by Amitabh and his father, who was a famous poet (and I can't remember the spelling of his name just now). Beautiful song, though not as peppy as the Holi song from Baghban.

Rang Baarse is the third song in the Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap medley, along with Kaike Paan Banaraswala and Pag Ghungroo. (This is just in case you think I didn't do my Bollywood homework.) It's interesting to see AB stealing his old steps, but some of them are the best steps ever.

amazing! well, maybe not so amazing, but it's a first for me

2011-12-01T16:21:00.000-05:00

Well, I've probably mentioned that I read you-know-who's blog on a daily basis, and always leave a comment, even a small one. OK, well...I got one back from himself yesterday. Check out http://bigb.bigadda.com/?p=8793#comments, item #38. Who cares if it's only a couple of words? I mean, OMG. I am having the most severe attack of fan-geek craziness. I knew from reading the comments that he does touch base with some of the EF (extended family, as he refers to our little fan-pack), but I wasn't sure how it was done. I guess this is the first time I ever saw him post responses. Made me wild.

is this working?

2011-11-30T11:00:00.000-05:00

I find I am frustrated with this blog. Since it is not anonymous, the amount of self-censorship I feel I need to do is enormous. Even the story I recently told about my dad trying to shut my uncle out of the luncheon with the cousins seemed a little dicey. There's some huge stuff going on involving my family that I can't get into at all. Although it's extremely unlikely that my husband would ever read this blog (he doesn't really like to read, and most of his online activity involves music), I don't feel I can talk about my marriage. Can't talk about sex. Can't really talk much about work; I don't have anything bad to say about this job, but there are some annoying people here and there. Can't get too specific about money. I can only write a fraction of what I (still) have to say about V. And on and on.

Before this, I had a blog on Xanga which was 100% anonymous -- in fact, I think it was closed except to other Xanga members -- and I was able to fly with anything that was on my mind, although I did change the names. I had a small but devoted readership and they left a lot of comments. But I couldn't share it with anyone who knew me.

I don't know what kind of in-between there might be. I do subscribe to the wisdom that you shouldn't post anything that you wouldn't want even one person to read, but maybe I'm being overly careful. I don't believe my entire name appears anywhere in here, but there's enough personal information that at least one person was able to identify me (though to be fair, she did have an inside track: she used to be married to my husband). I don't worry that much about being read and identified by my actual family members, co-workers/bosses, or friends/ex-friends, but I am concerned that people who know them will read something and mention it. I even had this problem to some extent with the anonymous blog, concerning V. -- many actual details about him would have made him immediately recognizable to anyone who knew him or even knew of him, and as I recall, I put him in a different line of work.

I feel less engaged with this blog, maybe because it seems somewhat superficial compared to the old one. It seems to me that my entries are either too dull or too light. Does anyone really want to read about my welfare benefits or my peculiar MST3K and Bollywood obsessions? I hope the various YouTube clips are at least enjoyable.

The best solution I can think of would be a second, anonymous blog, although the idea of writing two blogs seems like a lot to take on. I did email Xanga to retrieve my username and password, since it's been a very long time since I've been there. I'd at least like to reread some of the old blog, and maybe start writing there again (in addition to here), or possibly start a new second blog. I think it would make me feel a little more comfortable with keeping this one focused on entertainment and media. Even though I realize I'm a little embarrassed to be so focused on movies and TV and music, the truth is that I'm a big consumer of those things, and I actually know a pretty fair amount about them.

lightweight?

2011-11-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

Back to Bollywood-business-as-usual.

Almost everyone to whom I mention my recent interest in Indian movies has made a comment of some sort characterizing them as charming/entertaining-but-lightweight. Fun and silly. These must be people who have only seen a film or two, or only a few clips, or maybe nothing at all. And maybe Bollywood is best-known for its light entertainments, the brightly colored costumes and the singing and dancing.

But as a whole, is Indian cinema any sillier than American cinema? Think about all of the silly and downright stupid American movies: the unbearable romantic comedies, the cheesy horror movies, the smutty, the obvious, the violent. TV movies, disease-of-the-week movies, everything that goes straight to video, the endless dreadful sequels. America makes a lot of movies that are not only silly, they're awful.

Most Indian movies, of course, have many faces. A three-hour movie will have drama, romance, crime, singing, beautiful scenery...they don't call them "masala" (spice mix) for nothing. Maybe people consider the singing silly; there are certainly American musical movies, but they generally provide some "excuse" for the singing: the characters are musicians, the characters go into a nightclub, etc. It's not like, let's say, the first musical number in Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap, where the old gangster shows the young gangsters that he's a cool guy and an "original" by singing and dancing.

Now, I haven't yet seen a ton of Indian movies, but I know I've seen some serious ones, some without singing, and some "masala" films dealing with serious themes. One of the latter is Veer-Zaara, a romance between a Pakistani Muslim woman and an Indian Sikh man.

By far the best non-singing movie I've seen is Sarkar, which is a "tribute" to The Godfather. (Some Indian filmmakers actually remake movies, and others bill their movies as tributes to a movie from which they lift heavily.) I thought this movie was astonishing. There was plenty borrowed from The Godfather, altered to be a little simpler and more Indian, but what was truly astonishing was the look of the film. Everything was framed and lit very particularly and carefully, and there was something in the photography (probably some mix of film stock and exposure -- I'm not too knowledgeable about those things) that was very crisp and contrast-y. It wasn't an American look, and it didn't look remotely like anything else I'd seen in Indian film. I'm hoping to see more Indian films with that kind of originality.

In the meantime, I'd love to see some American eyes open a bit more.

And to utterly change the mood, here's a very silly picture:

much too much

2011-11-28T09:40:00.000-05:00

I managed to overload myself on all things Bollywood by around Saturday afternoon. Didn't touch any of it since then, although the songs are repeating in my head, which is OK. I'm such an obsessive type, and even if the obsession isn't a harmful one, it's still an obsession.

I felt sick on Saturday night and all day yesterday: queasy, as if there were a rock right under my diaphragm. And I was cranky as hell this morning -- mainly at Barry, who although he is doing the lion's share of the housework, doesn't seem to be looking for a job very hard, and has not taken care of some of the household projects he promised -- ranging from putting in a new towel rack to going through old clothes in the bedroom to prying a cap off a perfume bottle for me. I suspect he is napping a lot. In the meantime, I get up and go to work every day, just so we can more or less break even. I'm starting to think I need a way to calm myself down more: meditation, yoga, exercise.

Thanksgiving was mostly not too bad, although my father pulled a few weird tricks out of his hat. For instance, my dad gave Barry and me each an envelope for our birthdays. Each had a $20 Metrocard, plus $1.10 to make up the last fare (if you buy a $20 card, you get a $1.40 "bonus" which is less than a full fare). This is what Barry got from my dad for his 60th birthday. My folks are in no way poor people -- they are about to go on a Caribbean cruise for ten days. They are just wildly cheap when it comes to their kids.

Then Dad did another weird thing, usually reserved for my brother and me. He has always excluded us from anything like vacations, any contact with their friends, or family get-togethers and weddings of our Florida relatives. They never told us about any of these things until the very last minute; Dad actually told some of the Florida relatives not to invite us to weddings (his justification was that we couldn't afford to go, and might feel obligated to send a wedding gift we could not afford). My feeling was always that he was afraid we would ask to be included at his expense -- although this doesn't explain keeping us from their friends. When Barry and I offered to invite some of his friends to our wedding, he turned us down, and he wasn't even paying!

Anyway, he did something similar to his brother, my uncle Howard. Dad and Howard have a mess of first cousins, mostly in Florida, and they haven't all gotten together since a "cousins' cruise" 25 years ago. So when Dad announced that they were leaving for a cruise for Florida next weekend, he also said that they were leaving a day early to have a luncheon with all of the cousins in Florida. This was the first my uncle heard about it -- and he has plenty of money to pay his way. He started trying to figure out how to get there, since he was leaving for Mexico the next day. He said he had plenty of airline points to fly down there, and then could either get a flight back to Jersey that night, or fly directly to Mexico and meet Tina there. Dad said, "Oh no, what if you miss your flight?" It became really clear that Dad had purposely excluded Howard from this get-together, and was discouraging him from going once he had found out about it. This one I can't figure out at all, since there's absolutely no bad blood there and no chance that Howard would ask Dad for a dime.

My brother was not there, as he is not on good terms with either Dad or Howard, but I had to tell him about this. It was a real head-scratcher for both of us. I felt terrible for my uncle. I'm almost used to this shit by now, but I'm not sure Howard's ever come up against it.

I mostly refrain from going on about family stuff here, bu my family can be very weird.

And P.S. -- Howard gave Barry and me each $150 for our birthdays, which he does every year. At our wedding, someone said to me -- it was either V. or his wife -- that my dad should have been my uncle, and my uncle should have been my dad.

books

2011-11-23T16:19:00.000-05:00

Jeffrey Eugenides, of late. I read his latest, The Marriage Plot, and liked it so much that I went right into Middlesex (almost finished with that one). I read The Virgin Suicides some time back, which I liked, but these last two were really impressive. On deck are the new Stephen King book and the Steve Jobs bio, although there's always a chance that something else will jump the line. Love my Kindle.

pag ghungroo bandh Meera naachi thi

2011-11-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

Which means, more or less, "Meera danced all night with her anklets tinkling." This seems to be something of a traditional song, which got a peppy arrangement (not to mention being sung by the great Kishore Kumar) for the 1982 Amitabh Bachchan vehicle, Namak Halaal.

I've watched the beginning of this movie. AB is something of a country bumpkin whose grandfather sends him to the city to get a job, meet a nice girl, etc. A cousin, or friend of a friend or such, takes him under his wing, and one night, brings him to a nightclub. Bumpkin AB is oohing and aahing over the place, but looks like something of a joke: he's wearing his country Sunday best, which is a traditional outfit topped with a pink turban. Most of the city guys are wearing Western suits. The nightclub singer is too drunk to sing, so AB steps up.

This song was performed on Indian Idol (yes, really), by a front-runner named Swaroop. Although Swaroop wore a turban on the several segments I watched, this pink one is most likely a tribute to AB in the film. He has a lovely voice and did quite well:

But where I first noticed this song was in a greatest-hits medley in the most recent AB film, Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap. The title translates somewhere along the lines of "Your Father's an Old Man!". in the sense that the speaker has been called an old man and feels he is too young to be called that. Which is a running joke in the movie: various people in the movie call Vijuu "Bhuddah" (kind of equal to "old-timer"), which always pisses him off.

Vijuu is a retired hit man, living in Paris, who is called back to India to do one last job. About 20 minutes into the movie, he goes into his old bar and takes a seat. The current crop of gangsters takes exception to this, and Vijuu explains, rather poetically (the Hindi seems to rhyme), that he and Mumbai grew up together, they laughed, they sang, and now all of the youngsters are trying to copy his style." He asks the gangsters, "Wanna see?" and they say, yes. Vijuu whistles for the beautiful girls to be sent in, and launches into a dance and medley of AB's greatest hits -- this time, sung by AB and JrB (Abishek, who does the rap parts). "Pag ghungroo" is one of them.

I had to do a little digging here, since I was aware that these were some of AB's old songs; I had to figure out/look up the song names first, and then try to find the earlier versions. The ones I like best are "Pag Ghungroo" and "Kaike Paan Banaraswala." The latter is from the 1978 version of Don (which was remade in 2004, I think, with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead role.) As far as I can make out/remember (I saw the newer version of Don maybe a year ago, and am waiting for a subtitled copy of the original), AB plays two role: Don, the gangster, and yet another bumpkin who is an exact double for Don. As best I can figure it, the bumpkin gets drunk, someone offers him some betel leaf, the betel leaf peps him right up, and he sings a song about it:

So here's the medley from Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap. This movie opened this past July, so AB was maybe 68 when he filmed it, and you can see he doesn't have quite what he had five years earlier as far as dancing. The clothing is awful, of course, and he looks a little heavier around the middle. But the medley is really fabulous, and he's doing his own singing. "Kaike Paan Banaraswala" is the first song, and "Pag Ghungroo" is maybe halfway through.

I guess I have learned quite a bit about Indian film in these past 3-4 weeks. Of course, I started with Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, and then branched out with the actors from that film (mostly AB and Shah Rukh Khan). I've also become familiar with some of the women stars: Preity Zinta, Rani Mukarjee, Kareena Kapoor, and Kajol. I love watching Kajol dance because she has a lovely smile and is the best I've seen so far when it comes to the traditional hand/neck/shoulder moves. I've also been impressed by a couple of the other popular male stars, like Salman Khan (no relation) and Sonu Sood. I watch a lot of clips on YouTube, although many of them, unfortunately, don't have English subtitles. I've been searching out Indian movies with English subtitles, which is a little harder with the older movies. Had to order the old Don and Yaarana from eBay.

Netflix has Yaarana, and I started watching it, but the subtitles were about three lines after the line they translated, which made it fairly confusing and impossible. Which really bothered me, since it was clear that the plot was crazily convoluted and that AB actually plays a guy who becomes a popular singer, so there's lots of singing and dancing. The movie's from 1981, so it's young handsome AB rather than old handsome AB. Handsome forever, that guy.

I did finally figure out where that photo came from, the one of older AB dressed like Carlos Santana, with long hair and a hat and all kinds of southwestern (US) jewelry. It's a special appearance he did as a singer and dancer under the opening titles of Abishek's film Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, which doesn't seem to have done well and I can't say I love the song. But here it is:

I realize I've already posted the "Go Meera Go" remix from Bhudda Hoga Tera Baap, but it's worth rewatching, especially after seeing some of the source material. AB still does throw off some sparks.

birthday season

2011-11-18T23:36:00.000-05:00

Welcome to birthday season. There have always been a lot of people in my life with November and near-November birthdays, and of course I'm one. Robin is one too, and so is my uncle Howard. And my aunt Marion. There are other people who have been in and out of my life who also have those birthdays, which is why the borders of the season are a little wavy. There are some former boyfriends, an old girlfriend I'm not in close touch with, and, actually, V. as well. V. was always fun to birthday shop for. He wasn't that into birthdays but he loved presents.

But this was a big year for Barry: he turned 60. The big surprise that I was too paranoid to post about here was that I arranged a surprise jam session. He plays drums, if I haven't mentioned that lately -- he was in two bands when I met him. Now he doesn't play in a band but has started to go to a couple of blues jam sessions. It took me about a year to go to one with him. He was meeting a lot of people I knew from my blues days some years back, and I got to see them, and I got to meet some people he had met. I've written about this. I got a fifteen minute crush on a guy at one of those jams -- I'm sure I mentioned it.

Anyway -- I had an idea this summer to rent a few hours of studio space and get a bunch of his musician friends to come and then have him go there and be surprised. I floated the idea past a couple of his friends during the summer and they loved it. Then I had to investigate the whole business of renting a studio and what it cost and how big and what comes with the rental (amps? keyboards?). And I touched base with more guys, and more or less decided on the date, and so on. I realized that I would have to tell him to bring drumsticks, so it wouldn't be a surprise that he'd be playing, and he knows the block where a bunch of studios are (30th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue), but he wouldn't know who would be there.

Some people couldn't make it, but he ended up with exactly enough: Felix Cabrera (vocals and harp), Evan Wagner (bass), Chuck Hancock (tenor sax and vocals), and Arthur Neilson (guitar). Felix is Barry's bestie; Barry used to play with Evan in a couple of Brooklyn bands; and Chuck is one of my old pals who Barry also met at the jams. These are all people who have some other income source. Arthur is kind of a notch up; he's the guitar player for Shemekia Copeland, who's pretty much the top female contemporary blues artist at this moment. He's also in the house band for the Monday night jam. I'm personally in touch with some of these people through Facebook, but Arthur isn't on and he and I have only met once. I had to have Felix ask him for me, and was absolutely stunned that he said yes. Barry was also somewhat stunned that Arthur came, because they don't know each other very well. The deal with Arthur is that he's one of the nicest guys ever, and we got lucky that he wasn't gigging or on tour. It was a very big deal.

All of these guys are first-rate, make no mistake; there are a lot of amazing musicians out there who have day jobs. Felix is woefully underemployed. Chuck works, and has toured internationally, but I'm not certain if he works regularly with any one band. Evan has a day job and is still young enough to have the energy to play with a band. (When I met Barry, he played with two bands and had a day job.)

Barry, when he played with two bands. This was taken at one of his gigs in late 1997, very soon after we started seeing each other. Were we not adorable?

Anyway, the surprise jam was a rousing success. They had the studio for three hours, then Evan took Barry out for a bite to eat.

Friday night, which was Barry's actual birthday, I couldn't get off early to do anything about cooking (had to take minutes at a Board meeting until 4:00). So we ordered in, although I did buy a dozen tiny, two-bite cupcakes from a placed called Baked by Melissa. They were a big hit. Saturday was the jam, and Sunday evening Elise (and her sibs Evette and Marty) took us out for dinner. Marty's wife Laurie was also there, Evette's husband Freddie was not, niece Lindsey was nephew Ross and girlfriend Margaret were not. The Taub/Singer/Levy clan is pretty hard to get together. We went to a nice dairy (kosher) place (I had a salad nicoise with fresh grilled tuna, a big fave of mine).

The only thing bad all weekend was at the very end: we came home after dinner, and most of our neighbors were in the first floor hallway. No one had seen our front-apartment neighbor Johnny for a couple of days, and he wasn't answering his phone or door. He had some health problems and seemed a little more wobbly of late, and as we feared it turned out he was dead in his apartment. Johnny was kind of the mayor of our building, which is a big deal in a six-apartment building. He helped the landlord (let Con Ed into the basement, washed the hallways, kept an eye on the trash & recycling), and all of us (took packages for people, distributed the overflow from the landlord's backyard garden). He was just a nice, kind, sweet guy, and we were all really broken up.

I am extra broken-up that his funeral is tomorrow afternoon...the same tomorrow afternoon when my (Providence, RI-dwelling) brother and sister-in-law and nephew will be in New York and available. I haven't seen them in two years. We have all been too poor to travel back and forth, and my brother is pretty much not speaking to my dad, so he doesn't come for Thanksgiving...so it's been two years. I feel terrible that I can't go to John's memorial, but anyone who knows me -- and now you all know too -- knows that I love my brother to pieces. We have at times been almost smotheringly close. There was a time when we both worked at NYU Law, across the street from each other, and averaged one lunch and two two-hour phonecalls a week, just crazy. We've had friction here and there. Part of it may be that for a really major seven-year chunk of our young lives, it was just the two of us and our mother living together, and she's gone. He's just one click closer than anyone else I'm related to.

So, I'm stupidly excited about seeing my brother -- and this is even without taking into account my eight-year-old nephew Walter, who is kind of a junior Danny. Very smart and very friendly and very adorable. (Pictured: tiny baby Walter, and 2010 Walter.) (Note my 2002 slobby dressing and grooming. Oddly enough, I am just now wearing the exact same tee shirt. But I'm knocking around the house, not out in public.) (This is also one of my favorite pictures of Barry. He looks very handsome and very sweet.)

I also love my sister-in-law Jane, who is a very good mother and as smart and funny as most of our family seems to be. Is. Jane is also the one who was brave enough to take the last name Zogott, which made me feel a little better about kicking it to the curb two years later, when I married Barry. There are actually only six or seven Zogotts at present in the US, all related to me; Howard's first wife, Tina, uses "Zogott-Onsted", so she's the #7. I use it as my middle name, so people can find me who knew me as Zogott, but for all intents and purposes, I'm a Levy.

And by the way, this is my birthday weekend -- in fact, today is my birthday. I got a lot of cards and a lot of Facebook messages and flowers and a potted orchid and a fancy lunch out and a fun dinner in. Barry gave me a much-needed and much-wanted gift: a new everyday watch. The last one he gave me pretty much gave out recently, after 13 years. That's a pretty good run for an everyday watch. And he really nailed the style: dial, numerals, about the size of a nickel, black leather band...and Indiglo! I like a very simple, neutral, classic, hard-working, old-school watch, and I got me a new Timex. (Indiglo, BTW, is when you press the stem and the face lights up with an excellent blue light. I know other watches light up but Timex Indiglo rules it.) I LOVE my watch.

I do indeed have other watches. One I would call "dressier," but it's vintage and tends to need pricey repairs once a year, so it hasn't been in rotation for a while. The others I have are on the silly side, and some need batteries and one needs a strap. Some of those are promotional, linked to movies, gifted to me by John Jorge when he worked at MCI/Universal. One is Badz-Maru. (You can Google that one yourself, if you're not a Sanrio maven.)

I've found myself a few Bollywood co-fans. Marty Taub is one. And also a recent Facebook friend, someone I was involved with many years ago when it was wildly age-inappropriate. (Can't really talk about all that, but he's still very funny and a smart smart guy.) And not only that, I have a new Facebook friend who is a Bollywood fan -- and he lives in Mumbai! He must have seen me on an Amitabh Bachchan fan page, and sent a friend request. So it's really my first interaction with a Bollywood film fan who not only lives in India, he lives in Mumbai, which is...well, Bollywood.

(For those of you who don't have the Bollywood religion, the Indian film industry is centered in Mumbai, which used to be called Bombay -- which is how the Indian film industry came to be called "Bollywood." See?) I'm really a beginner with Indian film, very enthusiastic, but still inexperienced. I'm somewhat limited by not knowing Hindi, along with often finding that my ill*gally d*wnloaded movies don't have subtitles. I may actually have to break down and buy some DVDs (used on eBay).

I did finally nail a copy of Bbhuddah...Hoga Terra Baap (I think I spelled that right) with subtitles; I believe it's Amitabh's most recent film, certainly his most recent starring role, from this past summer. I've watched some, but I have to admit I've had trouble getting past the first big song/dance scene, which I've probably watched six times already. It's a pisser. Oh, wait a minute...

Not exactly up to what he did in Kabhi Alveda Naa Kehna in 2006, but the music is great and he is way cool. Though I've noticed that in everything I've seen him in, with the exception of Kabhi Alveda Naa Kehna, he is dressed horrendously. Be it the 70s or the 00's, he is wearing absolutely godawful crap.

Anyway, he's the coolest, we all know that. And his newest grandchild was born two days ago (here's another November birthday). He has two from his not-acting not-famous daughter, but the new granddaughter is from famous-actor-son Abishek and his famous-actress-and-world-famous-beauty daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, so the media there is insane over it, and this baby girl will most likely be blindingly attractive, whether or not she chooses to be an actress (it tends to be a family business over there). (You can look up pictures of them too, I've done enough tonight.)

I'm not writing as often as I should, because I don't have the time, or am not making it. I don't have nearly enough personal time during the workweek -- or, like money, not enough so that I can be careless with it. If I decide to spend two hours watching Bollywood videos on YouTube, that's two hours that I'm not writing. AB blogs every day, bless his heart, and tweets as well, but I'm no good at brevity. I need some wide-open time and space to write.

And since I can't keep anything in order at all at this point, I did also have a birthday-eve dinner with Robin yesterday. We ate Indian food (and -- new tradition -- Starbucks after). She gave me three of what I like to call "hair toys": two velvet headbands and a French hairclip. There used to be a store in Soho that sold French goods, and over the years, she gave me four hairclips from there. They're pretty much my favorites. Then the store closed. But unknown to me, she found another store in the city that carries the same make of hairclips, and so I now have five of the amazing hairclips!

Since I wore short hair for the majority of my life (see above photo), hair toys are still a pretty big deal for me. (Please ignore the horrible scrunchy in the other above photo.) Well, I find that in general I'm a bit of an accessory slut since I started actually dressing myself decently. I think I somehow crossed over at some point from not wanting to be seen or noticed to wanting to be seen and noticed, connected to a whole change of dress and hair and wearing makeup. Not to be too jargony, I think I started to own who I am and what I look like, and I turned out to be more attractive than I thought. Yay for me! But I can't quite figure how or why it happened. Life: mysterious.

earworm and bookworm

2011-11-07T11:10:00.000-05:00

I have certainly chammak challo'ed by way to an earworm. Mostly I'm not that interested in listening to "filmi" music without the movie; it's usually the combination that grabs me. (Oddly enough, it's the absolute opposite of the way I feel about American music -- I rarely watch music videos.) But Chammak Challo stands on its own wonderfully, although the video is fantastic.

Someone on YouTube informed me that George Baker's "Little Green Bag" is a bag of marijuana. Duh on me.

My "Amazon Associates" widget is now not working at all, here or home. (I suppose I need to uninstall or reinstall it, but I have a lot of trouble doing anything with Blogger except writing.) But I wanted to mention a truly amazing book Ive been reading: Secret Historian: The life and times of Samuel Steward, professor, tattoo artist, and sexual renegade by Justin Spring. I was initially intrigued by the title, since I'd never heard of Samuel Steward. But it wasn't that I was somehow out of the loop -- Steward is something of a forgotten character, painstakingly researched and brought to life by the author. He was a fascinating personality: a closeted gay man who taught English literature and wrote poetry and scholarly books, met and became friendly with some of the great literary personalities of the 30s and 40s, kept meticulous records of his sexual contacts (many of which ended up in the Kinsey archives), and had quite a talent for drawing and painting. After age 40, he took an abrupt turn, became a tattoo artist (this grew out of his taste for rough trade, particularly sailors), and eventually gave up university teaching to tattoo full-time. He became the house tattoo artist for the Hell's Angels in the late 60s and early 70s. After 15 years, he gave up tattooing, and became one of the early writers of openly published gay porn. I've almost finished the book, and it's absolutely fascinating. The author's quite a hero for discovering and putting together this amazing story.

next earworm, I predict

2011-11-05T03:02:00.000-04:00

This song and video come from a brand-new Bollywood movie called Ra.One, which opened at something like $34 million world-wide on October 26. As well it should: it's about videogames and has a lot of special effects and action sequences, flying the star around on a wire...plus, the star is Shah Rukh Khan. Bingo. I thought the movie was a little stupid, and the blue contact lenses on SRK absolutely criminal, but this song is totally awesome:

"Chammak challo" translates into something in the neighborhood of "sexy babe," as far as I can tell.

Today's lesson in Bollywood films: Bollywood actors rarely do their own singing. This is not a secret in any way. The actual singers, called "playback singers," get prominent billing in the film, and are stars in their own right. Needless to say, most playback singers are Indian. But I'm proud to say that "Chammak Challo" is sung by an American:

I have a feeling that Akon's had this song out for a while, but I only first heard it in the movie. Mad respect for Akon. He's great on this.

Needless to say, I seem to be getting more and more hooked on Indian films, and I am particularly fascinated by Amitabh Bachchan. I found out a few days ago that he writes a really amazing blog. And I believe I can finally pronounce his name properly, after a week or so of feeling like an ugly Westerner: it's Ah-MEE-tahb Ba-SHAN. But most Indians just refer to him as Amitabh, or Amitji, and call it a day.

I rewatched Slumdog Millionaire tonight. I'd seen it a couple of days ago, but hadn't remembered until a friend reminded me yesterday that Amitabh had been the movie star whose autograph Jamal sought as a small boy.

Don't you just love YouTube? I just went there, right in the middle of writing this, and found a trailer that had the entire Amitabh scene.

Life imitates film: recently, on KBC (the actual Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?), a guy who earns around $120 a month won the top prize of 5 crore ("crore" is ten million rupees, if I've got that right, and I suppose 5 crore is somewhere around a million dollars). And the current host of KBC is -- you guessed it, Amitji. So I hunted it down on YouTube. Call me crazy, but I watched the whole thing, almost 15 minutes (this was the time of the last question), which was about 85% in Hindi (or do we say Punjab?), and was riveted. You can basically follow what's going on. And if you're with me on this, Amitji's charisma just pops off the screen, as does a really warm personality. I have no doubt that he really is that nice. If you wanna be a hardcore Amitabh Bachchan fan, here's that clip:

I took a peek at my blog traffic before, and apparently one person from India came to visit. Hi!

Doubt I'll ever actually learn the language, but I'm starting to learn some things about the culture and the history of India. Watching Slumdog Millionaire again, I picked up on some things that I hadn't noticed before I started watching Indian films; for instance, I was very much aware of which characters were Hindi, which were Muslim, and noticed some Sikhs on a train. Another thing about Bollywood films: there are a lot of trains in them. A lot of train station scenes. Even in Kabhi Alveda Naa Kehna, which is set in New York, there are no subways or busses, but plenty of railroad scenes. (They kind of vaguely indicate that the characters work or spend time in Manhattan, but live in Connecticut, so folks keep turning up in Grand Central Station.) And I like it -- there's something romantic about trains.

I'm going to pretend I'm going to sleep now, but I may actually watch a couple more videos.

these days

2011-10-31T19:58:00.000-04:00

It's true that I have been persistently depressed and anxious of late. It's partly due to the realities of life in the 1%, and probably partly due to inadequate medication. My long-time primary care doctor is not in my new insurance plan, so I have to pick a new doctor, see him or her ($30 copay) and get a referral to a psychiatrist ($50 copay). I couldn't figure out how to make that work financially except to wait until mid-December to see the psychiatrist (and had no idea how I'd get any psychiatric meds until then), but I actually got offered a babysitting gig: five hours at $20 per hour. Yes, thank you. It's probably 40 years since I've babysat, but that's actually a higher hourly rate than I make at work. Yes, thank you very much. The mom is someone I know casually, but well enough that she knows things are tight for me, and it was a real kindness and offered in a very sensitive way.

Work does keep me busy and that keeps away the worst of the moods for the most part, although I have some days where I feel very sad and cry easily. But the weekends are terrible. Way too much unstructured time on my hands. I rarely make jewelry because I'm so conscious of how expensive the materials are, and how impossible it would be to replace anything I use up. (Truthfully, I have an insanely huge amount of beads, but the silver findings -- clasps, wire, earring hooks -- do get used up and silver is now wildly expensive.)

So mostly what I end up doing on the weekends is distracting myself. Occasionally I just do something useless like sleep all day, but mostly it's Media Time. Barry and I do love our TV and music and movies, but he gravitates to the TV set and I gravitate toward the computer. The TV set is old and not HD and our DVD player died; even with all the on-demand stuff we get with FIOS, there's way more content and variety online. Barry doesn't really like watching much online except for relatively short videos, but I love it: HD screen, headphones with nice sound. And I like to let him have the TV on weekends because he lets me hog it during the week because I work and he doesn't. We like a lot of the same things but we do have different preferences. So on the weekends I'll leave him to martial arts and vampires and the things he likes best. And I can jump around, stop and start, and be as obsessed as I like.

I watched, I think, five Bollywood movies this past weekend. And another great thing about the computer is that I can pause a movie and look something up: how are Sikhs different from Hindus? do the actors do their own singing? are all Indian movies like this?

I was not only thoroughly distracted, but very entertained and very educated. Bollywood movies totally rule.

I watched: Ra.One. This movie just opened, around $34 million internationally on its first weekend. Kind of an Indian Tron. I watched: Swades. Incredibly beautiful. I watched: Veer-Zaara. Also very beautiful; this was the one where Sikhs and Muslims, Indians and Pakistanis were all involved. I watched: Deewar. Wow. That one was from the 70s, with a very young, brooding Amitabh Bachchan. Old-school plot about two brothers, one a gangster, one a cop. Shashi Kapoor was the "good" brother, and incredibly wussy next to Amitabh. Kind of like Leslie Howard next to Clark Gable: no contest. Love the bad boys.

These are some long movies, too, generally around three hours, and I started to realize that it wasn't just comedy and drama and music, but also family issues, justice, prejudice, women's rights, government corruption, class, caste...these movies are just plain loaded. And then everyone sings and dances. This is definitely my new favorite thing. I'm also thinking I like Amitabh Bachchan better than I like Shah Rukh Khan, although SRK is certainly handsome and talented. But Amitabh is like Cary Grant, Clint Eastwood, Fred Astaire, George Clooney...great at drama, great at comedy, great at dancing, handsome young and handsome old. Visual aids:

I rest my case. There are a lot of Bollywood actors and actresses I haven't seen yet, and I have yet to say anything about the female stars, but I do love those men.

here's something that made me feel not sad tonight

2011-10-22T02:13:00.000-04:00

I like this number for a lot of different reasons. I'm on my second viewing of this movie, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, but I've watched this number a gazillion times. I don't know much of anything about Bollywood, but I suspect this movie is kind of the golden mean of Bollywood movies. It's really long, has romance and goofy comedy, and awesome musical numbers like this. There are also some things that make me cringe a little, some supposedly-funny-but-really-dreadful parenting bits, some non-PC stuff. Lots of NYC locations (!) and every American person acts weird and wacky.

I've decided that Shah Rukh Khan, who is seen in this video brooding off to the side, is kind of the Bollywood Tom Cruise. He's kind of cocky and pseudo-tough, and he's highly cute. Tom Cruise never got to me, but SRK did. But watching this now, I see that it's Amitabh Bachchan, the older dude in this video, who is the real deal. He was 64 when this was made (2006). It seems as if he was at one time the top guy in Bollywood, period, although he had some setbacks during his career. He is seriously hot in this number. And what I didn't know the first time I saw this is that the young guy in this number, who plays the son of Amitabh's character, is actually Amitabh's son, Abhishek. How cool is that?

The colors in these dance scenes hurt my eyes in a good way. The party at which this number takes place allegedly has a "60s" theme, but those clothes sure doesn't look like the sixties. It doesn't look like 2006, either. I don't know what it looks like. It looks like a parallel universe. And the dancing certainly comes from a parallel universe, one where things crash together in a bizarre and attractive way. I would love to be able to dance like that!

I keep having this vague ugly-American thought that this stuff is so weird and yet so unselfconscious -- but of course they wouldn't feel self-conscious. It's not weird to them, it's their culture. But it's really very foreign to me, and very charming and beautiful and cool, just endlessly rocking in a timeless way.

I know that I do strike people as sad and troubled and anxious of late; I walk around anxious about money every hour of every day, and every small increase in expenses makes me feel gut-punched. And I haven't been posting here too often, and I suspect I've done more posting when I've felt really down than when I've felt really up. There are a lot of good things in my life, for sure. It's just that the roller coaster is killing me. And I'm uncomfortable about people seeing me in pain, and some days it really is pain. It's just grinding. I recently had an e-mail from my sister-in-law, and she's having much the same experience. Neither of them is working, they have a son, and my brother is having some pretty wrenching emotional problems. There is a lot of not-happy going around, and I guess I'm carrying an additional load of disappointment. This is not how I thought my life would go, and I'm not too optimistic about things getting better in a big way in the foreseeable future. I feel like I've been clobbered by my lifetime of underachievement, that I'm paying now for being unfocused and undisciplined and unprofessional. It took me way too long to become a good worker and to be satisfied by working well; I have that satisfaction now, but missed out on a lot of the benefits by not getting here sooner. I should have been building a career instead of rebooting into a new line of work every couple of years.

better? worse?

2011-10-10T11:56:00.000-04:00

The weekends mostly depress me since I often don't know what to do with myself. Last weekend, I took four days off -- took two for Rosh Hashonah because I felt I needed the break -- and we went to the Atlantic Antic on Sunday. That's a huge long street fair down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, which is held on the first Sunday in October. I try to set aside a little money because there are generally a lot of nice handmade crafts. I got a beautiful bronze hairclip shaped like a sand dollar ($5) and a tie-dyed swing top ($20). Barry decided to come with me this year, but he does what I try not not to: buy food. To me, an $8 gyro is outrageous, plus, I'm not a fan of eating while on my feet. Thought I confess (please don't kill me, oh sugar- starch and gluten-free friends) that we split half a dozen deep-fried Oreos, as neither of us had ever had one. Worth the splurge.

This past weekend was dreadful because it was The Weekend Before Pay -- that is, broke, broke, broke. This is the kind of weekend where I am trying frantically not to think, because it will plunge me into even deeper depression. I slept a lot, watched TV, watched things on the computer.

A week or so ago, I was really feeling the absence of scent (cologne, perfume). My big bottle of Bellodgia has a clogged sprayer and although it's about 2/3 full, I can't get any out. This happened about two months after I got it; at some point, just from pumping and pumping, I got it to work for a few days, then it quit again. There's no way to open it. I even wrote to Caron, and never heard from them. I had bought some Gucci rush about a year ago, but the sprayer dropped off, so it will only stream; plus, it's not holding well on me at all. My Sublime and Escape were down to dregs. It's the season where I like to wear something a bit heavier, like Coco, but what was really on my mind was Shalimar. Mind you, I've never worn Shalimar. But one of my grandmothers did, or else she simply had a bottle on her vanity, and I remembered the smellvividly. It was wonderful and almost overwhelming. I recognize it on women who walk by. So I got myself a fairly small portion (1/4 oz. EDT) on eBay, and it's unbelievably wonderful. I can't believe how happy it makes me. I'm also waiting for a bottle of Mitsouko and one of Samsara, both also made by Guerlain. It seems like time to wear classics.

I may have mentioned The Perfumed Court, a website where you can buy smaller sizes of almost any kind of scent you can imagine -- plus it really has a lot of information about the history and composition of pretty much every scent on the site. It's tons of information, but it does help you to find other scents of the type you enjoy -- plus you can get small samples (not free) to check them out. It's not cheap, but fragrance samples are not as easy to come by as they used to be.

My brother is having more and more and more problems. Not much to be done for him. He's having more and more flashbacks about some bad things that were done to him as a kid, and although he sees a therapist, this stuff has totally paralyzed him. Neither he nor my sister-in-law has worked for a very long time, and I'm not sure how they get along, except that I guess public assistance goes a longer way in Providence, RI than it does in New York.

I do have a new insurance plan through my job, which is about as good as it can be. Unlike Medicaid, there are co-pays, but there are none for generic meds and none for lab tests, which is a life-saver.

Work is basically good. The beginning of the term was pretty hectic, but now things seem to be rolling nicely. I hired a nice new intern who seems to be working out well; I've had good luck so far with interns.

Barry is now without insurance (we lost Medicaid September 30), which is terrible, but there's not much we can do. I don't have a spare cent to add him to my coverage (which would totally about $6,000 per year). I'm really pushing him hard about looking for work...rather, I am strongly encouraging him. But we are just not making ends meet. We've already sold CDs and books and Barry's drum kit. Something has to change.