Saw the one and only Devin Townsend last week at Slim's in San Francisco. I am glad I check his website regularly or I would have kicked myself for missing this show and meeting this uniquely talented guy. Devin played a superb show and caught here live is "Deep Peace" maybe my most favorite song from this artist.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Interview With Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land, the premier metal export of Israel, has been at the forefront of "progressive metal" for many years. Combining ruthless riffing, melodic leads, ethnic instruments and native sounds, the band has released four albums in about sixteen years. That's about four years for every single album. When asked about this huge timeframe for one album, the band's charismatic singer Kobi told me that its only because of their perfectionism this happens. I wondered but when I heard the new album "The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR" I was really blown away.
Having an elite artist like Steven Wilson doing keys and then mixing the album is also no small feat. Steven, the leader of the uber-progressive rock band Porcupine Tree is very choosy and picky when it comes to who he works with. This is understandable considering the numerous projects he is involved with. As someone who truly appreciates Steven's music, I read on his site about Orphaned Land. And then, I noticed that they were opening for the Swedish metallers Katatonia, which was great since I was already scheduled to watch this show.
Orphaned Land's brand of metal is really unique. The scale and ambition of their music is something that we dont often see in this day and age of "fast food music". You can read about the history of the band in their website or their wiki as I would like to focus more on the new album. OrwarriOR has a thematic and idealistic worldview not something that we hear in the run-of-the-mill metal albums filled with the usual songs of hate and self-centric views. I love the fact that there is a band coming from a land of so much strife, doing something to unite all the diversities. I dont understand why this band is mixed up with religion. Its probably the price they pay for talking about unity. I am happy they do this without going overboard or being cheesy. Its tough to describe the music as I am poor at album reviews so please check out the album for yourself if you want to hear something fresh in the metal circles.
I had the opportunity to meet all the band members during their recent San Francisco show. What follows is an interview I did later with Matti Svatitzki, the guitarist of Orphaned Land, who was very gracious to answer my questions. Thank you very much Matti for taking the time out and doing this.
Ravi: First off, congratulations on the great new album and a rocking tour you are doing in North America.
Matti: Thank you very much!
Ravi: The new album, "The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR" is an outstanding musical achievement. Maybe your best to date. Can you describe the creative process that enabled you to make a record of this scale, ambition and magnitude?
Matti: First of all, thanks for the compliments. We all in the band are very satisfied with the album. We have put much in it so it will sound good. The creative process was a lot like the process we went through while building are previous albums. However, there were some differences, we learned from mistakes we did before and came to this one with a better approach towards our sound and our style. We have worked with instruments that we have never worked with before but that we always dreamed of working with. Also the recording process was more thorough, we used a variety of instruments and techniques in order to get our sound.
Ravi: I noticed many non-mainstream collaborations on this record. Right from the beautiful artwork to the myriad musical instruments you have used, other than the regular electric guitars, drums and bass. How difficult was this process of reaching out to various musicians and bringing them to work on your record?
Matti: We have cooperated with other musicians before, and that’s never an easy process. The arrangements for other instruments always have more work and more effort to it, and on this album we took it even up one level when we worked with Arab violins and flutes. The players were members of the Nazareth Andalusian orchestra, and their style of playing and vision of music was quite different from ours, so naturally we had to make ends meet and get them think like we do and play what we want them to play. But it was fun, they came to like the album and the music very much and they will probably also play live with us in the future.
Ravi: The album has sense of tragedy and a tone of loss that is beyond anything you have done before. Can you describe what prompted you to work in this direction of unity across diversity?
Matti: The album is about the warrior of light, and it describes a person’s battle of the soul. As we know from our own lives, every day is a struggle, and we are all bound to make different choices. As life is never easy and sometimes lingers towards the sad and melancholic parts, so does this album on occasions. But there are also more cheerful parts on the album and the general message is a positive one, so there is a mix of emotions in it and lots of ups and downs, like in life.
Ravi: You have another great musician mixing this record and also playing keyboards on it. How did you meet Steven Wilson and how much was his contribution on this record?
Matti: Steven is a good friend of ours and a great musician. He works on a project in Israel (Blackfield with Aviv Geffen), and therefore spends lots of time here. Kobi, our vocalist, met him during one of his stays and they agreed that it could be interesting if he worked with us. We had him listen to some of our old and new materials, and he agreed to produce our album. Unfortunately, there were some time constraints and he only mixed the album and played the keyboards, but did a hell of a job none the less. We hope to get the chance to work with him again in the future.
Ravi: You recently opened for Metallica in Israel. How did that feel? I also read that Kirk Hammet is spinning ORwarriOR?
Matti: Openning for Metallica was a great experience. We have played on big stages and big festivals before, but none of them were back home and none of them with gods like Metallica. It was an enriching experience for us as a band to see how things happen professionally behind the scenes, like watching the gigantic crew working, and we also learned some new tricks and got some tips about how things happen on stage, and also on the production level. Kirk gave us a very positive feedback on Metal Hammer saying that he has listened to our album and liked it.
Ravi: Can you talk about the process of bringing so many sounds together for this record? Is it why this record took a few years to produce? Any frustrations due to the scope of the project?
Matti: We never meant for this project to take so long. We have planned to release it 2 or 3 years after Mabool. I think that the long scope was also because of personal matters, but the fact that we were very selective about what we are going to release also contributed to this. Next time we will try to make a new release a lot sooner. We are already planning a DVD with lots of guests and surprises for release next year.
Ravi: How has been the current tour with Katatonia and Swallow the Sun so far? Did you play any new frontiers that you haven't before? I confess, you found a new fan in me from your San Francisco concert.
Matti: That’s great to hear. To be honest, that’s what support tours are all about, making some new fans and spreading your word. The tour was great, the bands were amazing and we have enjoyed much. We liked San Francisco a lot and the US in general and can’t wait to come for another tour again soon.
Ravi: After the tour, what's next for Orphaned Land?
Matti: Like I have mentioned, we are going to film a live DVD, and it will probably happen in December. We are going to have a major Israeli artist as a guest (it will be very interesting), and also Greg Mackintosh from Paradise Lost(Ravi note: WOW, Greg on stage with Orphaned Land, what a treat). We’re going to play a full set with lots of ethnic instruments on stage and with Shlomit Levi, our female vocalist as well. The show will be in front of our local crowd which usually go completely nuts in our shows, so it will be fun watching. Besides, we are planning to release a new album in about 2 years.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Porcupine Tree...
I watched PT last year in their first run of "The Incident" tour. They played a fantastic set, and the great album, note to note. Since it was my first PT concert, I did not know what to expect but in the end, I saw something so remarkable that I became addicted to live PT music. When they announced a second run of The Incident tour this year, I lapped up the ticket as soon as I heard the news. Once again, the stage was set at Warfield, San Francisco. Like Robert Smith of The Cure crooned, "They keep calling me..."
Enough has been said about this band and there are enough PT-heads out there just like me, who dig everything these guys put out and are as rabid in their pursuit as I am, if not more. So, this review of the concert is not about how much I admire PT or how good this band is or how much their music enriches my life but about the show itself.
Driving straight from my work in San Jose to San Francisco in peak traffic is a pain by itself but add to it the frustration of trying to reach soon enough to get to the front row. But the travel travails felt less as I was spinning The Incident for the nth time and as every PT fan knows, Time Flies and it did. And hour and half on the road ended and I was at Warfield by 750PM. Unexpectedly, Karnivool was already on stage, rocking the crowds and getting the heat up. I never heard of this band before, but man, were they good! I found yet another band thanks to PT after discovering countless great bands from Steven Wilson Head Quarters on the web (if you want to expand your music horizons and discover some of the greatest 'unheard' of bands, look no further than www.swhq.co.uk and check the play-list at the bottom). Karnivool were a killer live band and almost made me order their two CD's on Amazon the next day (I stopped since I have many others in the wait list for the buy button). All in all, by 830PM, Karnivool vacates the stage and 30 minutes for the mighty PT to march on. As the stage is getting cleaned, Gavin's ultra-cool drum kit is unveiled and so were Richard's keyboards. Colin's and John's guitars were placed in the racks and the SW's guitar tech starts checking his arsenal of Paul Reed Smith's and Les Paul's. 9PM, and the gentlemen walk on stage, saying a polite hello to the amazed and anticipating crowds and telling us all how much they like coming back to SFO. I was standing in front of Colin who greets us all with his usual charming smile. PT launches into the extended version of "Even Less" and forge ahead with an impeccable set-list.
Filled with a couple of shenanigans, which made the live show ever more endearing, SW missed a few notes on the lead to "Drawing the Line". At that point he said "oh #@!" and looked at John, who was forging ahead note for note. SW explained that the band is slightly off due to jet lagging. Not unless you were a hardcore music fan yourself that you would see what notes they missed and how many time signatures were off but the point is, doing these small "mistakes" made the band even more appealing than ever. It felt like you were watching humans and not some machines. You could see the soul in the band and I can say this for everyone standing there that, at that moment SW missed those notes, we were all one, we were all together and we were all so happy and smiling. I forgot all my worries and felt like a baby feeling the warmth of a mother's womb. To listen to tracks like "Russia on Ice", "Stars Die", "Wedding Nails", which are seldom played, was uplifting, to say the least. SW, who is often uncomfortable with his emerging image as a guitar hero, looked every bit the guitar hero on stage, ripping those beautiful PRS guitars apart. Gavin, Richard, Colin and John added their polished and sophisticated musicianship and did more than justice to each track on the massive two hour long set-list. I was really fortunate that PT played so long only because for the rest of the show they were playing along with Coheed & Cambria, so the set-list would be condensed to one hour. After exactly one hour, the band took ten minutes off with a timer on the stage showing the countdown. At exactly time zero, they came back and per my request (only kidding, but I was routing for Time Flies, as evident from how the ten minutes went past in a zip) launched into Time Flies. I wonder how SW manages to impeccably change his show from electric to acoustic and back and manage to do that so seamlessly making it look so easy. The second half of the show went past so fast, by the end of the show I was wondering if I was in a sleep of dreaming. It all ended with a song that got me into PT about eight years back, Blackest Eyes. So very poetically, the show ended for me where it started. I have come a full circle in my pursuit of PT.
The incredible musicianship and the ultra-professional showmanship were compounded by the down-to-the-earth manners of the band, all of whom I met after the show. Hanging outside the tour bus, I first ran into Richard, who more than willingly signed my PT CD's and chatted. Gavin and Colin came out and took pictures and signed everything they were asked to. Out walked SW, with a casual and amicable approach. He greeted everyone, who were so excited to see him, and met all the fans waiting. We chatted with him and took pictures. I thanked him for the super set-list and for Insurgentis and Bass Communion. He gave me a surprising look and said thank you too. I have the happy feeling of seeing him off as he got back to the tour bus and I thanked him again for being so gracious after a two-hour show. John came out and I was very excited to run into him again, after having met him last year. John, is another inspiration with his mellifluous guitars and enchanting vocals. I said how valuable John is on the stage for PT to pull of those intricate vocal harmonies and the complicated guitar parts. As ever humble, he was ultra cool and said its only the practice that makes anybody a good guitarist. John, you are a mensch. If you want some great rock music, check out John Wesley's website (http://www.john-wesley.com/), where you can download his music for free although I recommend paying at least $20 for each album since there are way too many freeloaders out there these days. The musician has to not only make music, but also eat and pay bills right!
Bottom line, this has to be the best concert I have ever been to from all the scores of shows I see. Thank you for the music PT and my pursuit of the sound of muzak continues...
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Book review: The Difficulty of being Good by Gurcharan Das
“The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living” -- Socrates
Doing a review of Mr. Das's extraordinary work "The Difficulty of being Good" is like trying to describe Sistine Chapel to a blind person. Yet, I am going to make a sincere effort in doing this because like Yudhistira says "I must". Since Indian philosophy unfortunately is fused with religion ("Hinduism" is not an organized religion around one book or one person), its hard for people to directly compare Mahabharata to Ancient Greek works of philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. Its not taught in school since it has religiousness attached to it. Like Mr. Das himself says, if kids in Italy can read "The Divine Comedy", why cant kids in India learn Mahabharatha? Especially if doing so could make them better human beings? I would like to call Ramayana and Mahabharata, Indian tragedies, much like Greek Tragedies. Both end up causing tremendous agony to the reader by the way they end. But, ironically they both teach the reader about the value of life through tragedy. Both are attributed to two different authors but its likely that these works were authored over centuries with multiple redux versions. Much like the works of Aristophanes and Sophocles, these works are filled with deep human emotion, melodrama, fatalistic suffering and moral dilemmas. In both the epics, all the protagonists end their avatars after completing an odyssey that is filled with great suffering, longing, warring and separation from loved ones. Hence, I think they are much like the Greek tragedies. Now, tragedy is a strange emotion. when projected on external parties, it has the power to cleanse the audiences' emotional state of being and give them a sense of relief grown from utter despair. That's called catharsis. Different people find catharsis though different mediums, some through music, some through artwork and others through writings. I believe this magnum opus of Mr. Das, is his own catharsis.
By constantly craving to understand "dharma" and "dharmic religions", by constantly taking out examples from current day world and juxtaposing the same to Mahabharatha's world, he brings a perspective that is awe-inspiring, beautiful as well as pragmatic. By vicariously questioning the existential angst of the human condition and sometimes answering the same through these projections, Mr. Das tells a tale that is filled with anguish, suffering and pessimism yet somehow manages to create a light at the end of a turbulent and dark tunnel.
Mahabharata is carved into 18 books. It tells the story of an ancient Indian royal family. The crux of the book (or books) tells the story of warring cousins who both claim a right to their ancestor's kingdom. Who is the legal heir to the throne is actually a matter of debate. As the eldest, the throne belongs to Karna, but he was conceived before his mother, Kunti (also the mother of the five Pandavas), was married. So Karna, was left in a river much like Moses was. Yudhistira and Duryodhana are born a few seconds apart. But legally Dhrutharastra was only guarding his brother's throne so succession should fall on Yudhistira, the eldest of all the cousins (105 in total). Duryodhana, usurps the kingdom through a fraudulent game of dice and sends Yudhistira and his four younger brothers into exile. After returning from a fourteen year exile, Yudhistira requests his share of the kingdom, only to be denied even a single province. This leads to a great war between the two families, in which Yudhistira "wins". This is the basic plot of Mahabharata in a single paragraph. But the epic itself is seven times larger than Iliad and the Odyssey combined. Its the largest literary work ever written by mankind.
Mr. Gurcharan Das, educated in philosophy after which he became a senior manager at a world-class company before voluntarily retiring, authored "The Difficulty of being Good" with a deep passion as well as deep detachment. To his credit, he does not treat Krishna as the God while trying to understand the denouements of his actions. I believe this brings a sense of fairness into place. If you are aware of the stories within stories of this epic, you would agree that it becomes very easy to be deterministic if you choose the protagonist to be divine. We can just say, "hey, it was meant to me. this is God's will". But the ensuing suffering is human. So why would God want humans to suffer so as to make a point?
Being an Indian himself, the author knew the Mahabharatha inside out (of course he spent years studying the same under scholars at the University of Chicago), but he does not assume his reader to know the same. His erudition shines through across various chapters, in which he relates the dilemmas from the ancient epic to the problems of the modern world. He astutely tackles the complex episodes of this ancient prose with remarkable objectivity. He constantly compares and contrasts Mahabharatha's philosophy to that of the Western world. He writes freely and in an easy to understand compare/contrast format about the teachings of some of the greatest philosophers such as Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Kant, J. S. Mill and others. Breaking down his work into a few sections, he constantly exposes current issues by contrasting them to the issues in Mahabharatha.
Writing on Duryodhana's envy, which in the first place creates all the problems in the epic, he exposes the envy that caused the chasm in Reliance, the largest Indian company. He compares the silence of Bhishma to that of India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, while picking an able person as the next President of India. Had Draupadi been alive in this age, she would have questioned the corrupt Indian bureaucrats about their dharma in delivering basic services to the Indian masses. He questions his own glory-seeking trends when writing about Karna's constant status anxiety. He questions if George Bush Jr. felt the despair of Arjuna before going to war in Iraq. To me, these are astounding comparisons, which never crossed my own mind although they now seem so obvious now. This a mark of a man who is deeply moved by this epic and has keenly observed these characters in a detached way. These are some of the marks of Mr. Das's burning intellect.
By comparing Yudhistira's deep remorse after the war to that of Ashoka's, Mr. Das makes a point that maybe this was the work of a different author working during the Budhist times of 400BC. By drawing inferences from the works of Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Sophocles and interspersing those ideas with that of Descartes, Locke, Rawls, Mill and others, Mr. Das creates a rich and complex moral web of life that will keep this book a living embodiment of what the elusive dharma is. If dharma is subtle as Bhishma says, how are we ever supposed to know what it is? If dharma is the right thing to do, who is to define what the right thing is? If Hitler's deplorable acts and heinous crimes were committed in the name of the right thing for him, is dharma personal (to him) or is it universal (for us and the allied forces)?
The author gives a superb introduction to the evolution of the word dharma, from Rg Vedic (1500 BC) times till the current day. That's the evolution of this elusive work over an approximate period of 3,500 years. That time-scale starting now in 2010 would end up in the year 5510. I wonder what dharma would come to mean then!
I have a lot of takeaways from this book. In a world like we are living in today, its not easy to be a good person. That is how capitalism/democracy has evolved in the last 100 or so years. Capitalism follows the Darwinian dictum that its only the tough who survive. So how could one be tough and good at the same time? Its difficult to be good when an honest man looks at the wealth a corrupt politician and thinks "look what being good gave me". That's what Draupadi asks Yudhistira in the forest, "why are we suffering while that evil Duryodhana is enjoying all the luxuries of the world?". I think what Yudhistira says here is a lesson for all us. He says, "I do this because I must". There is a certain Faustian tragedy attached to all our lives currently, because we just cannot understand the nobility of Yudhistira's words.
Businessmen, they say should be tough, make tough choices and have thick skin. Companies like Microsoft become bullies, innovation-killers and so on but also create a lot of shareholder wealth. Microsoft, Google or any company for that matter exist to make money, probably at any cost. Can they be good in their conduct and yet be successful? Milton Friedman said that "a company's only job is to make money". Point being, if the world was Microsoft's Kurukshektra, it was waging a war, sometimes immoral (like the slaying the Bhisma if you will) and sometimes, moral. Again, its difficult to be good. Is BP an evil company for the way it behaved post Gulf of Mexico? Is Reliance an evil company because they say that it bribes for business deals? Or is it a good company for the wealth it created?
To follow a "swadharma" (personal dharma), and still go with these draconian times, seems more feasible than to follow "sadharana dharma" (universal dharma). But, at the same time, its important to constantly know what the right thing to do is, whether its not polluting the environment or not doing immoral activities. Gulf of Mexico is immoral but its because we demand gas that drove BP to deep sea. Doing so, BP delivered shareholder returns pretty well in the past few decades but at what cost? A cost whose negatives are "externalized" and a tragedy whose pathos is "commonized".
As we flow like twigs in this water, trying to live a detached yet attached life, we are looking around for meaning to this journey. It was Socrates who said “The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living” and we are all in the throes of examining and defining some meaning to this bio-chemical reaction. The great point the book makes at the end is trying to give more meaning to this existential angst by telling that its compassion that is needed to lead a fulfilling life.
Dharma could be interpreted as various things. It could be duty, right thing to do, morality, non-violence or even compassion. When Yudhistira steadfastly refuses to enter heaven if his dog is not allowed with him as well, that's when we realize that compassion for the world we live and compassion for fellow creatures is actually what makes us human. Yudhistira's observation from his strife-filled life is that dharma is compassion. Its not only about doing that elusive right thing, but also doing it with compassion. "The Difficulty of being Good" is a stupendous work and personally it helped me in my quest to understand my own dharma as well as the dharma of these times. This is not just a book to be read and recommended, its a book to be referenced for the rest of my life.
Doing a review of Mr. Das's extraordinary work "The Difficulty of being Good" is like trying to describe Sistine Chapel to a blind person. Yet, I am going to make a sincere effort in doing this because like Yudhistira says "I must". Since Indian philosophy unfortunately is fused with religion ("Hinduism" is not an organized religion around one book or one person), its hard for people to directly compare Mahabharata to Ancient Greek works of philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. Its not taught in school since it has religiousness attached to it. Like Mr. Das himself says, if kids in Italy can read "The Divine Comedy", why cant kids in India learn Mahabharatha? Especially if doing so could make them better human beings? I would like to call Ramayana and Mahabharata, Indian tragedies, much like Greek Tragedies. Both end up causing tremendous agony to the reader by the way they end. But, ironically they both teach the reader about the value of life through tragedy. Both are attributed to two different authors but its likely that these works were authored over centuries with multiple redux versions. Much like the works of Aristophanes and Sophocles, these works are filled with deep human emotion, melodrama, fatalistic suffering and moral dilemmas. In both the epics, all the protagonists end their avatars after completing an odyssey that is filled with great suffering, longing, warring and separation from loved ones. Hence, I think they are much like the Greek tragedies. Now, tragedy is a strange emotion. when projected on external parties, it has the power to cleanse the audiences' emotional state of being and give them a sense of relief grown from utter despair. That's called catharsis. Different people find catharsis though different mediums, some through music, some through artwork and others through writings. I believe this magnum opus of Mr. Das, is his own catharsis.
By constantly craving to understand "dharma" and "dharmic religions", by constantly taking out examples from current day world and juxtaposing the same to Mahabharatha's world, he brings a perspective that is awe-inspiring, beautiful as well as pragmatic. By vicariously questioning the existential angst of the human condition and sometimes answering the same through these projections, Mr. Das tells a tale that is filled with anguish, suffering and pessimism yet somehow manages to create a light at the end of a turbulent and dark tunnel.
Mahabharata is carved into 18 books. It tells the story of an ancient Indian royal family. The crux of the book (or books) tells the story of warring cousins who both claim a right to their ancestor's kingdom. Who is the legal heir to the throne is actually a matter of debate. As the eldest, the throne belongs to Karna, but he was conceived before his mother, Kunti (also the mother of the five Pandavas), was married. So Karna, was left in a river much like Moses was. Yudhistira and Duryodhana are born a few seconds apart. But legally Dhrutharastra was only guarding his brother's throne so succession should fall on Yudhistira, the eldest of all the cousins (105 in total). Duryodhana, usurps the kingdom through a fraudulent game of dice and sends Yudhistira and his four younger brothers into exile. After returning from a fourteen year exile, Yudhistira requests his share of the kingdom, only to be denied even a single province. This leads to a great war between the two families, in which Yudhistira "wins". This is the basic plot of Mahabharata in a single paragraph. But the epic itself is seven times larger than Iliad and the Odyssey combined. Its the largest literary work ever written by mankind.
Mr. Gurcharan Das, educated in philosophy after which he became a senior manager at a world-class company before voluntarily retiring, authored "The Difficulty of being Good" with a deep passion as well as deep detachment. To his credit, he does not treat Krishna as the God while trying to understand the denouements of his actions. I believe this brings a sense of fairness into place. If you are aware of the stories within stories of this epic, you would agree that it becomes very easy to be deterministic if you choose the protagonist to be divine. We can just say, "hey, it was meant to me. this is God's will". But the ensuing suffering is human. So why would God want humans to suffer so as to make a point?
Being an Indian himself, the author knew the Mahabharatha inside out (of course he spent years studying the same under scholars at the University of Chicago), but he does not assume his reader to know the same. His erudition shines through across various chapters, in which he relates the dilemmas from the ancient epic to the problems of the modern world. He astutely tackles the complex episodes of this ancient prose with remarkable objectivity. He constantly compares and contrasts Mahabharatha's philosophy to that of the Western world. He writes freely and in an easy to understand compare/contrast format about the teachings of some of the greatest philosophers such as Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Kant, J. S. Mill and others. Breaking down his work into a few sections, he constantly exposes current issues by contrasting them to the issues in Mahabharatha.
Writing on Duryodhana's envy, which in the first place creates all the problems in the epic, he exposes the envy that caused the chasm in Reliance, the largest Indian company. He compares the silence of Bhishma to that of India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, while picking an able person as the next President of India. Had Draupadi been alive in this age, she would have questioned the corrupt Indian bureaucrats about their dharma in delivering basic services to the Indian masses. He questions his own glory-seeking trends when writing about Karna's constant status anxiety. He questions if George Bush Jr. felt the despair of Arjuna before going to war in Iraq. To me, these are astounding comparisons, which never crossed my own mind although they now seem so obvious now. This a mark of a man who is deeply moved by this epic and has keenly observed these characters in a detached way. These are some of the marks of Mr. Das's burning intellect.
By comparing Yudhistira's deep remorse after the war to that of Ashoka's, Mr. Das makes a point that maybe this was the work of a different author working during the Budhist times of 400BC. By drawing inferences from the works of Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Sophocles and interspersing those ideas with that of Descartes, Locke, Rawls, Mill and others, Mr. Das creates a rich and complex moral web of life that will keep this book a living embodiment of what the elusive dharma is. If dharma is subtle as Bhishma says, how are we ever supposed to know what it is? If dharma is the right thing to do, who is to define what the right thing is? If Hitler's deplorable acts and heinous crimes were committed in the name of the right thing for him, is dharma personal (to him) or is it universal (for us and the allied forces)?
The author gives a superb introduction to the evolution of the word dharma, from Rg Vedic (1500 BC) times till the current day. That's the evolution of this elusive work over an approximate period of 3,500 years. That time-scale starting now in 2010 would end up in the year 5510. I wonder what dharma would come to mean then!
I have a lot of takeaways from this book. In a world like we are living in today, its not easy to be a good person. That is how capitalism/democracy has evolved in the last 100 or so years. Capitalism follows the Darwinian dictum that its only the tough who survive. So how could one be tough and good at the same time? Its difficult to be good when an honest man looks at the wealth a corrupt politician and thinks "look what being good gave me". That's what Draupadi asks Yudhistira in the forest, "why are we suffering while that evil Duryodhana is enjoying all the luxuries of the world?". I think what Yudhistira says here is a lesson for all us. He says, "I do this because I must". There is a certain Faustian tragedy attached to all our lives currently, because we just cannot understand the nobility of Yudhistira's words.
Businessmen, they say should be tough, make tough choices and have thick skin. Companies like Microsoft become bullies, innovation-killers and so on but also create a lot of shareholder wealth. Microsoft, Google or any company for that matter exist to make money, probably at any cost. Can they be good in their conduct and yet be successful? Milton Friedman said that "a company's only job is to make money". Point being, if the world was Microsoft's Kurukshektra, it was waging a war, sometimes immoral (like the slaying the Bhisma if you will) and sometimes, moral. Again, its difficult to be good. Is BP an evil company for the way it behaved post Gulf of Mexico? Is Reliance an evil company because they say that it bribes for business deals? Or is it a good company for the wealth it created?
To follow a "swadharma" (personal dharma), and still go with these draconian times, seems more feasible than to follow "sadharana dharma" (universal dharma). But, at the same time, its important to constantly know what the right thing to do is, whether its not polluting the environment or not doing immoral activities. Gulf of Mexico is immoral but its because we demand gas that drove BP to deep sea. Doing so, BP delivered shareholder returns pretty well in the past few decades but at what cost? A cost whose negatives are "externalized" and a tragedy whose pathos is "commonized".
As we flow like twigs in this water, trying to live a detached yet attached life, we are looking around for meaning to this journey. It was Socrates who said “The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living” and we are all in the throes of examining and defining some meaning to this bio-chemical reaction. The great point the book makes at the end is trying to give more meaning to this existential angst by telling that its compassion that is needed to lead a fulfilling life.
Dharma could be interpreted as various things. It could be duty, right thing to do, morality, non-violence or even compassion. When Yudhistira steadfastly refuses to enter heaven if his dog is not allowed with him as well, that's when we realize that compassion for the world we live and compassion for fellow creatures is actually what makes us human. Yudhistira's observation from his strife-filled life is that dharma is compassion. Its not only about doing that elusive right thing, but also doing it with compassion. "The Difficulty of being Good" is a stupendous work and personally it helped me in my quest to understand my own dharma as well as the dharma of these times. This is not just a book to be read and recommended, its a book to be referenced for the rest of my life.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
The Big Four Review
After all these years of head banging to Metallica and Megadeth separately, I could once do it at the same time albeit in a virtual setting removed thousands of miles from where it was happening. In the true spirit of metal thrashing madness, Hetfield and Mustaine played together on one stage, next to each other. I think its the big heart of Metallica that ultimately made this possible (contrary to popular belief). This mega-band has no single reason to take Anthrax and Slayer with them but they probably did, for creating some history.
And it happened on the night of June 22nd in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was digitally beamed to select theaters across the world. I watched it in AMC Cupertino on the replay. Much to my chagrin, some of these songs were cut (I wonder whose discretion) and only a select were beamed. The individual reviews follow.
Anthrax
Anthrax, a band I very much admired during the John Bush years and still do, played a set-list from the beginning of their career. Joey Bellodona, whose voice, music and albums I never cared for, looked old and out of place on stage. He also looked quite ludicrous with his funny mannerisms. Now, Anthrax is a strange band. Its quite common among metal bands to change lineups a bit here and there, but this band had an incredible seven vocalist changes, six guitarists play merry-go-round with four bassies and three drummers. Can the real Anthrax please stand up?
Anyways, my pet peeve is this. John Bush, who in my opinion (I really know my metal history well), made the best Anthrax albums from Sound of White Noise to We've Come Back For You All (only to break up again) was re-instated into the band in 2009. He played Australia and some random dates in Europe and was getting prepared to do Sonisphere 2010. Kaboom, in comes in Belladona and out goes Bush, ONCE AGAIN. This band is a frigging joke. To have no stability at all is a problem. Come one, even Megadeth changed lineups but Anthrax is an extreme. Do these guys even know who is in the band at any given time? After the incredible WCFYA album, so many years were wasted. That momentum was never taken advantage of. Bush was in and out, and all of a sudden they find Belladona? I was sick in my stomach when Belladona left the stage saying, "Anthrax is back". Yeah right buddy, from where and till when?
Megadeth
Been into Megadeth since about 20 years now. But why the hell did they play before Slayer? It's easily a bigger band (both in terms of quality and number of records sold). Anyways, Megaman took the stage like the seasoned pro that he is and ripped that flying V apart. Helped by the supremely talented Chris Broderick, and long-time ally Davidson on bass and Drover on drums, Megadeth nailed the Rust in Peace set-list. Mustaine has been doing a RiP 20 years anniversary tour and so was on top of his game. An incredible guitarist, his live playing is superb as he unplucks those complicated leads meticulously. My biggest complaint about this band, is again the lineup. I understand the limitations but no matter how talented Chris is basically playing Marty's leads right? All those incredible leads from RiP/Countdown they played were composed by the peerless Marty. Anyways, its an imperfect metal world out there.Mustaine lost no venom in his voice and he nails those intricate leads note for note, live. Megaman indeed!
Slayer
I hate Slayer. I have never ever liked them and I never will. Slayer to me represents everything that is disgusting about metal music. The pseudo-biker persona, the tough-guy exterior, disgusting lyrical content, arrogant smack-talk all come in a nice package of ZERO musical ability. That right, Slayer music is crass. There most popular riffs are what Mustaine can compose when taking a crap and their most popular lead is worse than a good quality YouTube amateur composition. This is a band that gained popularity through notoriety. Due to a serious lack of musical talent, these guys resort to controversialism. Araya should call it a day, he is old, sick and trying too hard to put that tough metal dude pose. Hanneman's and King's guitaring is a joke. If you know the basics of lead guitar playing you would know that their leads are essentially fast pentatonic runs with loads of whammy induced atonal noise pollution. I hate Slayer so much, I personally banned them from any aspect of my life. I even skipped watching Megadeth live since they are touring with Slayer. Slayer is bad for health. The day this band quits, will be the day I will get myself something nice. I fell asleep watching Slayer till I was awakened by the Ecstasy of Gold. Again, I hate Slayer.
Metallica
There is a reason why Metallica is the greatest metal band ever. Probably the most cliched topic you will ever hear when two idiot metalheads come together is "Metallica sold out dude". That right dudes, they did and I never complained and look what I got. I got Death Magnetic. I skipped St. Anger but I do enjoy a lot of songs from Load and one or two from Reload. Thats ok with me. Its 2010 and if you watch them live, you will know why band has no peers in this kind of music. If ever there will be a "Built to Last" kind of book on rock music, Metallica will be a prominent feature. The Beatles had no line up changes, Led Zeppelin broke up when the drummer died and Pink Floyd managed without Roger Waters. Somethings in life are irreplaceable. Nobody can take the place of Cliff Burton and nobody will. In that sense, Jason Newstead (that was the line up for me growing me, James, Jason, Kirk, Lars) was a place holder. But remember, this is a perfectionist band that is tightly controlled by the creative abilities of James and Lars. Even Kirk has a side-role to play. So as long as James/Lars/Kirk are together, thats Metallica for me. As far as I am concerned, Godzilla could be playing bass in place of Robert Trujillo, I could care less.
Here is the set-list from Sofia, Bulgaria. * represents the songs that were cut from the live beam.
1. Creeping Death
2. For Whom The Bell Tolls
3. Fuel
4. Harvester Of Sorrow
5. Fade To Black
6. That Was Just Your Life*
7. Cyanide
8. Sad But True*
9. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)*
10. All Nightmare Long*
11. One
12. Master Of Puppets
13. Blackened*
14. Nothing Else Matters
15. Enter Sandman
16. Encore:
16. Am I Evil? with Megadeth, Anthrax and Dave Lombardo
17. Hit The Lights
18. Seek & Destroy
What kind of an idiot would skip Blackened, Sanitarium and All Nightmare Long? But they were skipped from the theaters. Watching Metallica live is a treat. I did in 1999 in England and I will never forget it. They truly put a lot of effort into their performance. James showed the audience the Big Four pluck during Noting Else Matters. Its incredible how this band still sounds fresh and good after all these years. James' voice was excellent and Kirk's picked his notes perfectly (except missing that harmonic squeal in the second solo of MoP, for you hardcores). There is probably an element or two of jealousy when it comes to this band for all their success. But lets not forget their musical talent. Its only Megadeth that comes close to matching that among the "big four". The set-list was similar to what I saw myself all those years back except a song here and there. But ending with Hit the Lights and Seek was a complete pleasure to watch. Nostalgic and just plain simple metal riffing.
The big moment was to watch Mustaine and Hetfield play together with all the others running around and hugging each other. I am sure it was all done in good spirit. It looked genuine and heartfelt. Is there a reason why Slayer was missing from the mix except from the only talented member of the band, Dave Lombardo? I surely did not miss them on stage. Probably Hanneman and King felt too proud to share the stage with the others. Or more closer to the truth, they were just being themselves, pricks that is.
All in all, it was all worth it just to watch Metallica and Megadeth share the stage. I am sure there will be a next time, and there is my YouTube video for times I miss this. Too bad there was no such thing in 1999. Thank you technology for spreading some good music...
And it happened on the night of June 22nd in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was digitally beamed to select theaters across the world. I watched it in AMC Cupertino on the replay. Much to my chagrin, some of these songs were cut (I wonder whose discretion) and only a select were beamed. The individual reviews follow.
Anthrax
Anthrax, a band I very much admired during the John Bush years and still do, played a set-list from the beginning of their career. Joey Bellodona, whose voice, music and albums I never cared for, looked old and out of place on stage. He also looked quite ludicrous with his funny mannerisms. Now, Anthrax is a strange band. Its quite common among metal bands to change lineups a bit here and there, but this band had an incredible seven vocalist changes, six guitarists play merry-go-round with four bassies and three drummers. Can the real Anthrax please stand up?
Anyways, my pet peeve is this. John Bush, who in my opinion (I really know my metal history well), made the best Anthrax albums from Sound of White Noise to We've Come Back For You All (only to break up again) was re-instated into the band in 2009. He played Australia and some random dates in Europe and was getting prepared to do Sonisphere 2010. Kaboom, in comes in Belladona and out goes Bush, ONCE AGAIN. This band is a frigging joke. To have no stability at all is a problem. Come one, even Megadeth changed lineups but Anthrax is an extreme. Do these guys even know who is in the band at any given time? After the incredible WCFYA album, so many years were wasted. That momentum was never taken advantage of. Bush was in and out, and all of a sudden they find Belladona? I was sick in my stomach when Belladona left the stage saying, "Anthrax is back". Yeah right buddy, from where and till when?
Megadeth
Been into Megadeth since about 20 years now. But why the hell did they play before Slayer? It's easily a bigger band (both in terms of quality and number of records sold). Anyways, Megaman took the stage like the seasoned pro that he is and ripped that flying V apart. Helped by the supremely talented Chris Broderick, and long-time ally Davidson on bass and Drover on drums, Megadeth nailed the Rust in Peace set-list. Mustaine has been doing a RiP 20 years anniversary tour and so was on top of his game. An incredible guitarist, his live playing is superb as he unplucks those complicated leads meticulously. My biggest complaint about this band, is again the lineup. I understand the limitations but no matter how talented Chris is basically playing Marty's leads right? All those incredible leads from RiP/Countdown they played were composed by the peerless Marty. Anyways, its an imperfect metal world out there.Mustaine lost no venom in his voice and he nails those intricate leads note for note, live. Megaman indeed!
Slayer
I hate Slayer. I have never ever liked them and I never will. Slayer to me represents everything that is disgusting about metal music. The pseudo-biker persona, the tough-guy exterior, disgusting lyrical content, arrogant smack-talk all come in a nice package of ZERO musical ability. That right, Slayer music is crass. There most popular riffs are what Mustaine can compose when taking a crap and their most popular lead is worse than a good quality YouTube amateur composition. This is a band that gained popularity through notoriety. Due to a serious lack of musical talent, these guys resort to controversialism. Araya should call it a day, he is old, sick and trying too hard to put that tough metal dude pose. Hanneman's and King's guitaring is a joke. If you know the basics of lead guitar playing you would know that their leads are essentially fast pentatonic runs with loads of whammy induced atonal noise pollution. I hate Slayer so much, I personally banned them from any aspect of my life. I even skipped watching Megadeth live since they are touring with Slayer. Slayer is bad for health. The day this band quits, will be the day I will get myself something nice. I fell asleep watching Slayer till I was awakened by the Ecstasy of Gold. Again, I hate Slayer.
Metallica
There is a reason why Metallica is the greatest metal band ever. Probably the most cliched topic you will ever hear when two idiot metalheads come together is "Metallica sold out dude". That right dudes, they did and I never complained and look what I got. I got Death Magnetic. I skipped St. Anger but I do enjoy a lot of songs from Load and one or two from Reload. Thats ok with me. Its 2010 and if you watch them live, you will know why band has no peers in this kind of music. If ever there will be a "Built to Last" kind of book on rock music, Metallica will be a prominent feature. The Beatles had no line up changes, Led Zeppelin broke up when the drummer died and Pink Floyd managed without Roger Waters. Somethings in life are irreplaceable. Nobody can take the place of Cliff Burton and nobody will. In that sense, Jason Newstead (that was the line up for me growing me, James, Jason, Kirk, Lars) was a place holder. But remember, this is a perfectionist band that is tightly controlled by the creative abilities of James and Lars. Even Kirk has a side-role to play. So as long as James/Lars/Kirk are together, thats Metallica for me. As far as I am concerned, Godzilla could be playing bass in place of Robert Trujillo, I could care less.
Here is the set-list from Sofia, Bulgaria. * represents the songs that were cut from the live beam.
1. Creeping Death
2. For Whom The Bell Tolls
3. Fuel
4. Harvester Of Sorrow
5. Fade To Black
6. That Was Just Your Life*
7. Cyanide
8. Sad But True*
9. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)*
10. All Nightmare Long*
11. One
12. Master Of Puppets
13. Blackened*
14. Nothing Else Matters
15. Enter Sandman
16. Encore:
16. Am I Evil? with Megadeth, Anthrax and Dave Lombardo
17. Hit The Lights
18. Seek & Destroy
What kind of an idiot would skip Blackened, Sanitarium and All Nightmare Long? But they were skipped from the theaters. Watching Metallica live is a treat. I did in 1999 in England and I will never forget it. They truly put a lot of effort into their performance. James showed the audience the Big Four pluck during Noting Else Matters. Its incredible how this band still sounds fresh and good after all these years. James' voice was excellent and Kirk's picked his notes perfectly (except missing that harmonic squeal in the second solo of MoP, for you hardcores). There is probably an element or two of jealousy when it comes to this band for all their success. But lets not forget their musical talent. Its only Megadeth that comes close to matching that among the "big four". The set-list was similar to what I saw myself all those years back except a song here and there. But ending with Hit the Lights and Seek was a complete pleasure to watch. Nostalgic and just plain simple metal riffing.
The big moment was to watch Mustaine and Hetfield play together with all the others running around and hugging each other. I am sure it was all done in good spirit. It looked genuine and heartfelt. Is there a reason why Slayer was missing from the mix except from the only talented member of the band, Dave Lombardo? I surely did not miss them on stage. Probably Hanneman and King felt too proud to share the stage with the others. Or more closer to the truth, they were just being themselves, pricks that is.
All in all, it was all worth it just to watch Metallica and Megadeth share the stage. I am sure there will be a next time, and there is my YouTube video for times I miss this. Too bad there was no such thing in 1999. Thank you technology for spreading some good music...
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Kid Galahad (1937)
When you bring together such talent as the peerless Edward Robinson, beautiful Bette Davis and dashing Humphrey Bogart, the result has to be good. Michael Curtiz, who made the classic Casablanca (1942) with Boogey, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with Jimmy Cagney, Mildred Pierce (1945) with Joan Crawford and the terrific Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) (better than Russel Crow's and Kevin Costner put together), is among the pantheon of great directors from Classic Hollywood. This A-team has come together for Kid Galahad, in what would be another sweet performance from the little giant, Ed G.
Edward Robinson, once again proves that he has no match when it comes to playing snarling, vicious gangster roles. Time and again, he donned such a role with panache, verve and chutzpah. Wayne Morris, plays the affable farm-boy bellhop, Galahad, who accidentally turns into a prize fighter. Ed G's character Nicky, a mobster/boxing operator, runs a successful racket of fixing boxing matches. Bogart's Morgan, is a fellow racketeer and a thorn in the flesh of Nicky. Nicky's arm-candy Fluff, (Bette Davis) takes an instant liking to the chivalrous Galahad, who turns violent at the sight of women being mistreated. Galahad has the looks, the physique and the charm to ace any girl he likes but he does not fall for Fluff. Instead he goes for Nicky's baby sister Marie, much to the chagrin of Nicky. On contract with Nicky, Galahad keeps winning title after title until the final countdown for World Championship begins. Morgan, who is obviously pissed that Nicky's boy is winning everything pits his ace fighter against Galahad. Upset with his own protegee for falling in love with his sister, Nicky fixes this match and tries to makes Galahad lose the the fight. He even gives wrong suggestion to Galahad putting him in peril. Fluff, who by this times falls knee-deep for Galahad cannot bear this. She ropes in Marie and together they try to change Nicky's heart. What ensues is a slightly predictable yet satisfying finale when we understand that Nicky may not be the bad fellow we thought him to be.
I did not let my little giant bias come in the way of this review. I have seen scores of Edward Robinson's movies, recently bought his autobiography and am an active member of his fan-site on FaceBook. While Kid Galahad might not be up there with his other notable works, it is still a fine film. True Edward Robinson fans, should not miss this. There are various classic scenes of the little giant in this trademark gangster role. But the look on his face when Galahad is getting beaten to pulp is priceless. It shows the shock he feels at his own evil self. Bogart paired up with Ed G for a total of 5 films, of which a majority were made before Bogart became a bigger star than Edward Robinson. To watch Edward Robinson, Bette Davies and Bogart together is a treat in itself. This is a straight-up classic drama with some great moments. Although not as fine as some other movies of Curtiz, this has to be in his top quartile. 8 uppercuts out of 10.
Edward Robinson, once again proves that he has no match when it comes to playing snarling, vicious gangster roles. Time and again, he donned such a role with panache, verve and chutzpah. Wayne Morris, plays the affable farm-boy bellhop, Galahad, who accidentally turns into a prize fighter. Ed G's character Nicky, a mobster/boxing operator, runs a successful racket of fixing boxing matches. Bogart's Morgan, is a fellow racketeer and a thorn in the flesh of Nicky. Nicky's arm-candy Fluff, (Bette Davis) takes an instant liking to the chivalrous Galahad, who turns violent at the sight of women being mistreated. Galahad has the looks, the physique and the charm to ace any girl he likes but he does not fall for Fluff. Instead he goes for Nicky's baby sister Marie, much to the chagrin of Nicky. On contract with Nicky, Galahad keeps winning title after title until the final countdown for World Championship begins. Morgan, who is obviously pissed that Nicky's boy is winning everything pits his ace fighter against Galahad. Upset with his own protegee for falling in love with his sister, Nicky fixes this match and tries to makes Galahad lose the the fight. He even gives wrong suggestion to Galahad putting him in peril. Fluff, who by this times falls knee-deep for Galahad cannot bear this. She ropes in Marie and together they try to change Nicky's heart. What ensues is a slightly predictable yet satisfying finale when we understand that Nicky may not be the bad fellow we thought him to be.
I did not let my little giant bias come in the way of this review. I have seen scores of Edward Robinson's movies, recently bought his autobiography and am an active member of his fan-site on FaceBook. While Kid Galahad might not be up there with his other notable works, it is still a fine film. True Edward Robinson fans, should not miss this. There are various classic scenes of the little giant in this trademark gangster role. But the look on his face when Galahad is getting beaten to pulp is priceless. It shows the shock he feels at his own evil self. Bogart paired up with Ed G for a total of 5 films, of which a majority were made before Bogart became a bigger star than Edward Robinson. To watch Edward Robinson, Bette Davies and Bogart together is a treat in itself. This is a straight-up classic drama with some great moments. Although not as fine as some other movies of Curtiz, this has to be in his top quartile. 8 uppercuts out of 10.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Master of Burden Or Feast of Puppets...
For one of the most influential riffs in the kingdom of metal, look no beyond Master of Puppets. The 1986 classic track features the riff almighty of all riffs. Having loved and then learned to play this riff (and the entire song) has been a neat accomplishment in my journey as a guitarist. Before I made videos of me playing this song in total, I thought I should do a fun mashup of this number with the other classic riff that's been haunting me from the past few years, that's Dark Tranquillity's Feast of Burden. From the superb and probably lesser known, Haven album, Feast of Burden shines like a raw diamond from the early years of DT. So I mashed up MoP with FoB and what follows is a sinister riffola of metal fudge. If you are as crazy about riffs as I am, check carefully and test yourself when the time changes from the watch of Metallica to DT. Rest in riffing...
Friday, June 18, 2010
The Man From Laramie (1955)
Truth be told, I am a big and biased fan of James Stewart. Since I first saw him in Vertigo, I took an instant liking to the avuncular actor. I hunted down and saw dozens of his films (and a few ended up in my personal top twenty) over the last few years. Then, when I watched Martin Scorsese's documentary on American Cinema, I learned about Anthony Mann's (one of the directors who influenced Scorsese) collaboration with James Stewart. Together, these two have made six excellent films, five of them Westerns. Since I love Westerns as much as I love Noir, I had to hunt them all. After the terrific Winchester 73 (1950), I picked The Man From Laramie(1955).
Apart from the plot and besides Stewart, I loved the locations (New Mexico) where the movie was shot. The movie has many great wide-screen, panoramic shots depicting New Mexico's vast open lands and using them as another character in the film. Close-ups are few. The plot has many complexities and they slowly unfold in the latter half. Stewart is a man from Laramie who comes into a new town to deliver supplies but like you guessed he has ulterior motives. Its not easy to be a stranger in this rowdy town, ruled by the ruthless old mercenery Alec Waggoman, played brilliantly by Donald Crisp. Waggoman's son is a bad apple and a very rotten one at that. Many great inter-personal dynamics come into play as Stewart gets himself slowly established in this raucous town. There is Arthur Kennedy playing Vic, who faithfully serves Alec but has his own devilish designs. Finally, everything comes into play once Alec's son is murdered and this leads into a nice finale with Apache Indians joining the party and a nice gun fight.
Till Winchester 73, I have only seen the all-American sweetness side of James Stewart. But I learned more and started respecting more of this great, versatile actor. He can do anything from a naive senator (Mr. Smith) to a cynical scholar (Rope); from a hapless survivor (Its a Beautiful Life) to a vengeful cowboy (Most of Mann's movies). The Man From Laramie is not the greatest western ever made but it surely is a damn fine movie. It is a must for any James Stewart or Western buff. The movie also has a sweet soundtrack with a haunting title track. 8 guns out of 10.
Apart from the plot and besides Stewart, I loved the locations (New Mexico) where the movie was shot. The movie has many great wide-screen, panoramic shots depicting New Mexico's vast open lands and using them as another character in the film. Close-ups are few. The plot has many complexities and they slowly unfold in the latter half. Stewart is a man from Laramie who comes into a new town to deliver supplies but like you guessed he has ulterior motives. Its not easy to be a stranger in this rowdy town, ruled by the ruthless old mercenery Alec Waggoman, played brilliantly by Donald Crisp. Waggoman's son is a bad apple and a very rotten one at that. Many great inter-personal dynamics come into play as Stewart gets himself slowly established in this raucous town. There is Arthur Kennedy playing Vic, who faithfully serves Alec but has his own devilish designs. Finally, everything comes into play once Alec's son is murdered and this leads into a nice finale with Apache Indians joining the party and a nice gun fight.
Till Winchester 73, I have only seen the all-American sweetness side of James Stewart. But I learned more and started respecting more of this great, versatile actor. He can do anything from a naive senator (Mr. Smith) to a cynical scholar (Rope); from a hapless survivor (Its a Beautiful Life) to a vengeful cowboy (Most of Mann's movies). The Man From Laramie is not the greatest western ever made but it surely is a damn fine movie. It is a must for any James Stewart or Western buff. The movie also has a sweet soundtrack with a haunting title track. 8 guns out of 10.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Murder By Death (1976)
For all the fans of crime and noir movies, here comes one of the best satire's on the whole genre. Murder by Death is by far the funniest spoof on noir/mystery genre I have seen. Paying no respect to the stalwarts of the genre and taking the piss out of all and sundry, this movie should really rank up there in the noir-parody movies of all time. Made in 1976 by Robert Moore, in what could really be made into a sweet theatrical play, this is a forgotten classic.
Lionel Twain (played by Truman Capote no less), a bored/lonely/twisted oldman invites five of the world's top most private-eyes to dinner at his country mansion. One of the detectives will be murdered right after dinner but nobody who is being picked. The murder will occur before 12.00AM, and who ever solves the murder will be payed $1 million. But Twain does not show up at the dinner, preferring to talk through a taxidermy animal head trophy stuck on the wall. He keeps dropping hints and raising allegations, while giving his announcements, as the guests have their dinner. Naturally, all the guests are agitated but since they are the best detectives in the world, they rise up to the challenge of solving the mystery of who is going to be killer. As the night progresses, we are treated to high doses of hilarious dark humor. The only maids in the mansion are the blind butler (blind, why? since he was cheap to hire) and the deaf/dumb cook. Comedy of errors and comedy of terrors ensue as we get closer to midnight. Low, the butler is murdered, and Twain disappears. The ending will have you in splits, since its easily the most ludicrous parody of events.
Some of the finest acting is provided by Peter Sellers in his role as the "China-man" Sidney Wang, who strives hard to construct a sentence with an article, much to the chagrin of the well-bred Twain. Sidney Wang cracked me up when ever he opened his mouth. Also special mention to Pete Falk's Sam Diamond, a no-nonsense street smart, tough guy, who loves keeping naked pictures of musclemen in his closet, don't ask me why. This is truly a mad mad movie that will have you laugh all your worries away...2 thumbs up!
Lionel Twain (played by Truman Capote no less), a bored/lonely/twisted oldman invites five of the world's top most private-eyes to dinner at his country mansion. One of the detectives will be murdered right after dinner but nobody who is being picked. The murder will occur before 12.00AM, and who ever solves the murder will be payed $1 million. But Twain does not show up at the dinner, preferring to talk through a taxidermy animal head trophy stuck on the wall. He keeps dropping hints and raising allegations, while giving his announcements, as the guests have their dinner. Naturally, all the guests are agitated but since they are the best detectives in the world, they rise up to the challenge of solving the mystery of who is going to be killer. As the night progresses, we are treated to high doses of hilarious dark humor. The only maids in the mansion are the blind butler (blind, why? since he was cheap to hire) and the deaf/dumb cook. Comedy of errors and comedy of terrors ensue as we get closer to midnight. Low, the butler is murdered, and Twain disappears. The ending will have you in splits, since its easily the most ludicrous parody of events.
Some of the finest acting is provided by Peter Sellers in his role as the "China-man" Sidney Wang, who strives hard to construct a sentence with an article, much to the chagrin of the well-bred Twain. Sidney Wang cracked me up when ever he opened his mouth. Also special mention to Pete Falk's Sam Diamond, a no-nonsense street smart, tough guy, who loves keeping naked pictures of musclemen in his closet, don't ask me why. This is truly a mad mad movie that will have you laugh all your worries away...2 thumbs up!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Law is at war with ambiguity, with uncertainty. In the courtroom, the adversary system—plaintiff against defendant—guarantees that someone will always win, someone loses. No matter if justice is evenly with each side, no matter if the issues are indefinite and obscure, the rule of law will be declared.—Scott Turow
Law is a complicated, open to interpretation, set of rules essentially used to understand what is right from what is wrong. In that sense, it can be very relative. Human laws are not fixed in nature as are physical laws. Scientists can define gravity and prove it on a paper with the help of their tools. But morality is a more complex animal. There is no black or white in the legal world, only grey. What is right for you maybe wrong for me and so on and so forth. Judging is tough game being a judicious mix of philosophy, logic, antecedents and I guess reason and evidence. In Anatomy of a Murder, Otto Preminger deals exactly with this complex subject. How do some people get away by doing somethings that could be totally wrong but could be unproven in a court of law? Complicated yes, trivial? no. In that sense, Anatomy of a Murder is surely one of the finest legal dramas I have even seen along with the likes of legendary movies such as 12 Angry Men, Witness for the Prosecution among others.
Jimmy Stewart as Paul Biegler delivers yet another mind blowing performance. A down-on-his-luck attorney, who is more interested in fishing than fighting, Biegler stumbles on a rape/murder case, which promises to bring in some much-needed fees. Lt. Frederick Manion claims temporary insanity after hearing that his beloved wife has been brutally raped and in that fit of insanity murders the rapist. This is a classic case of the much controversial acquaintance rape, which seem to bring out no consensus amongst legal experts even to this day. Kathryn Grant, who plays the victim Mary Pilant, steals the show with a fine and nuanced performance. Mary is sort of a loose canon, who loves the party life. Her Husband Manion is a jealous guy with some serious temper problems. One fine night, Mary, who loves mens' attention, is busy clubbing in a rowdy pub wearing skimpy clothes while Manion is sleeping at home. The next thing we know is that Mary is raped, beaten and bruised. Manion, being the quick temper that he is, goes to the pub and shoots the rapist, who happens to be the pub owner. Manion quickly surrenders and claims temporary insanity and hires Biegler as his lawyer.
Jimmy plays to perfection the role of a lawyer who recently lost the DA job to someone else. He brings his characteristic sense of quirky charm to his role, especially in the court room scenes where he is questioning the evidence. One of the best parts is when he whispers in the ears of the judge about the usage of a particular word in the court room, which makes light of a grave situation. The DA who argues against Manion is a sharp guy who believes that Manion is guilty and also believes that Manion was in full senses when he committed the murder. Arguments keep eliciting more and more evidence and deeper analysis into the crime scene.
In the end, we figure, to our chagrin, that the verdict reached was totally wrong despite the best intentions of the innocent. Since this is a spoiler-free review, its a surprise ending. And this, I think, is Preminger's point. Its so easy to paint a picture of innocence or guilty to a case with a clever use of questioning and planting evidence. How would anyone other than the perpetrator of the crime know if s/he is guilty or not? The complexity of legal systems, the ambiguity of morality, the verisimilitude of evidence and the duality of justice are some of the topics touched by Preminger in this classic film full of mind-twisting analysis, good-bad dichotomy. All said with a sweet touch of wit. No matter how obscure the issues are and no matter how wrong the judgment may seem to be, it will be delivered. They just don't make movies like this anymore.
Law is a complicated, open to interpretation, set of rules essentially used to understand what is right from what is wrong. In that sense, it can be very relative. Human laws are not fixed in nature as are physical laws. Scientists can define gravity and prove it on a paper with the help of their tools. But morality is a more complex animal. There is no black or white in the legal world, only grey. What is right for you maybe wrong for me and so on and so forth. Judging is tough game being a judicious mix of philosophy, logic, antecedents and I guess reason and evidence. In Anatomy of a Murder, Otto Preminger deals exactly with this complex subject. How do some people get away by doing somethings that could be totally wrong but could be unproven in a court of law? Complicated yes, trivial? no. In that sense, Anatomy of a Murder is surely one of the finest legal dramas I have even seen along with the likes of legendary movies such as 12 Angry Men, Witness for the Prosecution among others.
Jimmy Stewart as Paul Biegler delivers yet another mind blowing performance. A down-on-his-luck attorney, who is more interested in fishing than fighting, Biegler stumbles on a rape/murder case, which promises to bring in some much-needed fees. Lt. Frederick Manion claims temporary insanity after hearing that his beloved wife has been brutally raped and in that fit of insanity murders the rapist. This is a classic case of the much controversial acquaintance rape, which seem to bring out no consensus amongst legal experts even to this day. Kathryn Grant, who plays the victim Mary Pilant, steals the show with a fine and nuanced performance. Mary is sort of a loose canon, who loves the party life. Her Husband Manion is a jealous guy with some serious temper problems. One fine night, Mary, who loves mens' attention, is busy clubbing in a rowdy pub wearing skimpy clothes while Manion is sleeping at home. The next thing we know is that Mary is raped, beaten and bruised. Manion, being the quick temper that he is, goes to the pub and shoots the rapist, who happens to be the pub owner. Manion quickly surrenders and claims temporary insanity and hires Biegler as his lawyer.
Jimmy plays to perfection the role of a lawyer who recently lost the DA job to someone else. He brings his characteristic sense of quirky charm to his role, especially in the court room scenes where he is questioning the evidence. One of the best parts is when he whispers in the ears of the judge about the usage of a particular word in the court room, which makes light of a grave situation. The DA who argues against Manion is a sharp guy who believes that Manion is guilty and also believes that Manion was in full senses when he committed the murder. Arguments keep eliciting more and more evidence and deeper analysis into the crime scene.
In the end, we figure, to our chagrin, that the verdict reached was totally wrong despite the best intentions of the innocent. Since this is a spoiler-free review, its a surprise ending. And this, I think, is Preminger's point. Its so easy to paint a picture of innocence or guilty to a case with a clever use of questioning and planting evidence. How would anyone other than the perpetrator of the crime know if s/he is guilty or not? The complexity of legal systems, the ambiguity of morality, the verisimilitude of evidence and the duality of justice are some of the topics touched by Preminger in this classic film full of mind-twisting analysis, good-bad dichotomy. All said with a sweet touch of wit. No matter how obscure the issues are and no matter how wrong the judgment may seem to be, it will be delivered. They just don't make movies like this anymore.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Collapse by Jared Diamond
In the past 4ooo or so years, many great civilizations rose to fame and crashed down, with only a few managing to survive. Most civilizations seem to peak for about 200 years with a total lifespan of 400-500 years. Back from the days of Mesopotamian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Persian, Indus, Greek, Roman societies into the post-Christiandom period cultures such as Nordic, Maya, Aztec, Inca, Tokukawa, North America, only a few have managed to leave behind some traces (With American empire still living in full vitality). The others have fell apart like castles made on sand washed away by the tides of time.
Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA, has often been criticized for being a pessimist, a determinist as well as a nihilist. Being a few of these myself, I echo some of his sentiments. I have read two of his books and I sometimes agree, that he tries to oversimplify some complex issues. But he hits the nail on the head in his latest book, Collapse. Addressing the causes of civilizational collapse, he traces the peaks and troughs of societies as varied geographically and culturally as Papa New Guinean, Polynesian, Inca, Meso-american, Nordic, Greenland/Icelandic and the post modern world societies such as Australian, Chinese, Japanese and Rwandan (I wonder why he skipped India). He diligently researched the raise of human life in each of these countries, its current ecological problems and its somewhat bleak future. Humans carelessly rape this planet of its resources, which usually take millions of years to recreate. These diminishing resources include not just the ubiquitous whipping boy, oil, but also fisheries, animal stock and even sunlight for photosynthesis. Why are we so careless? Why are we so full of ourselves that we just don't look around? Why we do fall and not realize that we are falling and do something about it?
Jared's earlier work Guns, Germs & Steel is a logical starting point to Collapse. In GGS, he writes about how white man has come to dominate the modern world with his 'cargo' (goods & services). Sounds funny, but that's exactly why Jared claims he wrote GGS, a Pulitzer Prize winning book no less. I have the excellent National Geographic Documentary and I strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in history, anthropology and humanity. Jared works a beautiful albeit deterministic theory (some find this irritating) and seemingly simplistic solution to the question on why white societies are more prosperous than others. In Collapse, Jared probes deeper into this question and the related ones such as why some societies survive and why some fail. Can we learn something from these failures as well as successes so we can learn the lessons which will pull us out of the harm's way we are driving ourselves into?
Collapse essentially covers three topics, dead societies, surviving societies and lessons to be learned from both. To even think that we, as humans, made it this far, in terms of technological progress and creating creature comforts for more people than ever before is surely an amazing journey.
This incredible journey begins in the enchanting Polynesia. Jared describes how humans have built sustainable societies without a break for over 40,000 years in Papua New Guinea. Around 100,000 years back, men and women started to walk upright and around 50,000 back cro-magnons evolved into homo sapiens. So you can imagine how rich the history and culture of Papua New Guinea would be. Starting from Africa, humans traveled across the coast (Middle East, India, Indonesia) and arrived at New Guinea all those many years back. And across Australia, they have somehow managed to move into the remotest parts of the world, the Easter Islands. Only discovered recently (two hundred or so years back), these islands have been inhabited for over 2000 years, uninterruptedly. They are about the size of a football ground and to survive in that much area for that long, is really quite amazing. Since Jared moves centuries at a time across a few pages, one can imagine how some chapters can be too succinct or even curt. But we do get a clear picture of the entire Polynesia region. Then we move on to Central America (Anasazi), and learn how native Indians there build a civilization thousands of years back but somehow perished due to climate changes and crop failures. Jared then jumps into Mayan societies in the 7-10 century AD. No two Maya scholars agree how this amazing civilization ended. Internecine tribal wars, weather changes, water problems, your guess is as good as mine.
I have always believed that we are living at a time which is more advanced than any before. We created more comforts for a larger section of people than ever before. We have controlled weather, providing for the sick, raised more productive crops than any civilization could have done before. We have devices like the iPads (functionality leave aside), that look cool and make life exciting, if you will. For instance, since the invention of the printing press around the 13th century, we have seen a tremendous growth in science and technology. New lands were being discovered and new medicines patented. But whose to say that ancient Greeks, or Romans, or Mayans or Hindus were not advanced for their times? Jared describes various practices of Mayans (who are credited with inventing the script, having an accurate calendar among others) some of which seem amazing. But they all perished. They were advanced for their times and so are we, so can we perish as well? As a society, can we self-destruct and leave nothing behind? Its possible since in history it has happened. Just because its possible does not mean it will happen, but the probability does exist.
Jared covers Nordic societies in Norway, Sweeden, Iceland and Greenland in some detail. I have always been fascinated with Vikings so this knowledge was very endearing. Vikings are credited with being the first people to discover North America (new world), about 500 years before Vasco Da Game sailed in 1492 and changed the course of the planet. But Vikings could not survive there and had to retreat. Their societies in Greenland collapsed while the Inuits survived. Its amazing to think about the dynamics of these problems. For instance, Vikings, after being converted to Christianity, looked down upon the Inuits, never collaborated with them and hence lost a great learning curve and paid the price of extinction.
Australia, Rwanda and China in the present times stand as great examples for sign of the times. Australia has severe population-growth problems, its hovering around 20 million and does not change. For a country that large, the only assets it has are coal and iron. It has serious agriculture worries. Only the Southwest is fertile and the rest of this huge country is barren. Fishing resources are dwindling and alien species such as rabbits, foxes and weeds are destroying local ecosystems. China for all its great growth, pollutes the planet with its massive growth. Urbanization in that country is putting great strains of natural resources. Rwanda is buried in deep ethnic conflicts between hutus and tutsis, which can be seen symbolically as representing the fragmented societies we have all come to live in. Religion separates us, Gods separate us, mores separate us, caste/ethnicity separates us, language separates us, even cuisines separate us. This fragmentation runs from Rwanda to India to LA. When I was walking in downtown LA for the first time I was told to leave the place before sunset, if I cared about myself. Its something like a hutu walking in a tutsi neighborhood in downturn Rwanda. Enough digression, but these are some of the points covered by Jared.
Civilizations fail because of a few factors, or usually by the confluence of one or more of these factors. Humans changing weather patters through pollution/abuse, weather changing by itself due to its capricious nature, friendly or hostile relations with neighbors and finally customs/practices/values. The astounding Angkor Watt in Cambodia perished due to lack of water. If you extrapolate that to current day situations around us, you think of California. There is a serious water shortage in Cali. The Govt. needs to work a sustainable solution to make water available for generations to come. We will be alright, since in our times nothing much might not change, we will have enough oil/water/food/air etc but its our kids who will be denied a few things we have (it could rain forests or dolphins). This is how Collapse ends. We do not take cognizance of the world around us and its problems, we will collapse as well. Waters will be run out of fishes if we fish faster than fishes can breed. Food will run short (like wheat today) if we do not practice sustainable agriculture. Are we not seeing the repercussion already? Food prices around the world have gone up by over 200% over the last few years. Forests will run out of wood if we clear cut trees without planting more.
Finally, what can you and I do about this? If you had the patience to read till here, you can make the change. Most people think that they cant change the world alone but change usually begins with one. Calvin Klein stopped using fur because consumers boycotted CK products. DuPont stopped producing CFC's (as late as 1989 tho), since scientists increased the awareness of its perils and consumers learned that refrigeration can cause skin cancer. We have to cross this Rubicon of indifference through action. If we stop buying SUVs and gas-guzzling Humvees and buy hybrids/electrics instead, the car manufactures will stop making SUVs (GM already doing it). Gulf of Mexico will not be causing some of us sleep less nights. If we stop buying meat of endangered (Shark fin soup? Please boycott, there are very few sharks left in the wild) species, and increase the awareness around our family and friends, some of these beautiful animals and plants will survive into the future. We can change, we have to change and we will not change at our own peril. An attitude to regress is a a recipe for the fall of once-mighty civilizations. Let the white light of this realization collapse into us, before we collapse!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Too Late for Tears (1949)
This little known gem from the golden age of noir film making is a must-watch. This movie was reissued in 1955 as Killer Bait. Directed by the underrated B-movie man Byron Haskin, this movie stars Lizabeth Scott as Jane Palmer, Don DeFore as Don Blake and the snarling flat, almost-legend noir actor Dan Duryea as Danny Fuller. Special mention must go to Dan because I think that he is too often over-looked and is never given the credit he deserves. Check out Dan in The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945). Dan plays to perfection the vile, nasal side-kick character who usually helps the femme fatale in her dark designs.
Too Late for Tears is the noir equivalent of a Molotov cocktail. It has the proverbial femme fatale, themes of greed and blind passion, morally ambiguous people who live on basal instincts to survive, oblique camera angles and of course, all interspersed within a few nice shadows. The movie tells the story of Jane, who we are introduced in the first frame as a nagging little woman never too happy with what she has in her life. Along with her husband (second one, the first husband dies mysteriously) Don, she becomes entangled in a blackmail payback scheme gone awry. In a fluke circumstance, she stumbles across a bag of 60 grand. Don wants to return it back to the coppers, but Jane is determined and hell-bent in keeping it. We slowly realize to what extent she will go to keep the money. Murders, deception, lies, and more murders follow in Jane’s desperation to keep the money for herself, at any cost, so she can live the ‘high-life’ she always dreamed of having. We understand that she grows up as a lower middle-class woman with more wants than she is capable of fulfilling and more desires than she can ever consummate. Little does Jane know that the blood money has a racket behind it and the racket will stop at nothing as well to get its money back. Danny Fuller, a vicious mug who cares for nothing but money, is the actual ‘owner’ of the bag. As expected Jane traps Danny as well, into murdering her husband and then tries to cheat Danny in the end. What ensues is the classic noir denouement with a fateful climax in Mexico.
The movie features some of the finest writing I have seen in B-grade noir of this time. "Yes, you've given me a dozen down payments and installments for the rest of our lives." "Don't ever change, Tiger. I don't think I'd like you with a heart". But my favorite line is this:
“"What are you doing?
Getting my lipstick.
Colt or Smith & Wesson?"
Too Late for Tears is almost on the level with The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and for that matter even the legendary Double Indemnity (1944). Not as polished and sophisticated as Double Indemnity but surely up there somewhere in that league. For any serious noir-film fan or motion picture student, this movie is a must see. A dark 9/10.
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
Just put down reading the mind-numbing work of Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. To even start writing a critique of this work is pretty daunting. First, I am a believer, not an atheist like Dawkins is. However, I do believe in science and have a healthy progressive mindset. I was never indoctrinated nor was I ever made to worship or read ancient literature of Hinduism, which I was born into. My curiosity in theology of Hinduism piqued as I hit late 20s and it has continued ever since. I have always been a great fan of evolutionary biology, buying and reading Dawkins masterwork The Selfish Gene back in the 90s. The God Delusion mainly attacks Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It never raised any points on Hinduism or Buddhism since Dawkins himself avowed that he isn't too familiar with these religions. I wish he becomes and then writes something to address these religions as well.
Whether you are a believer or not, is I recommend you to read The God Delusion (TGD) with an open mind. I immensely enjoyed some of the topics such as science advancing our thinking, heath-care progress, increased awareness against dogmas among others about which Dawkins passionately writes. I also should thank Dawkins for rising my consciousness with regards to interest in cosmology and natural history. We all read these things as kids, but the unfortunate thing is that we read them when we could hardly understand them, or at least I could not, back then. I am sure we all did some amazing advanced Physics experiments in high school, but I could actually not make head or tails of them. So from a purely scientific perspective, reading TGD raised my interest in science more than ever.
Some of the chapters in the book might be offensive to a hardcore believer. With an open attitude and a penchant for learning, TGD will make a great reading and by the end of it, you would be really more conscious than you were when you picked up the book. Some of the explorations Dawkins does into the making of the mind (how for instance, people before 1000BC might have thought that the inner voice we all have was actually a divine voice until we gained enough consciousness to think its our own), the duality of mind and matter versus the singularity, etc are very thought provoking. I always believed in the Upanishadic teachings that higher consciousness is not blind faith, the only way to realize this is through constant questioning and endless soul searching. The thought process that works this way, will always give more rewarding answers than the one which takes us through blind faith. If you ever check Upanishads (start with Brihadaranyaka), they always talk about the importance of moving away from elaborate rituals, dogma and idolatry into a consciousness of higher thinking. Idol worship could be a beginning point, a journey towards a destination but not the destination itself. Many of Hinduism ancient teachings focus on matter over mind and life hear in the now frontier than life after death. Look around the wonderful rainbow and regardless of the anatomy of its colors, its still wonderful. Its great to be just alive because we are not going to come back, its important to know that we were cave doweling just a few centuries before and now we are blogging wireless from hot-spots. This amazing technological advancement would never come out of dogmatic thinking, only from scientific rationality and reasoning. God can be realized by helping build a better society and being kind to fellow humans/animals. If we cant be better people to each other, how can rituals and faith per se make us better people and I think this is what Dawkins is trying to say.
The chapter "Why we are good?" is a another great eye opener. Morality is a complex Darwinian process which traces its origin to a couple of traits that evolution has bestowed on us. For one its the selfish trait of taking care of our kins so even if we don't survive, our fellow kins who share a majority of our genetic makeup will. The other evolutionary reason for morality is reciprocity. You scratch my back and and I will scratch yours, this is an important feature of why people could be good, without actually realizing it. Finally, all humans secretly crave for adulation and focus on building a good reputation in the society, this is another Darwinian kicker for being good. Honestly ask yourself, have all the religious people you ever met been good moral humans and all the atheists bad evil people? I sincerely doubt it. I have seen with my own eyes some high-ritual loving, Sanskrit speaking, wise people 'scientifically' reasoning out approachability and other maladies of the ancient society. Any good practice and good intention can become wayward over a few centuries. We can focus on the practice without understanding the intention. I guess Dawkins is also trying to drive the reader towards that end.
I will end the review with Dawkins' own words, "I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding".
Whether you are a believer or not, is I recommend you to read The God Delusion (TGD) with an open mind. I immensely enjoyed some of the topics such as science advancing our thinking, heath-care progress, increased awareness against dogmas among others about which Dawkins passionately writes. I also should thank Dawkins for rising my consciousness with regards to interest in cosmology and natural history. We all read these things as kids, but the unfortunate thing is that we read them when we could hardly understand them, or at least I could not, back then. I am sure we all did some amazing advanced Physics experiments in high school, but I could actually not make head or tails of them. So from a purely scientific perspective, reading TGD raised my interest in science more than ever.
Some of the chapters in the book might be offensive to a hardcore believer. With an open attitude and a penchant for learning, TGD will make a great reading and by the end of it, you would be really more conscious than you were when you picked up the book. Some of the explorations Dawkins does into the making of the mind (how for instance, people before 1000BC might have thought that the inner voice we all have was actually a divine voice until we gained enough consciousness to think its our own), the duality of mind and matter versus the singularity, etc are very thought provoking. I always believed in the Upanishadic teachings that higher consciousness is not blind faith, the only way to realize this is through constant questioning and endless soul searching. The thought process that works this way, will always give more rewarding answers than the one which takes us through blind faith. If you ever check Upanishads (start with Brihadaranyaka), they always talk about the importance of moving away from elaborate rituals, dogma and idolatry into a consciousness of higher thinking. Idol worship could be a beginning point, a journey towards a destination but not the destination itself. Many of Hinduism ancient teachings focus on matter over mind and life hear in the now frontier than life after death. Look around the wonderful rainbow and regardless of the anatomy of its colors, its still wonderful. Its great to be just alive because we are not going to come back, its important to know that we were cave doweling just a few centuries before and now we are blogging wireless from hot-spots. This amazing technological advancement would never come out of dogmatic thinking, only from scientific rationality and reasoning. God can be realized by helping build a better society and being kind to fellow humans/animals. If we cant be better people to each other, how can rituals and faith per se make us better people and I think this is what Dawkins is trying to say.
The chapter "Why we are good?" is a another great eye opener. Morality is a complex Darwinian process which traces its origin to a couple of traits that evolution has bestowed on us. For one its the selfish trait of taking care of our kins so even if we don't survive, our fellow kins who share a majority of our genetic makeup will. The other evolutionary reason for morality is reciprocity. You scratch my back and and I will scratch yours, this is an important feature of why people could be good, without actually realizing it. Finally, all humans secretly crave for adulation and focus on building a good reputation in the society, this is another Darwinian kicker for being good. Honestly ask yourself, have all the religious people you ever met been good moral humans and all the atheists bad evil people? I sincerely doubt it. I have seen with my own eyes some high-ritual loving, Sanskrit speaking, wise people 'scientifically' reasoning out approachability and other maladies of the ancient society. Any good practice and good intention can become wayward over a few centuries. We can focus on the practice without understanding the intention. I guess Dawkins is also trying to drive the reader towards that end.
I will end the review with Dawkins' own words, "I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding".
Three Little Noir Gems
Here are the brief reviews of three little noir gems I saw recently. All of them are rare to find, fortunately, the net has made it easy (and legal) to download them all. Just visit www.archive.org and search and download them, if you get excited by what you read or click on the Amazon links.
1. Kansas City Confidential (1952)
Set not in the usual New York, LA or San Francisco, but Kansas City, Missouri, this classic noir crime drama narrates the incidents after a million dollar heist. A seemingly perfect crime, committed by a person who sports a strange mask along with three other cons, goes pretty bad as the cops arrest an ex-con trying to go straight. Joe, played to perfection by John Payne, is expectedly miffed at being treated like dirt by the cops, for a crime he did not commit. The real robbers actually do not know each other, they are hired by a former head of detectives for the Kansas City Police, who being bitter about forced into retirement plans the heist. The three low-lives were to reunite after six months in a resort in Mexico to share the spoils. Joe somehow manages to find out about this plan as he gets acquitted. The rest of the movie is about how Joe manages to chase them all down for a heady final showdown in Mexico. Highlights include the terrific opening shot when the masked man hires three goons one after one and schemes his robbery. Also, notable are the scenes in the Mexican resort, which reminded me of some of the Bond movies actually, for some reason. All in all, a terrific, unsung addition to my noir collection. You have been recommended.
2. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
I was unprepared for this movie. Having never heard of it, I plunged into it without even reading the plot. And I was pretty much shocked. The movie has terrific star cast, with Barbara Stanwyck (dont miss her in Sorry-Wrong Number, an equally enthralling movie) playing Martha Ivers, Lizabeth Scott, Van Heflin and finally one of my favorite stars of this era, Kirk Douglas. Its directed by Lewis Milestone, who made the original Ocean's Eleven (1960). This is the first movie for Kirk.
Martha Ivers is a troubled/feisty and ruthless woman with a abnormal childhood. She has a great secret from her past that only 3 other people know. One of them is dead, the other has ran away to a different place and the she is married to the third. Sam, the boy who ran away, returns to her town after 18 or 19 years because as he says "the road curved, but I did not". Martha, who loved Sam when they were kids, is excited to see him but her husband Walter is not. Sam always bullied Walter, who grew up having self-esteem issues. A sub-plot of love develops as Toni enters the town. The turning point of the movie is in the second half as it comes alive with some strange denouements. The climax is a unpredictable and memorable. The movie features pretty jarring background music, which was annoying but still, its just a minor complaint. The last scene when Sam tells Toni "Never look back, never ever look back baby" is another classic.
3. Impact (1949)
This strange little movie could have been big. Maybe if it had featured more known names in the star cast. This film reminded me a few classic noir like The Killers, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Too Late For Tears. The last two share the femme fetal with this movie while the fist share the protagonist with a troubling past working as a mechanic in a strange town. The film is about a successful San Francisco businessman Walter Williams played really well by Brian Donlevy) who dotes on his wife but she has another man in her life. Together, they try to take him out and the result is pretty shocking to all of them. There is a lot of investigative work involved and the police are hard at heels to find what's going on. Marsha, Walter's wife, is as true-blue evil as the femme fetals in Too Late For Tears. Walter luckily survives his assassination attempt and ends up in Larkspur, Idaho. There he meets a charming Irene (played by the beautiful Helen Walker) who puts the life back in our beaten/broken boy who has to come to terms with the fact that his wife tried to get him murdered. He spends an idyllic three months at Larkspur realizing the wonders of country life. Walter musters strength to get back to San Francisco and deal with his wife. The ensuing courtroom drama seals the fate of Marsha. Very exciting and well made film and a must watch for any mature noir audience.
1. Kansas City Confidential (1952)
Set not in the usual New York, LA or San Francisco, but Kansas City, Missouri, this classic noir crime drama narrates the incidents after a million dollar heist. A seemingly perfect crime, committed by a person who sports a strange mask along with three other cons, goes pretty bad as the cops arrest an ex-con trying to go straight. Joe, played to perfection by John Payne, is expectedly miffed at being treated like dirt by the cops, for a crime he did not commit. The real robbers actually do not know each other, they are hired by a former head of detectives for the Kansas City Police, who being bitter about forced into retirement plans the heist. The three low-lives were to reunite after six months in a resort in Mexico to share the spoils. Joe somehow manages to find out about this plan as he gets acquitted. The rest of the movie is about how Joe manages to chase them all down for a heady final showdown in Mexico. Highlights include the terrific opening shot when the masked man hires three goons one after one and schemes his robbery. Also, notable are the scenes in the Mexican resort, which reminded me of some of the Bond movies actually, for some reason. All in all, a terrific, unsung addition to my noir collection. You have been recommended.
2. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
I was unprepared for this movie. Having never heard of it, I plunged into it without even reading the plot. And I was pretty much shocked. The movie has terrific star cast, with Barbara Stanwyck (dont miss her in Sorry-Wrong Number, an equally enthralling movie) playing Martha Ivers, Lizabeth Scott, Van Heflin and finally one of my favorite stars of this era, Kirk Douglas. Its directed by Lewis Milestone, who made the original Ocean's Eleven (1960). This is the first movie for Kirk.
Martha Ivers is a troubled/feisty and ruthless woman with a abnormal childhood. She has a great secret from her past that only 3 other people know. One of them is dead, the other has ran away to a different place and the she is married to the third. Sam, the boy who ran away, returns to her town after 18 or 19 years because as he says "the road curved, but I did not". Martha, who loved Sam when they were kids, is excited to see him but her husband Walter is not. Sam always bullied Walter, who grew up having self-esteem issues. A sub-plot of love develops as Toni enters the town. The turning point of the movie is in the second half as it comes alive with some strange denouements. The climax is a unpredictable and memorable. The movie features pretty jarring background music, which was annoying but still, its just a minor complaint. The last scene when Sam tells Toni "Never look back, never ever look back baby" is another classic.
3. Impact (1949)
This strange little movie could have been big. Maybe if it had featured more known names in the star cast. This film reminded me a few classic noir like The Killers, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Too Late For Tears. The last two share the femme fetal with this movie while the fist share the protagonist with a troubling past working as a mechanic in a strange town. The film is about a successful San Francisco businessman Walter Williams played really well by Brian Donlevy) who dotes on his wife but she has another man in her life. Together, they try to take him out and the result is pretty shocking to all of them. There is a lot of investigative work involved and the police are hard at heels to find what's going on. Marsha, Walter's wife, is as true-blue evil as the femme fetals in Too Late For Tears. Walter luckily survives his assassination attempt and ends up in Larkspur, Idaho. There he meets a charming Irene (played by the beautiful Helen Walker) who puts the life back in our beaten/broken boy who has to come to terms with the fact that his wife tried to get him murdered. He spends an idyllic three months at Larkspur realizing the wonders of country life. Walter musters strength to get back to San Francisco and deal with his wife. The ensuing courtroom drama seals the fate of Marsha. Very exciting and well made film and a must watch for any mature noir audience.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Of Melody & Mayhem
To watch Dark Tranquillity twice in a span of two months is every diehard metalhead's dream oblivion come true. It happened on the Memorial Day, no less. To get to meet and greet the band, to share gifts with them and hang with them is even better than just watching them play live. So, I saw DT once again in their incredible live show @ Slim's on Harrison, SF, few days back. The setlist was perfect, more than an hour long and heavy as heavy can be. Spanning their entire career (check the Stanne autographed setlist above), from Lethe to Fatalist, DT rocked Slim's like an earthquake.
I met Stanne and Henriksson outside their tour bus as I was hanging around Slim's before the show. Since I got so much great music from the band, I thought of giving them something, something like a DVD or a book etc. Since the new album (Void) is pretty darn serious I thought of giving them a serious book. So I bought a book on Buddhism (which talks about meditating on the emptiness, defocussing on materialism etc) and presented it to Stanne, explaining the concepts of the Eastern philosophy to the Swede. He said that he would surely check it out. After chatting with him, I went in and it was time for Mutiny Within and Threat Signal. MW was alright, as I never heard them before but TS had a few terrific songs. The guitarist was really incredible. Should check them out more. Before DT took to stage I ran into Brandstrom and Antonnsonn, who were gracious enough to click snaps and chat for a while.
DT took the stage with @ The Point of Ignition and never a dull moment thereafter. Stanne and Henriksson were hitting high flys with us fans in the front row, as they forged ahead with the songs. I passed hours in exile playing DT in my room all these years, so watching them play right in front pumping fists with them was unreal. For true DT fans, the setlist cannot get better as many classic from Gallery to Void were played with full force. Especially notable were Fatalist/Focus Shift for their raw intensity, Lost to Apathy/Lesser Faith for their energy and Iridium/Wonders @ Her Feet for their melody. Stanne shook like a leaf while delivering some of these songs, with the intensity shaking his guts. Incredible!
The band hung out on the floor right after the show, which was really sweet since most bands charge fans for meet & greet (Aerosmith, the superstars charge $1600 for this and Testament, a much much smaller band compared to Aerosmith take $200 while Soilwork, a band one might compare {I wont} to DT takes $30). I told Jivarp how incredible his drumming is on Lesser Faith and he said that he loves playing that live. Sundin is a shy Swede who writes the darkest of dark melodies such as rchangelsk. This is a band that you will love when you watch them play live. The energy makes you come alive. Few bands can match DT in the live performance business, they guys are true professionals who know how to hit those notes live. I cant wait to watch them again. Thanks for doing this tour DT, and coming back with the headlining tour after being humble enough to play before Devils Wears Prade in March. The entire band signed all my DT CDs and DVD. Stanne corrected me as I was trying to ramble in Swedish, Jar Algar Dig, he was like no no its Alskar and then he looked at me and my girlfriend and said, I love you too. Very few bands show this level of affection to their fans. They really dont have to, the music is enough but being kind to fans is just DT's Character. This is a really special band. Thanks for everything guys.
I met Stanne and Henriksson outside their tour bus as I was hanging around Slim's before the show. Since I got so much great music from the band, I thought of giving them something, something like a DVD or a book etc. Since the new album (Void) is pretty darn serious I thought of giving them a serious book. So I bought a book on Buddhism (which talks about meditating on the emptiness, defocussing on materialism etc) and presented it to Stanne, explaining the concepts of the Eastern philosophy to the Swede. He said that he would surely check it out. After chatting with him, I went in and it was time for Mutiny Within and Threat Signal. MW was alright, as I never heard them before but TS had a few terrific songs. The guitarist was really incredible. Should check them out more. Before DT took to stage I ran into Brandstrom and Antonnsonn, who were gracious enough to click snaps and chat for a while.
DT took the stage with @ The Point of Ignition and never a dull moment thereafter. Stanne and Henriksson were hitting high flys with us fans in the front row, as they forged ahead with the songs. I passed hours in exile playing DT in my room all these years, so watching them play right in front pumping fists with them was unreal. For true DT fans, the setlist cannot get better as many classic from Gallery to Void were played with full force. Especially notable were Fatalist/Focus Shift for their raw intensity, Lost to Apathy/Lesser Faith for their energy and Iridium/Wonders @ Her Feet for their melody. Stanne shook like a leaf while delivering some of these songs, with the intensity shaking his guts. Incredible!
The band hung out on the floor right after the show, which was really sweet since most bands charge fans for meet & greet (Aerosmith, the superstars charge $1600 for this and Testament, a much much smaller band compared to Aerosmith take $200 while Soilwork, a band one might compare {I wont} to DT takes $30). I told Jivarp how incredible his drumming is on Lesser Faith and he said that he loves playing that live. Sundin is a shy Swede who writes the darkest of dark melodies such as rchangelsk. This is a band that you will love when you watch them play live. The energy makes you come alive. Few bands can match DT in the live performance business, they guys are true professionals who know how to hit those notes live. I cant wait to watch them again. Thanks for doing this tour DT, and coming back with the headlining tour after being humble enough to play before Devils Wears Prade in March. The entire band signed all my DT CDs and DVD. Stanne corrected me as I was trying to ramble in Swedish, Jar Algar Dig, he was like no no its Alskar and then he looked at me and my girlfriend and said, I love you too. Very few bands show this level of affection to their fans. They really dont have to, the music is enough but being kind to fans is just DT's Character. This is a really special band. Thanks for everything guys.
Shutter Island (2010)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Key Actors: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer
Rating: 9/10
"Are you ok, boss?". By the second time Ruffalo's Chuck enquires his boss Teddy Daniels (Leo) about his state of mind/health, we begin to feel an eerie sense of discomfort. Initially intended as a vehicle for David Fincher, Scorsese's Shutter Island could well have been directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (Le corbeau, Diabolique) and Stanley Kubrick (The Shining) together. In fact, it was Kubrick's Shining that came to my mind as I spent an entire afternoon reflecting on Shutter Island. Is this the Shining of this generation? Well, it certainly has enough degeneration to be called so. The beauty of Shutter Island is the way it synthesizes mystery (like Le corbeau) and psychological horror (like The Shining) with traces of Classic Noir (like Laura or Murder My Sweet).
Trench coats and fedora hats made me think that Shutter Island is going to offer dark detective suspense with lot of crime. While it does offer enough mental crime, it transcends the limitations of the noir genre and culminates somewhere high above as a dark art of masterful imagination. The movie makes one constantly wonder about where reality ends and fiction begins. The trouble is reality sometimes is so distorted (as in real life experiences), it becomes hard to separate it from fiction and wonder where we are supposed to draw the lines.
Teddy Daniels is a detective sent to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a criminally insane patient. The Island is a place where mentally ill criminals are tended to, in an effort to make them better. Dr. Cawley, the man who runs the facility, devices ways and means to make these people become socially functional humans again. He somewhat comes across as cold and immune to his patients feelings but he is surely a man who takes his job very seriously. Chuck, Teddy's partner (another brilliant performance by Mark Ruffalo, whom I can never forget from Zodiac), helps Teddy maintain his sanity in a place where its hard to find (and keep). Things begin to unfold in a dramatic and unpredictable way for Teddy as he soon discovers that there is more to the story than what meets the eye. He has a strange rendezvous with the missing patient, who makes him question his own role in the whole investigation. Does Teddy know what exactly is happening at the institute? Is he being used as a scapegoat? Can he trust Chuck and Dr. Cawley at all?
Shutter Island has some of the most disturbing images you could see in a movie like this. It’s hard enough to watch piles and piles of frozen humans with more being butchered across them but it’s even harder to stomach the scenes of children being drowned. I guess this is not a date movie or something you should go to on a stomach upset day. On the contrary, the movie also has some of the most beautiful images that will not leave the mind for a while. Scenes of Leo imagining his wife (while she turns to dust) or papers cascading across the bedroom while Leo is lost in thoughts are as wonderfully crafted as they come. Scorsese is getting better with age. I think he gave his best present yet to Leo (Gangs of NY, The Aviator, The Departed), with whom this will be his fourth.
It’s easy to dislike the movie if you went along with the ride and feel deceived through its distorted sense of reality but it’s also easy to admire the movie because of how it constructs a parallel universe that can only exist in the mind and yet seem real to the person who is creating it. It’s already tough to go through what Leo's Ted has to go through but without his defense mechanisms, probably he would have turned out to be worse than what he becomes. Like he tells Chuck at the end with a certain degree of nonchalance, the question is whether to live a long life as a brute or die soon as a good man. Ted is a good man; and Shutter Island is one hell of a good movie.
The Mundane & The Magic...
Dark Tranquillity's Terminus (Where Death is Most Alive) is still ringing in my ears from last night. The Swedish melodeath pioneers have visited SF after 2 long years and it was worth the wait for fanboys. Although it was a short concert since they are not headlining this tour (Killswitch Engage is and I am not into KSE) Mikael announced that they will be back in May, 2010 for a headlining show, excited is an understatement.
DT started the show with the mind numbing Terminus, continued to to Lesser Faith and played Dream Oblivion from the new album, We Are The Void. A short (6) but sweet setlist that unfortunately did not include my all time fav DT number, Lost to Apathy. Cant have it all can we?
The best part of the show was hanging with the band after the show. As KSE started playing, I ran out to check if DT was at the stall. And there they were, Niklas, Martin, and Mikael were all hanging there and I met all of them. The Swed's are as kind as their music is heavy. We took pictures, spoke about music, life and I also got the band to sign on my Fiction CD.
Mikael spoke over a beer about how the band grew up from Projector and what currently inspires him. I asked him a lot of questions about song writing, metal and life in general. Surprising Mikael is more into Coheed & Cambria and Jeff Buckley more than anything else these days. We spoke at length about Gothenburg's contributions in keeping metal alive. It was a dream come true, to hang with DT and talk metal with one of the few bands in the world who is keeping melodic metal alive and kicking.
Cant wait for May..stay metal!
DT started the show with the mind numbing Terminus, continued to to Lesser Faith and played Dream Oblivion from the new album, We Are The Void. A short (6) but sweet setlist that unfortunately did not include my all time fav DT number, Lost to Apathy. Cant have it all can we?
The best part of the show was hanging with the band after the show. As KSE started playing, I ran out to check if DT was at the stall. And there they were, Niklas, Martin, and Mikael were all hanging there and I met all of them. The Swed's are as kind as their music is heavy. We took pictures, spoke about music, life and I also got the band to sign on my Fiction CD.
Mikael spoke over a beer about how the band grew up from Projector and what currently inspires him. I asked him a lot of questions about song writing, metal and life in general. Surprising Mikael is more into Coheed & Cambria and Jeff Buckley more than anything else these days. We spoke at length about Gothenburg's contributions in keeping metal alive. It was a dream come true, to hang with DT and talk metal with one of the few bands in the world who is keeping melodic metal alive and kicking.
Cant wait for May..stay metal!
R.I.P. Pete
January 4, 1962 – April 14, 2010
Thanks for the music, hope you find peace on the other side at least.
RSM's Playing List - April 2010
Isis - In The Absence of Truth
Frou Frou - Details
Insomnium - Across The Dark
Atreyu - Lead Anchor Paper Trail
Coheed & Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness
Coheed & Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow
Frou Frou - Details
Insomnium - Across The Dark
Atreyu - Lead Anchor Paper Trail
Coheed & Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness
Coheed & Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow
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