The Prestidigitator

This is the kind of Christmas music I can get behind.

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin

Like most people, I thoroughly enjoyed Jon Stewart’s drawing and quartering of Jim Cramer on The Daily Show last week. It tells you something about the cultural zeitgeist when a television comedian is the one who ends up taking the mantle of journalism.

The episode, despite being immensely uncomfortable to watch, was catharsis in many ways. It was also refreshing to see Stewart finally come down on Cramer (unfortunately, a scapegoat for the real problem – financial news networks) in an expletive laden interview/skewering.

But isn’t that part of the problem? Selling this idea that you don’t have to do anything. Anytime you sell people the idea that sit back and you’ll get 10 to 20 percent on your money, don’t you always know that that’s going to be a lie? When are we going to realize in this country that our wealth is work? That we’re workers and by selling this idea that of “Hey man, I’ll teach you how to be rich”…how is that any different than an infomercial?

…

I gotta tell you. I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a fucking game. When I watch that, I get, I can’t tell you how angry it makes me because it says to me, “You all know.” You all know what’s going on. You can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being pulled at Bear and at AIG and all this derivative market stuff that is this weird Wall Street side bet.

How come journalists back in India never hold our politicians’ feet to the fire like Stewart did?

(PS: I did feel sorry for Cramer.)

Once in a while, you read a book that is an entirely intimate and personal experience. It’s extremely gratifying but unnerving to read about a protagonist who shares your traits, quirks and personal philosophy. This was one such book for me.

This Book Will Save Your Life is a satire of affluence and it’s pitfalls. Richard Novak is a self made man who is obsessed with health food, art, culture and pretty much nothing else. A fit of unexplained chest pain forces him to reevaluate his life, loves and family. This is a story about a man who attempts opening up to a world and is surprised in the strangest of ways.

Richard reconnects with his brother and son and opens himself to the idea of intimacy. In the meantime he makes friends with a movie star, a reclusive screenwriter and all the while, his house is slowly being devoured by a sinkhole. This is more of a dark comedy where you inadvertently laugh at a person’s misfortunes than at his sense of humor. What’s amazing is that A M Homes is a woman; and for a woman she shows an in depth knowledge about the inner workings of men.

On the surface, this seems like light reading but at the end of it you will be left with a surge of hope and maybe, just maybe, it’ll save your life.

An exhaustive review here.

http://www.amhomesbooks.com/

I constantly keep track of my site stats, mostly just to feed my bloated ego but there are times I’m curious to find what people actually read here. Somehow my post on 300 shows up whenever people search for naked men. I will not comment on that but today someone searched for ”malayalee moron” and ended up here! Says a lot about the author eh?

Who exactly at Google do I thank?

I can’t contain myself. I’m giggling like a 10 year old. I haven’t been this excited in a while.

For a handful of us back in college, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle was a defining moment in our four years at that godforsaken place. It sort of gained a cult status back then and a few lines from the film gradually went on to be part of our daily diatribe.

Kumar in many ways was the smart and funny slacker we all wanted to be. Add a socially awkward Korean, raunchy jokes, girls, Neil Patric Harris, weed, burgers, bullies and not so subtle social commentary and you had an amazingly funny comedy.

The sequel comes out next year…watch the hilarious trailer here!

I take risks; sometimes patients die. But not taking risks causes more patients to die, so I guess my biggest problem is I’ve been cursed with the ability to do the math.

Dr Gregory House is arguably one of the coolest people on TV (along with the likes of Alan Shore from Boston Legal and Dr Cox from Scrubs). What is it about this cynical, sexist, wisecracking, pill popping, mad genius of a misanthrope that makes him so appealing?

This astonishingly well edited video showcases the man at his finest moments!

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Bh7vnIVPv4]

After years (!) of careful thinking and research (and mind numbing monotony), the list of probable candidates for  the honor of being The Prestidigitator’s Idea of the Perfect Woman has come down to three beautiful and not to mention intelligent individuals…er…women.

1. Cate Blanchett:  She blew my mind away with her performances in Elizabeth and even films like The Life Aquatic but what clinched it was an interview of hers I saw last week on Aussie TV. Not only does she seem to be intelligent and well read but  also showed a great deal of depth whilst deliberating on topics ranging from death to philosophy. Most other actresses are (face it) vain and um…not that intellectually stimulating but Cate Blanchett comes across as the very antithesis.

2. Natalie Portman: Well…no surprise here. She has that unique characteristic what many (not me) would call ‘twinkle in the eye‘. She has a certain sense of intelligence and ‘bubbliness’ that you would be hard pressed to find in actresses of her generation. To boot, she also has a degree in psychology from Harvard (proving she is as smart as she looks) and she actually submitted a paper titled “Frontal Lobe Activation During Object Permanence“! Beat that!

3. Marge Simpson: Proving that the perfect woman need not be three dimensional, Marge Simpson is the everyday woman with a tinge of attitude. Yes, she is patient, a great painter, has high morals etc.. But she also has that unpredictability that you just wouldn’t find in any other woman in suburbia. And…she has blue hair.

Congratulations, Ladies! 

Ranga Shankara (JP Nagar, Bangalore) was host to the play, Butter and Mashed Banana. Directed by Ajay Krishnan, this was an amazingly humorous yet profound look at our system of censorship.

It’s a three act play wherein the first act details the illegitimate birth of the protagonist (conceived on a night of ill advised but passionate love) to a Shiv Sena/Right Wing father and a CPI(M)/Left Wing mother. The conflict of ideas begin long before the child is born but the effects are life long.

In the second act we see that the protagonist is now a famous writer who has become a celebrity but his own countrymen know little of him as his book, “Bahabah” is banned by the Censor Board which deems it too offensive.

Freedom of Speech is your fundamental right, but you can’t say whatever you want, you know.

In the third act, the protagonist decides to change things by entering politics where he finds the system to be far too corrupt to change. The ruling and opposition parties fight over him to yield disastrous yet comical results. There is this one line by the opposition where the leader quotes the Blabbermouth Law of 1952 (Sayterius Minimus) which states, “Thou canst sayest what thy wants.” Call me lame, but I thought it was hilarious.

I thought the play was very well written and in spite of being slightly over the top still managed to tackle issues like freedom, morality, religious fanaticism and sexual awakening (or the lack of it).

And yes, there is music as well with some great lyrics and guitar strumming (by Ajay Krishnan himself). The three actors are excellent and the script is laced with dry wit and irony. It does manage to get the point across, albeit in a very humorous way.

If this play comes your way, I suggest you NOT miss it. At 100 Rs a ticket, it’s a great way to spend a Sunday evening!

Drop the cause and join the line.

Something made you cry, it’s the dirt in your eye.

PS: Butter and Mashed Banana is apparently used on a hangman’s noose to tighten the knot (Thank you Google!).

Heads up to Johnny for noticing this at Landmark, Bangalore.

New genre you say?

In keeping with my whole Garden State/Zach Braff fan boy image, here’s the ultimate ZB homage video. Just after I got it from Pangu, I found out that Zach Braff actually posted it on his blog as well!

The video is so bad that it’s actually pretty damn good. I think I’ll be humming this for a while!

I don’t care what you say,

In a non gay way, I love Zach Braff!

Hilarious!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_gebFHutLw]