Movie, music and mind with a spot of blood

Tomorrow (31st Jan) is Holy Saraswati Puja. She is the Goddess of learning and all things related. That includes art, literature, music (it conveniently skips out the evil ones like the art of nuke making but I'll leave that debate to our forefathers). On the matter at hand, I realised that since the last couple of weeks I am been living on music, movies and books.

Literally ... music is running nearly 24x7 (sometimes when I am off to bed I keep some Bach concert or WCRB FM running). I have refused myself even a pint of idleness ... Eh bien! At least I try hard (not much success though). I was introduced to western (alternative/indie) rock by someone a few weeks ago and ... I must confess ... now all I listen to is alternative rock (except classical during late nights). Once in a while I sidestep into mainstream rock or some other genres but I have found myself most comfortable with alternative rock. Is it human nature to like old songs ... why don't they write songs like those in the 60s/70s anymore ? I didn't quite like Coldplay - Snow Patrol is better ... Nirvana is too weird. Maybe I am biased towards Piano over Guitar, but I have grown a soft corner for Sir Elton Hercules John. And no ... I still think a lot of the current rock music is basically noise with catchy tune and feet-tapping beats ... why do they even bother to have vocal ?!

Thanks to Youtube and Pandora, I can listen to the famous songs hand picked by enthusiasts - thanks folks. I also noticed I like male artists better; this is strange since I prefer female Bangla adhunik artists over male voice. I bought a few singles and CDs - too bad you can't buy most of the Beatles singles online. I am really glad I discovered this new liking since the Bangla and Hindi songs I like are old and limited in number and I simply cannot tolerate the new ones. Last week I went to a (FREE!!! Yay!) concert by the famous Muir String Quartet - that was also very good. Anyone has an original CD-pack for the Elton John 1970-2002 hits for sale, including the "bonus CD"? This seems to be hard to find anywhere... ahh... I just started listening and I am already acting picky :-) ... somethings just simply won't change.

I am not feeling very well these days ... kind of feeling sloppy every time, not my usual energetic self. Something is missing. Sleep is also irregular - it does not help that my room always gets very dry when heating is turned on.

There is no one interesting to talk to ... too much information is in the ether and not much wisdom. Nowadays I listen to what books have to say. On my turn, I write blog or diary (yes ... a new friend). I finished a few books lately. Currently I am reading Paulo Coelho's "Eleven minutes". I will write about it when I am done; in short, it is about a girl who tries to find love in a strange way. Maybe unintended, but the books puts me face to face in front of some challenging questions about life. Provocative and dark ... my kind.

Of course, I am thinking about research when I am supposed to ... that is most of the time I am my awaken self (rule #1 for a grad student). My proposal got deferred to next week. Wish me luck. I am dancing close but still a few steps away from my love and cannot find a way to get closer ... I hope I get her eventually. I have been thinking on this problem for a long long time but she is nowhere close to "Yes" even after a few initial kisses.

When tired of thinking and not in the mood of Maria's view on love, I am watching movies. Boston Public Library has a good collection of DVDs. This week I am planning to watch Che and Gran Torino - the latter got a good review by the Rolling Stone and I just _have_ to watch the former - c'mon it is about Che. I watched 2 of the 5 best picture Academy nominations for this year and I should say this is a bad year for movies ... neither Slumdog nor Benjamin Button is that great a movie (and can someone enlighten me what is so great about Slumdog ... it's a good one but not worth all these shouts). The Oscar committee should think about skipping the best picture award this year, just out of respect to previous awardees.

Idle moments are bad ... bloody. This I know since my IIT-K days. It has become worse lately. It is hard to remain spotless in this ruthless world but I am trying to ameliorate.

Speaking of music, I really liked the "Working on a Dream" song from Springsteen's latest album. I bought the song. He will be performing in Boston in April and I really wanna wanna go see his perform live... anyone has an extra $300 lying around ?

New blog for ranting

My tendency to poke my nose, which isn't large by physical dimensions, in worldly chaos to fix everything has often landed me in deep deep red-hot-chilly soup. I have decided to move my mental miscalculations to Debug Kolkata (which should be renamed Debug All). Stays here are my personal opinion about ... well ... me, myself and him. Not your kind of thing.

My existence is an experience

We are all condamnés . . .: we are all under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve . . .: we have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, at least among "the children of this world," in art and song. For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time (….)

-- Walter Pater, "Conclusion," The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, 1868(1)

Today I chanced upon this wonderful perspective on the meaning of living. I had sort of decided a purpose of my living during my early twenties. I call it greater good ... more on that later. Recently, I got a chance to fill in the last blank - the meaning of living. It was worth it ... to actually experience what it means to live. The above quote summarizes my experience in a very nice way, though taken out of context but extremely befitting.

Word of caution: don't take the quote literally, interpret it without any reservations to appreciate it fully.

Past, Present and then Tomorrow

I couldn't say a lot of things that I wanted to say,
I said a lot of things that meant nothing anyway,
Why did this happen ? Know not but am sad.
Will I get to dream again ? Will I have it my way ?

Just like a dog chasing a car,
I will chase what made me me.
And if clouds come and hide the sun,
Candles in my memory, I will light them to see.

People like me never get what they want.
We still never give up, though we know we fail.
Only if the road is dug and we are exiled.
We are forced to stop and tell a new tale.

I still want to sleep, talk and think.
I still want to sing the old song.
Afraid to dream, to remember what I could have had.
Another day has started and now I should be strong.

Give me a chance to set it all right.
Give me a clock whose hands can go back.
Let me chase a car that stops once in a while.
Hope for them and get going on my track.

6+ years in Boston is a long ... long ... time

despair management

What do you when you are sad ? See, sometimes things happen and you can either choose to feel sad or angry. The choice is subconscious; not like you have to decide between Campbell or Progresso soup, right then and there. Depending on your nature, you are biased towards anger or sadness. And then there is the split second ARGH! moment ... certain things happen ... based on the current moment, circumstances ... and the next moment you are either sad or angry.

It's better to be angry. Well... anger is not good your mental (and physical, if you are the angry-dad kind) health. Anger is also not good for anyone around you. It's actually not good for anyone, not even the dolphins. Still it is better because there are ways to tame anger and stabilise oneself before much damage is done.

What can you do when you are angry ? I am not usually angry since I *know* anger is not helpful. I wish I always didn't know things I know. But you can tear papers, storm out, shout, scream, go to a boxing ring or watch WWE. Or do many things that do not cause severe damage.

What do I do when I am sad ? I am sad when I have exhausted all possibilities to proceed. More, when external factors like coincidences and consequences of actions not under my control, forces me to halt. When destiny takes over me, for good or bad. Actually, you can never know if destiny would do good till 5 more years - right ? So, we always tend to drag destiny whenever the current scenario is unacceptable. In all of these cases and more, I feel sad.

The kind of person I am, I just let myself burn in my sadness. Burn burn burn ... till there is nothing left to burn. It's like swallowing a large piece of burning coke - hard to swallow but harder to throw out. And it _will_ cause pain.

Mon ami, if you have a better suggestion, leave me a comment. Thanks in advance.