I want to curl up under a rock OR climb into a stray truck and go away OR disconnect every phone in the house OR turn into an insect. Nothing but vitriol for Muldivana. I will die before this goddamned project comes through, only not of starvation.

What cost happiness? I really miss having a music player. It pierced me the deepest this morning sitting bang in the middle of a swank deserted street somewhere in Sector5 at five thirty, shivering with excitement at the fact that it finally felt like October right then, dry leaves and a tepid chilliness, the works. I had Soham's iPod on and found a lot of old early morning music, it made me weary of having to switch my computer on every morning and getting through startup. No more Walkmen, and my iPod might never be resurrected so maybe I should get myself a new one? This is a good thing, I think, to be able to watch things happen with a soundtrack that sticks because they pierce you deep, the songs (like all things you miss without validation), even if it's just a pack of dogs sniffing each others' bottoms down the road at this particular moment.

Here's a chronological list of what I heard twice over in the one hour spent waiting for the unit to arrive: CSNY - Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Ben E.King - Stand By Me, Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues, Otis Redding - Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, Prince - Little Red Corvette, The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again. Alphabetically too, you can see I worked my way down a playlist. I think it was mostly stuff from that 500 greatest songs of all time list, I played the Redding one extra time not because I love him, even though I do, but because it felt curiously pleasantly painfully apt. Sitting in the morning sun, I'll be sitting when the evening comes. I'll beat the lot of you at being placid on mornings like this.

I feel like writing a long, rambling post circa three years ago but I can't unless I sit down and write on paper, if I'm writing more than a paragraph I need paper nowadays. I used to be able to connect things better back then but I've realised that it isn't really my call, all that declaiming. This blog's more annoying and more depressing than the others and it's infinitely more difficult to hit Publish here but things come out easier. Think what you say versus mean what you say, I'm kicking it out of the ballpark as far as writing stiltedly goes but it was bound to happen, wasn't it. Doesn't stop me from writing this post, though, I'm going to force it out if it kills me. This is where you start hugging yourself for warmth.

(Excellent. I'm doing it already.)

I bought three books today. Two travelogues. Colin Thubron's Among The Russians and Dan Jacobson's The Electronic Elephant. One noir. Waltz Into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich. I found out later that he wrote the story Rear Window is based upon. Hopefully I'll read these by the end of the year, hopefully someday I'll read every book I own before I buy any more, or switch to shoes or something. Till then I'm going to stock up for the library I'll have when I start living on my own and need to spend on more important things, like bottled water and soap and mosquito fumigation agencies.

Then I found Van Gogh brushes on dA. I've been tinkering around a lot with brushes on Photoshop but I can't do anything very useful (or appealing) with them. These, however, work like a dream and MS Paint is now close to facing mutiny.

First attempt at fooling around:




This is the painting version of a macro shot of a very colourful snail shell. Evidently these brushes work like Vincent only if you are Vincent.

Two tries later, to my mild astonishment, I got something less Van Gogh and more Roerich. Or maybe that's in my head.



It looks better if you click full view. I call this masterpiece Pointy Mountains.

Also. Before I forget, today was the day we were introduced to the the Weiner of Respectability prevalent in Oscar Wilde's time.

And now that I've finished uploading I don't have much incentive to write, besides I'm pretty sick of this post already so there you go; I've decided that the next one will be more than a little broody. It's a beautiful world, let's take a moment to appreciate the insides of our eyelids.

=)

Begin interjection.

"Ohho, why does she always need to be rescued? Now she will be raped."
(reaches for popcorn)
(me: firangs? FIRANGS? Where'd they come from?)
"Ohho, doesn't matter, she's going to be raped."

"What are those animals?"
(A minute passes)
"But why are they there?"

"Ohh he's an evil robot now."
(stunned silence)

"This is too much."
(Ninety minutes after it starts rolling.)

"CAR BATTERIES? SERIOUSLY?"
(me: Hahaha, Implausible delivery, car batteries, this is almost like 3 Idiots.)

"A...hand... a... snake! Aiyyo, it's a snake!"
(Took that long for the aiyyo to come out, but it did.)

"...but why is he wearing lipgloss?"
(pause)
"And why is the robot wearing lipgloss?"

End interjection.

Pretty unproblematic, my mother. But I'm the bigger Rajni fan now.

I add alttext to a picture and it doesn't show, now how will Scott Weiland find my blog? HOW?

पसंदीदा आदमी है वह जो सूट पहन कर भी रॉकस्टार लगे।
(Oh wait)

I thought it was a good day for piano today but that day's already happened.
Around two weeks ago. These deja vu things keep happening, I'm so used to it now it's practically a religion, call it an indication of the life I live these days but I've enqueued other stuff on the playlist.

Panchami was definitely deja-vu. Iced tea then beer, back home iced tea then iced tea, when has this happened before? Then emptying a caps gun on a terrace and being told about spirits and sniggering inwardly about my experiences with ghosts, shit, that's happened too. The most beautiful thing about Saptami was the brownie because, hell, there's got to be some novelty - a flat you've never been to, a terrace, the silhouette of a tree, a train flashing by, lace curtains that look like pressed cauliflowers. Things like that. Then Neeli and I walked into a police society's pujo at Tollygunge because the entrance had these salmon pink lights strung up above a curving path in a way that made it look like the underside of a long tentacle, then the next day I remembered things I hadn't the day before. Repeat via overlapping.

And because I've already started enlisting things by day, this ashtami was more or less similar to last year's, Kankurgachi then Salt Lake, only infinitely better because there was less alcohol. I bloody hate alcohol sometimes. Most of the time, really, I bloody hate dehydration. My inside's a veritable desert, sir! Wa-terr! Wa-terr! Sorry world, not happening.
But we all cave in, it's an eventuality in the case of humanity and a character flaw in my case. Yeah, I'm smiling now.
Then Sambit made me die on Nabami by making me go pandal hopping all the way to Shuruchi Sangha, no less, then I got back by getting on a ride called Break Dance at midnight, then the next morning I stared sleepy and bleary-eyed at that machine-themed pandal at Babubagan and contemplated stealing a bolt or a nut, but even that felt like it had happened before, and the next thing I know I'm waking up this morning vaguely surprised I can remember it this way.

There are even photos up for me to remember from. It's been a good pujo.

XXX

WE play at paste,
Till qualified for pearl,
Then drop the paste,
And deem ourself a fool.
The shapes, though, were similar,
And our new hands
Learned gem-tactics
Practising sands.

-Emily Dickinson

Drink before the weather changes. Then what if I want to write an autobiography? And if I start at age one and take three years to write about twenty years and then another year to write about those three years and then six more months to write about that one year, just like Dr. J said, can I resurface in the world of 2015 and pretend I've been in a time-capsule all along?

Will I go mad? Probably not. Will I drink before the weather changes? Probably not.

I have new books but I must read others first. List:

For Novel and Modernity:

- Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
- The Wings of The Dove, Henry James
- Le Pere Goriot, Balzac
- A Happy Death, Albert Camus
- Ulysses, Joyce

For SFF:

- A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller
- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula le Guin
- Dune, Frank Herbert
- Holy Fire, Bruce Stirling
- Idoru, William Gibson

Comedy:

- Volpone, Ben Jonson
- The Way of the World, William Congreve

Otherwise:

- The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
- The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli

What I want to read:

- Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
- Truman Capote: The Complete Stories
- Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
- number9dream, David Mitchell
- Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk

Good. I can now hole myself in till November.

confirm folder delete?

First PPG drawing, off Craig McCracken's dA profile.

(He's my friend now =O)



justbauhaus.

Nikola Tesla's letterhead.

Josef Frank. My kingdom for a wall like this.

A young Steve Martin attempting self-ignition.

An old Vogue editorial with Lakshmi Menon in it that I really like, shot in Goa.

On a Train to Darjeeling, Raghu Rai.



Want on room door.

This image (an English teacher in Japan trying to get his students to figure out conversation by making them write DC dialogues) is all over the net by now but I have it saved for a reason.
You. Are. Obstacle.

Finis.

We all know stupidity is inexorable so I can't make this post about that. I'm stupid sometimes, you're stupid sometimes, way of the world. What I can't figure out is time-bound stupidity. Like when your mother buys you something she thinks you'll like based on your clothing tastes at age twelve. No, that doesn't really happen to me, I was just looking for an instance. Or if you're dealing with people who think you're the same person you were three years back, wasssaaaaaa letsgo havehookaahh, like that. That doesn't happen to me either, I'm just giving reign. The signs are far more intangible so how to communicate non-interest? It should be visible, it must be, I can't be bothered having secrets and I can't be bothered calling and I can't be bothered tracking who x or y or z are screwing around with now. That's for when we meet up and spend the night talking about what we shouldn't be having to occupy our time with, at least that's what I thought, or maybe I'm just not mentally stuck in class ten anymore. I'm reminded very much of someone I know applying this mental-age-class-ten moniker to engineering students and someone else to Pizza Hut employees but I've wasted enough time on this already. Apathy always, brave heart. Apathy ALWAYS or spaz out and disintegrate, we all have a choice.

Trying to do grownup things. Lists, boxes, notes, so much compartmentalisation I'll go down foaming at the mouth any day now.

I exaggerate (as is normal), I have a test in two hours and have decided it's time to do all of the above, especially the going down bit.

What will make it all the more memorable, I think, is if I bite someone in the leg first.