Phrase of the month

Interface to reality: How a system interacts with the physical system it is representing

Er, Houston, we have a problem

The kids next door are being too noisy...

Listen to the following songs and watch the videos...

Gatzby

After reading way too many leftist praises of The Great Gatsby as well as well-written and articulated critiques (also from the Left.), this.

I read Gatsby in A1. Sbk had it hidden in his room, after (likely) stealing (read: borrowing without any intention to return, which is how I also got hold of Satanic Verses) from from some poor soul, and I happened by it, and read it, in an afternoon. It's a short novel, and not a very hard read.

Here's a confession: I skipped parts of it. Now that I think, I skipped a lot of it. I read somewhere that the names were an integral part of the story. I skipped all the names of the people in the parties, like when I skipped the names when reading the Old Testament. I skipped the emotional blather. I skipped details of the parties.

And yet I liked the book. Without ever being told it was about jazz, I could feel the jazz in it. I still felt that it was powerful stuff, without a clue about the hidden symbology. The dark, glum mood of a stormy day with lighting across the horizon was there every moment in the story, I felt it.

I'm told Gatsby is about the American dream. That's not the only read -- it's also about the unfulfilled  American Dream (remember how Tom, the one with inheritance, ends up 'winning', after all?) or the folly of having a misguided American dream. One thing that's for sure is that Flitzerald intentionally engineered the smallest reference and symbolism knowingly -- with this man, an apple is never only an apple. Apples stand for dreams and whatnot in his world. I didn't need to know that, I didn't figure it out until I was told. I still enjoyed the book.

Changes are a-coming

I'll be making massive edits to the posts here for the next few days. They will be edited for diction, flow and whatever the hell is on my mind at the time. It will all be made more.. er.. professional looking. All my public accounts online be consolidated to a central location and the blog will be made fit enough to be there.

Boilerplate

There's something boiling inside me. I can feel the bubbles. Fermenting, fermenting. The pressure's building. Ready to burst out with force.

I pray to all the gods it's a critically-acclaimed bestselling novel.

So. What's new you all? Sab thik thak? Yeah? Aru, aru? Kei naya chhaina? Sure?

Still going to the dance classes and hanging out with your 'friend'? Who may or may not be your significant other but who cares as long as you're having fun and please you (meaning the writer) shouldn't be judgmental about sex because as long as you're with someone you enjoy being with sex is okay, and you don't need to be in a relationship -- I cannot fathom why you (the writer) think it is okay to hook up and so is being in a relationship but anything in between is disgusting and unacceptable-- do I sense hypocrisy and what not here, because there are no rules written down anywhere except maybe the ones that probably say 'everything I (meaning the writer) say is right, and everything else is not'. Hai?

Okay, so who's speaking right now? Is it the writer, the reader, or the character now? What are the walls being broken? Are words being put into the mouths of those that never uttered them for the sake of a good story? If they are, where's the limit? Discuss.

What is truth, and what is reality, and does it all even matter?

I have a serious impairment -- a limited vocabulary. There's another one -- a proclivity to write awkward sentences instead of simple but short sentences with a better flow. I wish I wrote sentences that flowed instead of bumping with each other like they were in a fish-market full of fat feisty fathers of fingering clowns.