The Maanga

I don’t know why I picked a book up after reading the pretentious prick say it was pretentious. But a man who had read to Borges as a teen deserves to be read.

Manguel’s poorly written sanctimonious nonsense though got me wondering: is intelligence, as we comprehend it in the modern context, by definition, an understanding of what is, or can be, and therefore a reduction[1] of some sort? Something related to what Taleb keeps complaining about and never manages to articulate well enough. In achieving the exact opposite of what he intended, Manguel does remind one of recursion and hypocrisy.

[1] - This reduction seems a combination of the two forms of reduction. Which again makes the author’s failure rather poetic.

Not that anyone cares, but I thought I should clarify I had no idea what I was talking about when I’d randomly use ‘Federalism’ as an argument. Please listen to Heather Gerken actually say something non-trivial on the subject.

Knowledge seems so dangerous to the stupidity of my youth.

For someone who grew up on Tamil movies and Hollywood, that the mise-en-scène and the screenplay can be used to not drive something or someone forward is a pleasant surprise in itself. Therefore my judgment of La soledad may be biased by that novelty factor; but I did enjoy it immensely. This may also be a right time to ask critics who judge movies for bad screenplay what they actually mean. Tautness of screenplay, as clearly proven by this and many others like it, is not a yardstick in itself. Though I’d admit, if the point of the movie is tautness then drift in screenplay is a failing.

On the topic of criticism however, one wonders whether the higher standards of intellectual honesty in portraying life do not apply to age. La soledad had two instances of partial or full frontal nudity. On both occasions it was natural and poignant. On a third instance, in a similar situation, the director chose not have a nude scene. The difference being, in the first two instances the women in question were comparatively younger and in the third the woman was about, say, 60 years old.

This possibly subtle and probably blatant objectification in an otherwise wonderful movie is a let down in some sense worse than the formulaic manipulation by Hollywood. On a scale comparable is this,

If he tears apart a villain who besmirches womanhood, stripping off a girl’s dupatta, it’s because it’s his girlfriend who’s at the receiving end. (Of course, after this act of gallantry, she repays him by jiggling about in a bikini top, rendering utterly meaningless her apparent shame upon being deprived of that dupatta. Then again, this display is solely for the hero, on screen, and all of Tamil Nadu off of it.)

There used to be a time when such insensitivity to objectification and sexism sounded funny. I am not sure if I grew up or they became stale or both. I had to just throw the Sunday Express away and pick The Hindu up again.

Susan Orlean has trouble with naming the Great war. But the memorial in Madras refers to each War in that period as an individual war. One would think that is a respectful way to treat those who laid down lives and not call their theaters battles.

What did the Germans gain for giving up Gauss? Ugly hypothetical examples of architecture? Why?

I remember Thomas Muster only for his acknowledgment of Pete Sampras’ backhand pass in the Semifinals of 1997 Australian Open. I can’t remember anything from his victory over Chang in 1995 French Open finals. Strange. This weekend, Berdych is going to win.

Deborah Treisman defines much of the popular discourse on contemporary fiction. She being obsessed with imagery, I imagine most people under 30 are as well. And to prove that point, here is Jonathan Franzen this week. Then, the Cinderella story happened. Paul Harding’s Tinkers deserves all its superlatives. The greatest pleasure of it though was in the effortless shifting of narrative perspective from third person to first person and thus using imagery as a space time capsule — not a tool. Harding says it better,

Dave: The book is full of passages that fixate on senses and surroundings. One that jumps out is your description of the living room where George is dying. We see every item in the room.
Harding: Sort of a catalog. The catalog of the exhibition, sure.

Dave: At those moments, instead of pushing the narrative forward, it’s as if time stops.
Harding: I recognize that at a certain point it becomes a matter of taste, but I often think of my stories as painting or a type of tapestry. It just happens to be the case that when fictional moments present themselves to me, they present themselves as instants.

There is a process of taking the moment and exploding it. You keep penetrating to find the essence. To the extent that the story has dramatic tension, it comes from the tension of the moment: man thinking, or consciousness, as opposed to, as you say, action or plot. It tends toward the lyrical.

As a writer, you just have to be hyperaware of the very predictable pitfalls to avoid so it doesn’t turn into mere indices of details. You have to keep applying pressure, to interrogate the details. So it’s inclusive but not exhaustive, if that makes any sense.

Reading The New Republic deep inside redneck country counts as a reasonable achievement. Deeper yet will be a criticism of their blue eyed boy Adam Kirsch for methods and not means. Reviewing two books on Martin Heidegger, he seems to suggest everyone else is a jerk

For what makes Heidegger’s Nazism a challenge — as opposed to merely a scandal — is the fact that he did not drift into evil, but thought his way into it. And once we acknowledge the powerful attraction of his work, we are morally and intellectually bound to explore what part of that attraction is owed to ideas with a potential for evil. Neither Faye nor Maier-Katkin embarks on that more difficult questioning, which asks us to confront not just Heideg­ger but ourselves.

The sad part is, it may be true.

Sunita Amin’s lec-dem on Dhrupad was typical of such events in Madras. The lecture was mediocre and the demonstration part very good. Followed by random mama asking irrelevant questions on 1920s Jazz criticism. The overall impression on Sunita’s competence is immensely helped by the fact that she is rather hot. This though is about neither.

When answering the said annoying mama, Sunita mentioned she trained in the Guru-Sishya parampara under Ustad Baha ud din Dagar and Ustad Zia Farid ud Din Dagar. Apparently, the prerequisite for this training was that she cut herself off from all outside influences for the 8 years she was in this program. She claims, she did not read or listen to anything except what her traditional school offered. Not music, not musicology and not even criticism.

To those who are aware of this tradition, may be this does not invoke awe or dropped jaws. I am not the aware type and was quite stunned. Who are these people who can claim such mastery over knowledge and more importantly, life? How can anyone agree to this condition however convinced one may be on the mastery of the said master?

All this brings one to that unresolved question: what is the optimal point between rote learning[1] and critical thinking? Does such optimality even exist? And have all the other people resolved this question? They all seem to become parents; they must have.

[1] - I must confess, my anti-colonial prejudice, or post colonial Western hegemony of the liberal media[2], had made me think rote learning was a Victorian invention.

[2] - Such as this.

1. LB Johnson and his White House wanted to significantly roll back Medicare soon after it was passed.
2. Now that the bill has passed through the legislative process, is the philosophical vigor of the liberal argument against filibuster still as robust? After all, someone who wants to repeal this in the future will also need 60 votes in the Senate. Paging Hendrik Hertzberg.
3. Is Senator Evan Byah going to reconsider his decision not run for re-election? After all Washington has done something.
4. Was Justice Stevens waiting for healthcare to pass?

I suspect this movie that people across the spectrum from idiot boy to hot chick are reviewing is set in present day Madras and in 90s morality. Which I agree is a huge leap from most other Tamil movies which have a contemporary setting and 80s morality. That though is hardly anything to write any place.

1. Green people want less Carbon. People make Carbon.
2. Less people make less Carbon. Green people want less people.
3. Farmers take out bad loans. Farmers fund unproductive weddings of daughters. Farmers unable to repay bad loans end lives.
4. Farmers treat women as property. Farmers die. Property lives.
5. Farmers may kill female fetus. Framers die. No property.
6. Property reproduces people. Less property produces lesser people.
7. Green get more green.