Sunday, April 27, 2008

 

a bit more...on naipul

i am still reading paul theroux's sir vidia's shadow and i'm a bit surprised that the book is better than i thought and i continue reading this at the expense of the rest of half read books which are equally interesting ( first son: george w bush and the bush family dynasty by bill minutaglio or Patrick White's the cockatoos -for instance). patrick white is terribly out of fashion now and not too many people are reading him but i'm not one for the latest fashion and i don't care about latest award winning writers and all that. i just read what i like. and i just read for pleasure . nothing more nothing less.

i don't like vs naipul very much and i've never had any interest to read any of his novels or non fiction (i have quite a few of his non fictions lying there in the library as i've mentioned before) but the way paul theroux kept banging on about naipul's highly fascinating but terribly conceited character is a very good read indeed. i'm just into the fourth chapter but even from these it's plain that naipul has a very low regards for africans and their music ( 'Do you hear those bitches and their bongos?') and won't even mix around with the expats when he was a visiting professor at a university in kampala ( referring to them as plain buggers and reported from Dar es Salaam of extensive buggery ).

nothing seemed to please naipul and he treated his white wife patsy (whom theroux was sexually attracted to ) badly. but theroux explained, he was pleased when told by his novelist friend Edna O'Brien that marlon brando admired his novel miguel street. and for some unexplained reason edna o'brien also mentioned that marlon brando was attracted to women with dark nipples. (now where did that come from? i prefer pink if i can grab a pair)....

and not least paul theroux managed to insert all kinds of fascinating anecdotes and stories ...one example ; there was a guy , his collegue at the university in kampala. he was of the chigwa tribe from the rwanda border. what's interesting about this tribe is this , as theroux wrote in the book;..

...a despised people who practised wife inheritance- passing the widow on to the dead husband's brother- which was based on a curious marriage ceremony that involved the bride's urinating on the clasped hands of the groom and all his brothers. One of the wedding night's rituals required the bride to fight the husband, and should he prove weak- for she was expected to struggle hard- his elder brother was allowed to take charge, and subdue and ravish the woman while the groom looked on.

doesn't that sound like fun eh?
...sex, sex , sex...there's no getting away from it. at one point naipul said that he had given up sex . and at another place he told theroux that 'i was a big prostitute man at one time'. and theroux went on to talk about his experience frequenting african prostitutes. and the way he described african prostitues i find are almost similar to many Asian prostitutes which are very different from the stereotypes of Western prostitutes.

Far from having the sexual ambiguity and low self-esteem of cringing , pimp-bullied western prostitutes , these African women were liberated as men.

...the bar girls were full of opinions, about politics, about other tribes, about neighboring countries...The women were sometimes religious and always superstitious...

at one point Naipul asked...

'Do you find those African girls frightfully beautiful?' and Theroux's answer was
'Some of them yes, Very beautiful...'

which reminds me of that scene when who was it? Was it Pyle? (i can't remember too well now) in graham greene's famous novel the quiet american where he exclaimed how innocent and beautiful the vietmese prostitues were! and graham greene should know. he was a big prostitute man himself - according to naipul...and i too have seen quite a few , some of them plying their trade on motor bikes in saigon, some of them very beautiful and some very young but that's for another day...

hmmmm...all these make it sound like these girls are a lot better than normal and hypocritical career women that i meet everyday...but that's not very true, about the prostitutes i mean ...again this is for another time.



Monday, April 21, 2008

 

yes, what....retro part two; a small confession

a long long time ago, when i was in matriculation college somehwhere in australia, i discovered an australian radio comedy show - a rerun of a comedy show that first started way back in the nineteen thirties - which was aired for fifteen minutes each evening and always make me late for dinner. and not only that. looking back i think it influenced me in quite a significant way, subconsciously at least.

we were staying in a bording house at that time , and it was the only time i ever experienced a boarding house life - of some sort. the boarding house was on 287 macquarie street and run by a very kind lady whom everybody called 'mother hen' and her husband who was one of the kindest persons i ever met in my life. he was a man of few words and always uttered in the softest voice which made it difficult to hear. everything he did seem measured, in slow motion and he walked like a tortoise. we called him 'duffy'. till now i never get to know the real mother hen's and duffy's names. they had a helper who seems to me a stereotypical australian old kindly servant. overweight, had a big nose ,looked somewhat like a gypsy and very talkative, which she uttered in thick aussie accent and she treated us like children. and we called her by her real name. Thelma. but till this day i did not know her surname.

no one else seemed interested in the show apart from me,and i was absolutely addicted to it. and as i say because of this show i always come to dinner table late which did not please anybody especially thelma who punished me by not giving me scones. that was her forte, making scones i remember. but that was all right because i hate scones. her's were hard as rock anyway.

at that time i didn't know very much about western culture's obsession with time and punctuality and thelma always asked me why i was late and i would say, i was listening to yes, what. she obviously knew about the show because she started calling me greenbottle.

and here's the little confession; that was how i get to choose my name here as greenbottle. and it has nothing to do with flies although there are species of flies commonly known as bluebottles and greenbottles but it has everything to do with greenbottle of yes, what comedy show.

there is a very good description of this show which you can read here.

an excerpt:-


"Yes, What?" is an Australian radio comedy series, recorded in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It was originally known as "The Fourth Form at St Percy's". It is set in a school and features Dr Percy Pym , the school master, who was easily flustered, and incapable of controlling his rowdy students.

The class was improbably small, with only three students, aged fourteen: Bottomly, Standforth, and Greenbottle. Later in the series, after Greenbottle left, de Pledge joined the series. Later still, when Greenbottle returned, there were four students for a while.


The show received its name from the habit of Greenbottle to frequently say, "Yes," to which Dr Pym would reply, "Yes, What?" from which Greenbottle would launch into some long explanation about something. The class never seemed to learn anything. There was always some distraction. Greenbottle was more often than not late. Just as Dr Pym was starting to get the class under control, Greenbottle would arrive with some lengthy excuse to delay the proceedings even further....

and here's a description of greenbottle character from the same site


Greenbottle always had an excuse for being late, but it was never a simple excuse. It would take much of (if not all of) the episode to explain why he was late. Greenbottle was the one who often said "Yes" for no reason at all, prompting Dr Pym to answer, "Yes, What?" before Greenbottle launched into another explanation for something...

the good news is this series is now available here and i may check it out sometimes.

and here's how this site described the series:-

Before DVD's, before VCR's, before TV, there was Greenbottle; the outrageously cunning school kid always out to put one over the headmaster.

Originally produced in the 1930's at 5AD, Adelaide, Yes What ? was to become one of the nation's most loved comic adventures.

the reason for all this little confession is actually in response to rox uncut's comment about her ancestry , which was a reaction to my previous post on sufiah which incidently mentioned another roxanne who was a prostitute! and it tickled me to no end that roxanne find it necessary to give a lengthy explanation that no! she's no such thing....which you can read it all here with all the lengthy discussion in the comments on the shall we say 'issue'...

No, I'm Roxanne - the first light of dawn - nicknamed after my noble ancestor Roxanne, the legal wife of Alexander the Great.

but what tickled me even more and made me grinned like a mad cheshire cat was her hilarious description in the same post about the drunk throwing euros at her while she was walking in the redlight district of hamburg! i don't know what to make of it, but life can be very funny sometimes.

which reminds me of what happened to one of my randy goats friend recently. he had this girl - a very young girl of eighteen - and brought to his hotel room. and here's how he described it. i've never seen such a beautiful creature in my life! absolutely fresh looking. so fair skinned! with the most well rounded little breasts with little pink nipples! and down there! not even a single hair! just a hint of a few tufts of the softest downy hairs! the most voluptous venus i've seen and she lay there like a goddess! and she kept on saying 'you like?' you like? you like? and i said yes, yes, yes, oh god yes! and started humping away. and only when i finished i realised that the fucking curtain was wide open and my room was on the ground floor!

and now he's worried sick that perhaps somebody might have taken pictures or filmed everything ! but i said don't worry, the worst would be some lucky gardener watering plants outside and happily jerking off into potted orchids outside his window.

hmmm... like that episode in life of brian... when he was dangling on the cross and her mum mandy said this memorable line...


I might have known it would... end up like this. Sex, sex. That's.....all young people are interested in nowadays. I don't know what the world's coming to.

but anyway, so i thought i might explain a little about MY ancestry which is not terribly impressive compared to roxanne's i'm afraid. i came from nothing , mere imagination. which suits me fine actually.

like another episode in life of brian.... when he was dangling on the cross and his cheeky neighbour who was crucified beside him said this memorable line...

Cheer up, Brian. You know what they say....Nothing will come from nothing.... Always look on the bright side of life!

if you can say that while being nailed to the cross, well, that cheers me up no end...

and another little confession... my trinity (that word again!) of comedic influence ...yes, what...the gong show...and the monty phyton and the flying circus....

Saturday, April 12, 2008

 

M.A.D - part 1

the christians among you; you have to forgive me but every time i try to comprehend christian god , a shampoo bottle comes floating by into my mind. and it's a particular brand of shampoo. a rather cheap one that you get from giants or tesco . the brand is 'follow me'.

this three in one follow me shampoo god is quite alien to non-christian thinking and i guess not too many christians really understand this trinity dogma either. i personally find it repugnant for humans to be so conceited as to believe that a mere human being is a partner to god. no, even worse! we humans have the gall to claim this one particular human being to be god in human flesh! and doubly worse! a jew of no particular significance and triply worse! of questionable historical existence and at best a very insignificant minor player of the jewish history if any at all.

but for some reasons humans like things in threes. hindus have their version of brahma-siva-vishnu trinity and i kinda like hinduism idea of god. unlike christians that see god as three in one, the hindus sees one in all instead. this pantheism which sees god in everything is very charming. thus it's not difficult to understand hindus worshiping different kinds of avatars of one godhead and all kinds of living things can be worshiped. some hindus worship cobras, some hindus in some parts of india worship rats and some even worship film stars. i wish some people come and worship me as god.

that reminds me of an article i read today in the times. it's paul theroux's piece about the new damning biography of v s naipul. and reading this makes me want to read theroux's sir vidia's shadow, his memoir of a friendship with naipul gone sour (which i've just picked and read the first two chapters now). i never like v s naipul's writing much , not that i've read too many of his books (though i've quite a few in my library). But even as far back as in the eighties , after reading his 'among the believers' i've come to the conclusion and i've commented to someone that i view this writer as a damned wog. and i've proven to be right which i feel quite pleased because it's not too often that i get things correct.

but what reminded me of him right now in relation to what i've been banging on about hindu pantheism is this. describing about naipul's much abused argentinian mistress theroux wrote this in the article:

She acknowledges that he is her black master, that he regards his penis as a god, that she will worship it, abase herself.

which is not a surprising thing. phallic worship is not only restricted to hindus but common to many primitive cultures. and naipul being of indian race, regarding his penis as god is understandable and charming. which reminds me of another book fascinatingly titled a mind of its own: a history of the penis which among other things divide human history into three phases. first phase is the religious penis era, the middle period is described as the power penis and we are now living in yes folks, the entertainment penis era. (although it must be said and ladies would be happy to know that throughout history the pussies call the shots -in more ways than one- and make the world go round).

the funny thing about the spat between theroux and naipul is this. a) the review of the biography and theroux's description of naipul as whoremongering, indulging in 'gruesome sex' his meanness and racism among other things make him sound interesting to me (despite him being a wog) and i'll certainly keep an eye for this Patrick French's The world is what it is. The anauthorized biography of v s Naipul.

and b) although theroux went to a great length saying naipul is a racist and viewed 'negroes' disparagingly , he himself isn't exactly free from the same low regards towards the africans. his book which i find very enjoyable The Dark Star Safari :Overland from Cairo to Cape Town is a long grumble about how lazy and useless the africans are. one memorable scene among many was the description of a group of blacks sitting under a lone mango tree in a village bereft of any other shades , sheltering away from the hot sun and he wondered why it didn't enter their heads to grow at least another mango tree?

what theroux probably didn't know is that even that lone mango tree was most likely grew out of a seed thrown out carelessly by a mango eater . and not actually planted by anybody.

but oh my, like an old geezer, how far i've digressed from my original theme! ah trinity. yes, but it's not only in religion that humans like threes. some randy goats prefer a treesome in sex. before any race we count up to three (why not four or six?) , we give prizes up to number three and so on. and currently in malaysia we have what i call an unholy MAD trinity that is shaping our life politically. and i'm referring to mahathir-anwar -dollah. but to do justice this has to be in part 2 of the post soon.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

 

Sufiah, is it really you?

Read the most startling news today. picked it from rocky's bru blog. Sufiah the math's prodigy and child genius who went to oxford when she was 13 years old is now a prostitute! a hooker! a 130 pounds an hour hooker to be exact. the original news was taken from UK's news of the world which isn't exactly a very respectable newspaper and generally viewed as gutter press so unless this news item is corroborated by more respectable papers i'm willing to suspend my belief for a while.

but all the same my first reaction is this. wow! i wish i could book a flight and go bonk a certified genius for once in my life! but that was only a fleeting feeling which came from the evil part of me i'm sure . it was quickly replaced with the more boring but ethical part of me which is to feel immense sadness and the question why?

and the story doesn't feel quite right. the photo in the news did resemble her it's true but at least one person in rocky's comment who claimed to know her mentioned that not a while back she was seen to lead a normal muslim life and it's quite hard to believe that she spiralled into this kind of life in such a short time. but it's not unconceivable that this kind of things can happen. stranger things happens all the time.


Her sad life reminds me of one of my favorite songs roxanne by the police from the late seventies. and if you happen to know and love this song too you'll no doubt know that this song is about a prostitute, roxanne. And Bless wikipedia, it's so easy to check out anything this days and according to wiki

Police lead singer Sting wrote the song, inspired by the prostitutes he saw near the band's seedy hotel while in Paris, France in October 1977 to perform at the Nashville Club. The title of the song comes from the name of the character in the play Cyrano de Bergerac, an old poster of which was hanging in the hotel foyer.

oh, what a day. today too, there's an interesting 'first person' article by one 70 year old hooker addict who used to be a successful and respected family man that appeared in the guardian which you can read here. it's an equally sad and morbid story which is quite a nice justaposition to the sufiah's story.

and while we are on the subject here's a famous painting by vermeer titled the procuress

****

"Roxanne"
The Police


Roxanne
You don't have to put on the red light
Those days are over
You don't have to sell your body to the night

Roxanne
You don't have to wear that dress tonight
Walk the streets for money
You don't care if it's wrong or if it's right

Roxanne
You don't have to put on the red light

I loved you since I knew you
I wouldn't talk down to you
I have to tell you just how I feel
I won't share you with another boy
I know my mind is made up
So put away your make up
Told you once I won't tell you again
It's a bad way

Roxanne
You don't have to put on the red light
Roxanne
You don't have to put on the red light

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