Sunday, June 06, 2010

 

how do i get my reading mojo back?

i'm currently reading voss by patrick white. and after this i plan to resume reading a confederacy of dunces- may be. i left this half read when things started to get interesting. the reading was interrupted because i left the paperback at the back of a hotel limo taking me to shanghai airport. and i just bought a new paperback oh...about a year or so ago and the book is now sitting there among all the rest of books still waiting to be read. and about a month ago i finished reading a twilight in delhi by ahmad ali. last night i read the monk's tale an interview of a tibetan monk by william dalrymple in the paris review.and before i went to sleep i leafed through an old volume of Art of Asia which interestingly had a story about the Farquhar's collection of natural history drawings of malacca which belonged to the royal asiatic society and was going under the hammer at the time for an expected 400-600,000 pounds. and shame on malaysia as we now know the collection is now in singapore. i was fortunate enough to see an exhibition of the complete collection of this immensely beautiful drawings several years ago in singapore of which i took some pictures here. and before going to sleep i read some obscene and very funny derek and clive from the book Peter cook and Dudley moore. ....and my bedroom is now imprisoned by books as you can see here. and so, taking everything into consideration one might say that i'm not doing too bad in the reading (for pleasure) department.



but then why do i feel so jaded and disinterested in any new writings and new books? mention of winners of this and that literary prizes put me off just like i 'm put off by winners of say amarican idol or eurovision song contest or academy award movies. new writers don't interest me. local writers are worse. i don't even want to hear anything about them. what is this disease i'm having ? am i a literary snob? it can't be. anybody who loves derek and clive can't be a literary snob by definition....as someone asked in the paris review, how do I get my reading mojo back?

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

 

net chat

i don't normally chat on the net . never any good at it. i always find it boring . the (unknown)people i chat with in open forum i find stupid, don't have much to say and after a few plesantries i tend to pick a fight . i used to enter religious chat rooms many years back because here i assume you'll find good honest people but soon enough you discover that there are a lot of strange and eccentric people in there. in other words people that are just a step away from the loony bin arguing and splitting hairs with each other. there can be an upside though . one of the best catfight i stumbled into was this forum between muslims and hindus...it was so belligerent, abusive and very very funny. there are so many crazy do gooders in religious chatrooms (especially the christian ones) out there that it makes me wonder why these kind of people are so hell bent in trying to 'fish for souls'...i've weaned myself out of these chatrooms a long time ago . the splitting of hairs that go on in there about abstruse and nebulous and incredulous concepts of god and it's existence in various religions and the arguments that your religion is the true one and the rest are false are so tedious and nothing more that the version of my father is bigger than your father....nobody ever convince the other...if you start with believing a frog is the creator of the universe you will stay the same at the end of the arguments and no amount of argument will convince you that a dog is in fact the true creator...if you start with believing say, a jew was/is a god no matter what amount of logic the other tried to convince you that some funny creature with an elephant head is actually god will convince you otherwise...and so, i stopped coming in and soon after that i discovered bookblogs....

and i like books... and so i started arguing about books in one particular bookblog. my intention was good. i want to know more and want to express my views on things but very soon enough i started picking up fights again....i always thought book lovers are better and more open minded to contrary opinions but soon enough i found that they are just as retarded and close minded as the religious brigade... and so i basically weaned off from bookblogs too...and then i turn to political blogs ocassionally but the creatures here are even worse...political blogs give me nothing but bad blood ...and so i've no where else to go in cyberspace except many be 'hobbies' and the dangerous and dark world of porn and other unsavory sites...but i tried to stay away from these dangerous zone of forums and even chatrooms about 'relationship....

but all is not lost..we now have facebook!...and so perhaps is a better place because you can choose your 'friends'... and so i had my first chat on facebook recently...it goes like this.

hi!
oh hi mr xxxx where do you live?
i'm in italy
oh and i'm in malaysia
ah..that is near thailand?
ahaha...you obviously don't know your geography well. yes...between thailand and singapore...the boring bit
ahhaha... do you like thailand?
yes, very much and you?
yes. do you know mae?
who's mae?
a thai girl
half of thai girls in thailand are called maes! which mae?
she is in your fb
oh? mmm let me check for a second...yes she is! why do you ask?
she' was my girlfriend
oh! how is she?
i split with her six months ago... thai girls are beautiful!
yes! and italian girls are beautiful too!
no they are not!
why?
they are fat!
ahhaha...eating too much pizza...
malaysia girls beautiful?
yes malaysia girls are beautiful (i lied)
do you like thai girls?
yes i do...don't we all!
yes. they like italian money
hahaha they like every country money...may be they like italian bananas too?
(he let that pass)i like to come to thailand again...
yeah me too...

***
doesn't make much sense and not too hopeful with this one ...but i have some interesting unknown friends in my fb....
interesting days ahead....probably.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1Ro_wPGIU

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