When I was in high school, girls my age used to fawn over and have posters of and crushes on rock stars and sportsmen. I must have had some  ”norm-chip” missing, as the only two men I was fascinated by – heck, even related to – were two fictional characters: Mr. Spock and Sherlock Holmes.  To use a cheesy movie phrase – Spock had “had me” at “It’s logical, Captain,” and Holmes about whom I’ve written (or rather gushed) about in an earlier post - had had me at “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts,” and of course, much more.

So, it gives me great pleasure, and in a sense, a form of therapeutic closure that characters for which I was teased about for having crushes on back in school (and college) have now proven to be timeless icons of intelligence, poise and “cool.” Why is it that in life, those who were considered “uncool” for not following any trend, nor buckling to any peer-pressure or fashion-du-jour find out years later that they had just been ahead of their times in their individualism, and years later when more prominent figures reveal that they too liked trend-buckling oddballs – it is considered “cool?”

Why is it so important to be “cool?” Really, who cares? In fact the people who are really cool are those who never cared about trying so hard to be “cool” in the first place but the guts to face the snickering for not being afraid to like what they themselves could relate to – not what everyone was following. Also, trying to make a great show of going completely in the opposite direction of trend-following, and thereby joining anti-establishment groups – is quite simply following something else in the opposite direction – so that’s not being too different either. The true individualist doesn’t really care too much about being popular nor unpopular and that’s what makes them different, without even trying. There is freedom is just being. Being you. Knowing yourself. 

Some people wrongly assume that loving or possessing a Vulcan sense of Logic or stoicism must mean that Emotion is alien to such possessors. I do not understand why there is such an either/or approach. Having a logical and analytical mind does not mean that that person is devoid of deep, indescribable emotional magnitude. In some, the Apollonian and the Dionysian does not come at the expense of the other. It is best described in the words of Spock’s father Sarek when he explains to his young half-human half-Vulcan son the basis of their calm self-assuredness on the surface while a wide spectrum of emotional depth churns underneath. (For some reason when I watched that scene in the 2009 reboot movie, it made me cry. For some reason I could relate too well.) Sarek’s words to a very young Spock: “Emotions run deep within our race. In many ways, more deeply than in Humans. Logic offers a serenity Humans seldom experience. The control of feelings, so that they do not control you.”

Anyway – on the eve of the release of Into Darkness, a photo of me and Jack Black - who is doing his own version of Spock’s hand sign. Both of Black’s parents were satellite engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. This was during a spontaneous moment after which Jack and I did a silly Star Wars laser hand-fight but with Spocky hands.

Live long and prosper, those who loved/love Spock – especially the few girls who were open about it and thereby faced ridicule for making choices which were  different than those of their peers…..

Actor/comedian/musician Jack Black & yours truly, bonding in geeky Vulcan salutes (click to enlarge)

Actor/comedian/musician Jack Black & me doing geeky, Spock signs

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The new May 2013 Audi commercial featuring both the old and new Spocks

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Star Trek fan President Obama flashes the Spock sign:  http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/star-trek-fan-president-obama-picture-nichelle-nichols-vulcan-hand-gesture-article-1.1055970

Aaah….therapeutic indeed after those early years of being teased for being the oddball girl in school who loved Mr. Spock and Sherlock Holmes…….and who still thinks they are timelessly awesome.

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Here’s one more – moi and Scott Ian from Anthrax (Thanks, Alex Skolnick)

Scott Ian (Anthrax) and me both making our respective ‘signs’ (Thanks Alex Skolnick for taking this!)

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Paris. France. April 9, 2013. I have been travelling through various cities in Europe since mid-March, both for work and rest. This post is written from my current city – Paris;  sitting right next to the steps of Square Caulaincourt, Rue Lamarck, Montmartre. 

While in later posts, I shall post pictures from the travels, today marks the first death anniversary of my father, who passed away due to a sudden swift heart attack last year.  Youthful, hyper-active and conspicuously full of life – he remained that way right till the very end – bursting with frank, undiplomatic outspoken chutzpah, never afraid to call a spade a spade, and  so vibrant that friends, neighbours and his loved ones still miss his vivacity and near-comical foot-in-mouth well-intended but bluntly-phrased verbal gaffs even today.

This morning I had a long talk with my mother – my parents had eloped and got married in their 20s and remained married till his death.  My mother had a Ph.D in Philosophy with a minor in mathematics, and my father a Ph.D. in Geophysics.  Definitely not the most diplomatic nor quiet person around, he complemented my mother’s calm, logical Spock-like reserve.  I have to hand it to my parents though – that in all the years I know them – I never saw them have fights – no screaming, shouting matches; no vindictive arguing, throwing things – none of that; none at all. The occasional short argument for sure, which was usually over things related to infrastructure – such as a broken plumbing fixture, a fridge door accidentally left open too long – and that sort of thing – but never the bitter, screaming, shouting matches that I have sadly heard some of my friends say they witnessed among their own parents.

My father certainly loved my mother a lot – although he was self-centred and not a great planner. My mother loved him in her own deep and quiet ways. They had very different personalities, but somehow they made it work – first out of love and the rush of romance in their early years, next for their two children and raising a family; and finally out of the bond and habit that form in couples who have spent several decades together, and no longer can think of other options, but have become more like best friends. She still remains the calmest woman I have known – stoic, pragmatic and perhaps a tad too emotionally reserved. Drama and hysteria are as alien to her nature as the color blue to the planet Mars.  My father – on the other hand – was warm, gregarious, dramatic – a bit of a braggart – but a heart that was almost naive in a somewhat childish way of guileless goodness, and a simple, uncomplicated way of thinking. I realize now that I was raised by a math-whiz mother who was like a female Mr. Spock – a Ms. Spock, and a father who was a lot like Captain Haddock (from Tintin) minus the swearing and drinking. (He was a teetotaler, as alcoholic drinks gave him non-stop hiccups – much like me – except I can manage a good glass of wine, and an occasional cocktail, but anything else, included aerated drinks sets off those damned and comical hiccups. )

My father playing his Stradivarius. My first memories of him, perhaps even from the womb, are of him playing his violin. The Dad with the Strad. When I visited my parents in 2009 I made them tell me their entire story of love, courtship, elopement, marriage, trials, tribulations, togetherness. And it was beautiful how happy and excited they got as they narrated their tale full of plot twists and turns. He had wooed my mother by fiddling music for her when he first met her some fifty years ago. It was love at first sight, he said.

On the night of his death, I was attending a concert by Anoushka Shankar in New York City – whose father’s music had been introduced to me at a young age by my own father. On the first anniversary of his death – I am enclosing this mesmerizing concert – the one she played at Lyon, France. It was her exploration of the Indian gypsy roots of Spanish Flamenco music. Unquestioningly one of the most elegant, exotic and beautiful series of compositions I have ever heard.

Lyon – a city not far from the one from where I am writing this…..

To a rainy evening in Paris, the timeless winding streets of Montmartre,  to flickering lights against a wet dark Spring sky, to love and loss, to friends and family, to life and travel; to new beginnings and forever-goodbyes……..

To closure and to letting go.

To memories – which can never be forgotten. And to the seeds from whence we come from – before we disperse like nomads into the sands of time or scatter like dandelion clocks unto the winds of change……….

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Related post: “And still my sitar gently weeps.”

and “The Four Mothers”

“Le Marche Futile” was immortalized in Monty Python’s sketch “Ministry of Silly Walks” which I had featured in a post from a while back. The past month has been difficult, for various reasons – so naming it “March Futile” would be more appropriate. The bumps have pertained to several facets –  but truly, undisputedly  the saddest fact has been that of accepting the painful challenge that this little 13-year old dog, who has given immeasurable oodles of unconditional love and devotion, has faced – and accepting the reality of the inevitability of all life. Here’s to her spirit, to her chutzpah, her playfulness and those big brown puppy eyes – endless pools of her pure, unadulterated, unconditional love.

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“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” – Anatole France (member of the French Academy, Nobel Prize laureate for Literature in 1921, 1884 – 1924)

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And it goes without saying, and I will never tire of saying this, please, please don’t wear fur, educate others to not wear fur, recognize the barbarity of the fur industry, its glamorization by pathological heartless narcissists, and know that animals – including dogs and cats – are brutally skinned alive (after their bones are broken while they’re still alive). There is an Olivia Munn anti-fur video doing the rounds this month (too brutal to post, but google it if you’re curious) which shines light again on the revoltingly horrific brutality of the fur industry, including its treatment to dogs and cats. Gushing over photos of one’s pets, while wearing, coveting, buying fur is nothing more than sheer hypocrisy. People who feel no empathy after knowing the torture that these animals go through, are neurologically speaking – sociopaths – for their remorse/empathy-connection is missing in the brain. Unless you’re an Eskimo or an Inuit living off the land, there is NO excuse to wear fur in this day and age when there are SO many, many cruelty-free products. Don’t even go for ‘faux-fur’ as it has been found that many brand-name and non-brand-name ‘faux fur’ is in fact dog fur. Can you imagine skinning Marley alive so you could show off to your friends how “trendy” you are? Fur is not sexy, it’s psychopathy.

“We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.”  ~William Ralph Inge, Outspoken Essays, 1922

“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of human crudity and barbarity.  Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”  ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

“I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.”  ~ Ellen DeGeneres

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Here’s to Marley, who’s lived a happy, loved life, and is on her marche futile. Here’s also to Footoo, Pookey, Nepu, Biloo, Moitié and Mojo – those who brought love and laughter, some who are no longer on this earth, and a couple who are. And to all the pets I’ve loved now and before, who travelled in and out of my door…..(click here- this version of the song always cracks me up)

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Marley when she was 5 years old. All photos of Marley by David.

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Polish diver and videographer Darek Sepiolo’s waterworld. 

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His 2008 one, which became quite a sensation, “Galapagos”

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When words are unnecessary – 1

When words are unnecessary – 2

Beasts of the Southern Wild

One of the most poetic, poignant and original movies I’ve seen in a looong time. (ok – LOVED Django insanely) but this is a whole other animal. And it’s an independent film made on a small budget. I’m in love with this little strong-willed girl/actress who is the protagonist in the movie. The trailer does no justice to the full film though. Do turn off the irritating youtube annotation button if you watch this.

 If there are problems viewing the video, you can watch it directly on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF7i2n5NXLo

I will not write a long post or review of the film, just that it is one of the most beautiful, fantastical, poignant, quirky and unique films I have had the pleasure of watching in my life, and is a reminder of the magic film-making can still be able to create with no expensive CGI effects, but just a strong narrative, stunning camera-work, incredible acting by first-time actors (both the little girl and her daddy) and a lot of love and passion by the film’s makers - Benh Zeitlin and Luci Alibar.

Personally, I have always felt a strong connection with movies which had the female protagonist who was different, not the loud, “popular” girl, or the one who is always with a bunch of other girls – but the introverted, introspective and precocious girl who lives in her own world of action, intellect, imagination, loves her solitude, books and nature and wild clean adventures, looks soft and feminine yet is strong and self-assured and is not afraid to fight her battles or those of the innocent….there are so few in films that way – Amelie (Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain), Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Lara Croft (Tomb Raider), Elizabeth (Pride & Prejudice – the 2005 film) and Jane Eyre – two Victorian women I have always loved, along with Irene Adler from Sherlock Holmes (the books – not the movies which do not even come close to the intelligence Doyle had endowed Irene with), Charlotte (in Lost in Translation, who in fact is supposed to depict a modern-day Artemis) and Ofelia (in Pan’s Labyrinth). And Hushpuppy from Beasts of the Southern Wild certainly is one from the same family – even though at five years of age, she is definitely the bravest yet the most vulnerable and the youngest and poorest. But you see the same characteristics – the strong will, the powers of observation of the world around her, and the inner strength and ability for introspection; and quiet non-verbal kindness and understanding, but at the same time a determined sense of justice, and wishing to heal and fix the fractures in existence. The introverted girl – a minority in our world and in evolutionary statistics.

Beasts of the Southern Wild also has one of the coolest movie websites…took me a while to realize if you hover the mouse on the screen, little creatures pop up to take you to different scenes.You can directly download the movie from the Apple website (details on the film’s website in the link below) for only 5$.

http://www.welcometothebathtub.com/

An experience not to be missed…..

Movie synopsis: In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old girl exists on the brink of orphanhood. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions.

A good review by Bret Fetzer: The devastated landscape of the Louisiana bayou becomes a primordial world in the eyes of 6-year-old Hushpuppy (the fierce and magnetic Quvenzhané Wallis). Hushpuppy’s father Wink (Dwight Henry), emotionally unstable and increasingly ill, fights to maintain their ramshackle home, along with the rest of the precarious community of the area known as the Bathtub–but a Katrina-esque storm leaves the Bathtub flooded, driving Wink to desperate lengths. Faced with the loss of everything she knows, Hushpuppy decides her only hope is to find her mother, but her only clue is a winking light in the distance. Beasts of the Southern Wild tells its story entirely from the 6-year-old girl’s perspective; the actions and emotions of adults take on a mythic scope, as does the damaged environment in which she lives. The movie is dense and rich, often as obscure and murky as the overgrown bayou itself, sometimes off-putting and enticing at the same time. Wallis, her performance brimming with feral energy and a wounded soul, carries the movie with more star power than most adults could muster. The dialogue is thick with intriguing metaphors and the images resist being easily interpreted into a conventional plot, but the story gradually emerges, rising to a potent end. Viewers who take the time to sink into its mysteries will be rewarded. 

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The Sleeping Gypsy and the Stolen Newsreader

The end of January, New York, New York. So. Alas, I have been tardy with my posts the past month or so but, for good reason. Due to the insane incompetence of a printing company that diddle-dawdled uselessly for 10 months (that’s right TEN months) of hair-splitting unprofessionalism and  lack of accountability and made a complete botch-job of a dear person’s beloved book project – I found myself starting mid-Dacember, 2012, working day and night to finish the typesetting, layout, design, copy-editing, proof-reading, and printing of a book.  From December 12 – through to January 11, guitarist Alex Skolnick and I worked our butts off to make sure that the release date (which had to be pushed back due to the previous firm’s incompetency) would be honored. He had written the book between 2008-2011 and it is a good 380 pages long. But a captivating read.

The book in itself is great – witty and introspective, Skolnick being a natural writer with an engaging, neurotic yet introspective style – and I shall be placing a review of it shortly on this blog, hopefully next month. It is the true-life memoir of one of the world’s greatest guitarists who started as a shy, awkward, introverted geeky kid – born into a family of Ivy League professor parents – who rebelled against his authoritarian father by becoming a heavy metal musician, before turning his skills to jazz. To know more on this book – before my objective review is posted – go to the book’s site: GEEKTOGUITARHERO.COM There’s a ton of stuff there – advance reviews, book synopsis, videos of his virtuoso playing (http://geektoguitarhero.com/music-videos/)and photographs and clippings from the book launch. Information on how to buy the book is also on that site.

Which brings me to the next part of this post. In a very touching speech prior to the musical piece featured in the following video, maestro Alex Skolnick (who plays jazz, metal, rock and world music with equal ease and virtuoso) thanked me for my help in getting the book together and printed in time for its release. And then he launched into this beautiful piece which he’d composed for me last summer……how touching is that? (Of course, as a fact geek I must mention that The Sleeping Gypsy (French: La Bohémienne endormie) is also an 1897 oil painting by French Naïve artist Henri Rousseau. It is a fantastical depiction of a lion musing over a gypsy woman sleeping in the moonlight.) But in this case (and I shall later get the video for the first part of this piece – the reason for Alex’s performance which he explains in the speech), the epithet is applied to the composition where the Gypsy sleeps in the first part of the piece and then awakens.

So here it is: “Sleeping Gypsy”- composed for yours truly – the Gipsy Geek – by the author of his new book “Geek to Guitar Hero.” It is a book not just for  music lovers and/or geeks and/or INTJs but, as the author has written in its foreword – “To anyone who has ever felt confused, alienated and isolated while growing up: let this story show that if you stay true to your goals and make the right choices, no matter how difficult, then things have a way of working out.”

 (Sleeping Gypsy by Alex Skolnick’s Planetary Coalition -best watched and heard in HD setting.)

Once again, check out the main website of “Geek to Guitar Hero” here: http://geektoguitarhero.com/

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And so, to end the month, a necessary non-sequitur. And that is the end of the news. Until next time.

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New York, December 25, 2012. I had first placed this little French film in my post Red December – Post 3, Love and the Red Balloon. But in light of this strange Christmas season, where the end of the year saw the unimaginably tragic deaths of several young innocents in the Connecticut school shootings, and the nation stands poised for a fiscal cliff, and despite the festivities of the holidays, a strange uncertainty and poignancy and sadness hangs like a shroud upon our future, I thought I would place this…..It captures the purity, the beauty, the joys and cruelty of childhood all at once. When I was a little girl, this was the first film I saw (on TV) which made a lasting impression and still does. Albert Lamorisse’s 34 minute gem….

“The Red Balloon” – In memory of the young innocents here and elsewhere…..In memory of love, and childhood’s simple pleasures and indescribable pains, and in hope towards healing, and finding it in our hearts to be uplifted again, when the time comes on its own…….

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For the innocents in childhood’s kingdom. Banksy’s graffiti – “There is always hope.”

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And, I hope, there is kindness for the innocents in the animal kingdom too

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12.12.12. and still, my sitar gently weeps…

…as yet another maestro passes away! (Really, these last 3 posts have been more like lengthy obituaries!) Just days after a legend of the Jazz world left, the greatest ambassador of Indian classical music in the West, and one of THE finest musicians of the world passed away. I feel very fortunate to have met him several times over the years and several of his immediate and extended family members, to have listened to him perform on many occasions, and most of all feel very blessed to have worked on the architectural design for the building that nests his school of music.

This year, my own father passed away just 3 days after Ravi Shankar’s birthday. In a strange twist of fate, the night he passed away, I was listening to Anoushka Shankar (who coincidentally has the same birthday as me) in concert in New York City. My ringer was turned off, so I could not hear my mother’s frantic calls.  After that, although I have always loved the music of the sitar, and am myself trained in the classical dance style of Bharatnatyam under the tutelage of Jaya and C.V. Chandrashekar from the rigorous and disciplined Kalakshetra tradition of Rukmini Arundale and I was a classical dance performer for 16 years, (besides also learning the Flamenco dance style later,)  the strains of the sitar’s strings would remind me of the day my father (who was a violinist as well) passed away. My father’s first birthday since his death would be this December 15th. And then in a strange circle, last night just three days before my father’s posthumous birthday, I received the news that Robindro-ji (Ravi Shankar) had also passed away. I fondly remember the last time I had met him, his wife and his daughter Anoushka. He kept cracking jokes with my French boyfriend – about his accent mainly and his resemblance to a certain movie actor. My partner, Guillaume, couldn’t stop raving for the next several weeks what a beautiful goddess Anoushka was and how good-humoured her father was. “Yes, he was,” I laughed..”considering just how you couldn’t take your eyes off his daughter!”) It was in Montreal, Canada, and he was happy to chat with a fellow Bengali-speaker in the largely Francophone city. I had met the maestro several times before, but I had a feeling then that it may have been for the last time. It was.

Rest in peace, Ravi Shankar.

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And, a well-written tribute to him in the New York Times this morning. Spot-on, especially the part on how the ‘other’ is so often ‘exoticised’ or faces reductionism in the West, when there is so much more to this music that had developed in the Indian sub-continent over centuries:   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/arts/music/ravi-shankar-indian-sitarist-dies-at-92.html?pagewanted=all

An excerpt:

Ravi Shankar, the sitar virtuoso and composer who died on Tuesday at 92, created a passion among Western audiences for the rhythmically vital, melodically flowing ragas of classical Indian music — a fascination that had expanded by the mid-1970s into a flourishing market for world music of all kinds.

In particular, his work with two young semi-apprentices in the 1960s — George Harrison of the Beatles and the composer Philip Glass, a founder of Minimalism — was profoundly influential on both popular and classical music.

And his interactions throughout his career with performers from various Asian and Western traditions — including the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and the saxophonist and composer John Coltrane — created hybrids that opened listeners’ ears to timbres, rhythms and tuning systems that were entirely new to them.

……Last week Mr. Shankar was told he would receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in February, said Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.

Though linked with the early rock era by many Americans, Mr. Shankar came to regard his participation in rock festivals as a mistake, saying he deplored the use of his music, with its roots in an ancient spiritual tradition, as a backdrop for drug use.

“On one hand,” he said in a 1985 interview, “I was lucky to have been there at a time when society was changing. And although much of the hippie movement seemed superficial, there was also a lot of sincerity in it, and a tremendous amount of energy. What disturbed me, though, was the use of drugs and the mixing of drugs with our music. And I was hurt by the idea that our classical music was treated as a fad — something that is very common in Western countries.

“People would come to my concerts stoned, and they would sit in the audience drinking Coke and making out with their girlfriends. I found it very humiliating, and there were many times I picked up my sitar and walked away.

“I tried to make the young people sit properly and listen. I assured them that if they wanted to be high, I could make them feel high through the music, without drugs, if they’d only give me a chance. It was a terrible experience at the time.

“But you know, many of those young people still come to our concerts. They have matured, they are free from drugs and they have a better attitude. And this makes me happy that I went through all that. I have come full circle.”

Ravi Shankar, whose formal name was Robindra Shankar Chowdhury, was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India, to a family of musicians and dancers. His older brother Uday directed a touring Indian dance troupe, which Ravi joined when he was 10. Within five years he had become one of the company’s star soloists. He also discovered that he had a facility with the sitar and the sarod, another stringed instrument, as well as the flute and the tabla, an Indian drum.

The idea of helping Western listeners appreciate the intricacies of Indian music occurred to him during his years as a dancer.

“My brother had a house in Paris,” he recalled in one interview. “To it came many Western classical musicians. These musicians all made the same point: ‘Indian music,’ they said, ‘is beautiful when we hear it with the dancers. On its own it is repetitious and monotonous.’ They talked as if Indian music were an ethnic phenomenon, just another museum piece. Even when they were being decent and kind, I was furious. And at the same time sorry for them. Indian music was so rich and varied and deep. These people hadn’t penetrated even the outer skin.”

Mr. Shankar soon found, however, that as a young, self-taught musician he had not penetrated very deeply either. In 1936 an Indian court musician, Allaudin Khan, joined the company for a year and set Mr. Shankar on a different path.

‘I Surrendered Myself’

“He was the first person frank enough to tell me that I had talent but that I was wasting it — that I was going nowhere, doing nothing,” Mr. Shankar said. “Everyone else was full of praise, but he killed my ego and made me humble.”

When Mr. Shankar asked Mr. Khan to teach him, he was told that he could learn to play the sitar only after he decided to give up the worldly life he was leading and devote himself fully to his studies. In 1937 Mr. Shankar gave up dancing, sold his Western clothes and returned to India to become a musician.

“I surrendered myself to the old way,” he said, “and let me tell you, it was difficult for me to go from places like New York and Chicago to a remote village full of mosquitoes, bedbugs, lizards and snakes, with frogs croaking all night. I was just like a Western young man. But I overcame all that.”

And here, a stunningly reflective-yet-joyous piece by his daughter Anoushka (who herself is also a trained Bharatnatyam dancer) from her new album ‘Traveller’ which traces the Indian origins of the gypsy music of Flamenco. The video catches the tail end of the sitar-guitar duet before breaking out into a heartfelt cante flamenco and then finishing with a joyous Bengali folk tune. The cameraman seems mesmerized by Anoushka’s beautiful face – no complaints  but it would have been nice to catch just a glimpse or two of the other musicians playing in this piece as well. Really, sometimes I wish Raviji had fathered many more daughters, besides Anoushka and Norah Jones ;) This performance, at the City Winery is bitter-sweet for me, because this is what I was watching and where I was, right up there in the front row, the night my own father (who is seen here with his violin)- the man who had first introduced me to the music of Ravi Shankar, passed away.

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A little extra: another gem….recorded in Madrid.

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Goodbye to another legend, this time in Jazz. Rest in Take 5 (and much more) harmony. Dave Brubeck (December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012)

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There is much about Brubeck out there of course, but two interesting trivia facts – he was initially training in veterinary science, and later when he left it to pursue music, one of his professors nearly expelled him because they discovered he couldn’t read notes in music. (Paul McCartney, too, btw never learned to read musical notations.) But then several of his professors  came forward to support, arguing that his ability with counterpoint and harmony more than compensated for his inability to read music. The college was still afraid that it would cause a scandal, and agreed to let Brubeck graduate only after he had promised never to teach piano.

Ha! Little did they know, right?

Dave went on to have not only one of the most successful careers as a jazz musician, but led a happy life with his wife, children and several grandchildren. Shy and introverted, he was also ‘bothered’ that Time magazine featured him on its cover before featuring composer, pianist and big-band leader the mighty black Jazz legend Duke Ellington.

Goodbye, Dave Brubeck…..Thank you for your genius and sharing your gift with the world.

Here’s Brubeck ‘taking the A train’…

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And Oscar Niemeyer, too….(15 December, 1907 – 5 December 2012)

And while I was writing this, I found that one of the luminaries of modern architecture  the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer had  passed away just a few hours ago. He was 104….married to his first wife for 76 years till her death, and then marrying his long-time aide at the age of 99.  Another accomplished life,  filled with innovation, going against the grain and a full, dynamic spirit. He leaves behind five grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and thirteen great-great grandchildren.

For a period in his life, Oscar was forced into exile in Europe and his office pillaged during the time of the  military dictatorship in Brazil due to his fiercely leftist views.

Here are some quotes and interesting facts about Oscar:

Niemeyer had always claimed to be a staunch atheist, basing his beliefs both on the “injustices of this world” and on cosmological principles: “it’s a fantastic Universe which humiliates us, and we can’t make any use of it. But we are amazed by the power of the human mind [...]. In the end, that’s it – you are born, you die, that’s it!”. Such convictions never stopped him from designing religious buildings, which spanned from small catholic chapels, through orthodox churches and large mosques. He was also sensible to the religious experiences of the believers who use his buildings. In the Cathedral of Brasília, he intended the large glass openings “to connect the people to the sky, where their lord’s paradise is.”

and:

Niemeyer was most famous for his use of abstract forms and curves that specifically characterize most of his works; he didn’t stick to traditional straight lines, for unlike many modernists of his time he was not attracted to straight angles or lines but rather captivated by ”free-flowing, sensual curves… [like that] on the body of a beloved woman.”

“I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein.”

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For a great photo-gallery of Niemeyer’s work in the UK Guardian, click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2012/dec/06/oscar-niemeyer-life-architecture-pictures#/?picture=397995668&index=3

For some stunning black & white photographs of his work by Marcel Gautherot, click here:  http://tinyurl.com/ahkxkz8  

And here’s a Vice magazine interview & short film interviewing Niemeyer at age 101. 

Part 2 of the video can be found on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j47zX63K-lE

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Other posts on jazz and  architecture & sensuality:

Star Trek Jazz: http://gipsygeek.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/star-trek-jazz/

Sex and the Starchitect: http://gipsygeek.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/sex-and-the-starchitect/ 

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New York, November 30, 2012. Exactly one  month ago, on October 30th, during the arrival of hurricane Sandy upon Gotham City, one of the most imaginative and fiercely anti-authoritarian architects and theoreticians of our time, the inimitable Lebbeus Woods passed away. For those who have never personally met Woods or been acquainted with his work, you still may have inadvertently seen his concepts – whether it was in the sets of the movie Alien 3 or on the cover of science fiction-writer Arthur C. Clarke’s book, or his work plagiarized in the brilliant Terry Gillian film 12 Monkeys. But regardless of his contribution to futuristic imagination, what made Woods so unique was his “non-conformist anti-starchitecture” way of thinking and working, and “resisting the temptations of money and fame.” (source: http://hyperallergic.com/59590/remembering-radical-theoretical-architect-lebbeus-woods/)

Just a day before his death, I had the pleasure of running into and conversing with one of Labbeus’ oldest friends architect Steven Holl, who invited me to his talk at the Cooper Union to be moderated by another favourite writer/philosopher/professor of mine Sanford Kwinter. Little did Holl  know on that evening that his completely sold-out and house full lecture would turn out to be a touching tribute in memory of his friend.

As written in the New York Art & Architecture blogazine Hypperallergic:

Last month, as New York City was overwhelmed by Hurricane Sandy, one of the world’s foremost architects passed away in the darkened and chaotic city that was almost overcome by nature. It was a cosmic confluence — environmental mayhem coincided with the last breath of a great creative individual who was always dreaming for more, and embracing an out-of-control world.

Lebbeus Woods and Christoph a. Kumpusch discussing Martin Lodman work at Columbia’s GSAPP Final review of Kumpusch-Studio. (photo by Siting Zhang)

Defiantly non-conformist, anti-starchitecture architect Lebbeus Woods died on Tuesday, October 30. He was 72. Through a lifetime of work, the vast majority of which only exists on paper, Woods challenged the architectural establishment, railing against boring buildings and resisting the temptations of money and fame that turned architects like Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas into celebrities.

“With the triumph of liberal democracy and laissez-faire capitalism, the conversation came to an end. Everyone wanted to build, which left less room for certain kinds of architecture,” Woods told Nicolai Ourrossof of the New York Times when describing the political situation driving an anodyne architecture fully in the service of wealthy patrons.

Woods studied at the University of Illinois and Purdue University. He worked in the office of designer and architect Eero Saarinen from 1964 to 1968, and there, according to his colleague, collaborator, and friend Christoph a. Kumpusch, he learned to “explore limits.”

“Saarinen’s work was something in motion for Lebbeus — not structurally but virtually. It determined boundaries rather than defined limits,” Kumpusch explained.

But soon after his time with Saarinen, Woods turned toward entirely theoretical, experimental architecture that often created more impact in its virtual state than real buildings in real cities ever could. Some compare his work to science fiction, because it resisted being fixed in the now and was always traveling past boundaries to what possibly could be. He was first and foremost an iconoclast. “I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms,” he wrote in his iconic pamphlet War and Architecture.

The world of Woods was complex and forward thinking. He was a seer of spaces, who imagined the seemingly impossible. “Lebbeus saw the world — its energies, whether spatial, political, or social — as an undiscovered reality …  imagined, or, in fact, real — something unfinished — not provided, discovered through architecture; one that doesn’t answer but questions; one that doesn’t find solutions but challenges,” Kumpusch said.

Lebbeus Woods and Christoph Kumpusch, “The Light Pavilion,” is an intervention in a Steven Holl building constructed in Chengdu, China. Architect renderings (on the left) demonstrate the intended result, while on the right a photo is a recent photo of the pavilion. (photo by Manta Weihermann, rendering Daniel Kereler)

For more  -  a must-read – this thoughtful piece:    http://hyperallergic.com/59590/remembering-radical-theoretical-architect-lebbeus-woods/

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Excerpt from the New York Times article on October 31, 2012:

Lebbeus Woods, an architect whose works were rarely built but who influenced colleagues and students with defiantly imaginative drawings and installations that questioned convention and commercialism, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 72.

His death was confirmed by a longtime colleague, the architect Steven Holl. Details were not immediately available.

In an era when many architecture stars earned healthy commissions designing high-rise condominiums or corporate headquarters, Mr. Woods conceived of a radically different environment, one intended for a world in conflict.

He conceived a post-earthquake San Francisco that emphasized its seismic vulnerability. He flew to Sarajevo in the 1990s and proposed a postwar city in which destruction and resurgence coexisted. He imagined a future for Lower Manhattan in which dams would hold back the Hudson and East Rivers to create a vast gorge around the island, exposing its rock foundation.

“It’s about the relationship of the relatively small human scratchings on the surface of the earth compared to the earth itself,” Mr. Woods said of his Manhattan drawing in an interview several years ago with the architectural Web site Building Blog. “I think that comes across in the drawing. It’s not geologically correct, I’m sure, but the idea is there.” 

Jacket painting by Lebbeus Woods for Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sentinel, Berkley Books Book Club Edition, 1983

Mr. Woods’s work was often described as fantasy and compared to science-fiction imagery. But he made clear that while he may not have expected his designs to be built, he wished they would be — and believed they could be.

“I’m not interested in living in a fantasy world,” Mr. Woods told The New York Times in 2008. “All my work is still meant to evoke real architectural spaces. But what interests me is what the world would be like if we were free of conventional limits. Maybe I can show what could happen if we lived by a different set of rules.”

He spread his message from many platforms. He was a professor at Cooper Union, spoke at symposiums around the world and built sprawling temporary installations in Austria, Italy, Southern California and elsewhere. He also wrote a well-read blog.

Earlier this year, in a post explaining why he chose to become an architect, he said winning commissions was not a major motivation.

“The arts have not been merely ornamental, but central to people’s struggle to ‘find themselves’ in a world without clarity, or certainty, or meaning,” he wrote.

Mr. Woods often criticized what he saw as a complacent and distracted status quo in his field. But his colleagues said his commitment to creating an alternative showed that he had hope.

……”Outside-the-box” thinking has become a cliché used in advertising, corporate strategy and politics, Mr. Moss said (Eric Owen Moss, an architect and his longtime friend), but Mr. Woods took it to another level. “There’s another box, and he’s outside it,” he said, “He’s outside all the boxes.”

For the complete article go here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/arts/lebbeus-woods-unconventional-architect-dies-at-72.html

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And finally, for an excellent interview with Woods, please go to the following links from one of my favourite blogs.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/lebbeus-woods-1940-2012.html

and

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/without-walls-interview-with-lebbeus.html

An excerpt:

“….In any case, it isn’t just the quality of Lebbeus’s work—the incredible drawings, the elaborate models—or even the engaged intensity of his political writings, on architecture as politics pursued by other means or architecture as war, that will guarantee him a lasting, multi-disciplinary influence for generations to come. There is something much more interesting and fundamental to his work that has always attracted me, and it verges on mythology. It verges on theology, in fact.

Here, if I can be permitted a long aside, it all comes down to ground conditions—to the interruption, even the complete disappearance, of the ground plane, of firm terrestrial reference, of terra firma, of the Earth, of the very planet we think we stand on. Whether presented under the guise of the earthquake or of warfare or even of General Relativity, Lebbeus’s work was constantly erasing the very surfaces we stood on—or, perhaps more accurately, he was always revealing that those dependable footholds we thought we had were never there to begin with. That we inhabit mobile terrain, a universe free of fixed points, devoid of gravity or centrality or even the ability to be trusted.

It is a world that can only be a World—that can only, and however temporarily, be internally coherent and hospitable—insofar as we construct something in it, something physical, linguistic, poetic, symbolic, resonant. Architectural.

[Image: "Einstein Tomb" by Lebbeus Woods].

Architecture, for Lebbeus, was a kind of counter-balance, a—I’m going to use the word—religious accounting for this lack of center elsewhere, this lack of world. It was a kind of factoring of the zero, to throw out a meaningless phrase: it was the realization that there is nothing on offer for us here, the realization that the instant we trust something it will be shaken loose in great convulsions of seismicity, that cities will fall—to war or to hurricanes—that subways will flood, that entire continents will be unmoored, split in two, terribly and irreversibly, as something maddeningly and wildly, in every possible sense outside of human knowledge, something older and immeasurable, violently shudders and wakes up, leaps again into the foreground and throws us from its back in order to walk on impatiently and destructively without us.

Something ancient and out of view will rapidly come back into focus and destroy all the cameras we use to film it. This is the premise of Lebbeus’s earthquake, Lebbeus’s terrestrial event outside measured comprehensibility, Lebbeus’s state of war.

[Image: "Einstein Tomb" by Lebbeus Woods].

Because what I like about Lebbeus’s work is its nearly insane honesty, its straight-ahead declaration that nothing—genuinely and absolutely nothing—is here to welcome us or accept us or say yes to us. That there is no solid or lasting ground to build anything on, let alone anything out there other than ourselves expecting us to build it.” -  Geoff Manaugh  of http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/ 

For more, click on the Bldgblog links on Woods listed above. http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/lebbeus-woods-1940-2012.html

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Lebbeus Woods, “Havana, Radically Reconstructed” (1994) (Image via bldgblog.com)

Lebbeus Woods, Havana, 1994

Woods’s “Neomechanical Tower (Upper) Chamber,” which was copied without credit in the film “12 Monkeys”

Lebbeus Woods, System Wien, 2005

Lebbeus Woods, Lower Manhattan, 1999

War and Architecture by Lebbeus Woods

To view more of his work and learn more about him, in addition to the excellent articles in the above links, you may go to his site for a visual, emotional and intellectual treat: http://lebbeuswoods.net/

To close, another excerpt from the Hyperallergic article:

“He often said, ‘I never sit down to draw for the sake of drawing. I only draw when I want to say something.’ His drawings are not drawings, they are projects,” Kumpusch said.

Lebbeus’s shunning of the spotlight and dedication to the ideas of architecture beyond than its current pragmatism makes one wonder if Woods lacked the ego typical of high-profile architects who build for legacy. “I don’t think Lebbeus was concerned with ‘legacy,’” Kumpusch said. “He was concerned with ‘future.’ This is his legacy. I deeply miss him.”

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Lebbeus Woods. Future structures of the Korean demilitarized zone (1988) juxtaposed with two views of the architectonic tip of some vast flooded machine-building, from Icebergs (1991)

Lebbeus Woods, “Berlin Free-Zone 3-2” (1990)

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“Architecture and war are not incompatible. Architecture is war. War is architecture. I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no “sacred and primordial site.” I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then “melt into air.” I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor you can know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.” - Lebbeus Woods (1940 – 2012)

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Smiles and Tears on a Grey Non-Sequitur November  Day

New York. November 25, 2012. ‘Tis a grey November day in the Big City, with occasional dollops of sunshine. Wisps of the night afore give way to a new day, which I started with an early morning dose of Bach and sunflowers.  Somewhere in my memory hovers a great quote I read by J.K. Rowling “And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

For some reason, a song I’d heard a while back, just doesn’t leave some recess in my mind. One of those tunes you have heard somewhere, and it stays on with the ability to pop in on some grey, reflective day. Band of Horses’ “The Funeral.” And so here it is, but as a backdrop to a remarkable bicyclist showing his dexterity in Edinburgh, Scotland. Hmm…Scotland – the new James Bond movie apparently has several scenes shot in Scotland. And last week, on a short trip to Montreal,  it was lovely to catch up with an old Scottish-Canadian friend of mine, a landscape architect, who is also a talented actor on the side and played roles in several plays and a movie. I wish him best on the latest role he has bagged – the lead in a play based on Charlie Chaplin’s life.

In any case, as a fan of bicycles, and despite this being a 3-year old video with some nearly 32 million views,  here goes….

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On a more sombre note, as the headlines in today’s news outlines a horrendous fire in a garment sweatshop factory in Bangladesh which has killed almost 200 workers, in a country where many western clothing giants get their goods produced due to cheap labour and lax regulations, I recall the post for which some women sent me hate-mails, because the truth of their own consumerism and narcissism was too much to handle when pointed out in a direct, no-holds-barred way. You see, glossing over facts does not take away REALITY about the truth of the world – a world where often child workers slog in awful conditions, both exploited in their own country and slaving to pander to the demand by consumers in richer countries who wish to buy more, more, more, with nary a thought of the human price in sweatshops in far-away countries,  where much of their products come from.  So lest we forget, once again, the tragic deaths in Bangladesh a day after the insanity of consumerism on Black Friday’s discount shopping day in America are a grim reminder of the reality and truth of our world. And those who did not want to accept the reality in my post Sweatshops for your Sex and the City Too, need to take a long hard look at their own hearts, if they even possess any powers of  introspection, other than their pampered cries of feigned, false victimhood  refusing to accept the reality of who the real victims in the world are.

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P.S. All my previous posts can be found here: The Gipsy Geek Archives

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On a more cheery note, a breathtaking fisheye lens view taken by photographer Nobuyuki Taguchi at the Natural History Museum of London.  M. C. Escher would’ve. been proud. You can see more of Taguchi’s work here:  http://www.nobuyukitaguchi.com/ and a site of his streetscapes:  http://www.photo-visible.com/.

And at the end of this November day, this is the way I view the myriad shades of grey…in cloudy-sky paeans, Escherian etchings, and the labyrinths of the human mind, wherein lie both joys and sorrows, pains and pleasures, and the limitless possibilities of imagination and illusions – embedded in the crucible of undeniable Reality.

Bonne journée! Or bonne nuit, depending on where you are….

Nobuyuki Taguchi’s breathtaking Escher-esque photo of the Natural History Museum, London (click to enlarge)

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Desert(ed) Dreams

“Sandstorm Erasure” – photography collage (click to enlarge)

Ce qui embellit le désert, dit le petit prince, c’est qu’il cache un puits quelque part…

“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.” – Antoine de St. Exupery in The Little Prince

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…”  - Antoine de St. Exupery 

“……… he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke-the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert….” – Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist

“WIDE, the margin between carte blanche and the white page. Nevertheless it is not in the margin that you can find me, but in the yet whiter one that separates the word-strewn sheet from the transparent, the written page from the one to be written in the infinite space where the eye turns back to the eye, and the hand to the pen, where all we write is erased, even as you write it. For the book imperceptibly takes shape within the book we will never finish.

There is my desert.”                                                             -  Edmond Jabès

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.November 20, 2012. Wishing there was peace in those countries in the desert lands, instead of the war that never ends…..

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In a largely two-party country, between the option of an anti-Science, anti-abortion, pro-war Machiavellian and a pro-science, pro-ethics, pro-choice  leader, there was only one which was the more logical choice.

Congratulations Mr. President.

New York, October 31, 2012. Yes, indeed, it has been 10 full months since I have posted anything new on this blog. It has been an interesting year, professionally and personally. On April 9th of this year, I lost my father, suddenly, unexpectedly, to a massive heart attack. He was always a hyper-active man, with no prior heart issues, so it did come as a surprise. Thankfully for him, death was quick and he did not suffer. A sudden afternoon 3 second attack on a normal day. 

Today is Halloween, which comes after the largest hurricane to ever hit the Atlantic Ocean. While the area I live in, in New York, was safe and sound, devastation occurred in Lower Manhattan, parts of Queens, and many areas of New Jersey and upstate New York. Some of the most dramatic photographs can be found on this link:

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-after-landfall/100396/

The lights on the Brooklyn Bridge stand in contrast to the lower Manhattan skyline which has lost its electrical supply, early on Tuesday, October 30, 2012, after megastorm Sandy swept through New York. A record storm surge that was higher than predicted along with high winds damaged the electrical system and plunged millions of people into darkness. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

A parking lot full of yellow cabs sits flooded as a result of Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday, October 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)

A 168-foot water tanker, the John B. Caddell, sits on the shore Tuesday morning, October 30, 2012 where it ran aground on Front Street in the Stapleton neighborhood of New York’s Staten Island. (AP Photo/Sean Sweeney)

So, for Halloween and after the trauma of Sandy – one of the most brilliant, metaphoric and strangely traumatic short films I have seen in a while: ‘Keha Malu’ or ‘Body Memory’ or ‘La memoire du corps’ by young Estonian director Ulo Pikkov. This multiple award-winning experimental film, just 8 mins long, looks at the idea that our bodies remember more than just our individual experiences, but the pain and sorrow of those who came before us.

The film is not available on youtube or Vimeo, but is available on French Arte TV. The link will take you there – please watch in full-screen mode with the HD high-def version. It’s worth it…..There can be many interpretations of the film – the trains going towards Aushwitz and death, our existential crises as we are pulled like puppets on a string by various ‘systems’ of society, or just the collective pain of mankind from impending endings. But either way, a rather poignant and dramatic impact on the viewer.

http://creative.arte.tv/fr/space/Court-Circuit_Labo/message/18006/ulo_Pikkov____Body_Memory___Keha_Malu___2011/

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The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path
The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forbodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon
The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me ’till I’m sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon