Chess, Comics, Crosswords

October 27, 2011

BOOKMARKS

What I read yesterday

1. The Keys of Hell by Jack Higgins
2. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
by Agatha Christie

What I'm reading today

1. The World According to Garp
by John Irving (revisit)
2. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

What I'm going to read tomorrow

1. Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith
2. The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
- William Hazlit

October 25, 2011

WISDOM FROM BOOKS & COMICS

Thomas Hardy in Jude the Obscure

Perhaps if he prayed, the wish to see Christminster might be forwarded. People said that, if you prayed, things sometimes came to you, even though they sometimes did not. He had read in a tract that a man who had begun to build a church, and had no money to finish it, knelt down and prayed, and the money came in by the next post. Another man tried the same experiment, and the money did not come... This was not discouraging, and turning on the ladder Jude knelt on the third rung, where, resting against those above it, he prayed that the mist might rise.

October 23, 2011

JUKE BOX

Those Were The Days by Mary Hopkin

How often have you muttered this line to yourself or said it aloud as a conversational piece? Forget the circumstances, but this is the song you think of and listen to every time you get nostalgic about the past, the good ol' days, and wonder to yourself, "What the hell happened?" Gene Raskin wrote the English lyrics for Those Were The Days, originally a Russian song Dorogoi dlinnoyu (By the long road), and it was sung by Welsh folk singer Mary Hopkin in 1968. Over the years there have been many versions including one with Robin Williams rapping.

Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
And dreamed of all the great things we would do

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

Then the busy years went rushing by us
We lost our starry notions on the way
If by chance I'd see you in the tavern
We'd smile at one another and we'd say

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

Just tonight I stood before the tavern
Nothing seemed the way it used to be
In the glass I saw a strange reflection
Was that lonely woman really me

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

Through the door there came familiar laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh my friend we're older but no wiser
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

October 21, 2011

FILM REVIEW

God and Bruce Nolan

in Bruce Almighty (2003)

If you can ignore his on-screen fidgetiness and facial and body contortions, you'll find Jim Carrey highly entertaining. From his formidable repertoire of films, especially comedy, the 49-year old actor is particularly funny in Bruce Almighty directed by Tom Shadyac in 2003. In this movie Bruce Nolan, his character, has everything — a job as a successful and popular television reporter and a girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston) who loves him to no end — yet he is unhappy with his life. He frets and grumbles and blames God for everything that's going wrong in his life. Nothing is going wrong, of course; Nolan is just being selfish, like nearly every one of us. So God (Morgan Freeman) decides to do something about it. He summons Nolan to a starched-white top floor of a sprawling and unoccupied building and offers him every mortal's living dream - all his divine powers. The engaging conversation between God and Nolan is the pièce de résistance of this film. Here's a sampling...

God (Morgan Freeman) recalling Bruce Nolan's many rages against him: "The gloves are off, God." "God has taken my bird and my bush." "God is a mean kid with a magnifying glass." "Smite me, O Mighty Smiter." Now, I'm not big on blasphemy, but that last one made me laugh.

Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey): Who are you?

God: I'm the one. The Divine Being. Alpha and Omega.
Bruce Nolan: Oh, I see where this is going.
God: Bruce...I'm God.
Bruce Nolan: Bingo! Yahtzee! Is that your final answer? Our survey says... God! Bing bing bing bing bing! Well, it was nice to meet you, God. Thank you for the Grand Canyon, and good
luck with the Apocalypse. Oh, and by the way, you SUCK!

God: I did the same thing to Gandhi, he didn't eat for three weeks! (Referring to the seven fingers on Nolan's right hand. Nolan subjects the Almighty to a divine test to find out if he really is God and makes him guess the fingers behind his back. The shocked expression on Nolan's face is out of this world.)

Bruce Nolan: How do you make so many people love you without affecting free will?
God: Heh, welcome to my world, son. If you come up with an answer to that one, let me know.

God: Parting your soup is not a miracle Bruce, it's a magic trick. A single mom who's working two jobs, and still finds time to take her son to soccer practice, that's a miracle. A teenager who says "no" to drugs and "yes" to an education, that's a miracle. People want me to do everything for them. What they don't realise is they have the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle.

God: You have all my powers. Use them any way you like. There are just two things you can't do: You can't tell anyone you're God. Believe me, you don't want that kind of attention.
Bruce Nolan: And the other?
God: You can't mess with free will.
Bruce Nolan: Can I ask why?
God: Yes, you can! That's the beauty of it!

God: No matter how filthy something gets, you can always clean it right up.

Bruce Almighty is pure fun if you leave out the philosophy behind it. You know what I mean...the be-happy-with-what-you-have-and-what-you-are sort of thing. Just enjoy the film. It's not meant to be taken seriously unless you want to play God.

October 20, 2011

#1 Ode to Death

Nor dread nor hope attend

A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone
Man has created death.

Stamp of an Actor:

Bette Davis

"We movie stars all end up by ourselves. Who knows? Maybe we want to."

"I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived."

"From the moment I was six I felt sexy. And let me tell you it was hell, sheer hell, waiting to do something about it."

"Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life."

"Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism."

"I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache."

"It's better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you're not. It's a sign of your worth sometimes, if you're hated by the right people."

"Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn't do much for women, though we do have an advantage: make-up."

"To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy."

"At 50, I thought proudly, 'Here we are, half century!' Being 60 was fairly frightening. You want to know how I spent my 70th birthday? I put on a completely black face, a fuzzy black afro wig, wore black clothes, and hung a black wreath on my door."

October 19, 2011

Book haunts: Going, going…not yet gone

The new Title Waves bookstore at Bandra

The friendly neighbourhood circulating libraries—our childhood book haunts—were first to go in the 1980s because of dwindling readers and declining readership.

The libraries were followed by the indispensible roadside book vendors who high-handed officials of the Bombay Municipal Corporation—in a fit of misplaced civic sense—threw out in the 1990s. These two dozen-odd booksellers used to occupy the pavement from Churchgate Station, the first and last destination on the suburban rail network, to Flora Fountain (now Hutatma Chowk) less than a kilometre away, in the central business district of Bombay.

In the mornings you dragged your feet past hundreds and thousands of books and ever so often stooped to pick up a prized title or two missing from your collection. It was the same story on the way back to the station in the evenings: you bought a book before you boarded a train, and read it on your way home. They are gone now.

It was, then, the turn of new and used bookstores which began to close down in the decade of 2000—a frightening trend that continues to this day. The most recent casualty was the century-old New & Secondhand Book Shop in the trading hub of Kalbadevi in South Bombay. You can now buy Bata shoes in there instead.

Not far away, however, another very old bookshop called Smoker's Corner has survived the technology onslaught and continues to operate from the foyer of a four-storey building. The bookstall's highly knowledgeable owner, Suleiman Botawala, passed away a couple of years ago and his son, Zubair, is now running the show. Smoker's Corner, named after a shop that once sold tobacco at the entrance of the building, imparted a personal touch to both new and used books on sale and those who walked in to buy them. The book stall has been a journalist's haunt for several decades though over the past few years the quality of books has gone down appreciably, which the bespectacled owner once attributed to a lack of discerning readers. Nearly a half of my book collection has come from Smoker's Corner which sells rare paperbacks and hardbounds and comic books at throwaway prices.

In the second decade of this century, the new menace (a welcome one in many ways) to the traditional and reliable bookshop is online shopping which has redefined book discounts and home deliveries—and has taken the fun out of browsing and buying books in a bookstore.

Fortunately, there are people who still swear by books as we know them, like the advertising-cum-music duo of Sharon and Elvis Dias who were inspired enough to set up a new bookstore at Bandra, an upmarket suburb. The bookstore is called Title Waves and is spread across a 9,000 sq. ft area. In what is no doubt a smart move, the bookstore has replaced the conventional helpdesk (and ignorant sales staff) with touch-screen computers that enable book lovers to check up on their wish-list of books. May their tribe increase.

You can read all about the new swanky bookstore at http://mumbaiboss.com/2011/09/13/store-review-title-waves and www.hindustantimes.com/Shoppers-go-online-Bandra-gets-first-big-bookstore/Article1-758635.aspx

Pages