am_listening

Decorate with Dead!?

amlistening — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:57:00 +0000

Butterflies are beautiful
Dead is not so beautiful (I feel..)
So what can we say about dead butterflies?

This weekend, I and my husband went to South Street Seaport. In one of the shops in the shopping plaza nearby we saw dead butterflies for sale. It took me a while and a little reading to digest that these were actually real but dead butterflies. In my endeavor to explore…checked it out further.
Just when my mind went to the legallities, I saw a written note saying that these butterflies had completed their life span(did they mean they did not kill them?) and are not endangered specie (soon they might be ;))

The artist had used butterflies to make patterns.
If you are wondering how were they packaged…Butterflies, also known as Mariposa were I think submerged in some kind of gel(guess to prevent decay) and then packed in cubes of glass/ panels. Store also had some kind of scorpion captured and being sold as keychains.
Marketing pamphlet read that following Beautiful(!!) people own the artwork…..Bill Clinton(beautiful or handsome?), IBM corporation!! and more…..

I remember in India, I use to see kids catch butterflies. But butterflies as art…hmm. What do you think will be next ?…Can someone tell me if Humans are an endangered specie?

How Comedy Can Help

amlistening — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:39:16 +0000

I recently got introduced to the concept of comedy clubs in NY and yesterday had my first visit to a live show. Thanks to the recorded versions I had seen, I knew a lot of their lingo which otherwise I wouldn’t have known. I think the reason why comedy clubs are a hit in NY is because its full of immigrants. I mean all: Comedy clubs’ audience, Comics and NY. So the jokes have a vast scope. From:-

Presidential elections in US. Strange how everyone mentions Hillary and Obama. McCain hardly gets any space!
Racism. Does Aishwarya Rai also get qualified as brown!?
Cultural differences. Amounting from a lot of factors like ones I read in Nita’s blog.
Call centers in India. Kudos to Tech Support and call centers working pain stakingly, day and night!

….to a lot more.

We visited Laugh Lounge on Essex Street for a monthly special South Asian show. Show was called “Crazi Desi Show” as the comedians were all from Asia except Grant Cooper. I liked Grant and his energy. He was sharp, observant and had variety. Reho(Hope I am getting his name right), the Japanese person, had a nice style and mostly joked about himself. I liked Vidur Kapoor too. His jokes covered more scope. The host of the show though good in covering wide topics needs to still grow and increase content in his speech. Well I am not sure if I am qualified enough to give suggestions but being audience/customer I guess our opinion matters. The liberal use of some words seemed awkward to me first but I guess the positive thing about this is that the funny way and frequency at which they are used, their intensity and value gets reduced each time. See Comedy does help.

If I could be granted the wish to make 3 set of people sit down and watch a comedy show my preference would be:

Firstly, all those troubled, sick and pitiable souls who are out on streets and in shops with zero patience and talking manners. Its amazing how sarcastic people are becoming nowadays. I see this in sellers strangely. While I would expect a seller to be polite and nice to customers and prospective customers, they are the ones who are worst. So why should I pay money to someone and take his bad behavior too. Its not just in India, I see it here in NY too. And its not just me who has noticed it. I just found another article referring to the same issue. I would love to see all those souls getting a taste of their own and being ripped off by comedians

Second, Robbin Williams: so that he can teach the comedians how to get better at it.

Lastly, Me and my husband to see all that

Da Vinci Code VS U Me Aur Hum

amlistening — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:08:01 +0000

I thought lets compare two movies I saw recently. Strange combination!…Lets abbreviate for convenience: DVC(Da Vinci Code ) VS UMH(U Me Aur Hum )

–>DVC was based on a BOOK
UMH is based on a movie called The NoteBOOK…he he, let me try to be a little grown up here

–>While watching DVC, we had to stop and rewind at certain places incase we missed a dialogue, because it had so much content and moving so fast that we had to give a pin drop silence and blinkless attention(metaphor!). Just fyi… saw DVC on DVR so could pause and rewind and UMH in an AMC theater.
But UMH was so cliche that we knew the jokes and dialogs before they completed them 50% of the time. Worst dialogs was the slow …” You know something!”.

–>DVC: We actually did search on wikipedia and google a couple of times while watching the movie(ofcourse pausing it first) on things like Holy Grail
After UMH, I did a little reading on Alzheimer’s disease.

–> Finally, people had adviced me not to watch DVM and UMH both

DVM flopped. UMH could have done better but for:
-Editing:Actors have to act to project the roles(Ajay does that well) but an editor and director have to make it appear natural. That was missing.
-Ajay no chest exposure please.
-I am dissapointed with Sumeet Raghavan though. I had expected this Sarabhai VS Sarabhai TV serial actor to have done good to the movie.
-Song choreography…:(. I love Prabhu Deva and Hritik dancing, even Mimo can hold the attention). Kajol did ok in one song though. I like Kajol..good job. Salsa steps could have been made more elegant.
-Movie was very simple and descriptive. Lot of things could have been just said and not gone into bits and bytes. It was like an intutive or trivial question/answer set
-I felt the first part of the movie was a long background to that second half. If we just fast forward…its good
-Background music was good
-Movie does have a message….be togather despite whatever!
-Movie has a happy ending. I love that part

So Ajay & Kajol don’t give up….and till you guys get together in another good movie I will still remember you as the bubbly couple from Pyaar Tu Hona Hi Tha……

Just Rajiv….Without Gandhi

amlistening — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:34:23 +0000

I just realized its the death anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi today. I can still recall the early summer morning. There was no power to add to the drama. I was too young to have a favorite politician but was old enough to realize that something had happened. No power meant that news traveled through word of mouth and that implies it was even more significant. Rajiv was my elder sister’s ideal! (yes that’s true) and dad was interested because of his interest in politics.
I was a silent spectator, who only realized a couple of years later that Rajiv Gandhi was a really charismatic individual. (I think I realized that after reading/watching something on his death anniversary few years later, just like today). Rajiv influenced a lot of Indians because of his good looks, political family and something else that Hillary Clinton doesn’t have. He was more than just a Gandhi.

Well he might have made some good and bad policies but he did give a clean (shaven!), handsome and fresh face to Indian Politics. My gratitude for that man…..and thanks to Nita for reminding me.

I just wonder how would have Rajiv been without the surname Gandhi.

Defence Contractors or Private Army?

amlistening — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:03:57 +0000

Aye watan aye watan hum ko teri kasam,teri rahoon jaan tak beccha jayege
(Oh my country, I promise I will even die for you)
Aye mere watan ke longon, zara ankh main bhar lo paani…..
(My fellow countrymen, lets hold a tear in our eyes for those who sacrificed there lives for the country)

Wait…before u bring tears to your eyes, just check if that soldier was really a soldier fighting to his last breath for Patriotism or a paid private contractor fighting till he drops, for a Bonus!?

Infact, Iraq war is using more Private Military Company contractors then US army soldiers!!.
May be that explains one part of how come US government spent 510 Billion Dollars (as reported on http://www.crunchweb.net/87billion/) on the war.
A disturbing thought, may be rare probability, is what if these defense contractors come back to US and have no war to go to. Can they form a private (commercial) army, run by capitalist? Hmm…a lot can be done!
May be that’s one bleak reason why US bureaucracy is still supporting the war.

Coincidence

amlistening — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:16:04 +0000

Agenda:Life sure is a coincidence but then think again and its all a big setup that God did.
Hi,
Sorry if the agenda word didn’t seem right. But thats how I am. Was always a planned ahead, estimate for the stars and track the expectation person.
Anyways what I really wanted to talk about is…… Hillary Clinton in the run for presidential elections!!

What a coincidence that I saw “Man of the Millennium” (movie) just when I started seeing news after landing in NY. So who would have thought 7 years back that Mrs Clinton would one day be standing on the podium saying words that his husband was saying. You think I am exaggerating then think again. Picture Mrs. Bush…you think 7 years later she would be doing the same thing. Nope….Its like finding a chicken in a noodle soup But the point I wanted to make was that sometimes what seems like a coincidence is actually a well planned phenomena. Now think this way, Hillary was destined to do this.
A lawyer
An experience in White House
A nation wide or in fact an international scandal where she emerged the hero for all women around the world and of course the media.
I would not say that her time has arrived since she still seems a little raw….actually soft. The smile she is passing is easily understandably fake….. She still needs to marinate! But best of luck Ms Clinton. With a little better color sense of your dresses(no tangy pinks please) and a more genuine smile who knows….