Quote of the day

"As stone is to a sculptor, so time is to a
musician"

-- Stephen Nachmanovitch, musician, artist, author of Free Play

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Remember Cat Stevens?

Though he was away from the music scene after his conversion, he has made an album now as Yusuf Islam, which is who he is now...

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Oxymoron?

Free and Fair elections?
To choose which corrupt unruly party gets to rule us for another period?

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Stickin it!?!?#@$?!%@

Feels like i am blogging after a long long time. Didn't think it'd be after watching Stick it. So it is. It took me right back to the school sports meet for the year I was in class 8 or 9. We were to compete, two senior classes together, in a 100m sprint, and we just didn't want to. So we planned something else instead, and jogged across the track like old men and crossed the ribbon together, as together as possible. It was hard to choreograph, but it was hard for the judges to get to a decision also. In the end, they made us run the race one more time!

The movie just brought that memory back! How we were laughing when we crossed that finish line.

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Link to Pranab Kairy

http://www.freewebs.com/pompuspb/index.htm

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Makes me wanna....

Almost forgot about this photo that i had taken at the ARS Electronica this year! It was a photo booth that took a photo of you if you screamed loud enough. Whereas kompis Fanouris had two shots taken of him with two successive screams, I had some trouble. I did not have the nice loud overtone-filled scream that was neccessary to operate the camera, luckily the attendant there gave me a hack, i clapped both hands near the mic while just putting on a screaming face. The website for that project along with some others are pointed out below.

Scream Point
Stencil Board
Memento [see vdo content]

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Deshi Holiday!

Today i got news of a website in the making, called bdholiday.com. As the name says, it has many of the destinations in our country that are good to go to. Many people with money are traveling to near about asian countries like thailand and malaysia, but there are lots of places within our countries worth the while. We should just learn to rough it and think differently about taking holidays, shifting from the comforts of luxury hotels to that of just getting to see what the other parts of the country looks and feels like.

anyways, the site developing company is looking for advertisers to support their cause and I hope they find each other. If anyone in blogger community should like to get in touch with them, let me know or contact through the website.

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News

(From New Age's Music Supplement)

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Invisible People

A story from Drishtipat.org, by one Saif Ahmed.

- excerpt:
Too many people told me that my money's gone for good. If it's gone, it's gone, it won't make me much poorer. I paid the taxi owner his money. Now I can put my blinders back on and live my comfy life. Tea has arrived. On a clean tray in nice bone china with hot milk and sugar with nice cookies served by someone of whom I know very little besides her name and that of her immediate family. I'm listening to music on my ipod (price Tk 29,000) and typing this on my computer (price Tk 60,000). It's a good life.

Full Article

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what a Nobel thing to do.

Yesterday in class, we were asked who won the nobel prize for literature. No one knew except the professor since it was announced just minutes ago and he was the one who checked it. I for one didn't know the Nobel prizes were being announced. Then he asked us who we would suggest for this category. At first I couldn't think of anyone, but later managed to remember one name - Arundhati Roy. Then now I remember I would also like to nominate Percival Everett. That would be two authors, from whom I have read more than one book (=2). Oh, that would also bring in Robert Ludlum and John Grisham in the race. Frankly, I should not be asked such a question.

Anyway, just minutes ago I also found out that the Nobel Peace prize was announced and its Dr. Younus and his Grameen Bank who are the winners! That is mighty nice to know. Good intentions should always be acknowledged.

Meanwhile, via email, i received a report on the corrupt millionaire ministers of the land - You may read it here.

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MySpace.

Out of all the 'community' sites that came out, none got the coverage myspace got. Its talked about on cable tv, its become quite iconic of the new media culture. Yet, I fail to see why. The interface of myspace is one of the bad ones, its uncomfortable to use. To customize its templates takes painful amounts of time, and more importantly, the mail system has failed me always. 'New Messages' it says when i log in, but my mailbox is empty. I get emails now and then to join MySpace Groups! Sometimes from unlikely stuff like 'Sexy Singles', and all invite links from the email led to MySpace saying "Invalid Group ID". Well, I am totally not satisfied with the experience i am having with myspace, of which i have two accounts, and that too because the convert to artist (musician) profile feature they have did not work, i had to open another so i could showcase my music. tsk tsk tsk.





And everyone is on it! I found Joe Satriani there! Found Disco Ensemble, the coolest band at Hultsfred music festival this year. And even Cryptic Fate who just released their third, extraordinary album titled Danob.

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Random

Patriotism
has a loud voice, but no strength in its heart.

Its an agenda that wins elections.

Its a festival that comes maybe twice a year.

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24

The number of hours in a day. Cut out the neccessary 6 hours of sleep (or so i heard, 5, 7 and 8 are also good candidates) that is healthy then you have 18 hours or so. I am coming close to regarding myself as a slob of the highest order when I think of how I spend those hours.

First I guess i should mention the little assignment we got recently for a course. One of the requirements of the course is to catalog or record basically, a 24 hour period of our lives from this week. I started mine at 12 AM (a few hours ago). I decided to record on a 24 hour timeline a few things i consider are variables of my life - the band i am listening to at a point in time, the clothes i am wearing, the food i am eating, something I am reading (website, news, books etc) and a person i am talking to.

Now that I am writing down at the precise moment I am for example starting to read something or change the music to a different band, I am realizing that I am reading 3 things at the same time, and the urge to change a song when it hasn't even reached halfway is immense. I cannot focus on one thing for a considerable amount of time to let it sink in. Writing down as i am doing now however has served to raise my consciousness and thus I am fidgeting less tonight. I hate to think how i go on about things usually. As of a few seconds ago i was reading a Daily Star article on the rich - poor gap in our society, "How to Create Timelines" at a opensource project website, and John Maeda's book Simplicity. John was saying something about complexity and simplicity being on a cycle of their own, coming and going with equal portions of stay and thus creating a balance of things. I need that balance. The cycle I am on has square wheels.

As much as I had loathed the beginning of this assignment, it has been nothing short of an eye opener for me. 24 hours could be put to so much use.

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Hollywood comes to town

I wondered for a long time whether entertainment was not the biggest export from USA, and today i bumped into a blog that followed on that. [To anyone venturing on to the link given, do read through all the comments too]

Hooray for Hollywood - Richard Walter

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Comedy

Uh oh...
I am getting hooked up on the comedy available on youtube. U can find lots of stand-up performances there, such names as jerry seinfeld will get you results, but best just go and search for Comedy or Comedy Central to find acts from a broader spectrum.

I really got to like (late) Mitch Hedberg's kind of comedy. His laid back attitude, lazy style of delivery and content that does not attack any race or group is remarkable.

He made one joke of those who catch fish for sport (just catch them and then take them off the hook and put them back in the water) where he said that some people don't want to eat the fish they catch, they just want to make them late for something. That also got me thinking about what that experience might be like to a fish! Well, mostly I wonder if they use alien abduction theories to explain it. What if our alien abductions were like that? Someone's is fishing up there for sport?!

They took her and ran experiments on her, and then brought her back here. She was never the same!

Other comedians I liked were:
D C Benny &
Omid Djalili

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ARS Electronica trip photos

+ the stopover at Berlin for two days.... @ Carl's website.

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ARS Electronica

From Austria with Love....


The Festival

The Grafiti Research Lab

Convivio Networks

The Scapha

OpenFrameworks

Kottke

Runme.org

Gary Chang, Architect

Ciao.

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Gothenburg - Paris. 8th August

2 a.m. Bus is scheduled for Copenhagen 2:25 a.m. I am sitting at the station being asked the time every minute or so by a drunk kid. His bus leaves at 2:20 a.m or something, and he is afraid he might just miss it. He is drunk, but sensible.
2:15 a.m. I get on my bus. So far, most of my experiences on buses from Gothenburg has been of traveling in a bus half full or less. Today is different. Luckily I get a seat midway. I want to be close the the door so I can get off fast at the airport, which is one stop before the final destination.

Later there are people sitting and sleeping in the middle passage.

6:10 a.m. I get a call from Fuad, who says he is 10 minutes away from the airport, I think I am too, I tell him. I drop off at the airport a little after I finish talking to him. I see Fuad at the check-in line. He almost has no hair. A haircut! Good for him. Though he looks too thin now. This is it then. The beginning of our trip. Pretty soon, we shall be in Paris.

On the plane, Fuad starts chatting with the lady beside him. She is from USA, and a trainee sculptor. Then he drags me in to the conversation saying I am an artist. I fumble to disagree, and go on to tell her that I am only studying a little about art at so and so in Sweden. We have a pleasant conversation. She likes the idea of 'Art and Technology' even though I am nowhere-near-enthusiastic. She gives us pointers on the accent of the people in Barcelona. Apparently, they pronounce the 'C's as a
slippery "th" (for example on 'Gracias' [I think i noticed that later on in Barcelona]).

It is now sometime after 8 a.m. First thing I notice coming out of the plane is the cold wind. At the airport, we wonder how to contact Fuad's friend who said will pick us up. Fuad steps out to find a payphone, and steps back in a few seconds later with another guy. This is our contact in Paris, Sylvant. He drives us to his home in the suburbs [metro stop Les Vesinet - Les Pecq]. I sleep most of the way.

They have a very nice home, well kept and decorated. Well, I suppose most houses with families and conscious singles even have their homes that way, but being the mess that I am, I find it very pleasant and absorb it in. They have old fashioned furniture and souvenirs, turns out they have a history with Tunisia. We meet Sylvant's parents, Florence and Jean-Cristoff.

We only stop to drop our bags off and we are ready for action. We hit town.

We land in a small area in town near about the St. Michel sculpture, known to be a spot popular among students. The idea is to get lunch, cheap. Over lunch we ask Sylvant about Paris. We are sitting overlooking a Tunisian sweet shop and pretty soon all 3 of us are agreeing on getting dessert from there. The sweets look familiar to the sweets and pithas we have at home in Bangladesh. After lunch, Fuad and Sylvant pick the same sweet (a square thing, like a piece of brownie), and I choose a long thing that remind me of a pitha I like but cannot quite put a name to it. We take the sweets with us on our walk, so to not waste time in the process of eating. The sweets are just way tooo sweet and I think if I ate the whole thing my throat would be burning from it. We are soon standing outside the St. Michel monument, and Sylvant explains that the good saint once slaughtered a dragon. There are book shops and cafes on the sides of the road that lie on each side of the monument. Its on an island if you like to think of it. There is people all around it, a busy part of the city. I have been trying to look at people and trying to figure out which are the Parisians and which the aliens. Fuad and I of course also stand out, weirder than aliens maybe, and there are some people watching us. Sweet.


The truth is, people are not easy to make out here. France has a pretty large community of citizens who came in from other countries. Its less in Sweden and its easy to make out the Swedish face. I have however spotted some faces similar to the ones I know (like of Cecil, Freddy, or Sylvant, his mother or sister).

We walk over a bridge to go see St. Notre Dame’s Cathedral. Crossing the bridge took us to L’ile de Cite – an island. The cathedral’s outside is swarming with tourists and cameras. We walk towards the gate avoiding as best we can getting inside someone’s picture. The inside is enormous, quite dark and also very crowded. Did I miss beautiful? It is. The soft light also helps it. Some of the people are walking around and taking pictures, and some are actually sitting down and trying to get a moment of penance or thought or something. We were the former, and feeling sorry for the latter. Sylvant did a lot of explaining about the saints, and the biblical scenes that from the artwork.

I had a tour plan with me (Thank your Cecil for that), and on top of that, Sylvant too. So the tour was feeling very guided. We decided next to go get some ice cream, as Cecil had suggested (actually, maybe her mother) on the plan. We stop in front of Glace Bertillon. It’s a really small shop, but we start a queue, and soon there are many people in that queue. Business is good. With our ice cream we continue walking around and end up sitting on a wall by the side of the road. The road is on one side, and river Seine on the other. I enjoy the moment, the houses are really different from the ones in Sweden, the colors are nicer I think. Lots of windows and balconies are decorated with plants. The rails on the windows and balcony are designed nicely. Our next destination is to be the Musee d’Orsay. On a Tuesday, this is the only museum that is open in Paris, and it is a good museum for paintings of the impressionistic movement.

The walk has been long and we are still not there yet. The Louvre is on our left, across the river. I see two girls with the big round and flat hats that I have known to be typically French. They were also wearing white and black horizontal striped tops! I think that also holds popular here traditionally.

Musee d’Orsay has glass doors. Anything more was hard to see for the crowd in front of it. The line for tickets was really disheartening, and the closing hours on top of that did not present a good possibility for us at the time. Sylvant has to leave us now to go meet a friend of his, and the two of us decide to go see the Eiffel Tower.

We get off at the destined metro stop, and take the steps to get to ground level. I spin around searching the sky for the tip of the tower. Where I fail, Fuad is successful, and he points me in the right direction. I follow his lead through zebra crossings and narrow streets and soon we are near enough to the monster. It is huge, and I have to bend my head pretty far to see its highest point. We sit on a grass area and just relax for a while. I am a lazy person and wonder why anyone would think of building such a thing! Fuad points out that at least its handy for setting up telecommunication hardware.

Later we are tricked by our tired brains maybe, and find ourselves in the queue for the ride up to the top of the tower. Well, from then on, standing in line was the thing to do, every time the lift had to be taken up, or down. The whole standing in line was such a bad experience, it took out any possibilities of joy there might have been in the actual act of looking down from such heights. I am not even going to talk about it, except to say that the whole ordeal took more that 2 hours.

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Status of

Since coming back from the 15 day trip through France and Spain (23rd of August), I have uploaded some of the photos from my trip on my flickr site. I did write a bit during the tour, and I shall put some of that up on here soon i think. Right now i am on some overhauling on my laptop. Meanwhile Thom Yorke is keeping me company.

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News from the Sky

Galloway.

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