Michael Cimino's HEAVEN'S GATE

I might never have watched this powerful, majestic film if not for reading Dana Steven's review of it in SLATE five days ago. Very possibly, I might STILL not have got around to watching it, if I hadn't happened to check Netflix to see if they had it as a streaming option -- which they DID. The review talks about a sumptuous though overlong sequence early in the film of Harvard graduates waltzing, so I thought I would just take a peek. I do that with films often enough, watch the first few minutes to get a sense of its texture before deciding that I don't want to invest any hard-core time. With this one, I watched it begin, then I watched the entire waltz sequence and then I -- what can I say? -- was caught and mesmerized for the rest of the trip.

It's a very long movie, three hours plus, and I allowed myself to see it over the course of three days. But I remained engrossed all the way through.

This IS surprising because I am not especially interested in "frontier" films, in period dramas of the American West, or in an obscure battle between rich cattlemen and the wretchedly poor East European immigrants who came into conflict with them. The power of the film lies in its documentary feel -- the grit-in-the-eye chuffing of a real steam-engine, the glorious chaos of horses as the primary source of transport, the dirt and squalor of the past, with its outhouses and open fields and untarred roads -- it had an authenticity and a poignancy that punched the breath out of me. Wow. A hard, sad, angry film telling a story that no-one wants to hear.

Who makes such films any more? No-one. Apparently, because of its epic failure (the only thing I knew about the film was that it was such a vast disaster that both the studio -- United Artists -- and the director, Michael Cimino -- never recovered from it) the lesson everyone learnt is that (a) big budget films are only worth making if they're aimed at simple-witted jingoists who want to cheer and thump their chests at every opportunity and (b) cinematic beauty and artistic rigor is only acceptable if it's underwritten by conservative values, such as romantic fidelity, monotheism and patriotism.

March DAFFODILS

Aren't they beautiful??

My sister S came to Newport for a visit yesterday and we had a fun day. She arrived late in the morning, driving down from Randolph, the Boston suburb in which she now lives. She had texted me en route, saying "I'm in Newport! Will be there soon!" So I stood at the window of my kitchen, from which I can see cars turn off the main road and then up through the parking lot of Dunkin Donuts to where my building stands.

And I stood! And stood!

Soon, it became clear that she'd either had some kind of catastrophe OR she was not actually so close to arriving. In my family, it's always been easier to think of catastrophes first and all other possible explanations later. This isn't because we routinely have terrible things happen to us. There have been no lightning strikes or unexpected meteors, sink holes or random herds of moose charging through our family's history. Nevertheless, when someone doesn't appear on time, these are the first thoughts that pass through our fevered brains.

But when she did turn up, her first words were: "Were you worried?" And in her hands she had a bunch of daffodils, still in bud, that she had bought at the Middletown Stop'n'Shop -- which was why she was late.

We had a happy day. First off, we went down the road to the MAD HATTER BAKERY where we bought cup-cakes for S to take back to Randolph. There's a much longer story attached to this mere little stub but it boils down to: cup-cakes. S had called them to send me a surprise cup-cake gift card -- over the phone -- in December 2012 -- but I never got around to going there and therefore never learned about the surprise -- until S told me about it over the phone three days ago! So then I went across, asked them about it and they were most apologetic but (not surprisingly) had forgotten the details of that 3-months-old gift purchase call! Even so, they were kind enough to allow me the benefit of the doubt, to the value of $20 (I asked S on the phone what the amount was and she said she'd forgotten). I on my part said that my sister was going to visit me on Saturday and I would bring her over to confirm that this was not all just a Mad Hatter's story!

And so it came to pass. Gladness and cup-cakes all around.

We returned to my little apartment, had a cup of Earl Grey tea, enjoyed the sight of the daffodils in a jar of water (as yet unfurled), then went out again, to enjoy a stroll in the sunshine, en route to lunch. We were aimed in the direction of Panera but decided instead to stop at YESTERDAY'S and were very happy with our choice. Yummy chocolate lava cake at the end, shared between the two of us since we were both totally stuffed. The cuisine is a charming Conti-Asian-fusion.

Then on our way back, we stopped at a shop that can only be described as a cook-ware boutique, called PAN HANDLER'S. Its owner is a charming, helpful and friendly lady called Patty (or Pattie?) who, with her partner Walter have created a small but irresistibly beautiful shop, brimming with useful, interesting and attractive objects for use in and around the kitchen and dining room. S bought me a tiny Victorinox pocket-knife -- now that the TSA allows travelers to carry small knives -- and a curved chopper for her home. But to give you a good idea of how nice Patty is: she stopped me from buying a pair of onion-goggles -- i.e., goggles to help those of us whose eyes stream with tears -- because she pointed out that they would NOT go over my glasses.

And that was our day.

Finally, to top you off, here's a story from the New Yorker of one person's irrepressible will to overcome his difficulties:
An INSPIRING STORY

And also, GENE WEINGARTEN'S column in the Washington Post, including a (very brief) collection of jokes about FORBIDDEN TOPICS.

LINKS & A PHOTOGRAPH

Two stories, both about murders and murderers but from opposite ends of this dark spectrum.

The Aarushi Talwar Case is at the initiating end, with the as-yet unsolved murder that took place in New Delhi more than four years, of a fourteen-year-old girl. Meanwhile the family has been not merely bereaved but utterly devastated by the process of finding justice. The story is written with unusual sensitivity and thoroughness, which is what makes it worth reading.

Meanwhile the second story is about Jerry Givens, a man who had the job of being an executioner for the state of Virginia in the US, but who is now a passionate opponent of the death penalty.

***

I am ending this post with what I consider a rather surreal drinking water tap, at the Madras Zoo (the correct name for it is: ARIGNAR ANNA ZOOLOGICAL PARK or Vandalur Zoo) I have yet to write an account of my visit ... and I do still plan to ... but not tonight.

I have a number of photographs, but I realized just now, looking at them, that this one is probably the best in the collection. There were different animals for each different water fountain and I didn't have the smarts to take pictures at EACH ONE. Ah well. At least I DID take this one!

SHORT STORY COLLECTION

This is the cover of a new collection of my short stories, due to be published by ZUBAAN. It's been a long time since my last collection -- KLEPTOMANIA (Penguin Books, India, 2004) -- came out, so I'm very pleased. The stories are a combination of old and new: a few of those that appeared in Kali for Women's 1996 HOT DEATH, COLD SOUP* collection alongside more recent pieces, a couple of them completely new and never-published. We're still deciding how many stories will make the cut. Maybe thirteen.

I am particularly thrilled with the cover -- the drawing is by me, but design and titles by Zubaan's multi-talented Anita Roy. This drawing, and those on the inside pages (small amusements to herald each story) are what I call "telephone doodles" -- drawings done while talking on the phone. Well, okay, I'll admit that THIS one, on the cover, wasn't done during a conversation! But it's in the same style, sort of. The original is in b/w, coloured in PhotoShop. The inside doodles are b/w and really were done during Skype chats.
*(this link is to the GARNET WORLD FICTION edition, published in the UK. The KfW edition is out of print).

Wednesday 6th February

Here's a link to an academic essay by PhD scholar ROSITTA JOSEPH about my 2008 novel ESCAPE, published in MUSE INDIA's Issue 47, Jan-Feb 2013. It's only the second academic article I've read about ESCAPE (the first one was by a Professor of English Literature in Tarragona, Spain; now a friend) and the first I've read by an Indian scholar. Unlike the reviews that came out, this article analyses the real-world social context of the book with some seriousness.

It's always a great relief to know that there ARE readers who notice minor details -- such as the "notes" from the Generals' publications -- and come to the correct associations and conclusions. But especially now, when I am writing the final chapters of the sequel ... yes. It's good.

Sunday February 3rd

These photographs are from the Madras trip. I'm posting them now because (a) the reason I took them in the first place was to post to the blog and (b) I delayed posting them coz I didn't have my computer to edit them on.  I don't know if I am right to believe that my computer (a MacBookPro) protests and/or trashes any storage device which has been slutting around on Other Operating Systems but whether I am right or wrong, I don't want to find out the hard way -- so I didn't upload and work on the pix in Madras, where I was using an ACER.


Here's my recap of the past six days:
Monday 28th The main feature of the day, after getting back from Madras was feeling COOOOOLD. What is wrong with my feet? They seem to have no idea that they are connected to a warm-blooded body. They spend all their waking hours time sending up a continuous whining lament of "We're COLD! VERY COLD! EXTREMELY VERY COLD!" Etc. It gets to be supremely tedious. I considered the possibility of hibernating until early March.

Tuesday 29th My friend RS came over for lunch as well as to continue a double-headed interview for Forbes Life Magazine on the subject of The Patron and the Artist. We started working on it maybe two years ago, by e-mail, but haven't budged since the initial exchange of Q's and A's. What makes it interesting (we hope) is that R has for years been a patron of my paintings/drawings/prints aside from continuing to be a good friend throughout. The purpose of the piece is to explore both sides of the Art coin and the plan is for both of us to ask questions and to find answers, which is why I call it "double-headed". It's going well, I think.

Wednesday 30th The fear of multiple deadlines piling up on my desk finally convinced me that my plan for the month (see Monday 28th) was perhaps not a good one. Also, E fixed the plug for the heater in my room, so that it's no longer threatening to melt down. Also I was revived by an excellent tea upstairs, with rum-marble cake and good conversation. Also I have been pursuing the "writing for two hours" part of my Resolutions quite diligently.

Thursday 31st Somewhat to my surprise, a minor form of drawing that I call "telephone doodling" -- just the same as we all do while talking on the phone, except that I've taken to using good paper and a slightly more formal approach to subject matter -- has suddenly become the basis of a book of illustrations I have been trying to do "on the side". That is, I have discovered that I can telephone-doodle my way through to completing these illustrations which have otherwise been stuck in my mind, refusing to come out on paper. Because they're doodles (i.e., I don't think of them as formal illustrations), I can do them while thinking about other stuff. Such as the two hours of writing, for instance ...

Friday 1st Yaaay! I finally managed to make an expedition to Deepest Grrrgaon! To have a night-spend Chez Ghose -- let's just say that we talked and ate and giggled and talked some more all through the evening and then again in the morning and into early noon. "We" comprised E and V and S, as might be expected, but also their visiting friends M, R and M plus U, at whose adjoining house we had dinner. M/R/M are visiting from England, but have a long and loving connection with India and with the Ghoses, so it was very good to reconnect.

E had a pre-dawn event with her Cycling Club. She went and came back from it before I was even conscious. She is the most active and energetic person I know. I feel like a fossilized sloth in her company(I mean this in a nice way. We sloths don't in the least mind being turned to stone. Kind of suits our sedentary personalities). It always amazes me that she and I can not only have a conversation, but even manage to chat for hours, because I really think we occupy different time zones while sitting in the same room. Exhilarating!

Saturday 2nd Got back to my dimension in time for lunch. Back to all the little obsessions, drawings, writings, eight-glasses-of-water, etc. The weather has slightly improved. I am no longer stuck to the heater.

Sunday 3rd Today! More drawing, writing, water etc. No origami, however. Instead, I watched the final Harry Potter movie, Deathly Hallows Part II. Okay, so that's done now. I'm glad I've got it watched and under my belt. Onwards ...

MONDAY 28th January

Okay. Ten days. Almost. Since my last post.

But I'm back in Delhi. Arrived this afternoon. I feel I've been running continuously since my last post. Even though I've been mostly sitting down. And eating. *sigh*

This is going to be a very quick recap of the week, which was built around the birthday of my niecelet, who turned eight this month. On Sunday the 20th, we went to the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Vandalur -- the niecelet, her father, the sister and me. A great time was had by all and I will eventually post photographs from the trip. On the 21st, the sister and I had dinner with my uncle, aunt and cousin, all three visiting from London, at the Madras Gym. Good dinner, great conversation -- we haven't met for a very long time, so it was fun to catch up.

During the day I worked on the design for the cover of a collection of short stories (by me) due to be published by Zubaan. That was fun, but also a bit stressful since everything has to be done at break-neck speed these days. Publishing is no longer the leisurely occupation it once was. Books fly out of presses like bullets. And vanish just as quickly ... which is why it's worth making the effort to produce attractive covers. Alas, "weird" is what I am best at producing, not "attractive" and this cover design is no different. But at least there's a design that we all agree is worth working on and so that's a relief. More about this later -- I mean, when the book is closer to flying out of the press.

All of the 22nd was spent at the office of my publisher in Madras, Tulika and Radhika Menon (the proprietor) in particular. I was supposed to be helping to organize their artworks for an exhibition early next month, but more than half the day went in just talking and talking and TALKING - a broad, wide and flowing discussion about many different facets of publishing for children and of being an illustrator of children's books (me, not Radhika) and of the number of important subjects that really had to be tackled, such as nudity and prudery amongst them. But the 22nd was a red-letter day for another reason -- a new child in my family -- this time a boy, in the US, born to my niece there, who had a daughter just 18 months ago. So that pretty much took care of all thoughts and communication for the whole of the 23rd. I'm sure something else happened, but it is now a blur, during which I also managed to work on a concept note for Tulika's exhibition. On the 24th, the nephew arrived from Bombay and aside from eating too much food while talking about food -- he is a well-known food-writer -- the birthday had to planned for and stuff had to bought for it.

On the 25th, there was a very discrete and self-contained celebration, at two speeds. One speed, sedate and dignified, was downstairs in my mother's house, attended by four others aside from the immediate family. Cake, sandwiches, samosas, soft drinks and chips were had. The other speed was manic and heady, attended by two (only two! And still it was like a herd of elephants overhead!) young friends of the niecelet and was celebrated upstairs, with her parents and the boys' mother. I didn't go for that, having already had my fill downstairs. Five hundred balloons (regular air-filled balloons, not gas) were blown up by a professional Balloon-Wallah and deployed all up and down the driveway and in the stairwell. At party's end, these balloons were ritually popped by all three celebrants, with the help of plastic forks and to the accompaniment of much whooping joy.

On the 26th, the sister and nephew left for a two-day stay in Cochin, while the household rested from the party and the country celebrated Republic Day. My mother watched the parade on TV while I contemplated my wasted life, in the gloom of my room, while gnawing moodily on a gigantic triangular slab of Toblerone that my Madras niece had thoughtfully bought for me. On the 27th, my architect cousin brought a Chinese takeaway lunch to share with my Mum and me, and on the 28th ... well, that's TODAY! I left for Delhi.

So, yes, many of my resolutions have been suspended during my stay in the South, but I am expecting to bring them all back online, one by one ... stay tuned! If nothing else, there will be photographs.