Because It's Saturday: Kate Nahi Kat Te Yeh Raat

Jane Bond (a local cafe) recently had a "Bollywood" night. Since then, people have been commenting on the way that Bollywood manages to sneak sex into its films. You could spend a lifetime studying sex in Indian films (and not just in Bollywood...if you want to see more overt raunch, check out some movies from further south), but the symbols and techniques are pretty obvious if you know what you're looking for.

In this clip, however, you don't HAVE to look; it's the most overtly sexual song I've ever seen in a mainstream Bollywood film. It's traditional to portray sex with a "wet sari during a monsoon" dance, but Sridevi's sari is so sheer, her pole grip so obvious, her gyrations so coital, and the final kiss...

Well, let's just say this clip STEAMS. The music (Laxmikant Pyarelal I think?) is just meltingly beautiful...and Sridevi, as always, is otherworldly-gorgeous, and Anil Kapoor is...well, not shockingly unattractive. I had the pleasure of seeing Anil Kapoor sing and dance a few years ago and the man is truly a superstar. Try to ignore his hat.

To set the scene: this is a pivotal moment from the film "Mr. India" (which I reviewed here). Anil Kapoor is a man who can turn himself invisible, and he's used this power to fight crime. Sridevi is a hard-nosed (and very funny) crime reporter who is renting a room from Kapoor. She hates him, but she's fallen in love with his invisible, crime-fighting alter-ego, "Mr. India." Of course she doesn't know that the two of them are the same person.

But none of that matters at the moment. During this song, Mr. India and Sridevi -- after weeks of invisible flirting -- finally...errr...
you'll see.

The Barthathon: "Lost in the Funhouse"

Ahh, homecoming. This was the first Barth book I read so, at the time, I couldn't view it within the context of his other work. Now I think I can, and -- what's more -- I can appreciate how insecure it made me feel about fiction in general (and why).

While Barth's books were growing more self-aware and unconventional, the collection of stories in "Lost in the Funhouse" (1968) allowed him to overtly play with the form and become downright (sometimes annoyingly) postmodern. Temporarily free from the constraints of the novel, he could experiment, not just with chapters or occasional concepts here and there, but with a selection of short stories. A new idea in each story, explored from beginning to end. And maybe with some kind of coherent idea throughout?

Some of the fiction in "Lost in the Funhouse" is straight-forward, showing us what Barth was moving away from (and what he was still in love with). "Night Sea Journey," with its apt, exacting, philosophical nature-of-creation and nature-of-being meditations (with a profound twist) introduces us eventually to Ambrose, who we assume will be a major character in the stories that follow. But after a naturalistic, straight-forward "early years" portrait of his life, things begin to veer off-track.

If, as you read the book, you continue to view "Lost in the Funhouse" as Ambrose's life-cycle, you must assume that most of the subsequent stories are Ambroses' own musings about literature, writing, creation, mythology, and personality. Another interpretation is that the stories themselves become "Lost in the Funhouse," exactly the way Ambrose does in the title story: the biography of Ambrose cannot be completed, especially not in a traditional way. There are too many concerns and too many things that cannot be said.

The story called "Autobiography" is the angst of an autobiography being written (or attempting to write itself). "Title" is an author and a story searching for a form. "Life-Story" is an author, character, and story searching for a plot and for a meaning, where Barth explicitly states what sets him apart from other writers in this genre:

If I'm going to be a fictional character G declared to himself I want to be in a rousing good yarn as they say, not some piece of avant-garde preciousness. I want passion and bravura action in my plot, heroes I can admire, heroines I can love, memorable speeches, colorful accessory characters, poetical language.

Barth doesn't give us many rousing good yarns in this book -- it's an exploration of possibilities and worries, not a "story" in a traditional sense -- but the last two stories bring us adventure in the form of mythology, and they're the first time Barth REALLY wallows in his love of the deeds of Grecian gods and heroes. "Anonymiad" is the minstrel/author, scuttled on an island, composing (and compromising) his epic and sending it out to sea in bottles. Barth loves these bottled story-messages, tiny snatches of a larger fiction that arrive without context (or with a misleading context) which must be interpreted by a distant and random reader who knows nothing of the author. He'll do this again and again in his later work.

The other rousing good yarn he gives us is "Menelaiad," which is SIMULTANEOUSLY a piece of avant-garde preciousness: seven tales embedded within the narrative of each preceeding tale, complete with nested quotes...and nested seers. And since seers can see the future, they are capable of communicating with future listeners, which makes for some very strange (and funny) dialog. That Helen is a participant in three of these dialogs -- at three different times during the events narrated -- makes things particularly weird. Here's a sample:

"'"That's right," Helen said. "I killed him myself, a better man than most."

"'"'"Then Odysseus--" began Eidothea.

"'"'"Then Odysseus disappeared and I was alone with topless Helen. My sword still stood to lop her as she bent over Deiphobus. When he was done dying she rose and with one hand (the other held her waisted sheet) cupped her breast for swording."'"

"'"I dare you!" Helen dared.'

"'Which Helen?' cried Peisistratus.

The very nature of written dialog and recitation comes into question -- since Menelaus was telling the story, in his own voice (obviously), how was it possible that the characters he quoted were actually speaking in his voice? And since one of those characters (Proteus) was a shape-shifter, and Menelaus spoke his lines in his own voice, couldn't it be that Proteus WAS Menelaus, or had at least taken his form?

I hated this story the first time I read it, but I love it now, and I think it's the second-richest part of the entire book. If you need some guidance and background, here's a diagram of the nested dialog, and also a brief history and context of the Menelaus myth. I survived without those aids, however, and if you read carefully, you can too.

The real glory of the book, of course, is the title story. It was my introduction to John Barth and probably the most maddening, significant, and beautiful thing he's ever written. Ambrose (remember him?) gets lost in a funhouse during a trip to Ocean Beach...while everybody else went through the right door, he must have stumbled upon the WRONG door, which, instead of leading him down the simple and prearranged path, has dumped him into the endless corridors and inner workings of the funhouse itself.

This alone is an interesting, gripping, and well-written story...but the author (Ambrose as well?) has ALSO gotten lost, this time in the "funhouse" of story-writing. He shows us the inner workings of his plot, and explains how and why his plot is not entirely functional. Unable to find the exit -- or even the proper, simple path -- he gets lost in extraneous details, superfluous characters, possibilities of presentation...how much information is too much information? When do all these details become dysfunctional noise? We learn the richness of Ambrose's (and the author's) personalities, but we also come no closer to the exit, the ending. The author, in fact, is practically mourning his ability to see the inner, hidden workings of the story; with an understanding of all these possibilities, how can he ever write a proper tale and finally exit the funhouse?

My thoughts exactly. I don't know the answer, but I do know that when you've finished the book and closed it and put it back on your self, it's finished. An exit of sorts. And you'll be richer for the experience of reading it.

Brave Worker Fears No Warts (or, Small Plague of Frogs)

The company I work for is on the edge of a creek, so we regularly interact with the creek biosphere (which in our case includes “stinky bums,” who appear to be at the top of the food chain except when they’re inebriated, and “kids who throw rocks through our windows during the weekend”).

For this reason we sometimes need to deal with the birds and the beasties, and I have been elected the first-responder for wildlife emergencies. I’ve previously documented the forcible removal of salivating bats and panicked ducklings, and in the past I’ve also been the Chief Cricket Finder.

This week brought something new: I was called to rescue Bufo americanus. He’d decided to sleep on our wheelchair ramp, an especially non-warty structure that is a poor camouflage spot for toads. A nocturnal creature who just wanted to sleep the day right through, he was huddled up in direct sunlight, crouched in a posture meant to preserve water that also, as a bonus, communicates “don’t bother me or I'll urinate on you.”

Strangely, it seems I’m the only person who dares to pick up a toad. Of course nobody likes being pee’d on, but otherwise toads are entirely non-threatening unless you’re a fly or a centipede, which only a few of my co-workers are. Anyway, I’m proud to say that Bufo was returned safely to the creek (with an empty bladder) and neither of us suffered very much.

It also turns out that birds are inspired to crash into the windows near my desk, which some people think is hilarious but I think is really very tragic. I have yet to rescue a bird at my workplace, but I'm anticipating the day, and I have the splints and bandages ready.

Plague of Flies

After the wasps, the flies.

For the last two days I have been plagued with houseflies. Fat ones, skinny ones, they’re flying back and forth between the two large windows on the first floor, and they even penetrated the upper storey last night. Lacking a flyswatter, I’ve been using my telephone bill to kill them, which is far more fun than actually paying the bill...but sort of gross.

This is driving me nuts. My eyesight has become hyper-sensitive to small black things that fly horizontally. I killed about two dozen of them on Wednesday, and that seemed to be the end of it. Then, on Thursday, a whole new swarm appeared, all bright-eyed and bushy-thorax’d. There are more of them today, and when I killed the latest one there were SQUIRMING MAGGOTS inside it. I will not allow these creatures to use my apartment for cheap sex.

My phone bill is a real mess. I have become the fearsome, silent killer of housefly mythology.

I have cleaned everything and removed all household waste, scrubbed the sinks and the stove-top, swept floors, filtered the litterbox. I washed and took out those empty bottles of booze that I tend to collect. I can’t imagine where they could be coming from, unless there’s a hole in one of my screens (but I doubt it). Are they spontaneously generating? Are they the devil?

I grew up on a cow farm so I know how to kill flies. Still, that hasn't stopped me from doing some research online, and I’m delighted by some of the new-fangled, urban methods that people recommend. None of them will inspire me to retire my phone bill (and actually pay it), but chasing flies around with a vacuum cleaner or applauding them at close quarters seems comic.

On top of all this, I notice that a shifty-looking wasp is visiting the elaborate, rustic pipe on the side of my house that the power lines come through. I worry that another nest is developing in there. In a moment of fury I sprayed hairspray and mouse into the cracks around the pipe, before realizing I was messing with a potentially lethal electric charge and revealing powerful secrets of hair-care to unworthy insects. So I followed up by filling the cracks with “DAP Kwik Seal." No self-respecting wasp will be stopped by such a wimpy sealant, but maybe they’ll decide that my apartment is more trouble than it's worth.

Then I'll be safe. Until the locusts come.

Sex and Death on The Avengers

I’m in love with John Steed and Mrs. Emma Peel, but they’re fictional characters so nobody can get jealous.

When I say “fictional,” I really mean it. The '65-'67, ultra-mod period of “The Avengers” had no pretensions about realism, and the crime-fighting duo of Steed and Peel seemed totally aware of this. They traipsed blithely into the deadliest of intrigues as though they were going on vacation, knowing that neither of them would actually be killed and they’d both get equal time to kick butt at the end. When Emma was strapped to a conveyor belt on her way to a buzz-saw, she just couldn’t stop cracking jokes. When Steed barely avoided getting clobbered by yet an other assassin, his biggest concerns were for the position of his hat and the state of the champagne bottle. Even the strange, ritualized tags for the shows ("We're needed!") were a sly wink at the viewers.

This goes far beyond the dapper suaveness of a Bond or a Blaise. Steed and Peel do not live in a world where they can be hurt, let alone killed. They spend their entire lives stopping crime – seemingly for their own enjoyment – but next week’s famous criminals are completely unaware of their activities. Even the baddies tend to view crime as secondary to their personal obsessions: the satisfaction of a good joke, or an appropriately wacky revenge, or a ridiculously elaborate scheme.

So you can’t get tense when you watch The Avengers.

Just as importantly, the sexual dynamic between Steed and Peel is absolutely perfect. When they flirt with each other, they’re flirting for the same reason that they do anything else: because it’s a fun diversion and they enjoy each other’s company. There’s no sexual tension between the two of them and you CERTAINLY can’t imagine them – God forbid – actually having SEX. They're far too classy for that, even when Emma's in her bondage gear.

If you haven't watched it, give it a try. You'll be charmed if you have an ounce of silliness in your bones.

PS: There is an exception to every rule. The occasional Emma Peel-era episode is deadly serious -- "The House That Jack Built," "The Joker" -- and seeing Peel and Steed actually look concerned -- let alone terrified -- is a shock indeed.

I'd Buy Anything By...Banco de Gaia

Toby Marks is the man behind Banco de Gaia, and before he ships his frolicsome house music...he puts a BRAIN inside it.

Sure, his songs are often upbeat and catchy, built with crazily-filtered keyboards and complex, slowly evolving sequences. His samples are unusual, carefully integrated, and usually have a "world music" quality to them. It's hard to listen to Banco de Gaia without NEEDING to dance, and his musicianship shines through when, through some bit of low-key subtlety, your arms are suddenly covered with surprised and uncomprehending goosebumps. A key-change? A particular sound? Sheer bliss?

But it's more than that. He'll release a two-CD set about the Chinese government's aggressive settlement in Tibet, with a totally danceable title track built out of chugging trains. Another album might be surprisingly dark and political, or feature twenty-minute concept songs that are almost devoid of rhythm. One track on an album might be full of Pink Floyd-inspired prog rock sax and live drums, while the next could be a dance anthem sung by one of his stable of female vocalists. When you buy a Banco de Gaia CD you don't know exactly what you'll hear.

He has never achieved stardom and has remained on a small label since 1991 (the beginning), so you won't find many actual "music videos" online...but here's "Last Train to Lhasa," one of his bigger hits, in a dramatically shortened form. Banco de Gaia tracks are often beautiful because of the slow evolution of a theme over eight or nine minutes...this one, sadly, has been compressed by about 50%, but you still get the drift.

You also won't find many of his sadder, more thoughtful, or outright tragic songs online, but this one will bring you down...it's "Not in My Name," which pretty much speaks for itself. WARNING: Unpleasant.

Albums to buy: "The Magical Sounds of Banco de Gaia" (for upbeat songs) and "Igizeh" (for extended moments of crushing depression). There are really no albums to avoid, but I'd put "Big Men Cry" into the "fans only" category, since it's unlike most of his other work...and even more fabulous.

Neo Update

Two weeks ago I said that I was buying an "AlphaSmart Neo" as a productivity aid and an encouragement to write. My Neo deserves a blog entry of its own, and it's only fitting that I compose it in the expected way: sitting on my balcony with this gorgeous little device on my lap.

I was worried it would look childish; it was primarily developed for school kids, after all. Despite the large font used for the keyboard keys, however, it's nicely sedate and can pass for a professional device. There are no dancing pandas on it and it's not even neon.

I've had it for less than 24 hours and I'm already getting something out of it. I can escape all distractions -- and the distracting word processor on my actual computer -- and just type away. Quickly, efficiently. Quietly, with keys that have just enough "click" to them. Free from the tyranny of italics and boldface and page formatting: type, type, return key, tab key. Type, type, return. That's all it does.

I was afraid it would be broken. Other than an initial problem transferring files to it from my Mac (the capital I's became inverted exclamation points), a simple upgrade to the computer software has made for trouble-free usage.

Things it doesn't have, but it should: a method of controlling the key repeat delay, which is far too slow when you're editing text. Sensible keyboard shortcuts would be nice too; they're hackneyed and weird and there are far too many of them to ever remember. And hey, why not a port for flash card storage? Or a clock?

Things it doesn't have, by sensible design: there's no mouse. The screen is big enough for typing, but not quite large enough for effective editing. Surprisingly, nobody has reverse-engineered the operating system and built a Z-Machine interpreter for it.

The only thing that really bothers me is this: when you select text and then hit a key, the selected text doesn't go away unless you hit DELETE or BACKSPACE, which is not the way that typical word processors work (but it's probably a good idea in the absence of an "Undo" function).

None of that is very important. You're supposed to type a draft on the Neo, then send it to your computer for further editing. And if I spend enough time using the navigation and shortcut keys then I'm sure I'll learn the essentials.

So yes, I love this thing. I love its simplicity and its motivating power: when I grin at my Neo it doesn't grin back, and I'm forced to get down to work instead of checking my email. Again.

Now the real question is: what do I call it? I need a name that communicates cool, friendly professionalism, but doesn't imply that I'm ripping off the style of somebody I respect. So "Miss Laurie Anderson" is out.

Now, at my computer, I just plug the Neo into the USB port and click send. Through some sort of keyboard emulation, the text appears here in my blogger interface as though I were typing it. Then I add some links and formatting, and you can almost smell the fresh breeze that this entry was composed in!

A Long Way, Baby?

It's perfectly legal for women to go topless here in Ontario, but for some reason I've never seen it done outside the Toronto Pride parade.

Every woman I've asked about this has replied that going topless would be more trouble than it's worth; there'd be so much staring, and so many negative comments, that the "freedom" of doing it would be worth less than just wearing a top.

Now here's a "Talk of the Town" section from The New Yorker, February 18, 1928:

The progress of the nicotinization of Women has been interesting to watch. Cigarette manufacturers have admitted openly that women smoke; the railroads have provided ladies' smoking-rooms on the more venturesome trains; and even the Old Lady from Dubuque has learned, through hearsay, that smoking occurs in both sexes. It strikes us that the only party not completely emancipated is Woman herself, for we have rarely seen a woman smoke on the street, the reason being--so our cigarette-borrowing lady companions advise us--that it attracts undue attention and the satisfaction isn't worth the embarrassment. To be exact, the only times women smoke in the street are on the sidewalk in front of playhouses during intermission, and the three or four steps they take getting into or out of a cab. We, who have supplied literally tens of thousands of cigarettes to ravenously beautiful smokers, will never be convinced of the reality of their fag-life until we see one of these ladies enjoying a brief siesta on a bench in Madison Square, non-chalantly smoking.

Incidentally, any lady desirous of learning to smoke in the street should know that the finest street in which to practice is the old half-abandoned mall right behind the Library, where a lady may pace and puff, in what travel literature might describe as Old World Splendor.

I'm surprised that women had problems smoking in the late '20s. I'm pretty sure that women were publically smoking by the mid-'30s, though there was probably still some stigma. Nowadays there doesn't seem to be any smoking stigma at all, other than the one that covers both genders.

I suppose that going topless is quite a bit different from smoking, in that it's something disapproved of even in men, and that for women it would be considered an outright sexual activity (which smoking probably wasn't, at least not overtly).

Rotarians of Literature

In the February 11, 1928 edition of The New Yorker, Dorothy Parker gives a priceless description of what she calls "Literary Rotarians." I'm not sure exactly who she's making fun of, but I assume they're up-and-coming authors who are always glad-handing around, desperate for a sale or for a valuable contact. Or maybe they're just "Constant Readers," like herself.

They are all bright and brisk and determinedly young. They skitter from place to place with a nervous quickness that suggests the movements of those little leggy things that you see on the surface of ponds, on hot Summer days. The tips of their noses are ever delicately a-quiver for the scent of news, and their shining eyes are puckered a bit, with the strain of constant peering. Their words are quicker than the ear, and spoken always in syncopation, from their habitually frantic haste to get out the news that the Doran people have tied up with the Doubleday, Page outfit, or that McCall's Magazine has got a new high-pressure editor. Some of them are women, some of them are men. This would indicate that there will probably always be more of them.

I love Dorothy Parker's flippant, oddball style, even when she's describing something I couldn't care less about. "Those little leggy things" sounds SO much better than "water strider."

Update: She's talking about "literary folk," who go to all sorts of literary functions and who consider themselves to be writers -- of novels or of newspaper columns -- but who never write anything that is remembered. Or who never write anything at all.

Sandwich Chore Routine

Few chores can be worked into my life unless they can be paired with something that ISN’T a chore, or unless they are absolutely essential. For instance, I can move objects between rooms because I often walk between the rooms anyway, and if I designate an “ingoing” and “outgoing” spot in each room, and if I can motivate myself to put objects in those spots, I find myself eventually moving books to bookshelves and moving cans to the recycling bin. And since I walk past the grocery store on my way home from work I can buy groceries with a minimum of pain.

There are some things that I can’t find a routine for, generally because they cannot be “paired” with neutral or pleasurable actions. On a good day I can clean up the apartment by listening to music, or wash dishes while lending half an ear to a dull DVD commentary, or hand-wash clothes while listening to an old-time radio program…but I can’t find a pleasurable way to vacuum, clean the litterbox, or do laundry. These are things I only do when it becomes necessary, or when I’m in such a good mood that even HOUSEKEEPING becomes fun.

Which brings me to sandwiches. I have nothing against sandwiches and they’re a cheap lunch option, but bringing them to work implies making them in advance, which I find unpleasant. Plus you can only make so many of them, otherwise they get soggy waiting for you to eat them.

Recently I was bemoaning my inability to find time for nail-care, and Vanilla tactfully pointed out that I could do my nails while watching a movie…and glory of glories, I CAN! What’s more, I’ve been experimenting with MAKING SANDWICHES while watching movies, which is the perfect way to distract yourself if you’re trying to finish watching “Performance,” something you yourself may have dealt with in the past.

I’ve managed to make four sandwiches this way and I’ve enjoyed every single one of them. But I know from experience that it’s easy for me to eventually drop these chores, either due to time constraints or the approach of a Characteristically Bad Blue Funk.

Which brings me to a final problem: I have never gotten the hang of buying sandwich supplies at a deli. I feel strange talking to people at delis and I can never remember how many grams I should buy. People, at various times, have reminded me how many grams equals how many slices of meat or cheese, but when I’m IN the deli I forget this information, and I’m afraid that if I get it wrong I will look foolish and autistic.

My conclusion: there should be a "grams-to-slices" sign for new sandwich-supply-purchasers, and every chore should be pairable with an anti-chore.