Congratulations

Abhishek Majumdar and Ram Ganesh Kamatham on winning the TFA Creative Writing Award 2010!

Doppelgängers

So apparently this week is doppelgänger week, or it was and it is all now over. I am deeply upset over this. I like to be in the know, you know? What’s the point in finding out about a trend after it’s gone? You can’t be part of it. You can’t make fun of it. You can’t even ignore it. You’re just ignorant.

Of interest: Tehelka readership survey and one more thing

Arul Mani is pro-Chetan Bhagat

If there is one thing that is cause for some celebration it is Chetan Bhagat having topped the readership surveys. While it is possible to cavil at his lack of sophistication, we must not lose sight of the fact that he seems to have knocked off the likes of Shiv Khera and Paulo Coelho, as well as a former President.

Poets on Poetry: Richard Wilbur

I think that all poets are sending religious messages, because poetry is, in such great part, the comparison of one thing to another… and to insist, as all poets do, that all things are related to each other, comparable to each other, is to go toward making an assertion of the unity of all things.

JD

JD Salinger (1919 – 2010)

2009 in books

This was meant to be an exercise in recapitulation, in forcing myself to articulate what I admired or didn’t admire about the books I read last year. However, writing about books that you read a year or six months ago is a challenge. I can go back to my notes, but they are already on this blog.

So I’ve begun to think about phases of reading, which, I assume, everyone goes through.

TFA Awards 2010

The TFA Awards ceremony this year will take place at  Alliance Française de Bangalore on February 6 at 7 pm. Do come, and more details below.

Readings: expectation and audience

What defines readings, I think, is their lack of control. They are unlike the controlled poem on a controlled page of controlled size, weight and colour. There are too many variables, and you don’t know which one will make things go awry. I tend to like this.

2009 in movies

The following is a list of movies I watched in 2009 that I would recommend to anyone interested in cinema. This is a way for me ’summarise’ my experiences with film last year. This is also another excuse for me to make a list.

Of interest: the Obama brand, the cult of positive thinking, and more

Naomi Klein on Bush, the ‘hollowing’ out of politics and the Obama brand

Just as companies such as Nike and Microsoft had pioneered the hollow corporation, this was, in many ways, a hollow war. And when one of the contractors screwed up — Blackwater operatives opening fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, for instance, leaving 17 people dead, or Halliburton allegedly supplying contaminated water to soldiers — the Bush administration was free to deny responsibility.