The Shipping News 

New Foundland is America's answer to Europe's mysterious celtic ways. Lasse Halstrom's movie 'The Shipping News', is set in New Foundland with Kevin Spacey, as Quoyle, the protagonist. Quoyle is typical example of a so-called life's loser, as he says at the start of the film, someone nobody notices. He'd have continued his nameless faceless existence somewhere in great vastness of suburban America had not he married a very promiscuous woman, who later dies in a car wreck and had not his aunt on her way to salvation (which by the way is her native NewFoundland) not stopped by to steal his father's ashes and had not these both events coincided.

Well the story makes a turn, and there goes Quoyle with his aunt and his daughter to NewFoundland, which supposedly has Artic climate in May????(We have higher average temperatures in Alaska in May than New Foundland, hows that possible??) Anyway, in his ancestral village(or town?), Quoyle lands a job as Shipping News reporter with the local paper and the story goes on. The charecterization is good, maybe should thank the author of the book from which this movie is adapted, Annie Proulx's Shipping News. Cinematography is haunting, doing justice to NewFoundland's frigid but sweeping landscapes and wind swept shores and it does have some surrealistic shots like the line of people tugging the great house across the snowy expanse. Its a nice movie to watch, don't expect much action,there isn't any.Its more like warm chicken soup, filling and homely, lie back, relax and watch.

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Bringing Out the Dead 

One of Nicholas Cage's best performances is in this movie, Bringing Out the Dead. He lives his role as a grave yard shift paramedic on the verge of losing sanity in the streets of New York. When you see his job you'll realise that your job is not half as bad as his. I mean, the greatest offer a boss can make to his subordinate is to fire him, thats what Cage's boss promises him every other day.

Its a brilliantly dark movie by Martin Scorcese, happening mostly at night. It depicts the harrowing job of a paramedic which does have it highpoints occasionally, when atlast he's able to save a life, he says it's like walking on air. The cinematography and editing are good, the sound track has REM, 10000 Maniacs and the slick montage of scenes when these songs are being played is impressive. Patricia Arquette, Cage's then wife in real life plays the female lead in the film, as the daughter one of the patients Cage brings in. Another Scorecese masterpiece, couldn't have been anyone else in there but Nicholas Cage.

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Serenading a Segway 

Atlast, I could get on a Segway, the human transporter. And boy o boy, wasn't it a marvel !!!!! Forget about how you'd contribute towards green environment, or not contribute towards the enlargement of ozone hole, Segway is a treat, it adds a new dimension to motion. Yesterday I rode one of these ulitmate human transporters at the State Fair and I am at a loss of words to describe the experience, maybe akin to a kid riding his first bike, but much easier to learn. Segway acts like an extension of human body, everything is controlled by your body movements, you have lean forward to drive forward, give pressure on your heels to go backward and to stop you have to be upright, only buttons on the machines are the turn buttons to turn either left or right. When I saw the George W's mishap with the Segway a few months earlier on TV I thought that maybe it was like a learning to ride a bicycle, you need to get balance, but this is really a piece of cake, the kind you'll be addicted to for long. Hopefully the price will come down from 4.5K in the years to come, once it becomes more common.

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Antonia's Line 

A kinda of biographical Dutch movie with strong emphasis on females of the family. Antonia is the matriarch of a family or rather a large commune of family and friends in a Dutch village. The story starts with Antonia and her daughter Danielle coming back to Antonia's native village at the end of Second World war to start a new chapter in their lives. From there the movie progresses through their lives and how Antonia's line is continued by her daughter Danille, grand daughter Therese and finally her great grand daughter Sarah.

It is a movie about female empowerment, about mothers, about women, the role of males reduced to the are minimum, but it is not about male bashing either. The film doesnot concentrate on male domination, but rather on female power and roles they play in this life. You could have taken a movie in the same way way with a male lead and male progeny and called it Antony's Line, but then there have been many movies made that way and it couldn't have been any different from the rest. Antonia's line is an interesting movie to watch, especially if you are a woman or if you love good movies with great characters, great dailogues with a fine vein of comedy embedded in them and beautiful countryside.

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Mystic River 

Just finished reading Dennis Lehane's Mystic River. Gripping tale, could have read in one stretch but had to sleep and go to work inbetween. Its about three boys, one of them who was kidnapped in childhood, but returned four days later, how all of them grow up into adult human beings, lead different lives, until the day they are drawn together again by the murder of the daughter of one of them. It might seem from the summary that its going to be a growing-up- analyzis-of-life story, which it could be in some small way, but basically its a nail biting thriller where the identity of the killer is confused more and more with every page that you turn.

Even as you read you could see a Hollywood movie in between the lines, the one thats kind of dark and brooding, with unkept houses, toussled hair people and a sense of loss. Warner Brothers too realized that and the movie Mystic River is bound to be hit the screens this October. The three main characters are portrayed by Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins and the director is Clint Eastwood. Hope the movie will be as good as the book..

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Supari 

Yesterday I saw the hindi movie Supari. After having read some negative reviews about the movie, I had braced myself up for another of those Bollywood underworld flicks that has been flooding the Hindi movie industry after the success of Ram Gopal Varma's 'Satya'. To my utter surprise, I liked Supari. The acting of all the four lead actors and the sole heroine, Nandita Das was above par, cinematography and direction were also slick. The movie has 4 real good songs in the sound track, although I could find only three of those in the movie, maybe the fourth one was added in the album, not part of the original movie.

Uday Chopra's acting is brilliant, I didn't like him much in Mohabbatein and the movie Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hain was a total washout. He seems to have got into the skin of the intense character of Aryan Pandit, he plays in Supari. All the other male leads, Rahul Dev, Purab Kohli and Akash Saigal have done good jobs. Nandita Das hasn't got much to do except slick back her hair with pomade, line her eyes with kohl and appear dark, gothic and menacing as an underworld 'queen'-pin. She fits into the role right in. The one drawback (if it could be called so) is the uncalled for 'rain' scenes. There are a couple of scenes which happen in rain, the rain looks very artificial, doesn't in anyway add to the 'mystery' or intensity of the scene, a rain in Mumbai in blazing sunlight,eh?!?!!! All in all I was impressed by Supari (which by the way means "contract killing" in Mumbaiyya slang"), but seems like a lot of people out there didn't. Check it out yourself.

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Six Degrees of Separation. 

No,no, not the movie. Its a research project that is being conducted by Columbia University's Department of Sociology. Anybody can signup and join the research. Its an internet/email project where once you sign up, you'll be given the name of a stranger(the target), whom you are supposed to reach forming an email chain of six people, including you and the target.That is to prove that between you and any stranger on earth there exists just six degrees of separation, thus allowing 4 other people(email ids) who can form a chain from you to the target . Its fun, if you interested in such stuff. You can find it at Columbia's SMALL WORLD site.

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All About My Mother 

Pedro Almodovar's tribute to women, mothers, actresses, 'All About My Mother' is a fascinating and revealing portrayal of women in the many roles they play. There is the mother, played by Cecilia Roth, who is a hidden actress as well, then there is the acting diva, the pregnant nun, the transvestites who aspire to be women with their expensive surgeries, all in all its a story about women, brilliantly acted out by women, in a colorful settings which are Barcelona and Madrid. The camera work is brilliant, the composition, the color make each frame a painting in itself. As far as the characters are concerned I like Antonia San Juan who played the transvestite, she was so witty and convincing at the same time. The film won at Cannes and the Best Foreign Film Oscar(2000).

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Kandahar 

Kandahar is a city in Afganistan, a city that always found itself at historic cross roads, has the largest airport in Central Asia (or the remains of it, now) and it is the name of Mohsen Makhmalbaf's movie of one woman's journey to rescue another from under the oppressive rule of Taliban. It is shot in documentary style and is the real life episode in the life of the lead actress Nelofar Piraza. She made the same journey as depicted in the movie and later apporached Makhmalbaf to convert it into a movie.

The movie beautifuly portrays the life in Afganistan, the oppressed and shackled lives of their women, the generations of half limbed men (legs lost by stepping on mines) searching the skies for Red Cross helicopters that drop off artificial limbs and the madrassa(the Islamic school) where only thing they teach in addition to Quran is what an AK47 is and its uses. Hunger, strife and war is rampant in a country the world has chose to ignore, maybe because it didn't have any resources worth mention or value. The characters in the movie are well chosen and very natural, there is the Afgan boy who befriends the heroine at the start of the journey, the Afican-American muslim man who is in Afganistan in search of God, but ends up treating poor Afganis without having any proper medical degree, the persistant, sly villager who agrees to become the guide in the final lap of the journey towards Kandahar, everyone of them fits right into their roles. Kandahar makes you realise that how lucky you are, it could have worse, much worse, had you been an Afgan woman.

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Amores Perros 

Alejandro Inarritu's brilliant flick that connects three stories with a car crash and canines. Gave me a taste of life in Mexico city. The stories are quite mesmerising and the way they are brought together is also an achievement. The gruesome killing of the stray dogs in the end by one of their own, struck me as quite graphic. I think it is one of those films which give you not more than two options - either you like it or you don't. I did.

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26 Things 

Yesterday I submitted my photopage at 26 Things: The International Photographic Scavenger Hunt. This was the first time I participated in such a thing or took photos pertaining to certain subjects. There were 26 subjects in all and participants (that could be anyone on this planet) were to submit one photo each under these 26 heads before the last day of July. With my procrastrinatic nature I took all the photos on the last day, that was yesterday, except for a few photos I had from my July trip to Valdez. That means that the quality of my photos are not so great and makes me aware once more of the universal truth that procrastination is no friend of creativity. 

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Angel Dust

Is it with me or is it with Japanese Movies? In all the Japanese movies I seem to lay my hand on, I have noticed certain similarities. I wonder whether it has to do the with the hand that chose them(which in this case is me) or with Japanese movies as a whole.
1. All of them are minimalist in conversation and facial expression of emotions.
2. All of them have girls wearing dark sunglasses, round in shape (is Yoko Ono still a big name in Japan?).
3. Cinematography has a 'montage' quality, cut-snip-past-paste-cut-paste-cut-snip-paste.
4. Most of them tend to confuse the story and the viewers by talking less or not talking at all, if you ask me, lot of problems wouldnot have become problems at all, had the main characters talked openly to each other. But then where is the movie, eh?

Yesterday I saw Angel Dust, a Japanese thriller. Story idea is good, so is the cinematography. Conversation is minimal, maybe to increase sense of mystery. Its about a serial killer who always strikes on Mondays at 6pm. Reminds me of one of those artsy type movies, where people look at each other or faraway for a long time, but don't speak, then there is sudden spurt of energy, then again silence, then a phone rings....trrrrrrrrrrrilllllllllllllllll. I should say understanding Japanese culture is not easy.

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All Quiet on the Western Front 

Paul is still the ultimate hero for me. He is the protagonist of Eric Maria Remarque's 'gigantically influential novel' (this is a borrowed phrase from someone else) , All Quiet on the Western Front. Paul is no superman, he is just a teenage German soldier in WW1, as human as they come. For me, this Remarque novel is the greatest piece of fiction I have read till now, none other has come anywhere close. I borrowed it from the local library and read it when I was thirteen, I had a diary(no I didn't have a computer back then) in which had jotted down passages from this book, which I re-read every once in a while. This was one of those books which makes you want to stop every passerby and thrust this book into her/his hands and plead them to read.

One of them goes like this, "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction that I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony. Forgive me comrade; how could you be my enemy?"

I saw the movie (the 1930 version, haven't seen the other two) a while back. It was a good movie considering its age, but all the dialogues that makes the book the classic it is, were cut short in the movie - otherwise we'd have had a movie 5-6 hour long. So as usual with books turned into movies this one also fails to standup to its printed version. For all those avid readers, who are yet to read this book(not many I guess), I urge them to do it ASAP.

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Dan Brown's Two Novels 

DaVinci Code and Digital Fortress. Read DaVinci Code a few weeks back, thats Dan Brown's latest offering. Digital Fortress is a bit older and deals with the security issues on the WWW. Good reads, both. What I found similar in both stories are,

1. The whole story takes place over 24-48 hours.
2. There is an American in Europe, footloose and running for life, while trying to protect some undecipherable secret.
3. There is a strong woman character, extremely intelligent and beautiful (the rare species)
4. There is a code to break.
5. Tackles a contreversial topic. (In DaVinci Code it was the Jesus's bloodline which still exists?!!!?!!! and in Digital Fortress it is NSA's ultimate snoop dog machine on the internet.)

I can happily go on reading Dan Brown, glad I am not in Liberia. Hope Peace Will Prevail Soon.

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No Man's Land

The final shot still haunts me, a picture of eternal hope, the demise of which is certain to us- the viewers, the haunting melody that accompanies, signifies the futility of all wars. What we see is not a movie in which millions die at the hands of evil invading armies, but just a handful of deaths, which will throw you off course for the rest of your day and make you question, "Why?" That is No Man's Land, the award winning (it has got a bunch - Oscar,Cannes etc etc) movie by director Danis Tanovic.

This movie is about a war that was going on in former Yugoslavia while most of us were watching TV in our homes, studying, fishing or doing a million other things people usually do if they donot have a war at their doors. Ok, the UN was there, but what were they doing? Anybody cared to ask? Well, the war didn't wait for any questions, it just raged on. No Man's Land captures a snippet of life in Bosnian-Serbian conflict and takes it down to the level of a few individuals involved. There are the Bosnian and Serbian soldiers trapped in the no man's land, the UN Peacekeeping Officer whose hands are tied down by ineffective bureaucracy, the news hungry TV journalist, all of them make up this remarkable movie. It has its faults, but overall I consider it one of the best movies I have ever watched.

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Badkonake Safed (The White Balloon)

This is an Iranian film by Jafar Panahi, which reminded me of Majid Majidi's 'Children of Heaven', so much so that at one point I double checked on the cover whether director's name was indeed Jafar Panahi. This movie revolves around a small incident in the life of a little girl and her brother living in Tehran and the timespan of the whole movie is 2-3 hours before the Iranian New Year compressed into an eighty-five minute film.

The little girl is bent upon having a new goldfish for the New Year inspite of having a whole tank full of them in her courtyard, she reasons that the one she has in mind is fatter and prettier with a whole lot more fins. Her mother gives into her pleadings after a while and gives her the money, to buy the goldfish. The rest of the movie is how the girl loses the money and her encounters with the adult world and the world in general in her attempts to retreive the money. A good movie scattered with nuances of life in Tehran, the children's ingenuity in retreiving the money, the naturality of various characters in the movie, makes it worth a watch. The one thing I didn't understand was the title of the movie - 'the white balloon', the only time the white balloon features in the movie, is tied to the end of the stick which the children use to retrieve the money. I don't think it had higher importance than the stick, which was 'the' instrument, neither did the children seemed to be aware of its existence at the end of the stick. Maybe some metaphorical edge that I failed to recognize, eh?!?!!

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Anbe Sivam

Kamal Hasan's latest venture. If you know about Indian sub continent and its movie industry, bigger than Hollywood, if you take the number of releases per year or the number of people employed or the number of tickets sold, you should have atleast an inkling who Kamal Hasan is. Well for the unintiated, he is one of the superstars of Tamil(a widely spoken Indian language, although its spoken in countries like Singapore,Malaysia etc etc) movies, who insists in film after film that he is a modern day Renaissance Man a.k.a the jack of all trades. He is a good actor, makes some very 'different' movies which are really good and watcheable, ghost directs most of them, a versatile make-up man and has many others feathers in his cap, which I am not mentioning right now.

Anbe Sivam (translates as 'Love is God') is Kamal Hasan's latest offering, in which he stars with another young superstar of Tamil, R.Madhavan. The movie is different from the usual run-of-the-mill 'boy meets girl' stories, a breath of fresh air, both the actors have given good performances, all in all in my filmometer I'd give it a B+. It could have made it to an A, had Mr.Hasan not insisted on doing the courting and running around trees with his heroine, who is atleast a good twenty years younger than him. The joke is Mr.Hasan himself is portraying a person who is a twenty years younger than his real self, and he really s***ks at it, inspite of his extraordinary make-up skills. But he is extremely good as the disfigured older man and the his cynical, wise-crack dialogues keep up with the character.

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Big Trouble

A really funny movie. Takes a shot at everyone from Martha Stewart to George.W, hilarious dialogues without going overboard. I wonder why it didn't make it big at the box office. Then I read that its realease was postponed due to Sept.11 and came out at a time when people were not in a mood for such comedies. Makes me want to read Dave Barry's books, I haven't read any yet. Lots of fun quotes in the movie, hope to get them somewhere in the internet, so that I can use it as signatures, hihi.

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Steve Martin's ShopGirl 

I didn't know that actor Steve Martin wrote, before I saw his name somewhere in Amazon.com. Today I finished reading one of his novels, ShopGirl and I have his newest one with me, which is called "The Pleasure of My Company", the reading pleasure of which I am yet to enjoy. Coming back to ShopGirl, it is an easy novel, centers around a twenty eight year Niemen's counter girl, who lives a not-so-happening life in the fringes of Hollywood. There aren't many twists and turns in the novel, it moves fluidly along without the usage of a lot of literary jargon. Thats what I like about authors as Steve Martin, who are not very 'reputed' literary personas, they talk at your level, there are no long winded sentences which could take fifty or more words just to describe the moss in the fish tank. Sprinkled throughout the book are sly and witty observances about life in LA. There is not much of a story involved, as the whole books centers around one affair the ShopGirl, Mirabelle has with a fifty year old gentleman, but then its not a long novel either, maybe you could finish it off in an hour or two.

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Majid Majidi Movies

I don't know what's the state of main stream Iranian cinema, but what I know is Iranian director Majid Majidi's films are good, reminds me of Malayalam movies when they used to be good and were not trying to blindly ape Bollywood. Majidi is one of the younger crop of Iranian film directors, I guess, I haven't seen the films of his more famous predecessors. But I have seen two of Mr.Majidi's movies, 'Children of Heaven' and 'Baran'.

Children of Heaven is an unforgettable experience, its about two kids, brother and sister, and a lost pair of sneakers. The world of childhood, where we all had some secrets, kept well hidden from the eyes of adults has been successfuly portrayed in a heart rendering way. How kids set to undertake unachievabletasks, all by themselves,with only their sweet innocence and their bottomless faith in each other as their only aids, is remarkable. The camera work and direction is excellent. Its a must watch.

Baran, the second movie I saw was about two young people who fall in love, they must be teenagers. I wonder whether these two are part of any trilogy or something of Mr.Majidi's, because one has a story set in childhood, other has a story set in teenage, and maybe there are others that I haven't seen. Baran is also poignant and simple like the other movie, his way of story telling will keep people interested in one small incident in life, without a feeling of boredom. If you get a chance to watch any of his movies, don't waste it, thats all I can say.

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Liberty Heights

This Barry Levinson movie deals with anti-semitism, raciscm and growing up in Baltimore. Part of his Baltimore trilogy, actually this is the fourth film of his set in Baltimore, not exactly a trilogy. I have seen one of the other three, The Diner, awhile back. Liberty Heights is seen thru' the eyes and ears of baby boomer generation, right after the war, at the time when other movements like civil rights were coming to the forefront. If you love those tales where adults narrate their stories while they were kids or while growing up, you'll like this one.

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Panic Room & Donnie Darko

I was blown over by Fight Club, a couple of days ago I watched a more recent movie by the same director, David Fincher, called the Panic Room and I'd like to say its only luke warm. The "nail-biting-edge-of-the-seat" feel you expect from thrillers was absent. It appeared to be a rehash of a lot of Hollywood movies, although not deteriorated to the state of being trash. The movie is slick, dark, Jodie Foster is good, but all in all I'd say it lacked 'something' - something like a stronger screenplay, a better development of main characters - even the intruders(the thiefs) lack menacity to feel threatening to the viewers.

Donnie Darko is a good movie, I am really late in watching this one. Jake Gyllenhal is dark,clever, weird and is really good at being all of these. If you like watching movies that leave you a bit dazed at the end, asking questions about life, space-time and all that we don't understand but yet give you the feeling of having watched a remarkable movie - this is it!

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Hana-bi or Fireworks: Movie Review

Watched Takeshi Kitano's Fireworks(Hana-Bi) yesterday. That was quite a movie. Takeshi Kitano the director himself stars as police detective Nishi, whose wife is terminally ill with blood cancer. The whole films center around Nishi and is characterized by sudden burst of violence, abrupt jumps from past to present and future and vice versa, long silences followed by sudden action and then silence again. It has a good soundtrack and cinematography is commendable.

The film is very 'eastern' in its experience although its theme could very well have been that of a Hollywood movie. The juxtaposition of silence and violence has been utilized to achieve the best results. There is not much talk, especially Nishi(Takeshi Kitano) doesn't talk much but is very quick in his actions. At time film feels comical too, especially at times when you are only shown the 'before' and 'after' shots a particular action, not the violent act itself. (For ex. you see a big porcelain vase one minute, then the camera focuses on two people and simultaneously you hear the vase breaking, then next shot is of the vase broken into pieces and a man lying on the floor in a pool of blood.)

I had watched another movie of Takeshi Kitano's called Kikujiro a few months back, in which the director himself plays the main lead, who is a kind of a dull man, who is taking a little boy on a long journey to find his mother. Both these films make you realize how different is the sense of humor in different parts of the world. Minimal language, silent humor even in some of the saddest moments seem to the trademark of Kitano movies.

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Bend in the River & Catcher in the Rye

Just finished reading V.S.Naipaul's A Bend in the River, in record time, since somebody has already reserved this book at the library and I have to return it today. Maybe the sudden interest in Naipaul's writing, even in this so-faraway city, could have stemmed from his winning the Nobel Prize in 2001.


I never had a clear view of the real life Africa, Africa of the ordinary man and this book gives just that, although considered from the current time period, its a little old, its the sixties and the seventies Africa - a small town at the bend of a great river,which forms the setting for this novel. Equally informative is the way the author depicts how the immigrant communities of Indians and other Asians along with a few colonial leftovers from countries like Belgium,France etc cope up with the rise of new Africa, chaotic at its best.


It gave me a perspective on the newly independent African nations of the sixties and the seventies, their citizens trying to "Africanize" everything, the rampant corruption, the role of military in the development of those nations and amidst all that how the ordinary man survives. I wouldn't call it a great work of fiction, not amongst the ranks of Les Miserables or One Hundred Years of Solitude, but if you are interseted in learning about cultures, history and people in other parts of the world, this is a good book, well written, from a first person perspective, you'll feel like you are there.



Catcher in the Rye

Holden Caulfield - Has any other name of a fictional character become more iconic than this one? I doubt. No other name is more popular than its creator (J.D.Salinger) All over America and maybe all over the world there are people who think they are really 'the' Holden of The Catcher in the Rye. Yeah, everyone knows the story of John Lennon's assasin having a copy of this book which inspired him to kill Lennon. After reading it I didn't think it was such an awe inspiring novel, considering all the 'awe' it has inspired throughout the years.


But I can very well see why so many people are inspired by Holden Caulfield, he was open about his contempt of the snobbish society around him, which most of the people living in a standardized, pre-frabricated world are unable to do. For all these people Holden is the mouthpiece of their suppressed souls. Being a teenager, justifies a lot of Holden's actions and thoughts. We realise more than fifty years later after Holden is supposed to have been teenager according to the novel, teenagers all over the world, behave more or less like Holden. Most of us did what he did, before the time we decided to be more prim, proper and learnt the ways of the world.

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Website Colors

I have been tinkering around with this weblog, changing its appearance and stuff. Found this utility. I didn't use it, found it too late into my experimenting. You can even use this to decide colors for your house or co-ordinating your interior design, I guess.

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Space Memorobilia for Sale

Ebay, the world's largest garage sale, has done it again. This time its in the news for the sale of Soviet Space Memorobilia, Sputnik - the first series of satellites ever manufactured and put to orbit by the Russians, one of them is up for sale at Ebay. So, were there more Sputniks manufactured than originally thought, seems like it! Sputnik Satellite FOR SALE at EBAY. Ebay never ceases to amuse me, although I am yet to buy something from there. Btw Sputnik seller's other items include KGB watches and spycams, Soviet ship's clock (there will be a Made in USSR logo on the back or the Russian translation of the same to prove authenticity, I s'pose)

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Two Latin American Instances

Right now I am watching the Miss Universe contest, I thought it was a rerun or something, then found out that it was happening live. It has been a long time since I watched any such contest, maybe 5 years or so. The 2003 contest is taking place in Panama city. Panama brings to my mind, Manuel Noreiga, the former President now serving his 40 year prison term in a Florida jail. Along with the contest they are showing Panamanian landscape, the contestants' tour of the Presidential Palace (coincidentally the President is woman, wife of a former President. They also showed the workings of the Panama canal, how it lifts up ships so that they could pass to the other side, ie between the two great oceans the Pacific and the Atlantic. Go here, if you want to watch live action from Panama Canalas it happens.

Then ofcourse there is One Hundred Years of Solitude. What a book! This is just nextdoor to Panama, in Columbia. Columbia controlled Panama a hundred years ago, when Panama gained independence with US help. Back to the book, I have heard a lot about Marquez being a great writer and all that crap, so I had decided most probably I won't be able to make it much beyond the first chapter. To my surprise, I finished it, moreover I actually enjoyed reading it. So that is Mystical Realism, eh? Someone even has a site named after the book

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The world of the well read has become a big web of blogs, so I have decided to add my own thread to it.Let me see how it goes.Hmm

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