Woody Allen's Anything Else 

After a long time saw a movie at the theatre, it was Woody Allen's "Anything Else", on this Saturday. Typical Woody Allen fare and for those who like his movies (you don't really have to like the person to like his movies, right?!??), this one is also abrim with dry wit and sarcastic self mocking humor and it has fresh faces - Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci in addition to the master, Mr. Allen himself.

In the movie, Jason Biggs is a comedy writer, so is Allen, but the major difference between the two in addition to Woody Allen's off the cuff funny philospohical nuances is that Biggs is a person who can't say No to most people, including his agent and his new-age girl friend played by Ricci. Allen's character takes upon himself to re-invent Biggs, and thus the movie goes. Set in Newyork (where else?) the movie winds its way thru' Central Park, Manhattan and the lives of its protagonists. Its not a movie where you'd fall off your chair laughing your heads off, but its the one with a lot of 'thinker's jokes'. Well in short if you like Woody Allen movies, you'll definitely like this one.

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The Road Trip - Part 9 - SF Bay Area, Fremont ,Gilroy and back to Anchorage 

Both yesterday and today were spent rushing about, catching up with old friends, eating heavy dinners, doing a year's worth of shopping at Gilroy factory outlet and Fremont and generally being in the 'farewell-time-soon' mood. Today evening(14th Sept) we took a flight out of SFO to Anchorage with a two hour stop over at Portland. We were home at midnight and that winds up this travelogue.


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The Road Trip - Part 9(California) - Sacramento, Again! 

We woke up at around noon, and headed straight to Sacramento to be at our friend's place in Folsom. The day passed with meeting and visiting a few friends at their homes and finally crashing at one of their houses.Not much sight seeing for the day.

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The Road Trip - Part 8(California) - Napa Valley 

The day started off with us heading to Ghirardeli, America's oldest chocolate company and the creators of the legendary Ghirardelli chocolate. Across the Maritime Museum, where the Hyde Street ends, Ghirardelli is a must stop for those who are visiting San Francisco for the first time, we were going there to stock up our pantry with their famous chocolates and cocoa. Yes, today is the "stocking'-up day". Half an hour at Ghirardelli and we are off to the vineyards of Napa Valley.

I used to play a PC game, called Road Rash while I was in college, it had a couple of circuits(race tracks) which you could choose like Pacific Coast Highway, Napa Valley (these are the ones I remember) while playing a game. At that time all I knew was these were in USA but I had no clue as to whether they bore any resemblance to the real Pacific Coast US 101 or Napa Valley. Driving to Napa Valley was like playing Road Rash all over again, there were the vineyards fleeing past, two lane highway which meandered down to one lane at parts, if I remember right Napa Valley course was one of the easier courses, so the one I played more often than others, see that training has come handy.

This was not my first trip to Napa-Sonoma valley, I made one a year and half ago and fell in love with the place. Like the farms of Oregon, here again was people leading a different kinda life, so close to the city, yet so faraway. Most of the wineries in US are along the Napa-Sonoma valley, big names like Robert Mondavi, V Sattui etc dominate the region. We were heading for V Sattui winery to replenish our stock of wines. You can have free wine tasting at all the wineries, there is a wine train that'll take you across the area and some 'hardy' wine drinkers make it a day of living solely on wine hopping from winery to winery.

V.Sattui is real nice picnic spot as well as a great winery. I would recommend their Madeira and other dessert wines. You can grab a bottle of wine, find something at their fabulous deli (thats what we did) and have a lazy afternoon in the shade of Sattui's hundred year old oak trees in their two acre picnic yard. Back to San Francisco after a minor tire repair to take out a nail embedded in the tire and that wound up our day.


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The Road Trip - Part 7(California) - San Francisco 

Finally we reached back our old home - San Francisco, on the evening of September 10, Wednesday. The drive back from LA to SF was pretty uneventful except for the fact that it ate up most of Wednesday. We reached SF downtown by evening, after leaving LA at 12pm.

We used to live in the Bay Area before we moved to the Artic Circle. San Francisco is still the same sweet fog city, so different and pleasant from the rest of the desert style environs of California which surrounds it. It doesn't have the highly-irrigated-false-greenery -covering-over-the-real-desert look of Sacramento or Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area is a class apart, having a micro climate of its own. For the two days we were there we stayed at a friend's place in downtown SF.

I don't feel like writing much about San Francisco in a touristy way because it had been home for some time and we used to show our friends around the city whenever they visited us. This was the first time that the roles were reversed. Having endured the boredom of visiting and revisiting the famous tourist spots like Fisherman Wharf, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the day ended with us deciding just to visit Ghirardeli the next day to get some of their famous chocolate and nowhere else in the city.


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The Road Trip - Part 7(California) - Los Angeles & Hollywood  

A lazy morning of lounging around found us all heading fordowntown LA, Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood. We drove thru' historic downtown LA, along Broadway, flanked by 1920-30ish buildings, mostly in brick. Then we took a u-turn back to the New Downtown, Fashion District and South Park which is a world away, architecturally, from the old downtown area. One thing that struck me, was LA seemed like a true Hispanic city, or was it roads we took, whatever it was there were more brown faces than faces of any other color.

Inspite of visitng LA 3 times or so in the past two years, I had never seen Hollywood or Sunset Boulevard before and had high expectations. As we got off the exit from 101 and hit Sunset Blvd, it seemed to me like any other road in urban America, maybe I didn't have enough associations I could remember except the name. We did get the Hollywood sign in the camera and palm trees on the Blvd, but other than that it was just another LA street.

Sunset Boulevard became Sunset Strip while going towards Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Click here if you want to know more about Sunset Boulevard and other Hollywood streets. About Hollywood and Bel Air, not up to my expectations (that meant they were too high or my imagination required a 'grounding' real soon), maybe the hour and the light played a part in my perceptions. Sun had almost gone down and it was kinda dark, and all I saw was ivy covered walls or watchman's tiny cubicles standing outside the gates,forlornly in the night and above all it was just a winding one lane highway (did you expect Hollywood starlets to build a mansion beside I-5, in all that noise, traffic, pollution and people?. My mistake!) The houses, or the part of them which were visible above the walls of the properties, looked comparitively big, very much like the Gulf boom bungalows back in my native place in another continent far away. But I guess its the real estate thats pricey in Bel Air and Hollywood, you can have the house and property of the same size somewhere in Montana and pay not even 0.001% of what you would have paid in Hollywood (you wish!).

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The Road Trip - Part 6(California) - Sacramento and Los Angeles  

Reached Sacramento on Sunday night. After dinner at a friend's house in Sacramento, N had this fabulous idea, a very 'road-tripsy' one, that we should drive full eight hours to LA that night itself. The thought, that during this road trip, we hadnot driven a lot at a stretch, might have held N back from calling this a real road trip, but not me. The idea of driving high on caffeine, through comparatively less crowded highways at night was something that had evaded us till now. Then why wait, I agreed to N's suggestion.

Four hours later,after I had slept thru' the caffeine, most part of I-5 between Sacramento and LA and a better part of the night, I woke myself to what seemed to be a phantasma of a 'driven' man at the wheel, driving at 85 miles an hour, just short of downtown LA by little less than hundred miles. We reached LA around 4-4.30AM. After a year and a half of leading a detached- from- the- rest- of- the- world Arctic life, LA was an eye opener. Ok, Seattle traffic was bad, but at 0400am in LA everyone was at everyone else's necks racing on to reach their work places. At this hour in the morning, I usually had full 4 hours of sleep ahead and lot more sweet dreams in line. Luckily, two people in the car meant that we had a slight advantage over most of the other drivers, we could use the car pool lane, that was moving faster. Everybody was doing 75-80 mph over a 55 mph speed zone, car poolers were touching 85 mph, not bad for a Monday morning.

We reached our destination at Irvine at 0630am. The rest of the day passed in a sleepy haze punctuated by intermittent brunch and snacks offered by our gracious hosts. By evening we were up and ready to go, this time towards San Diego. The southern most (big)city on the West Coast on USA, San Diego is almost next door to Mexico. One of the funny warning signs on the higway towards San Diego is the highway warning signs which depicts a few fleeing human forms, just like somewhere else where it'd be a person riding horse which alerts you to look out for horse riders, this sign alerts you to look out for illegal immigrants fleeing across the border and stumbling(?) blind across highways. There is a check post near San Diego on I-5, where they are supposed to check vehicles for illegal immigrants, some of whom are smuggled across squeezed inside the dashboard of cars or sewn into the seats, I wonder how they ever find out which car to check for?

We did a lightning visit to one of our friends' house in San Diego and returned the same night to Irvine, LA. We decided to extend our stay in LA by one more day, which meant we had a full day tomorrow in LA. See you then.


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The Road Trip - Part 5(Oregon) - Crater Lake and Klamath Falls  

Left Medford at 1130am heading east on 62, towards Crater Lake National Park. The day was a little chilly and road ahead as we neared Crater Lake was draped in slight fog. This route was called Rogue - Umpqua Scenic byway between Rogue and Umpqua rivers. On the way there were trail heads leading to Rogue River lookout points, we ended up going a little way up the trail and clicking a few photographs from river's edge.

Crater Lake is the deep blue clear water lake formed by the collapse of Mount Mazama, so it looks as if some has dug out a bowl shaped lake at the summit of a mountain. If you plan to hike there are 90 miles of trails around the lake and several campgrounds and you can also have a boat ride in the lake. The lake's annual input comes mostly from precipitation and the lake is surrounded by 200 feet mountain cliffs on all sides. Those who want to take in the full beauty of Crater lake should attempt the Rim Drive, which is drive around the rim of the lake(of course!), with several viewpoints along the way. We did a 1/3rd rim drive and turned back, shot some usual tourist videos and headed back on 62 towards Klamath Falls and from there on to California.

Before you go, all you riding behemoth gas guzzlers, fill up your tanks before you cross into California, gas prices increase by a full fifty cents or more when you just 1 mile across Oregon border into California.


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The Road Trip - Part 4 - US 101 Oregon Coast
 

I wonder who made hotel checking-outs at 11am a standard, whoever it was, I guess it had to be a late riser. I mean if early birds had their way, as with the worm they'd rather make it 6am or something. Well 11am suited us fine, not too early, not too late (we could have easily slept for one more hour, that was not actually needed, if not the for the check out time being strictly at 11am) Started from Red Apple at eleven, took US 101 heading south along the Oregon coastline. Alright, we were finally on the famed 101, touted to be one of the most scenic highways in the US. We had driven on 101 along the California coast, including the 17 mile drive some time back, the Oregon coast was supposed to be as beautiful or better than the California one, let's see. The day was a bit cloudy, and there was a slight drizzle when we started from Tillamook. Somebody later told us that we should have gone to Tillamook Cheese Factory that was really famous, although at that time all we had in mind was to get out of Tillamook as quick as possible and do some real driving along the scenic 101.

The section US 101 scenic byway after Tillamook towards South is christened the Three Capes Route. We got off at Cape Kiwanda, a few miles down south, it had a nice beach, a huge rock in the middle of the ocean not far from the beach and a sand hill towards the northern edge filled with 'sand-surfers'. Even for an overcast day Kiwanda was kinda crowded, kite flyers, people riding horses along the beach, sand surfers, kids at play and lazy loungers - there was everyone there. You could drive down to the beach and park on the southern side or drive as far South along the beach as far as your vehicle can take it. It was a long time since we did any drive-in beaches and this seemed to be a good chance, we eased our car down the slope to the beach and veered right towards the sand hill. We might have gone a few meters when we saw a magnificient display of festival lights in our rear view mirror and it turned out that we have somehow become the 'object of affection' of the local sheriff. It was his truck bearing down at us with dazzling display of lights and warning sounds. Hey, what was this? What did we do? We didn't have to wait much longer to find out the answer, there he was, right beside the driver side window, asking N to roll down the window. "I tried to warn you twice, but seemed like you didn't want to hear, your driving license and registration, please," demanded the Sheriff. After taking a look at N's driving license, he joked, "hopefully you are not 'wanted' for anything in Alaska and do drive on the left side of the beach, not the right." and let us go. That was our initiation into "unwritten codes of conduct on US 101 beaches."

From Kiwanda we followed 101 south towards Lincoln City. It appeared that Lincoln City catered more to the tourists than Tillamook with its wider choice of hotels, restaurants and fancy shops along the seafront. One thing I noted about the Oregon coast was that it had more rocks in the sea than any other sea coast I have ever been to. Not just by the beach, you can see rocks, big ones at that jutting out from the ocean bed, quite faraway from land, but the beach itself is not rocky as one'd expect. Driving down to Newport we chanced upon one of Oregon's renowned lighthouses and a historical landmark, the lighthouse at Yaquina Head. The entrance fee is $5 per car and is valid for 3 days. Yaquina Head lighthouse, considered to be one of the most beautiful lighthouses in US was built in 1873. Tourists are allowed to climb upto the top of the lighthouse, one at a time. Yaquina Head Natural Area also encloses Cobble Beach, Quarry Cove Tidal Pools which are outstanding natural habitats for various marine and land organisms and a few trails which takes you up the hills overlooking the lighthouse.

After Newport road curves up along the edge of Siuslaw National Forest and beyond. On the way we took a short break to photograph another light house, Hecata Head. Passing the Central Oregon coast near Reedsport, we saw sand dunes on our right, so this was Dunes, Or. Its a wonder that these sand dunes exist in the middle of nowhere, without any connection to the preceeding or succeeding landscape. Along the road there was a thin curtain of coniferous trees and beyond that you could see the sand dunes, I mean how could you be in a temperate coniferous forest and in a desert at the same time. That was Dunes, Or - a natural paradox. Trees grow on its sides , water runs thru' it, locals make a living out of it renting ATVs to tackle the dunes to the more adventurous tourists. and people adventurous but short of time just pass through, staring hard at the passing scenery from the comfort of their air condioned vehicles and making a note of what to write in their journals, like I did.

We left 101 for Highway 38 which was named Umpqua Scenic Corridor, after the Umpqua river that drains along the Central Oregon basin. There were several spots at the start of this highway called Elk viewing spots, where you could watch herds of Elks roaming at a comfortable distance without any fear of humans. This part of the highway was really scenic and so was Highway 138 we merged onto on our way to I-5, which we hoped to catch at Sutherlin. The area was charecterized by rolling grass lands, interspersed with patches of woods, then fields stretching afar. There were farms all kinds, diary farms, wheat fields, horses, all in all a real rustic stretch of land where you could live forever immersed in sowing seeds, harvesting grain, rearing cows and horses and yet know nothing about the outside world, except for the occasional automobile that passes by raising dust on the highway at the far side of your property.

We got on to I-5 at Southerlin, heading South towards Medford, Or, our stop for the night. The stretch of I-5 from Roseburg to Medford climbs up along the mountains reaching Grants Pass at 2020 ft then weaves down towards Medford. We decided to stop at Medford as we had plans of visiting Crater Lake National Park the next day, which was 80 miles east of Medford. A piece of advice on the hotels in Medford, those along 62E towards Crater Lake are expensive since this is the expected tourist route and tourists seldom venture off their pre-chartered routes. But if you are looking for cheaper but decent accomodation try hotels and inn in or around downtown Medford along I-5. We stayed at Medford Inn at $50 a night on the 1st Ave, it was one of the best hotel rooms we had during this trip, whereas the cheapest accomodation along 62E started at $75. That winded up our last night in last night in Oregon

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The Road Trip - Part 3(Oregon) Portland and Tillamook
 

We were supposed to have an early start today. But after an hour at Kinkos getting the laptop hooked up, to download and print our car insurance papers, then some more maps, then a small shopping for road trip supplies at Kmart at Everett Mall we were finally off to Portland, 200 miles of south of Seattle, at 1pm. Well, for some people day begins at noon. Drive to Portland on I-5 was uneventful, we reached downtown Portland at 4 pm. Parked on the curbside of 'South Park Blocks', which is the area in downtown Portland canopied by hundred year old elm trees.

Portland seems to be a big city with small town charm and plenty of greenery, it'd fit snugly into the term 'beautiful city'. Most of the city blocks are half the size of ordinary city blocks, planning and the layout of streets & blocks are pedestrian friendly, so are the street cars. We didn't have much time to spend in Portland as we were planning to hit the Oregon coast, ie US Highway 101 tonight itself. The shortage of time made us forgo a visit to Tim McCall Waterfront Park, and we headed towards the west of the city, across the Willamatte river to Washington Park, home of Rose Test Gardens, Hoyt's Arboretum, Zoo and Japanese Garden.


It was a surprise to see quaint old fashioned residences inside Washington park, you wouldn't believe that people lived, raised families and went to work, living in such houses that looked liked gingerbread houses, Irish castles built in granite, fairytale homes in white and red, but they did, in Washington park. Inside the park most of the drive was along the curving road within Hoyt's Arboretum which housed trees from all over the world. One end of the arboretum is Portland zoo and the other end is the Rose Test Gardens and the Japanese Garden. As luck would have it, Japanese Garden closed a few minutes before we reached its entrance gate.The brighter side of it is that it offered a good climb up the hill and thus woke up our lazy bones.Hihi. Rose Test Gardens was just nextdoor, their layout and landscaping reminded me of the Mughal Gardens in Northern India, Pakistan and Afganistan, except that Roes Test Gardens were confined to roses whereas the Mughal gardens were not. Laid out in terraces, interspersed with fountains, alcoves and pavilions, I could have been in a Mughal garden somewhere in Kashmir or Himachal.

Drove back to downtown Portland, going around a bit and then headed west on Interstate 26 towards Oregon coast, towards our destination for the night, Tillamook. While driving towards Tillamook I realised that US 26 was pretty dark compared to the other bigger highways we had driven on and not being in an expert in tackling a lethal combination of extreme curves and pitch black darkness, I passed the wheel to N, who takes on the persona of a race car driver under such circumstances. Well, we didn't get any speeding tickets that night and reached safely at Tillamook at 11pm. We did a market survey of accommodations available (Best Western - 80$, Western Royal Inn - 64$, only smoking rooms available Red Apple Inn- not a hotel chain, but 60$ only) and decided to crash at Red Apple Inn. Though it was not a real looker, Red Apple had a TV that looked ancient, but worked perfectly well and a microwave that looked like a cabinet (worked perfectly well too), in addition to the usual room accessories. Not bad for sixty dollars. Our first night in Oregon.



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Road Trip : Part 2 Seattle

The Road Trip - Part 2(Washington) Boeing Factory & Seattle
 

That was a looong night...slept for around 12 hours, catching up with all the sleep lost. Reached Boeing factory at 1130am and got tickets for the 1pm tour, five bucks each. The guy at the Boeing counter directed us to a place he called the "Waterfront", and gave us a route map for the same, for us to spend the interim time. The so called Waterfront is at Mukilteo, there is a ferry terminal and a waterfront esplanade cum road with some restaurants and cafes. If you have time (we didn't) Mukilteo is an interesting beach front community to explore. After grabbing a quick bite we promptly reported back at the Boeing Tour Center at 1pm.

Boeing Tour (<< a must do) is worth the five bucks they charge and much, much more. They have six tour timings during the day and most of them are packed, takes up all the seats of the bus they use to take people around the factory. It starts with a 12 minute video on Boeing's history and manufacturing process, this is also the time you can utilize to go to the restroom or keep your belongings in your car since you are not supposed to take personal items during the tour and nor are there any rest stops during the hour long tour of the factory.

First they take you to the main building, which by its volume, and footprint is largest building in the world. It is divided into separate areas, one after the other, for the manufacturing and assembly of Boeings 747, 767, 777 etc etc. You are shown the assembly process of a 747, which you can watch at a safe but viewable distance from the overhanging walkways. There is a huge barrage of information you could accumulate during the tour, the kind you could impress your friends with, during light-hearted dinner chit-chat like, "do you know Boeing Factory covers 98.3 acres under one roof?" or "do you know Boeing 777 is the first airplane designed full on computer?" Well, if you want to know more about Boeing or Boeing Factory Tours. Click here

After the Boeing rendezvous, we drove back to Seattle. My research on Seattle prior to this visit had enlightened me the fact that the new Seattle downtown is built atop an older downtown which was almost consumed by the Great Fire of 1889. I had found out that they offered tours of this underground area, which covered about 32 blocks, so we started looking around Pioneer Square (a must visit) and thereabouts to find an entrance to this underground market. There were some 'deceiving' doors leading to underground places just off the street, but most of them were locked or they housed some modern art gallery by the name the 'underground cellar' and the like.

Finally we chanced upon a wizened Chinese caretaker of a downtown garden, who seemed as old as the Great Fire itself and posed the question to him. After what seemed to be an hour of rambling on about 1st Avenue and some other street, we could finally decipher from his talk that Seattle underground was not accessible to all and sundry at anytime as we had thought, but you had to be part of tour that took people down during particular times of the day, and it started somewhere near the 1st Ave or the 1st street and he told us that maybe we were too late for a tour now since it seemed well past morning anyway. Well, Seattle underground will remain a mystery forever, we thanked the caretaker and left.

We walked around Pioneer Square a bit, it looked like the Saturday market in our city, except that here it was held in a place which was more akin to fairgrounds, and in Seattle was a city square, flanked by old brick buildings with ivy growing on them, cobbled stone grounds and an old world pavilion adding to its historical aura. Nice place to hang out if you had enough time. There were lots of artists and painters selling their wares, really good quality stuff for which you didn't have to dish out the art-gallery price.

Our next stop was Pike's Place Market (<< a must visit), the original farmers' market which has now turned into one of Seattle's top attractions. Yes, we did see the 'fish throwing guy', along with many other vendors of fresh produce and fish. Pike's place market also has an underground section which is fully operational. Pike's Place market gave an impression of a similar market in India, maybe a little more orderly and a little less crowded.

We hung out for a while at an Irish pub overlooking the market and the sea beyond, then headed towards the seaside park to 'catch the beat of the city'. A guy was playing saxophone sitting on a bench nearby, for his own pleasure, looking every bit like Stevie Wonder. Seemed like all the people in the park were either bums sharing joints and having drinks out of Pepsi bottles or tourists like us who were photographing everything in sight.

An hour at the park and we realized that our 3 hour parking permit was almost getting over and we headed back. We decided to drive towards Alki Point(<< a must visit, off the beaten path) which was one of those off the beaten path spots, frequented more by locals than the tourists. Alki Point promised a great view of Seattle skyline, but all we knew was that it was way out on the western tip of city, facing downtown. with no definite directions to lead us towards it. Anyway after an hour of exploring various roads we reached Alki Point just as the sun went down and what a gorgeous view it was! There was a pathway along the waterfront, a few benches here and there and it was pretty quiet except for the occasional jogger or somebody walking their dog. Right in front of us, across the water was the night skyline of Seattle in all its glory. Thus ended our day two.


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Road Trip : Part 1 Seattle

The Road Trip - Part 1(Washington) Seattle
(Not the movie !!!) 

Journey is a revelation in itself and when it comes to revelations, road trips are the best. What can beat an eight hour drive from midnight till morning, riding high on caffeine,watching light blobs speed past at eighty miles an hour, listening to snores from passenger side and mindless croons on the FM, your car on cruise and the only working part of your body being your hands on the steering wheel, that has to be the best pose for receiving a revelation.

And where else in the world is a better place to undertake a roadtrip than a nation whose religion is motoring and peopled by denizens whose lives are goverened by commute times, gas prices and automobiles - yes, the good old US of A. How long can you hold off the lure of millions of miles of asphalt, disposable cars and cheap gas prices and ofcourse not forgetting the endless hours of watching the Travel Channel on exploring and discovering the North American continent. Finally, we succumbed to the temptation this September and here we are at the threshold of a West Coast Discovery Road Trip, trying hard to keep our eyes open after a four hour red eye flight from Anchorage, Ak to Seattle-Tacoma, Wa.

It was 6AM PST, we were at Seattle-Tacoma (Seatac) Airport , haggling at a Hertz (rental car operators) counter. Like all the web savy people out there we had booked our rental car from one of those websites which competes to offer you the best deals in the universe. The deal was not bad, if not the best in the galaxy, but we thought it included a GPS in the car, which the Hertz employees assured us always came at an additional charge. But then what is a Global Positioning System compared to weeks of research, printed maps and info and extra good human navigational ability, eh? That meant a no for GPS and some extra dollars saved right at the start of our trip. Aren't we brilliant or what?!!?!!!

Two huge suitcases heaved into the trunk of a white Ford Taurus and we were ready to go. But where do we go? The hotel check-in time was around 3pm, that meant we had 7-8 hours before we could harbor any thoughts of a nice rest and a warm shower. While driving towards Seattle from Seatac we could see the famous Space Needle from a distance and we decided to make a beeline for it.

The Space Needle along with various other attractions are housed in a complex called the Seattle Center . Yeah, it is the center of Seattle as far as tourists are concerned, even on a working day like today we saw many ambling about with nothing better to do. We parked the car in one of the one hour curb side parking spots near the Seattle Center, decided to walk around a bit and find a place to grab some breakfast.

Seattle looked a bit like San Francisco, but it was different at the same time. Maybe it was because of the roads with steep gradients reminded me of SF, here most of them sloped down directly towards the waterfront. A couple of blocks down we found a place called Cafe Minnie's (now closed) (101 Denny Way), a 24 hour restaurant, which looked ok and showed the possibility of offering us a decent meal at an affordable price. The crowd inside looked ok too, there were a few cops and some office goers, which meant that it was a place favored by locals and then a few wide eyed tourists like us. We had pancakes, omlette with some italian sauce, cocoa and orange juice, with the tip it came around twenty dollars, not bad considering the close proximity of tourist spot.


Reparked the car at a three hour spot a few blocks away, that gave us enough time to roam around. The entry fee to (click on the link if you want to know more about Space Needle) Space Needle is $12.50 per person.They also offer you deal where you can buy tickets to 5-6 'touristy' things like Space Needle, a ferry ride in the Puget Sound, Seattle Aquarium, Pacific Science Center etc for a $80 or so, which would be cheaper than buying individual tickets if you intend to visit all these places.

What were you supposed to do on top on Space Needle ? Walk around the observation deck taking in a birds eye view of Seattle, there is an inhouse guide who'll narrate the history and point out various Seattle landmarks for you, if you have an extra heavy purse, splurge on a $5 latte at the rooftop cafe and when all is said and done, come down to earth on one of the elevators doing 500 feet drops in 43 seconds.

We took a 10 minute monorail ride (2 way for $3) to the International District and back. The monorail wiggles its way between the highrises and is a purely tourist thing. Next stop, Experience Music Project (EMP) (<< must visit)  founded by one of the founders of Microsoft, Paul Allen. Housed in a modernist building sculpture conceived by architect Frank Gehry, its a must visit for all the music afficianados. The collection of music memorobilia and the exibits are really impressive and you also get to go behind the scenes and make your own music, I liked the second part the best. The admission costs $20 per head and you can come back anytime during the day you purchased the ticket. Check out EMP here

A full day exploring Seattle Center culminated in a drive to Everett, about 30 miles north of Seattle, where we had booked our hotel. This again was a move towards staying cheap but decent. Stricly acting upon the conclusion that you tend to get better hotels at a cheaper rate when they are further away from downtown or tourist destinations and a preplanned visit to Boeing Factory at Everett being on our agenda, prompted our decision to stay at Extended StayAmerica at Everett, Wa.

Ofcourse we, like typical Indians had some home cooked food(this was the first time we were carrying food on a trip, otherwise we used to scoff at such people and their insistence on eating 'home cooked meals') with us, which required a micorwave, that meant we needed a suite not just a room. It was $54 for a suite, with microwave, dataport, fridge and a queen size bed. By the time we checked in, we were only too grateful to hit the sack at about 6 o'clock. That winded up our first day in Seattle and the first day of our road trip.

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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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