IPad or ILeak?

IPad, it seems, is having serious privacy issues, says this article in Valleywag.

"The breach, which comes just weeks after an Apple employee lost an iPhone prototype in a bar, exposed the most exclusive email list on the planet, a collection of early-adopter iPad 3G subscribers that includes thousands of A-listers in finance, politics and media, from New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson to Diane Sawyer of ABC News to film mogul Harvey Weinstein to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It even appears that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's information was compromised."

Will iPad be consigned to the backwaters considering that other readers like Kindle and Nook are catching up fast? Read this article about the shake up in the reader market.

J.M.Coetzee Sighted at World Literature Festival, Norwich, U.K.

The reclusive J.M. Coetzee may an appearance at the Writers' Centre Worlds Literature Festival in Norwich according to this report:

"When the South African novelist JM Coetzee agrees to a public appearance, it's a big deal. After all, here is a literary recluse to rank alongside Cormac McCarthy and Harper Lee, who didn't even turn up to collect either of his two Booker Prizes."

The Meaning of Anomie

Here's the meaning of anomie, which word, I seem to have forgotten from not using:

"Personal state of isolation and anxiety resulting from a lack of social control and regulation lack of moral standards in a society."

Come to think of it I used to (in the golden days of my youth) use it a lot. I am feeling anomie a lot these days. Hm. May be it is déjà vu.

What’s the Meaning of the World Cup Song “Wakka, Wakka”?

Turns out the anthem of the World Cup 2010 is a song of inspiration for soldiers.

"Waka Waka (This time for Africa) is a song of inspiration for soldiers, in this case the soldiers of the football battlefield, asking them to not let their energy come down, and to keep up with the people's expectations by just believing in themselves."

As for the meaning of "wakka wakka" I discovered this after much searching, soul-wise and otherwise:

"1. peace to you, war to you 2. good to you, bad to you This phrase is most ordinarily used in times of complete confusion, when there is nothing else one could say, especially for those who regularly have panic attacks. Thus, it is really a nonsensical phrase that actually has a meaning and its meaning does not have to actually be the above, but a similar arrangement of positive wishes to others, followed by its antonymic negative wish. e.g. gumbo to you, nutra rat stew to you."

England’s Loss

I felt so sorry for England yesterday when they lost to Germany. Yes I did. They played well but, in spite of that, they lost. It happens in life also when you give everything and then lose. It's painful. I could feel the disappointment of the fans, the players – some of them crying so openly – the scenes are touching. I guess corporate life is a lot like football. Except that we don't get to shed tears so openly. Whatever happens happens so soon and then the next thing lands on our laps and we are scampering to get things done.

What's amazing about soccer is the speed at which it is played. Earlier it never used to be so fast and when it rained the field was a mess, all mud and slush. There was a special kind of joy in playing "mud football" as we called it. The players shoot from any angle and the speed and power of their shots can be judged in the close ups. They are extreme bodies playing an extreme game and I am touched that such toughened players, such well-toned and tough bodies can crumple on the ground and weep when they lose.

A lot of re-thinking on my novel is happening. I was thinking of abandoning it. It struck me that there's too much that remains to be done and I should devote my time to something that will get me out of a financial mess rather than devote time to something that may not succeed. This doubt has been a constant leit motif in my writing career. But then I think I should not be ungrateful to a profession that has nurtured me and gave me a profession.

The Steady Erosion of Artistic Merit – III

Author’s note: I don’t know where this is going, but I am plodding on.

The problem with instant reviews via tweeting and facebooking is that no one is really listening to you or paying attention. They are all giving their own versions of the condition of their life, such as how they puked after the third drink, how the are lonely after their boyfriends ditched them, and how tired they are after the day’s work. They are too self-absorbed in their own geniuses to be bothered to listen to what you are saying. Nobody is reading your messages for its meaning but are judgementally dismissing it as another “sample” or “type.” They are looking to stereotype the author of the message and maybe think, “so-and-so is upto his tricks again.” That can’t compare to the joy of reading an in-depth review of a movie, an art opening or a book.

Look at art criticism. Times were when newspapers had dedicated art critics. They used to dissect the paintings, write scholarly articles about them, compare them, build up artistic merit. So I felt at least we are getting somewhere. I don’t know where all these writing has been jettisoned and the pay for review trend began. No longer. I am talking of the sixties and seventies when I grew up. Once I rather naively put an artist friend in touch with a journalist-friend of a leading newspaper boasting that he will surely cover the art exhibition. The artist came back to me and told me that the friend had given him the short shrift and told him that if he could pay he could get his pictures published. So one great myth that newspapers exist to review and to comment and, maybe, in the process set things right in the country were proved a fallacy.

In my youth, as an aspiring artist and as an aspiring writer, too, I thought Indian artistry is going place and that I would be a great artist, but it never happened. I somehow got sucked into space selling, writing for magazines, writing content for websites and corporate sort of writing. When discouragement and apathy from friends and well-wishers is so strong one tends to drift away. Some of our noted artistic icons left India and went abroad to settle down, seeing as to how little art is encouraged here. Souza went to Paris, so did Ara and Raza. Hussein, who steadfastly remained patriotic and struck roots in India, has been unceremoniously banished to the kingdom of Qatar. An artist’s iconoclasm should be countered by strong review and critical methods not by physical injury or banishment. Or, so I feel. Nowadays only those artists get covered who have influence, or, can pay to display his/her art. They appear regularly on the social pages, wear ethnic clothes and glasses and party hard and pay for their pictures to be published in the social columns. Everything has become corporatised. There are artists who concentrate only on painting and selling to corporates. No they didn’t paint and then considered if corporates wanted them, they drew exclusively for corporates. Visit any corporate head office and you can see plenty of badly drawn and painted canvasses on their walls, atrocious in their imagery, cheapening the very pretentiousness they are seeking by displaying the paintings. Being an artist (I mean the artist who drew these paintings) is like being an employee of the corporation.

More of this later. I must pay attention to my novel. “Mr. Bandookwala, M.B.A., Harvard” awaits my patient editing.

Steady Erosion of Artistic Merit - II

Consigning amateurs and dilettantes to review art and books have its dangers. Clearly they aren't qualified to review what they don't know. But this is the age of "me" and "now." So we all need to be heard, understood and appreciated. Look at those reality shows. How much they talk. Yak, yak, yak, yak. They are reviewing. But unfortunately this leads to problems. First of all ignorance is rife and it's a case of the blind leading the blind. The lack of reviews or a surfeit of malevolent reviews can degrade artistic merit, sure as hell has fire. When I read a book in the train there's a lot of curiosity about the book. People borrow it to look at it, they ask me about it. I tell them I will lend the book if they read it. Then they say they don't have time. If you are interested you will find the time. I don't have time, but I read on the way to office, I read when I am waiting for someone, I read at home before the telly. I read almost anywhere. I have a book ready at all times of the day and night. That's what reading and understanding the human condition is all about. If you don't read literature or the very essence distilled from life that it offers, you turn back into an animal with lust and depredation as your only motivations.

So, once you have gotten rid of reviewers and meaningful critics of the human condition, it is easy to package a book and its author. It seems breaking into artistic market requires looks, money to begin the promotional campaign, and lastly talent. What talent? Talent can be bought. There are good sub-editors willing to re-write your book and make it presentable if you are presentable. If you are already famous then nothing like writing that book. A publisher said, "Do something, become famous." There are book packagers who can create a personality around you, guide you through the process, for a fee, of course. And if you look enigmatic and exotic like a curly-haired tropical nymph, even better. It wasn't always so. Was it? I don't know. I am told J.K.Rowlings didn't writer her name as Julianne because she didn't want it to be known that she is a woman. But that was in those days. These days a woman writer has better chances if she is beautiful and young too. You know why? The broadsheets look like tabloids and there are beautiful nymphets in the social supplement. The supposition here is that people like to look at and read about beautiful made-up faces. However this is not true. The reason why most people skip the social pages is because they do not want to read about the zombie-like made-up faces, they want human beings they can relate with. That's why Rushdie's and Ghosh's novels are about the dispossessed. They are documents of the human condition.

Someone pointed out to me that globalisation is nothing but corporatisation. True, corporations that believe in assembly line are churning out writers who have already been published and who are already known faces. An author is like a supplier these days. When corporations demand it, the supplier has to be ready with the content, the images, the juicy titbits. What about writers who are shy and aren't good talkers and good social mixers. Yes, what about them? You mean they are bad writers because they can't talk and socialise? However, that's the impression being created and this blogger is one victim of this perception.

My head is nodding with all this heavy stuff. So more of these in my next post. Remember, I am raving, but raving has its use, at least, to point out how flawed our thinking and our condition has become. The world needs people who live and work in isolation (like writers) to make them aware of the human condition.

Steady Erosion in Artistic Merit

Will come straight to the point. This has been running through my mind for several months now, as usual. Thing is I had difficulty getting to the depth of the problem. How do I get to the base of the problem and seek out what I want to write? Nobody has written anything so sweepingly judgemental. Am I qualified enough to make such statements.

I might as well blurt it out, poise fingers over keyboard and type it out of my system, out of my life. At least I can wait, instead of being torn apart, for the opprobrium, shock, anger, etc.

What I mean to say is that artistic values have declined over the recent past because we no longer have comment on artistic works. From a world that cared a lot about peer and public reviews we are a people who believe in word of mouth: Twitter, facebook, Linkedin, Ryze and sundry other media. These media are extremely effective but too shallow. So we are actually seeing a lot of  shallow comments and observations about daily habits, functions (even potty habits), without elevating, uplifting comments and zeitgeist. The tribe of book, movie, music, art, radio, telelvision critics and reviewers are over. We have now instant reviews of movies through tweets and short blog write-bites (something I coined on the fly). We want everything urgently and immediately and this kills artistic merit, or, in-depth and truly significant comments about the condition of man.The popular refrain is "If you pay us, we will review your book, art, music, film" which can also be twisted to "If you are a friend I will review your book, art, music, film."
My lament is that the artist is a beleaguered man/woman these days. From a people who were hero-worshipped (artists) we are a people who are looked with suspicion these days. Who wants artistic merit in the days of 20 Megapixel cameras? Who wants fiction in the age of trumped up reality shows. After all, a photo can capture a thousand words and that too with much higher accuracy. 


(This is not always true. I am reading John Irving's "The Fourth Hand" and I am laughing and chuckling on my commute to the office. The writer is at once engaging, witty and fantastically funny. I draw weird looks from the zombies in the train listening to their pirated music. What's better laughing over uplifting prose or listen to those senseless "dinchik-dinchik" music? That sort of music will depress them even more than they appear to be to me.)

Firstly our literature is deteriorating. All the great writers are dead. Those that survive doth survive only on the generosity of a few publishers, newspapers and journalists. Tell me of one significant work of fiction in the past fifty years and I will stop writing. (Hm. I mean I will stop writing stupid blog posts.) There is no other fallacy than seeing so many queue up to buy books at launches. The books go straight to some corner and aren't read. They are just objects of curiosity. They are actually waiting to be noticed at the launch, shot on camera by the television and press.

In the next instalment of this post I will explore: music, films, theatre, etc. But, now I must sleep. Yohhohoho!

Why Social Media and Blogging Are Important These Days

And this article is for all those sceptics who are sceptical (no less!) about the importance of online social media and blogs for those sneering at why they are at all necessary. ICICI Bank could scotch rumours about a run on the bank because of the effective use of social media like Twitter and Facebook. Yay! And those wet-eared ignoramuses who call themselves branding experts have the gumption to disregard suggestions about social media. Hm. Be ignorant at your own risk.

"Tweets — and comments on social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut besides blogs — can also be (and are being) used as a tool to provide customer service, generate sales (taking leads by tracking tweets that are scouting for a product) or directly sell a brand. Thus, companies, banks, TV channels and even marketers and advertising agencies are seeing value in having a presence on micro-blogging and social networking sites."

Social media and blogs are here to stay and scoff at it at your own peril is what this blogger has to say. Communication has become personalised because traditional avenues of transmission of ideas are being looked at with suspicion. That's said on this blog. Because, alas, alack, we trust what we read on Twitter and Facebook more than in the newspapers.

When’s the Author’s Best Output

The best writing of a writer comes in the evening of his/her life considering that Hemingway wrote "Old Man and the Sea" when he was sixty-two and a certain Hilary Mantel wrote her novel in her late fifties. There is hope yet.

"The underlying assumption of any list highlighting a younger generation is that writers produce their best work in their mid-thirties, once their writing has matured. But for every novelist such as Martin Amis or Graham Swift, who featured on the 1983 Granta list, and produced their breakthrough and arguably their best books around this time (Money and Waterland respectively), there is a Hilary Mantel, whose Wolf Hall, the novel that crystallised her reputation and which she said she had been waiting all her life to write, was published only last year, when she was in her late fifites."

This advice from a guru of self-help. "Sleep less: This is one of the best investments you can make to make your life more productive and rewarding." I don't think this is the right advice to give.