Love, actually 28 April 2008
Posted by bornonacusp in Uncategorized.add a comment
They say you find love in the most unexpected places. For Londoners, it could be the tube.
Half of residents of the British capital quizzed in an online poll said they had dated someone they had met for the first time on the city’s underground railway system, affectionately called the ‘tube.’
(The Tube. Photograph by bornonacusp.)
A third of respondents said they were more likely to be attracted to someone they have spotted on the Underground than in usual hangout places like pubs.
Classic pick-up lines, according to the respondents, include “Going my way?” and “I’ve forgotten where my stop is, can you tell me where you get off?”
Read the wires story here.
I found love somewhere else, but I have very fond memories of the tube. It rightfully deserves to be iconic of London.
50 ways to leave your lover 25 April 2008
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… Is Paul Simon’s classic song.
This, meanwhile, is 50 Ways to Help the Planet.
(A belated Earth Day blog post.)
Travel writing exposed 21 April 2008
Posted by bornonacusp in Readings.add a comment
I like travel lit, and Pico Iyer’s Video Night in Kathmandu and multi-authored Stories from Nowhere remain my favourites of this genre. Reading travel stories not only allows me to live these writers’ lives vicariously, they actually help, too, during the times I go on my own travels.
Thus I find the controversy surrounding the book, ‘Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?’, of great interest.
See, there’s this Lonely Planet writer who decided to spill the beans on the methods he utilised for his research trip to Brazil, in the book to be released April 22. According to Amazon’s editorial review ahead of the book’s release, the guidebook writer, Thomas Kohnstamm, promises quite a nonchalant, funny, account of his adventures in Brazil, making no bones about his misadventures and the unglamorous side of travel writing, including sexual romps and making a quick buck from illegal drugs.
Kohnstamm’s stories are everything but funny, however, as far as Lonely Planet the company, is concerned. Lonely Planet has preempted the book’s release by issuing statements proclaiming that Kohnstamm is nothing more than a “rogue element.”
But then, in Lonely Planet’s internal online forum, a piece by another writer — leaked to a newspaper — described Kohnstamm’s book as “a car crash waiting to happen.”
This piece in Australia’s The Age puts things in perspective. In this essay, Chris Taylor, who has done books for Lonely Planet, discusses Kohnstamm’s ‘revelations’ in the context of the stiffly competitive world of travel writing.
Taylor says the huge proliferation of guidebook titles in the market in recent years has come parallel to the rise of the internet.
“In times past, the only way to research a guidebook was to actually go there — the alternative, plagiarising another guidebook, was, and still is, difficult to cover up. Today, you can sit at home and Google the town you might otherwise be exploring on foot, and hopefully some random blogger has done the legwork for you.”
The result of this huge market, he says, is that of publishers cutting budgets for actual research. At the same time, travellers like you and me have become smarter, using the internet to acquire information — like the professional guidebook writers.
Taylor: “The result: the death of the guidebook, at least as a reliable source of information of what’s happening in a place real time.”
Jhumpa Lahiri on Writing 17 April 2008
Posted by bornonacusp in Dateline: Delhi, Readings.add a comment
“Writing is so humbling, there’s no confidence involved. It helps to have some experience, a greater degree of familiarity with the process of writing. I think each time you start a story or novel or whatever, you are absolutely at the bottom of the ladder all over again. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done before.”
Pulitzer winner Jhumpa Lahiri has written her third book, Unaccustomed Earth. I’ve read one of the stories in the anthology (excerpted two weeks back in a daily here in Delhi) and can’t wait to read the rest of it. No matter what critics might say — that she has become “a brand” after the Pulitzer and thus can sell books no matter if they’re good or not — I adore her.
Read the entire Outlook interview, where she talks about her two passions: her writing and her children.
Bob Dylan’s Pulitzer 9 April 2008
Posted by bornonacusp in Elsewhere in the world, Poetry.add a comment
Bob Dylan — singer, songwriter, author, musician — has been given a special Pulitzer prize “for his profound impact on popular music and American culture.” He was cited for his “lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”
Dylan, now 66, has made history as the first rock and roll artist to be awarded the Pulitzer. Of course, the man isn’t just a rock and roll superstar. One of his most loved songs, Blowin’ in the Wind:
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ‘n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
