The Gift of Attention

I cannot stress this enough. When someone asks you to listen, listen to them. When they ask you to listen to their favourite song, or to a song they think is beautiful, listen to them and listen to it. When they show you something that moves them, look at it and try to see how it moved them. They find it special, and are sharing it with you because they find something in you that is special. Don't squander that special gift away. Spend a little time. You'll understand them better.

Haruki Murakami

When I was a kid, in 2^nd grade, my dad was posted in the Himalayas. Families weren't allowed there, so I used to live with my mother at her mother's house. Right above the bed where I used to sleep with my grandmother, was this strange painting of a house. The canvas was a dark cloth, and the painting was made of light-grey outlines of a hill with a house on it. It had a slanting roof and a chimney with a hand coming out of it. I used to stare at this terrifying picture every night while going to sleep. It was much later that I realised it was actually smoke that was coming out of the chimney. Smoke that looked very convincingly like a hand.

Whenever I think of this picture, feelings of horror are mixed with the beautiful memories of living with my grandmother. Listening to the watchman making his rounds around the houses, listening to tales spun by my grandma, peeking outside the vertical-tilting window to see the moonlit houses. That green Russian folktales book I had, and Baba-Yaga. Chasing dust-mites in beams of light, playing with a 1991 calendar; with faint memories of something big going on. The house in the painting itself must have featured in many of my dreams and my nightmares. All these memories mix and mingle to evoke feelings from every corner of my brain. I am left with tears in my eyes, heaviness in my heart, and regret in my mind that all of it is now gone.

And somehow, everytime I finish a short story by Haruki Murakami; all these feelings rush up to me. Whether the story had a happy ending, or challenged my stomach; the nostalgia, the beauty, the love, all rushes up to me. Each story reminds me of my love for thunderstorms. For stormy nights, that are spent alone. Loneliness that I cannot bear, but the feeling of which I love.

I remember so much that I just want to lose myself in my memories.

That is Haruki Murakami for me.

Breaking the monotony

Oh, HAI

I has other interests too !!!



And now, for the complimentary my life is as screwed up (if not more) than yours link!



This post brought to you by the people complaining of extreme geekiness in this blog
Yes, I know I cheated, but I'm in a hurry here :p

mewants

Give them to me.

A Few of Today's Webcomics...

...made me laugh unusually hard =)


UserFriendly


xkcd: Convincing Pickup Line


Wondermark




PS:

if (understood ${UserFriendly_joke} || understood ${xkcd_tooltip}) \
&& is_girl; then
    sendmail ${blog_author}
fi


Raghu Dixit's Tribe...

... a very apt name for the social network of a band with aptitude (some folks might see the horrible Debian pun here ;P).
So, today (or yesterday?), the Tribe was opened to public.

And it looks darn good for a website created by one man. I would have refused to believe it was coded in just a few weeks while juggling 5 different things at once, but the dirty secret made the story believable ;)

So, all of you guys who have listened to Raghu Dixit, go and join right now.

And, all of you guys who haven't listened to Raghu Dixit, go and listen now.

Right Where It Belongs

If you haven't, listen to the song and read the lyrics. They contain such power that can only be exuded by NiN songs.




Two versions, listen to both of them if you can, else the first one.

Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth

See the animal in it's cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all
Right where it belongs

[Chorus]
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you wanted to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afriad to see?

What if all the world's inside of your heart
Just creations of your own
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you really are alone
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the words
Are you hiding in the dreams?

[Chorus]

Tekkon Kinkreet

Sunday. The most dreaded day of the week, for it's followed by a new work week.
Sundays make me sad.

If you're thinking of watching a movie sometime soon, put Tekkin Kinkreet at the top of your list. I watched the movie today morning, and the movie has the best animation I have ever seen in any animated movie. The art style, though very different, reminded me of the form characteristic of Mononoke.

Snaps really don't do justice to the movie, best is to watch a few minutes snipped from the starting of the movie:





High-res version

Art, Media, Games

This post is dedicated to all the stuff that awes me with its brlliance. These are a few which in recent memory have caused me to "stop and stare" or just ROTFLMAO =)

toe: I've talked of them before :)

Nine Inch Nails, "The Downward Spiral". Freaky Score. Do Listen.




Audrey Kawasaki: Her paintings are simply bewitching, all the detail is concentrated on the faces and the expressions are of such depth that I finally understand the term "drown in her eyes".



Ramya Shankar: Arun sent me a few songs that she once made (sang and recorded with friends playing instruments). I was really impressed by how her amatuer-recorded songs sounded as professional as songs on which lakhs have been spent. Excellent tunes and amazing vocals.
You can find some of them here.

"renamed_Back_rR" has to be my favourite of the ones I've heard so far, and its right here, below :)



Paul Robertson: He makes videos based on Sprite Animations as a hobby and posts them on his visual blog. His art has various themes, and I like most of his stuff. Here's a video that I adore; It's called "Devil Eyes":



Portal: The. Most. Fun. Game. I. Have. Ever. Played.
More fun than old video games or even The Curse of Monkey Island. It is simply hilarious and has excellent gameplay. The concept is basically that you have a gun which can create a portal between two flat planes (not on all materials however) which you can then throw stuff through or walk through yourself.
It's based on the Source Engine, so the physics is very accurate, and the game itself is designed very well. The fun part are its surrealistic humour, the AI controlling the facility you're in and the ending song.
Installing Windows to play it was completely worth it :D

Here's the ending song, "Still Alive". It's by Jonathon Coulton, sung by Ellen McLain, and is one of the best Game Ending songs ever ^_^

WARNING, CONTAINS SPOILERS.





You can download a high-res one here (13MB)