Chimps on Acid

Colour and/or its choice are subjective. Some people have an eye for colour harmonies. Some sadly don't. But there has been a disturbing trend that's been assaulting me over the past 10 years. If you are a synesthesiac and you could taste colours, you'd be left nauseous by the trend. Somehow our (Indian) movies go overboard in their use of colours. Any 'blockbuster' hindi 'movie' would have a song sequence that would make poke your eyes out. Am I colour phobic? colour conservative? Nope, I'm colour judicious.

Now this unsettling colour splashing is gaining momentum. Switch to any Malayalam TV channel, the hottest things are American Idol clones with the exception of focus on singing. The stage design and its colour scheme (if any) hang there like a bad trip frozen in time. Now to add some dynamism to the stage they use coloured lights that swirl around the stage. One does wonder if the light controls are manned by chimpanzees in perpetual states of epileptic fits. How does this setting help the show? The contestants come on stage wearing their best and the whole fucking effect is wrecked by bad lighting and a crystal garden of a stage.

What is more sinister is that people watching these shows are exposed to atrociously jarring colour schemes. Some of the gullible types will think that this is awesome because its on a popular TV show. Soon you have other channels cloning this crap. In a few years time you'll be forced to buy black & white TV sets.

The point of the stage is to provide a platform for the performer. A point of focus. A large stage doesn't do anything for a show that requires a 8x8 squarefeet. Coloured lighting is used to enhance the subject on stage, tempo etc. Thats all there is to it.

Chuck out the chimps in the art department(?), hire somebody with some kala-vaasana (sensibility) to do your stages. There are millions of them in Kerala, for art is embedded in the Keralite Haemoglobin.

Marx Brothers in 'I'll Say She Is'

All you need

The greatest movie you will ever see in your life time. Rent or pirate it. Watch it. Then fall on a knife and die like you should.
The movie is titled ' Young Frankenstein'.

Notice

Will be electronically unavailable for a couple of days. Shifting to a new appartment.

Masochist Exercise: Fountainhead

After giving things a lot of thought, I've realized that I've changed quite a bit as a person over the last 10 years. I'm definitely not the man I was 10 years ago. As an unprecedented act of masochism I'm going to re-read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. I had nothing but loads of bile & gripe juice the last(also the first)time I read it in 1997. I couldn't stand it when her character's wings were ripped off by her childishly cruel pen/mind. Another novel that had a pathetic character was Somerset Maugham's Razor's Edge. But Maugham's stuff was 20,000 leagues apart from the Rand's stuff.

The reason for re-reading Fountainhead, is to celebrate the completion of a 3D model of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water Building (a.k.a. Kauffman's House). The architect loser in Fountainhead was said to be modelled after Wright. Wright was also an interesting character in real life. He was more of a wash-out architect, who towards the fag end of his life was responsible for some strikingly modern buildings. The only people who will disagree with the last sentence are the teachers of architecture and the guys at the Frank Lloyd Wright trust/ estate/ buiding conservatory. Art is subjective.

I'm eager to see the new things I rediscover this time, even though Fountainhead is a fucking tedious read.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence [Live]

Ryuichi Sakamoto composed & performed this moving theme song to the movie "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence". There is also a song sung by Sylvian set to this piece, its titled Forbidden Colours.

Brown Puris

Brown Puris (slightly over golden brown stage) remind me of cane toads.