I have an odd habit. Well, more than one actually, but lets not digress. Whenever I visit a new blog, I go to the archives and find the very first blog post the author wrote. Their baby steps into blogdom, you could say. I think its rather interesting to see the different ways people announce their entry into the blog world. Gives you a sense of how the blogger’s writing style has evolved too..

Am I the only one to do this?

I am on a new trip. I want to write short blogs. This is not to say that the long manuscripts with no end in sight will stop. No no, those will most certainly be there. I love to randomly ramble about pointless things, of course. (Which by the way, is totally different from ‘pointlessly ramble about random things’, something I do NOT do. Yes I’d like to believe that, so shoo!)

But I rarely write the ‘Hey, I woke up this morning and I was thinking..‘ type of stuff. The ‘Oooh! I just had a life-altering thought! Why don’t you come to my blog and read all about how my brilliant mind works?‘ routine is rather self-indulgent and vain, I guess. But then again, isn’t that what blogs are all about? Blowing one’s own trumpet in the name of self-expression? I know mine is.

For this photograph, I had a chance to try out Robb Carr’s much-talked-about-on-the-web B&W conversion technique in Adobe Photoshop. Robb Carr, considered one of the master retouchers in the industry, works for the reputed photographer Greg Gorman. Here’s the how-to described by Andrei Herasimchuk on his Design By Fire blog or if you prefer, a nice li’l Photoshop action.

No more Image » Grayscale or Channel Mixing when creating B&W photographs from digital color. Yay!

aka Musical ramblings (Part 5/42)

After Lagaan, all eyes are now on Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades. I for one, find the basic premise of the movie, quite interesting. The living-abroad desi returns home, wants to do something to give back to his desh, and the ‘even one person can make a difference’ theme is something ex-pats can find close to heart. Listened to its music over the weekend. Seven songs and two instrumental tracks. Here’s my thoughts on them.

Disclaimer: Opinions on most ARR soundtracks change on multiple listens, and since this review is being written after just a couple of listens, I might decide to contradict myself tomorrow.

(Music links on raaga.com)

Swades (Music: A R Rahman; Lyrics: Javed Akhtar) — The first thing that struck me was that ARR is in Lagaan mode here. By that I don’t mean the tunes are similar/identical to Lagaan, but the implementation is definitely more in that direction. More folk-influenced, more melody-based and tending to rely on the strength of the voice of the singers. His arrangements continue to remain his forte, but play more of a background role in the album, in my opinion. The lyrics by Javed Akhtar are nice and go well with the music, but none stand out as truly remarkable.

• ‘Ye tara woh tara‘ — Simple lyrics about the strength in unity make this song click for me, and the music is nice although nothing exceptional. I like the way the kiddie voices of Vignesh and Pooja join in the latter half to give Udit Narayan support. This is the kind of song that one cannot help sing along with!

• ‘Saanwariya saanwariya‘ — A really beautiful melody that would have sounded much better in a voice other than Alka Yagnik’s. She sounds so disinterested with the goings on in the song. Sadhana Sargam please?

• ‘Yun hi chala chal‘ — The longest song of the album, I like the level of enthusiasm that Rahman infuses in it. Will need to listen to it some more to come to any conclusions about it. The ‘allah ke bande‘ singer Kailash Kher resurfaces in this one after a while, with Udit and Hariharan for company.

• ‘Aahista aahista‘ — Minimal use of instruments and Sadhana and Udit’s singing makes this beautiful lorii a definite winner for me. Melody-wise this song reminds me of a mix of ‘o paalanhaare‘ and ‘mitwa‘ from Lagaan.

• ‘Yeh jo des hai tera‘ — The token ARR sung song on the track, this one is about asking the expatriates to return home. The not-too-preachy lyrics and the lilting background shehnaai makes this song come together beautifully. An instrumental version of this song on the shehnai appears later in the album.

• ‘Pal pal hai bhaari‘ — Sounds like a very situational song. The use of instruments reminds me of ‘radha kaise na jale‘ (I just cannot seem to stop making the Lagaan connections!) Am guessing this has a theatre/stage setting on screen, with the end of the Aranya kanda being enacted. An instrumental version of this song on the flute appears again in the album.

  (Digression — The exchange between Sita and Ravana, when he asks her ‘If your Rama is so great, then where is he? Why don’t I see him around to come and save you?‘ and she replies ‘Rama is everywhere, he is in my heart, my soul, my breath, my life.. — is this in the end of the Aranya kanda or at the start of the Kishkindha kanda? My childhood Ramayana fundas are foggy.)

• ‘Dekho na‘ — Generic sweet romantic song, but didn’t really stand out for me, lyrically or musically. I was recently educated by a friend that Rahman reused his own tune for this track, from ‘baba kichchu tha‘ of the Rajnikanth Tamil movie Baba. Thanks Zaph!

Overall, this is a nice album that is worth multiple listens, but it has a distinct Lagaan hangover that is hard to ignore. But then again, I love Lagaan, so I guess I cannot complain.

The Ig Nobel awards. Awards instituted by the science humor magazine — Annals of Improbable Research — for ‘research that cannot and should not be replicated‘. In categories ranging from Biology to Literature, these awards are given to ‘the world’s unlikliest of research‘. Much kookiness and merrymaking ensued at the The Fourteenth First Annual Ig Noble Prize Ceremony (yes that is exactly what they are called) last night. Here are random highlights of a completely crazy and hard-to-describe-in-words evening of zaniness. Whoever said nerdy scientists don’t have a sense of humor?

• The usher hands us a stack of blank sheets of paper upon entering the auditorium. On seeing the puzzled expression on our faces, says – To make paper planes, of course! DUH!
• Participating in the tradition of showering the stage with paper planes for the next two hours. Oh, and tossing around gigantic balloons with other audience members.
• Showing senior faculty members from Harvard and MIT (seated besides me) how to construct a plane out of paper. (Ahem, I taught them something!) Then proceeding to have a rather serious and detailed discussion on the different types of planes one could fashion out of a 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper.
• The 2004 Ig Nobel Peace prize awarded to Daisuke Inoue, for inventing karaoke, thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other.
• Acceptance speech of Daisuke Inoue, winner of the 2004 Ig Nobel Peace Prize — I am Daisuke Inoue. I am from Japan. I am the inventor of Karaoke. I am the last samurai. Tom Cruise doesn’t know how to count.. (duly points to his ponytail for effect when indicating that he is the last samurai)
• The 2004 Ig Nobel Economics prize awarded to The Vatican, for outsourcing prayers to India.
• The 24/7 lectures — in which some of the top thinkers of the world explained what they are thinking about, TWICE —
  1. a complete technical description in 24 seconds
  2. a clear summary that anyone can understand in 7 words
• Rich Roberts (winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) in the second part of his 24/7 lecture on heredity — Heredity is — blame your parents, not yourself.
• The traditional welcome speech — ‘Welcome welcome!‘
• The traditional goodbye speech — ‘Goodbye goodbye!‘
• Meeting real Nobel laureates who presented the Ig Nobels.

Here’s a list of winners or if you’re game, watch the webcast coming to the Ig Nobel website soon!