Question for the day

If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do libertarians eat?

(: Just a hangover from making libertarian jokes with some of the Cartel the other day. And I have to admit theirs were better. :)

Yup

An excerpt from the prologue to Amartya Sen’s Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny

Civilisational or religious partitioning of the world population yields a ‘solitarist’ approach to human identity, which sees human beings as members of exactly one group…This can be a good way of misunderstanding nearly everyone in the world. In our normal lives, we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups – we belong to all of them. The same person can be, without any contradiction: an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a long-distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theatre lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space with whom it is extremely urgent to talk (preferably in English). Each of these collectivities, to all of which this person simultaneously belongs, gives her a particular identity. None of them can be taken to be the person’s only identity or singular membership category.

[Ripped off from Jai's excellent review (with more extracts), which you can read here.]

We're mature, we are

It is quite unlike us to forget to gloat, so we can't imagine how we forgot to mention that we found this on sale on the last evening of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, with a nice, chunky discount too. Heavy as sin, not the kind of book you can curl up in bed with (the weight on your chest would asphyxiate all but the Indian Steroids Weightlifting Team), so sadly, not one we are physically capable of reading at the moment, but at least we can – metaphorically – caper around saying "Nyaa nyanya nyaaa nyaa."

Er, no, we didn't get the signed edition. That was just the easiest pic to find on the New Yorker store.

To a bad writer

There’s nothing I can say to you,
Though for kindly words I grope.
There’s little anyone can do,
You’re really past all hope.

Don’t write no more, you really shouldn’t,
It’s not your special talent.
At least I really wish you wouldn’t
Insist that I should comment.

I’m well brought up – well, yeah, repressed –
I’d prefer to not be harsh,
But your writing makes me, um, depressed;
I break out in a rash.

Your poems are wooden, your stories suck,
Your essays are simply boring.
And your learned critical remarks
Give rise to instant snoring.

When others with just one are glad,
You shove in three adjectives...
Which wouldn’t really be that bad
If your spelling wasn’t defective.

(Let me guess, you poor sad creature:
Too many students in your class?
Is that why your English teacher
Didn’t whup your arse?)

Your original contributions
Are the commas between the cliches.
Your characters and plots are thin,
As solid as papier-mâché.

The emotions you present as new
We outgrew in our teens.
We paid our debts. You’re overdue.
You write beyond your means.

Probably the most pompous poem we have ever written. But it's not what it sounds like. It's a work in progress, a version of which was written for and read at a Caferati Bombay Read-Meet, where the trigger was “Clichés.” Once we started, it wouldn't stop. :)

Before we inflict our own on you

A little over a year ago, I sent James Tate's Dream On to several friends. One of them sent me this reply, which I reproduce here with permission, but no, sorry, I'm not allowed to reveal the poet's name.

more for the standees

After this post about this, and this one about this, we of course have to send you to this, courtesy reader Jedi, who commented here

Hello girls

We're hot. NYT says so.

[Via Sepia Mutiny]

Pole-dancing on the Hooghly

'Twas the weekend. One was shooting the breeze, via Gtalk, with a certain popular bureaucrat.

Ahem, he says, looking at his watch (how did we know? his tone said so. he's an eloquent chap, this gent), parting is such sweet sorrow, but one has Social Obligations.

Ah, we nod, thinking to ourself that it must be one of those sophisticated soiree things we never get invited to.

Now, the truth is out.

J.A.P., we hear, has been spreading sweetness and light and generally stepping high, wide and plentiful.

Glen View

My favourite shot of the trip. Slow shutter speed, camera braced against a tree, deep breath and all that. This is one of MP Tourism's converted colonial bungalows.

what goes up

Before the fall.

[Picture by Kedar Bhat]